Being Scottish means you are part of a great and noble heritage. Here in America, it is also a little like being a Trekkie. We gather in large masses wearing strange clothes while participating in strange rituals. I grew up in the center of it all. My family went to every Highland Games. I took Highland dance classes. My brothers played bagpipes and drums and competed in caber tossing competitions. But as far as......

Got a bit more of a schedule tonight: the Winter X Games are starting up, and there's a bunch of stuff at 8:00pm. I was sick on Sunday so I'm looking forward to catching the rebroadcast of Breaking Bad on AMC. 6:00pm Winter X Games ESPN - Special. This will be re-broadcast at 10:00pm. I'd be kind of into watching this if it didn't have all this stupid snowmobile crap in it. 8:00pm Ramsay's Kitchen......

Sometimes you see rock tonight and sometimes you want to be rock tonight. If the latter, every Wednesday night at the Hyperion Tavern in the Los Feliz/Franklin Hills area, groups of friends gather to unite as one, to test their skills, woo the crowd and find their glory in Rock Band. Wednesday nights at the shack filled with chandeliers used to be reserved for Guitar Hero zealots, now groups of four can hit the stage......

Monday Tanya Lemani presents Have Belly, Will Travel 7pm @ Book Soup Kim Sunee presents Trail of Crumbs 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Marc Porter Zasada presents The Urban Man: Staying Human in LA 7pm @ Book Soup Patrick Conyer presents Pasadena: A Business History 7pm @ Vroman's Elizabeth Pomeroy presents Pasadena: A Natural History 7pm @ Vroman's Muhammad Yunus discusses Creating a World Without Poverty 7pm @ Central Library Lewis Hyde discusses his books......

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......

While hundreds of volunteers are stealthily working into the wee hours to affix flora to framework and as people begin to plan for finding space along the parade route, an unexpected battle has been waging between human rights groups and the City of Pasadena. The Pasadena Star-News reports that the controversy surrounds several components, including the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, China, and the requests made by the Pasadena Coalition for......

After reviewing a few dozen releases this year this is my top ten of reviewed albums plus a few select tracks of items that I went out and hunted down myself. These weren't easy to select out of the great stuff I received so it was a challenge. I'd like to thank the labels and their PR agencies for hunting me down and sending CDs to me. I reviewed everything that I received this year......

Vitals details in the killings of two South LA residents who were found shot to death in their 11th Ave apartment remain unknown. The LAPD was notified late Monday afternoon of gunshots heard, and soon after discovered the bodies of Shelton Sumerall, 32, and Monica Youngblood, 23, both of whom suffered fatal shots to their heads. The motive and a shooting suspect have not been determined. A Van Nuys man was stabbed yesterday when he......

The Romans are often bagged on as being the Borg of the ancient world: assimilating barbarian cultures left and right, stealing the style and grace of the Greeks, tossing the odd Christian to lions. Yet, you must admit they did know how to PARTY, especially during those barren winter months. In antiquity, the feast of Saturn or “Saturnalia” was celebrated from about December 17th through the 23rd. It was a winter solstice festival in......

I know I’m about as consistent as the Lakers in doing these things. So here are my quick takes of all of the Sunday games. There’s a quarterback who breaks records, a team that finally does something with a kick off, a team that will not live in infamy and a bunch of ugly games that made me really happy to be huddled in my bed with the heater on. Cleveland Browns over Buffalo......

Lakers 113, Clippers 92 - Kobe Bryant, again playing through pain (this time it was a pulled groin), sunk 32 points to lead the Lakers to victory. The Clippers also had players dinged up, and a host of them (including Elton Brand) never made it onto the court. Chris Kaman won the battle of the big men statisticly with 18 points and 16 rebounds, but young Andew Bynum (14 points, 9 rebounds, 6 blocks) performed......

Holidays have you indulging a little more than usual? Just in time for those New Year resolutions and post-holiday diets, the Wii Fit is expected to be released in North America in January. Released earlier this month in Japan, Wii Fit sold over a quarter million units in the first week. The game was designed for families to exercise with activities like stretching, yoga, step aerobics, push ups, jogging and much more. The additional......

After a five-week hiatus, LAist is back to taking you on its weekly trip down to Orange County to uncover the unique dining experiences that await adventurous eaters willing to explore beyond the county line. I’ve always had a certain fascination with crepes. Not sure exactly why, perhaps it’s the simple elegance that a crepe has, its delicate buckwheat consistency and taste that can be deliciously served with virtually any kind of filling, whether sweet......

There's still time to win Tori Amos tickets -- the concert ends tonight at midnight! To enter the contest, leave a comment telling us what your favorite Tori song is. Get over there and put the damage on! An update on the Sherman Oaks apartment fire that left one person dead: authorities have ID'd the victim as a 63-year-old man who died at the hospital after receiving second- and third-degree burns. There was another......

As traffic worsens on Ventura Boulevard, a new L.A. City report found that developers could add 3 million square feet of commercial space to the Ventura Boulevard corridor under current zoning rules. If you thought getting from Sepulveda to Van Nuys down Ventura was bad before. Umph... Not sure what to buy that ragamuffin who has everything this holiday season? Franklin Avenue found a great set of Lego-ish toys featuring people in casts, babies......

