Boston’s Online Magazine is going to Los Angeles to bring the news back home.

Editor John Guilfoil and gaming reporter Bradley Ouellette will be ardently working for four days, mainly getting drunk and playing games, to keep you, our loyal and necessary readers, updated.

We do it because we love you.

Click here to see all of Blast’s E9 2009 coverage.

Sometimes the best medicine comes in the form of a pretty distraction, and I’m not talking about Pamela Anderson here. If you live in (insert city name — really, any one will do), it’s time for you to GET OUT. No doomsday warnings here, just a poor man’s guide to travel to ease your weary soul.

This month it’s cold. So let’s take our vacation-lusting souls to someplace warmer than the icebox we’ve been living in.

California. Sweet California. You’re always there for us to retreat to, no matter how many times we make fun of your governor, or how bad your drivers are, or wish that you would just fall off into the ocean already. (Yea! California Island! Even better.)

I recently made my first pilgrimage to the Big Sur Coastline. If you’ve ever seen Big Sur, you’ll understand the use of the word “pilgrimage.” The coasts are practically untouched since the days of the Spanish settlers: sweeping views, pristine waters that appear as though Tide would bottle them for their next detergent, and the freshest air to fill your lungs since you came screaming out of the womb.

Welcome to Paradise, boys.

Strange phenomena happen in Big Sur. Cypress trees cling to steep drop offs. The Ghost Tree is an example of nature’s malleability in the face of it’s own force, arched from root to tip it pays homage to the glory of it’s creation, and the mysticism that lies in Big Sur.

If the beach-that-is-really-too-cold-to-sunbathe-at just isn’t your thing, head on out from Los Angeles like the Rider on the Storm that you are to an old ski-town in another sentimentally static are of California called Vincent’s Gap. The mountains here are sleepy and wise, extending off as far as you can see in most directions. Popular for hiking and even skiing, it is east to wander into Vincent’s Gap and feel time travel back to frontier days, when the mountains were first inhabited.

LOS ANGELES — La Bella Cucina, conveniently located near the convention center, is an inexpensive Italian option when you’re craving carbs after a long day at E3.

The casual restaurant and bar features a diverse menu of appetizers, soups/salads, pasta, pizza and seafood. But several of the offerings are marred by either over or under flavoring.

The Pizza Bianco ($5.95) is their take on garlic bread. It’s a personal-sized pizza crust topped with what appears to be jarred, minced garlic. Fresh garlic would be a much better option, as the scoops of jarred garlic tend to overpower.

I was hoping to try their gnocchi ($11.95), but they were out when we went, at 6 p.m. Monday.

The farfalle botega ($9.95) was my final answer — bow tie pasta in cream sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, chicken and fresh spinach. Somehow, this dish was bland. I don’t know how you can make a tomato, spinach, chicken, cream sauce dish bland, but I was unscrewing the cap off the pepper to add some flavor.

The rigatoni quatro formaggi ($8.95) was also a bit bland and off tasting. Would not order again.

The restaurant offers dozens more pasta options ($7.95-$13.95), 14 specialty pizzas ($7.95-$14.95) and even a seabass with capers dish (market price).

La Bella Cucina has excellent, attentive service, a good variety of food and drink, and a very casual atmosphere in a neighborhood that can easily break the bank.

The food isn’t that great, let’s be honest. But it was filling and fairly fresh and wicked cheap. If you’re hankering for Italian, you could do worse.