OC Life >>

• Best Radio Personality (14 Comments)
  Bubba Jackson
  Utterly amiable and vastly knowledgeable, Bubba Jackson handles the crucial weekday 6-to-9-a.m. slot for listener-supported KKJZ-FM 88.1, where he plays excellent jazz and blues cuts from the 20th and 21st centuries. Now, many radio jocks can do the same thing, but no professional on-air... More >>
• Best Radio Station (1 Comment)
  KUCI-FM 88.9
  God bless college radio. Without it, we'd be stuck in the morass of Top 40 tyranny, slaves to the electronic DJ programmed by corporate suits halfway across the country (Indie 103.1, you are exempt . . . for the time being). And God bless KUCI for being one of the more interesting college... More >>
• Best Charity
  School on Wheels
  If children are the future and history repeats itself, then homeless children are very likely to repeat their parents' mistakes and end up on the streets themselves. In an attempt to break this sad cycle, School on Wheels, a non-government-funded charity founded in 1993, sends volunteer... More >>
• Best Parking Structure (2 Comments)
  Mickey & Friends Parking Structure at Disneyland
  Yes, it's the happiest parking structure on Earth. Built in 2000 to hold more than 10,000 vehicles, this monster of a parking lot is not only the most magical place to park your car, but also the most efficient in all of Orange County. In a time when other parking lots, like those at the... More >>
• Best Cool, Affordable Hotel Near Disneyland (1 Comment)
  Hotel Menage
  We always get this question from out-of-town guests: What's a decent, affordable place to stay near Disneyland? There is only one right answer: Hotel Menage. Several years ago, three young men bought a crappy old hotel on the location, tore everything out and refurbished it in style. The... More >>
• Best Anachronistic Water Crossing
  Balboa Island Ferry
  Okay, so it's not that far of a drive from Balboa Island to Balboa Peninsula, but the ferry's fun to take anyway—and it'll save you about five miles per car trip. The ferries have been making the quarter-mile (just less than 1,000 feet!) scenic ride since 1919, traveling at a... More >>
• Best Political Coup (2 Comments)
  John Moorlach and the Appointment of Sandra Hutchens
  Remember how the U.S. Olympic hockey team emerged from certain defeat and beat the Russians in 1980? Well, almost as exciting was this year's Hall of Administration miracle pulled off by John Moorlach, the Christian, conservative chairman of Orange County's Board of Supervisors. Less... More >>
• Best Politician
  Debbie Cook
  Rambunctious real-estate developers and their stooges in the local Orange County media love to celebrate massive, publicly subsidized but privately owned developments and to attack critics as unreasonable leftists. But the poster face for reasonable, responsible development—especially ones... More >>
• Best Park for Kids (1 Comment)
  Portola Park and the Children's Museum at La Habra
  The odd-shaped park next to decommissioned train cars, the La Habra Depot Theater and working-class neighborhoods boasts three baseball diamonds, basketball courts, an impressive tennis center with several lighted courts, and open space with strategically placed shade trees, picnic benches and... More >>
• Best Candidate Names
  Rod Todd, Duane Stiff, Bob Bliss and Michael Beverage
  Rod Todd, Duane Stiff, Bob Bliss and Michael Beverage. More >>
• Best Porn Names
  Rod Todd, Duane Stiff, Bob Bliss and Michael Beverage
  Rod Todd, Duane Stiff, Bob Bliss and Michael Beverage. More >>
• Best Judge
  David O. Carter
  Of the dozens of judges in Orange County, Carter stands in a class by himself. Perhaps that's why the former U.S. Marine (battle-tested against communist Vietnamese forces in Khe Sanh), prosecutor, municipal judge and Superior Court judge now serves as a federal judge sitting in the Ronald... More >>
• Best Police Chief
  Andrew E. Hall, Westminster
  Thanks to a continual supply of shady police officers—especially in high ranks of certain departments—Orange County's law enforcement has suffered a bruised reputation in recent years. However, we've also got cops like Andy Hall, chief at the Westminster Police Department.... More >>
• Best Gay Activist
  Jeff LeTourneau
  We're not exactly sure why areas dominated by conservatives have such colorful homosexual tales, but we do know you can't talk about OC gay history without mentioning Jeff LeTourneau any more than you could exclude Mission Viejo Olympian Greg Louganis or the annual fund-raiser... More >>
