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Why Does Spotify Keep Ripping People Off?

Ten dollars a month is a small price to pay for practically every piece of recorded music except The Beatles. Which is why, late last year, I signed up for Spotify. Only two months in, however, I was out, and feeling like I'd been ripped off. Turns out I'm not the only one. See also: What Are You ... More >>

How Wall Street and Washington Conspired to Spike Gas Prices

By Pete Kotz On July 11, 2008, the price of oil rose to $147 per barrel, a record high. Gas stations engaged in hot pursuit as the price of a gallon rocketed past $4. All hell was about to break loose. The country's largest banks had already begun to implode through arrogance and ineptitude. Now t ... More >>

L.A. Geeks Sue Google Over Bad Android Apps

If it weren't for geeks keeping tech companies honest we'd still be using Windows 95 and paying AOL for dial-up. Two L.A. men, Dodd Harris and Stephen Sabatino, are seeking class-action status for a suit against Google. Their issue? The duo claims that some Google Android phone apps don't work, an ... More >>

L.A. City Councilman Dennis Zine, in Final Moments Before Budget Passage: What About Cutting $150 Million in City-Worker Bonuses?

WikipediaExcuse the councilman's Dr. Evilness; he's got your money in mind.​City Councilman Dennis Zine got 99 problems, but a blind eye to L.A.'s extravagant set of city-worker privileges ain't one. His op-ed in the LA Daily News this morning calls out his fellow politicians for gutting cruci ... More >>

Alexia Tsotsis, LA Weekly Alum, Too Snarky for Moviefone/AOL/Huffington: High Five!

FacebookAlexia Tsotsis, scheming up snark like it's her job​So this is what happens when the snark training at Village Voice Media leads to a responsible career at an uncool corporation. It's just as we thought! One receives stern, pent-up (but rose-smelling) letters from the mother ship, advi ... More >>

Hey, L.A.: If You Want Your Future Kid to Have the Best Birthday Ever, Have Sex. Right Now.

​There's about to be a pretty sweet-lookin' day on the calendar, if you hadn't noticed: November 11, 2011, or 11-11-11. Adorable, right?! It's like a nice little row of golf flags, or a line of Santa Monica palm trees on a windy day, or wilty grass, or something. It is, in fact, so sweet-look ... More >>

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON IS A BLOODY GENIUS

AOL Buys Huffington Post; L.A.'s Arianna Huffington to Head up New Merger of AOL-Post Content

Arianna On Line = AOL.​In our coverage of AOL's hyper-local news sites called Patch, we indicated the company's leadership might not entirely get how online news works or makes money. Well, maybe they're starting to get it, because AOL just purchased one of the hottest properties in the world ... More >>

Said Jaziri, Controversial Muslim Cleric, Caught After Allegedly Entering U.S. Illegally East of San Diego

YouTubeSaid Jaziri.​Said Jaziri, a controversial Islamic cleric who had been deported to Tunisia from Canada, was caught east of San Diego after he was allegedly smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. Jaziri was a Montreal imam who led ... More >>

Gang Homicide In Echo Park: 18-Year-Old Cesar Guerrero 'Could Have Just Stayed Home For Christmas'

LA CurbedEcho Park hosted a gang shoot-out on Christmas Day​Updated after the jump: Is Echo Park the new Venice -- where art meets crime? The Weekly asks the gentrification question; police officers and a bar manager weigh in. Originally posted at 11:58 a.m. Here's one thing AOL Patch could ... More >>

L.A. Porn Magnate Larry Flynt Gets Behind WikiLeaks And Julian Assange With $50,000 Donation

Everyday Larry's Hustlin.'​Ah Larry Flynt, that maligned champion of First Amendment rights. In case you didn't see the biopic, he's the guy who made America safe for free speech by fighting for his right to to get deeply gynecological in-print. If it weren't for his Hustler magazine and his ... More >>

Worst (AKA Best) Screen Moments Of Leslie Nielsen, Pioneer Of 'So Stupid It's Funny' Slapstick

IMBDThanks to "Scary Movie 3," Leslie Nielsen was livin' large up to the end​In an effort to shrine a prolific Hollywood icon who got off on being retarded -- does it get any worse than doing the "Scary Movie" franchise in your late 70s? -- everyone's trying their damned-est to come up with Le ... More >>

L.A. Radio Personality Michael Linder To Start Venice-Centric Internet Station, Following Layoffs At KABC And KNX

KVB.fmFinally -- a voice for stoned skater kids and funnel cakes​Internet-only news outlets Yo! Venice! and AOL Patch's fluffy Venice branch are about to have some friendly competition on the neighborhood news watch. "If Venice Patch was a print newspaper, it'd be more of a shopper," says L.A ... More >>

L.A. Plumbers Bare More Than Crack In Scandalous Wall Calendar -- But Who's Drooling

LR Services PlumbingOnly in Los Angeles​Self-proclaimed "family business" LR Services Plumbing -- an L.A. crew that prides itself on "giving back to the community" -- is apparently also interested in giving back to the city's healthy population of desperate housewives. President Leonard Redwa ... More >>

Marcia Parker, AOL Patch's West Coast Honcho, Says The News Site Will Address L.A.'s Diversity By Using Google Translate

Marcia Parker, AOL Patch's West Coast editorial director.​In the last few months AOL's "hyper-local" news sites called Patch have been hard to ignore. Not only have they moved into some of Los Angeles County's more-affluent communities, but they've been hiring journalists at a time when some o ... More >>

BEST PICKLED MEMORY

Patch, the WalMart of News?

