Photo by Ryan Jesena in his Photo Essay of Burning Man 2007 2007 was a year of incredible growth for LAist. Us, the writers, you, the readers, found and discovered much of Los Angeles and we look forward to even more in 2008 with more hyperlocal coverage, more neighborhood explorations, more local news, more arts and events and more food (got suggestions? e-mail zach(@)laist.com). The most recommended story of the year was Malingering's CrossFit......

Want a Wii this holiday season? Well toooooo fuckin bad. The best you can hope for is a rain check certificate that will entitle you to a console at some point in January. Even the Wii people themselves are now admitting what a mess they've made of manufacturing this thing. Two members of a terrorist cell have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to wage war: the splinter group was "was poised to attack......

Suicidal Tendencies, Gwar, The Devil Wears Prada, Goatwhore, others @ Verizon Wireless Clay Aiken @ The Greek St. Vincent, Josh Haden, Death Vessel @ The Echo The Bronx, Qui (with the Jesus Lizard's David Yow) @ The Echo, benefit, early show (5:30pm) Billy Bob Thornton @ El Rey Theatre G. Love & Special Sauce, Ozomatli @ Pacific Amphitheatre Tift Merritt @ McCabe's Radars to the Sky, Bedroom Walls, Rademacher, Death to Anders @ Spaceland......

Whether you are partial to the Annette Bening days, or a fan of the emo-beatle hair phase, everyone's favorite Presidential advisor and American Idol runner up is playing a show at the Greek this Saturday. LAist has one pair of tickets for one lucky person (or their lucky mom). Sincerely though, people are nuts about this Aiken fellow and far be it from me to begrudge them their fetishes. In fact, I encourage them.......

Dear LAist, I came here and saw that you were making fun of Clay Aiken singing the National Anthem. Why must you be so rude? Clay is a top notch singing star who has sold millions of records and performed in front of more people than your stupid web sight? - Amber Dear Amber, Why do we diss Clay and his Claymates? Let us, count the ways... Actually, watch this newly unearthed video above......

It sounds like something straight out of Batman. Not the somber action movie from a couple of years ago, but the campy TV show from the 1960s. Apparently, the U.S. military semi-seriously considered a proposal for building a "gay bomb," a device that would unleash hormones into the air, turning enemy soldiers into homosexuals who were more interested in getting it on with each other than fighting. Shockingly, this idea was proposed by the......

A Word or 17: Season finales are upon us friends, keep your eyes open for your favorite shows wrapping things up. Tonight - Thursday - May 10, 2007 Indians @ Angels (Fox Sports, 7:00 p.m.) Dodgers @ Marlins (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) Survivor: Fiji (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) Major challenges this evening. My Name Is Earl/The Office/Scrubs (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) Season Finale!/Will Michael be replaced?/JD and Turk head to a surgeon convention Smallville/Supernatural (the CW, 8-10:00......

American Idol should be thanking their lucky stars. Here they are turning the corner and there are no super hot chicks, no super fantastic singers - except for maybe LaKisha Jones - and the only remaining dudes are boyband rejects. If it wasn't for Sanjaya this would be the worst American Idol ever. And Simon can smirk and squirm every time the 17 year old doesn't suck, but the truth is Fox fucked up......

We know that sometimes the volume of posts at LAist can be a bit much to keep up with. For that reason, the geniuses at Gothamist developed our LAist Favorites page, which shows you the top ranked stories over the last day, week, month, or year. They've recently added an "all time" option-- did you know that there has only been one story that got more than 100 comments in the history of LAist?......

Who ever would have thought that Kelly Clarkson would have become a Grammy-winning superstar, and who would have thought that Justin Guarini would have fizzled off into where-are-they-now land? And who on Earth would have thought that Clay Aiken would still be on people's radar? Apparently Justin is still trying to make it happen and this morning we bring you his halfway decent version of the Star Spangled Banner, which, just like his career,......

Every morning we fight terrorism by playing the National Anthem. Lately we've been playing versions sung by people we know from American Idol. Today we present Kellie Pickler who is so loved at this event that not only does she get the "amen" that she asked for but fireworks exploded when she brought the tune home. Not many AI contestants can say they've done that.......

