Local music blogger, Kevin Cogill, 27, at Antiquiet streamed nine unreleased Guns N' Roses songs from the album Chinese Democracy back in June. It was a pretty big deal: fans have been waiting for this album for about 14 years now. That excitement led to so much traffic, his site crashed. Then the FBI got involved (and many media outlets), who he has been in touch with since the whole thing started. But this morning......

After hearing about music blogger Kevin Bronson leaving the paper amid the many staff cuts, we find out another great blogger is slated to leave. Jesus Sanchez was one of the paper's online reporting staff and has been writing at LA Now this past year. "I'm not sure what it means when the breaking-news blogger is laid off at a time when Blogging Will Be The Paper's One And Only Salvation. Hrmph," snapped one commenter.......

Photo of the 605 Freeway by billaday via Flickr It's about time. As of today, NYC Streets Renaissance's StreetsBlog has officially franchised out to our city, that is, you know, duhhhh, full of streets and the love and hate of them. NYC Blogger Aaron Naparstek welcomes the LA Editor and so do we! LA.Streetsblog is edited and run by Damien Newton, formerly the New Jersey Coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and a recent......

Scientology centers around the world were targeted by a mass protest yesterday organized by an anonymous group called, simply enough, "Anonymous". Members refer to themselves only as "Anon" or "Legion". Protests were reported in Boston, Toronto, Europe and Australia. Here is an LAist photo essay of the protest at the Celebrity Center. Blogger Bandergrove has provided additional photographs and a first-hand account of the events in Hollywood yesterday. People showed up in droves —......

Yesterday LAist was invited to watch a taping of The Florence Henderson Show on the AARP's new network, Retirement Living TV. It was a bonus that they shoot it on the same soundstage where they filmed I Love Lucy. Blogger Donna Lethal's presence was required for her sense of irony, incredible database of old Hollywood trivia, ability to spot someone famous at 20 yards, and long red hair that men find irresistible. We watched......

It seems every where you look in local food blogging or restaurant reviewing, the buzz word of the moment is Terroni, a Canadian import that just opened up an outpost in West Hollywood serving up affordable Southern Italian fare. Natalie Houghton of the Daily News (via LA.com) sums it up on both sides of the scale: "At its best: Prices are reasonable, sharing is not a problem here, and sampling a variety of Italian......

Did you read the now-notorious article in the LA Times about food writing, anonymity, and the role of bloggers? LA Foodblogging has an excellent response here, and Variety's food blog shares two simple rules for online reviews. What’s on the menu for the Jewish holidays? The LAT suggests braised veal, leek fritters, and cilantro-tomato soup, while the NY Times is answering questions about Rosh Hashana meals via its food message boards. When the LA......

Dodgers 6, Giants 4 - Barry Bonds didn't make any headlines on Wednesday, which was good news for Dodger faithful. Los Angeles needed an eigth inning comeback featuring a home run by Nomar Garciaparra. Nom-ahh also was one of four Dodgers with a stolen base. Russell Martin nabbed one of those bags, matching the team record of 18 stolen bases by a catcher (first set by Con Daily in 1892). For the first time this......

July was a bittersweet month for LAist. We had a record-breaking month with nearly a million visitors coming to our humble site. Little did we know that some of the guests were big wigs from the venerable Los Angeles Times who left with two of our editors. Indeed, several weeks ago our Film Editor Elina Shatkin was snapped up from our midsts to become Content Producer for CalendarLive at LATimes.com, and yesterday our Sports......

Blogger, YouTube-er and Representative extraordinaire George Miller (D-Calif.) has long been a strong progressive voice on issues such as employee rights, higher education and pensions and has been a consistent critic of the Iraq war. He recently started a series of webisodes on YouTube, known collectively as "MillerTV," in which he answers questions from his constituents that you can help pick. In a political system rife with intrigue and secrecy in which most politicians......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Since you know LAist is crazy about bacon, how about this burger made of ground bacon? [Serious Eats] In the meat-eating corner: Ted Nugent! In the meat-free corner: Paul McCartney! Read what Nugent really thinks about the folks in the music biz he knows who have been "Fired for eating meat by an animal-rights maniac, hard-core vegan bass player." [Waco Tribune-Hearld] David Haskell of Bin 8945: Chowhounds can be so tasteless, bloggers mean business......

LAist: hey take a picture of the Live Blogging Tent! Elina the LAist Live Blogger: OK, in this photo you'll see a blonde spiky haired dude, that is mk from popbytes. the girl in the blue t-shirt on his left is lisa from socialite life so there are no tables for you kids? and you're all watching it on tv from a tent? yes, there are both tables and chairs as well as couches.......

It's only Monday and we have a winner! Don't forget to read the whole thing as it includes Dodger Stadium/Public Transit talk and Downtown Blogger Eric Richardson (go to his picnic on Saturday), all on Internet Page 3 of the article. Photo by bunnicula via Flickr......

According to a recent study by the neighborhood blogging aggregator Outside.in (backed by Netscape and Ning cofounder Marc Andreesen, among others), Downtown LA is #3 on the list of "America's Top Ten Bloggiest Neighborhoods": "The common themes are real estate prices and local politics," Outside.In CPO John Geraci told CNET. "People also post reviews about restaurants and other local businesses." Well-earned congrats to our friend Eric Richardson for being singled out per below:3. Downtown......

