As projected at its maximum through a spotting scope at 20X magnification from the front porch of our Silver Lake house. It buuuuuuuurns! It buuuuuuuuuuuuurns!

You won't know if you're coming or going

Last summer’s blockbuster “Carmageddon“ was such a smash hit, we’re bringing you the sequel. That’s right, fasten your seat belts for the ride of your lives. On June 22, “Carmageddon II: The Rampocalypse“ comes to a 405 near you. In a world where L.A. area road construction causes widespread panic, “Carmageddon II” will blow your doors off!

We’ll destroy and then rebuild all the Wilshire Blvd. ramps connecting to the 405! We’ll take a year to do it! We’ll have Ramp Jam 2012, and it’s all in 3-D!

Get your tickets now!

It's NOT the end of the world as we know it, says Griffith Observatory Planetarium lecturer Kelley Hazen, just the daze of our lives.

I got an invite last week to come to a media preview of Time’s Up, the Griffith Observatory’s new planetarium show, so in between Good Samaritan Hospital’s never-miss Blessing of the Bikes yesterday morning and a long-overdue physical exam that afternoon, I biked up the hill to one of my favorite places in Los Angeles to take advantage of the Observatory’s hospitality and see how and why they decided to counter the anxiety being produced by those doomsdayers dead-set in their belief that the Mayans predicted the world to end this coming December 21 and that it’s so going to happen.

The answers are with a provocative and eye-popping new program in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium that opens on the beach next to the Santa Monica Pier, serene for a few moments until meteors start raining explosively down upon the westside, a huge tsunami closes in and a rogue planet grows larger as it bears down on its collision course with earth — accompanied by flying monkeys, of course.

Inside joke: Pictured during this doomsday scene is Lifeguard Station No. 5150. Since most of the station IDs are no more than two digits, I’m betting this was done in snarktastic reference to the police code that’s basically short for bugged-out basketcase kRaAzEe.

But just when all seems lost, Planetarium Lecturer Kelley Hazen steps in bearing a beautifully illuminated and illuminating hourglass to put a freezeframe to all the apocalyptic nonsense and go on with a visually stunning and intellectually compelling show that counters folly with fact and explores what time is all about.

“The year 2012 is acting like a badly behaved celebrity,” said Observatory Director Dr. E.C Krupp. “Frightful rumors and gossip are spreading. Dozens of books are marketing fears and exaggerations about the 2012 End Times. Most of what’s claimed relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, and a level of paranoia worthy of Night of the Living Dead.”

Time’s Up does not stop with the lore and false predictions of doom. The show uses the Maya calendar as a gateway to explore what time really is and how we measure it, immersing the audience into its flow, from the Big Bang to the ultimate future of the cosmos.

Fifteen months in the making, Time’s Up will become part of the observatory’s regular schedule starting May 31. But on the evening of May 29, Friends Of The Observatory (FOTO)  are scheduled to host three live fundraising performances for both FOTO members and the public. Tickets are $35 for FOTO members, $50 for nonmembers. Parking is guaranteed for anyone buying tickets, and those attending will enjoy refreshments, the chance to hear special talks, and mingle with the observatory’s astronomers.

WHAT: An Intimate Evening with the Astronomers at Griffith Observatory
WHEN: May 29, 5 – 10 p.m.
WHERE: Griffith Observatory
COST: $35 for FOTO members; $50 for the public
MORE INFO:  www.friendsoftheobservatory.com
CONTACTS: 213.473.0807; fotofriend@friendsoftheobservatory.org

You get a good smattering of crafts, free wine tasting courtesy San Antonio winery, beer huts, music, free shows…minstrel, comedy/variety, magic and wenches all tossed in with some pretty good food too.

This isn’t a free event. Tickets at the door are $25 head, you can purchase slightly discounted tickets at select Walgreen stores enumerated HERE.  Parking at the Santa Fe dam will also set you back $10 bones for a dirt lot.  Map to location here near the junction of the 210/605 Freeways.  Better hurry as next weekend is the last weekend it will run this year.

Patrick Boss of Bosses (click it to biggify)

Last week I looked up in the sky at the super moon. This week, I looked down and found this undated though well-worn pleasant surprise from a once or perhaps would-be street king on an old piece of sidewalk during an early morning dog walk up near the top of Descanso south of Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. All hail, Patrick.

One of our area's vintage cars, spotted in Santa Monica

One of my pleasures of living in the relatively dry SoCal climate is our thriving classic car culture. Part of that culture will be on display this Saturday, as downtown Culver City hosts its “Crusing Back to the 50s“ car show right out on Culver and Washington Blvds. from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. I was there four years ago, and it was loads of fun.

In addition to a selection of over 400 classic cars, expect to see some of the world’s most famous tv show custom cars and their creator, George Barris (Batmobile, Munster Koach, etc.). There will be food, music, and car-related merchandise on hand as well. Oh, and did I mention that admission to the show is free?

