Kate in LA claims the Basix Cafe as a new favorite breakfast in West Hollywood. I'm still pretty sold on Hugo's, but I haven't tried Basix yet.
I average seven laughs per minute, three of those in my head. From the entertaining blog of stand up comedian Brody Stevens.
Blogging.la's first fully individual sister site art.blogging.la is officially live. As you might guess, the focus is art so Caryn and some other writers will be posting previews, reviews, interviews and news about the goings on in the Los Angeles Art World.
Reaction to the sale of the Dodgers at local Dodger based blogs:
Dodger Thoughts (Jon will be on Which Way LA tonight)
Dodger Kid
The Bench Coach
Dodger Blues
I've found this big, sprawled out, city without a center, to be one heck of a friendly place.
I have found that too, as long as you let it happen. I think that those who find it unfriendly may want to examine the attitude they themselves are putting out.
With all the hubbub surrounding my last post, at least I've had a chance to step back and evaluate what I really think this site is all about. When I started LABlogs, primarily influenced by DFW Blogs, I hoped that it would be a comprehensive collection of links to Los Angeles based bloggers. I also thought it would be nice to have a community blog, primarily influenced by metafilter, where anyone in the Los Angeles blogging community could post interesting links.
I started making my blogroll (which I initially maintained by hand, but then used blogrolling.com since it has a number of terrific features) by searching google for things like "I went to the promenade"+"blog" or other converastional things that someone might tell someone else about their adventures in Los Angeles. The list grew steadily as people saw LABLogs.com show up in their referral links, then Matt Welch linked to LABlogs and I got a bump in traffic and a group of new sign ups.
A problem I was having was keeping the integrity of the blogroll solid. I wanted to make sure that I only linked Los Angeles based sites; that was the primary goal here, to geographically identify local bloggers. It's easy if someone has an about page that says specifically where they live, not as easy if they only post about politics. I would scan through sites of new members, looking for some evidence that they lived in the area. More often than I thought would happen, the new member would be from out of the area, sometimes even out of the country, most likely just looking for another link to their site. My goal was to be inclusive though, so I didn't want to weed people out needlessly, so I tried my best to determine geographic origin.
The community blog has floundered a bit, in my opinion. I had hoped that more people would post links there. Admittedly, the interface to do this is pretty poor, which I'm sure contributes to that. Also, because I was screening people before they could post (verifying their local blog), I'm sure people were a bit discouraged when they signed up and couldn't post right away. It was also pointed out to me by Andy, I think, that everyone had their own blog and were more likely to post there.
Proof reading the last few paragraphs, it sounds like I'm making a bigger deal out of this than it really is. While I have put a lot of work into the site, I have really enjoyed doing it. I enjoy having a place to experiment with design, observe the blogging landscape, discover new sites, share interesting local links and hopefully provide something usefull with little to no strings attached.
If there is any question out there (and I'm sure you're all dying too hear my opinion on this), I don't hold enogh ego to think that LABlogs should be the only communal blogging site in Los Angeles, or even that it is, or will ever be the "best" communal site out there. I'm not really in it for the competition. I just hope that it is useful to some folks out there. The site gets a fair amount of traffic from people searching for blogs, so I assume it is some people's first look at the blogging world after they hear that word tossed about. By extension, Los Angeles based blogs are probably the first personal blogs these searchers look at.
So, that is a brief look into what my idea of what LA Blogs is. It's not about making money, it's not about self promotion, it's not about creating memes in hopes of getting traffic, it's not really a big traffic generator and hopefully it's not going away anytime soon. Thanks to the Los Angeles bloggers for creating something worth linking to and thanks to the eyeballs that visit the LABlogs for letting me know that it's worth maintaining.
LA Voice gives a quick rundown on the pre-launch of LA.com. From LA Voice:
LA.com has been under development for more than a year under the guidance of former new media think-tanker Lynda Keeler and - more recently, the editorial direction of Laurie Pike, who bailed from leading Tribune's up-scaly and rather ossified Distinction magazine right around the time it was to launch.
