Best Buy is reportedly keeping Napster's Los Angeles staff and CEO Chris Gorog as well. The last time Best Buy made a major investment into the music business, it didn't go so well. "Its $700 million purchase of Musicland/Sam Goody stores in 2000, timed just as the music retail business began an 8-year-slide," the Silicon Alley Insider reported. But how well are digital music subscription services doing?......

I fell in love with Porto's Bakery long before I ever actually visited one of their Glendale or Burbank bakeries -- they've always been our go-to place for catered meals at work. It only took one bite of one of their famous potato balls to convince me that this was a place I HAD to visit. But even though I drive by the Burbank location almost every weekend on my way to Costco or......

Just in time for the release one of the most anticipated titles for the Wii this year, the folks over at Nintendo are staging a regional tournament for fans of Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the game that just recently shattered Wii sales records in Japan. According to our sources, the first 256 people who show up at the Orpheum theater downtown will have a chance to fight to the finish in an attempt to......

Procrastinating gift givers everywhere can stop at their local Best Buy to grab a CD from a plethora of music superstars and avoid the dreaded regifting faux pas. The holidays have always been a time when record labels ramp up their releases to make a pretty penny off of shoppers. Don’t know what to get your kid? Take your pick of shiny round plastic discs with a fancied up singer on the front. Of course......

LAist Featured Photos contributer Jonathan Alcorn caught this scene in Compton on Saturday: "In an effort to reduce violence, 156 guns were collected by Los Angeles County Sheriff's representatives in Compton during the first three days of an annual exchange program, officials said today. People turning in guns to sheriff's personnel receive $50 gift cards for use at Best Buy, Home Depot, Ralphs or Target. Gift cards worth $100 were given for each of......

Want a Wii this holiday season? Well toooooo fuckin bad. The best you can hope for is a rain check certificate that will entitle you to a console at some point in January. Even the Wii people themselves are now admitting what a mess they've made of manufacturing this thing. Two members of a terrorist cell have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to wage war: the splinter group was "was poised to attack......

You know you're gonna do it. Don't lie. You're gonna be there in the dark, in the cold, along with all your friends and neighbors standing in line like a dope at 4:50am outside some Big Box store or a mall waiting for some kid to unlock the door so you can buy a $300 plasma tv or a $5 dvd player. It's America and no matter how cool we think we are, we're......

HIM - "Passion's Killing Floor" Lydia Lunch @ Largo HIM, Bleeding Through @ Orpheum The Roots, Erykah Badu, Keb Mo, Taj Mahal, Cory Chisel @ The Wiltern Film School, Division Day, Eulogies @ Echoplex Annuals, Manchester Orchestra @ Troubadour Jeff Buckley Tribute @ Key Club The Goo Goo Dolls @ Best Buy - West LA Monsters Are Waiting, Sabertooth Tiger, So So So, Aztlan Underground @ The Scene......

Once again, MySpace is copying the people who copied them copying Friendster better. Seeing the success of Facebook's ability to have widgets, MySpace and Google are teaming up to do something similar. More fire likely. Just like in 2003 where the wildfires struck, had a week lull and hit hard again the first week of November, firefighters are currently preparing for the return of the Santa Anas, expected to start tomorrow night. High heels......

Today brought on two major changes for Sherman Oaks. Some are cheering, some are jeering. The first is the opening of the 405 on-ramp just south of Valley's busiest intersection of Ventura/Sepulveda at Greenleaf Street. This means no more traveling a couple miles to Burbank Blvd. to get on the 405 North and possibly a tiny bit less congestion. The second and controversial neighborhood newbie (to some) is the grand opening of Best Buy on......

No stadium show experience is complete without a snafu at Will Call. And this is how this story begins. Sure it was nice to see Ray Liotta standing next to me at Window 4, but not even the loop of Henry Hill voiceover playing in my head could soften the blow of a forty minute wait at Window 5. Eventually security arrived and ushered us to our seats. That’s a first. After a twenty......

Man, didn't you just love "Freaks and Geeks"? Weren't you pissed when it got cancelled, almost as pissed as you were when they cancelled "Arrested Development"? Or, if you discovered it post-axe, weren't you pissed there was only one season to savor on DVD? But then The Forty-Year-Old Virgin came out and was really funny and did really well at the box office, and you were still pissed about "Freaks and Geeks", but at......

In what was probably the least gross competitive eating event I have ever seen, James Donohue destroyed the rest of the field at this morning’s CHiPs DVD Release/Donut-Eating Contest. Donohue inhaled 18 donuts before anyone else could finish as many as a dozen (and I’m talking full-sized glazed donuts, too, not the tiny, little powdered sugar motherscratchers.) CHiPs star, Erik Estrada, was on-hand to referee the whole affair but his services were barely needed......

Ever had one of those fever dreams where you enter a donut-eating contest, win $2500 and meet one of the original Latino superstars Erik Estrada all at the same time? Well, tomorrow that dream can be made real. In honor of the release of CHiPs: The Complete First Season, Frank “Ponch” Poncarello will be hosting a donut-eating contest at Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood. A portable DVD player and a signed copy of the DVD......

