• It's starting to feel a little like Fall: an "unseasonably strong and cold storm system" is headed our way. Bundle up!
  
• How green was Burning Man this year? Elsa Wenzel from CNet's News.com explains her perspective: "As a first-time Burner, I've finally shaken the playa dust from my shoes and mind to conclude that it was perhaps the most and the least eco-friendly mega-event I've attended."
  
• With a name like Inland Empire, you deserve to have traffic as bad as Los Angeles and Orange County.
  
• The jury deliberating on the Phil Spector case is split 7-5, but are not saying which way they are leaning yet.
  
• UCLA students might be smarter than most, at least when it comes to some selective history questions (and TV editing). KCAL9 does some pop quizzing on the streets where Bruins answer questions correctly, whereas Harvard and Yale fail the test.
  
• Why was Hollywood Blvd. shut down today? There was a bomb scare and it wasn't no film shoot.
  
• Farmers markets in LA to get healthier: "By a vote of 14-0, the City Council directed the City Attorney to prepare an ordinance for the Council's future approval that would ban smoking in City permitted farmers' markets" (via a press release from Wendy Greul and Jose Huizar, who introduced the motion).
  
• It will never end. Now painted parking lot stripes have advertising on them at San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valley malls.
  

Photo by manmadepants via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr