Every time I meet someone who just moved here, I am able to spew out facts that surprise them. For one, except for this past year, it rains here in the winter. Sometimes weeks at a time. Two, we have a subway and if they happened to find their first apartment near it, well lucky them for avoiding some gridlock. Finally, the 1994 Northridge earthquake was nothing compared to what's coming, so welcome to Los Angeles! And let's not forget that in this past week the Southland has seen two tornadoes in addition to the deathly heatwave and 3 earthquakes.

Tornadoes? I just moved here from the Midwest away from those!

More exciting though, is to show newcomers all the parts of this city the world doesn't share. Or maybe it's that LA keeps it secret. Unless Paris Hilton eats at Little Ethiopia restaurants or dines Italian in San Pedro, these secrets are probably safe with us. And now Sandy Banks at the LA Times plans to share more of those secrets with us in her new twice weekly column released today.

"I've been lucky to spend 27 years here as a journalist, peering into hidden corners looking for stories to share," Banks writes. "Here, Tuesdays and Saturdays, and on latimes.com I'll continue to tell those stories in this new column."

She opens her story with "in a city that can break the will of natives and newcomers alike, being from L.A. conveys survivor status." And it's so true, more so with the newcomers than the natives, though, my native ex-girlfriend kept on telling me she would never move because, "why? I've got the beach, the mountains and the sun." Eventually, she moved to Eureka. As for the newcomers, I think I've had six neighbors move in from out-of-state and back in the past year and a half. Newbies no more, they couldn't survive, LA broke them, or as they say, "it just wasn't for them." Actors, sheesh!

Photo by Adamina via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr