However, while TMZ negligently cites the wrong parking violation, they totally overlook the fact that the Porsche Schwarzenegger is driving lacks a front license plate, as required by the California Vehicle Code. I know, the sleek front of that $100,000 beauty would be marred by an unsightly license plate, and that Arnold can afford any ticket that will probably never come his way, but heck, even his wife can’t follow the hands free cell phone laws he passed, so blame it on her bad influence.

Or, maybe he reads LA Metblogs, and remembers this post about how removing your front license plate might actually save you money.

Photo by Ramey from TMZ, text and arrow added by me.

The winners will receive a nifty $50 value gift pack containing the following goodies:

• 1 general admission passes to the Show
• 1 LA Auto Show T-shirts
• LA Auto Show Messenger Bag
• other goodies from the Show!

To win all you have to do is tell me why you want to attend and include a legit email address so I can contact you for mailing information on your prize package.

As we get closer to the auto show I’ll decipher and condense down the press releases, but Green Car of the Year is going to be celebrating its 5th anniversary and will be among the many events and premiers at this years show.

Details: LA Convention Center, LA Auto Show is open to the public Dec. 4-13. Hours are:
Weekdays: 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Saturdays: 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Sundays: 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

How sweet is this?  On Monday, LA DOT started a public beta for receiving live tracking information of your friendly neighborhood DASH service.  If you go to http://dtdash.com on your computer or phone, LADOT has provided four equally convenient ways for you to get your bus information:  1) you can live track your downtown DASH using Google Maps; 2) for the minimalists, you can simply use drop down menus to plug in your route and stop to get expected arrival times; 3) for those of us without Internet-equipped phones, call (213) 785-3858 and navigate the phone menu to hear arrival information; and 4) for those of us who don’t like talking to machines, but don’t mind texting one, figure out your stop number, and send a text to dtdash[stop number] to 414111.

Now, if we can get this set up for the MTA, that would be awesome.

Public Eyebrow Groomer as seen on a Metro Bus

Since I began my adventures in public transportation earlier this year, I have seen a lot of rude, inappropriate and often strange behavior from my fellow carbon-based life forms. I have seen people carelessly put their shoes on bus seats.  I have seen someone leave a half-eaten sandwich on the floor of the train. I have seen a perfectly nice looking middle-aged woman forcibly push her way to the front of a line of people boarding a bus, just to be the first one on. I have shared personal space with people emitting body odors that would make a mortician gag. Yes my friends, I have been to hell and back and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

While annoying, I have grown to accept many of these acts of humanness as part of the deal when taking public transportation. Still, when I see something like today’s featured Metro rider, I can’t help but make a public mockery of it.

Today, while making my connection to the Metro Red Line, I sat across from this girl who was plucking her eyebrows. Maybe some of you think this is OK, but let me tell you, YOU ARE WRONG. Some personal grooming is acceptable on public transportation I would say. Like powdering your nose or putting on lipstick. However, anything involving body hair is an absolute disgusting DON’T. You wouldn’t shave your armpits on the bus, would you? Would she? I don’t know. Fortunately, I made my connection before I had to find out.

LAist’s Emily Lerman royal we’s her enjoyment of  the visually stunning new video titled “The Ride,” inspired by the song “Kings + Queens” from 30 Seconds To Mars. Me, not so much.

The 8.5-minute short (the last 2-plus minutes of which are the credits) centers around a Midnight Ridazz-esque group night ride featuring Jared Leto and his band pedaling along with a purported group of actual Ridazz — I say “purported” because individual close-ups reveal them all to be far too sullenly sans FUN as they journey glumly in the dark across and under the requisite downtown locations such as the 6th Street Bridge, the Second Street tunnel, and Grand Street. Seriously: Why so serious?

But everything’s great eye candy and otherwise going mostly awesome and only threatening to be hugely overwrought and ultra-serious like the song until the video’s director, Bartholomew Cubbins, decides to have a paid-actor/stuntperson get fatally creamed on his bike by a motorist near Pershing Square. Then, while everyone stands dumbly around by the body like powered-down replicants, poor Cubbins couldn’t help but trot out a hornless unicorn galloping in slo-mo up a dark street. Of course, with a visual like that the dead ridah can’t help but awaken refreshed from his unplanned road nap, and  just get up on his undamaged bike to ride away.

