* Fresh items are at the bottom, as usual...

• This is anniversary week (the second) for L.A. Observed, a fact that the Downtown News dug up and turned into a front-page feature by Chris Coates. The reference to campaign blogs, by the way, should read "10-12" not "ten dozen"—though it would be wonderful if there were that many writers commenting on local politics. Separately, I'm being interviewed by Val Zavala later today for an upcoming segment on the campaign for "Life and Times" on KCET. While I'm touting, April traffic set another record for visitors to L.A. Observed (and May is off to a big start.) I've also joined the Los Angeles Blogs advertising network that Jeff at SoCalLawBlog has corralled, which makes it easier to place an ad on multiple L.A. blogs.
• la.foodblogging is a new group website about local restaurants, culinary news, shopping tips, "nearly anything that deals with food in and around Los Angeles." Jonah of L.A. Blogs is a prime mover.
• Still speaking of blogs, SPJ and the Cal State Northridge journalism department are having Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others in tomorrow at 4 p.m to talk about "Battle in the Blogosphere: Bloggers, Reporters and the Future of Journalism." Then at 6:30 p.m., SPJ is having cocktails with Leroy Sievers, former executive producer of ABC's "Nightline," at the Figueroa Hotel's Veranda Bar.
• Lou Brancaccio, the former top editor of the late Santa Monica Outlook, is now editor of The Columbian in Clark County, Washington. In a recent column up there, he desribes the joy of beating a bad ticket for running a red light.
• Roger L. Simon says his advertising and news service startup Pajamas Media has signed on 250 blogs.
• Those red-tailed hawks nesting in Westwood should be named for important Angelenos, "names commensurate with Los Angeles' sunniest, most soaring aspirations and her most noirish, predatory fears," David Kipen says from out in Malibu. He proposes over at LA Voice that they be dubbed Dorothy and Raymond (Chandler).
• Nikki Finke thinks The Huffington Post "blows" and will be Arianna's undoing. Reaction to today's launch is pretty much everywhere online, including locally at FishbowlLA, bloggingla, LAist, Defamer, LAVoice and LA.com.