Lakers 111, Nuggets 107 - Allen Iverson lit up the scoreboard with 51 points but three Lakers responded with big nights of their own. Kobe Bryant scored 25, Vladimir Radmanovic added 21, and Derek Fisher had 20. Despite his big night, the Lakers only allowed Iverson one layup in the fourth quarter. Sonics 95, Clippers 88 - Seven is unlucky for the Clipper -- it's how many games they've lost in a row. Seattle led......

While most video/computer games are fun, they rarely enter the arena of the philosophical. Via Kotaku, we're happy to present you with an amazing exception to this- Passage. It's a game about life and death, told through pixels. We'd better let Jason Rohrer, the game's creator, explain it. Passage represents life's challenges with a maze. The screen geometry only allows you to view a narrow slice of this maze at any given moment. You......

a writer's perspective The strike is now in week 5. I had to use a calculator to figure out that today was Day 29. The question I get constantly is “How long will the strike last?” In a post last week, I wrote that I was hopeful that the strike would end before Christmas. My answer today is very different than my answer was last week. While walking the picket line has settled into......

Before the questions are asked, please let me state for the record that I graduated from UC Santa Barbara, a college sports powerhouse that hasn't lost a football game since 1990, so I don't have a dog in this fight. Having said that, I was a little surprised at how sensitive it appeared Bruin fans are about the firing of their head coach this afternoon. Again, I am out of the loop, but when......

It all started with Anthony Bourdain's Mexican border episode of his show No Reservations. At one point he picks up a riding crop in a leather shop. He slaps it confidently against the palm of his hand, and says, "Yeah, this is coming home with me." I've always been attracted to his superior punk New York attitude. But the "whack" of that riding crop took it somewhere new. I confessed to my boyfriend, "I'm sorry......

In the spirit of Rivalry Week, it would be only appropriate to compare any and all aspects of LA's two premier universities, no matter how mundane. Academics? Endowment? Bah, lets talk about what's really important: Attractiveness. There is no question that any normal strapping, virile, young 18 year old (guy or girl) considers the quality of the opposite sex when mulling through their prospective colleges. As a USC female alum, there's obviously some bias......

Where are the best pickup soccer venues in the greater Los Angeles area? -- Bankole O Los Angeles is an enormous city, and soccer is a popular sport. You can find games being played just about everywhere! If you're looking to avoid organized leagues, there's soccer played on a regular basis at Rancho Park, Pan Pacific Park, the Westwood Rec Center, and Mar Vista Park (they have a new-ish turf field which is frequently booked,......

I feel at home at hip hop shows. I am in my element. I am around people who love the same kind of music I love. This past Wednesday night, however, for the first time in my show-going life I was at a hip hop show as an outsider. Nerdcore rap was something that I had only vaguely heard of, all I knew of it was rap with a whole lot of references to......

Three losses in a row. A close loss in Milwaukee. A thrashing at the hands of the Boston. Then losing a 14-point lead and the game to New Jersey. That’s what last week brought the Lakers, pain and misery. And now a 7-6 record after a promising start. But like all things in Lakerdom, it all gets blown out of proportion. Some Lakers fans are running around like Chicken Little after these losses saying it's......

Read our exclusive LAist interview with G4TV's Olivia Munn to find out how she feels about playing Gay Chicken with Kevin Pereira, living in Los Angeles, and making out with her spray-tan lady...

One of the things that sports fans in Southern California should be grateful for as they warm up last night's left overs is the fact that ESPN.com's Eric Neel moved to LA this year from Northern Cal because now his excellent writing is being more focused on our teams. Yesterday he posted a glowing feature on the USC football head coach who appears every bit the Golden Boy that he looks in photos. In......

This is my first post on LAist, so I just want to start out by saying I'm thankful for Tony Pierce inviting me to contribute to the site based off of the WGA strike photos I've been sending him. Speaking of photos, I'm very thankful that the scary drugged out clown (pictured above) didn't attack me when I got "all up in his clowny grill" and snapped that picture at Tuesday's rally on Hollywood......

I was going to do this in anapestic pentameter, but screw that. Beyond the typical scope of these sort of things (life, family, health, friends, etc.) here are five things I'm thankful for: 1. The Dodgers. Without the Dodgers I wouldn't have a chance to torture as many people on this forum with my mangling of the English language. As torturous as some of the games were to watch, it was still gratifying to......

For many of you, this week is all about Turkey Day. For others, it's still all about The Strike. For me? This week will go down in history not because of the strike or Thanksgiving, but because the most awesome video game of all time, Rock Band, was released yesterday. I got my kit set up and ready to go within minutes, and began rocking out almost immediately. First impressions? The drumming element is......

So what has been going on in Dodger land since I last posted? Well a big hearty congrats go to Russell Martin for winning the Silver Slugger Award for National League catchers. Voted by coaches and managers, Martin led the NL catchers in hits, homers, runs, stolen bases, batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. Only Mike Piazza (from 1993-1998) was the other Dodger catcher to win the award since its inception in 1980.......