That was definitely the most intense earthquake I’ve felt – a 5.0 in Inglewood, lasting quite a bit longer than the last few little wobbles we’ve had.

It lasted juuuust long enough for me to be worried it was the beginning of a larger quake. People closer to the epicenter had stuff knocked off their shelves, but it didn’t even knock out my wireless internet, which has been incredibly finicky lately.

Chaplin was duly unimpressed, sleeping through the entire incident. I will probably be jumpy every time someone so much as slams a door for the next few days.

There’s an amusing article up at the Washington Post, wherein the author points out all the hilariously inaccurate and wholly fabricated locations that 24 has used during its first season set in my ridiculous hometown of Washington D.C.

The traditional, “In what universe can you get from the White House to Foxhall Road in five minutes?” complaint rears its head. This is familiar to those of us in L.A. who laugh our asses off at the thought of getting from downtown to Burbank in ten minutes in the middle of rush hour traffic.

I will grant you, the “bad guys scuba diving up to the White House” was pretty damn ridiculous, since unless the entire swamp that sits beneath the city instantly liquefies, there will be no bad guys scuba diving up to the White House.

The geographic monkeying is still not as bad as it is on some shows, like when Bones relocated Arlington Cemetery to the other side of the Potomac for their pilot.

But 24 is at least somewhat plausible in its D.C.-ness. I’ve actually been pretty impressed the way that the squat parts of L.A.’s downtown have stood in for D.C.’s legislatively height-challenged buildings.

There’s definitely aspects of it that are unrealistic, but really, there are aspects of every show in which you have to suspend your disbelief. Longtime 24 viewers with any knowledge of L.A. geography whatsoever know that the Time-Traffic Continuum is never, has never been, and never will be respected by the show.

And now, those with that same knowledge of D.C. are learning that for themselves.

Sarcasm briefly aside, it was really nice to see the huge turnout (estimated by the cops at 12k, but really, looking at this picture, I think it’s a lot closer to their original estimate of 40k) at the big pro-gay-rights rally today, and some of the speakers were really great.

The head of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference pledging to fight for equal rights, the LA City Attorney announcing he’s joining the suit to get Prop. 8 overturned, and mayor Antonio “Look, Cameras!” Villaraigosa giving a great speech in both English and Spanish.

It was kind amusing to see the collection of gay-friendly celebrities the rally folks elected to trot out: Ricki Lake and Marisa Janet Winkour, the past and current Tracy Turnblads; as well as Lucy Lawless. Let me tell you, there were some excited lesbians about the latter.

The march, which was basically up Spring street about 3/4 of a mile and then back up Main the other direction, was pretty nice, with some fun repetitive chants, but with the temperature in downtown spiking above 90, it was pretty exhausting.

But really, when the gays protest anything, the signs are always the most fun aspect. Some of my personal favorites:

• Spandex is a privelige, Marriage is a right!
• Jesus said LOVE, bitches!
• I assume the gay chickens will remain caged. [reference to the passage of Prop. 2, protecting the rights of chickens, at the same time as Prop. 8 stripped gays of their rights]
• Every 10th Jesus is a Mary
• Not all of us can marry Liza Minelli!
• If you want to put a stop to gay sex, why not let us get married?

Also, go Wanda Sykes. Given the comments she makes to the guy with the podcast linked on that blog, I think she’s going to be a little surprised by the fuss her officially coming out kicks up. But I’m very proud of her and everyone else who’s been shaken out of their complacency by this stupid measure passing.

The overwhelming feeling I came away with from today was optimism. This won’t stand. Not for long. And that fact is incredibly heartening.

A fun Los Angeles moment this evening (or this morning, really, since this was when I was coming home at 12:30AM):

Speeding down La Brea towards the 10, I came up behind a new-looking sliver Porsche Carerra. The CA plate: 0 IQ.

Sadly, it was just some typical douchebag driving it and not a hot blonde. If it were the latter, that would have been way more awesome.

A few of my better photos from my ridiculously good seats watching the poor old Cubbies lose to the Dodgers a week ago:

Thanks to my friend Matty Lew, who generously subsidized my ticket, and blatantly lied to me about the extent to which he was doing so because he knew I would have been way too proud to accept said subsidy otherwise.

Yep, I felt that.

Normally it takes me 45 minutes to get from Santa Monica to Santa Clarita. Today, it took me 1 hour, 35 minutes.

15 minutes spent just getting ON the 405 freeway to go north, because for no apparent reason, the 10E-405N interchange was ridiculously backed up.

Then after I finally broke free of that, I got right past the last exit before you go down the hill towards the 101 when traffic ground to a complete halt.

Just under two miles and just over 35 minutes later, I finally passed the source: A flipped-on-its-side pickup truck, along with the Scion that apparently hit it (whose entire front end had been reduced to a six-inch scrunch of metal) and a Lexus that glanced off it with more moderate damage.

The whole thing closed down three of the six lanes of the 405, right before the giant mess of the 405-101 interchange. It was staggeringly awesome.

A few years ago, Martin Landau drove past me at the In-N-Out burger.

Tonight, it was Cameron Diaz at the Roller Derby enjoying a Hot Dog on a Stick (they bring their catering truck to the games and make a mint off the hungry hungry hipsters). I have to admit, it was a bit strange.

Not the weirdest celebrity sighting ever, or the most random (she was there with a friend who’s directing a movie about Roller Derby), but still. Notable even in L.A. for its sheer oddity.

Saturday I went to the Golden Dragon parade celebrating Chinese New Year with some friends, and my pictures are up.

I’m really happy with how these came out, since this is the first time I went shooting with my giant (70-300mm) lens and did manual focus the entire time.

I will say, this is the first parade I’ve been to in a while, and I’d forgotten how incredibly repetitive parades are: Dragon, dragon, float, marching band, dragon, marching band, Kung Fu school, dragon, dragon, marching band, dragon….

A few of the highlights (click to go to each photo’s Flickr page:

I was driving to meet a friend for brunch yesterday and saw a very unusual and rather breathtaking sight: The mountains behind Los Angeles, covered in snow, clear as a bell.

Here’s an awesome picture of, basically, what I saw, (with a hat tip to LAist for pointing it out). Looks like that was taken a little later in the afternoon when some of the smog and clouds had started to return.

Given that this was the view of downtown from Mt. Hollywood just a couple weeks ago, (you’ll note that you can’t actually, you know, see downtown) I’d call yesterday’s weather a substantial improvement.

I will say, as ugly and dopey as this city can be, when the smog clears up, it’s really, really gorgeous here.