• And Now A Tutorial On How To “Hack” Yourself To A Metro TAP Card Without Really Trying (Or Ending Up Getting One)
• In Which The TAP Card Saga I Previously Ranted About Comes To A Successful (If Ultimately Doomed) Conclusion

The card’s usage on various bus and rail lines in the interim since had been entirely without incident, until yesterday when I biked downtown to 7th Street to take my first trip on the shiny new Expo Line. The thrill at riding fresh rails into the westside was somewhat buzzkilled when I went to purchase my one-way ticket with my TAP card only to have the machine tell me that it had “expired,” and suggesting I visit a Metro customer service center for assistance.

Though I’m predisposed to some pretty elaborate grousing displays, I kept my outward petulance to a minimum and instead fished out the $1.50 needed for the fare. With ticket in hand I boarded the appropriate train, deciding that I’d bike back up to the Metro customer office on the corner of La Brea and Wilshire to have a representative answer me as to why the fuck does a damn TAP card still loaded with about $13 of my own money expire?

Short answer: So Metro can rip off TAP card-holding riders every three years.

Longer answer after the jump. Oh yeah: and it turns out the card hadn’t expired yet.

Inside the service center I recapped the morning’s festivities to the rep behind the bullet-resistant glass and handed him my dead TAP card, which he verified was indeed, dead. I asked him the cause of its sudden demise and he said they expire every three years. I asked why and he just shrugged seemingly confident that was an entirely appropriate and complete response (which for Metro’s oxymoronic “customer service” it was).

I asked him why wasn’t I sent some notification prior to the card’s expiration so that I might avoid being surprised at the ticket machine and he said somewhat wide-eyed “Oh, I don’t think they do that.”

Of course “they” don’t. That would make sense. That would be helpful. How completely silly of me.

“Can this card be reanimated?”

“No.”

Then what do I have to do to get a TAP card that’s not dead.”

“I can do that for you,” he said. “It’ll be two dollars.”

“Wait, what?”

“Two dollars.”

“Ah,” I sigh. “And lemme guess: in three years I’ll have to come back to see you and pay another $2 to get a new card.”

“Yes.”

“Just between you and me person to person: you do understand that totally sucks right?”

Again with the departmentally authorized shrugging, augmented this time with just a wee bit of shiteating grin.

“I mean, if you want to rip me off me for a fee every three years, am I crazy to imagine it would be more efficient to deduct it from active cards that have a standing balance, rather than just kill them?”

For a split second the rep flashed a glimmer of recognition at such a common sense solution, but the shiteating grin came back and chased it away.

“Seriously. Could you imagine if my bank charged me a fee every time my debit card expired — and then didn’t notify me ahead of time and made me go into a branch to get a new one?”

“But we’re not a bank.”

Now it was my turn to nod both in resignation and awe at his failure to grasp my point. As I fished a five-dollar bill out of my wallet, it dawned on me that I had money left on the dead card and wondered if he could transfer it to the new card (knowing full well the answer was going to be nyet).

“No. We’re not able to do that.”

“So did I just involuntarily make a donation in that amount to the Metro Uncharitable Trust. He brightened at being able to give me the good news that I had not and could proceed to the TAP courtesy phone against the wall by the entrance and make a request for a refund in the form of a check that would be sent to the address associated with the card.

“You mean the address where they wouldn’t send a courtesy notice?” He nodded. “They won’t do that, but they’ll devote the resources needed to having a check authorized, issued, signed, sealed and mailed to me?” Again with the nodding.

That struck me as almost bureaucratically adorable.

“So I’ve just paid two bucks for what’s essentially a new dead TAP card — unless I add more money to it now?”

I half expected him to tell me he couldn’t add funds either, but instead surprised me: “That’s right,” he said.

But I decided I’d given enough money to the MTA on this day and headed over to the TAP courtesy phone to navigate my way to a snail mail refund from my dead card. After making my way through the voicemail menu, a real person said he could help me with that. But it was only after going through the verification motions did the voice somewhat offhandedly mention that should I get a new TAP card he could transfer the amount from the old card to it.

“I have the new card, but that’s totally contradicting what the other rep told me just now.”

“What did he tell you?”

“That a transfer between cards isn’t an option. That the only way to get my money is via a check through the mail.”

“No sir. We can do that for you.”

I looked up at the ceiling.

“By chance, are you familiar with the ass-elbow analogy? Because Metro always seems to find a way to show me it doesn’t have a clue which is which. It’s like they’re proud about it.”

Silence, then: “Sir, if you’ll read the number off the new card I can process the transfer. But just so you know, the money won’t be available for anywhere from 24 to 72 hours.”

Of course it won’t, I thought. I continued searching the ceiling while toying with the idea of having a check processed, cut and shipped  just to symbolically make Metro have to work/pay something for their idiotic failings. But I’ve no doubt such internal expenditures would so be used to drive the TAP card fee up in the future, so instead I just began reading off the digits.

UPDATE (11:42 a.m.): So I went to the taptogo.net website to see if the new card had been put into the system yet. I clicked on the My Account link and then the My Cards link. The good news is it had. The painfully laughable news is that my old “expired” card? Ha! According to the data there it’s still valid for four months until September 2, 2012. Here’s the screengrab (biggably clickable):

Since I never reported the card lost or stolen I have absolutely no idea why there are Ys in the Lost/Stolen and Report Lost Successful boxes other than that’s how the MTA is getting away with murdering the card so prematurely.