• Best Quote
  Michael S. Carona
  "I've had a life that's been absolutely blessed. . . . I've met millionaires, billionaires, I've traveled on personal airplanes, and I never shook anybody down for any shit, so . . . Not that I haven't, you know, drank some great wine and had great booze and . . . got... More >>
• Best Father
  Mark Dornan
  You can say a lot about Mark Dornan: son of a legendary Orange County Republican politician, close relative to a Wizard of Oz actor, onetime candidate for Congress, respected high-school teacher, perennial pain in Dana Rohrabacher's rear. Now add to the list: great dad. At the 2007 Garden... More >>
• Best Environmentalist
  Joel Robinson
  You can easily spot Joel Robinson and his work anywhere he might be—he's the happy chap with a scruffy beard and a floppy hat bicycling around town when he's not leading nature hikes throughout Orange County in his capacity as a park naturalist for the city of Santa Ana or via his... More >>
• Best Community Muckraker (1 Comment)
  'Fullerton Observer'
  The bi-weekly (except in summer), all-volunteer newspaper, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is one of the few completely independent publications in Southern California. As we can look down our ink-stained noses at the occasional poorly written or accuracy-challenged Observer... More >>
• Best Protest
  Anti-Credit-Card Gas-Fee Rally
  Mitch Goldstone's idea wasn't exactly radical: The one thing just about everyone agrees on is that gas costs too much. His approach is what puts it at the top of our list. On July 3, Goldstone, an Irvine businessman who doubles as a consumer activist, led a rally at the intersection of... More >>
• Best Counterprotest
  The Merchants of Main Street
  Fed up with weekly anti-communist protesters who demanded a boycott of Garden Grove-based Vietnamese-language newspaper Viet Weekly, local merchants on historic Main Street took matters into their own hands this spring. Just as protesters began their ritual of blaring martial music and chanting... More >>
• Best Use of Non-Lethal Force
  Josh Booty's Booking at Orange County Jail
  Fox Sports broadcaster Josh Booty is a former Louisiana State University quarterback, dual NFL/Major League Baseball draftee and older brother of the former USC starting QB John David Booty. But he vaulted off the sports page and into the crime blotter this past February when he was arrested on... More >>
• Best Improvement to OC Media (1 Comment)
  'Orange Coast'
  Sadly, there was a time when, month after month, Orange Coast carried no meaningful content. You'd see it on the newsstand, sigh in disappointment and grab a nearby Vanity Fair. No more. Under new ownership (Emmis Communications, the folks who produce the weighty Texas Monthly) and new... More >>
• Best Fired Journalist (1 Comment)
  Hao-Nhien Vu
  Journalism is a tough trade. You serve long hours, take home crappy pay, encounter morons with little or no reading-comprehension skills, and often work for ungrateful management. (Not here, of course. Hi, Ted!) Until recently, such was the fate of Hao-Nhien Vu, longtime managing editor of the... More >>
• Best News Anchor
  Pat Haslam
  We could also have called this one "Best News Anchor to Make Up for Previous Broadcasting Embarrassments." From 1990 to 1998, Haslam was Dr. Drive, the wacky morning weather-and-traffic reporter on the late, not-so-great Orange County NewsChannel. After that station's demise, he... More >>
• Best Sportscaster
  Mark Gubicza
  The former hard-throwing Kansas City Royals righthander pitched only one, inglorious 1997 season for the Angels, but he represents our greatest hope for a better team. No, not the Halos' baseball team, but rather the Halos' broadcasting team. Last season, "Gubi" was teamed with... More >>
• Best Weathercaster
  David Lynch, Indie FM 103.1
  Thought for the day: Weak radio signal equals static reception. More >>
• Best Fake Website
  Not the Los Angeles Times
  This Onion-esque satirical poke at the steadily declining real LA Times is the creation of ex-Times OC staffer Roy Rivenburg. Don't check the site every day, as stuff tends to sit there a while, but Rivenburg claims more regular updates will appear soon. Our favorite headline so far:... More >>
• Best TV Station (1 Comment)
  KDOC/Channel 56
  Before the sugar flows, we must squeeze some lemons. First, KDOC shows too many goddamn infomercials, the revenues from which obviously aren't trickling down to original programming such as DayBreak OC. What's the deal with the set for this show? Looks like a wood-paneled, suburban-den... More >>
• Best Blog (4 Comments)
  A Bubbling Cauldron
  While the county's major political blogs (OC Blog, the Liberal OC and Orange Juice!) rely on a stable of contributors for their hell-raising, the only writer for A Bubbling Cauldron is Geoff West, who (of course) calls himself the Pot Stirrer. Apart from clichés, that's what... More >>
• Best Conscience of OC Conservatives
  Steven Greenhut
  If there's anything we can't stand, it's Democrats and Republicans shilling for their elected officials who've been proven crooks and liars. Thankfully, Orange County's mainstream media have a consistent, principled voice in politics: Steven Greenhut, a veteran commentary... More >>
• Best Adult Ad
  Josie, from the pages of 'OC Weekly'
  "Liquor in the front. Poker in the rear. I'll let you go all in." More >>
• Best Radio Show Introduction
  'The OC Show'
  Some folks are blessed with many talents. Consider Irvine resident Cameron Jackson. He's a well-respected private detective. A political junkie. A bicycle enthusiast. With his wife, Nancy—a veteran public defender—the proud parent of two youngsters. And on Friday mornings,... More >>
• Best Celebrity
  Rick Warren
  Following the death of actor John Wayne, OC's biggest celebrities have tended to be political nut cases such as Fullerton Congressman William Edwin Dannemeyer, who once graphically described sex acts during an anti-gay tirade in the House of Representatives. For a time, our big celebrity was... More >>
• Best Urban Legend
  The Campus Drive Ghost Jogger
  UC Irvine kids leap at any opportunity to get the hell out of Irvine. Many late-night drives back to the dorms will take you down a stretch of Campus Drive right past the wildlife preserve. There are absolutely no lights, other than the occasional car going the opposite direction, and patches of... More >>
• Best Place to Get Stuck in Traffic (No, Really)
  PCH & Highway 133, Laguna Beach
  If you're going to get stuck in dismal OC traffic, pray it's on southbound Highway 133 where it meets Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach. Unlike so many congested spots, at least here you're not forced to stare at ugly, concrete sound walls or at the rear-end-bumper lights of... More >>
• Best Place to Get Run Over by a Bentley
  St. Regis Hotel Monarch Beach
  Fancy hotel. Fancy resort. Fancy buffet. And a perpetual line of Bentleys, Porsches, Ferraris and other cars that cost more than your kid's entire collegiate career are parked out front. Ogle and stare as the new rich abound. It's obnoxious in the way that only Orange County can... More >>
• Best Place to Get Towed (1 Comment)
  Irvine
  A certain few people we (and probably you) know have received tickets and been towed just for leaving their cars out for a day or two at a time. A certain person we know, however, also bribed a tow-truck driver $60 in exchange for getting his Honda back. So. Staying with a friend in Irvine? Be... More >>
• Best Place to Spot a Local Celebrity or Frank Mickadeit
  Gulfstream
  Where do Orange County's corporate, judicial, trust-fund celebrities like to gather? Gulfstream, near Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Here, you can order a dozen oysters for $26 (double the price of certain inland restaurants), sip on $16 glasses of white wine and whale-watch. Of course, by... More >>
• Best Hotel
  Capri Inn Laguna
  Located on the beach side of Coast Highway just a few blocks south of Avila's El Ranchito, the Capri Inn is an aging multistructure hotel that spills down the bluff to one of the most beautiful beaches between Big Sur and Baja California. It's also pretty much the cheapest place to stay... More >>
• Best Place to Put On Your Thinking Cap
  Beckman Center
  In April, the first International Cystinosis Research Symposium drew 40 researchers of the childhood disease to this facility owned and operated by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and located on seven acres of the UC Irvine campus. The 48,000-square-foot center has also rocked... More >>
• Best Place for a First Date
  On Target Indoor Shooting Range
  Nothing will reassure your date more than finding out you can shoot to kill. Share a shooting lane and show your date how well you handle that gorgeous .45 from On Target's vast arsenal of rental firearms. Nestled in a dreary industrial park between train tracks and Interstate 5, the place... More >>
• Best Place to Have an Orgy While Your Wife Is on Vacation
  Henry Nicholas' Secret Sex Bunker
  Back in the heady days of the late-1990s dot-com explosion, then-Broadcom CEO Henry Nicholas was a billionaire businessman with a reputation as a high-energy visionary. Now he faces prison time, charged with, among other things, using company cash to finance drug-fueled sex orgies at his... More >>
• Best City in Which to Live (1 Comment)
  Seal Beach
  Stepping out of a front door in Seal Beach is like walking into a small 1950s beach town. Kids leave their bikes (unlocked and everything!) on the front yard of their quaint one-story houses, neighbors say hello as you stroll by, the air smells of the beach as a crisp ocean breeze wafts... More >>
• Best Downtown
  Orange
  It's a national joke that Southern California considers a building historical if it has survived at least one presidential administration, but downtown Orange boasts quite a few buildings that have been around much longer and would legitimately be considered historic to all but the most... More >>
• Best View
  Newport Coast Drive South
  Got a recently frozen or drenched East Coast visitor who wants to feel the cool sensation of arriving in coastal Orange County? From the 73 toll road, exit at Newport Coast Drive (fork over the $1.75 toll first, of course) and go south. On both sides of the road, they'll see the handiwork of... More >>
• Best Advice Overheard at the Orange County Fair
  'Do not touch the bottom of your shoes, Elaine!'
  "Do not touch the bottom of your shoes, Elaine!" More >>
• Best Festival
  Día de los Muertos in Santa Ana
  Started in the mid-1990s in the living rooms of Mexican consulate workers who wanted their pocho kids to experience Mexico's annual counterpoint to Halloween, Santa Ana's Día de los Muertos celebration is now one of the biggest in the Southland. Run by the chingón Chicano... More >>
• Best Tourist Trap
  Huntington Beach Pier
  It's crowded, usually sun-drenched (except during the May Gray and June Gloom, of course—but let's not tell the tourists about those), fun for folks of all ages and about as California Baywatch cliché as you can get. But that's what the tourists come for, so that's... More >>
• Best Place for People-Watching
  John Wayne Airport Security Line
  Every combination of humanoid passes through the Terminal A security line. Tweakers, hillbillies, yuppie scum, uptight moms, screaming kids and bros in backward ballcaps—lots and lots of bros in backward ballcaps. No matter how excited these and other frequent flyers are to be leaving... More >>
• Best Building
  Twist-Basler House
  The Twist-Basler House is a Santa Ana historical treasure: The two-story Tudor Revival manse is on the city's list of historical properties. You'd think city officials would do everything possible to preserve it, but instead, they looked the other way while mega-developer Michael Harrah... More >>
• Best Suburban Neighborhood(s)
  The Eichler Tracts of Orange
  Walking into a home built in the early 1960s by architect Joseph Eichler, you're overcome by a desire to dress up like a Mad Men cast member, break out your phonographs and spark up a Chesterfield King. Eichler used cement, large redwood beams and wall-sized glass panes to revolutionize... More >>
• Best Urban Neighborhood
  Downtown Santa Ana
  Ten years ago, maybe not so hot. But these days, bustling downtown Santa Ana is part quaint Mexican pueblito and part artsy urban "village" for the young and creative-minded. The lofts sitting above restaurants and galleries mean that those who live in downtown Santa Ana emerge daily... More >>
• Best Historic Neighborhood
  Los Rios Historic District
  As surprising as it may seem given that much of Orange County is obscenely planned and not that old, the oldest neighborhood in all of California sits in the heart of South County. Tiny streets and venerable homes—even the adobe houses in which the builders of the Mission San Juan... More >>
• Best Disharmonic Convergence
  The Walk to Trestles
  Once you get over the disturbing fact you're hiking to the beach with a surfboard, ice chest, umbrella, playpen and plasma TV in tow, descending the path to Trestles becomes quite pleasant as the soothing sounds of nature—chirping birds, rustling leaves, scampering critters—fill... More >>
• Best Reason to Live in OC
  You will eventually, inevitably, be on a reality-TV show
  You will eventually, inevitably, be on a reality-TV show. More >>