New Year's Eve

If you're planning on going out in L.A. on New Year's Eve, plans just got better and safer. Now, instead of extending free public transit by maybe an hour, the city is doing the right and the smart thing, and extending it through the night for free. So, kids, go out, get shitfaced and don't drive. Take metro. It's free and it might just safe your life or somebody elses.

Happy Christmas Continued

Oh, and then, there's this holly jolly Hollywood Xmas tale.

Happy Christmas

It's Christmas Eve in Atwater Village, the Santa Ana's are blowing hard and the modest residents of Atwater (all working class and middle class and brilliantly diverse) have gone to no small trouble to deck their halls. So, without further ado (and before we lose power due to the ferocious wind), here are a few snapshots from the night before Christmas.



For more photos from Christmas Eve, visit my Flickr set! Happy Christmas

Los Angeles After the Rain

Nothing scrubs L.A. clean like the 3 days of rain we had last week (not to mention the Santa Anas blowing through tonight. Here are a couple fairly spectacular sunset shots from my new office (Yes, I look forward to Sunset every day. Every single day.)

Burrito King

The Militant Angeleno has a food blog now and, until he kicks me out of it, I'm a contributor to his food blog, Mess Hall. Check out my first post.

Atwater Village Wine Bar

At last, the wine shop/wine bar has been named. Welcome 55 Degrees to the neighborhood. Let's hope she opens soon, as mama is thirsty.

Beautiful Pre-Christmas Day in L.A.

Take note of these cameraphone grabs of a festive tree next to the soon to be emptied Silver Lake Resevoir and Sunset Blvd., looking east, also in Silverlake. Click to make ginormous.

Now, that's a toilet!

Sometimes, contextual advertising is a blessing! Click to magnify!



And

The Republicans...

Are hilarious!

Flaunt it, Honey.

Flaunt it.

The Gayest Thing I've Ever Seen

Undoubtedly.

Bea Arthur, Sally Struthers, Charlotte Rae and katharine Helmond

Proof that some people have too much time on their hands and we should be thankful they do.

"When people tell you who they are -- believe them."

"Oprah Winfrey once said that the best advice she ever got in her life was from Maya Angelou, who said: "When people tell you who they are -- believe them."

I've gotten good mileage from this advice over the years. Being raised fundie, you spend a lot of your life being told to believe someone else's preposterous interpretation of events over your own lying eyes. Growing up this way really twists your reality lenses; and those of us who come out of it as adults spend a lot of time and energy learning to see and interpret the world clearly again. Angelou's quote is one of the mantras that gave me permission to trust my own observations of what people were saying and doing, knock off the false hopes and wishful thinking, accept this information as literal truth, and rely on it as an accurate indicator about how they were likely to behave in the future. It's knowledge that was acquired late, but has since kept me out of an amazing amount of trouble."

Read the whole thing. It speaks not to just politics but to life.

Erick Burdette...

is the coolest cat in rock n roll!

Designing Women

God, this show was good in its heyday. And this is one of my favorite scenes ever.

Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church

Well, they've got issues. Ok, more than issues. These are the folks that protest outside funerals for gay people with picket signs that read "God hates fags". Well, Rich over at FourFour expertly explains the situation and, well, that gang should probably just hang 'em up. But they probably won't.

065658 06 00A

065658 06 00A
Originally uploaded by dboo.

Great look at a once pastoral Los Angeles not too long ago!

You're Gonna Love Me

Bubbles give me hope for humanity.

12 Days of Christmas

Repuglican style. This is so funny, it hurts.

Happy Post #800

To me!

Tilting at Windmills

Reading these comments on defamer about this satire of the AMPTP website gives me hope in my often dark adulthood, to badly paraphrase Rosie O'Donnell to Barbra Streisand (yeah, that gay). If Jonathan Swift were alive today, he'd be an avid defamer reader.

File Under "Beans Don't Burn on the Grill" Category

I moved offices again and have now left the barren wasteland that is West Olympic and Bundy for the bounty that is Century City. Even more so, I somehow have snared a corner office on a very high floor that overlooks L.A. south to Long Beach (especially today, a very breezy clear Monday) and west over the ocean (and the now setting sun).

Holy effin shit! This most likely will be the best office view that I will ever have as a worker bee. It actually makes it exciting to come in. It is that good.

I hope that the corporate bees don't yank it from me for bigger fish -- yoink! -- but, at least for now, it's mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Behold.

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