Callie Miller

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...

While it may be getting even colder here in Los Angeles and many of you find yourselves huddled around your fireplaces, drinking more than usual to stay warm, and arguing over the merits of still wearing Uggs (in/out, cold weather shoe/warm weather shoe, does it really matter when it's this cold shoe?), some Los Angeles residents are finally saying: "It's about damn time!" The snow leopard cubs at the Los Angeles Zoo are finding...

Monday Barbara Taylor Bradford discusses and signs The Ravenscar Dynasty, 7pm @ Vroman's Frank Warren of postsecret.com fame speaks, 7pm @ Borders Books in Torrance Tuesday Vendela Vida presents Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, 7pm @ Book Soup Anthony Swofford (award-winning author of Jarhead) presents Exit A: A Novel, 7pm @ Vroman's Patricia Marx signs Him Her Him Again the End of Him, 7pm @ Dutton's Brentwood Portia Iversen signs Strange Son,...

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...

A new study out of Finland finds that those who own pets tend to be less active - and much heavier - than those who don't have pets. Huh? Wha? Aren't you supposed to walk your dog every day? Hike with them? At least roll from one side of the couch to the other with them? We at LAist find it impossible to believe that owning a pet makes you less active. It doesn't...

It's the beginning of the year and we haven't even cracked a new book. Have you? Instead of feeling guilty for sitting on your lazy duff, go check out a reading. It's free, it's easy -- and they'll read to you! All you have to do is show up, sit back and heckle when the mood strikes. Actually, heckling during a reading is really kind of lame. That's more for Laugh Factory types. If...