Santa Monica's Pacific Park ferris wheel has a new owner, thanks to an eBay auction that ended at noon yesterday. The winner is Grant Humphreys of Oklahoma City, who came in as the highest bidder with $132,400 for the solar powered heavyweight carnival ride that arrived on the Pier in 1996. According to the Daily Breeze, Humphreys "beat out five others in a bidding war that went back and forth through 35 offers." The wheel......

Photo by Jonathan Alcorn (sundogg) via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr You can find all kinds of stuff on eBay, from trash to treasure, and so long as you are the highest bidder and can cough up the shipping fee, it's yours. How'd you like to be the proud new owner of a piece of local history, in the form of the nine-story ferris wheel from Santa Monica's Pacific Park? And, hey, cool factor:......

We've all seen phishing e-mails before (thank you eBay, PayPal) but it's a bit trickier when the e-mail deliberately asking you to pony up your e-mail username and password comes from a sender purporting to be USCTEAM. The e-mail received today by several USC e-mail account holders suggests that the user's e-mail account will be terminated "permanently" within 7 days lest the recipient respond with account details including username, password, date of birth, and "country......

As you might have guessed, we're pretty big into gaming over at my house -- our console set-up includes the both generations of the Xbox, not one but TWO PS2's (one for the living room, one for the bedroom), a Dell XPS with a wide-screen monitor (for PC gaming), a Nintendo Gamecube, a Nintendo 64, an SNES, and a Gameboy -- oh, and possibly a Sony PSP floating around somewhere. Our 50" big-screen is optimized......

LA is a gadget kind of town. We’re also, it seems, swiftly becoming quite the literary town. And so, as the year draws nigh and you scramble around the city trying to score the latest whatever for your loved ones this holiday season, it would be wrong of us to ignore Kindle. Amazon’s Kindle has been out for a month now. Many in the book world deemed it a failure from the outset. Many booklovers......

Ghostface Killah The Big Doe Rehab Def Jam December 4, 2007 "No time...there's never any time," cried a caffeine pill crazed Jesse Spano in that very special episode of "Saved by the Bell." Ghostface Killah laughs at you and your complaints, Spano. While you can't find the time to balance a geometry midterm, getting into Stanford and covering Pointer Sister tunes, Pretty Toney is having no trouble finding time to spit sick verses on 8......

StumbleUpon is one of several Web 2.0 properties experiencing a surge in activity that could be related to the WGA strike. Listen to the LAist interview with Dave Feller, VP of Marketing @ StumbleUpon: Evidently the lack of new programming on TV, particularly late night, is causing a surge of activity online, a measurable increase that page ranker/social networking site StumbleUpon. It makes one wonder what will happen if/when the WGA strike starts to affect......

Norman Mailer, the controversial and beloved novelist and winner two Pulitzer Prizes died today in New York City of acute renal failure. The author of almost 50 books, Mailer lived a life beset by tragedy, triumph and tribulation. He once ran for Mayor of NYC and was almost stabbed to death by one of his wives. Mailer was 84. Out of the ashes of one fire in San Diego, a man sold a charred,......

Defamer: The Reno 911 men slipped on their shorts and offered their support to the striking writers today EatingLA: Everyone's favorite unbalanced chef Gordon Ramsay is going to have "a conversation" at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills on the 20th. Bite me. Sean Bonner: points us to a gift for the man or woman who has everything and would like less (and no it's not a Mike Huckabee mask, but close) Luke Ford:......

For Joe Wilson, joking is a part of everyday life. After all, he is a comedian. But, one day, some casual joshing lead to an experiment: would people pay money for celebrity air? Joe put his plan into action, started an eBay auction, and found himself swamped by media attention, enemies with Jay Leno, and with enough material for a one man show that he called A Jar of Celebrity Air, which he'll be......

Silly Jack Weiss! He thinks the Valley is different from the City. Tsk tsk! The Daily News takes the Councilman to task (lovingly) for his slip of the tongue. Halloween events abound in the city this time of year, and LAist is your best source for the hottest spooky spots: check out our continuing Halloween coverage here. OMGZZZ Kitten Cops! I can has ratburgerz?? The LAPD is recruiting feral cats to root out rodents......

The email from the White Stripes had the subject line of ? and inside it said: "The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow." - Man Ray X XV MMVII So we took a magnifying glass to our collection of Man Ray prints and lithographs. And nothing. We asked our friends if it possibly had something to do with Lips Over Hollywood, and we found no connection. And then someone suggested that we......

One of the biggest drawbacks of the Apple iPhone is the fact that the only provider that you could use is AT&T. Not only does only one provider ensure high prices, but AT&T have allegedly worked hand-in-hand with the Bush administration to help them spy on Americans via the NSA program, therefore a wise consumer would probably balk at letting Ma Bell and Uncle Sam in on every email, website, and phone call that......

Not since Magritte was in town at the beginning of this year have so many people talked about an art show. Featuring dozens of controversial pieces from a variety of artists like Jackie Beat, Angus Oblong, Plastic God, Mad Puppeteer, Jim Winters, Austin Young, Selene Luna, Jtodd Irby, Chris McKim, Garilyn Brune and Gay Bigfoot, who knew that a topless painting of Bea Arthur that was bought off eBay for a little over $100......

