Andy Sternberg

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....

USC Free Culture is hosting a panel discussion this evening on reinvigorating Los Angeles' open space. What we can do with artistic expression, do-it-yourself technology and the public domain to preserve and enhance LA's 500 square miles of diverse culture before our greatest spaces are swallowed up by thinly veiled corporate interests? What type of "knowledge ecology" is possible in a city devoted to fame, celebrity and image? USC's Taper Hall, Rm 301 3501...

Google Voice Local Search, or Google 411 Experimental -- as the robot's greeting would have it -- is live. In Google's ongoing efforts to take over the world, this service is free, no ads and it connects you directly. The Googleplex also managed to push the product live (experimental) less than a month after Microsoft announced their acquisition of voice query software developer TellMe. 1-800-GOOG-411 It's all computerized on their end, however, with no human...

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....

Year of the Dog's Laura Dern and Molly Shannon with writer/director Mike White OK, so we were invited to the Paramount lot -- but wouldn't it be more dramatic if we crashed it? Could additional drama even be necessary at the premiere of a movie about relationships, work, death, and dogs, with a tagline begging the question: "Has the world left you a stray?" Year of the Dog hits theaters next Friday, the 13th....

Andrew W.K.'s Highway Party Cruiser Tour slammed into Safari Sam's last night for Check Yo Ponytail's weekly mashup of live rock; dance-punk, retro, and new wave dance floor action; and mindbending video projection. We knew we were in for some wildness, considering the promise of a solo set and DJ'ing from wild child Andrew W.K. We were also a bit concerned, not knowing what to expect after recently hearing him on All Things Considered...

We're big fans of Bill Maher and his weekly Real Time on HBO. The hour-long show features a panel of distinguished guests discussing politics and pop matters of the day with Bill, but the highlight of each show is the "New Rules" segment, in which Maher introduces a set of hilarious new rules. (Also, highly recommended is the book, or audiobook of the same name.) The "New Rules" above are from Friday's episode --...

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...

And, what more, to counter the old media GPaper vibe (have your e-mail sent via snail mail, complete with targeted ads), Google also announced the beta release of TiSP:Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines. Finally, we can wirelessly flush our overflowing...

Girl's got mad skillz. And that's why we f'in heart Jenny Lewis. We couldn't say it better than our city council president, however. Pass the mic to E. (Garcetti):Jenny is a third-generation Angeleno and was well known locally before her career took off. She dedicated her award, as she put it, "to all of my neighbors who, for all these years put up with the musical racket coming from my tiny apartment in Silver Lake."...