The Los Angeles Times vs. the Tribune

Personally, I'd like to see the Times to maintain its excellence in journalism. This may sound like the Time's (editors and staff) current position to the downsizing request from the Tribune. However, we somehow need to face that this is a business decision. No matter who's going to run this newspaper in the future, as long as it will be ran as a for-profit organization, they will be facing the cost-profit issue again in a few years.

At the current age of online media, how to profit from quality in journalism remains a challenge for many newspapers. Will online ads revenue be able to reimburse the profit loss from declining sales of paper copies? Will targeted ads such as those run in Google improve the advertising rate?

Let's hope the best.

LA Times' publisher and editor are leaving the newspaper

LA Times' publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson has been fired for not cutting enough staff and other cost. Times editor Dean Baquet resigned to protest the decision by its parent company, the Tribune.

I see both sides of the argument. There may be more than just these above mentioned differences between Johnson and the Tribune board. Although very successful in publishing Pulitzer winning articles, day-to-day profitability is what Tribune cares.

As much as I enjoying reading the times, which is my favorite, I have to admit that I am not a subscriber. Just buying the Sunday edition from time to time while shopping at the Albertson's. Most of the articles I got are from its web site while not (yet) bought anything from their ads sponsors. How do they make money off me?

May be eventually, we will also get use to paying for these services. I've been saying that for years, still not there yet.

Dreaming green: Granite sidewalk on Rodeo Drive to save Beverly Hills?

The city of Beverly Hills is considering replacing the new concrete sidewalks on Rodeo drive to green granite. The city manager claim that is necessary to be the "elite of the elite."

May be he's dreaming too much of green.

The construction in downtown Beverly Hills is already killing me whenever I need to cross it late in the afternoon to reach Century City. Who knows how long this will take? May be it's near-sighted, but who is seeing the future when just paid 16 million for a new concrete sidewalk?

In the end, you won't be surprised that the rich guys always win. Just like the abandoned rail tracks going through Santa Monica Blvd, they can only be used for parking lots when rich people in the neighborhood wants some peace in the morning. (Don't worry, they don't have to go to work). Those poor guys who need to go through west LA, tough luck. You are in the wrong side of the town, or ocean. Move to Bombay (Mumbai), where you can get your home-cooked lunch delivered to your office for $1 by Dabbawala, thanks to their efficient public transportation system. According to Wikipedia, the Dabbawala supply chain system achieves a six-sigma rating (99.9999% deliveries are made without error).

Off topic, if you're in Bay area and miss the home-cooked Indian food, try the Annadaata service. NY Times highly recommended it.

Santa Monica Nissan

I finished work early today. Since I'm not far from the dealer and the small car is due for an oil change soon, I decided to get an oil change at Santa Monica Nissan.

The service department is not that busy, so they get mine started right away even without an appointment. Sam, the "service representative", told me that according to the mileage, I'm also due for a minor service for $75 instead of the $25 oil change. I think the tires need to be rotated anyway so I agreed.

20 minutes later, Sam called me:" based on your mileage, you need to balance the tire ($40) and do a $175 fuel injection flush." What? When I asked him what's included in the $74 minor service, he now told me that it's only the oil change, top off the fluids, check the brakes, rotate the tire, and basic lubrication. I just couldn't believe that they rotate the tire without balance it? And "according to mileage", why didn't he tell me in the first place? And since they are paid to rotate the tires, how come still charging $40 (w/ coupon) to balance it?

I shouldn't have agreed to even do the $75 minor service. What kind of oil change is it if they don't even check other part of the car? That's the least I would expect from a dealer. The take home lesson is that never go back to there again, and don't buy a Nissan.

Rose parade

While waiting for the ball to drop at Time Square last night (sorry, it's taped for the west coast), the channel 11 News (Fox) showed hundreds of people hanging out on Colorado ave at Pasadena just for Saturday's morning's Rose Parade. Okay, it's LA and it stopped rainning in the afternoon, I still couldn't help wondering why those people have so much energy for that? Not to mention one woman said her family were there every year! The only thing I can say is that everybody has their own purpose in life and waiting 24 hours on the street for Rose Parade is just not my thing.