HarmonQuest This August

Do you like Dan Harmon? Do you like Dungeons and Dragons? No, then stop reading. For those who do and like the realm of fantasy HarmonQuest is taking place over at The Cinefamily this August, Multiple nights of fantasy film screenings and live talks with Patton Oswalt, Chris Hardwick and other first-rate geeks. There is a night devoted to unicorns, so don't worry your pretty little horns. A live talk with Phil Tippet, the special effect guru who has been behind everything you love starts the proceedings. Dan Harmon will be there for multiple occasions to get in trouble with what he has to say and then immediately apologize for it.

Check out the full schedule Starts Thursday

Weekly What To Do: Don't Act Just Do

EUROPA REPORT           

                                                

Starts playing August 2, 2013 at the
Sundance Sunset in West Hollywood.

The Act of Killing
Start playing Friday, August 2nd
Downtown Independent

Jim Rugg's SUPERNERD

OPENING RECEPTION
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2
7 to 11pm 

Iam8bit

2147 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90026

Jim Rugg returns to show us all that his skills with notebooks have not faltered.

Held in tandem with
The Sketchbook Project
https://www.facebook.com/events/549027795155606/


Bleeding Metallics
Opening Reception  Friday, August 2nd
 7-10pm
Hero Complex Gallery
 2020 South Robertson Blvd.,
Studio D, Los Angeles, CA 90034


Robotic-themed art show this weekend

The Art & Making of SpongeBob SquarePants: Artist Panel & Signing
August 3, 2013
Opening Reception / Aug 3, 2:00PM - 5:00PM
$5 Admission at the door

You can check out the SpongeBob Exhibit still going on until Aug 11

Captured Aural Phantasy Theater's 
Comic Book Summer Camp Show

Sunday, August 4

                                7:30 pm doors open and dinner seating begins

                                8:30 pm show starts

El Cid

                                4212 W. Sunset Blvd.

                                Los Angeles, CA  90029

 

$10 at the door or at camp.bpt.me , www.capturedauralphantasy.com and www.elcidla.com

"To kick off this next run, we will present Comic Book Summer Camp on Sunday, August 4, a show that celebrates the season with live multimedia performances of summer-themed comic book stories, music and other pop-culture artifacts perfect for a warm night. Gather around the campfire and hear what’s been going on over summer vacation like surfin’ at Redondo Beach in 1967’s “Surf N’ Wheels” or Superboy two-timing Lois and Lana in the woods. In between, enjoy comedic bits, music, campfire songs, art and special surprises. Channeling our inner Meatball, we ask: “Are you ready for the summer?”


626 Night Market
Aug 3-4
Santa Anita Race Track
Front Paddock Gardens
285 W. Huntington Drive
Arcadia, CA 91007


The World’s Largest Cup of Boba Milk Tea makes it's debut.

Twelfth Night: The Superhero Edition
Starts Aug 3 11am
Actors Gang Theatre
9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232

"In  this actors‘ gang adaption, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night comes to life as your favorite superheroes play out the classic love triangles, disguises, and mistaken identities. Adapted and directed by Cynthia Ettinger, Twelfth Night: The Superhero Edition has big fun performances, music, dance and audience participation that delivers the timeless message of Twelfth Night, in this rollicking adaptation for children and adults alike... Admission is FREE! "

Glitch City Game Night

 
 

Scavenger Hunt Little Tokyo Thanks To CityRace Urban Adventures

The time

10am

The date

Sat Jul 27, 2013

The place

Little Tokyo



There is a place that this site writes about often. That place is Little Tokyo and one weekend this editor went on a quest of it. Though it only was a three hour event, it was as devastating as the the three-hour tour that had Gilligan and his friends lost on that damn island. There would be no Harlem Globe Trotters to play basketball against, but helpful citizens of Little Tokyo. The quest was done with sometimes photographer for the site Angello P. and myself as team Things To Do In LA. I did not know we could choose names before and looking back it would be team Gurren Lagann, watch anime to get that.

