thats not a countdown to the oscars,

thats a countdown to time the celebs will walk the red carpet

basically, a countdown to seacrest.

they hooked me up to the ALYX machine that separates the platelets plasma from the blood and then pumps the platelets plasma back into your bod

theres a cool metallic flavor that infuses your tongue when the platelets plasma get back in ya.

then they give you snacks.

udate: apparently i was too light headed to realize what was being pumped out and pumped back into me. ha!

if you could possibly have any questions left

and you only want to ask a guy named tony, this would be the perfect opportunity

photos from new york fashion week by kk+

that is because she is an adult, as is her audience. almost all of her posts are interesting and creative and funny and edgy. that is because she is special. you dont know what posts are true what posts are false, what posts are stolen from shakespeare or tolstoy, and thats because she otherworldly.

for several years she won the highest award in blogging, the busblog’s very own award, given to a handful of people each year, the Anna, named after my former girlfriend, Anna Kournikova.

this year there will, again, be a handful of recipients of the 2008 Anna Award, and xTx is the first winner. but when you read her posts, we all become winners.

even though this doesnt count for 2008, who cares, heres what she wrote yesterday:

You are big. Very big. So big with your girth. Your infinite waistline. Your head that hits the sky. I cannot comprehend you as a whole, just pieces: fingers, knee, shirt sleeve.

I am tiny. Very tiny. So tiny with my shortness. My baby legs. My head skimming undersides of coffee tables. You could put me into your mouth and I could live there.

It comes at me fast. You catch my side with your foot. I fly. I fly up into the sky; past your head, past the roof, past the T in the telephone pole, over the courthouse, over the church steeple. The ground blurs and the sky is in my mouth. My side hurts with broken ribs and a crushed lung, but I ignore the pain because I am flying. Flying! Just like every bird I’ve ever chased!

I land in a deep well and die. My one working lung fills with brackish water. You find me like a kite runner. You call my name. It echoes against the old stones and settles in my dead ears. Your tears rain down, useless. You cannot even try to save me as your size dwarfs the mouth of the well, open and laughing at your loss.

I float upwards. Becoming.

The angels giggle and put me into their pockets. They tie me to their wings.

congratulations xTx on what must be your 78th Anna, all of which were deserved, especially this one because the competition was stiffer than ever.

and this was the worst song of the night.

so old that “bachelor” should have a ye olde in front of it

a couple of days ago some of my married friends were over at my house, and i guess they hadnt been in my room for a while because they stared at the wall with photos of scantily dressed cheerleaders, and dvds that didnt have elmo on the cover, and baseball cards laying about, and video games on the shelves, and the occasional cocktail napkin with a phone number scrawled on it, and they said “now this is the Den thats missing in my house.”

you know what else theyre missing?

baby mops.

(and asian nannys)

former LAist sports editor Adam Rose actually made the jump from LAist before i did. he ran the USC all things trojan blog and when i was hired and the ucla blogger stepped down, i assigned adam to run both blogs. when the sports desk demonstrated what great bloggers they were on the Olympic blog and later the Fabulous Forum blog it was decided that the sports writers could handle the two colleges and adam could spend more time doing something that he is even more talented at: shooting videos. above you will see an quick scene from this weekend’s all star weekend. apparently there was an NBA mascot halftime show out in zona and as adam describes “Rufus, the Charlotte Bobcats’ mascot, tossed a basketball backwards, over his head, and off the groin of Bango, the Milwaukee Bucks’ mascot” and into the hole. the video has been up less than a day and its gotten lots of views on the Times site and over 200k on youtube.

speaking of covering this city in blog form, our local blog LA Now has a nice new redesign for you. a bigger video player, lots of pertinent aggregation, easier to read headlines, an interesting quote box, traffic and weather together, and even a cool widget on the homepage to show off the last five headlines. something tells me LA Now will soon be the #1 blog in our blogroll (it’s currently #2).

remember when your pal created the Neighborhood Project in the summer of 2007? one thing we noticed was even though there were signs everywhere telling you what neighborhood you were entering, no one really truly knew the exact boundaries of most of the hoods in LA – not even the politicians elected (and paid handsomely) to lord over those regions. totally unrelated to me, and magically, the LA Times special projects team has now drawn the line in the asphalt and today presents the neighborhoods of los angeles.

now take on the day.

most of the weird things have to do with current and former nba cheerleaders, but what else is new.

so instead of even thinking about half that stuff, most of which, to me, at least, revolves around trust; im going to go through wednesdays music choices for sxsw on march 18th, the kickoff of the avalanche of rock.

because in the end, rock will always be there for you.

and of course, the world famous buttblog.

Girl in a Coma – 1pm – Day Stage Cafe
DD/MM/YYYY – 2pm – Day Stage Cafe
Glasvegas – TBA – Vice
The Von Bondies – TBA – Vice
Verde3 – 7pm – Speakeasy
Dikes of Holland – 8pm – Soho Lounge
The Besties – 8:30p – Maggie Mae’s
m ward – 9pm – central presbyterian church
Oh No Not Stereo – 9pm – The Music Gym Patio
The Bronx – TBA – Red 7 Patio
circle jerks – 10pm – emo’s
The Grates – 11pm – Radio Room
st vincent – 11pm – central presbyterian church
Angus & Julia Stone – 11pm – buffalo billiards
Juliette & The New Romantiques – 11:30pm – emo’s
carolyn wonderland – midnight – antone’s
Priestess – midnight – emos annex
this bike is a pipe bomb – 12:15am – habana bar
brother ali – 12:30am – back alley social
These Arms Are Snakes – 1am – Red Eye Fly
Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head – 1am – dirty dog bar
Pong – 1am – Room 710

its always a good idea to pick a few bands that are scheduled for the same time cuz you never know where you’ll end up or how packed it might be,

like you might totally think that you’ll be able to see the Grates at 11 but lets say everyone finally gets it about them and they fill up the Radio Room? gotta jet over to see st vincent at that crazy church. but if thats packed buffalo billiards probably will be fine. but youd better bail early if you wanna see juliette lewis’s new band and new sound over at emos. but after 20 minutes you better grab a cab because across town at antones is the best female guitarist in town, carolyn wonderand. but if shes playing again you might not sweat it, stay on red river and check out priestess instead.

anyways, best laid plans…

by cool i mean they seemed to be fashionably dressed high school types with dyed hair and fancy sneakers and skinny pants and exactly the opposite of who i usually encounter on my commute.

they looked at me, i looked at them, then we went back to ignoring each other. i expected them to get off at vermont and wilshire, but they stayed on. i expected them to disembark at 7th street but they stayed. i expected them to ride till the end of the line, union station, but no, they all exited at Civic Center like me.

i figured there must be a music video shoot at City Hall or a lil concert happening somewhere downtown and i forgot about them. i got to the office, sat at my desk and about 15 minutes later there they were in my building. it was a tour! how weird.

if the tour guide stopped in front of my desk and asked me to share with the kids what i liked most about working at the times i would say many things, including the candy jar next to henry fuhrman’s copy desk. usually there are chocolates or candies in there. and sometimes people bring in baked goods and treats. rarely will i shove my big paws in there, but sometimes one wants just a taste of sugar around 4pm.

this is what the candy jar looks like today. and yes i deserve credit for resisting it all. gratzi.