as many of you may have known, Leah has been one of my favorite bloggers ever since she was 15(!), which should be weird enough, but this weekend she delivered Harper Lennon and of course she blogged about it even minutes after it happened.

heres an excerpt of what she wrote this morning:

At 10 PM on Thursday night, a nurse came in to check to see if I’d made any progress. As she walked in, she said that I would either go naturally and deliver the next day or be induced Friday morning. I was upset because I wanted to be induced then but was hoping for some change when she checked. As she uncomfortably investigated what was going on down under, I heard a weird sound- felt a weird feeling- and officially freaked out. The nurse had accidentally broken my water, something that she was trying not to do, and everything changed immediately.

The contractions that I’d been feeling, while not fun, quickly picked up in intensity and time. The nurse said that everything was about to start happening quickly, no induction was neccessary, and basically- let the games begin!

a hearty and warm congratulations to Leah, Taylor, Quiet Company and all of Austin from those of us here on the west coast!

photo by Taylor

loved it.

arclight was packed, grove was packed. but for some reason the manns in glendale was not even close to being packed event though its right a cross the street from the Americana and it has stadium seats and its nice. plenty of seats for the 6:30 show.

and buck parking.

i just got this email alert from The Envelope telling me that the movie had taken in $76 million over the weekend.

i thought, why does that number sound familiar, and i remembered that Trek director JJ Abrams was on Howard Stern the other day and thought that not only would the movie not knock Wolverine out of the #1 spot but that it would probably only make $50 mil. howard totally disagreed and said it would make $79 million.

When asked by Howard how much J.J. would be happy with for Star Trek’s opening weekend take, he threw out the number of $50 million. Howard who admitted is a huge Star Trek fan will be seeing an advance screening of the Trek remake later today and be giving his opinion of it during tomorrow’s show which airs on Sirius radio. Howard also made a box office prediction of his own for Star Trek saying it would knock Wolverine out of the #1 spot and bring in $79 million. It should be noted that Howard also said that he thought Wolverine was a great movie, but had confidence that Star Trek would be the winner for this weekend.

maybe howard has a future in seeing into the future.

with photos from last night’s activities at the $1 beer, $1 dogs, trip to Hollywood Park to celebrate karisas 24th birthday

Keira-Anne: It’s called a birthday because you get just a day – not a week. Not even brides get a week for their wedding. What does your Magic 8 ball have in store for me? I need some good news.

no need to be jealous sweet blonde nymph. and if you havent discovered yet, we do things differently in the lower 48. but have no fear, america’s hat will soon follow suit as soon as neil young puts his stamp of approval on it. your future includes wine women and song. oh wait thats mine. you will get a new bikini.

David: what’s the best reggae track to groove to while watching my pick in the eighth race finish dead last?

reggae is the devils muzak. “one cup of coffee” by bob marley. it was one of his first singles when he was still obsessed with motown.

Mike: What movie do you think will be the best of the summer? Wolverine, Star Trek, Terminator 4, or Transformers 2?

wolverine was horrible. terminator without arnold will be a yawner. although megan fox is the hottest actress on stage or screen as long as shes paired up by Bro Ham who hollywood for some reason is intent on forcing upon us shes doomed. so the answer is Trek + JJ which i will screen this afternoon with my truest.

Sharp: What do you do when your girl’s across an ocean?

suffer as she settles for tony look-a-likes who dont encourage her to do what she does so wonderfully: blog.

vinny: Will the blackhawks beat the canuks??

oh hells yes. i mean, uh, unfortunately yes.

bigg mike: how soon before la times print is dead? what is your favorite strip club? … bar? are you a tata, or ass man? or like stern, a vagina man? will there ever be peace in the middle east?

heres a shocker you should go tell the kids, the la times will last longer in print than the ny times. and you can quote me. the rhino in vegas because you can see lots of stars there and the music is amazing. i am attracted most to a womans heart because thats what gonna be there when everything changes physically. and no thats not a pc copout. its the truth ruth. there will be peace in the mid east when the bible says so

adriel: got a first date tomorrow. what should i NOT do/say? and omg why do the posts i sent from my phone look like that on my blog????

