OC Life >>

• Best Politician
  Joe Dunn
  Yes, we're aware the former Democratic state senator from Santa Ana no longer holds public office (until recently, he served as CEO of the California Medical Association), but the man remains Orange County's most laudable political figure. He took on Enron after the Texas company... More >>
• Best Twittering Politician (1 Comment)
  Joel Bishop
  Irvine Assemblyman Chuck DeVore is Orange County's social-networking political poster boy, but what does he really do with his Twitter account? Repost articles, link to his Facebook and get into good-natured flame wars. It's a great start, but he could learn a little from a smaller fish... More >>
• Best Political Coup (1 Comment)
  Mike Duvall's Takedown of Mike Duvall
  Until sources provided the Weekly with evidence of now-former Assemblyman Mike Duvall's hypocrisy, the self-styled "traditional values" state Assembly Republican sat as vice chairman of the powerful Utilities and Commerce committee. Along with our reporting partner, KCAL-TV in Los... More >>
• Best Quote
  'There's a difference in being a great character and having great character.'
  U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford offered this observation in April while lecturing an unrepentant ex-Orange County sheriff- turned-convicted felon Mike Carona about how his corruption shamed the sheriff's department, law enforcement, the criminal-justice system and the county and... More >>
• Best Political Pastor (3 Comments)
  Michael Holland
  In terms of religious figures who poke their heads into politics, Orange County's cup runneth over with the likes of Howard Ahmanson Jr., Wiley Drake and Robert Schuller. But when it comes to counting clergy members who preach for some social cause instead of merely against the Republican... More >>
• Best Open-Air Preacher (1 Comment)
  Ray Comfort
  Every Saturday, chart-toting preacher Ray Comfort (pseudonym?) sets up a video camera and a microphone at the Huntington Beach pier and challenges the sinful—mostly surfers—to question him about God and the Bible. Well, Ray (who occasionally uses actor Kirk Cameron as a sidekick)... More >>
• Best Coming Out
  Lieutenant Dan Choi
  On March 22, Tustin native and Army National Guard Lieutenant Dan Choi went on the Rachel Maddow Show and said these words: "I am gay." On April 23, he received a letter: "This is to inform you that sufficient basis exists to initiate action for withdrawal of Federal Recognition... More >>
• Best Celebrity
  Octomom
  Okay, so Nadya Suleman only became an OC resident after she—or, rather, her uterus—became famous, but she did graduate from Cal State Fullerton, and more important, she embodies everything that makes OC so uniquely self-centered and craven. Through her bold dedication to plastic... More >>
• Best Scholar
  Mike Nguyen
  It's a familiar OC story: Once upon a time, a Vietnamese family decided to leave their home behind and try for a new life in America. Mike Nguyen was only a small child when his family left Vietnam. They settled in Santa Ana; his dad worked as a line cook and his mother as a seamstress. As... More >>
• Best Newspaper Reporter
  Teri Sforza
  Few things get us excited more than a determined reporter hot on the trial of corruption. In the case of The Orange County Register's Teri Sforza, she gets extra credit for enduring a smear attack after exposing an unusual and secretive $5.4 million bonus arrangement taken by Professional... More >>
• Best Undercover Register/Freedom Communications Snoop
  'davey threshie'
  Weeks before Irvine-based Freedom Communications, parent of The Orange County Register, officially confirmed in June that Scott Flanders would leave Freedom as CEO to assume the same position with Playboy Enterprises, "davey threshie" divulged that would happen on OC Weekly's Navel... More >>
• Best Political Cartoons (1 Comment)
  Mission Viejo Watchdogs Editorial Cartoons
  Founded in the late '90s and apparently avoiding a web redesign ever since, Mission Viejo Watchdogs serves as a dissent dispensary for the city's clique of citizen political agitators (the crowd whose most ambitious project to date is the attempted recall of Councilman Lance MacLean).... More >>
• Best TV STation
  KOCE-TV
  This Huntington Beach-based station not only showcases the best of public programming (PBS, we love you!), but it also airs Real Orange—a news magazine examining substantive local issues that don't have anything to do with reality TV or Octomom. Imagine that. More >>
• Best Radio Station
  StarTree KOCI-FM 101.5
  Based in Costa Mesa, StarTree KOCI-FM 101.5 may be young, but it's also one of the few organizations trying to unite the music scene in Orange County by giving it a home. The FM radio station was started from scratch by Brian Helvey, who told the Weekly this year that his motivating force... More >>
• Best Blog (9 Comments)
  Beyond the Blackboard
  Everyone generally agrees that the students in Capistrano Unified School District are good kids; it's the parents and politicians who shoot spitballs. The South County school district has spent half of this decade immersed in "adult-centered" turmoil, stirred up by the alleged... More >>
