After spending much of the week threatening the West Coast with radioactive thunderstorms should anyone dare turn the dial, CNN decided to recreate the geography of Caifornia, placing San Francisco a hundred miles or so from the Mexican border and throwing Los Angeles to the sharks, at the tip of a peninsula in Northern California that appears to be all but detached from the rest of the continent. more ›

Agoura Hills-based video game empire THQ's big plans for promoting its latest first-person shooter game turned out being the epic fail of this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. more ›

Inattention to songbook detail has reached a new low in Eagle Rock. All Star Lanes, you're not even trying. But language is interpretive, like science and evolution, and we at LAist respect an inspired typo. So go forth and take liberties with music publishing credits and spelling. This is your world, All Star Lanes. We're just living in it. Ten amazing points for keeping it dive. more ›

Last night's telecast of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards has been getting mixed reviews from viewers, from the interpretive dance segment, the pair of hosts, the fashion, The Hurt Locker's ousting of Avatar, and the presentation of the "In memoriam" segment honoring those who passed away this year. Whether you watched the broadcast or just followed the feedback live on Twitter you may have noticed that a couple of 2009 celebrity deaths did not make the cut. more ›

The Amtrak Surfliner departed San Diego 10:35 a.m. last Saturday -- right on time. But Train 571, a weekend-only train filled with families and weekend adventurers, never made it to its final destination -- Union Station, LA. more ›

People are annoyed with Jury Duty enough. Apparently, the message that the courts were closed for a budget-saving furlough day didn't make it to all the jurors, according to the Daily Breeze: "Some people complained that they were not told that Wednesday was a furlough day. Even those who had been asked to do their civic duty." Add to that those who traveled from afar to the courts. A man who drove out from Arizona was turned away and he was not sure if staying Los Angeles an extra day was a possibility. In fact, the word on the newswires about yesterday's furlough really didn't get out until early Wednesday morning. It almost seems the courts were as caught off guard as the people it serves. Although furlough days are scheduled for every third Wednesday of the month, there is no obvious indication of that on their webpage. Talk about a major fail in basic public information. more ›

Following an unsuccessful period of meetings between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) at the request of federal mediator Juan Carlos Gonzalez, according to the AMPTP, "the parties were unable to reach an agreement and the mediator has adjourned the mediation process." more ›

The Red Line escalators have a horrendous performance record, one that has the Mitsubishi Maintenance crews snickering as they work full-time maintaining equipment they acknowledge is poorly designed and completely unreliable. (The upside is lifetime employment for the maintenance crew. Go Metro!) more ›

Both within Los Angeles County and statewide, Proposition 98, which would taken away rent control in addition to barring state agencies from using eminent domain except for public uses failed. Unlike Prop 98, Proposition 99 did not carry a rent control provision but had "similar but more narrowly focused" eminent domain language, including exempting public works projects, the LA Times reported. more ›