Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist A posthumous tribute wall dedicated to singer/songwriter Elliott Smith sat defaced by graffiti for months on end -- LAist said enough, so did the fans and city council.SFist was surprised to learn that chronic presidential candidate Ralph Nader picked former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate.Phillyist explored the possibilities of green cleaning.In the latest edition of Reel Toronto, a bi-weekly feature looking at films shot in Toronto......

Not a moment too soon, here it is: The five minute extended trailer from one of our most anticipated films of '08, JJ Abrams' Cloverfield. The synopsis:Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event......

Artist: Five O'Clock Heroes Album: Bend To the Breaks Label: Glaze Records Release Date: September 18th, 2007 I can't tell you how much I needed to get this record. I've been listening to and reviewing a seemingly endless series of shoegazey-type boys without a testicle between them. The Five O'Clock Heroes produce good old rock and roll with every bass note, guitar chord, and drum thump as real as real can get. Some mention the......

When I started this article, I was happy. Pizza happy. I had misread an entry on EaterLA and thought John's Pizzeria was opening a Santa Monica location. (I wasn't the only one.) To qualify this, let me explain my connection with John's. My husband (a pizza connoisseur ) and I go to NYC about once a year, and usually, the night we fly in, we check into our hotel and go straight to John's.......

And I was forced to rob the bank because LA has no money growing on trees. Dumb Natasha Bedingfield:Don't blame Lindsay Lohan for her latest drunken-driving arrest. British pop starlet Natasha Bedingfield says Linds was forced behind the wheel of that Denali because "L.A. has no public transport system." Well, aside from a thousand or so buses. But it's hard to chase down your assistant in one of those [Rush & Molloy - NY Daily......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

Compare the way people dress at the LA Phil (not including Hollywood Bowl) to the New York Philharmonic and you'll find some New Yorkers shocked at our fine evening wear for classical music. That is to say, we prefer our California lackadaisical manner of dress. Go to the LA Phil and you'll see the occasional couple with style, but mostly you'll see lots in jeans and other street-wear. It seems Casual Fridays at the......

Los Angeles radio station carrying talk show for gangs Monday program on R&B station V100-FM, Bo Taylor, a radio host whose show has become something of a group therapy session for gang members. Removal of Newsrack Blight a Slow-go Several key leaders of the CLEAN Coalition (Coalition for L.A.’s Enforcement Applied to Newsracks) met at City Hall early this month for an impromptu reunion at the Council’s Public Works Committee. apparently, those newsracks aren't......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too,......

- Hi New LAist Readers: Skid Row gets an Internet Cafe - UPI - Best LA Daily News Headline of the Week: "Moms + kids + wine = big-time buzz" - Daily News - Those Aqua Teen Hunger Force "bombs" were headed to LA - LA Times - Mello and Brand jockeying for Yao's All Star spot - AP - Rush Limbaugh nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize - PR Newswire - Wisconsin Police......

When the curtains come up near Broadway for the Lakers and New York Knicks tonight, the role of Kobe Bryant will be played by Maurice Evans. Nobody likes to pay Broadway ticket prices to see the understudy, but the NBA has suspended Kobe for tonight’s game in New York because of his “intentional” elbowing of Manu Ginobli of the San Antonio Spurs with 2.7 seconds left in Sunday’s game. Watch the video for yourself --......

The first in an occasional series of posts in which we highlight some added value aspects of so-called Web 2.0 land. Enjoy your ride on the InterTubes™... To better understand the Web 2.0 world, one must be in touch with the specific feelings across online content-generating demographics at a particular point in time and place. Enter WeFeelFine.org, the excellent real-time visualization developed by Internet artist Jonathan Harris and Google personalization tech Sep Kamvar. Basically,......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

If you’re hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs “so are you nakie” to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

LAist is on a cross country road trip. Here are some photos from a few days in Toronto. Some more things that Toronto is like LA and not like LA: we're both huge cities without an NFL football team, Toronto wants to be more like NY while LA just attracts New Yorkers to move here, neither of us has very good pizza, the spawl is amazing in Toronto but somehow they seem to deal......

