Chicago MMXII

Anyone who thinks a list of the best burgers in town is necessary is kind of absurd by definition. Either that or he lives in the Square and is trying to frighten others away.

I like lists like that (I like lists in general), but that was a dumb thing to say b/c it was wrong and b/c it was irrelevant to the piece.

I would like to try Au Cheval's burger. It's on my commute and I've been curious about it, and their burger sounds interesting.

Travelled solo to Maxwell Street this morning, and got into some A+ nice stranger conversations. Which I guess will happen when it's basically 95% Mexicans and 5% gringo food explorers.

I was just thinking earlier today that I need to get back there. Had a great huitlacoche quesadilla last time.

Cool, Josh. I've only been there once, which is practically a sin, but I make the commute 5 days a week, so I tend to stay out of the Loop on weekends. Plus it's kind of a pain to get to on the CTA. It was great when I went, though - so much good, cheap produce including ENORMOUS papayas. Does it run during winter months?

Oh, Courtney and I went to the 2-hour comedy hour at the Gallery Cabaret on Saturday and it was awesome. I'm definitely going back. There were some really great comedians and I like the space and the bar staff. They should push harder to collect their $5 recommended donation, IMO. Instead of passing a bucket or collecting at the door, they mention it at the end of the show and the audience has to come to the bucket. Saw a funny comedian who I recognized from a K@t3 H@rd1ng blog post I read the night before, which was a cool coincidence.

i want to go to lincoln lodge more often and the chicago underground comedy show at beat kitchen (only $5)

i ate pizza every day this weekend. also saw two movies. don't know how i feel about "killer joe" but "the campaign" was really funny.

basically "killer joe" -

PROS strong acting, especially from mcconaughey, juno temple, and gina gershon
made me think of blood simple, mainly just it was a texas noir

CONS heavy emphasis on LOL white trash humor (especially re: emile hirsch and thomas haden church's characters), which feels played out to me - not really very edgy or interesting post-"my name is earl"

we went to owen & engine before seeing "the campaign" for cocktails. god, it's a teeming hipster cesspool over there. just like a buzzing, swarming infestation of hipsters.

When was this? We went there for dinner on Saturday. A guy at the table next to us had his wraparound sunglasses hanging on the back of his collared golf shirt. What a fucking hipster.

it was saturday around 8ish. one of the servers was kinda snooty to us because we just walked upstairs and took a table instead of stopping by the hostess table. also we got an "ice cream sandwich."

Huh. I think we just missed each other.

MUSING: I was looking up some music on Spotify last night and thinking about the social aspect of it, and how I think I have two, maybe three, Spotify friends or connections or whatever, and I had a total Andy Rooney moment about "Why does everything we do have to be social? Can't we just read a book? Do we have to log into GoodReads and post that we're reading it on Facebook?" We Live In Public, maaaaaan.

I would like to see both of those movies, eventually. Actually, I would just like to see a movie sometime. Movies.

Movies.

I'll only see a movie if I can add a social game layer.

i kind of like most social sharing but feel guilty about it because for me it's mostly just another way of seeking validation (in the form of feedback/comments). i don't do any sharing about my reading though. i was trying to do that open google spreadsheet of everything i read last year but i got tired of it pretty quickly.

I feel like almost every week Kr and I talk about going to see a movie, but it hardly ever happens.

everything has to be social because marketing/advertising is the way people make money on the internet

Well, yeah, which is part of why I smugly pat myself on the back a little bit for refusing to engage (for the most part - sometimes I tweet the song I'm listening to if I'm really rocking out).

I really think n/a is onto something about the validation. I used some social reading app when I was on Facebook because every time I reviewed a book, I would get positive feedback from people and no lie, I kind of live to be praised. But then I would read something really embarrassing or just kind of dull and not want to post about it and then I would feel dishonest, like if I'm going to post what I read, I need to post everything I read. Which is kind of a lot of stress about something that's really dumb and also totally optional.

It's the same thing with music and TV, where my true passions are really uncool.

I guess ultimately I find the social aspect of my personal taste really stressful, and I end up caring too much about the image of myself I'm presenting to people instead of just liking what I like.

But speaking of things I like, you all need to watch London Hospital aka Casualty 1907 and Casualty 1909, which is available streaming through Amazon Prime (but I don't know where else I am sorry) and is amazing.

in other social media news, a website called fr@t st@rs dot com followed me on twitter

I document all kinds of things via social media, but my strategy is to not connect my different accounts. Like my Facebook isn't connected to my Goodreads isn't connected to my Last FM, etc. I should really just delete them all though tbh.

Hey, that Lakeview Starbucks is going to start serving beer/wine this Saturday! Laissez les bons temps rouler.

i usually only share info about what i saw/read/heard if i am very very excited or if someone asks me
otherwise, i like to keep the number of golden girls episodes i watch or the number of times i listen to a song to myself
you would be appalled

Disappointed i went into the SB on Sunday and they hadn't started beer yet. I was going to get one and do a social media check in.