I browsed through the LA.com site and spent some time poking through their weblog, "LA.comfidential". One thing I did notice is that they use the same pMachine software that powers LA Blogs. The LA.com weblog seems to borrow heavily from the Blogging.la site for its content, particularly in the early entries. The most enlightening item I saw on the LA.com blog is that LA news reader Kent Shocknek has a blog.
The site also has a few local guides, although the Santa Monica guide isn't too eye opening with a top shopping pick of "The Promenade" and top coffee pick of "The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf". If it is true that they plowed a half million into the domain name alone, I can't imagine that this business venture is going to be recouping its investment any time soon.
A not very comprehensive list of free wifi hotspots in the area. Of course, you can add any you know of, so maybe the list will grow. Where is your favorite WiFi spot?
Mine is at the Coral Tree Cafe in Brentwood. Bad website, good cafe.
Ten years ago Saturday, the earth was a shakin' in Northridge. Koganuts has a recount of his experience:
I checked the backyard and two of the brick walls surrounding the backyard had toppled over, but thankfully, the brick chimney had remained intact. Inside the house, there were several small cracks around the windows and doorways, and several glasses and dishes had toppled out of the cupboards and fallen onto the kitchen floor, but we were otherwise lucky, as a day later I drove towards the neighboring city of Northridge, and noticed how devastating it was to houses, buildings, and even parking structures.
I was in Santa Barbara at the time, but we felt it plenty up there, and were even without power for a bit. One of my room mates was from Northridge and his family and some friends sustained a fair amount of damage in the quake. Who else remembers the shaker?
Very cool, a weblog set up for the tenants of the Asbury apartment building. From the site:
I'm a tenant. I live on the 8th Floor. I've been a resident of the Asbury for about six years. Throughout that time, I've always been frustrated that there wasn't a way for tenants to pool information here. So I decided to start this blog to take a stab at creating a bulletin board of sorts.
The MTA now has a $3 day pass, good for all Metro Buses and Rail Lines.
More info at My Word
Add your own is a user created and edited guide to eating in major cities (includin Los Angeles). It follows the wiki philosophy, allowing other to edit entries.
Two different positive reviews of Metal Shop who play at the Viper Room Monday nights, here and here. Has anyone else seen the show?
Do you love the Princess Bride? Up for a Midnight viewing of it? The Nuart theater on wilshire will be showing it at midnight Friday January 16th. Why pop in a dvd and watch it on the small screen when you can watch it on a huge screen with others!
here are a few other midnight showings at the Nuart...
Battling Rodents of Unusual Size! The Princess Bride · Jan 16
New 35mm Print! Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver · Jan 23
Director Kevin Smith In Person! (schedule permitting)
10th Anniversary! Clerks · Jan 30
Dark. Darker. Darko. Donnie Darko · Feb 6
Teens track treasure! The Goonies · Feb 13
There's a New alternative radio station in town that might give KROQ a run for it's money. The signal went live on New years day I believe and it will be interesting to see if it can make it at the doomed location of 103.1, because it seems like every year a new station inhabits this channel. No DJ's as of yet, just music and ads.
Indie 103.1
The outdoor Ice rink in Downtown LA (Pershing Square) is only open for a short time each year. Don't miss your chance to skate outdoors in LA before it disappears on January 19th.
Visit the Downtown on Ice website for more info.
As of yesterday, every American gets to legally buy glofish -- except us Californians.
Yesterday's editorials in the Wall Street Journal and L.A. Times both denounce this law. (LAT refers to the Fish and Game Commission as the "California values police.") Take note, it's not often that these two papers are editorially in sync.
Congratulations on a job well done by our local teams at Cal Tech and JPL on their successful landing of the Mars Rover. You can see what might be the ultimate MoBlog, with the raw picture feed from the Red Planet.
Also posted here at jozjozjoz.com
'Trading Spaces' Searching For Los Angeles Homeowners
Show Searches For Participants
POSTED: 2:52 PM PST December 29, 2003
UPDATED: 5:19 PM PST December 30, 2003
LOS ANGELES -- The popular home-remodeling show "Trading Spaces" is coming to Los Angeles and is looking for locals to participate.
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