From Why Presidents’ Day? via Why Tuesday? No, not tomorrow Tuesday... the first Tuesday of November, aka Election Day. Why Tuesday? Executive Director and local Los Angeles politico Jacob Soboroff reports from Queens, New York asking why can Presidents' Day, a federal holiday, be moved around for convenience, but Election Day remains a regular workday. Is it not that important? LAist: If election reform successfully moved election day to a Saturday, what would that......

Last year's revelers packed the house for Carnaval in Long Beach | Photo courtesy Aries Productions FESTIVAL Okay, so Long Beach doesn't pack the same exotic pull as, oh, say, Rio, but they're going to put on a Carnaval and pull out all the stops. Get out your Carnaval costumes and get ready to samba the night away! This year’s theme is “Preservation of the Planet” featuring green and recycled decorations. At the heart......

"He knows, Doctor. He knows." A Flickr user gives us what he calls a "dramatic and gritty view of [his] silly Star Trek action figures." GEEK OUT You know you want to...so you may as well do it. Star Trek: The Tour has docked on the Queen Mary. Beam yourself up and get yourself to Long Beach to see exhibits from all five TV shows and each of the 10 movies, including Captain Kirk's chair.......

Love it or hate it, tonight's New Year's Eve. And while half of the city has vacated for NYE's in Vegas, there's plenty to do right here in LA to welcome '08. Fireworks Catch the midnight fireworks in Marina Del Rey. At 11:55 pm and 30-seconds, one firework will be shot into the air for each second, counting down to midnight--and then a few more into 2008. The show be seen from anywhere in the......

Gingersnaps and cocoa and rum balls and Italian knots and Kolacky and biscotti and chocolate chips, oh my! LAist has been in the kitchen, cooking up a Cookie Exchange. I Can Has JGoldBurger? Omg the PULITZER PRIZE WINNING JOURNALIST uses LOLspeak, I don't know what to say, my world has been all shook up like a snowglobe. It's entirely possible I was Afghani in a previous life (as well as Korean, Persian, Icelandic, and......

Yesterday we started our Best of 2007 list with choices from KCRW's Nic Harcourt and Tom Schnabel. But then we realized we weren't being gentlemen. The ladies of KCRW should have gone first! D'oh! So fasten your seatbelts for The Drop's host Liza Richardson's picks for 2007. Something tells us our comments will be buzzing. Will it be for the inclusion of M.I.A.? Let's hope. 1) Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon......

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......

By now you've probably heard that this year's Vegoose was a smashing success. Pretty much everything about the show was great; plenty of booze, food, facilities, and the availability of televised sports (for the adamant college football/NFL/World Series fans willing to miss their favorite bands to catch the score.) The crowd seemed highly content throughout the whole show, save for a few rumbles between Red Sox and Rockies fans. Lucky for us, LAist got......

In it's 3rd year of existence, this past weekend's Vegoose Music Festival featured quite the impressive lineup. Boasting the final North American Show of the ever incredible Daft Punk and the final stop of Rage Against the Machine's reunion (tour), the fest also included great performances from Gogol Bordello, Muse, M.I.A. and many, many more. Follow the jump for tonnnns (literally) of pics of Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, M.I.A., Gogol Bordello, Queens......

Bruce busking in Copenhagen Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band @ Sports Arena Tegan and Sara, Northern State @ Orpheum Queens of the Stone Age, Mastodon @ Nokia Rakim, Ghostface KIllah, Brother Ali @ House of Blues Limbeck, Annie Stela, Rachael Cantu, Tiffany Randol @ The Hotel Cafe Abe Lincoln Story @ Mr. T's Bowl Castledoor, Aaron Espinoza, Frankel, The Morning Benders @ The Echo Hot Hot Heat @ House of Blues, Anaheim......

It's not really a big Wednesday, I'm just making a reference to the obscure and awful surfer flick starring Jan Michael Vincent and Gary Busey. I've got a major case of the munchies as I write this so tonight's primetime is all about food for me. 8:00pm Back To You FOX - Series Premiere - oops, NOT[TD]. I'm not so sure I want to give Kelsey Grammar another chance on network TV. I would like......

There was so much choice at this year's Detour Festival as French Electro duo Justice and British Indie darlings Bloc Party topped the bill however, one couldn't help but compare this year's lineup to last year's, the inaugural year, which featured Beck and Queens of the Stone Age and smaller acts like Of Montreal, Blonde Redhead, Basement Jaxx among others. While sporting more acts and another stage the overall quality or the acts was......

So is anyone NOT buying Knocked Up this week? There's something like 5 different versions in Amazon's top 25 bestsellers right now. Wow. The TV Set is a great movie that about 400 people saw when it was in theaters. I had a near-private screening one afternoon at the Santa Monica Laemmle. Next is really only interesting if you're a Nicholas Cage hairpiece connoisseur (like myself). Evening has an incredibly raunchy nude scene with......

