Picking up from yesterday –
Some neutral stuff:
1) There’s a lot of food in here. Food’s cool. And some of it is very LA. (Pink’s Hot Dogs is iconic. So is In-n-Out.)
I went to Pink’s before I was a vegetarian, but I think you could still go and get fries or something. (And some of the hot dogs have so many interesting (vegetarian-friendly) toppings, you probably could get a bun filled with stuff, and it’d probably be good.)
Anyway, the point is, do I need literally hundreds of the entries to be about food? Probably not. (For me at least, some people love food.)
2) Speaking of things some people love and some people don’t, there are at least 8 bowling alleys in this book. Is bowling really that big of a thing in Los Angeles? Do you know how many comedy places are listed (that I can find)?
One.
Upright Citizens Brigade. Not Groundlings (which is LA specific, having only one LA location – not one in New York or in Chicago (as iO West and Second City do)).
The Laugh Factory and Comedy Store aren’t in there either.
I know I’m obviously more partial to comedy than to bowling, but I would also think Los Angeles in general is. You think of stand-ups and people trying to get their start in Los Angeles. But I don’t think of it as a big bowling town… unless the book/author knows some things I don’t know about the big bowling scene out here.
There are also 7 record stores listed. I’m not huge into record stores, but I totally get that. LA has a thriving music scene. Why not list a bunch of record stores?I wouldn’t argue that for a second.
Again, this is opinion based. But I’m just wondering how in a book about LA are there 8 bowling alleys, I think 7 golf courses, hundreds of food choices but no Comedy Store? I know we’re not Chicago, but I still think LA is somewhat known for performers/comedy/and all that jazz.
Aaaaanyway, let’s peel off of that rant.
3) Lots of people mention this in reviews of this book, but it’d be possibly nice if it were organized by neighborhood. Right now it’s organized by type of activity (outdoors, sights & sounds, food, etc.).
But if I’d like to go for a hike in the morning, have a cool lunch, then go to a show at night – how great would it be if I could easily see what all was in the same area? (‘Cause LA is big and traffic is terrible. It’s not as easy as if I were in say, Columbus Ohio and everything was maybe 30 minutes from things even “far away.”)
Of course, if the book were organized like that then it wouldn’t be as easy to say, “I want a museum. Where’s that section?” But the 1,001 Things In New York book does it awesomely. They have the book broken into type of activity (just like this one), but in the back they have an index by neighborhood. So you could spend the day in the Financial District just mixing and matching stuff to do.
4) I don’t mind this part at all, but some areas that are not Los Angeles are mentioned in this book. I feel like Disneyland I understand, but once you get as far as Palm Springs (and the San Diego zoo?!), I think the area the book should cover gets a little hazy. However, since it is in driving distance, I actually think it’s nice to give some variety.
I’ll get into how I use the book tomorrow.