Some pages from my mini are up on Flickr. I’m working on some other projects right now (I swear!), but they’re currently on deep background. My main act for today, though, was surviving that earthquake. Mission accomplished.
A few days ago I added a ton of new feeds to my reader, one of which was Grist. I used to browse Grist for SuperVegan story ideas and the like, and it’s pretty informative and well-written and etc. but I always found their submissions guidelines page to be far wittier than any of the copy they pump out each day. They self-identify as “gloom and doom with a sense of humor.” I mean… I guess it’s true (kind of sometimes). There’s just no bite.
I mentioned Adrian Grenier’s upcoming project, The Green Life, back in January, but the latest scoop is that the show — billed as a makeover series wherein Grenier and “his entourage” help everyday folk go green — has been renamed Alter Eco and will premiere in June.According to LAist, one of the first renovations on the show will be the Tokio Lounge, which is being transformed into Ecco, “Hollywood’s first ecofriendly lounge.”
Expected to open in July, the new lounge will feature an organic menu, eco-friendly cement (waste materials added to pack cement), an LED lighting system, waterless urinals and air pressure toilets. Power for the club will be supplied by the LA DWP’s Green Power resources.
The first full Alter Eco episode will premiere on Planet Green Monday, June 9, at 9 p.m. (ET/PT). But you can catch a sneak peek on Planet Green’s launch night June 4 at 10 p.m.
I understand the need for celebrity coverage and page views… But the blogger can’t even crack one little joke about Grenier being famous for playing an empty-headed symbol of bicoastal excess — and that this show will copy that structure, following Adrian and his three friends around L.A.? This guy made out with Paris Hilton for Christ’s sake!
Is there no refuge from this greenwashed reblogged press release crap? Or is everyone genuinely this excited about Adrian Grenier introducing denim insulation and LED lighting to good, dumb cable-watching Americans? Is this the inescapable price we pay for trying to make people care about things: must use pretty faces and familiar names? But do we also have to take them seriously??
This clearly raises many terrible rhetorical questions. And I was having such a nice afternoon!
Roommates.com felt the lengthening arm of the law this week when the 9th circuit pinched them for discrimination in a suit brought by (who else?) the San Fernando Valley. The site provides a matching service in which potential roomies have the option of requesting matches with particular genitals and proclivities (more or less).
I feel like this is akin to telling a potential employer your age and then slapping them with a discrimination suit since they aren’t allowed to ask. Roommates.com provides no actual housing service, just a social matching one, not to mention that you can decline to complete any of the “discriminatory” fields.
OkCupid, you guys are totally next. Get rid of those damn drop-down menus, though, and everything will probably be fine.
Apparently “weird man” Bob Dylan has been hanging around an unnamed Calabasas elementary school and scaring the young children (including his own grandson, Jakob?) with his guitar–and maybe also with that hat.
Considering these are the kinds of children who will, in a few short years, be hanging out at the Commons and listening to Incubus (and a few short years later be kicked out of the Commons for smoking cigarettes and still listening to Incubus), it’s not too surprising that Dylan is too “weird” for them. That being said, I think he’s a little too weird for me, too.
Anyway, this kind of de facto music class is an interesting move on the part of the Las Virgines School District. I look forward to little scion Jakob Dylan’s progression through the system: perhaps the 2017 CHS musical will be The Times They Are A-Changin’? They could get the rights super-cheap–you know how they roll in C-town.
Sandra Tsing Loh is a pretty funny lady; I especially like her piece on the This American Life Best-of compilation, Lies, Sissies & Fiascos – it’s pretty funny! But this stuff is even funnier.
Sandra, along with fellow LA parent Christie Mellor, is organizing martini playdates for parents interested in sending their little possibly-genius children to magnet schools in Los Angeles.
The parents just don’t know where to start! Test baby Benedict in vitro or wait it out to start a 5 a.m. pre-preschool practice face puzzle regimen circa age 2.7? And speaking of those numbers - how do those even work? If baby Cabana Anne is .2% Cherokee princess, do you multiply that to her 10 white points or to the total score?
As I recall, the hard part was withstanding the long waiting lists, not adding up your potential points. If you’re that confused by this stuff, I hope you’re sure about Baby Einstein’s IQ score. Then again, as the child of parents who were at one time interested in sending their little possibly-genius child to magnet schools in Los Angeles, I can’t help but wonder how my parents would’ve felt about these events 20 years ago. They don’t drink much, so a tasty cocktail or two might’ve been enough liquid courage to save me six years of half-assed public schooling on illegal steroids.
That’s like a lifetime in to-and-from school bus ride hours. Damn you, Sandra.
+ LA hospitals dumping discharged patients on Skid Row: Some are homeless — and some aren’t! And they wonder why everyone knows Los Angelinos are idiots.
+ Sixapart launches Vox: Better switch over those LJ accounts, kiddies.
+ Gay marriage in NJ: Maybe Jersey isn’t worthless after all. Who knew?
+ Free papers flood subway: But the New York Press sure is! (Just kidding maybe!)