Childish antics follow through to adulthood


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Sunday night, I was happily procrastinating in front of my computer. An oral presentation due Monday, hundreds of pages of reading and a new episode of Glee all sat in my lap, chaotic and demanding — but my eyes were right on an open, even more commanding presence: Facebook. There I was, buried in the […]

Repetition keeps memes afloat


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Remember when it was all about Pig Latin? In eighth grade, speaking the language made you opular-pay. You could eat unch-lay with the ool-cay kids, and no one would tell you to am-scray. You may have thought you were participating in a secret club, but you were really just participating in culture. And you were […]

Workplace gossip nears modern tabloid sensationalism


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When a number of people are confined to the same workspace, the office rumor mill starts churning out gossip at a rate that puts professional blabbermouths like Perez Hilton to shame. While the gossip is occasionally made up of harmless, passing comments like, “Oh dear God, did you see what so-and-so wore to that meeting?” […]

Comedians abide by their own rules


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Where were you the day the laughter died? For me, it was summer of my senior year of high school when Chappelle’s Show began to die a prolonged death. Granted, the importance of Chappelle’s Show hit me retroactively; its creator can be accused of nothing if not equipping friends and classmates with a dozen lines […]

County Fair upholds tradition through food selection


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Tucked in the far eastern reaches of Los Angeles County, behind a water reserve, golf course and park, lies an expansive parking lot. To park here you’ll have to shell out somewhere in between $10 and $25. Why? Because it’s the LA County Fair. A tradition that began in 1922, the LA County Fair boasts […]

First kisses not always ideal


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Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve wanted to fall in love. But more than that — more than the simple act of stumbling into bliss — I wanted to fall in love through a kiss. A peck on the lips, something sloshy — I was even okay with the idea of braces. I […]

Tarantino once again proves maverick status


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Quentin Tarantino is such a punk. Against all reason, Inglourious Basterds might just be cinema’s final word on World War II and the Holocaust. And, Tarantino is a punk for making it that way. Without giving too much away by suggestion, the much-discussed ending of his highly stylized, spaghetti Western influenced movie explosively rewrites history. […]

Yearly fires part of LA culture


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Remember Prometheus? He stole fire from the gods and gave the gift to mankind. As a result, he was sentenced to the grisly fate of having his liver eaten by a bird every day while chained to a lonely rock. It must have been hard for the poor guy to watch his own guts be […]

Summer camps spark transition into adulthood


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This weekend, I flew across the country to my favorite city in the continental US: Boston. Say it with me now, “Baawston.” There, I did a few of my favorite things: I devoured some lobster bisque, spent a few hours at Newbury Comics and even enjoyed some of the best crab cakes I have ever […]

Facebook profiles speak the truth


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Bob Marley’s religion is love. Mine is a YouTube video. According to my Facebook, I place my faith in a 90-second clip of Arcade Fire’s performance in an elevator. In actuality, this is not entirely the truth — I love many other bands just as well. Also according to Facebook, my “activities” are solely “Twitter.” […]