It's official, for better or worse, Jimmy Fallon will host NBC's "Late Night" show after Conan O'Brien shifts to "The Tonight Show" next year. Despite being a fan of SNL alumni, I wish I felt more positive about this appointment. While it's true that Conan O'Brien was a relative unknown before taking the reins, he was a prolific writer for SNL and "The Simpsons" for years -- the point being that hosting one of these......

uWink, the entertainment/dining "experience," has just announced plans to open a new location in the Hollywood & Highland complex, in the space formerly occupied by Wolfgang Puck's Brasserie Vert. The restaurant is coming to Hollywood sometime in early May 2008, and promises to bring as-of-yet-unheard-of levels of FUN!!! and FAMILY EXCITEMENT!!! to the Highland complex. From the press release, a quick primer for those of you unfamiliar with the uWink concept: At uWink, guests......

Photos by Zach Behrens/LAist It's a sad day week for those who frequent Fairfax Village, for those who need a late-night nosh alternative to Canter's Deli, or for those who love some vegan pizza -- Nova Express Cafe announced (letter below) that they are closing their doors this Wednesday at 2 a.m. (not be too confusing, that would officially be Thursday, 3 hours in). According to Cary Long, the owner of the Sci-Fi 15-year-old......

"hey, i wanna check out this new place daily candy wrote about today. the waffle. i checked out their menu and it sounds cool and they're open til 4am on fri/sat nites." My friend Shelley IM'd me this last week. I gave their menu a look-see, Googled them and found that not only Daily Candy wrote about them but LAist, LA Times' The Guide and Eater LA. "I can't believe I found out about......

Zombie Joe's Underground takes on "The Raven" and other Poe stories tonight. / Photo by Ctd 2005 via flickr. FILM The Silent Movie Theatre concludes its “Love Hurts” series with the noir-ish tearjerker Brief Enounter. Directed by David Lean, Brief Encounter deals with an illicit affair between a housewife and a married doctor. A train station serves as a prominent backdrop for their weekly trysts. 8 pm // Silent Movie Theatre // 611 N.......

Earlier this month, San Diego-based singer/songwriter Tristan Prettyman (MySpace) and G. Love & Special Sauce (MySpace) performed a two-night stint at the House of Blues in West Hollywood as part of their current tour. The duo collaborated on the song "Beautiful", from G. Love's album Lemonade, which was performed last year on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Prettyman, who has been referred to as "the female Jack Johnson," also collaborated on the Lindsay Lohan-themed......

Photo © Copyright 2008 by Jonathan Alcorn (Sundogg) via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr One of the gunmen involved in yesterday's Glassell Park shootout has been identified as a member of the Avenues gang. Daniel Ivan Leon was killed by police following his participation in a fatal drive-by shooting that claimed one life. Ok, so there wasn't anyone jumping onto the 110 Freeway today, but there was a police pursuit on the......

Chances are you’ve heard of Dr. Drew Pinsky, board certified addiction medicine specialist, either through his popular late night radio program Loveline, or recent TV hit show, Celebrity Rehab. What you may not know is that in addition to the two programs, Dr. Drew also has another radio show on KGIL 1260 AM. Monday through Friday, from 11 am -1 pm, Dr. Drew opens up the phone lines and explores broader health topics, from......

Devoted LAist reader Ashley requested a Westside version of Deacon Booze -- and as a former long-time resident of the Westsiiiiiiiiide, I'm more than happy to oblige. Here are some of my top spots for drinks in West LA -- (and trust me when I say I have TESTED these places more than a few times). Why not email me your picks for when you find yourself west of the 405? carrie@laist.com. Did I......

Am in a post-Super Bowl stupor. The commercials were so-so, I wasn't unduly impressed, and the halftime show was terrible, they practically had to frickin' wheel Tom Petty and his aging cronies out there. Going for it on 4th and 13?? That made me almost as sick as the above clip. 8:30pm Duty Free TV: Unbeatable Banzuke/Super Big Product Fun Show G4 - Series Premiere. The series is a combination of Super Big Product......

Silverman came clean last night, honoring boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's 5th anniversary on late night with a music video. The real surprise: Damon is actually funny in this video and he gets a little payback at Kimmel, whose show often closes with a gag along the lines of: "Apologies to Matt Damon, we've run out of time...."......

What are your favorite breakfast spots in Los Angeles? Who's got the best cup of coffee? The yummiest pancakes? The thickest slabs of bacon? Who's overrated and who's overlooked? We're determined to find out -- so wake up with us, won't you? Enjoy L.A.'s Best Breakfasts!!!...

Last month a program called Project 50 aimed at identifying homeless individuals most in need of immediate housing was begun in Los Angeles, and a similar program kicked off today in the City of Santa Monica. This morning teams began training for safety and census-taking skills, and are preparing to take to the streets early next week in the late night (or early morning) hours, tracking the areas where groups of homeless people congregate and......

If you care for "Just For Laughs", "According To Jim" and all things Tuesday ABC, they're new. We have a premiere tonight on Bravo, our new source of reality TV. This time they're launching Millionaire Matchmaker featuring Patti Stranger (right) who performs the very public service of hooking up desperate, misunderstood, and underprivileged millionaires with compatible mates - Patti, I hope someday a grateful society brings you the honors you deserve. 8:00pm American Idol FOX......

So I spent my Sunday sick as a dog on the couch watching, of all things, football, literally because I was too wiped to find the clicker and move on. I'd forgotten how obnoxious the graphics were and how pompous and full of itself football has become. Still, gotta watch the Super Bowl for the commercials so I still have some time to devote to that. Am dismayed that the talentless hack Ryan Seacrest is......