The Wherehouse, Licorice Pizza, Rhino, Tower, Moby Disc, Aron's, Penny Lane, db Coopers... and now you can add Echo Park's Sea Level to the list of once-essential local record stores that have thrown in the towel. The LA Times Buzz Bands blog has the scoop: the independent outlet that in 5 1/2 years had become a locus for Los Angeles' Eastside music scene, will close June 30, owner Todd Clifford said. "It's not so......

Arcade Fire Neon Bible Merge Records Every once in a while a cd will come along that you can't get out of your head. You take it with you to the car, you bring it into the shower with you, and hey look at that there it is playing in your iPod. Arcade Fire's first album was like that, Funeral. Beware though, Neon Bible is going to cost you. It's such a dynamically beautiful......

- Chandler family may buy back LA Times - AP - That kid to took the salad dressing jar into the mens room and topped it off with his own special sauce, allegedly? That's his mug shot - Smoking Gun - E!'s Giuliana DePandi to marry game show contestant (which, yes, is an upgrade from Jerry O'Connell) - E! Online - Asian lawyer from Nor Cal wins Survivor - Palm Beach Post - Even......

There were Sherman Oaks residents against Best Buy. There's Sunland-Tujunga residents against Home Depot. Enter Burbank Equestrians. According to Daily News, Whole Foods wants to build a store at 901 W. Alameda at Main Street, which is in the Ranch Equestrian District of the city. The increased traffic that would affect equestrian owners/riders and the general "fit" of its location is being opposed as the Planning Board voted 4-1 against the market. The city suggests......

Like Santa (pictured) LAist knows who's naughty and who's nice. We also know that many of you probably didn't check in with your favorite city blog since Wednesday, so here's some highlights of what we busted with while you were scarfing stuffing. - How To Handle Your Horndog Spouse - A montage of the most Thankful People Alive - Tom Waits has a new Box Set out for your ass - How To Add......

Winners: Best Buy, Circuit City, Retailers. Losers: People who patiently stood in line as others cut in front of them. Lesson: The holiday season is about giving, family, charity and doing it online.......

- "I think that blogs should die a sudden death," Jared Leto said while wearing mascara. - Best Week Ever - "I'm not sure I can stomach continuing to read National Review." - The Corner - The mid-term election has hit an all-time low when Al Franken's face is photoshopped on the body of a man wearing adult diapers. - Think Progress - AZ GOP Congressman one of the Foleyish men with a Page Problem?......

Interested in a shiny new High Def DVD player but don’t know what format to get? Confused about the quality of HD DVD versus Blu Ray DVD? Afraid to go into your local Best Buy and see what all the fuss is about and ask the twelve-year-old kid that works there a question? We don’t blame you at all. To get the scoop on at least one of the competing formats, HD DVD, you......

They've dressed up in blue shirts and khakis and started helping people at Best Buy, they pretended to be U2 playing on a roof, and now they've decided to go to a Home Depot and either stand still for 5 minutes or move in super-slow-motion. People thought they were hallucinating. Keep up the good work NY, but the Yankees still suck.......

How can't you delight in the glee of a young man meeting one of his celebrity heroes? Yesterday a teen from West LA went to his local Best Buy on Friday and stood in line for hours with his friends. He pre-ordered the cd, as was instructed, and after 6 hours of waiting, he got to meet the heiress, and thanks to MySpace, we now have this report. I walk up in disbelief and......

+ Apple to staff Best Buy? The electronics giant has a lot of things going for it -- decent prices, good selection, excellent extended warranties -- so imagine if the computer sales staff was trained and managed by Apple? If it's anything as good as the Genius Bar at the Grove's Mac store, it could run Circuit City right out of town. + The LA Times are in Greenland covering global warming and the......

Sorry for the short notice, but with a guy like Chappelle you never quite know where he'll pop up...or when. Hell we've been waiting for him to re-appear on Comedy Central for years now. But Los Angelenos, have no fear -- Rick James' favorite stoner is going to be at the Culver City Best Buy today at 3pm to sign his critically acclaimed "Block Party" DVD. Last night the comedian made a surprise appearance......

The Orange County wildfires continue to burn in the Cleveland National Forest. Firefighers say they're making progress; more than 500 are on the scene. But the region's red flag conditions continue. Authorities have issued a public health alert for the smoke in OC and in Long Beach too. A Burbank man was sentenced to a year in jail for sitting outside a Best Buy collecting cash for Katrina victims about two weeks after the......

If you were extremely lucky last Tuesday, you were able to get your hands on something proving to be more elusive than the fabled "Golden Tickets": an Xbox 360. LAist scoured the Southland in search of one, but we were met with closed doors, shaking heads, and empty packing crates at every turn. It was like Cabbage Patch Kids, all over again. Although we don't think people were robbed at gunpoint for Cabbage Patch......

With the holidays all around us, LAist has noticed that some people aren't fully embracing the "treat your fellow man respectfully and with love" concept. And so, we decided to take advantage of the stress and the chaos and the ill-will around town by seeing just how many annoyed dashboard notes we could elicit by parking in two spaces at once, too close to the driver's side doors, at awkward angles, double-parking and a......

When it was being built, Hollywood & Highland was the source of much excitement in its neighborhood. As LA's #1 tourist destination and #1 embarrassment, Hollywood Boulevard was in desperate need of some revitalization. And H&H looked to be just the shot in the arm the area needed. For locals, one of the more promising prospects of the new mall was its planned state of the art multiplex, an offshoot of the world-famous Chinese......