Afternoon snack

♦ Everyone following the Dodgers knows that reserve Cody Ross is primed to get the axe any hour now. So today he gets a start and slams a grand-slam homer—followed by a three-run shot his next at-bat.
♦ Julian Barnes, Pentagon correspondent for US News & World Report, will join the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau as military affairs reporter later this month.
♦ Burklewatch.com: "The site that stays up until someone pays us to take it down!"
♦ Blogdowntown tracked down plans for a 60-story mixed-use tower and a 50-story tower to be announced April 23 for Olympic and Grand.
♦ L.A. City Nerd gives a good primer on how a Los Angeles street gets resurfaced.
♦ A Defamer correspondent claims that bees swarming on the Sony lot are Africanized even though they haven't been stinging or chasing anyone.
♦ Amoeba Music has agreed to talk to the zines about letting them in the stores. Earlier item.
♦ Twenty Village Voice writers and staffers signed a protest letter over the firing of columnist James Ridgeway by the new ownership.
♦ "Dateline NBC" authors booker Jackie Levin will also handle "Today" as senior publishing producer, NBC News.
♦ The Elegant Variation appreciates on the centenary of Samuel Beckett's birth.