• To update our avalanche story from yesterday, 3 have now been confirmed dead after the snowy storm struck near the town of Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains. One missing person was located Saturday, after apparently walking out of the snow encrusted mountain. Another missing person was located Friday, but died on Saturday morning.
• Remember when Fred Thompson was running for president and NBC stopped showing re-runs of Law & Order featuring the ex-Senator because of fair election laws? Well, one blogger thinks that USA should stop running episodes of Walker Texas Ranger because of the exposure it gives to Mike Huckabee lover supporter Chuck Norris. He "has gone way beyond what other celebrities like Oprah, Sylvester Stallone or Jon Voight have done."
• Bert Parks never saw this coming, but the format of the Miss America pageant has been changed to reflect the sentiments of a younger generation used to shows like America's Next Top Model and American Idol. Miss America will now basically be a reality show in which organizers hope infuse some much needed life into the boring traditional pageant.
• There is nothing more terrible than losing a son. But finding out through the press that your son is dead, as Heath Ledger's dad did, must have stung like something awful.
• We already know that 9 USC students were arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness this morning, but you might not have heard that 9 men and women were arrested in Pomona today for allegedly advertising sex on the Internet. They were nabbed at a motel by undercover cops. God, when did illicit, dirty, immoral, solicited sex become illegal?
• Though rains pounded the southland into a wet submission the last couple of days, the five inches are just a drop in the bucket as far as our drought is concerned. Or, so says the state agency in charge of water, who fears that people will stop conserving water in the wake of the storm that is supposed to continue off and on through Monday.
• Even though 7 percent of you don't seem to care, 53 percent said Yes on Props 94-97, while 41 percent said No. A harbinger of things to come or an aberration? Ten days to find out.

Torchwood is a guilty pleasure and its new season starts tonight on the BBCA. If you've ever been in a foreign land and seen a slightly dated American TV program come on and felt that queasy embarrassment then you know what watching Torchwood is like. It's cheesy and over-the-top science fiction with British accents and the odd dashing American thrown in. Everyone is hyper-sexed and they don't seem to discriminate between whichever sex they are attracted to at a particular moment and despite all the sexiness and the fact that it's a Euro import, I'm always a little dismayed at the lack of skin and even more dismayed at some of the gay-'80s hairdos. Still, it's well shot, good for a few laughs, and the way things are going with US licensing of UK shows, you'll be seeing it on one of the big four before you know it. more ›

A Word or 14: Check out all the crazy bands performing tonight on late night shows(??) Bolded below. Tonight - Friday - April 27th, 2007 Angels @ White Sox (KCOP, 5:00 p.m.) Ghost Whisperer/Close to Home/NUMB3RS (CBS, 8-11:00 p.m.) Melinda meets another ghost whispererer!/Anabeth discovers police corruption!/Death-row inmate wants to reveal location of bodies Bill Moyers' Journal (PBS, 8:00 p.m.) The Daily Show's Jon Stewart! Henry Rollins Show (IFC, 8:00 p.m.) John Waters visits;... more ›

A Word or 12: Dirt - I forgot to mention Dirt yesterday, someone just kill me please. Tonight - Wednesday - January 31st, 2007 The Spiral Staircase (TCM, 5:00 p.m.) This nifty thriller from the '40s features a strangler that follows a mute maid through a dark New England mansion during a storm. Lakers @ Celtics (KCAL, 5:30 p.m.) Monster (IFC, 6:00 p.m.) Charlize Theron transorms herself in an Oscar winning performance. Worth watching just... more ›

A Word or 51: I thought I was watching my TiVoed Golden Globes broadcast last night but it turned out to be the Screen Actors Guild Awards with the same winners almost across the board. If the Oscars follow suit can't we just get rid of this circle jerk and have one stinkin' awards show? Tonight - Monday - January 29, 2007 UCLA @ Stanford (PRIME, 5:00 p.m.) College basketball Carnival Marathon featuring The... more ›

LAist loves the Howard Stern Show. We're Sirius subscribers, we have been known to defend his good name, we listened while he was #1 in LA, we're rooting him on as Sirius approaches 7 million subscribers, we even stood in line in Pasadena to get "Miss America" signed. So when we got the opportunity to interview long-time producer, and former intern, Mike Gange, we had lots of questions that we were dying to know... more ›