Photo by Marshall Astor-Food Pornographer via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr We can't get enough of talking about taco trucks, but we're not alone. The folks at Zocalo have an event next week focused on the wheeled purveyors of tortilla-wrapped tastiness and their perhaps precarious state of being in light of recent laws. C. Thi Nguyen, who called the new regulations "a cultural disaster," will be on hand at the Los Angeles......

To help educate the public on the drastic decline of the honeybee population due to colony collapse disorder, Häagen-Dazs is giving away free samples of their Vanilla Bee Honey Flavor today from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. They have also set up an informative site called helpthehoneybees.com to explain their concern. "We rely on honey bees for one-third of our our food supply, so when honey bees are in danger, we're all in danger," the company......

The new McDonald's "Southern Style Chicken Sandwich" head-to-head with the Chick-fil-a sandwich About once a month, I make the 25-minute trek to Redondo Beach to get a taste of Chick-fil-a (This was the subject of a post I wrote almost exactly a year ago). With the price of gas up around the $4 a gallon mark, this isn't exactly the smartest move, but I believe their chicken sandwich, a piece of chicken on a......

LAist loves free shows, spring time festivals, good music and Trojans so we nearly shit a brick when we heard about the USC SpringFest 2008 this Saturday, which will have one bad ass line-up including Lupe Fiasco, De La Soul, Saosin, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, The Aquabats, just to name a few....

Announced and passed last Friday in a Los Angeles City Council session, a hybrid owners perk of parking free was extended to 2011. Then yesterday, they reversed the decision. If it makes you angry, blame Bill Rosendahl who brought it up. "This was a great incentive when we first did it," Councilman Bill Rosendahl as quoted in Daily News. "But hybrids don't need assistance from us. They already are getting a benefit from the savings......

Today, the LA City Council extended a program allowing owners of hybrid owners of certain makes to park for free at city meters. The program went into effect for a total of three years, in which the city would study it to determine its success and advantages or lack thereof. Today's unanimous vote extended the ordinance through 2010, which now requires vehicles to display state decals that allow carpool access on freeways. Previously, the city......

Today, the Wall Street Journal's blog, Buzzwatch, pointed readers over to a local graphic designer named Bobby S., who runs a blog called Kitsune Noir. "Ummm… I’m In The Wall Street Journal," he wrote earlier today. "File this post under un-fucking-believable." Earlier this month, Bobby started The Desktop Wallpaper Project, a weekly release of one free downloadable desktop wallpaper every Wednesday morning. Every week features a guest artist and each wallpaper is available in multiple......

We caught up with Jonathan Coulton after he participated in a live taping of the Heather Gold show, an experience he blogged as well, without noting the more relevant details -- he sang a duet of Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" with Gold reading the lyrics from an iPhone and then sang Billy Joel's "Don't Ask Me Why" with Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson. We had a couple minutes (before running out of hard drive space)......

Yeah, this is how I feel. / Photo "Supervisor Zirves" by db via LAist's flickr pool. This morning was a rough start for everyone and we still got a little sleepies in us, but we'll definitely be awake for these events tonight. After another latte. CLASSICAL* The LA premiere of "The Axe Manual" happens tonight at Zipper Concert Hall as part of the Monday Evening Concert series. The program includes important recent works by......

Nick's, home of delicious breakfast burritos, by Rebecca~James via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr Remember when we told you that Los Angeles tap water was the best tasting in the world? Turns out that our delicious H20 might have been sprinkled with delicious drugs. The AP found that a multitude of pharmaceuticals, like antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones, have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million......

Bikes and graffiti are on tap for today. / Photo by Lush.i.ous via LAist's flickr pool. GRAFFITI ART Ghettogloss presents the graffiti art of Jersey Joe in Silverlake. The exhibit runs until March 20, but the opening reception is tonight from 7-midnight. 7 pm // Ghettogloss // 2380 Glendale Blvd #C, Los Angeles // Free. RIDE & TALK * RIDE-Arc monthly ride -- themed "Trolly" -- happens tonight. The group rides along for awhile......

A puppet show without Kermit: Concrete Folk Variations at The Manual Archives / Photo by Susan Simpson MEET THE PO-PO The public’s invited to meet the police and talk about safety issues at a neighborhood meeting between the Atwater Village Neighborhood Council, the Glassell Park Safety Committee and LAPD. Senior Lead Officer for Atwater Village Gina Chovan, gang detectives and City Attorney Donna Wong will be in attendance. 4 pm // Glassell Park Community......

Can you re-imagine the LA Riverfront? Then checkout tonight's lecture at SCI-Arc. / Photo by Lush.i.ous via LAist's flickr pool. FILM* A classic Japanese double feature plays at the New Beverly tonight and tomorrow. While these films were made more than 50 years ago, the themes are timeless: Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) focuses on a housewife who’s sick and tired of her boring life with her business-minded husband as her niece......

Reeve Oliver plays Tuesday nights at the Key Club this month | Photo via their MySpace Tuesdays are usually slow nights in LA for music and as bands prep to head Texas-way for SXSW, we'll probably see even fewer choices like tonight. But fewer doesn't mean worse. Mountain Goats and Jeffrey Lewis (great video below) play at the Troubadour tonight (and tomorrow), Working For A Nuclear Free City is back with another concert, this......

Test Your Reflex plays this month at Hotel Cafe on Wednesdays | Photo by Luke Wooden via their MySpace Despite SXSW starting up this week with 100+ Los Angeles based bands heading over there, residencies are growing stronger and more venue-diverse across the line, especially on Monday nights where the volume makes it hard to choose from. Here's to a great month of residencies, rock on. Mondays The Chapin Sisters @ The Echo (Free),......

