Growing up we all knew about the "haunted house" in our neighborhood. Real or imagined it made for great tales in the backyard camp outs. This is part of a series for this month regarding some local hauntings to liven up your October.

Local landmark here in Monrovia, the "Aztec Hotel" has had a colorful past. It opened with quite a bit of fanfare in the 1920's what was to be the start of the Mayan Architecture revival. The Aztec unfortunately opened in time for the prohibition. A bit more on its history HERE.

The Aztec quickly became the stop of choice and haunt (pun intended) of many a Hollywood type when the speakeasy opened in the basement of the hotel. That "speak easy" cemented its place as the watering hole for the Hollywood Celebrities on their way out to Palm Springs. Details of the Haunting of the Aztec after the jump.

Wait....let me clarify...

KPCC (89.3 on your FM dial) is having their Fall Fund Drive and today's prize is a trip to Washington DC to see Ira Glass in April, 2008. If you pledge and win* you will recieve airfare for two, hotel and tickets to the show at George Washington University. (Hey--GW University is in Foggy Bottom! I love saying Foggy Bottom. There is a Trader Joe's in Foggy Bottom, did you know that?)

If you listen to Public Radio, you might already be madly in love with This American Life like I am. Recently, episode 339: Break Up kept me glued to my ipod (I subscribe to the podcast This American Life). If you have ever had a break up and listened to Phil Collins, you might really enjoy the first segment of that episode.

Check out KPCC, support your excellent local public radio station and maybe go see Ira Glass...

*No contribution is necessary to enter the contest, but don't be a douche--contribute!

Much to the chagrin of the local governments bloggers pick up the good stuff and counter spin what little makes it into the mainstream media. It's been a lively week, good reading. More importantly LA, besides being entertaining or infuriating, what happens in the SGV ultimately rolls down into the rest of the basin. Really you guys need to watch what they are up to as they act like no one is paying attention. Pasadena seems to be the bigger target mostly as the blog writers there are the most vocal.

- Pasadena's Political Underbelly reports Civic Acupuncture as a way to continue architectural mediocrity.
- Pasadena's Political Underbelly reports on City Counsel Meeting with more of the same old developers win residents lose, mostly.
- Todd Ruiz at Under the Dome chimes in with Crime Tours. Nice. Just what PPD in the PRP needs bus trips into the crime hot spots. Wonder if it includes the dissenter's courtyard?
Just a few more bits after the jump.

It's time for the Harvest season holidays, and of course, all the requisite fun stuff that comes along with it! For United Statesians it might be pumpkins, costumes, and candies. Mexicans usually favor marigolds, pan de muerto, and sugar skulls. (And Chicanos get to pick and choose from either tradition, being ni de aqui, ni de alla has its upside!) The Dia de los Muertos traditions and iconography have quickly seeped into the mainstream non-Mexican culture. Shit, it's even been crassly commercialized by Target. In no time, the origins of those traditions will be forgotten, incorporated completely into Americana. (I can picture it now, the next generation of anti-Mexican xenophobes building altars and making ofrendas to Jim Gilchrist and Lupe Moreno; you know it'll happen!) But whatever, that's how living cultures work and I'm all for it. So if you want to get a head start on the (de)Mexicanization of the season, click ahead for suggestions of where to get your sugar skull supply.

Spotted this while gassing up in Hollywood. I guess cruising out in public is just an invitation for massive media assault advertising these days. You can't just look away, there's LOUD sound too.

Pump Top TV. Yeah!

Let's call this reason #173 why I'm glad to be a vegan. I thought this was a hoax when I first stumbled across it, or at the least, the ravings of some lunatic conspiracy theorist whose best friend is a big invisible bunny (or something along those lines). But a little Googling brought me to an LA Business Journal article from 2004. Oh, yum:

West Coast Rendering, which also uses the name D&D; Disposal, collects several hundred thousand dead animals every year--euthanized animals from shelters and pets that have been put to sleep at veterinary hospitals.

West Coast Rendering appears to be one of the few remaining companies that render dogs and cats, said Don Franco, president of the non-profit Center for Biosecurity, Food Safety & Public Health in Lake Worth, Fla.

Because of environmental laws, dog and cat remains cannot be mixed with other beef byproducts.

"Rendering means that these dead animals are cooked in a giant stew pot for an hour, at just above boiling, and then the fat is drained off this soup and put in drums for shipment to cattle feed facilities in California and elsewhere," said Leo Grillo, founder of the largest care-for-life cat & dog sanctuary in the world, D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, of Glendale, CA, "the rest is ground up into a powder and loaded by tractor into either a container or an open grain truck, which is later used for grain and feed transport."

"Our D.E.L.T.A. Rescue Humane Investigation Unit followed trucks to American companies where the powder, now called 'protein meal,' is added to farm-animal feed. We also followed containers to the ports where they are loaded for shipment to Asia ... to be added to feed for the farmed fish and seafood that comes back to the United States and is sold in our supermarkets. Check the labels of the seafood in the stores: 'product of Thailand, Vietnam, etc.'"

Q: Two cars are traveling East on Riverside Drive in Valley Village sometime around 3:30PM. One is a silver Nissan Sentra, driven by a young Armenian woman taking her little brother home from school while listening to a profanity-laden rap song. The other is a green Ford Explorer with 2 young Hispanic women blaring "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison. If the Sentra is a block ahead of the Explorer, but traveling 5 miles slower, which car is the first to reach WTF-Ville?

"Beer plant urged to save water" was the headline in todays SGVTribune. On top of our own JozJozJoz's most excellent article HERE on the continuing drought now a more precious commodity could be threatened. Our Beer supply. The last I checked the web we are going into a much stronger La Nina for this winter than last which means dry conditions will continue. I can live with a dirty car (I already do) just don't take my beer away.

3:10PM Edit PS the pic is by me of my prescious supply. Done with the che-ez stroke it nicely to make it bigger.

L.A. Town Hall meeting on Iraq/Blackwater this Sunday.

By now, you've probably heard of Blackwater, an organization that is hired by the government for special operations that, for whatever the reason, cannot be performed by the U.S. Military. You've also probably heard of "incidents" in Iraq involving innocent civilians. Now there's this...

Blackwater wants to move to your backyard. They have plans to build a private military base near San Diego.

Think of the next major disaster that strikes Southern California. With most of our armed forces stretched out overseas, whom do you think the government is going to call in? Blackwater. Men with guns, but no uniform. Men with guns, but no badge. Men with guns, but no honor.

In Los Angeles, we call those gangs.

Toyota's biomimetic chameleon

This year, the L.A. Auto Show Design Challenge pushed the top carmakers' design shops to dream up "RoboCar 2057."

I'm sad to report that this year's entries show none of the half-plausible technology seen in last year's "green" Design Challenge, plus, NOT ONE OF THE DAMN THINGS CAN FLY.

But hey, if you squint hard enough and drink five more Red Bulls, it starts to look like these eight SoCal-based design tanks all did a pretty good job of dynamiting your expectations for what laying rubber and grinding gears should be like 50 years from now ...