Carolyn Kellogg

Tonight the New Otani rooftop beer garden opens again, meaning summer is truly upon us (as if the June gloom wasn't enough hint). In addition to unique views of downtown's skyline — debate the relative merits of the new Caltrans building, close-up — the beer garden offers reasonably priced pitchers and affordable bar-b-q snacks ... and a tabletop hibachi! Drink and char to your heart's content without having to worry about the mess. Or...

It's not like the Blue Bongo shows at Little Pedro's are a secret; heck, they even made yesterday's LA Times. But we can't not mention this. If you've been wondering when you should go (or go back), you might consider tonight for your journey to the Mexican-slash-Moroccan bar-slash-club perched on the easternmost edge of downtown. Because a little birdie told us that the indescribable Peaches will be DJing. Dare you shake your bootie to...

From 1950 to 1975, the game show What's My Line broadcast to TV audiences. We missed it then, but we understand it featured a well-dressed panel of celebrities trying to guess the occupation of a mystery guest, who would be revealed to the audience in advance to increase hilarity. Why bring it up now? J. Keith Von Straaten has brought it back to life, on stage in Hollywood, with real cool mystery guests (Lindsay...

Maybe it's because nobody walks in LA. In New York, people walk their dogs and watch them squat, nonchalantly scooping their pooches' poop when necessary. It took an Angeleno to invent Pet a Potty, the rolling indoor/outdoor grass box that your pup can squat in to do his business. Advertised as a "solution for those walks at inopportune times," handily equipped with a trap pan for liquids, available in artificial or real turf and...

If you're in the mood for a little award-winning homebrewed beer, you might trek out to the Mayfaire celebration of the Maltose Falcons, America's oldest homebrew club this weekend. Based out of the Home Wine, Beer, and Cheesemaking Shop in Woodland Hills, the club has been in pursuit of perfect homebrew since 1974. On Saturday, they meet for an annual picnic in Santa Paula, where winners of this year's competition will be announced; results...

Pershing Square, which has been a city park, under various names, since 1866, has entered the modern era: it's gone wifi. You can thank ExperienceLA — they make it easy to sign up for the free service on their website. Now, we understand that Pershing Square is no longer the verdant city paradise portrayed in this old postcard, and you won't be able to see the happy wifi waves pictured, either. But why not...

Transcripts of conversations between Robert Blake and his attorney have fallen into the hands of the LA Times. Other than the creepy feeling we get from this (Law & Order tells us those conversations are privileged, right?), the snippets, give us a, well, creepy window into the mind of now-acquitted Robert Blake. He and his lawyer hatched a brilliant plan: have '70s TV stars visit him in jail and speak well of him to...

The LA Press Club has announced the nominees for its 47th Southern California Journalism Awards. Oddly, they haven't announced the pieces the awards are for — so LA Times sports photographer Wally Skalij (whose work appears at right) is named three times, although the nominated photos remain a mystery. Kudos to the LA Press Club for having a blog category this year! But as yet no blog nominees have been announced. They tell us...

Down the LA blogging street at Martini Republic, a giant in the pantheon of cocktailature has just signed on as contributor: Dr. Cocktail. One of the best-known vintage cocktail experts in the world (really, even the NY Times has written about him), Dr. Cocktail calls our fair city home. As he explains in his first blog entry on the site, all it took was drinks at the Tiki Ti to convince him to enter...

In Feburary, a Google employee who'd had the sharp idea to blog about his employer lost his job. (Really, you'd think if anybody knows how to Google themsleves, it might be your bosses at Google). Back in November, a Delta Airlines flight attendant was canned because her bosses didn't like the sassy pics on her blog. Now, although his blog is not cited as the reason, LA blogger Tony Pierce has apparently been dismissed...