My Attempt at Objectivity

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Over the weekend I went to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the other school (USC). It was a tough decision, given the fact that the festival's original site was also my alma mater, UCLA. For those that aren't around here, USC and UCLA are across town rivals. But, I love books, was already going to be out that direction, and had a husband willing to go, so I sucked it up. And now I'll do my best to remain objective.

Inferior
- The parking was ridiculously confusing and crowded
- The concessions were mainly in the extremely crowded student dining area
- The booths were way too spread out
- In past years there were lots of stations and even people walking around selling water and lemonade. Not this year.
- It was just a little lackluster- the normal spirit wasn't there (cough, cough, biased, cough)
- It wasn't UCLA
- It was really warm (if they're rich enough to snatch the festival away, then they should be rich enough to control the weather, dammit)

Good Enough
- There were quite a few people wearing UCLA gear (including me)
- There were lots of vendors (about the same as past years)
- There was a huge truck that had FREE Ben and Jerry's! Unfortunately, I didn't get any because I wasn't willing to stand in the Disneyland-like lines (there should have been an express line for people willing to pay)
- There were some technological upgrades as far as signage and stages
- There will still books and authors
- There were a lot of families. I love seeing the kids at events like these (even though they get in my way and moms always stop their huge strollers right in front of me for some reason)- I think it's awesome to expose them, no matter how young, to culture and academia (even if it is USC)
- We manage to pick up a really awesome book that I'll blog about later (this would have happened at UCLA too, though, since the vendor always attends)

All in all it was decent, but it would have been better at UCLA.