• Best News Anchor
  Eric Leonard
  Arguably the best radio reporter in Southern California history, KFI-FM's Eric Leonard time and again scoops his rival journalists in radio, television, print and online. When it comes to law-enforcement and court coverage, nobody has developed better sources. Too often reporters trade their... More >>
• Best Sportscaster
  John Ireland
  The rare sportsman who can offer good analysis as a reporter (for KCAL-TV) and hold his own as a yakker (for KSPN-AM 710, on the eminently listenable Mason & Ireland daily afternoon show), Ireland no longer lives in Orange County, but the Corona del Mar High alum is still crucial to the... More >>
• Best Weathercaster
  Elita Loresca
  We've been noticing some interesting trends in weather patterns from local network-news stations: a steep rise of puffy, cumulus formations in the upper chests of female forecasters. And Cal State Fullerton graduate Elita Loresca possesses this asset in spades. As a former weather girl... More >>
• Best Radio Personality
  Larry Mantle
  Some people have unparalleled patience. They are able to listen to rants and anger, arguments and fluff yet still derive a clear, concise meaning from all of the static. Larry Mantle, host of Southern California's longest continuously airing, daily talk program, KPCC's Air Talk, is one... More >>
• Best Radio Show for Book Junkies
  Weekly Signals
  Despite OC's reputation as a conservative bastion, it has two die-hard progressives: Mike Kaspar and Nathan Callahan, who created Weekly Signals on KUCI to entertain and educate their listeners about the latest nonfiction books. How successful is the Tuesday-morning show? It routinely offers... More >>
• Best Latino Commentator
  Adriana Maestas
  This UC Irvine grad and OC resident is the shot of heresy the Latino, political-chattering classes need. Adriana Maestas is a flaming liberal, but she throws her sharpest barbs at the Latino Democratic ruling class. Most of them target Representative Loretta Sanchez, whom she frequently derides... More >>
• Best Obamaphobe
  Wiley Drake
  It's hard to pin down what it is about Barry Soetoro—a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama II, a.k.a. The Usurper, a.k.a. The Big O'Bummer—that has sent conservatives into conniptions across the country. Most likely, it's the fact he was born in an exotic foreign land such as... More >>
• Best Viral Video Featuring OC Icon
  Orly Taitz's MSNBC Breakdown
  You have to admit they set her up. Before Orly Taitz was even beamed from Tel Aviv into liberal living rooms across the country, MSNBC anchors David Shuster and Tamron Hall had done their homework. First, a few minutes spent torching the forged Kenyan birth certificate Taitz had just filed in... More >>
• Best Political Protest
  The One-Man Counterdemonstration At the Santa Ana Teabag Party
  One very brave hippie guy held up a sign reading, "Where Were U When Bush Was Spending?" He was quickly surrounded by a lot of angry patriots who accused him of being a socialist, which he said he'd rather be than a capitalist, given that they were responsible for running the world... More >>
• Best Excuse EVER!
  Blaming Your Swiss Banker
  Billionaire Igor Olenicoff, who owns homes in Laguna Beach and Florida and operates his Olenicoff Properties Inc. out of a Newport Beach office, has pleaded guilty to various tax crimes and paid heavy fines since 2007. The 66-year-old admitted wrongdoing and took some responsibility, telling the... More >>
• Best Charity
  Working Wardrobes
  After you've been laid off, you're cash-strapped, so it's great that Working Wardrobes is there to take your old work clothes in exchange for a tax write-off. The clothes then get donated to women, men and youths in need of their first suits for job interviews. Many of the recipients... More >>
• Best Catholics
  Catholic Worker
  Those associated with this nationwide movement are secular saints, and not just because they share cramped living quarters in a giant Victorian located in a sketchy Santa Ana neighborhood with anyone who needs a roof over their head. Whether advocating for the county's homeless, organizing... More >>
• Best Faculty-Break-Room Food Fights
  Chapman University School of Law
  Because its benefactor is George Argyros, its president is James Doti and its location is smack-dab in the middle of Orange County, Chapman University has a reputation for being a bastion of conservatism. That rep extends to the law school, where dean John C. Eastman has previously argued that... More >>
• Best Festival
  Irvine Global Village Festival
  No city is prouder of its multicultural reality than Irvine—as long as you've got the money to live in Don Bren's playground, you're fine. Such a celebration comes to a crescendo every fall, when the city hosts its Global Village Festival. Imagine your high school's... More >>
• Best Place to Meet an FBI Informant
  Your Local Mosque
  Look for the new guy wearing Middle Eastern garb who keeps asking total strangers how he can learn more about jihad. More >>
