LA Magazine has already crowned it one of the best things about living in LA. If you've ever tried to drive down Santa Monica Blvd. around Gower on a Saturday night, you'll quickly find out what thousands of Angelenos already know: there's no better way to spend a Saturday night than with a picnic and a bottle of wine in the middle of a cemetery, watching a classic film. In fact, Cinespia's weekly summer......

Photo by WishByNight via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The neighborhood lock-down in Glassell Park is over after an earlier shoot-out involving police left one dead and other suspects unaccounted for throughout the afternoon. Skateland in Northridge is turning 50! Time to call up the extended family and ask them if they have any good memories of this classic Valley fun zone. (Because my family is FROM here. Babies.) What's with all......

Lakers 130, Suns 124 - So I'm like "OMG!" and then she's like "fer reelllllz!" And then I'm like "NO.WAY." and the she's like "totally." Whoops. That's the last time we let our teenage niece borrow the keyboard -- but she did sum things up pretty well. Jimmy will have all the deets on the NBA's greatest February game of all time at 9:00am. Clippers 100, Grizzlies 86 - The Clippers are officially LA's bastard......

There are less than two weeks to go until OMG Tuesday!, when almost half of America will likely decide on what Democratic nominee will butt heads with the next Republican nominee. But, while the presidential election gets most of the attention, there are seven propositions on the Feb. 5 ballot this year covering a wide range of issues that could affect this state in lasting and meaningful ways. In the last three weeks, we......

News on Heath Ledger's untimely and tragic death is still developing. Keep checking our sister site Gothamist for updates. OMG, girls, have you heard? Caroline on Crack is holding the best contest evarrrrr over at her site -- head over now for your chance to win a date with one of L.A.'s most eligible bachelors, Andy Sternberg, our very own News Editor! I can say with utmost confidence that he is totally not a......

Clinton signs outside her Nevada headquarters=nv1962= via Flickr The results from the Nevada Caucus are in and all the major news organizations have crowned Hillary Clinton the winner, with 51 percent of the vote. This marks the second win in a row for Clinton, who teared herself to a New Hampshire primary victory last week and hopes to ride this wave of momentum to next Saturday's South Carolina primary. On the face of it,......

I logged into my email this morning to find five Facebook Wall posts from old friends -- many of whom I haven't spoken to in a while. "Hm, what is this spontaneous outpouring of love? How is it that so many have been moved to reach out to me this morning?" I clicked on over to my Facebook account, only to find -- I'D BEEN SPAMMED!!! Actually, I was the spammer, and every single......

Whats even more shocking than Jamie Lynn Spears being preggers? That it may not be Casey Aldredge's baby. Thats right, reports are that the real daddy is an older man that would surely be charged ith statutoryw rape charges if revealed - Showbiz Spy Stacy Ferguson aka Fergie and her boyfriend of over three years, actor Josh Duhamel are engaged - TMZ Our favorite heiress's fortune has just been pulled out from right under her......

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......

Reporting is tough. Transcribing is tough. Transcribing live on tee vee is totally tough especially if there's a damn fire raging. Recently a captioner working for KABC made a mistake that Snopes confirmed to be true. Live broadcasts can present captioners with additional problems: Multiple speakers may talk at the same time, external noise may render some speech inaudible or otherwise difficult to understand, and some words and phrases used by speakers may be......

If there's one site that LAist loves loves loves it's Digg. The power of The Hive has been manifested beautifully in sites like Metafilter and Fark and SlashDot but never with as much Web 2.0 power-to-the-people panache as Kevin Rose's much heralded uber-site. Likewise if theres one production company LAist loves it's Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films. These are the Los Angelenos who have made hard-hitting low-budget left-leaning hit pieces on Wal*Mart, The Bush......

Remember in high school when you had a crush on that guy a few grades older than you and you couldn't stop thinking about him or telling your friends about how you were totally going to go to prom together, and fall in love, and go to the same college, and live happily ever after- if only he knew who you were? What about in ninth grade when you dressed up as a “space......

Okay, the Dodgers are done, 'SC and UCLA are done, and let's be honest- the Lakers are already done. But fear not, the coolest races of the year are just getting started- the Nobel Prize awards. That's right, everyone's favorite Swedish prize named after the guy who invented dynamite. The best of the best, the elite of the elite, the few (hopefully) good people finally getting recognition for doing things that are by and......

Here at LAist we believe in democracy, and allowing our readers to voice their opinions. East L.A.'s (least) favorite son, Oscar De La Hoya, got caught with his pants down and fishnets up. Everyone from Mario Lopez to ODLH's lawyer have claimed that these photos are fake, but other girls are coming out with pictures of ODLH in fishnets. The latest pictures have ODLH wearing white fishnets while the first one has him wearing......

Giants 3, Dodgers 1 - Barry Bonds surprisingly was all smiles despite a bitter reception at Chavez Ravine. While he didn't tie Hammerin' Hank for the career home run title, he did reach base on two walks and scored a run. Brad Penny allowed all three runs in six innings for just his second loss of the year. Baseball royalty on hand included Tommy Lasorda, Bud Selig, and Alyssa Milano. Wait, did we just write......