Now let's hear an American Idol who can actually sing. This morning we have Fantasia Barrino singing "The Star Spangled Banner" in what appears to be Houston Texas as the Astros were about to face off against the New York Yankees for the All-Star Game. Maybe one day "American Idol" will invite all the winners and almost-winners face off against each other in some million dollar winner-take-all Super Idol series. Of course we'd miss......

Tuesday morning we posted a video of Clay Aiken singing the National Anthem that noone seemed to like, and yesterday we busted with one with Ms. Kelly Clarkson singing the same tune. Today we give you what is probably the least-talented, least-exciting American Idol, Taylor Hicks, who didn't do a bad job in this performance. But what we liked the most was the huge truck with the giant American flag trailing behind. If you......

Yesterday morning we played a video of Clay Aiken singing the National Anthem and today we will play a video of Ms. Kelly Clarkson singing the same tune. This video was shot last year at a Boston Celtics game and what's interesting is those people were louder for the anthem than the entire Staples Center was last week when we saw the Lakers lose to the Jailblazers. What's up with that? Another Idol singing......

Clay Aiken singing the National Anthem is worthy of a joke. It's begging for a joke. It seethes with jokes. But this is our nation's song, so let's be respectful. Of Clay Aiken singing the National Anthem.......

Monday we posted a video clip of Kelly Ripa and special guest host Clay Aiken. While Kelly was interviewing "Dancing with the Stars" winners, Aiken covered Ripa's mouth so he could ask a question. Ripa objected and told Aiken that she didn't know where his hand had been. Most people, including Rosie O'Donnell, assumed that Ripa was referring to Aiken's alleged penchant for "fisting" men... whatever "fisting" is... Yesterday Ripa called into "The View"......

With the robust music scene here in the City of Angels, LAist always tries to keep you abreast of all the talent to grace our local venues, in particular the diamonds in the rough that don’t necessarily have the name recognition of a Top 40 act but still maintain the purity of their musical genius. There’s another group of performers that doesn’t get often mentioned but is also a vital part of the musical......

"Live with Regis and Kelly" guest-host Clay Aiken, during an otherwise boring interview with "Dancing With The Stars" winners, playfully put his hand over Kelly Ripa's mouth as he was clearly annoyed that Ripa was asking all the hard-hitting questions. This clearly annoyed Ripa, who quipped "Oh, that's a no-no." Followed by "I don't know where that hand's been, honey." The American Idol runner-up is rumored to be into homosexual fisting.......

"Artie Lange's Beer League" soundtrack (Lakeshore) A Shoreline Dream - Avoiding the Consequences (LateNight WeekNight) Clay Aiken - A Thousand Different Ways (RCA) Joseph Arthur - Nuclear Daydream (digipak; Megaforce) Black Crowes - Freak 'N' Roll ... Into the Fog (two CDs; Eagle) Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - Thug Stories (Koch) Canada - This Cursed House (digipak; Quite Scientific) Kenny Chesney - Live (BNA) Chingy - Hoodstar (Capitol) Damnation - Resist (Metal Mind) Chris Difford -......

LAist would like to admit we were wrong: Tonight, we taped Lost and ended up watching the finale of American Idol -- all two hours and three minutes of it. We got sucked in during the first hour and needed to watch the show to to its cheesy, glorious conclusion with Katharine McPhee and Taylor Hicks singing "I've Had the Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing. Oh yes, and then Taylor being crowned......

Over the past few years, string quartet tributes to pop culture have flourished and it can seem like it's more of a prolific commodity than an artistic endeavor. Vitamin Records are the ones responsible for those String Quartet Tributes you see out there and we are curious who in their right mind made the decision to make a Clay Aiken Tribute? The L.A. based, The Section Quartet (pictured above) participated on a good number......

We're never ones to turn down free stuff, and free stuff that's viewable from a passing trolley is even better. So today, we salute the Grove's summer concert series, which has been offering free shows every Wednesday this month. We're really sorry we missed out on Jada Pinkett Smith and Wicked Wisdom, whatever that is, but there's still time to catch the final show of the season tomorrow night. Music in malls stirs up......