do not tell him that youd secretly rather be on a first date with the busblog. as for how posts look – as long as your revealing your soul, font and size and looks mean nothing. tell us your deepest thoughts and insights. expose yourself emotionally and never cancel and opportunity to get groped in the back seat of a rentacar by a dirty old man from hollywood again 🙂

man7308: hahha.so good. nic to m u. wts ur name ?where r u from?^^

oh hai! i love the chinese who have blogbus.com blogs who get bored with the tyranny and experiment with their urls to see whats up on busblog.com. my name is tony, i live in a shoe. revolt against yr leaders! listen to nirvana! make better rock music! love you!

timmay!!!!!: has wendy mccaw’s hair caught on fire yet?

yes it did, as a matter of fact, and then she fired the fire and now the jesusitsafire is 30% contained. in bed.

zona: Miss California. What’s worse? Secret racy pics or hypocritcal organization that paid for her breast inplants? And what should she do now?

miss usa, miss america, miss universe, etc is a tv show. nothing more. these women dont actually save humanity or bring about world peas. they participate in the most clear version of objectification today. thus if they allow the producers to help them have bigger hair or rosier cheeks, we shouldnt call any of them hypocrites for enhancing the on-screen image in the name of ratings, because there isnt anything hypocritical about that. they are both there for eyeballs. she should now enter a world of alaskan politics as tina fey needs a new jaguar.

Scott T. Sterling: Which pop star has the best “leaked” nekkid pics of the weekend, Rihanna and Cassie? er, that should read “Rihanna OR Cassie.” It’s Friday and I’ve got a case of NBA playoff fever. Speaking of, can the Orlando Magic scoot past Boston to upset the Cavs and represent the East in the Finals this year?

no one can top my fiance rihanna, be it on the stage, in the music videos, or in the leaky LAPD hq. and a nude rihanna only enforces the belief that shes the most beautiful soul singer around making everyone ask cassie who? boston is soft but king james is not. however it all falls on the health of dwight howard, who is a beast when 100%.

Basart: Are the S.B. fires divine retribution for the board of supervisors trying to outlaw parties?

its true the Lord doesnt like it when elderly supes try to fight against gauchos and their right to party, but i blame the fires on — actually yes, its the supes fault.

Jay: Halladay vs Burnett on Tuesday. Does Doc wipe the floor with A.J.?

ive said it before ive said it again. the american league is not even worth the pixels in your monitor. i know you are probably from canada thus the matchup interests you, and im sorry the only NL team you ever had was in montreal, and it got yanked away from you, but i hope all AL teams lose, especially when they play with themselves. ha, i made a funny.

g/d: all this skin, all this wonder
nude photos = art expression, but fit for the fancy?
nude photos = rude, but fit for the dude?

what youre seeing are young women trying to regain some sort of control over their lives and their images. its a fool’s excercise of course because control is an illusion, but its a lot better for themselves than getting knocked up like britney and her sister did.

leave your questions at the beep

and since this is karisas birthday week feel free to ask questions about

my feelings about boston, tea parties, tea bags,

the red sox, the white sox, the celtics, the ladys i mean the bradys

manny, big papi, schilling the republican

the fires in santa barbara, listening to reggae at horse racing tracks

or anything your mind leads to

beep

“tony, theyve evacuated 25,000 from santa barbara. thats a quarter of the city. i have my s[tuff] packed because the wind changed and it’s heading here. its going to jump the freeway tonight. they’re probably going to evacuate us at 4-5am.

“they have tents on campus for people who have evacuated.

“the power is out in goleta. all i can see is the fire.

“you goin to see The Dead at the Forum, tone?”

he just called back (1:19am)

“when i cant see storke tower, im leaving

“i cant leave here because im drunk. but they want you to leave.

“you have to come here in 3 hours with a camera crew. cuz its about to jump the 101 and its gonna burn everything.

“ktyd isnt playing music any more.

“it burned the county bowl.

“it missed the mission.

“i can see the flames from here. i can see the helicopters.

“you gotta be here. god damn it you gotta be here. cuz you have access.

