The Daily News has more details on those marijuana vending machines. Besides, you know, the fact that they are TOTALLY AWESOME! A rash of gang violence in Watts since the weekend has led to two shooting deaths and the injury of at least 13 others. Yahoo is not doing so well: a major drop in fourth quarter profits is going to mean layoffs somewhere in the neighborhood of of 7% of the workforce. Four......

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......

I already find myself having to close my blinds before daring to pick up my plastic Guitar Hero 3 controller. Well, the folks at City of Industry-based Jada Toys, Inc., thought pressing buttons on a fake guitar in a musical version of "Simon" wasn't embarrassing enough, so lo and behold we have the Guitar Hero Air Rocker! For only $29.99, you can now strap on the specially-designed air guitar belt and strum away on your......

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......

"Knights of Cydonia" - Muse (One of the best videos of the year because we can relate to it via Guitar Hero 3 and we love Western themes. That and it's a great song.) Abstract 3's Armenian Folk Jazz @ The Baked Potato Muse, Feist, Jimmy Eat World, Modest Mouse, Silversun Pickups, Spoon, The Shins @ Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Citywalk The Cult, The Cliks @ House of Blues - Disneyland Heavy D @......

One of heavy metal's signature vocalists has died at the too-young age of 52. Kevin DuBrow grew up in Hollywood and Van Nuys and in the late 1970s became the lead singer for Quiet Riot, the glam-metal brainchild of guitarist Randy Rhoads. Though Quiet Riot's brand of hard rock -- or whatever you wish to call it -- was never the same after the 1980s, Quiet Riot carried on, true to form, was featured on......

When asked what I was thankful for this year, I really had to step back and think for a while. I know life is full of blessings, but writing about what makes me want to keep breathing everyday isn't as easy as it sounds. So without further ado here are some things, good and bad, big and small, that made me feel thankful this year in no particular order... 1. Guitar Hero III I’m......

I'm thankful for so much this Thanksgiving that I don't even know where to begin, so let's start with the basics: I'm thankful of you, my family, my friends, loose women, cheap vices, Guitar Hero, and the Good Lord. I'm thankful for something that you probably don't have, the greatest bosses alive and the coolest gig. For example can you say fuck to tens of thousands of people today? Fuck. I'm thankful to live......

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......

Last night I was happy to make it to Lou on Medium on "Guitar Hero III", the latest video game to earn more than $100 million in sales in its first week. But I just got the thing last week, so I was just satisfied not to get booed off the stage... again. After feeling cocky about making a respectable run through Metallica's epic "One" and long time favorite Maiden's "The Number of the......

Last Friday night at the Roxy, Paper Magazine treated attendees to a raucous tournament-to-the (almost) death, of guitarist vs. guitarist. We might all be playing Guitar Hero III but these guys were doing it for real. At least 8 guitarists competed head-to-head over several rounds - each guitarist had 90 seconds to shred their guts out with an optional rhythm section. A three judge panel would decide or resort to a 30 second face off......

Once again, MySpace is copying the people who copied them copying Friendster better. Seeing the success of Facebook's ability to have widgets, MySpace and Google are teaming up to do something similar. More fire likely. Just like in 2003 where the wildfires struck, had a week lull and hit hard again the first week of November, firefighters are currently preparing for the return of the Santa Anas, expected to start tomorrow night. High heels......

We* have just returned from the front lines of the of the cutthroat video gaming industry (okay, maybe it was just the GameStop at the Burbank mall) and I'm proud to report we have arrived home in triumph, bearing before us the brand new Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. It's here, and yes, it rocks. There were a shaky few minutes there when the controller took a few tries to connect, but we......

Can we please do the OPPOSITE of adding fuel to these fires? A Sun Valley day laborer has been charged with arson after he was caught attempting to start a blaze in the Woodland Hills area earlier this week. Do you use your cell phone? Of course you do. The future of this important device lies in the hands of visionaries, such as the ones who are attending MobileCampLA on Sunday. And you too......

Guitar Hero was in full-effect at E-For-All I must admit that after three bleary-eyed, sore-footed days stumbling around the Los Angeles Convention Center like Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas -- to objectively write about the E For All experience is difficult. On one hand, the inaugural show has been rightfully panned by most mainstream media outlets for a variety of reasons. Many big gaming companies, Sony, Microsoft, Activision, and Square to name a......

Ninitendo Wii demonstration units at the 2007 E for All Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center Nintendo extended an invitation for a female writer from LAist to meet Perrin Kaplan , VP of Marketing for Nintendo at the E for All Expo. I sent my R.S.V.P. and planned to check out the latest games and technology that Nintendo has to offer. Now I should tell you that I know next to nothing about......

Sure, the inaugural E For All doesn't really hold a candle to the bloated spectacle of old E3, but then again, the new low-key Santa Monica-based E3 doesn't hold a candle to the old E3 either. And sure the big guns (Sony, Microsoft and Capcom) didn't show up, the LA Convention Center's South Hall is only half full with exhibits, crowds have been disappointingly light and the power went out Friday night, ending the......

