It’s been a whirlwind of a day here at LAist. Early this morning our Editor told the staff via email that he would soon be accepting a new job at the LA Times running all of their blogs (of which there are about 25, currently) and that he would be starting in just a few weeks. We all knew this day would come, but so soon? Since the moment Tony Pierce began at LAist back......

July was a bittersweet month for LAist. We had a record-breaking month with nearly a million visitors coming to our humble site. Little did we know that some of the guests were big wigs from the venerable Los Angeles Times who left with two of our editors. Indeed, several weeks ago our Film Editor Elina Shatkin was snapped up from our midsts to become Content Producer for CalendarLive at LATimes.com, and yesterday our Sports......

In like a fox and out with a yodel? Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo for $50 billion. Many have speculated that Microsoft would eventually spring for big Y, as a marriage with the online media giant increasingly appears to be the most viable option to compete with Google in the great war of search and online advertising. Always a fun rumor to kick around, but today it's being corroborated by the WSJ, and considering......

By week's end, LA is regularly littered with a handful of free rags. Combined, these publications put the Tribune Company's Spring Street operation LA Times to shame as far as reporting on the dozens of municipalities that make up this metropolis of more than 12 million people. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, let us know, or better yet drop it in the comments section below.......

By week's end, LA is regularly littered with a handful of free rags. Combined, these publications put the Tribune Company's Spring Street operation LA Times to shame as far as reporting on the dozens of municipalities that make up this metropolis of more than 12 million people. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, let us know, or better yet drop it in the comments section below.......

By week's end, this town is regularly littered with a handful of free rags. Combined, these publications put the Tribune Company's Spring Street operation to shame as far as reporting on the dozens of municipalities that make up this metropolis of more than 12 million people. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, pretty please let us know, or better yet, drop it in the comments section......

By week's end, Los Angeles is regularly littered with a handful of free rags. Combined, these publications put the Tribune Company's Spring Street operation to shame as far as reporting on the dozens of municipalities that make up this metropolis of more than 12 million people. LAist reads the weeklies so you don't have to. If there's anything we missed, pretty please let us know, or better yet, drop it in the comments section......

David Hiller may be the most pessimistic man in the newspaper business. The Tribune Company exec who took over as publisher of the Times when Jeff Johnson was forced out for refusing to roll heads down Spring Street, appears neither ambitious, nor comfortable. His rambling rhetoric (listen below) largely expressed that he "just doesn't get it" and that even he can't wait to get his butt kicked back to Chi-town after the TribCo pinches itself......

The folks at Farmlab are hosting another free Friday-at-noon event. Representatives of the Surfrider Foundation and the Ballona Network will present their progress on developing a plan for cleaning-up and restoring the habitat in Ballona Creek. Here’s what we can vouch for: - A good turnout of interesting people to chat with before & after the presentation - Excellent food & lots of it - Protecting this fragile habitat is vital (think An Inconvenient......

Mark Allen, the man who brought you the recent Fry-B-Q 2, will be at Farmlab Salon today at noon to talk about recent Machine Project events including: fried food, transdimensional art galleries, solar robotics, creating communities based on intellectual and social life, and a lot of other complicated-but-cool sounding stuff. If you aren’t familiar with Machine Project’s work, consider it your lucky day. If you’ve seen their stuff before, color yourself lucky twice. It’s......

Annual festivals have to start somewhere with a kick-off year, and this year tamales get the treatment in LA with the 1st Annual Los Angeles Tamale Festival, sponsored by several local businesses and organizations. Tamales take over the town this weekend, and over one hundred tamale vendors will be present, selling their wares and representing various regions of Mexico and Central America, as well as all the far-flung corners of our own USA. Everyone......

There's so much to do this weekend...if you can wedge one more thing into your overcrowded calendar, please consider: REMEMBER, DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME STARTS ON SUNDAY, APRIL 3RD SO SPRING YOUR CLOCK AHEAD ONE HOUR ON SAT NIGHT. 1. The Los Angeles Book Arts Center's annual Edible Book Tea Party on Saturday, April 2, 2005. Everyone who’s interested – book artists, book lovers, foodies, children – is invited to participate by cooking up a......

Los Angeles based artist Gronk, who is known nationally as a performance and graffiti artist, as well as a prankster, has a new installation exhibit that opened this weekend in Downtown LA. Urban Narrative is recollection of the history and mythology of the fading urban core of Los Angeles, and uses found objects, sculpture, and paintings to tell a tale of our city. The installation is open now through April 16th at Gallery 727,......

March 12th offers an eclectic array of activities. Fill the space between your ears with info about wind by attending the screeing of Wild Weather: Wind" at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium, 332 S. Michigan Ave. , Pasadena. Show starts at 2 PM but doors open at 1:30. $5 also nets you a post-screening discussion will be led by Shane Murphy, of Caltech’s Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Program is for ages 6 and up......

We're noticing a trend here as art and dance seem to come together more and more often downtown. Create:Fixate has its first show of 2005 tonight when The Optical Lounge and Audio Lab comes to the Spring Arts Tower at 453 S. Spring Street. The Gallery opens its doors at 4 PM and the party starts at 7 PM. General Admission is $10 but if you get there early (like before 7), you can......

Mayor Sam's Sister City blog informs us that the City of Los Angeles proposes to increase the sewer service fees in order to cover escalating sewage treatment costs. The City wants to increase fees over a five year period, starting March 1, 2005. The City of Los Angeles Department of Public Works has issued a "helpful" FAQ for those playing at home and has scheduled a slew of community meetings (see below for the......

Few people in Los Angeles are as plugged into the urban and cultural planning scenes and other fascinating areas of overlap as James Rojas. In addition to his 9-to-5 as a project manager at the MTA, James's irons in the fire include helming the Latino Urban Forum and lecturing on various planning and cultural issues at venues that range from the university to the community grass roots level. He's also co-owner of the Gallery......

LAist is increasingly impressed with the early efforts of mayoral hopeful Bob Hertzberg. Bob is currently fielding a great TV spot that's designed to ferry civic-minded Angelenos over to his dynamic Change LA website. It offers a parade of attractive digital photographs and a Hertzberg voice-over that contains fair criticisms about the city's current leadership. The ad demonstrates that Bob, who cut his teeth as an advance man for Jimmy Carter's White House press office,......