Archive for November, 2006
Tuesday, November 21st, 2006
Festival Of Lights Bike Night
Putting aside that it’s not even “officially” the holiday season yet, and also putting aside that every other night of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Festival of Lights cyclists are categorically banned from enjoying the public light show, last night was the one-night-only bone thrown by LADWP and city officials to us [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in biking by Will
Monday, November 20th, 2006
How Not To Be A Bartender
So yesterday Susan and I head downtown to the Laemmle theaters on Fig north of Fourth to catch a matinee of “Casino Royale.” Unaccustomed to such gridlock-less convenience, we found ourselves with more than a half-hour before showtime and so went for a brief exploration of the Marriott Hotel, which sits atop the subterranean theaterplex.
Inside [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in idiots by Will
Sunday, November 19th, 2006
He’s Going In or El Está Entrando
Above in my hands I hold a book I’ve had in my possession for more than seven years. Scanning my bookshelf a few days ago for something new to read — in English— I spied it jammed in between a biography of Theodore Roosevelt and a book of poetry and essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in education by Will
Saturday, November 18th, 2006
Dam Alabam
I won’t go into the reasons behind my long-distance fanaticism other than it was a combination of my mother being an alum and my unconditional love of Coach Bear Bryant that made me a University of Alabama football fan from an early age, and that explains why if there’s one game each football season you [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in sports by Will
Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
1923
Regulars or those with some familiarity with this blog or friends and visitors to the house who’ve obliged me when I’ve bid them enter the “museum” of artifacts I’ve collected during various excavations know that the backyard of our house has yielded up everything from a silver-plated teaspoon from the Beverly Hilton to an [...]
No Comments » - Posted in backyarchaeology by Will
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
Beach & Moan
L.A. Observed’s esteemed Malibu correspondent Veronique de Turenne has had it up to her hood ornaments with the legions of Lycra-clad Lance wannabe’s who in teeming masses launch forth rides of epic distances up and down her seaside.
Certainly she qualifies her aggravation by expressing not only a personal readiness to yield for cyclists but also [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in biking, updated by Will
Monday, November 13th, 2006
Veterans Day + 2
So a few weeks ago in hopes of getting it transcribed in time for this past weekend’s Veterans Day, I went diving through the archives of my Pasadena Weekly days and wouldn’t you know they’re just about complete except I’m missing the issue that had one thing I was looking for: a feature article I [...]
No Comments » - Posted in history, writing by Will
Monday, November 13th, 2006
Feeling Bookish
Never let it be said I’m quick on the draw. As if any further proof is needed for how glacially I can move around the internest, 30 days ago — as in One Score & Ten More; as in a full lunar cycle; as in a month! — my favorite Pittsburgh-based grad student Carolyn Kellogg [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Memes, books by Will
Friday, November 10th, 2006
Not This Time
A visit to Death Valley this time of year had become a tradition of sorts with me. Well, if not a tradition then at least a streak, with last year’s Veterans Day weekend trip being the “three-peat.” But the string of consecutive November visits to one of my favorite places on earth was drawn to [...]
No Comments » - Posted in reality by Will
Thursday, November 9th, 2006
Tossing Lost
During the first season of Lost, I gave up only several episodes into it. Man did it open strong and really grab hold of me, but then the show got all heavy into flashback-fever and teasing us with strange monsters that would quickly drop off the scriptwriter’s radar and, well (sorry)… it lost me.
Typically when [...]