This weekend I deliberated a bit about whether I wanted Spotify to post to FB and I decided to let it do so for a while since I'm experiencing major musical re-awakening and maybe broadcasting what I'm listening to might start a conversation or something.

I used to let Spotify post to FB and, IIRC, the only response it ever drew was a woman I barely know clicking "Like" when I listened to Jay-Z's The Blueprint.

i refrain from commenting on (validating) people's spotify choices on facebook because i don't want to look like a stalky creep!

I don't post any social thing to facebook. In fact I only make two posts a year on my wall.

otherwise, i like to keep the number of golden girls episodes i watch or the number of times i listen to a song to myself
you would be appalled

Sub out "Star Trek" (or recently, Firefly, again) for Golden Girls and OTM x 1000000.

i refrain from commenting on (validating) people's spotify choices on facebook because i don't want to look like a stalky creep!

They're things people share with specific audiences on a social network.

I will probably delink Spotify when I revert to playing the same 3 Smiths songs for hours a day for a week.

R's workplace is fascinating to me. Apparently people there have individual space heaters at their desks, that they are using today, because it's "freezing" in the office. On a day when it's 70-some degrees out and they have the A/C on.

This is what's wrong with America.

that's what it's like at my office too. we have no control over the temperature, it's set by the building.

I believe they have control over each floor's temperature, and it's not a very big building.

Maybe I'm being lolnortherner again or something but it's just sort of silly. Turn the A/C down. Or put on a sweatshirt.

woooo yeah, I have a certain coworker who used to use a space heater all summer until it started blowing out the power on our half of the hall. Now she just asks if she can turn the heat on in the office (there are individual thermostats in some of the offices)*. She generally wears short skirts/sleeves and does not have a sweater at work.

*They turn the heat off in the building, however, so she can turn the heat on all day and it won't do anything. That is why when she asked a couple of weeks ago when it was about 90 outside if she could turn on the heat, I just chose not to respond to her at all since I knew it wouldn't do anything, and my response would probably have been something very, very mean.

To be fair, the climate control in this entire building is fuuuucked (people who sit on the plaza facing side of the office wear coats and scarves inside in the summer because it is incredibly cold over there, while 3/4 of my office can sit here in short sleeves and be comfortable; in the winter, it gets cold enough at my desk that my hands become too achy to type) but that being the case, I keep a sweater, a shawl, fingerless gloves, and slippers at my desk so that I can adapt to whatever the indoor weather happens to be today.

we had a hallway that was so hot that it felt like being inside someone's hot mouth

I was thinking about the social sharing aspect of things again this morning, and what was getting me wasn't the sharing itself, which seems to me like a perfectly reasonable instinct and one that I have, too, but the idea that you HAVE to share. Spotify and Pinterest and whatever else all try to make you log in with your Facebook or Twitter account, or sign up with it. This idea that wanting to share everything is the purpose of consuming entertainment as opposed to the purpose being for enjoyment or edification or enrichment, with sharing being something you on a more selective, deliberate basis.

Spotify sharing is easy enough to disable, but pinterest bugs me for that reason. I basically want privacy controls where no one can see what I'm pinning. I'll never be a big user unless that happens.

Sorry for bringing it up again. I didn't want people to think I am judgmental of folks who do like sharing all this stuff. I'm really not. It's fun to share things. I just find the sharing/social aspect of these things being the default or in some cases the only option to be frustrating. It's half musing about the shift in assumptions about everybody wanting to be open about everything and half observing how suddenly social networking became the big selling point of methods of media consumption, and maybe the relationship between the two.

Somebody somewhere else on the internet has said this much better than I, I am sure.

xp You can immediately disconnect Twitter or Facebook from Pinterest after you sign up. I think they use it as a verification method, maybe? It's dumb, but you can disconnect it.

I don't mean that, I mean people being able to view my actual pinterest page.

Oh right. Yes. You can't make the actual page private.

Pinterest seems intrinsically, essentially social. I get wanting an image-based idea repository, sort of like del.icio.us, but w/ pics, but that's not reasonable to expect of Pinterest.

Jenny, I get what you're saying. Sometimes I want to read an article someone links to on FB, but when I click the link, it asks me to share that I've read it, but I want to actually see if the article is worth a damn before I tell everyone I've read it!

I mean that the link demands that I share it before it lets me read it. That could be wrong and maybe there's a way to avoid sharing, but the pop-up turns me off and I don't read the story.

That's a good example. Sure, share a good article but to share every article you read? GTFO. Why should any app expect that of anyone?

I think it's absolutely reasonable. The site has zero privacy controls, which is absurd for a social media site today.

Speaking of sharing, I'll share with you (esp. Jaymc and Kenan):

Half-price tickets to...Boz Scaggs, Michael MacDonald, and Donald Fagen, at Ravinia.

SMH @ RED EYE

http://www.readoz.com/publication/read?i=1051067&letter=R#page2

"Turban Primer"

I would guess that your average American is woefully ignorant about different styles of turbans (see also using "burqa" to describe any non-Western women's clothing style) but that presentation strikes me as a bit othering.