Jason Toney

Never fear Bruins! If you find yourself in Asia and desperate for some of the good ol' blue and gold, you can go to one of the 20 UCLA stores open in South Korea and China (and, soon, Japan) and pick up your alumni tee or cap. We're not sure if they're stocking face paint and foam fingers yet, though. The Daily Bruin explains that UCLA has become a popular name internationally not only...

As the whole world knows, Pope John Paul II died on Saturday. He was 84. "Our Holy Father looks very much at peace. It was very satisfying for all of us to see him so serene," said LA's own Roger Cardinal Mahony after paying respects to the Pope. USA Today visited Our Lady of Solitude Church on Sunday to see how LA was mourning his death. The Pope visited Los Angeles in 1987. The...

Could USC's robot be the key to constructing buildings on the moon or maybe even Mars? The April issue of Discover Magazine looks at the robotic machine built by Engineering professor, Behrokh Khoshnevis. The $30,000 robot can mix and lay concrete on its own, building a tier of the wall every 2 minutes and 14 seconds. NASA is already taking a look at the machine to see if it could do the same process...

Like most other movie goers this weekend, we saw Sin City. We loved it. As unashamed comic book nerds, the idea of a direct graphic novel adaptation of the Frank Miller classics was simply spectacular to watch. Cinematical thinks "The Hard Goodbye" was the best of the stories and we agree although it did run a little longer than necessary. We can forgive that though because of Carla Gugino. Mmmm, Carla Gugino. We're highly...

The month changes and it's a huge announcement day around the web. Our northern sibling site, SFist, has joined the newly Yahoo! partnered metroblogging. This is like losing Shaq to the Heat people. Local blogger, Michael Pusateri, announces the launch of his own business, Datafloss. The Fug Girls trade fug for hugs and former angeleno, Rox Populi, channels her polar opposite today. Meanwhile, Boing Boing gets spoofed. Should LAist be sad or glad that...

First, the parties you might be too late to go to: Giant Step Records hosts a listening party for Simply Good Music, Volume 2 at Star Shoes tonight. They still have RSVP info up so you could still get on that list. In other listening party news, Faith Evans's new album will be previewed tomorrow night at The Lounge. The Lounge is at 9077 Santa Monica Blvd (it's near the Troubadour). If you can't...

Do people still stand in line for concert tickets or is it fastest web connection wins in the internet age? Whichever path you take, you should plan to get up early on Saturday if you want to catch Rilo Kiley and The Postal Service at the Wiltern in June. Tickets go on sale through ticketmaster that morning. It will be their only LA show (if you don't count Coachella) and we're guessing that people...

In the aftermath of the freeway shooting on the 110 on Tuesday, the police are struggling to find leads on the case. The Los Angeles Times reports on Michael Livingston's family's plea to the public for help. FOX 11 News this morning said that the police haven't received a single phone tip since the incident which is extremely peculiar for such a public incident. Livingston was shot in the head and then crashed into...

Marion "Suge" Knight just can't ever get on the right side of a court case. A Los Angeles Judge has ordered Suge to pay $107 million dollars to a former business partner that claims she helped to found Death Row Records (now called Tha Row). Suge has been in and out of jail for the past 10 years and there is still some question about his involvement in the altercation Dr. Dre had at...

There is a great wikipedia about Johnnie Cochran, Jr. that reminds us that he was a true Los Angeles Icon. He attended UCLA and LMU (where he got his law degree), was a criminal prosecutor twice in his career (for a total of 7 years), and made his name initially by effectively pursuing justice in police brutality cases. The nineties found him in the middle of just about every major Los Angeles trial. He...