In a couple hours, the Iowa caucuses- or Hawkeye Caucii, if you prefer- will be starting, and that means we're off to the races for a new President. Are we the only ones screaming WTF at this? Why on Earth does Iowa get to have such a crucial role in our electoral system. Why on Earth should a state with about a fourth of the people of L.A. County get the first say in who......

Travel + Leisure's November 2007 issue features a fun little ditty called America's Favorite Cities. They've asked people from all over the country to rate 25 well-known cities on everything from culture and nightlife to public transportation and weather. We're not quite sure who these 60,000 respondents think they are, but they don't have anything nice to say about our fair city. Oh, except for the fact that we have nice shops. Los Angeles......

Lately when I browse Craigslist, I am alarmed at how many posts are from musicians who call themselves 'professionals'. Any struggling songwriter or musician, trying to put together a band, at first glance might read that and think, "Oh good, I don't want anyone flaky." But don't be mislead - what this means is that they expect to get paid. Now, more power to you, if you are a professional and you make a......

What happens when you run one of the largest, "extremely lucrative" networks of invite-only, torrent-based music piracy? Interpol comes knocking at your door. Next thing you know all of your properties, including that covert warehouse in Amsterdam where your server is based, are seized in a raid-like manner. As though you were exporting/importing pounds of Class A drugs. Last night around 2 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, OiNK was officially taken off the web. By......

I have a neighbor named Zac. He's always pleasant and holds the elevator door open for me when he doesn't have to. Young, unassuming, and a generally-likable guy. Little did I know that my neighbor became one of young Hollywood's breakout stars virtually overnight. I noticed that he was on the cover of People magazine one day with this young girl I sometimes saw him hanging out with. Little did I know that my neighbor......

So I'm sort of a musician and a writer, albeit aspiring, who after feeling like a misfit among yuppies that I continually ran into in the South Bay where I grew up, was thrilled to finally make the move into L.A. a couple years ago, specifically Koreatown and then Los Feliz. Finally, I was free to wear whatever the hell I wanted to wear, and not get hostile looks from people (I once wore......

Only one man in the electronica realm could entice me to endure the 378 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco just for a measly DJ set. Simon Green, a.k.a. Bonobo, hails from Brighton (UK) and has released three full length albums of downtempo that have changed my musical world. With that said, when my friend asked me if I wanted an extra Bonobo ticket for a show in the city by the bay......

June of 2007" src="http://www.laist.com/attachments/tony/ifroneicky.jpg" width="640" height="406" /> Those of you who saw Jack and Meg at the Tower Records - whoops, we mean the Icky Thump Records in-store concert earlier this summer, you might be the only people in LA who will get to see the duo this year in the Southland. According to an email that was just sent out by the band's email team, the tour has been ixnayed. The White Stripes......

Accidents that happen on I-5 may be the absolute worst thing in the world....

I am a long time user of your banks. I signed up at one of your Westwood branches because of your witty advertising and I stayed loyal because of your Grade-A customer service, most notably your people working the phones. Because I am headed for a short summer vacation next week I checked out my online statement a few nights ago and saw two charges onto my debit MasterCard that I didn't recognize, so......

In case you’re not up-to-date on all the burial happenings going on nowadays, the ever so hated N-word was put to rest in Detroit, MI., taking on similarities to the organization’s mock burial of the Jim Crow laws in Detroit in 1944. The NAACP held a mock funeral for the word to symbolically call an end to oppressing terminology that has flooded the American society. The funeral comes in retaliation to the degrading images of......

Every year for the past decade or so, my Dad and I have gone on a short trip to see a different baseball park around this great nation. It's a great father-son bonding thing, and you get to notice the differences between parks. Our beloved Dodger Stadium stands as one of the better parks in the land, but I've noticed it's missing one crucial element. One element that has driven me insane since my......

As most people in the blogosphere know, Flickr is a very (very) popular photo sharing site. It contains over half a BILLION images taken by people from every corner of the earth, and has become a meeting place for professional photographers, photo enthusiasts, and people who just want to share photos of their cats and kids. Recently, Flickr decided to invoke a new filtering system, which rates photos according to their level of safety:......

Welcome to Monday, people. And welcome to the first post of the Daily Disgruntle -- your weekday touchstone of work related games, diversions, commiserations, news, recipes, and on-the-clock subterfuge for the LA office culture. Today we’re going to talk about space. Now, if you are lucky enough to work for Buck Rogers, your office probably looks like this. But, if you are one of the millions of worker bees who is not gainfully employed......