Here today, gone faster: Mitch O'Farrell from Eric Garcetti's office said the Angelus Temple acted within the law in erasing the bungalow it owned on Lemoyne:

Angelus Temple obtained the demolition permit for that location before the ICO [interim control ordinance] was adopted. The ICO is still in place and would prohibit demolition of remaining protected structures within the ICO radius without a hardship exemption.

Deputy Cats: One list server from the Echo Park Animal Alliance posted this morning that:

The L.A. County jails have been using cats for years. It's amazing to me that every time I go down there, there's a whole group of them just strolling along...however...then you see a giant rat.

Brite Spot clears away the holidays and pronto. Jan. 2, I drove past a team of Brite Spotters scrubbing holiday greetings off the Sunset Boulevard diner's windows. In with the new.

Magic Gas has gas again. (Really, no pun intended.) The handwritten signs that seemed to be up for weeks on each pump, declaring, "Sorry, no gas," have been removed. Now I wish someone would remove the icky Big Boy billboard ("Big Boy has gas" -- emphasis is mine) from Alvarado/Sunset.

I've been looking for the churros truck that usually sits on Echo Park Avenue just south of Sunset but haven't seen it. Hoping it's just on vacation.

Everytime I've been to the Downbeat Cafe recently the place has been wall-to-wall laptops. Writers' strike. So I guess they're working their novels. (Novelists, after all, are not joining the strike in solidarity.) Dakota, who runs the kitchen, said that he's had to work late because the usual prep-work that get done during normal working hours has been impossible to achieve because of the crush.