The Mars Volta, not that I'm some kind of outraged fan, had terrible terrible sound on Letterman last night. I've noticed this over the last few years, yeah I'm slow, that the sound production on the live band performances (not "the CBS Orchestra") is always sub par on Letterman. All the other late night shows have better live sound, Late Night needs to figure this out. In other newsies, I'm hoping that the Colbert vs.......

In other news, a desperate NBC has ordered a pilot of the BBC's cars & celebs series, Top Gear. The show has been running on BBC America for a couple years now, I've seen a few episodes, notably one with Ewan McGregor. The show may be amusing depending upon which celebrities they line up, but it's no American Idol. Again, instead of coming up with something original, we're forced to watch rebranded concepts from overseas.......

At this point my whole week is focused on getting to AMC's Breaking Bad which debuts this upcoming Sunday. AMC scored a couple Golden Globes with Mad Men, let's see if they can repeat the success. On face value Breaking Bad is more interesting than anything the Big Four have planned for us. Late night is troubling me lately since NBC and Comedy Central aren't posting their guests into the news feeds or their websites......

The always dapper Greg Proops is at the Hollywood Improv 8:00pm on Friday; Saturday at 8:00 & 10:00pm. Whose Line Is It Anyway? was the mass media vehicle to inform all of us that Greg Proops is a gentleman and a scholar but that show and his innumerable appearances on shows like Ugly Betty, Last Comic Standing, Just Shoot Me, and all the late night talk shows require that Proops corral his wit and personality......

Hey check it, yours truly was invited to contribute some commentary to this ABCNEWS.com article (I'm on page 2). Thanks for your support! So the Golden Globes got canceled and now maybe the Academy Awards will get canceled and this is conflicting me. On the one hand I will have a whole bunch more free time (hours upon hours) to watch my Tivo'd episodes of Grape Ape but I will have so much less lousy......

So The Colber(t) Repor(t) and The Daily Show are back and while Colbert, Stewart, Kimmel, and Conan are all nimble on their feet, and very funny and engaging, it's amazing how the success of all these shows really comes down to the writing. It's great to have them all back on the air and it does provide us all with some late night alternatives, but I hope NBC, ABC, and Viacom come to their senses......

Tomorrow is the first day California residents can apply for an absentee ballot - the 29th is the last day to submit a request. (Click here for the online absentee application). The first wave of Stormwatch 2008 has largely faded into nothingness today as sun peeked through clouds and puddles began to dry. But another storm of equal or lesser value could follow soon. Downtown received about 5.3 inches, well above its total last......

Let’s spend a moment on this Jay Leno fracas that’s going on. Jay was a big supporter at the beginning of the strike. He walked off his show and stopped by the strike lines the first couple of days with some food. Eventually, he paid a bunch of the people on the show. There’s no denying that it was real nice of him. For some reason, all the late night guys came back this......

So what do you think of the beards on Letterman and Conan? I thought everyone did pretty well, particularly Conan. Leno's show was practically unchanged (same old crap) while Letterman gave lots of props to the WGA. If you don't have a TV with a built-in digital tuner you will need to get a converter box by February of 2009. It seems like a long way off but it will sneak up on you. Be......

So tonight it's Leno vs. Letterman, Conan vs. Ferguson - potentially unfair matches since Letterman and Ferguson have reached an agreement with the writers' union and NBC hasn't. This will mean a further addition to my sleep deficit as I will be sitting up and flipping between these networks until 1:30am [no, I don't have some swank double-satellite-dish-to-Tivo setup like some of you, if you're interested in helping out, I can give you an address......

LAPD detectives in the San Fernando Valley have an unusual series of convenience store holdups on their hands. Eleven late night robberies have occurred in the past month from North Hollywood to San Fernando, with two women as the gun-wielding perps. The Daily News reports that the pair's m.o. is to hit 7-11 stores between midnight and 4 a.m. They don hooded sweatshirts, and while one stands watch at the door the other holds the......

Two more strikes against two power players in showbiz today as fallout from the WGA strike. According to a report on KTLA.com this morning, "The union representing striking Hollywood writers has denied requests to allow their members to write for the Oscars - Hollywood's biggest, most glamorous showcase - and the Golden Globes." Interim agreements and waivers were dismissed Monday by the WGA. The Hollywood Foreign Press, who put on the annual Globes gala banquet......

Dear Tony Pierce, can you please tell your new employers at the LA Times to fix their streaming American Express advertising pop-up so that it does not crash my brand-new computer every five minutes? Thank you, signed, LAist.com. When we are not struggling to cope with adverse side-effects of inexorable technological progress, we are keeping track of the striking writers' negotiations with venture capitalists to begin producing Internet programming. Baby needs a new pair......

The Guardian has an irritating blog post about LA writers. The gist: LA poet and novelist Rob Woodard wonders where all the good novelists in LA have gone. He points to the well-known "great" LA writers (Chandler, Nathaniel West, John Fante, Bukowski) and a few others, then deems LA literature mostly dead for the past thirty years. His reasoning? Would-be novelists have been lured by Hollywood into screenwriting and joke-writing for the late night shows.......

Philly native, Beanie Sigel hit the road for Los Angeles to promote his new album, The Solution which dropped yesterday. The Rocafella representative took a little time in between radio interviews and a late night run to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles to chat with LAist about his latest effort, his time locked up and the current state of hip hop music. How’s the response for the album been so far? Good, you know the album......