Long Beach, California

It’s pricey, but it’s for a good cause. Sea Fare is a fund raising event that will benefit the Aquarium of the Pacific. The evening will include your typical fundraiser activities: food, drinks, dancing and an impressive silent auction. Tickets cost $125 per person, and the event will be held at the Aquarium on Saturday, October 18, 6:30-10:30 pm.

Participating restaurants include some tourist favorites, such as Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., Buster’s Beach House Grill & Longboard Bar, Islands Fine Burgers & Drinks and Taco Beach Cantina. Auction items range from the exotic to the really cool. At the top of the list is a five-day trip to Isla Guadalupe that includes shark diving. You can also bid on box seats at a 2009 Lakers game, a ride in the Goodyear blimp or a stay in a real Tuscan Villa (that’s actually in Tuscany!).

For more information about the Sea Fare, see the Aquarium website or call 562-437-FISH.

In today’s uncertain economic times, you have to do what you can to save a buck. Chances are, you don’t have the disposable income you’d like—but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stay home and eat ramen noodles everyday. You just have to be a little more selective about how you spend your evenings and weekends, right? Here are a few resources to help you out:

Coupons at LongBeachThingstodo.com. The site features printable coupons for various Long Beach and Seal Beach restaurants and shops, including Polly’s Coffee (coffee house in Belmont Shore), Kinda Lahaina Broiler (waterfront restaurant) and RainDance (Native American jewelry and gifts). See coupons.longbeachthingstodo.com ; there’s no registration required.

The Pike Passport. Register for weekly emails at thepikeatlongbeach.com and you’ll receive links to coupons in your emails. The latest batch included discounts for Borders and Sgt. Pepper’s Dueling Pianos Cafe, among others.

The Press-Telegram. If you have the time, you can always scour through the local newspaper for various discounts of the “bring in this ad” variety.

The Women’s Conference 2008 is coming to Long Beach on October 21 and 22, with an all-star line-up of speakers that includes Maria Shriver, Jennifer Lopez, Rachael Ray, Gloria Steinem, Bono, Heidi Klum, Sally Field and, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The event promises to be successful, since full-day passes sold out a quick three hours after they went on sale back in July. Tickets are still available for the Night at The Village session scheduled for 5 pm to 9 pm on October 21.

Night at The Village will feature book signings by Maria Shriver, Rachael Ray, Jamie Lee Curtis and Dr. Mehmet Oz. Exhibit Halls A, B and C in the Long Beach Convention Center will be transformed into an interactive community directed at engaging and celebrating women. Attendees will have the opportunity to hear Rachael Ray speak on the main stage (6:30 pm) and explore vendor booths and new products and services geared towards women. Tickets are $20 each and can be purchased on the conference website.

Every Friday, admission to two museums in Long Beach is absolutely free. You can hit the Long Beach Museum of Art and the Museum of Latin American Art (Molaa) in one day, with enough time to spare for dinner in Belmont Shore or Downtown.

The Long Beach Museum of Art currently has its Robert Rauschenberg prints on display (through October 19) as well as The Frieda K. Bradsher Collection of ceramics (through October 19) and The Art of Commerce: William Livingston’s Pinhole Photographs of the Port of Long Beach (through September 28).

At Molaa, you can browse works from recognized Latin American artists in the permanent collection, Bridge to the Americas. Beginning in November, the museum will host two exhibitions, Arnaldo Roche: Brotherhood/Hermandad and “Photoshopping” and more: Molaa Collects Photo-based Art.

Long Beach Museum of Art is located at 2300 East Ocean Avenue and Molaa is located at 628 Alamitos Avenue.

The Laugh Factory held its grand opening event over the weekend, drawing in a huge crowd of comedy fans eager to see Dane Cook and others. I didn’t see the show myself, but I did see the enormous crowd of people waiting in valet parking line after the show. That’s a promising start for the venue, and hopefully a sign that The Laugh Factory is in Long Beach to stay.

Given the publicity surrounding the long-awaited opening of The Laugh Factory, you might think the people of Long Beach never knew comedy before. That’s actually not the case, since the city is also home to the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center—a venue that periodically books all-star comedy acts in its Terrace Theater. Next month, there are two acts to check out, Brian Regan and Margaret Cho. Regan is on the calendar for October 12. He’s been working the stand-up scene for more than 20 years and makes regular appearances on the Tonight Show, Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He’s also a regular presence on Comedy Central.