One thing LAist salivates over is the many Google mashup maps Gothamist gets to show New Yorkers. Here in LA, we're still struggling to find a good number of Los Angeles based Google Maps. We love RentSlicer. LA Eats has potential. What are we missing here? Google Maps Mania, the unofficial Google Maps blog that tracks websites, mashups and tools being influenced by Google Maps, has pointed us towards My California Traffic. Here you......

This LAist poster is a BIG fan of turkey sandwiches. But many times, don't we all end up being disappointed, with the turkey being too dry, or the bread being either too chewy or too hard? Or maybe it’s the cheese or balance of condiments that’s not quite right. It’s a never-ending quest – kind of like finding the perfect pizza slice in this city. The last time we came close to the perfect......

Greatest Minor League Baseball Manager Tirade Ever happened last night. His name is Joe Mikulik and Dodger centerfielder Kenny Lofton played with the guy and said this today: "He was crazy," Lofton said, laughing hard before Monday night's game at Minnesota. "Whoo. When I saw it, I was like, 'OK, that's something that he had in him.' That explosiveness. I didn't know he was going to do all that." + Mazda donates five hybrid......

It's your Psycho Girlfriend. And she just won't get off your case this week. All you want to do over the next few days is head downtown and play some games. Is that too much to ask? GIVE ME SOME SPACE. Like, I mean, seriously have you seen Guitar Hero II coop mode? Let me rock out!!!! One way to escape the wrath? Take her to a nice art show on Saturday. Yeah, its......

Academically speaking, the above title (a quote from one of our commenters) is correct and it only took 15 comments to get there! Not every part of the valley is within city limits (haha, Wiki left out West Toluca Lake!) of the City of Los Angeles (as pointed out: there is Bizarrebank, Glendale, City of San Fernando, the occasional unincorporated Los Angeles County, etc). Should New York City be our example? If you live......

Paper, the very NY mag, has their sights set on LA this week, where they intend to create both colorful chaos and a February issue devoted entirely to our city. To accomplish this they've assembled a hodgepodge of quirky characters and are setting up shop--quite literally--in a storefront at Melrose and La Brea. For the next few days anyone and everyone is invited to take part in a sort of performance art meets (media)......

Four years. For some, this feels like it was a lifetime ago. For too many Americans, however, the fateful morning of September 11, 2001 feels like it was just yesterday. Whether you were at Ground Zero, a coffee shop in Los Angeles or walking along the streets of London, the world as we knew it changed that day. While it was unquestionably one of the darkest hours in America's history, it also served as......

In the wake of another round of explosions on the London transit system, and on the same day that New Yorkers are being subjected to random bag searches at some subway stations (with little apparent rhyme or reason to location), LAist wonders what our own MTA has to say about passenger safety and the worry of attack. While we certainly don't want to fall prey to the cult of fear by which the country......

New Yorkers might get the least out of working hard for the money but we're not doing much better. Salary.com says that Los Angeles is the 8th worst city for trying to keep your money in your bank account. The basic idea is that while our salaries are generally higher than most other cities in the nation our cost of living outpaces that by far. So, the question is, when we could easily pack......

We have a blister on our right little toe, eyes chronically bigger than our stomach, a bit of a hangover, and 399 pictures uploaded so far onto our trusty iBook. But, no matter: We love New York! First off, we have to apologize to the fine folks at Gothamist and Six Apart, because we had to forsake their Happy Hour out of sheer exhaustion. LAist had a few too many $4 martinis yesterday in......

LAist patriarch Gothamist recently asked the question, Do You Feel the Jamba? -- asking New Yorkers if Jamba Juice shops in the Big Apple was a huge stretch... Did New Yorkers freezing their asses off really want to get a Peach Pleasure or a Coldbuster to refresh their taste buds? The question was negotiable, but it got LAist to thinking: Has the trend of Jamba Juice, Roebek's Juice, Surf City Squeeze and other un-chained......

Forget tonight's celebratory chat between Leno and Schwarzenegger. On Monday, President Bill Clinton will visit the Daily Show to rap with John Stewart about his book and the election. The bad news here is that his appearance with Stewart seems to be a replacement for his rumored-but-quashed potential guest spot on Saturday Night Live. Too bad - it would have brilliant to see him in a debate with some satirized version of a Republican luminary.......