Following are things I've noticed about LA since moving from New York City in October 1999, with some comparison of the two cities, in no particular order.

People in LA like to drive slowly in the left lane. Despite the signs pleading that "Slower Traffic Keep To The Right," much -- if not most -- passing must take place in the right lane(s) due to drivers asleep at the wheel in the left. Even if a slower driver wanted to keep to the right, he or she wouldn't be able to for all the passing going on over there. The three most common causes of this phenomenon are 1) a person too immersed in her cell-phone conversation to notice the long line of traffic queuing up behind her, 2) landscaping or construction equipment piled so high and wide in the back of a pick-up truck that neither the driver nor the three passengers stuffed into the cab with him can see anything in the mirrors, and 3) old age. Exceptions to this rule take place most frequently on the freeways, where you can be driving 75 mph and think you stalled out from the speed with which cars are passing you.

As I've just illustrated myself, people in LA are obsessed with driving and traffic. It goes without saying that there's going to be traffic in New York City, so people there add complaining about taxies and subways. Commuting is the lowest common denominator, it seems. With these two types of commutes to choose from, I guess I'd rather be on and off the clutch in stop-and-go traffic, but with a 6-CD changer and plenty of personal space, than dangling from a slippery silver handle in a sweaty subway car or digging my nails into the sticky vinyl seat of a cab speeding between parked cars and pedestrians.

Parking is an exercise in absurdity in New York City and LA. Though there are more parking spaces available in LA than in New York City, there are also more drivers, and the spots are smaller than most of their cars. Any further consideration of this topic will just make me mad. That would be fine if I were still in New York City, but I'm trying to pick up some of these laidback vibes I've heard you can get in LA.

Every restroom I've used in LA has the same square paper towels, folded in thirds. Whether or not there is soap in these restrooms is less universal.

When I first got to LA, all I heard out of the mouths of local meteorologists and newscasters was how little rain the Southland had been getting and how far below the mark for the season we were. "How spoiled by the weather the news media must be to curse the sun," I thought. Now, after three weeks of consistently overcast skies, frequent precipitation, and occasional downpours, many of the same meteorologists and newscasters cry, "When will this horrible rain ever stop?"

Beyond the news media's contradictory feelings about the rain, however, it must be said that it is a very different -- and potentially more dangerous -- thing in LA than in New York City. The worst I saw rain do to New York City was shut down the subways and cause a lot of traffic -- as I implied above, not entirely uncommon occurrences there. Here, rain inspires talk of colossal avalanches of mud picking up homes and swallowing them whole. The alternating droughts and mud slides have made it very difficult for me to decide if I think the land needs the water more than I worry that the cliff-dwellings will come mud-sliding down the hills.

Seeing man and nature interact in close quarters, however dysfunctionally, is a welcome change from the landscape architecture New York City calls nature. If someone were born in Manhattan and never left, he could easily be convinced that nature existed only in parks and on TV, that everything was man-made -- even nature. In Central Park, people take pictures of pigeons and squirrels as if they'd come across a family of lions on a safari.

I haven't decided how I feel about winter in LA yet. On the one hand, 60s are a lot more comfortable than 20s. On the other hand, seeing the big flakes and billowy flows of snow on TV and talking to my brother home for a snow day makes me nostalgic like crazy. I should add that 60s in LA often feel like 20s in New York City because of the lack of adequate heating so prevalent here. I guess people are in denial that it can actually get cold in LA. This psychological tactic is especially ineffective due to the fact that the less heating one uses, the more cold one gets.

Then there's the smog. I would also add the Marine Layer, which most New Yorkers fail to mention when lambasting the air quality in LA. But though the ring-around-the-horizon and the phantom menace creeping in from the coast can be rather disturbing, when was the last time someone got a breath of fresh air in New York City?

My girlfriend is right, the Mexican food in LA is better than it is in New York City. Though the word 'fresh' is overused here, it's not even in the vocabulary there. And if restaurants had to put letters in their windows indicating their level of cleanliness in New York City, people would start cooking again there.

People in LA use "all" as a verb. "He was all 'Hey, what's up?' And she was all, 'Nothing. What's up with you?' So I was all, 'Hey guys, 'all' isn't a verb."

I've been told apartments in LA are more expensive than they've been in years, especially in Santa Monica. Though this may be the case -- and though I was perplexed to find that many of these apartments don't come with a refrigerator -- you still get three or four times the space you get in New York City for the same price. Plus, you get sunlight and sometimes trees or even a porch. Compared to the dark shoebox-of-a-studio I shared with my girlfriend in Manhattan, our one-bedroom apartment here feels like the Great Plains.

In addition to space, there's quiet in LA. At night. In the hills and canyons. Big, pure, almost perfect quiet. I never experienced quiet like that in New York City.

On the other hand, at almost any moment of any day, you can step out of your apartment in New York City and get to almost anything you want in the world in about 30 minutes. It takes that long to get a quart of milk in LA. And in New York City, there's two of everything on every block. This holds true only for gas stations here. For almost everything else, you need to enlist the help of the Thomas Brothers.

It never really gets dark in LA or in New York City. The sky just turns dark purple.

Finally, a disclaimer: depending on where you're from and where you are, many of the notes above might speak just as effectively for their respective cities as they do against them -- or vice versa. This just proves my long-held belief that the East Coast/West Coast division is a thin and porous line. Or does it disprove that belief? Either way, in the new global economy, aren't New York City and LA just suburbs of one another anyway?