Lots of old school films happening around town tonight. / Photo by get directly down via flickr. THEATRE You have a hand at commenting on the Theatre of NOTE’s play selection this week and next. NOTEwood is their comprehensive series of public readings featuring new, original works. The 2009 season will be chosen from the 30 scripts selected to be read aloud at the year’s NOTEwood reading – but there’s a talk back session......

It's Monday and that means it's a big residency night in Los Angeles. And since it's the first Monday of March, that means a new list of Monday night bands below. Of note tonight, Working for a Nuclear Free City (pictured right) will be playing along Spaceland's March Monday night tenant -- Voxhaul Broadcast. Also, another very exciting residency that begins tonight are The Chapin Sisters, whose profile rose when they covered Britney Spears' "Toxic,"......

Trent Reznor is a free man. In the year since he officially released his last album -- Year Zero -- under contract to Interscope Records, Reznor, 42, developed an Alternate Reality Game built around Year Zero and released a Year Zero remix CD which included a data disc with raw WAV files meant to encourage mass manipulation. He also produced and performed on Saul Williams' excellent free-or-$5 downloadable. Ghosts I-IV is Nine Inch Nails' seventh......

HISTORY It's happening right now until 4 p.m. today, so check out some of the over 200 Los Angeles area focused historical organizations over at Heritage Sqaure (right off the Gold Line). More info at an earlier LAist post. 12-4:00 p.m. // Heritage Square // 3800 Homer Street, LA, California 90031 // $10 FILM Walk Cheerfully screens tonight in the Cinefamily Asian Sunday series. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu, the 1930 film blends multiple genres and......

Attentive BarCampers at Dan Kaminsky's Ask a Hacker session. Attendees range in age from 18 months (her 2nd BarCamp) to so old we're afraid to ask | photo by pinguino The twice-yearly, geek-tastic unconference for technologists, gamers, industry-folk, and Internet lovers of all stripes is again upon us. BarCampLA is in its fifth iteration and thanks to a collaborative effort fronted by Jason Cosper and Crystal Williams (and dozens of sponsors), it's shaping up......

"hang" | Photo by xxjetlab via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr THEATRE Members of the Towne Street Theatre are on stage tonight in a double bill. First is The 10 Minute Play Festival, which features plays ranging from comedy to satire to drama brought to you by 23 actors and 9 director. Second is PassingSOLO, a one-woman show based on their play version of Nella Larsen's 1927 novella Passing. There will be......

It's February 29th -- Happy Leap Day! While others are pondering mysteries like "what happens to a baby born on February 29th?" and "Does this have anything to do with last night's episode of 'Lost'?", we're going to take the opportunity to teach you a shiny new word! It's called intercalation, and it's what Julius Caesar did back in the day to fix the wacky Roman calendar system: inserting extra units of time (in......

Photo by atomicshakespeares via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Suffering from an Oscar hangover? Then check out the next generation of hot filmmakers at The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival, which begins tonight and runs through the weekend. The studio that brought you such blockbusters as the "Lord of the Rings" franchise will soon become only the merest shadow of its former self: Warner Brothers will be absorbing New Line Cinema, which employs......

Colourmusic are the rarest of musical rarities- a band from the isolated hinter portions of America's Heartland (Also known as "The Sticks") that not only doesn't suck, but actually turns out to be pretty great. And not in that sort of special olympics, everyone's a winner, "well, they're good for [insert your tiny state here]" kind of way, but actually, honestly, for realsies good. Kind of like how The Flaming Lips are so good......

Don't be angsty like this lady...go out tonight! / Photo by Plankton 4:20 via LAist's flickr pool. FILM “Animation Nite: From Halifax with Love” is a program at the Echo Park Film Center that features short animated and semi-animated films by women who’ve all lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, eh. The screening includes work by host Siloën Daley and six others. Music by local band Foot Foot follows. 7:30 // Echo Park Film......

We couldn't pick a better headline than Think On These Things did with this video. The blog, that talks itself up to be "research, commentary, and news on the 2008 Presidential Election with a Pro-Obama Slant" show us this video that has made Derrick, the savvy Obama supporter being interviewed, practically a political YouTube Star. Going by the sobriquet DNA, his locally based "Afropolitan Fusion" style band is Soulfège (check out 'To Be Free'......

Drinks with Digital LA tonight at Bodega Bar in Santa Monica (and yes, this is not the Bodega bar) / Photo by C-Monster via LAist's photo pool. FILM I am so scaaared. Writer/director Eli Roth (Hostel) continues his reign at the New Beverly in “The Greats of Roth” series. Tonight, he’s screening the double-feature of The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980), an earlier film that deals with a missing documentary film......

Don't try this at home -- or at the Civic Center Metro Station. / Photo by puck90 via LAist's flickr pool. TRANSIT TALK Metro is studying alternatives for connecting the Gold, Blue and Expo lines through downtown Los Angeles. This study will examine linking the future Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension (near the Little Tokyo/Arts District Station) and the 7th Street/Metro Center Station. Tonight Metro will update the public on the project and allow......

Do you think this is part of the Reno 911! marketing campaign? / Photo by Bernard Mickey Wrangle via flickr. COMEDY* Paging Reno 911! fans: Robert Ben Garant, who plays Deputy Travis Junior, hosts The Armando Show tonight. (It’s an hour-long improvised comedy show inspired by an audience suggestion). He’ll be joined by a few other Reno castmates: Carlos Alazraqui, Thomas Lennon, Niecy Nash, Kerri Kenney and Cedric Yarbrough. 8 pm // iO West......

Is this the best seat in the house? | Photo by neonspecs via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr TV: WATCH THE OSCARS LAist's own TV Junkie has already given us the deets (and some alternatives), but in case you missed it, the 80th Annual Academy Awards are tonight, live from our very own Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Settle into your favorite spot in front of your tee vee and tune in along......