Mahalo Daily has been locally focused the past couple of days. Yesterday, they spoke to people at the Santa Monica promenade about the effect of gas prices on their lives. Today, they tag along with the city's Bureau of Sanitation in South LA for a day of bulky item pickups. Good times.......

After a month of study and protest, City Council put some closure on the budget for fiscal year 2008-2009. With a $406 million deficit, the biggest the city has ever seen, tough choices were made, but some of what was threatened was saved -- line items such as library hours, film festivals, the city's television Channel 36, homeless shelter beds and calligraphers to decorate city proclamations, according to the Daily News. And to save programs......

Why is the Red Line running a little slow Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights? Probably because these orange-vested types are cleaning out the pipes under the tracks. Metro's repair guys and gals send a little camera snaking down the pipes to look for gunk – I'm not sure if "gunk" is the technical term for it, actually – and they follow it with what looks to me like a giant vacuum cleaner. "The water......

Many of us have recently taken heed to the call to be more "green" in our lives, from easy day-to-day things such as employing reusable bags, to larger-scale endeavors, like switching to hybrid cars or going car-less entirely. And now that we've turned our calendar pages to January 2008, many of us are pledging (aka the dreaded "resolutions") to make the year a greener one. Well, Los Angeles' Dave Chameides aims to have us all......

Heal the Bay gives out free canvas bags for "A Day Without A Disposable Bag Day"...

You remember this famous exchange from The Graduate? Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you - just one word. Ben: Yes sir. Mr. McGuire: Are you listening? Ben: Yes I am. Mr. McGuire: 'Plastics.' Ben: Exactly how do you mean? Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it? Ben: Yes I will. Yes, there was certainly a future in plastics -- but it......

Your neighborhood is very nice, but this one secluded walkway looks to be from a part of a city that is not yours. City officials say the solution is to close the path off. You disagree because that's not an acceptable solution. What do you do? Option #1: Call the City for Service It's a short term solution, yet starts the back and forth resistance with the delinquents. You call the city to clean up......

Once while driving down the freeway from Santa Clarita into the LA over the Newhall Pass, I came upon a boat. No, not some truck pulling a boat. But a speed boat sitting in lane one (that's the furthest left lane). It obviously became detached from a vehicle. But where were they? There was no one pulled over looking distraught. DID THEY NOT NOTICE?!!? So I called 911 because that is what you are......

When it rained this weekend 150 tons of trash from LA's sewers flushed beneath us and ended up in the ocean. This is why we can't have nice things. "The volume of trash collected at the L.A. River boom is a powerful reminder that everything in the street - trash, cigarette butts, pet waste, even oil that leaks from cars - washes into the ocean after each heavy rainfall," said Emma Ayala, Head, Public......

Having a bedroom window facing the LA River is actually quite nice. I never see the concrete bottom: the part of the river abut my home flows 365 days of the year, even if at a half foot. I hear all sorts of strange birds 24 hours a day, always hear the slight rippling of the river and have an otherwise peaceful aural background. However, when it rains, the river changes from calm and......

If you live in an older building or one with subterranean parking, you might see this weekly. A small and zippy tow trucks flies into your parking lot, quickly snaps up the garbage bin and races back to the mama garbage truck that can't fit into your apartment complex. How many keys and gate clickers must the tow truck operator keep organized? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds..........

Spotted this sign near Olympic and Robertson. That's Beverly Hills Adjacent to peeps in the know and those who love real estate euphemisms. The street dumping of old furniture being a problem endemic to greater Los Angeles, we offer this information in the interest of neighborhood beautification. The Los Angeles sanitation department will haul away all the battered, old mattresses you can soak in urine (as well as couches, Christmas trees and busted Ikea......