AOL takes on longtime local bloggers with its hyperlocal news sites in Los Angeles

AOL Patch Plagiarizes Content From L.A. Blogger Alissa Walker, No Apology

​Corrected, with note after the jump. This was bound to happen: AOL Patch, the series of hyper-local news sites in Los Angeles and across the land, has been caught ripping off content. If that's not bad enough, the regional editor didn't apologize to the pilfered author directly, instead asking f ... More >>

Barbara Boxer And Carly Fiorina In A Dead Heat For U.S. Senate

Barbara Boxer.​A new poll this week finds that the mighty Barbara Boxer is in a real race for U.S. Senate: She's in a statistical dead heat with businesswoman and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina, according to Rasmussen Reports. The poll has Democratic Sen. Boxer leading 44 percent to Fior ... More >>

Los Angeles Is One of the Worst Places To Live, According to Web Site For Geezers

​ Los Angeles is ranked the 6th worst place to live in the country, according to a study by AOL's Wallet Pop. The website compiled a list of the top 10 worst cities to live in the country and using factors such as unemployment rate, pollution, crime, health data and other factors that would ma ... More >>

Plate Spinning: Listings From the Past Week

Some food for thought from local, national and international news sources from this past week: -- Should I Move to France? (28 Questions to Ask Yourself) [David Lebovitz] -- Wendy's pulls disco CD from kid's meals because of "racy" Donna Summer lyrics. So now they can just go home and listen to ... More >>

Don't Supersize Me: Man Eating Sandwich Eating Man

NC Times​ There's comfort food, and then there are utilitarian victuals. At Caioti Pizza Cafe in Studio City, a legendary salad made with the restaurant's Maternity Salad Dressing supposedly helps induce labor for expectant or overdue moms. Now, thanks to an incidental discovery by Chad Ettmue ... More >>

It Doesn't Take Much For Feds To Access Your Facebook Page (But That Could Change)

​Authorities can get all up in your Facebook account with relative ease, so a consortium of companies that includes Google, Santa Monica-based AOL and the ACLU is lobbying congress to enact legislation that will protect the privacy of everyday information stored in "the cloud." The Digital Du ... More >>

Mega-Telethon Broadcasting From L.A., Elsewhere

CNNAnderson Cooper.​A Friday telethon to raise money for the victims of last week's earthquake in Haiti will be broadcast from Los Angeles, New York, London and Haiti, organizers announced Thursday. It will be everywhere: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, BET, The CW, HBO, MTV, VH1, CMT, PBS, TNT, Show ... More >>

In the Boardroom With Mahalo's Jason Calacanis

L.A.'s brash tech superstar

Dot-Com Again? Behind the Scenes of L.A.'s "Twiistup" Networking Phenomenon

Geek meets tech socialite and parties like it's 1997

G-Funk Week Concluded: 10 Qualities Highly Sought After in a Regulator As Gleaned From Warren G & Nate Dogg's "Regulate"

1. Not being just any geek off the streets How To Avoid Being A "Geek Off the Streets: Learn how to how be to handy with the steel and earn your keep. Best Models to Emulate: Gay steel workers, Andrew Carnegie, Iron Man 2. Not Tweaking When You See a Car Full of Girls How To Avoid Tweaking ... More >>

Celebs to the Slaughter

Why Arianna’s Blog Blows

Photos of Ghosts

Dumb and Dumberer

Why the FCC shouldn’t consolidate without concessions

The Sundance Suckers

They've got to be stupid to be smart

The Pope on Hope

The Untold Story

How corporate takeovers make the media less curious

2001 In Review

Writing Is Fighting

Sparring for credit on Ali

Stink Bomb

Hector Schechner strikes back

Change in the Weather

Off the sequence

Oldies But Goodies

The television event

Is the Corpse Smelly Yet?

Independent music in 2001

Democrats: No More Whining

And a side order of grilled Gephardt, please

Independent Music’s Right to Fight

The record industry sued Napster and has just inhaled MP3.com. Is there a future for music on the Internet? Analog Pussy thought so... Then they got a scary e-mail...

Pandora’s Box

Napster unleashes whole new Net ball game

From Lollapalooza to IPO

Festival founder Marc Geiger bets on online music

Was It Good for You Too?

Who got screwed when Time-Warner jumped into bedwith AOL?

Control Freak-Alt-Delete

Reading the Microsoft Findings of Fact as a riveting novel

Sonic Surfers

Web radio: Freedom of choice is just a keystroke away

Teenage Wasteland

The Virtual Driveway

Net Edibles

Chew on these fast facts and estimates

Spam:

It's Not Just for Dinner Anymore