The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Culver City's influential cabinet of curiousities, lives up to the hype. Much has been written about the museum elsewhere, but we did have the opportunity to peek out back at the late painter Roger Brown's Spartan trailer, on loan from the Art Institute.

Eileen and I make the mistake of following up our visit to the MJT with an afternoon at the Getty. This should be avoided – you'll leave Culver bewildered and cynical, and should stay away from museums for a few days. Nevertheless, there we were weaving through endless parking basements, riding elevators, queuing for trams, and wandering around white marble frying pan plazas in search of paintings. We found one or two pieces of art in some large pavilions on the top of the hill, but like a lot of visitors that day we mostly sat around in the garden. From this experience we developed a formula for rating museums:

minutes to get from your car to an exhibit X the number of gift shops

Lower scores are better. Using this rubric, the Getty (45 minutes X 5 curio shops) scores a 225, while the Museum of Jurassic Technology scores a 3 if you park next door at the strip mall. Of course, it could be argued that it took us less than 45 minutes to reach a piece of art at the Getty, since the design of the museum is itself a work of art. If that's the case, Richard Meier could have taken more time with the parking garage. We spent a lot of time there.

Our favorite thing at the Getty Museum was probably this child.