As the competition swelled to 23 teams and better names like Prometheus and Bob, an old reference to a Nickelodeon show, we knew on team Gurren Lagann the competition would be fierce. As soon as we were waking up to this new game we were handed packets, a blue answer sheet and the confidence of the CityRace Urban Adventures guy. Off we went reading our short, but sweet guide. First, we bustled over to the adjacent JACCC gardens and counted the stone lanterns. From there we were on a true adventure. An adventure of yelling at each other and poor math skills that cost us some points.

We hit the bonus points like Mario hits bricks. Pictures of our two-man team in awkward to less awkward positions filled my camera phone. Hello Kitties were held up. City workers were bothered and wrong statues were shot. We thought we were suppose to take a picture with four holy men, turns out the holy men we wanted weren't in front of a Buddhist temple.

The scavenger hunt would go on and what people might think of three hours as a long time, with a scavenger hunt is not always the case. We were lost on some clues, which some I have to say are very "little" Little Tokyo themed. A lack of awareness of the new business and features on Little Tokyo had me wanting. Stepping out to find out about a business that borders Little Tokyo lacked the flare if it was a traditional Japanese business.

Many local businesses were helpful enough with the clues if asked. Stepping into a local supermarket or the recently remembered online Anzen Hardware asking for the oldest retail business in Little Tokyo let you connect with the community. If not confuse it by having to explain what you were doing.

Did team Things To Do In LA win? No, not even close. Team Prometheus and Bob won with the highest possible score, including all the extra points from pictures. Team TTDILA did so bad we were third from the lowest. CityRace does score you at the end with a ceremony of the top ten teams with prizes and taking pictures. For team TTDILA it was a humbling affair that reminded me of how short a distance everything is in downtown. You can park your car and spend the whole day downtown. The new Grand Park looks great and the iconic LA Times building is always a sight.

CityRace Urban Adventures has more than just Little Tokyo to explore, check out their future hunts. Don't forget about their huge event, the Race/LA set for Saturday, October 19, 2013
Registration will begin in August. 

The Best Things to Do in Los Angeles: 1001 Ideas Review Are They Trying To Steal My Shtick

The Best Things to Do in Los Angeles: 1001 Ideas

From someone who worked on Jiro Dreams of Sushi comes a very very very big guide for things to do in Los Angeles. In a few sentences Joy Yoon breaks down different places, events and the fine eateries of LA in a book that I should probably be working on myself based on my sites names with added words.  Activities and places are broken down by chapter such as "The Great Outdoors" or "Only in L.A." and are broken down even more into sub-genres of similar events or places.

Smaller break downs let you gleam over a certain subject fast and easy. Take note of the Halloween Haunt section that captures all the major theme parks and haunts around LA for optimum scares in October. There's a taco guide, people-watching section, creepy, but people do it here, all right next together for a quick skim through.

Each topic gives a little info about the event or place, maybe a back story then notes it's location, phone number and web-site. It's Yelp written by one person with a few contributors. Joining Joy are some of LA's better known residents, not the biggest name celebrities, a few artists and musicians who live the life LA.

Joy's style is a mix of corny joke with a few insights about the place or event she may have experienced. There's not one chapter devoted to one place, it's only a few sentences and then onto the next one.

This is a guidebook to get ideas of LA over and to me a reminder about everything I've covered on the site. Going through page after page reminded me about writing for the site and all the different events to check out.

A book that has Galco's Soda Pop Stop hidden on the cover, in plain sight is a truly thoughtful guide to the city. For anyone who want to gain ideas about what to do in the city and doesn't just want to read this site it's a fine start for anything you may not want to miss.

My few complaints are simply some photos to be added and a online component where you can search the book even faster, a Kindle version, until the find things using the index.

