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The free and cheap summer movie options have changed a bit from summers past. Here are your best bets for some family-friendly summer cinema:

AMC Theaters no longer runs its $1 "Summer Movie Camp".

However, the Promenade Stadium 13 in Rolling Hills Estates participates in Regal Cinema's "Summer Movie Express." Every Tuesday and Wednesday during the program, selected G and PG movies are $1 at 10 a.m. for kids and their parents. Here's the movie schedule:

June 21-22: Monsters v. Aliens
The Spy Next Door

June 28-29: Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Tale of Desperaux

July 5-6: Charlotte's Web
Yogi Bear

July 12-13: Marmaduke
Megamind

July 19-20: Cats and Dogs: Revenge
Shrek Forever After

July 26-27: Astro Boy
Furry Vengeance

Aug. 2-3: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Gulliver's Travels

Aug. 9-10: How to Train your Dragon
Nanny McPhee Returns

Family-friendly films outdoors


The City of Torrance screens family movies in some city parks for free on Saturday evenings during the summer. Bring your own popcorn, lawn chairs and blankets and see a flick under the stars. Follow the links for more info. Here's what's showing:
June 25: How to Train your Dragon (Hickory Park)
July 30: Over the Hedge (Greenwood Park)
Aug. 27: The Love Bug (La Romeria Park)

Redondo Beach also sponsors a similar Outdoor Family Classic Film Festival. Here's the line-up:
Aug. 5: Roman Holiday
Aug. 12: The Maltese Falcon
Aug. 19: Stagecoach
Aug. 26: The Thin Man

There will also be family-friendly films at Seaside Lagoon this year. Admission is free, and the window at Ruby's will be open for snacks. Here's what's showing:

July 8: Air Bud
July 15: Born to Bee Wild
July 22: Grease
July 29: Megamind

RELATED LINKS:
Database of fun stuff to do with kids in the South Bay
Database of South Bay restaurants with kids eat free deals
Calendar listings for family-friendly South Bay events

You have presents to wrap, cookies to bake and halls to deck. The last thing you need to do this time of year is stand around waiting for Santa while he takes his state-mandated lunch breaks. Here's our annual guide to Santa's office hours in the South Bay:

Del Amo Fashion Center
310-542-8525

Santa will be at the mall during business hours through Dec. 24.
Those hours are:
Mon to Sat: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 to 2 p.m.
Sun: 12 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Galleria at South Bay
310-371-7546

Santa will be there through Dec. 24.
Dec. 5: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Dec. 6 to Dec. 10: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pet photos from 7 to 8 p.m. on Dec. 6.
Dec. 11: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Dec. 12: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Dec. 13 to Dec. 17: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pet photos from 7 to 8 p.m. on Dec. 13.
Dec. 18: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Dec. 19: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Dec. 20 to Dec. 23: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Dec 24: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Web site also has a detailed list of photo packages and prices.

Manhattan Village Mall
310-546-5555

Santa stays until Dec. 24.
Mon to Sat: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., breaks from 1 to 2 p.m. and 4:15 to 4:45 p.m.
Sun: 12 a.m. to 6 p.m., breaks from 2 to 3 p.m.
The Web site has a list of packages and prices.

Promenade on the Peninsula
310-541-0688

Find Santa on Dec. 11 from 10 to 11 a.m. and Dec. 18 from 12 to 4 p.m.

Santa's main focus while he's at the Promenade is to spread the holiday cheer, so please bring your own camera so you can get your holiday pictures for free. Free pictures may be especially popular this year, so bring a candy cane snack and be prepared to wait your turn.

South Bay Pavilion at Carson
310-366-6636

Santa will be here on Dec. 11 from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Dec. 12 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

RELATED:
Giving new life to gift wrap
Track Santa online
Helping hands for Secret Santas
Take Christmas photos like a pro

Looking for something to keep your kids busy this summer without breaking the bank? Check out some of these summer movie programs geared toward kids.

AMC Theaters runs $1 movies during its "Summer Movie Camp" every Tuesday at 10 a.m. The Southbay Galleria 16 in Redondo Beach and the Del Amo 18 and Rolling Hills 20 in Torrance are participating this year. Here's the schedule:

June 15: Shrek The Third
June 22: Imagine That
June 29: Monsters vs. Aliens
July 6: Madagascar
July 13: Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa
July 20: Hotel for Dogs
July 27: Kung Fu Panda
Aug. 3: The Spiderwick Chronicles
Aug. 10: Surprise Mystery Title!