• Best Escape Route
  The New Virgin Terminal at John Wayne Airport
  Helllll, yeah, $45 one-way flights to San Francisco? Flights to New York for less than $300 roundtrip? We might not have Jet Blue yet (we're shaking our fists at you, Long Beach!), but Virgin is just as good—if not better. The crew leaves you alone, you get your own personal video... More >>
• Best City In Which to Live
  San Clemente
  Sand, pier, surf, waves, breeze . . . Yeah, yeah, coastal OC is pretty great. But any inlander can list some downsides: It's pricey, packed and, often, pretentious. Not so much in San Clemente, though. Laid-back and relatively uncrowded, the town in some ways feels more Baja California than... More >>
• Best Non-Denominational Group Meditation Session (3 Comments)
  Pranic Healing and Meditation With Daniel O'Hara
  It's nice to go to a quiet church and be able to give thanks to Buddha, Jesus and all other "sentient beings." It's nice to feel like no one religion is better than another, to sit around with a bunch of strangers and do a little laughing yoga before settling into a discursive... More >>
• Best Place to Chat With Racists (2 Comments)
  The Orange County Register's Reader-Comments Section
  It's fast and easy. First, go to the Register's website. Then look for any story about Mexico, Santa Ana or gangs—or any story written by an author with a Hispanic surname. Next, click on the readers' comments, and you're off and running. Just remember: no racial slurs... More >>
• Best Excuse for Racism
  Dean Grose's Don't-Blame-Me-I'm-Stupid Defense
  Former Los Alamitos mayor Dean Grose claims he doesn't understand why everyone got so upset when he sent a black colleague an e-mail featuring a picture of the Obama White House with a watermelon patch instead of a lawn. Watermelons have racist connotations as stereotypical slave food? Grose... More >>
• Best Reminder of OC's Eternal Bilingualism
  Wilkommen/Welcome Sign In La Palma Park
  Let Barbara Coe and the rest of Orange County's vast Know Nothing nation rail against creeping bilingualism across our homeland, whether in Little Saigon or Little Arabia, Santa Ana or Garden Grove. Old-timers know and understand that communicating in two tongues is a hallmark of the Orange... More >>
• Best Historians
  Orange County Mexican-American Historical Society
  In their day jobs, members of the Orange County Mexican-American Historical Society embody what the official county narrative never bothered to point out: that the descendants of orange pickers now work for Fortune 500 companies, school districts, all the white-collar jobs once thought... More >>
• Best Beauty-Pageant Boob Job
  Hermosa Y Protegida
  Carrie Prejean's tits have nothing on Frida Marin's or the dozen or so other OC beauties who strut their stuff every year for the coveted title of Miss Hermosa y Protegida (Miss Beautiful and Protected). The backstage drama and prep time at the Center OC's Miss Hermosa pageant is... More >>
• Best Place to Give Birth
  South Coast Midwifery and Women's Health Care
  A visit to South Coast Midwifery makes it easy to see why women might choose to have their babies here instead of the hospital. At South Coast Midwifery, which this year became only the third birthing center in California to be accredited by the Commission for Accreditation of Birth Centers,... More >>
• Best Tourist Trap
  Trinity Christian City International
  The creepy-ass white palatial building just off the 405 freeway is hard to miss, as they keep their grounds drenched in white Christmas lights year-round. Open to the public, the Trinity Broadcast Network's Trinity Christian City International offers tours, films and even a gift shop where... More >>
• Best Hotel
  Hotel Laguna
  It's funky, and your walk is uneven in places. What do you expect from a "world famous" building that opened in 1888? But the fancy restaurant and fancier cocktails (Claes Restaurant boasts a menu just for vodkas) are killer, and there is no beating the view out the north-facing... More >>
• Best Historic Neighborhood
  French Park
  Sure, Floral Park, with its tree-shaded streets, abundant lawns and 600 vintage homes built in the 1920s through '50s, hogs up all the press. But another Santa Ana neighborhood that deserves equal billing is French Park, which was designated a local historic district in 1984 and put on the... More >>
• Best Residential Neighborhood
  Talega, San Clemente
  If we must wreck the world with McMansions, let us at least wreck it to look like Talega. Located in the hills by a decommissioned aerospace test site, the development—which first broke ground 10 years ago—was master planned with an eye toward open space and mixed income levels (but... More >>
• Best Downtown
  Old Towne Orange
  It might be a repeat-repeat-repeat winner, but this is truly the only downtown in Orange County that is both un-snoozy and douchebag-free. The Orange Circle boasts an adorable, quaint setting—so adorable, quaint and Americana-y that even That Thing You Do!, with its picture-perfect 1960s... More >>