A robber made the strategic mistake of robbing a motel that was hosting mixed martial artists competing in the World Jiu-Jitsue No-Gi Championship in Long Beach this week. The attempted robbery and fight with MMA experts was caught on the motel's security video. [ more › ] 
Google held a grand opening party last night at their new office space in the Frank Gehry designed “Binoculars Building” at 340 Main. Speakers included Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Councilman Bill Rosendahl and Susan Wojcicki of Google. Check out the pictures below to see the interior of the new building and the party!
Click here to watch the slide show full screen or here to see them individually!
The 100,000 square-foot campus will house 500 or so Googlers that were previously spread out in different buildings in Santa Monica. Office “perks” include a rock climbing wall, bicycle and surfboard “checkout”, a gym and an abundance of free food. Google likes their employees to eat their meals on campus at communal tables and “bounce around” ideas while doing so.
The new building layout is all about communal space – the old conference room in the center of the Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen binoculars is now a “game room” with a pool table, classic video games and all the latest Wii – Playstation – XBox games.
In addition to this campus, it has been rumored that Google has acquired an additional 75,000 square feet of property locally … and are looking for more.
Interested in working at Google? Check their online job listings by clicking here.
Google Venice Beach aka Google Los Angeles
340 Main Street
Venice Beach, California
90291
(Note: The pictures in the slideshow were taken while they were moving in – it will look a lot more hooked up when they are actually moved in!)
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The big story at Sundance this year was Kevin Smith’s announcement of the dawn of “Indie 2.0”—or at least it was if you ask Kevin Smith. Smith had pledged to follow the world premiere of his movie Red State by “pick[ing] my distributor in the room, auction-style." But instead he used his post-screening press conference to launch into a lengthy monologue about his years in the industry and the rising costs of marketing even the smallest mainstream release. “True independence,” he concluded, “isn’t making a film and selling it to some jackass.” Red State, as promised, went up for auction, but only for a few seconds; Smith’s $20 was the winning, and sole, bid. The only jackass he was interested in selling to was himself.
Birthdays only come around once a year – but this birthday comes around just once in a lifetime. On Friday, Nov. 11 or 11-11-11, Christina Honore will celebrate her 11th birthday at Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier. She will mark the unprecedented calendar event by blowing out the 11 candles on her birthday cake at 11:11 a.m. led by Inkie, Pacific Park's fun and loveable mascot.
After several months of searching Southern California for that perfect party location to mark the milestone, the Honore family knew that the special spot for the once in a lifetime birthday celebration would be held at Pacific Park's Seaside Pavilion. Pacific Park has been the location of choice for more than 6,000 birthday parties since opening in 1996.
"We looked at a number of places before taking a family trip to Pacific Park. The decision was totally Christina's," says her father, Derek Honore. "She said, 'Yes, this is right. This is where we should have my birthday!'"
Christina's guest list for the birthday party includes nearly 30 family members, friends, and many 6th grade classmates. She attends Maria Regina Catholic School in Gardena, Calif., and is a member of the student council, honor roll and volleyball team. She recently joined the academic decathlon team, book club and school newspaper. "She is such a sweet and humble child," adds Mr. Honore.
Pacific Park's over-the-ocean, seaside cabana birthday parties include unlimited ride wristbands for guests, party balloons and noisemakers among other festive items. A variety of delicious kid friendly menus are available including pizza, tacos, burritos, hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken tenders, accompanied by chips and beverages. Pacific Park will be adding a few birthday surprises of their own to make this a truly unique experience.
"When we first learned that this would be Christina's 11th birthday on 11-11-11 we wanted to make sure that the party was as special to her as the date is to her family and friends," says Jeff Klocke, director of marketing and sales at Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier. "Pacific Park is the perfect location for family fun birthday parties so it's even more significant when we can help celebrate such a milestone."
A child's birthday celebration is unmatched when hosted at Pacific Park...
The people who attend conventions catering to geeks—like the bustling celebration of video games, graphic novels, and anime that was last month's New York Comic Con—don't have the best reputations in the wider culture. Straight male devotees are generally portrayed as awkward, socially inept, and pervy, a strange hybrid of The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy and a subway flasher. The female geeks (if they are shown at all) don't come off as much better, seen either as weird, freaky, or awkward—think Charlyne Yi in Knocked Up and Zooey Deschanel in New Girl—or as overly sexualized cosplayers, like the perennially popular Slave Leia.
Paying for stuff with your phone sounds awesome until you stop to think about it. It seems like every major tech company, including Google, is touting the fact that we’ll soon be able to buy anything and everything by waving our phones against a pay pad. Wait a second: Why is this supposed to be any better than pulling out a credit card? It’s not faster, it’s not more convenient, and it’s not any safer. Plus, many phones—and most stores’ pay pads—don’t yet have the necessary “near-field communication” chips required for these sorts of transactions, so the whole idea is kind of a fantasy anyway.
This is an excerpt from a longer comic about winter 2009 when I spent Christmas eve in a shitty health clinic in the lower east side. Obviously I’m fine and I didn’t die. I don’t want to get into the details online, but I did just talk to Mike Dawson on TCJ Talkies about how my history of illness led to my discovery of comics and other such subjects, so give that a listen if you want.
also, I’ll be at MIX this weekend in Minneapolis! I’m tabling with Sparkplug and I’ll be doing a panel about failure (hopefully the importance of) on Sunday at 3:30 with Nic Breutzman, John Porcellino and Zak Sally.
Patient 1 wanted to kill someone. Normally even-tempered, the 63-year-old man found himself awaking with an uncontrolled anger and the desire to smash things. His violent impulses started after he began taking the cholesterol-lowering statin Lipitor and they vanished within two days of quitting the drug. Patient 2 developed a short fuse after he started on Zocar, another popular statin. The 59-year-old felt an impulse to kill his wife, and once tried, unsuccessfully, to do so. His violent tendencies subsided within a few weeks of stopping Zocar. Patient 3, a 46-year-old female, became unusually irritable while taking Lipitor, repeatedly blowing up at her husband for no reason. Like the others, her uncharacteristic behavior disappeared after she quit taking statins.
Try this experiment: Walk into the nearest wine shop and ask for an “everyday wine” recommendation. Refuse to give a price range, and see what the merchant suggests. My guess is you’re out 15 bucks. Critics seem to be pushing this price point as an appropriate range for “everyday wine”—Slate is as guilty as any publication—even though the phrase can’t possibly be taken literally. If you and your significant other were to drink five bottles of wine a week, at $15 per bottle, your annual wine outlay would approach $4,000. That’s more than the average family spends on groceries.
The Los Angeles Fire Department is on heightened alert over the next 24 hours, having declared Nov. 2 from 8 a.m. through 8 a.m. Nov. 3 a Red Flag Day.
Red Flag Days indicate weather conditions of wind speeds of 25 mph or more and humidity of 15 percent or less that could spark a brush fire.
According to the LAFD’s website, in an attempt to increase public safety, the Fire Department and Department of Transportation have created a program to remove illegally parked vehicles in posted locations within the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones.
This program was implemented with the assistance of the city council to remove vehicles that create a hazardous condition on Red Flag Days. As such, parking will be prohibited or limited on certain streets.