- Howard Stern's regulars Rev. Bob Levy, Sal "Whaaaa I Fell Off The Stage" Governale, Richard Christy, Shuli, Yucko the Clown & Beetlejuice will grace LA with two shows in May. What, no fat Artie? Hi Fred - Killers of Comedy - Art Brut will be coming to the Troubadour on 4/2. Has he moved here yet? - Pitchfork - Jane Pratt outs Drew Barrymore by saying that she and Drew got it on......

Starting today, South by Southwest is transitioning over from the Internet and Film festivals to the Music festival, but before we dive in to the 1,500 bands that will begin rocking Austin, we still have a lot of Interactive interviews to share with you. The Internet darlings of this year's SXSWi is Twitter, a social networking service where you tell your friends what you're doing through SMS, provided by Obvious Corp., San Francisco start-up......

In support of our international blogging brothers... On February 22, Kareem Amer, a twenty-two-year old Egyptian student and blogger, was sentenced without a trial to four years in jail for "contempt of religion" and "defaming the President of Egypt" because of writings on his blog. Growing up in a fundamentalist Muslim family, Amer began to rebel against what he perceived as religious extremism at his college, Al-Azhar University, through his blog writings, and was......

LAist is recently single and we find ourself on the weirdest "dates". The other day we were picked up by a woman who we know is interested in us. She was all, "hey let's go see Obama speak and later we can go get a bite." We were all, hmmm, that sounds like a lunch date. So the young lady picks us up and asks if we know the way to where the Senator......

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Macintosh, Macintosh-related and other technology questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. We'll get to your questions in a moment but first I just want to thank those of you who sent well-wishes to me during my bout with pneumonia last week. I'm happy to say that I'm well on the road to recovery......

The 7th annual Bloggy Awards announced their nominees today. Leading the way were the usual suspects: BoingBoing, Dooce, and Blogger. But long overdue for love were our sister sites Gothamist and Torontoist. Torontoist is nominated for Best Canadian Weblog. They're up against Regret the Error, Photojunkie, Kill the Goat, and Drawn (mysteriously missing is the recently crowned Raymi the Minx who won the Canadian Blog Awards for Best Blog and Best Diarist.) The mothership......

Many of us here at LAist use one or more tools provided by Google every day. For the most part, we all have a Gmail email account and some of us use Google Calendar to keep track of our appointments, story deadlines and most importantly, vacations. You might also have a Gmail account, may be familiar with Google as a search engine to find things on the internet and perhaps you use Google Calendar......

Blogwar at Martini o'clock starring two guys who don't back down for nobody -- Martini Republic & blogging.la. It started here in the comment section, continued here and went over here. Even the word "pussy" has been used. Downtown Los Angeles Central City East Blogger takes note. A few days earlier: Martini Republic vs. LA Times regarding KTLA's Stephanie Edwards not doing the Rose Parade. LA Times' Joel Stein vs. his readers: "DON'T E-MAIL......

With the year winding down, LAist is asking famous celebs, local politicians, and other movers & shakers of LA to tell us what they thought were tops of 2006. Before founding PostSecret, Frank Warren grew up in the Valley and attended Colfax Elementary School with Adam Carolla. If you missed his book signing last month, you can catch him on January 15th at Borders Books in Torrance as he signs the next PS book, "The......

- Bono checked out two burlesque sets at Ivan Kane's Royal Jelly this week - Net Music Countdown - Jason Schmidt to the Dodgers, best signing all winter? - Fox Sports - How to turn forgotten election signs into anti-government freeway signs - Freeway Blogger - LA Councilman stands on the corner of Venice & Lincoln to shout out traffic cures - Daily Breeze - Spike Lee to direct film about the '92 LA......

Former Jane's Addiction guitarist and current Panic Channel heart-throb Dave Navarro has had a crazy year. His split from Carmen Electra was public and messy, the TV show that he co-hosted with Brooke Burke was highly-rated and messy, but all along he has been one of LA's most reliable celebrity bloggers, giving guys like Wil Wheaton a run for Most Popular LA Celeb Blogger. A mix between updating his fans on his tour schedule......

Although it feels like it's been around forever, blogging is so new that even its Godfather is young. Ev Williams was the co-founder of Pyra Labs, which created Blogger.com in 1999, which he sold to Google four years later. After working for The Man for a year, Ev quit Google and formed Odeo, a podcast service. Like most promising start-ups helmed by successful entrepreneurs, Odeo attracted some investement money and formed a Board of......

- Known by some as the World's First Blogger, Neil Patrick Harris' Doogie Howser ended each episode with a journal entry that he'd type into his IBM PC Jr. Today he announced that he likes penis. Sorry, Dr. Will. - Defamer - E! lays off 1/3rd of its True Hollywood Story staff. Will now only produce a new episode every other week. - Variety - Chris Rock and his wife are divorcing. - Pop......

- "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?......

Back in February, I got an e-mail with the subject line, "blog tip." With a link to the blog, all the e-mail said was, "just some information - nothing flashy. Glad to know you. LACN." Overtime, the anonymous LACityNerd became an authority to all things, city of Los Angeles. I don't know who the nerd is. I don't even know if the nerd is a male, female, child or beast. All I know is......