Peter Facinelli is known for a lot of things: his various roles (Touch the Top of the World, Six Feet Under, Babel, the Scorpion King, etc.); looking somewhat like Tom Cruise; being married to Jennie Garth (the lucky fellow) - but what we didn't know was that he worked hard to lose a hardcore Queens accent and that he actively courts paranoia. LAist had the chance to talk to Facinelli last week to ask him......

LA Weekly's inaugural Detour music festival rocked downtown last October, with frenzied dancing, drinking, and dope smoking on the downtown streets, City Hall lawn, and even St. Vibiana's Cathedral with the likes of Beck, Blonde Redhead, !!!, Queens of the Stone Age, Basement Jaxx, and Nortec Collective. The second Detour is a day-long music extravaganza that's set up to be quite the, um, party, with headliners: Bloc Party, Satellite Party, Justice, Celebrity Skin, and......

Did anyone feel that earthquake and aftershock last night at around 6:30? According to seismologists the epicenter was the first baseline at Shea Stadium in Queens, NY. The rumbles started after the newest oldest Dodger pitcher David Wells laid a bunt down the third baseline and tromped to first base to beat out the throw. The aftershock occurred later in the inning when Matt Kemp hit a bloop single to right field. David Wells......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

the all highschool-girl Japanese ska band, Oreska Band, will play tonight at the Echo Queens of the Stone Age @ Henry Fonda Squeeze @ The Greek Veruca Salt @ The Roxy Deep Purple @ Ventura Theatre Gliss, Moderates, Io Echo, Black Kites @ Viper Room Manic, Stranger Smile, On the Surface, Oreska Band @ The Echo The Vaginals, Clark 8, John Thill, Lacoste @ The Scene Metal Skool, Rasa 9, Eject, Steady Ground @......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

With his long awaited sophomore album, Desire racking up favorable reviews from the likes of The Source, Pitchfork, USA Today and The New York Times it's safe to say that Pharoahe Monch is back and better than most would have ever expected. Unlike many in the alternative hip hop scene, the Queens native who made rap fans around the world "Get the fuck up" in 1999 remained relevant despite an eight-year gap in between projects.......

Here at LAist we've been a tad OCD about things lately. We had our little Spoon-fest last week, and our green movement today with Green LA Girl as our guest editor, so I suppose it's only fair that DAFT PUNK is our new obsession. Yes, we shared with you one of our favorite videos of all time for Harder, Better, Stronger, Faster (and what else those hands can do is on our list of......

The Associated Press wrote today that Rosie O'Donnell is meeting with CBS to discuss potentially becoming the next host of the Price is Right. All she has to do is beat out the likes of cable entertainment news show hosts Todd Newton and Mark Steines. I don't know about you, but just the thought of Rosie O’Donnell moving to Los Angeles and taking over this iconically glittery game show makes me giddy. Even Bob......

Tonight's a crazy night of rock. And yet, is there anything cooler than Morrissey playing the bowl tonight? Chris Cornell, Queens of the Stone Age, Sum 41, The Bravery, Plain White T's, Silversun Pickups, Shiny Toy Guns, Cold War Kids @ Seaside Park (Ventura) Grandmaster Melle Mel & Scorpio, Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock, Sugar Hill Gang, Stacey Q, Expose, Stevie B. @ Honda Center Morrissey @ The Hollywood Bowl Reverend Horton Heat,......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

A Word or 146: It was fun to watch Molly Shannon on SNL. In general it was a great broadcast and she was just as funny now as she was then but who could really care about Linkin Park? Less fun is reading about the continuing poor decision-making by the networks in their upcoming program development. NBC is trying to cover all it's bases milking Heroes, their only good horse in the running, by creating......

A Word or 89(approx): One thing I didn't mention over the weekend was Sunday's SNL In the '90s because I thought it woudl suck. I was right. First, why did it take them 7 years to come up with this 2 hours of dreck? Second, the equal emphasis of the (pathetic) music acts and the comedy was a mistake - the show is an hour and a half with 2 songs in it, the......

A Word or 36: 60 Minutes was interesting what with alleged ratfink George Tenet telling us all the things he should have been telling us years ago, when it would have mattered, when we could have done something about it. Tonight - Monday - April 30th, 2007 D'backs @ Dodgers (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) How I Met Your Mother/The New Adventures of Old Christine/Two and a Half Men/The King of Queens (CBS, 8-10:00 p.m.) Two......

A Word or 45: Been thinking about the whole VTech thing from last week and whether or not the Cho footage should have been put on TV: of course it should have been put on TV. It wasn't done distastefully and it was newsworthy and timely, end of story. Tonight - Monday - April 23rd, 2007 The New Adventures of Old Christine/Two and a Half Men/The King of Queens (CBS, 8:30-10:00 p.m.) All new......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......