Media shorts

→ The Times' Robin Abcarian is filing video updates (left) from Sundance on LATimes.com.
→ Variety's Gabriel Snyder is jumping to the Los Angeles bureau of W. He will be senior writer starting Feb. 1.
→ Savethe76Ball.com, another product of the folks at the 1947 Project, is claiming victory now that Conoco-Phillips has agreed to let some old 76 balls remain on selected gas stations and donate others to museums. The company had been destroying all the balls taken down from converted Union 76 stations.
→ Surf Santa Monica columnist Frank Gruber responds to Steve Lopez's LAT columns about traffic and the decline of Westside civilization.
→ Steve Grace's emails to LA Observed about bad Time Warner service made it into in a Variety piece about...bad Time Warner service.