Regular Show: Season 1 & Season 2, Superjail: Season Three Reviews

Regular Show: Season 1 & Season 2

This Blu-ray collection has been on the top of many people's want list for some time. Mordecai and Rigby are forever immortalized in a real collection of the first two seasons of the show where we slowly find out anything normal can go crazy for two bros who work at a park run by a lollipop man and a gumball machine. With co-workers of a Yeti who can skip, a fat man with green skin and a ghost with a hand coming out of it's head the show its anything but regular. A cartoon that blends funny moments of growing up with 80's culture and homages one wonders will the show ever get to the 90's. One hopes not as the music from the 80's does makes it's way into whatever montage or moment of mess-up Mordecai and Rigby get themselves into. There are countless moments of messing-up and finding away out for our bros is the best part of the show when the two aren't coming up with jingles that get stuck in your head.

A wide variety of extras including commentary tracks for all episodes and early concept materials including the Cal Arts animation form JG Quintel of Pops.

For those who love the 80's, sitcom send-ups that completely turn around into crazy weird moments and two friends who will instantly become forms of mimicry look no further for Regular Show is finally available for your splendor in an easy to buy disc format.

Superjail: Season Three

Another bizarre season of Superjail to mind warp your brain into the sickest possible animation on television in the US. There is probably no cartoon as vile or gross as Superjail on the air right now. 10 episodes will be more than enough to see the brutality of a jail run by a mad man with death and pain a constant barrage on your senses. Not for those who are squeamish.

Next Weekend Sundance Brings Films To LA Literally Next Weekend But That Could Get Confusing

A four-day film festival featuring films from Sundance called Next Weekend is coming. LA is lucky enough to get so much special attention when it comes to film and gets even luckier with Next Weekend filled with special screenings, panels and talks and workshops. Check out the selection of hard to find films in theaters here, they could be the start of huge careers and you'll be able to tell friends you saw it in theaters and simply not on your tablet screen.

Next Weekend
Aug 8-11
Multiple Locations


Many of the films look to be very depressing slices of life in America. American Movie is very depressing, so if you're feeling too happy or want someone to connect to humanity through film through human emotion you have a nice chance with this look at Sundance over a weekend.

Nintendo Comic-Con Swag Mario & Luigi Dream Team Pillow Case and Luigi Coin

 Mario & Luigi Dream Team Pillow Case, you could only get one by playing a demo of the game at the Nintendo Lounge.

 Luigi Coin, you could only get one for playing a demo of New Super Luigi U. It is forever encased in plastic, but looks at that stache shine.

LA Links: Gamble House Open Why?, Millennium Towers Are A Go, The Girl in the Tin Box

 

The Gamble House Tours
Thursday, August 1 – Sunday, August 18, 2013

Tuesdays, 12:15 pm and 12:45 pm;
Thursdays – Sundays, every half-hour from 11 am – 3 pm

The Gamble House, 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena, CA 91103

In the artsy-fartsy, hipster world of looking at things the Gamble house will have open tours in Pasadena starting Thursday.  Can't recommend this very much at all over the price and the lack of what you can see.

"The house and furnishings were designed by Charles and Henry Greene in 1908 for David and Mary Gamble of the Procter and Gamble Company. The house, which is a National Historic Landmark owned by the City of Pasadena and operated by the University of Southern California, is open for public tours"

It get weirder over what you can see 

"Please note that most of the first floor - entry hall, living room, dining room, den, and guest bedroom - will not be available for touring during this period due to floor conservation work."

Girl in a box

L.A. Times has quite the horrible story of a underage LA girl being held for sex and pot-farming.

An excerpt


On the rural property, which the girl knew as “the farm,” investigators found a metal box with holes in it. Spray painted on the outside was the first initial of the teenage girl’s name and inside was a decal that “depicted an animal skull surrounding the shadow image of a human skull with the logo ‘Bone Collector,’” according to the court documents.
Human hair was found inside, prosecutors said. The girl said she was kept in the box for a total of three days and was given water through a hose. The box was hoisted into the air and tilted at an angle so when water was poured inside it would wash the girl and clean human waste out of the box, court documents say.
Authorities said they also found a poem signed by the girl inside describing life in the box.

