GIGA GRANADA HILLS

First, the good news: The Incredibles won the voting for Granada Hills Outdoor Movie Night! The people have spoken, and they made the best possible choice! My faith in this town is once again reaffirmed! And now, the bad news: Due to a licensing mishap, The Incredibles won't be shown. Instead, they're showing E.T. Ouuch. Well, it's not all bad news. Before we begin to relive the pain of the Bush/Gore recount fiasco, remember that E.T. plays a significant role in Granada Hills history, with a pivotal scene shot on White Oak Avenue. So one could argue that E.T. is an appropriate choice for the event, even as it flies across the moon and into the face of democracy. Watch for our distinctive Deodar trees flanking the street where Eliot makes his escape from the menacing, evil forces of science by airborne bicycle, giving those pesky government researchers in hazmat suits the slip. Oh, and more good news: speaking of flying, it looks like the Flying Pig truck wil...

Balboa Youth Sports Complex has been given another lease extension by Metropolitan Water District, and the teams that use the facility to play baseball and soccer will be able to continue using the site while new facilities in Sylmar are readied for players, which could take more than a year. Mitch Englander, chief of staff for Councilman Greig Smith, told GigaGranadaHills that in a meeting held last Wednesday, an agreement was reached to extend the lease on the current location for "a year plus," preventing a gap that would have left the teams with nowhere to play until arrangements for the new Lakeside Basin location were finalized. Englander said that 40% of the players using the current Granada Hills location were traveling from the Sylmar, Arleta and Pacoima areas, and this move will put the fields in closer reach for those team members. "There's a lot of kids that live over there that don't have access because they have parents that either don't have...

Filmmaker and Granada Hills resident Mark Hovater was kind enough to send this video of the Veterans' Park dedication ceremony to GigaGranadaHills. If you missed the event, you'll be happy to see it so well captured here. Thanks, Mark!

Your humble Granada Hills blogger has, I confess, no local news to report today. So instead I'll post this video, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Granada Hills save for its general awesomeness. Thanks, Boing Boing !

I've been wishing for a while now that Granada Hills would have a farmer's market we could call our very own, and now we will! This Friday evening, from 5-9pm at the Granada Hills Masonic Center on Rinaldi (near Hayvenhurst), the Granada Hills Farmer's Market will have its debut. And unlike the April-October market at the Northridge Fashion Center, market manager Ric Alfafara plans to make this a year-round Friday night event. Alfafara, who also co-manages the Van Nuys and Sylmar Farmer's Markets, says, "Everybody's been talking about it, friends who live in Granada Hills have been saying we need a market out here. And so I talked to the Freemasons (who sponsor the market), and they said that they want to get involved with the community, they want to get the community up and strong. "It's a certified farmers market, and a family festival too. We'll have jumpers, kids' rides, entertainment," Alfafara said. In addition to farmers from ou...

This Friday night, hilltop dining concern The Odyssey Restaurant will play host to a concert featuring more-than-one-hit wonders Evelyn "Champagne" King and Zapp. No expense was spared for the show's vigorous publicity campaign, in which promoters stapled rainbow-hued signs on every nearby freeway onramp and even mentioned the show on MySpace, which is a world wide web site on the Internet. With its magnificent vista and prosaic menu, The Odyssey is better known for bar mitzvahs than for funk, but GigaGranadaHills has high hopes this might be the start of a new trend. Today Zapp; perhaps tomorrow, the P-Funk All Stars reunion show! It could happen! Are you reading this, George ? Metallic jumpsuits match the metallic talkbox sound in this video of Zapp in their heyday, before frontman Roger Troutman and his brother Larry died in a murder-suicide. Brother Terry Troutman now fronts the band. Evelyn "Champagne" King is best known for "Love Come Down...

On Saturday, July 24th at 8:00pm, Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council is hosting the first ever Granada Hills Movie Night , and they're asking the public to choose from five family-friendly films for the free event, which will be held at Petit Park. And the nominees are: The Sandlot Happy Feet E.T. Finding Nemo The Incredibles You may be thinking to yourself right now: " Why, I simply adore The Sandlot , (or E.T., or Happy Feet, or Finding Nemo) and I think I shall vote to have that film chosen for the screening!" Yet in this particular instance, thinking for yourself is actually highly overrated, as well as inappropriate and simply unnecessary. The proper procedure is to visit surveymonkey.com , and click the radio button next to The Incredibles , which is clearly the best choice for this historic event. The Sandlot ? I'm afraid not. Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central sums it up: "Playing like a particularly sickening distillation between A Christmas ...