Lindsay William-Ross

A Nov. 2010 street art take on the California state flag (Photo by Lord Jim via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr) We're broke at home and in the government's coffers, and we're either on fire or sliding down our muddy hillsides. Surf's up...and so is immigration. All in all, life in California is...kinda so-so. Only 39 per cent of people say that the great state of California is still pretty great, and...

In today's OMGTGIF Extra, Extra we've got the HuffPo on their team of bloggers, TV tackling some real-life headline news, LAUSD students walking out, a food truck opening up a permanent stop, and more. Plus: Keep up with us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter: @LAist @LAistFood @LAistSports.

Photo by Kelly Ida Scope via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Congratulations, Lakers fans! In a GQ list of the "Worst Sports Fans in America," you have been deemed "Starfuckers." The magazine says devotees to the NBA's purple-and-gold team are "fair weather," because they abandoned the team when Magic Johnson left in 1991, and did the same in 2004 when Shaquille O'Neal moved on. Plus, says the magazine, the crowd at Staples...

Burnett (via LASD) Thanks to almost a dozen Metro Green Line passengers, a teenage girl was able to evade an attempted kidnapping from the South Avalon station platform yesterday. The incident took place at shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday, says the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Transit Services South Bureau, and a suspect was detained soon after at the Imperial Wilmington Blue Line. The victim, however, has not contacted the authorities. Passengers on the platform...

PinkMoose/Flickr Using "xxx" as a handy euphemism or stand-in term for "adult-oriented" material is a contemporary common practice, and today could be the day that "xxx" goes to the web. Well, there's plenty of "xxx" on the web already, but this is a specific decision that is being made today in San Francisco to create the ".xxx" domain to readily identify "mature" content on the 'net. A vote is slated for today by The...

OMGLOLWTF! Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Harvey Giss thinks "[p]eople don't have a sense of humor anymore," when it comes to kidding around about the Ku Klux Klan, according to the LA Times. Details of an off-the-record discussion between Giss and attorneys from July 2010 are surfacing, and yesterday the judge "was publicly admonished" by the state's Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP). Per the CJP's release, Giss joined a discussion about a possible...

Photo by ˜db˜ via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Local graffiti artist Cristian Gheorghiu, known by his "tag" name "Smear," was arrested yesterday after Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies conducted a search of his home on Tuesday. Gheorghiu is the focus of a unique injunction being sought by City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who wants to bar the artist from selling his artwork that bears his tagging name. Deputies "seized markers, stickers, wheat-paste...

The Los Angeles Police Department needs your help, but we're going to warn you: You might not want to admit you know this guy. A local preschool has surveillance tapes from earlier this month showing a naked man inside the facility. On the tapes, the nude intruder "is shown parading around for several minutes while engaging in strange behavior of a sexual nature," describe the LAPD. Oddly enough, the school says they had "a...

55-year-old Robert Bedolla Ambriz of Anaheim was convicted this week of 11 criminal counts of sex and lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, reports the OC Register. Ambriz's m.o. was to "lure" young boys into his apartment by offering them potato chips, toys, and cigarettes, then showing them pornographic videos and ultimately sexually assaulting them. One of Ambriz's victims was nine years old, and mentally disabled. Although Ambriz pleaded not guilty, he was...

Photo by longhorndave via Flickr There's gonna be a Wine Riot soon, but rather than duck for cover, this is one melee you might want to dive into. This wine tasting event will have you slinging some grape juice at the end of the month for its inaugural LA visit as part of a 5-city national tour. Aimed at thrilling attendees with all their five senses, Second Glass' Wine Riot is billed as "a...

Courtesy the LA County Sheriff's Department Well, we can help you with that. Mel Gibson went to the El Segundo Police Department last night to evade "the prying cameras of the paparazzi," so he could "be fingerprinted and booked in connection with his misdemeanor battery conviction," reports LA Now. He got there at around 9:30 p.m. and was out about a half-hour later. Gibson needed to be fingerprinted as part of his "no contest"...

Mike Mohill (via Glendale Votes) It began last week during a Glendale City Council meeting, when incumbent candidate John Drayman announced to the room that his opponent, candidate Mike Mohill, "had been arrested three times, twice in the 1980s for soliciting lewd acts in a public place," according to the Advocate. It took a few days, but Mohill offered up the ultimate comeback at last night's meeting, says Montrose Patch, first admitting that he...