Office socials bring the unexpected


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Office parties have a reputation of being a little — okay, a lot — on the awkward side. To borrow a line from Tina Fey’s cinematic masterpiece Mean Girls, these after-hours gatherings are like “seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.” Once the attorneys loosen their ties and take down their hair, things stop […]

Apatow’s films reveal limited range of character writing


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Like many of his characters, Judd Apatow really needs a new lease on life. It’s exceedingly easy to hit the former USC student-turned-Hollywood-money-making-machine from the sexism angle — a criticism that became rather trendy among critics after Katherine Heigl confessed she had problems with her character a week after Apatow’s Knocked Up was released. Apatow […]

In Los Angeles, there are two sides to every bowling alley


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They are the few, the proud, the straight-from-work. They strut through the glass doors, custom gear in tow, while employees greet them by name, lowering their heads in deference. They are the mighty Shatto Knights and they are damn good at bowling. A recreational league that competes on a weekly basis, the Knights come to […]

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. […]