“the power is out downtown.”

from the KTMS Twitter feed:

THE FIRE HAS JUMPED THE 154
31 minutes ago from web

listen to KTYD live now here

update: via my truest:

View Jesusita Fire – Santa Barbara in a larger map

and the comments here are just getting worser and worser.

you know there used to be a time here at the olde buttblog where the author wouldn’t tap out a new post until there was at least 1 or 2 comments in the previous post.

i may have to reinstate that glorious past.

in other news i saw a video game review i wrote in this week’s Brand X which is in news boxes everywhere here in Los Angeles.

the video game was X Men – Wolverine which many people are calling the most violent video game ever because all you do is run around decapitating and maiming people and shoving them into helicopter blades and shoving your wolverine claws into their throats and pulling out their organs, etc.

i gave it a meh.

i didnt expect to see it in Brand X so quickly, but alexandra is not only one hot babe, but shes a very speedy editor, so im grateful.

and believe it or not, but that was the first time that ive been in print as a writer here at the Times since many moons ago when i wrote a piece on the Opinions section about Survivor splitting their tribes up based on race (yes it was that long ago).

do i like print? sure, its fine. do i wanna write for the LAT, proper? sure, but i really like writing for Brand X in part because if Bukowski was 20-30something he would not only be reading it instead of the LAT, but he’d be doing anything to write in it. and as you know, Buk is my hero.

photo of raymi by fil

(this has been a super busy day for us, so chill)

– “Ramirez deserves a one-way ticket out of Mannywood” – Plaschke

– hundreds of comments on our Dodger blog about Manny – Dodger Thoughts

– 69 photos of the Santa Barbara fire – photo

– pretty sweet panoramic photo of the Santa Barbara fire

– Teacher who gets paid by LA not to teach speaks out at the article we ran about him

– Derek Fisher suspended, but will play tonight

– Should In-n-Out change? – Comments Blog

so busy this morning.

mostly because Manny has been suspended for 50 games and the LAT had/has the scoop.

that, plus the fires, plus this training im fixin to do in 9 minutes makes for a very short first post today.

but i love ya so im here to say hi

hi!

son of a gun is burning down houses one after another now.

sorry for the crappy pictures of the crappy tv reception, but some things you probably dont wanna see in living color.

keep up to date on this sadly developing story on LA Now

when gwen stefani cheered “this ishhh is bananas” she wasnt kidding.

another beautiful day here in southern california. and i must say i do love working in the belly of the beast. so many stories came through this newsroom yesterday and today from the lady with the face transplant saying “im not a monster” to the dude in florida who threw a baby out the window of a moving car

to the fires in santa barbara, to the lakers losing to the dodgers winning…

but lets talk about Floatopia. According to the Daily Nexus theres going to be a disturbance in the force in Santa Barbara today at high noon (aka 1pm) to squash not just the kids’ right to party on their beach, but their right to party anywhere in IV. Fascism disguised as “The Social Host Ordinance” is scheduled to breeze through the SB Supervisor’s meeting this afternoon which will give the IV Foot Patrol and the SB Sheriffs the right to shut down pretty much any party, immediately, regardless of it being in a private home or on a public beach:

The SHO aims to nail people who host underage drinking parties at their house. Ideally, this is great. We agree that parents should be punished for hosting these parties and buying their kids booze.

But in actuality, this ordinance is terrible. It’s going to hit us in I.V. hard, even if it wasn’t intended for us. Despite having gone through four rewrites, this fifth draft of the SHO is still incredibly vague, which leaves it open to interpretation. A host can be served the fine if minors are drinking at any “party, gathering, or event,” which is described as “a group of five or more persons who have assembled or are assembling for a social occasion or a social activity.” So in an apartment with six roommates (very likely in I.V.) if all of them get together to watch House (a very social activity by some standards) and decide to split a six-pack, will the police be able to knock on the door and dole out a fine to the “host”?

However, IVFP officers have said they aren’t looking to use the SHO to crack down on small hangouts like that. Then why implement the ordinance? The police already have enough tools on their belt to punish underage alcohol consumption, both by the drinker and the provider of the drink. For example, they can cite partygoers with any of the following:

Distributing to Minors
Minor in Possession
Noise Ordinance Violation
Drunk in Public
Disturbing the Peace

Basically it means the end of Isla Vista.

Free IV. Make it a city. Hire me as Mayor. The fact that adults – even young adults – can’t live their lives on a nub jetting out into an ocean, or in their overpriced apartments in America, is unAmerican.

h/t Welchy, photo of raymi by fil