Well, I did point out that there are plenty of people who love LA, but I’m just not one of them. And I did distinguish between Burbank & Glendale and the rest of the city, even though since this is the area I’ve seen most often, “Los Angeles” is interchangeable with “Burbank” for me.

My point still stands that taking everything that’s supposed to be cool (to a TV-raised child), and putting it in the middle of an overwhelmingly vast expanse of dullness, is a dirty trick. And I’ve visited other parts of the city, both on vacations, trips for E3, and on business trips where I’ve tried to force myself to like the area. With very few exceptions, it’s resulted in a depressingly low return on investment.

I’ve got absolutely no doubt there are restaurants in LA that are like being awarded a Pulitzer Prize in your mouth. I’ve also got no doubt that to get to them, you have to spend at least an hour in traffic on crowded freeways or streets through low, flat strip-malls or featureless office buildings. Traffic sucks in the bay area, too, but at least I can usually (if I’m not driving in the south bay) look outside the window and not want to kill myself. I think Los Angeles and I will be better off spending more time apart.

My crush on Michaela Pereira is stronger than ever, though.

Visit Koreatown, Little Ethiopia, the San Gabriel Valley (Taiwanese/Vietnamese/Chinese), Little Tokyo, Olvera Street, Tehrangeles (Persian/Iranian), Watts, Artesia (India/Pakistan) and other places and you’d be plunged in cultures you’ve barely heard about. Or check out the different alt. cultures in Silver Lake, Venice Beach or West Hollywood. If LA is able to supply enough exotic and diverse (albeit inconspicuous) material to help award the only Pulitzer prize to a food critic, who propounds to “search out food that is a window into the city’s crazy-quilt immigrant soul” (link), the least you can do is get off the Internet, get out of the hotel, and check out what makes LA unique.