If there's one thing I hate more than the MSM's obsessive coverage of the presidential campaigns, it's the gross fickleness and inanity inherent in the coverage itself. Given that the next president will need to tackle a whole host of weighty issues immediately upon taking office — global warming, the Iraq war, healthcare and the deficit, just to name a few — you might think the press would be busy providing in-depth and insightful......

Being a spy is a tough job. Not only do you constantly run the risk of being exposed by your enemies or compromised by an error in judgment or other grievous mistake (heck, your identity might even be leaked by your own government), you must also be able to adjust to rapidly changing conditions and always be quick on your feet. This then begs the question: why have you or a colleague do it......

LOGO, the nation's first (and only) openly gay television network, is set to host the next Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles on August 9. The moderators will include Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, and Melissa Etheridge, the Academy Award (for her rendition of An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up") and two-time Grammy Award-winning rock musician and prominent gay rights activist. So what specific topics will be on the......

Dear Laist, I'm loving this warm weather (it reminds me of Phoenix, where I'm from) but OMG I HAVE BEES! What do you recommend? Help, Sun Devil Dear SD, We recommend that you don't email blogs about something like this. We recommend that you call a professional extermination company, like one who wears lab coats and will arrive in a truck filled with chemicals to throw at the problem. And we don't recommend that......

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches......

LAist was minding its own business last night at Boardener's having drinks with Gothamist co-Founder Jen Chung, and after we did as much damage to her expense account as we could, we ran into two of our favorite gays. Perez Hilton and Bobby Trendy! Like, OMG. Perez seemed to be in a rush to leave whatever party was happening at the World of Wonder HQ, but Bobby was more than happy to answer questions......

Pirate’s Chai is the new everything. Healthier than coffee and yummier than moon pies, it’s about the best beverage i've ever tasted. To put it another way, it’s sell-your-mother amazing. I’m not convinced it’s not drugs. This “less sweet - more spice” bevvie tastes like it should look orange, but really it’s green. Because it’s green tea; Matcha to be exact. And in case you do not know (I did not know) Matcha is......

Let's keep it real for a minute - nobody uses Yahoo Mail for anything other than their spam accounts. You know, the email address you use when you're filling out surveys, commenting on blogs, or signing up for a message board. An email address that you don't check often, one that you don't mind getting spammed. After Google's Gmail blew into town a few years ago it quickly became the defacto web-based email of......

In what could turn out to be a long, expensive, and revealing lawsuit, Tommy Lasorda, the great former manager of the LA Dodgers, swears that he will sue if the tell-all autobiography "Secrets of a Hollywood Super Madam" is released on Thursday. Hollywood madam Jody "Babydol" Gibson was popped eight years ago for pimping out high-priced hookers, porn stars, and Playboy models throughout 16 states. She was given three years but served less than......

- The Police will play Dodger Stadium on July 23. There's that number again - NBC 4 - Gov. Schwarzenegger's killer plan to export California prisoners out of Cali and let other states deal with our problem was declared "unlawful" by Sacto County Superior Court judge - The Merc - "Homeboy Goes to Harvard" founder speaks to Reseda's Cleveland High thanks to people like Fluke Fluker - LA Daily News - Over 28,000 people......

The big headline at the Drudge Report all day today (before he just changed it to the Boston hey-it's-not-a-bomb it's-an-ad fiasco) has been "OBAMA 'CLEAN' BLACK", referring to a mischaracterization of a Joe Biden quote, which Biden later clarified in the clip after the jump. But Drudge doesn't just take the clarification with a grain of salt, he adds the statement to his front page list, and adds the link to the video, and......

members and ex-members of Mara Salvatrucha The Annenberg School at USC is hosting the Getty/TNT/Canon/LATimes World Press Photo Award-Winning Images of '06 thru Feb. 1 and it's bloody horrifying. And not just because TribCo axe-man David Hiller is in town (photo below -- James O'Shea was on hand but held fire, er, I mean he didn't speak). Matter o' fact, USC's Annenberg School is the only host of this traveling Dutch-based show in the U.S.......

OMG we'd be so pissed! After willing $1 to each of his five siblings, Theodore DiFiore, who at 79 years old, passed away in late 1990, donated the rest of his fortune -- $442,173.77 -- to the city of Los Angeles! And nobody knows why! We looked to see if perchance Mr. DiFiore misspelled LAist or LAUSD or the LACAAW, but after close examination it does appear that the man gifted free money to......

Every week in Living in Sin, Jen Sincero provides advice to LA's sexually confounded. Sign up for her newsletter and have it sent to you every week. Ask Jen your questions: all are posted anonymously. Dear Jen, I just read your short story, "My Homeless Boyfriend," and, sadly, my love life is creeping down that same path. There were times while reading it that I said, "Oh, thank god, I'm not the only one!"......

- NO! The nude photos of 41 yr-old Cindy Margolis' fake boobies in Playboy have hit the Interwebs! - Drunken Stepfather - NO! Flava Flav preparing for his Seventh child - People - NO! Angelina is expecting againgelina - Star - NO! Shanna Moakler is getting paid to throw a Divorce Party at the Bellagio on Friday - Perez Hilton - OMG NO! Pete Doherty wears Kate Moss' clothes and shoes - Entertainmentwise -......