On October 25, Margaret Cho will bring her Beautiful Tour (two shows) to the Terrace Theater. Cho has also been a fixture on the stand-up scene, but has done a fair bit of TV as well. This fall, she’ll be starring in her own reality show on VH1.

Tickets for these events are available at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center Main Box Office or at TicketMaster.

Grace Community Church recently launched a “Living with Doubts” series during its Grace@Night service. Grace@Night caters to a younger, hipper crowd—people who prefer something livelier than the traditional, formal church service. The series began on September 14 and will be held weekly at 6pm through October 26.

Future discussions will focus on various doubt-related issues, including:

* How God can allow so much evil in the world (September 21)
* The objection that we all need to find our own truth (September 28)
* The accusation that Christianity is unjust (October 5)
* The perception that God is angry, menacing and judgmental (October 12)
* The validity of Scripture in today’s world (October 19)
* How to address persistent doubt (October 26)

Grace Community Church is located at 138 8th Street in Seal Beach, just off of Main Street. For more information about Grace@Night, visit the Grace@Night blog .

The East Anaheim Street Business Alliance of Long Beach wants to add some organization to the ongoing discussion about what to do with the breakwater in Long Beach. For years, various local organizations have made their opinions known about the breakwater, but the conversations have yet to move towards resolution.

One side says that removing or altering the breakwater would improve the quality of Long Beach’s huge sandy beach, promote tourism and raise the value of beachfront real estate. Others believe that such an alteration might expose those beachfront homes to occasional flooding.

The East Anaheim Street Business Alliance of Long Beach is asking opinion leaders on both sides of the issue to participate in a panel discussion next week. Gordana Kajer of the Long Beach Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, Preston Smith of the Alamitos Peninsula community, and Bud Johnson, former member of the Long Beach Marine Advisory Commission are scheduled to participate. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at Frenchy’s Bistro on Tuesday, September 23, at noon. Frenchy’s is located at 4137 East Anaheim Street.

Acres of Books, a Long Beach institution, will soon be gone. The store has announced that its final day in business will be October 18. This is both bad and good news for bookworms. Bad news because Acres of Books carries a bountiful collection of unique used books, including stuff you probably can’t buy on Amazon. At one point, the store had an inventory of more than 1 million books. You could spend hours wandering the aisles and perusing the shelves that seem to rise up sky-high.

The good news is that all the inventory is priced to sell, as the owners prepare to close down. Almost everything in the store is at least 60 percent off, and some items are marked down as much as 75 or 90 percent off.

Acres of Books has been operating in its current location, 240 Long Beach Boulevard, since 1960. Get there before October 18, when the store will close its doors for the last time.

The 40th International Sail & Power Boat Show is creeping up on us! The four-day event will be held October 2-5 at the Long Beach Convention Center and the Shoreline Village Marina. Sponsored by Go Country 105 FM and Press-Telegram, the show promises to be loads of fun for all boat enthusiasts. In prior years, boats have been set up all over the place, including in the Convention Center, on the Marina Green, in the water at Shoreline Village and on the walkway above Shoreline Drive. Show hours are 11am to 8pm on Thursday and Friday, 10am to 8pm Saturday, and 10am to 6pm Sunday. The in-water displays get closed off when the sun goes down, which is usually about 7pm. Adult admission is $12, but you can get a discount on Thursday and Friday by showing your AAA card.

For more information about the boat show in Long Beach, see www.socalboatshows.com or call 888-BOAT-INFO.

For whatever reason, TV folk love Long Beach as a stand-in for Miami. Today, the crew of CSI: Miami is at work in Spinnaker Bay, a luxury, waterfront residential area at the south end of the city. Our sources haven’t confirmed yet whether the big stars of the show, namely David Caruso, are at the scene today. If you can’t get down there to catch a looksey, don’t fret—this crew seems to be around all the time. You might catch them on another day in Naples or in Downtown, near Shoreline Village.

CSI: Miami is a crime drama detailing the activities of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s forensics unit. The show’s seventh season will begin on CBS later this month; reruns are shown on A&E. Filming locations include South Florida, Long Beach and Manhattan Beach.