Yesterday commenced with an LA bang. I started off at the Indaba music loft again because they have been hosting a plethora of good (free!) shows. There's something comforting about watching bands from someone else's living room. I showed up around mid-day to catch one of my favorite LA bands Division Day. Front man Rohner Segnitz and the boys ran through a pleasant acoustic set. With drummer Kevin Lenhart on shakers, Division Day sounded......

If you happen to find yourself driving around at 11pm tonight, you'll likely see long lines of (mostly) men standing outside of Best Buys, EB Games and Gamestops all over greater Los Angeles. Do not be alarmed. It's just the hardcore gaming faithful lining up to claim their midnight copies of Halo 3, the biggest video game of the year. For the completely uninitiated, Halo is the sci-fi shooter franchise that is basically the......

I don't know how I missed this, but there have been a slew of major announcements regarding the upcoming release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and lemme tell ya, this shit is serious. Apparently even Lars Ulrich got the memo about GH being an incredible (and lucrative) game, because Metallica's classic "One" has been confirmed to be a part of the set-list for the fall release. ("Enter Sandman" will be appearing on......

Today, Susan Doyle's weekly transportation column in the Daily News looks into how lengthy commutes fatigue Angelenos, forcing them to stay home on the weekends and time leisurely trips around traffic. She also pulls out the "geographically undesirable" phrase when it comes to dating:Whether behind the wheel or sitting on a bus, Los Angeles commuters spend about 93 hours a year stuck in traffic. And those like Hicklin often end up feeling so wiped......

If you're not really the Guitar Hero type, here's another (drunker) option for your Saturday: the vegetarian-biking-cooking-podcasting team Hot Knivez will be leading their first biking tour of Los Angeles's best beer stores on August 11th, starting at around 10am: we plan on traversing L.A. side streets to collect a wide array of bombers and six packs with the express purpose of throwing a tasting/swigging/gulping/retching party at the finish line. We’ll be starting at......

So you've mastered the opening riff of "Crazy on You," you've beaten "Freebird" on Expert, and you can even get through "Miserlou" and "Jordan" without fucking up too badly. Do you think you're ready for the next level? Do you think you have what it takes to pit your star-powered skills against the city's best axe-men and -women? Are you...a GUITAR HERO??? Well, if you are, Sacred Fools Theater is holding their second city-wide......

I have never in my life thought that the following words would ever escape my lips: "Wow! That Flock of Seagulls song is AWESOME!!!" But that day has come: and so too has Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the Eighties, the latest installment in the worldwide gaming phenomenon/franchise. You now have thirty more classic songs to RAWK OUT on, including such favorites as Skid Row's "Eighteen and Life," White Lion's "Radar Love," and of course,......

On Today's LAist poll, the majority of readers say yes to separating the Purple Line from what some dub as the Pink Line, which would serve the transit-ready WeHo. Keep those votes coming in! After Sherman Torgan's unexpected death last week, the New Beverly reopens tonight. Come on. Give them some love. You know you wanna. If you want to be able to afford living in Downtown LA, maybe the could-be-passed-into-law 250 sq. ft.......

So I heard it first tonight via the hot lips of G4TV's Olivia: the new Guitar Hero III (slated to be released on all "next generation" platforms - that means the Wii, the PS3, and the XBox 360), will include songs by Weezer, Muse, Heart, Tenacious D, The Rolling Stones, and The Smashing Pumpkins. Joystiq confirmed the dirty details, and we will get to RAWK on songs like "Barracuda," "Cherub Rock" and even Living......

When I die I want to go to Austin. I had no business being at the Hi Lo Club Thursday evening when Slash walked on stage to join the southern rock Georgia quartet Blackberry Smoke, but sometimes you're precisely in the right place at the right time. Last year I was working with Buzznet who co-sponsored a few parties with Red Bull as part of their legendary Red Bull House. This year the Red......

Yesterday we showed you an interview from upstairs of the Austin Convention Center at SXSW where companies are answering questions about their Internet- and film-related products. Today, thanks to the Houston Chronicle, who took this footage above, we can show you a small glimpse of what's happening on the bottom floor of the Convention Center, in the video game area -- where things are getting mighty interactive. There you will see the new Nintendo......

With the upcoming new season of American Idol and America’s addiction to Guitar Hero, the comedic geniuses of Epic Records discovered a newer way for people to humiliate themselves in hopes of discovering true talent. The online video competition created by Music Nation, a New York City-based artist development company, is hanging a recording deal with Epic Records on the line. Musicians can create an artist page containing uploaded videos, which will be entered......

- 44 year old Los Angeleno claiming to be a TV producer... lied! Then thrown in jail - AP - Today was the LA Times' birthday! - LAT - Palmdale parents who sued their school for asking the students questions of a sexual nature lose in the Supreme Court - AP - George Clooney's pet pig goes tits up - AP - Scientology believes in Christmas? Who knew? - Dlisted - Kid Rock seems......