Be sure to check out Austin power-pop-punk band, Spoon, at their free in-store tomorrow 7 pm at Amoeba (Google map and directions).

tinymixtapes gave their latest release, Gimme Fiction, a perfect score.

It’s free, how can you go wrong?

Tomorrow morning the LA Times will phase out a $4.95 monthly subscription to it’s calendarlive section, offering “unlimited access to the most powerful local arts and entertainment search engine in Southern California – don’t just find movie show times, find restaurants near that theater.”

It only took two years for the Times to learn that people won’t pay for widely-available free content. Along with this strategy shift, online Times users will be regaled with a new home page, “which is lighter and loads faster on PCs.” Mac users, looks like your SOL.

The full memo from latimes.com GM Rob Barrett to Times Employees posted below courtesy of paidcontent.org.

FULL MEMO:
TO: Times Employees
FROM: Rob Barrett, General Manager, latimes.com
SUBJECT: Latimes.com Debuts New Look

On Tuesday, latimes.com will debut a new look, new services and added utility as the first step of a yearlong initiative to improve and expand the website and make it a more powerful complement to the paper. Along with these changes, The Times will reintroduce free access to calendarlive.com.

Visitors to latimes.com will now find a wider, cleaner home page that includes “Pacific Time,” a prominent home for Times stories that take the pulse of Southern California. The home page, which is lighter and loads faster on PCs, is also a one-stop online guide to all Los Angeles Times news, features and classifieds sections and content.

These initial changes will be effective at 5 a.m. PDT tomorrow. They are intended to make latimes.com a daily stop in the lives of Southern Californians while exposing calendarlive.com’s extensive offerings to the broadest audience possible. With more than 2,000 searchable events at any given time, and featuring The Times’ top critics and reviewers, calendarlive.com has the Internet’s most comprehensive listings for theater, music, dance, opera, art museums and galleries and family events in Southern California.

More information about these and other changes planned for latimes.com are contained in a news release that will be issued Tuesday morning and posted on TimesLink. We invite you to visit the site to check out the improvements, and we’ll keep you posted about other significant enhancements as they are implemented.

The Dodgers designated Nori Nakamura to the minor leagues Sunday evening to make room on the 40-man roster for infielder Oscar Robles.

Nakamura, who signed a minor-league deal with the Dodgers in February, will be placed on waivers, giving all teams an opportunity to acquire him. “I felt like I’m not needed by the team,” Nakamura said.

The feeling’s likely mutual, Nori. Nakamura hit .128 with three RBIs and no homers in 17 games (although if you look at his splits he hit a nifty .300 in day games). He can now be safely dropped from your fantasy baseball roster.

We here at losanjealous love our Trader Joe’s as a budget-conscious alternative to Whole Foods, so we investigated this recalled dip news item.

Now, when Paul Moyer’s fat head comes on with that inevitable May Sweeps tease (“What you have in your fridge can kill you, tune in at 11″), you can know that it is just a labeling mix-up and the dip is only harmful if you are allergic to dairy and peanuts.

(Yes, it was a slow news day for us.)

It is a tired cliche to complain about Los Angeles area traffic. It is a tired cliche to say that it is a tired cliche to complain about Los Angeles traffic. We know this. We live here. We have conversations about freeway strategies. My controversial 405-to-the 101-to-Downtown route has been frequently mocked by those preferring the conventional 405-to-the 10-to-the 110.

Given this, we have decided instead to perversely revere our continued domination at the top of the worse traffic in the nation rankings. And it’s not even a close race–check out that lead we have over #2 San Fran.

Considering that we spend 93 hours a week in traffic, it is perhaps no coincidence that L.A. is also leading the way in making your car a better place to live.

With too much time on my hipster hands, I started to wonder who would win in an all out battle royale between the Arcade Fire and the Polyphonic Spree. (Like this hasn’t entered your head too.) Obviously the Spree has the numbers by 3 to 1, but somehow the Fire seem like a scrappier bunch that would fight more fiercely. Regine seems like she could take the whole chorus section of the Spree. But then again, one swift french horn to the head (helmet or no), and it’s good night Irene.

This summer the Fire and Spree support David Byrne (sans Talking Heads :() and Brian Wilson (sans Mike Love :)) repectively in a pair of shows at the Hollywood Bowl, June 26 and September 4. Tickets already went on sale, but you weren’t about to shell out $115 for the boxes down front that have already been snapped up.

Save the money for a decent bottle of red to bring in, and pick up some $6 bench seats up on the hill (still available as of now). Remember, the Bowl is B.Y.O.B. — Bring your own binoculars.

And feel free to weigh in with your take on the upcoming Arcade Fire vs. Polyphonic Spree steel cage death match. Maybe we can get The Killers vs. The Bravery for the undercard.

Win Butler: “My new fighting technique is unstoppable!” (photo via arcadefire.net)

Not sure about heading out for a picnic this weekend? Perhaps the fine folks at Gold n’ Soft® magarine can persuade you to come out to Whittier Narrows Recreation Center in El Monte this Sunday, May 8.

Those lucky attendees at the Eastside park will be the awed recipients of a fly-by of The World’s Largest Margarine Tub to advertise the Gold n’ Soft® brand. And also to honor Cinco de Mayo. But mainly to advertise the brand.

The Cinco de Mayo weekend picnic at Whittier Narrows, already a popular annual pre-Memorial Day tradition for many Southlanders, is sure to see a boost in attendance thanks to the extra attention from Gold n’ Soft® margarine. It is well known within the marketing industry that Latinos choose their consumer goods purchases based on aerial advertisements, so this is sure to spread sales of Gold n’ Soft® magarine, while simultaniously enriching the picnicing experience, making this a win-win for everyone. Well, except the French, who had their asses handed to them in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. For our French friends, this margarine fly-by will surely be salt in the wounds of their bitter defeat.