David Wells, the overweight, hard drinking, everyman pitcher from Torrance (who has journeyed around the big leagues from Toronto to New York, and now, to San Diego) has always been a big fan of Babe Ruth. So it's no surprise to learn that Wells had purchased a baseball for $7,000 with the Bambino's signature on it. But who would have thought that the big lug would have the smarts to get Hank Aaron to......

For a tv show thats been around forever, and no longer relevant (some say) thanks to the likes of Adult Swim and The Family Guy, The Simpsons still got it, as evident from the raging success of the various 7/11s that were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts. According to this Fox 11 report people were buying up as much Buzz cola, Krusty-O's, and Squishees as possible. And we also hear that Kwik-E-Mart uniforms are being sold......

Yes, even obnoxious fashionistas will have to rub elbows with the masses for Roberto Cavalli’s new line created especially for trendy retailer H&M. Known for combining rock and glamour, Cavalli has designed for such fashionable celebs as Beyonce, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Lopez, Lenny Kravitz, and Adrien Brody, as well as designing tour costumes for Christina Aguilera. R Cavi’s line at H&M will be debuting November 8th, 2007 where he will be joining such esteemed......

One had never seen so much commotion on Robertson Boulevard, even on a day when Paris or Lindsey are nowhere in sight. Yesterday British designer Anya Hindmarch's limited edition, ecologically-friendly bag took center stage. All this for $15!! I had heard of the first edition of these bags long after they had sold out. I checked out the website to see what all the fuss was about. There one could register for the waiting......

- That subtle whisper of apathy you didn't hear was the Ducks winning Game 1 - AP - For the man who has everything, wrecked pieces from Lindsay Lohan's f'ed up Mercedes - eBay - Speaking of... Linds was way more wasted this weekend than you were - X17 - Gotta say this about the Nigerians, they really are taking this Internet scam shit seriously - LA Times - The medical administrator of the......

Something miraculous happened last night at the House of Blues last night when Britney Spears made her return to an LA stage. Actually several miraculous things happened last night on the Sunset Strip that I cannot remember happening in my long history of seeing live music in LA. The first thing was, people paid hard-earned money for tickets (about $100 face value for a pair after all was said and done - more if......

While it's debatable whether or not $49 is worth anything these days, three hours of your time is certainly worth something. Britney Spears lipsynced her way through five songs yesterday at the San Diego House of Blues, a total of 15 minutes of "entertainment" after making her fans stand through three hours of records being spun by dee jays. Deciding on the brown wig, with a pink bikini top, jean skirt and white go-go......

Some interesting tech-related news from around the web this week. • Blackberry service had an outage this week in many parts of North America and for several tense hours, millions of users had to find something else to do with their thumbs. I feel their pain. But oddly, not in my thumbs. • Despite spending a boatload of cash to advertise Windows Vista, Microsoft has only managed to sell 244 legit copies of the......

Anaheim Angels manager, and former Dodger, Mike Scioscia tried to defend his suddenly-controversial outfielder Garret Anderson, who last week told officials that he would not be wearing Jackie Robinson's number this Sunday to celebrate Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. Anderson originally gave two excuses for dissing the dead Dodger by refusing to wear his number, 1) he said he wasn't going to do it because it was Ken Griffey Jr.'s idea and......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too,......

Got squeezed out of the Coachella madness and now find yourself without one of those prized three-day wristbands? Before you slit your wrists for not getting tickets in Indio for the much anticipated comeback of Zack de la Guevara fronting the band that only he should be leading, know that Rage Against The Machine announced today that they will be co-headlining the Rock the Bells mini-tour with their pals, the lovable Wu-Tang Gang. Rock......

LAist's coverage of the Britney Spears shaves her head story has been linked to by websites and blogs all around the world. Don't ask us why. It's always interesting to see how people in different lands think about the behavior of our celebrities. This morning we found a Saudi Arabian message board that linked to our story about Brit's hair being sold on eBay, and the poster had included a quote that we found......

To follow up from yesterday's post about Britney Spears' hair being up for auction, it appears that the auction we linked to was prematurely closed. Now we are learning that there is only one place where one can get the hair formerly on the troubled scalp of the now bald pop princess. But first let us say that we have never met Ms. Spears, we've never examined her hair, we don't have any proof......

[Editor's Note: This story has been updated. For the newer developments of this very important issue, please click here] Quicker than you could say "wtf", Britney Spears had shorn her dirty locks and local entrepreneurs had scooped it up, bagged it, tagged it, and listed it on eBay. Currently there are dozens of eBay listings claiming to have some of the pop star's hair for sale and this one (which also provides an email......

After sifting through thousands of emails, Sarah Spain chose her date to the Super Bowl: Alan Shahtaji, of Lincoln Park, IL. She broke the news to the also-rans in a very sweet email sent last night. Subj: So close... Hey guys... Just wanted to tell you thanks so much for your submissions. You made it all the way to the end of what ended up being an over 1,300 person contest. I literally read......

Since Thursday, LAist has been covering the wild adventures of a young woman named Sarah from Brentwood who has been having the strangest Super Bowl adventures. As a transplanted Bears fan, originally from Mr. T's home of Lake Forest, IL, Sarah got caught up in the Super Bowl hype and threw herself on eBay in hopes of finding a generous benefactor to pay her money and give her a ticket. She claimed to have......