The Promenade Stadium 13 in Rolling Hills Estates participates in Regal Cinema's "Free Family Film Festival." Every Tuesday and Wednesday during the program, movies are free at 10 a.m. for kids and their parents. Here's the movie schedule:

June 22-23: Hotel for Dogs (PG)
Planet 51 (PG)

June 29-30: Tale of Desperaux (G)
The Spy Next Door (PG)

July 6-7: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (PG)
The Waterhorse (PG)

July 13-14: Charlotte's Web (G)
Imagine That (PG)

July 20-21: Madagascar 2 (PG)
Where the Wild Things Are (PG)

July 27-28: Paul Blart: Mall Cop (PG)
Surf's Up (PG)

Aug. 3-4: Curious George (G)
Monsters vs. Aliens (PG)

Aug. 10-11: Doogal (G)
Night at the Museum II (PG)

Pacific Theaters don't have a kids program, but they do have Monday Morning Mommy Movies at the El Segundo theater each week at 11 a.m. Movie prices and themes are for grown-ups. Here's the spiel:

Moms, Dads and Caregivers - here's your chance to see a first run adult-themed movie...with your baby! No one will mind if your baby cries, everyone will have a baby and all babies cry. So pack up your diaper bag and stroller, and we'll see you at the movies!

June 7: Sex and the City 2
June 14: Killers
June 21: Toy Story 3
June 28: Knight and Day

Family-friendly films outdoors


The City of Torrance screens family movies in some city parks for free on Saturday evenings during the summer. Bring your own popcorn, lawn chairs and blankets and see a flick under the stars. Follow the links for more info. Here's what's showing:
June 26: Shrek (Paradise Park)
July 31: E.T. (Hickory Park)
Aug. 28: Cars (Victor Park)

Redondo Beach also sponsors a similar Outdoor Family Classic Film Festival. Here's the line-up:
July 23: An American in Paris
July 30: Rebecca
Aug. 6: Run Silent, Run Deep
Aug. 13: His Girl Friday

There will also be family-friendly films at Seaside Lagoon this year. Admission is free, and the window at Ruby's will be open for snacks. Here's what's showing:

July 23: Back to the future
July 30: Surf's Up
Aug. 6: The Sandlot
Aug. 13: School of Rock

RELATED LINKS:
Database of fun stuff to do with kids in the South Bay
Database of South Bay restaurants with kids eat free deals
Calendar listings for family-friendly South Bay events

OMG! Earthquake!
The U.S. Geological Survey is scouring the popular microblogging site Twitter soon after a temblor hits to pinpoint regions where shaking occurred.
"People like to tweet after earthquakes," USGS seismologist Paul Earle said Monday during an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
There is usually a lag between when an earthquake strikes and when researchers can analyze the data that floods in from seismic stations. During that gap, scientists combing through hundreds of tweets can get an initial picture of where the shaking was felt and areas of potential damage.
A prototype system aggregates tweets based on key words such as "earthquake" or the equivalent in different languages. It can then send an e-mail listing the cities where the tweets came from and what the tweets said.
"It would give you a little information about what potentially happened in that earthquake," Earle said.
There are still wrinkles to be worked out. Scientists are developing filters to distinguish tweets about a real temblor from say, an earthquake drill that can cause scores of people to pound out 140 characters.
Follow the USGS Twitter earthquake detector here.

-- The Associated Press

You have presents to wrap, cookies to bake and halls to deck. The last thing you need to do this time of year is stand around waiting for Santa while he takes his state-mandated lunch breaks. Here's our annual guide to Santa's office hours in the South Bay:

Del Amo Fashion Center
310-542-8525

Santa will be at the mall during business hours through Dec. 24.
Those hours are:
Mon to Fri: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Sat: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Breaks from 1 to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Sun: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Breaks from 2 to 3 p.m.

Galleria at South Bay
310-371-7546

Santa will be there through Dec. 24.
Nov. 24 and Nov. 25: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Nov. 27 and Nov. 28: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Nov. 29: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Breaks from 2 to 3 p.m.
Nov. 30 to Dec. 4: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Dec. 5: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Dec. 6 to Dec. 11: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Dec. 12: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Dec. 13: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Dec. 14 to Dec. 20: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Dec. 21 to Dec. 23: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Dec. 24: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Breaks from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The Web site also has a detailed list of photo packages and prices.

Manhattan Village Mall
310-546-5555

Santa arrives Nov. 27 and stays until Dec. 24.
Mon to Sat: 11a.m. to 8 p.m., breaks at 1-2 p.m. and 4:15-4:45 p.m.
Sun: Noon to 6 p.m., breaks from 2 to 3 p.m.
The Web site has a list of packages and prices.

Promenade on the Peninsula
310-541-0688

Pictures with Santa, on two Saturdays only: Nov. 28 and Dec. 19, 1-4 p.m. each day.

Santa's main focus while he's at the Promenade is to spread the holiday cheer, so please bring your own camera so you can get your holiday pictures for free. Free pictures may be especially popular this year, so bring a candy cane snack and be prepared to wait your turn.

Plaza El Segundo
310-647-3431

Santa will park his sleigh next to Toy Jungle for one day only.
Nov. 27: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

South Bay Pavilion at Carson
310-366-6636

Santa arrives on Nov. 27 and will hang around until Dec. 24.
Mon to Sat: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sun: Noon to 5 p.m.