Millennium Towers

Two new eye sores are ready to go up and stab planes. In a unanimous vote carried out by the LA City Council and a promised signing by new Mayor Garcetti the two Millineium Towers will soon ruin traffic on the way to Hollywood. Caltrans has asked that towers not go up after huge traffic congestion concerns. Geologists from all over California are worried if the towers will stay up in an Earthquake, to which the city government flatly doesn't care. The city is moving ahead anyway to much public criticism of the project not really being needed for any reason.

Galco's Summer Soda Tasting 3 I Keep Enjoying The Sequels

Last Sunday, the third annual Summer Soda Tasting at Galco's Soda Pop Stop went down. A sequel in a series of annual soda tastings, an event very unique to LA's calendar. Sure, there's wine tastings all the time in LA, do you burp at them? The burps came. Oh, did they come and that is a pleasure you only get from drinking so much soda in an evening. As everyone at the event slowly built up their burp cache they were introduced to new sodas to try. A soda creation station that was much different than what everyone pictured in their head. Live music and the company of other drinkers of pop. Not to mention a large selection of hard to find different sodas a liquor to choose from.

Seeing so many at Galco's was showing LA's love for soda pop. From Root Bear to Peach to Banana to Vanilla there were so many flavors to dance on your tongue as you waited in line for another taste. Bundaberg from Australia was the first table of pop, Peachee from them was my favorite. You did have to pass by Mountain Valley water first, if you don't think water brand matters don't check out the entire section devoted to it at Galcos. Next we had Hippo sodas with it's fine line of carbonated drinks and a large mammal on it's label. Off to Americana soda, is there anything more American? If it took place at the Americana on the Fourth of July, perhaps. Next we had O-So with a grape and root beer flavor to try out. 

A simple, but ingenious system of colored balloons directed to where you could purchase the sodas you tasted in large quantities inside Galco's, they were flying off the shelves. Let's not forget Galco's new Cherry soda from it's White Rose line, to sweet for me, but guzzled by many in approval.

What grabbed many patrons eyes, and then their tongues was the Soda Creation Station. My thoughts about it drifted onto something futuristic, a friend thought of a soda jerk behind a counter mixing it up for you. No, this task was open to you the consumer. In the correct order; grab a glass bottle and pour carbonated soda into it until reaching a certain level indicated on the bottle. Then choose from up to 80 flavors of syrups, so your soda can mix Cotton Candy with Coconut or how about a Peach, Lemon and Blueberry? It's a simple pump system, 9 pumps all together and your out. Now cap it with an easy to use cap contraption. Then write down what you want to call your soda. The kids and adults there drank it up. It's 2.99 a bottle, plus CRV and tax. You can  recycle the bottles or keep it as reminder of the day you made your own soda.

Listen to the live music or maybe try out the Yelp booth's ring toss was what was left to do. I would like to see some growth, maybe food outside for sell or some soda based activities, like a soda race, shake it up and let a bottle fly or maybe something with the Mentos guys.

No matter, it still was a sophisticated soda saree of simple tastes that had you going, "mmmm" in delight, while burping every so often. Oh, how about a burping contest next year???!!!!

Benefiting the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition all proceeds from the event went to them.

Game Reminder: Turbo: Super Stunt Squad

Turbo: Super Stunt Squad

If you've ever wanted to race as a snail in an extreme way Hollywood and video games will take you there.

"Turbo: Super Stunt Squad is a high-velocity action racing game featuring the super-charged crew of characters from the film. Each playable character has their own signature street style and tricked-out skills which will come in handy when showing-off and earning respect with jumps, drifts, grinds, flips, and other stunt moves. Expert skills will also prove useful to earn power-ups, customize your character, discover shortcuts, and win the race in the larger-than-life environments of Turbo."

On all major systems