SustainLane released their list of top sustainable cities this week. We’re not sure what this means but Los Angeles took the #18 spot.

The survey was limited to a geographically diverse set of cities with populations over 100,000 and accessible sustainability data. For reasons unknown, #5 Santa Monica, with only 90,000 residents, was granted an exception.

Overall rankings were determined by averaging 12 individual category rankings into an average and were influenced by such factors as number of farmers’ markets, the city’s biking plan and the existence of a URL for the city environmental program.

Scanning the SustainLane Web site for details on what sustainability actually means led to this definition from their About Us section:

Sustainability has been defined in so many ways. To us, it simply means living more intelligently. How best to do exactly that is why we are here, and why we want you to share your ideas and resources with us and our community.

Living more intelligently? Talking about saving the world but not doing anything about it? Farmers Markets? This sounds like the work of…Hippies!

So be proud, LA. There are 17 other cities that Hippies should rather live in than ours.

The big Los Angeles ArtFest is happening downtown today. It’s 5:12pm. The art closes @ 6, yet the djs and weirdness continue into the evening. Will I make it in time to sample the goods, or will I be forced to return tomorrow? Only time will tell. Stay tuned for updates. Aside: my Vegas mustache has given way to an incredibly bald upper lip.

Today marked the grand opening of a third LA Apple Store in Century City, providing relief for exhausted Apple enthusiasts previously forced to hike the extra five miles to the Grove Apple Store.

The new location boasts of a Genius Bar twice the size of others, which means you’ll be ignored by more Mac Geniuses than ever.

But if you haven’t bought an iPod by now and you’re finally ready to take the plunge, don’t get fleeced for $400 here. Sean from blogging.la points out a guy down the street selling them out of a van on the cheap. Apparently he worked a bulk deal on 12,000 units and he’s ready to pass the savings on to you.

Apple Store Century City
10250 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90067

Driving Directions & Map

NOTE: URL now updated on LAPD story. Apologies to Sean and the blogging.la staff for the gaffe. And as a refresher course for all, it’s CTRL+C, CTRL+V to cut and paste. Mac users can hit CMD+C, CMD+V.

There was a Dave Chappelle sighting in L.A. Wednesday night. Variety reports that Dave turned up on stage at the Improv and Comedy Store in Hollywood and worked out some material. Is he inching back to getting his comedic groove on? Has he sorted out his stuff? We can only hope. And can we end the speculation on what he’s been up to? Sometimes a brother just needs a day off, and this we well understand. Take your time, Dave–your 2nd season DVD sold more copies in its first week than any other TV show DVD ever. That’s more than Seinfeld, more than I Love Lucy, more than Airwolf.

There’s no word on future club appearances for Dave in L.A., so why not catch the comedic stylings of Sarah Silverman and Louis CK at Largo this Monday to get your funny on.

In a related Comedy Central note, we must add that we are looking forward to the new season of RENO 911!, in a couple of weeks. The cast will be signing their new season 2 DVD at the Sunset Virgin Megastore on 6/15 at 7 pm. If the RENO guys do the signing in character, this is not to be missed.

A dark cloud was cast over the Los Angeles spelling scene Wednesday as Castaic Middle School eighth-grader Christian Medina failed to advance in this year’s National Spelling Bee.

Medina, representing the greater Los Angeles area, misspelled 11 of 25 words in a multiple choice written test.

Christian’s early tap out disappointed local linguaphiles who hoped to erase memories of Sean Sabino‘s 2004 last place finish.

After opening for Rolling Stones’ “Change My Bed Pan” Tour in Toronto, The Beck will have The Decemberists open his shows down here.

2 shows at the Universal Ampetheatre (7/22, 23) and one in Costa Mesa’s Pacific Ampetheatre (7/21). Should make for a neat-o double live feature. Hipsters in attendance should try to drown out KROQsters requests for “Loser” with shouts for “One Foot In the Grave.” Level VII Hipsters can yell out for “The Tain” during the Decemberists’ set which apparently is a big deal when aired live.

Tickets for the Pacific Amphitheatre (happily still just the unsponsored “Pacific Amphitheatre” after all these years!) are on sale now. Use the KROQ presale password (BECKH) on Ticketmaster and you can still pull down orchestra seats. General public scum can wait until Saturday at 10 am to buy their tickets.

And lo, Mother Earth hath once again has smitten the hubris-laden who dare to build upon her dangerous precipices. Laguna Beach is the site of the most recent eruption of Southern California’s geological wrath, as more than a dozen homes were sent sliding down a hillside, some of them still intact as they decended. Much has been written and drawn about the myriad natural disasters that plague Southern California–fires, earthquakes, mudslides, floods, locusts, and so on. Be sure, we take no joy when harm comes to our little sister county of Orange. That would be like laughing at an ugly baby–just not right. Following Jesus’s path, we aim to love the sinner and hate the sin.

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For Area TV News editors only:

To demonstrate that a “blog” can indeed be of legitimate journalistic value, we offer to you, free of charge, the following helpful advice to enhance this evening’s disaster coverage. You should obtain the following 2 pieces of video:

Soundbite 1, The Stubborn Stay-Put Resident: “We’ll just rebuild and stay here. It’s such a beautiful place to live. We’ve lived our whole lives here.”

Soundbite 2, The ‘I’m Outta Here’ Ex-resident (usually videoed while loading a dog into trailer hitch): “We’re outta here. This time, it’s too bad to rebuild. We’re headed for solid ground.”

Sean from blogging.la posted a great writeup on the newest trend in Downtown LA street entrepreneurship:

“The homeless guys who hang around the wholesale toy district downtown have got a crazy parking meter scam going…they figured out how the meters register the coins and fashioned little plastic sticks that they can slide down the coin slot and rack up time – then they jam the slot so you can’t put any change in it. When you park they rush you and explain that if you want to park in that spot you need to give them the change you would have put in the meter and they will then rig it for you so you have time, if you don’t pay them, they won’t use their magic meter sticks and you’ll get a ticket. There’s probably 20 different guys doing this all day on the several blocks north of 3rd and west of Alameda, specifically on Boyd and Wall streets.”

Read the full post on blogging.la.