RELATED:
Giving new life to gift wrap
Track Santa online
Helping hands for Secret Santas
Take Christmas photos like a pro

These days, even sharks have online social networks.

The nonprofit Iemanya Oceanica announced last week that a team including several South Bay residents had successfully tagged three whale sharks, bringing the group's family of trackable sharks to 10.

The new additions -- a type of shark with mouths so big "you could drive a Volkswagen into" them, Iemanya board member Patty Civalleri has said, and that is particularly vulnerable to boat collisions and overfishing -- were found during Iemanya's inaugural tagging expedition, in Bahia de Los Angeles, Mexico.

"We opened up 20 seats on this expedition to the public," said Civalleri, a Manhattan Beach resident, "and because of the assistance from the media, we were able to fill those seats quickly with volunteers who came to us with various levels of water skills and a general knowledge of nature and the ocean. We couldn't have asked for a better group."

That group worked with researchers to attach tags to the sharks' dorsal fins. Through those tags -- and satellite transmission -- Iemanya will learn air and water temperatures, diving patterns, daily and seasonal movement and calving and feeding habits.

And it's sharing it all with you.

"People can now go online and adopt a shark as an educational gift," said Laleh Mohajerani, Iemanya's executive director. "Then every day they can track the movement of their shark," she added.

Get yours. And read Staff Writer Andrea Woodhouse's original Daily Breeze story about the Iemanya tagging expedition.

Stargazers interested in snagging a bleacher seat along the red carpet during next year's Oscar ceremony will have one week beginning Monday to enter an online lottery.

The online registration will begin at 9 a.m. Monday and end at 9 p.m. Sept. 20.

Only 700 bleacher seats are available for the March 7 event.

In early October, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will notify the winners, who will then be required to submit additional information for security information and final approval.

According to the academy, as many as 20,000 people have applied online in past years for a shot at the coveted seats.

In addition to sitting along the red carpet prior to the Oscars, winners will also be invited to watch the telecast at a nearby private location, according to the academy.

September is here, and it signals the start of a new television season.

Besides cable, satellite, DVRs, DVDs and now Hulu, there's a different way to watch TV: Take your favorite show and "reverse engineer" it into constituent parts.

TV Tropes is a Wiki that shows how a program is built together out of "atoms" of character, dialogue and plot devices -- some plausible, others mostly serviceable for the sake of getting on with the show.

On the main page, it says "tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations."

For instance, take any episode from the "Law & Order" franchise. Every week, buddy cops go on a reverse whodunit to find the freak of the week based on a true crime story. In the hour, the squad must connect the deaths while being hampered by the suspect's amoral attorney and jurisdiction friction. The shows then end with variants on courtroom antics.

Click on each link to go to TV Tropes and find out what they mean and where and when they are used. Warning: Some entries contain obscenities.

You don't have to leave your desk to watch the whales and dolphins play in the Pacific Ocean off Southern California.

David Anderson has mounted seven cameras and built an underwater viewing pod on his 50-foot high-tech, high-speed catamaran and will take anyone along for a virtual ride.

Anderson, a documentary filmmaker whose "Wild Dolphins and Whales of Southern California" was a winner at the Wildscreen Film Festival, wanted his latest venture to be more than a webcam.

"It's like a reality show. We have mikes on the captain and crew. You will hear things even the passengers don't hear. My crew was not real keen on this and there is a little friction but they understand why we are doing it," he said.

When the boat is out, the cameras are on, the mikes are connected and the action is live.

If you sign up on his Web site in the morning, he will Tweet you when the boat is approaching a group of whales or a pod of dolphins. That lets you log on for the best of each trip. Recaps will also be available on the Web site each night, he said.

It took more than a year to get Coast Guard approval for the viewing pod on Anderson's boat, the Manute'a. The viewing pod, made of 36 square feet of bulletproof glass, holds just a couple of people at a time and they can find themselves very intimate with the dolphins.

So your kid wants to be the next Beckham, but you've always been more of a Michael Jordan fan. Maybe iSoccer.org can help.

The Web site aims to provide the mentors of today's soccer-playing future with tools that assess players' skills as well as technical training videos for players of all skill levels.

"Knowing what to teach and how to teach it has always been a real challenge for youth soccer coaches, many of whom are well-meaning parent volunteers who lack formal training," says iSoccer founder Scott Leber.

If iSoccer is able to produce results similar to what Leber has achieved, the investment may be worth it. He was the Gatorade High School Player of the Year, and played NCAA Division 1 soccer at Stanford, where he studied industrial engineering. Before developing iSoccer, he started an East Coast youth soccer training business.

Leber's program tailors training guides to a player's current abilities. The cost of an individual session ranges from about $7 to $12 (you get a better rate when buying a package of sessions), and a session can include anywhere from nine to 22 exercises.

Covered topics and skills include laces, passing and aerial control, and each installment can be downloaded to an iPod and taken to the field. There, players practicing on their own or with their teams can watch the skill demonstrations and try out what they've learned on the spot.