Erik Himmelsbach didn't enjoy last night's fireworks show at CBS Studio City. It set him back thirty bucks and he wants to share the experience:

Like most Americans, we believe free fireworks are an inalienable right. Last year, we wound up in the parking lot at Gelson's on Laurel Canyon, with a poor view of the works shot from CBS' Studio City lot.

Tonight, though, we bit the bullet and actually paid to attend the CBS soiree....Seemed like it actually might be fun -- it was advertised as lots of food, a kids area, a Beatles cover band. Sounded like a nice night out with the family.

[snip]

The "food court" consisted of one stand for food, one for pie and brownies and a kiosk each for beer and wine. My family and our friends are vegetarians, so of course by 7 p.m., two hours before firework time, the food stand was out of veggie burgers. My kids were hungry, but they weren't interested in a meal of potato salad and baked beans. We tried to get them a brownie, but those were gone as well. I heard they ran out of forks, too....

The fireworks? They were nice, all 18 minutes of them. It must of been nicer for the 1 percent of attendees who snagged a chair in which to sit. But when it was over, it took four times that long to actually escape the parking lot. We were on the fifth level and my father-in-law estimated that we didn't move an inch for a good 40 minutes.

While we're noticing blog rants, Cybele at Blogging.la decides the new Finding Nemo submarine ride at Disneyland wasn't worth the wait.