Since moving to L.A. nearly six years ago, I've celebrated Jewish holidays in true nomad fashion, from Hollywood to the Valley and back again. The first year was at the Laugh Factory. The female Cantor played the guitar as she sang, swaying slowly and dreamily back and forth and making me think that at any moment she was about to ask us to cross our arms in front of us and hold hands with......

After yesterday's citizen forester training, we decided to join a tree planting up in Lake View Terrace in the Northeast Valley to see a citizen forester in action. A teenage girl led it for her Girl Scout troop, planting 25 trees at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center. Supported by TreePeople, the morning was a cinch. It began with sign-ins and registration, followed by opening remarks and training. Then groups spread out to plant......

- Howard Stern has more listeners than TiVo has subscribers - Gizmodo - Google keeps gobbling up start-ups - Tech Crunch - Pats are 6-1 and still the cops arrested the son of the Head Coach for weed. - Boston Herald - A list of companies who don't want to associate themselves with the Democrats - media matters - Happy Halloween: The Anna Nicole tease for her interview with ET should win some sort......

SFist commeters pose for before and aftershocks when the mayor commemorates a 1906 earthquake...at 4:30 in the morning. A hot tip on the Chronicle vending machines comes in and the SFist war correspondent risks life and limb to post this dispatch from the frontlines. Houstonist announces their new Cops spinoff "World's Funniest Tazer Videos" and the possible cancellation of their pervs' "World's Grossest Bathroom Videos" and PBS trains cams on cows at, uhg, Mootube. Also,......

In the spirit of the holidays we recently took to the kitchen a second time to follow up our smashingly successful Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies with another round of treats to share. This time we had our eye on a more Christmassy flavor: Peppermint Candy Cane. The cookie? Chocolate Peppermint. It's a chocolate-chocolate chip cookie with a mint-flavored glaze sprinkled with crushed candy cane pieces. In general these were fairly simple to make. The......

About a week and a half ago, we went on a sunset hike, and it was just as lovely as the phrase "sunset hike" promises, at least if hiking appeals to you. The hike was run by the Sierra Club 20s and 30s Singles Section, which one can join without joining the Sierra club proper. We had never been on a nighttime hike before, unless you count long treks from campfire to bunk at......

LA.Comfidential notes that Girl Scout Troop 171 is taking a page out of Phyllis Neffler's playbook and giving their squad of young ladies a different kind of survival training. One mother, who happens to be president of local spa Dermalogica, is throwing what we can only hope is a beauty boot camp at the end of which the Santa Monica girls will get their clear-skin badge. Taking cues from the Shelley Long/Craig T. Nelson......

A couple of weeks ago, a Girl Scout in our extended family solicited our order for a box of cookies. How could we resist her pitch, which went something like this: "when are you gonna sign up for cookies?" Yep, it's time for the great spring ritual known as "Girl Scout Cookie Program," the official Girl Scout literature calls it that so LAist has adopted it, too. As any good Girl Scout already knows,......