How dope was it that Jack was listening to the Pixies on the "Lost" season finale last night? Word has leaked out that NBC Universal and investment partners have put a $3.5 billion bid on the table for The Weather Channel. Way to jump on the climate change bandwagon. Did the writers at Letterman have an idea this was coming? Here's their Top Ten Signs There's Trouble At The Weather Channel from May 7th. $3.5......

This American Life: Season 2 Animation A really great animated piece by Chris Ware & John Kuramoto from Season 2 of "This American Life" (Showtime).......

Hey hipsters, did you catch the "30 Rock" season finale last night? If you didn't, be happy and secure in knowing that NBC has formatted it (along with "The Office") for streaming on your iPhone - they're not waiting for Apple on this one. It looks like a lot is on TV but it's slim pickins - shockingly no decent oldie movie selections on TCM this weekend. Tonight 9:00pm Man vs. Wild DISCOVERY - Bear......

The LA Times has a write-up on the demise of local public Channel 36. Somehow the City of LA can't/won't come up with a measly $500k to keep local broadcast of "school sport events, public policy talks, and long-distance for-credit college classes". While it's true that there is another city-funded public channel (#35) that one seems to be a megaphone for whichever politicians are in office. Surely the megalopolis of LA is big enough to......

The following post is from our advertiser, This American Life on Showtime. This American Life, the Showtime Original Series based on the celebrated Ira Glass radio show, is back with an all-new season. Funny, dramatic and surprising real-life stories from the most extraordinary ordinary people in America come together in what Newsweek proclaims “a jewel of a TV series.” From a stand-up comedy camp for kids, to riding stables in a North Philly ghetto; from......

"... the kids who join the Greek organizations are very spirited. They are very much involved with all aspects of college life. They run for office and they are big philanthropists," a California State University Northridge (CSUN) student told the Daily News in an article about the city of Los Angeles ordering members of two off-campus CSUN fraternity houses, Zeta Beta Tau and Pi Kappa Alpha, to shut down. Hrmmm, if these students are......

There's a box that generally lives on a shelf in my closet that holds pretty much every single journal, diary, and notebook I've kept since my mom brought me back my first diary (a lavender lock-front Minnie Mouse book with "Journal Intime" embossed in gold block letters) from a trip to France when I was nine years old. I will confess readily that I love to pull that box down and rifle through the......

From Sherman Oaks to Burbank Airport it was just a little over 45 minutes by bus. A few bucks later and some good podcast listening on the ride (The California Report, This American Life), we were on our travels yesterday in a flash. No bothering friends for a ride, no use of cars and no Supershuttle, a.k.a., we will pick you up 3 hours before your flight and have to go pick up 6......

A Word or 52: Some people hated last week's "useless" Lost because it didn't further the storyline but I thought it was a humorously macabre and welcome break that reminded me of some of the better tangential X-Files episodes from 10+ years ago. If looks like we're going back to that story line tonight, oh well. Jericho (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) Roger goes off the deep end, and who can blame him Friday Night Lights/Crossing......

With the year winding down, LAist is asking famous celebs, local politicians, and other movers & shakers of LA to tell us what they thought were tops of 2006. Before founding PostSecret, Frank Warren grew up in the Valley and attended Colfax Elementary School with Adam Carolla. If you missed his book signing last month, you can catch him on January 15th at Borders Books in Torrance as he signs the next PS book, "The......

Take Klezmer. Add some hip-hop beats. Pour in some Eastern European flavor. Now what do you have? A sometimes quirky and Jewish sounding Manu Chao, a traditional wedding dance on speed, or maybe even something a little harder with Matisyahu. This is Josh Dolgin, a.k.a. Socalled. Socalled is a Montreal-based writer, photographer, musician, animator and magician. Saturday, here in Los Angeles at the Dragonfly, you can witness the musician/DJ/producer side at Jewzika – a......

Rapper Tone Loc turns 40 today. Music geek favorite Robyn Hitchcock is 53. Jessica Biel, "7th Heaven" girl turned movie starlet, turns 24 today. Actor David Faustino is now 32. He probably doesn't want to be known forever as the awkward Bud Bundy from "Married...With Children," but, well, sorry Bud. Public Radio's This American Life host Ira Glass turns 47; this spring his show is shooting a pilot TV version for Showtime. John Carter Cash,......

Ever wonder what it's like to be renaissance woman Sarah Vowell? It probably looks a little like this. At least, that's what it looked like last night as people crammed into Skylight Books to hear her read from her latest book, Assassination Vacation, now out in paperback. In case you don't know Ms. Vowell, she's an editor at This American Life, the award-winning storytelling show on NPR (some of her older stories can be......

THURSDAY • The Fiery Furnaces and Great Northern play tonight at the Troubadour. Tickets are $20; doors open at 8 PM. • For those who didn't get tickets to their sold out show at the Troub, Supergrass will be performing at a free in-store at Amoeba Music tonight at 7 PM. • The New Pornographers are at the Henry Fonda Theater tonight. Doors open at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $16. • David Rakoff (writer......

LAist caught David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell last night in Royce Hall on the UCLA campus, and was happy to renew our stock of wry, witty, and cynical humor. Both are favorites of the NPR scene, frequent contributors to "This American Life" (although Sedaris got his start on "Morning Edition"), and authors as well - Sedaris with several books out already, and Vowell with her fourth book just published, "Assassination Vacation". Vowell also provided......