After that there’s more of Leto singing, then a critical mass-style “circle of death” at an ironically traffic-less intersection. Then all the still way-too-bummed cyclists start wailing like a giant gruff chorus along with Leto until they magically arrive at the Santa Monica Pier where they disappear. Fade to black.

Your mileage may vary from my curmudgeonly take.

PS. If the embed’s dead up there, here’s the video’s URL:

• http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=100601596

I exited my dentist’s Miracle Mile office not long after 10 a.m. this morning confronted by the absolute beauty of the day — its comfortable crystal clarity prevented me from beelining it on my bike to work. So I took the long way to Westchester. Instead of heading south to Culver City, I cut through Beverly Hills got up onto Santa Monica Boulevard and rolled that thoroughfare all the way to its end where I paused to enjoy the breathtaking views from the palisades before cranking it south along a near-barren beach bikepath to Venice and its pier from which I observed sea lions and dolphins before snapping the above shot of the solitary surfer surveying his vast empire.

Glorious days like this are enough to bring a tear to my eye.

Nissan's New Electric Car Debuts in LA this Weekend

November 14, 2009 10am – 9pm
Third Street Promenade
1351 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA

November 15, 2009 11am – 8pm
Americana at Brand
233 S. Brand Blvd.
Glendale, CA

November 16, 2009 9am – 5pm
University Southern California
3501 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA

According to Nissan, the LEAF handles and accelerates like a V6 and has a top speed of up to 90mph. It will have an average range of 100 miles per charge and the battery will charge in 4-8 hours on a 220V home charging unit. At quick-charge stations, it will charge to 80% in about 26 minutes. Although Nissan has not released exact information on pricing, they say that they are “targeting a price in the range of other typical family sedans.” The LEAF will be on the road in some states in 2010, with mass-production beginning in 2012.

To attend one of the unveiling events this weekend, register on their website here.

Except that there is no rule prohibiting public photography in Los Angeles subway systems. And any detainment would require a reasonable suspicion of the subject having committed a crime… which may have occurred, but the only unusual activity the Sheriff ever cites is Discarted’s act of taking photos.

After handcuffing Discarted, the sheriff doing most of the talking, Officer Richard Gylfie, is heard threating threatening to put him the FBI’s “hit list” and will be flagged and detained before boarding planes, trains, or other forms of transportation where an ID is checked. And why? Apparently for not shivering in fear to Gylfie’s demands to tell him why he’s taking photos… or maybe I’m missing something.

As if it needs repeating, photography is allowed in public spaces, including the subway system. Its a shame that the same people who we pay to enforce our laws are blatantly ignorant of this, and instead abuse the power that we bestow upon them to harass and intimidate.

Feel free to leave your thoughts here, or at Discarted’s blog.

Matt Schrader spent a few months talking to people about the street cleaning policy in LA – both the people who are in charge of it and the people effected by it. Turns out you are much more likely to get a ticket then you are to actually have your street swept.

If you get a ticket for parking in a no-parking-because-of-street-sweeping zone, and they don’t ever bother to sweet the street, should that ticket be void?

… Thompson stopped his car after passing the two cyclists and shouting at them to ride single-file. One cyclist ran face-first into the rear windshield of the doctor’s red Infiniti, breaking his front teeth and nose, and leaving his face scarred. The other was sent hurtling to the sidewalk and suffered a separated shoulder.

Thompson told the response officer that the cyclists flipped him off, so he hit the brakes “to teach them a lesson.”  Thompson’s version is decidedly more benign: he says he pulled over to take a photo of the riders and thought he had left them enough room to get around his car.  Which one sounds more likely?

Two lessons spring to mind.  First, statements you make after an accident can be used for and against you in court, so talk to anyone at your emotionally-charged peril.  And second, don’t effing use your car as a weapon to “teach” someone a lesson.  No apples for you.

Photo courtesy frequent commentator waltarrrrr via the Metblogs Flickr pool.