Chicago MMXII

A SPY!?

Who, the person asking me? No, it was our SUPERWEIRD security guard. SUPER. WEIRD. Small vignette:

She spends a lot of time in the bathroom (singing hymns) and she was standing in the bathroom talking on the phone, and I was washing my hands and she walked out ahead of me, and then stopped short, turned around and went back into the bathroom saying, "Oh! I forgot to wash my keys!"

Weird.
BTW guys, The Interrupters is up on the Frontline website, and I really recommend watching it -- sad, but real and not too much of a downer if you watch the whole thing.

Oooo should I show my class? We do a violent crimes chapter that might work with this.

Definitely

Clips might be better if you can find them though, it's 2 hrs long.

Or at least stop periodically for comprehension/digestion breaks

I'll watch it and see if I can show half of it.

I'm showing them a 15 min clip of The Staircase on Saturday.

the thing is that the threads wrap up a bit at the end, and you see development with the people whose lives they follow -- if you just show part of it, it won't have the same impact as if you show the whole thing. if they only see part, it will look unfathomably bleak, which is not the message. it's bleak, but not unfathomably.

there are obvious discussion points throughout, and it could lead into a conversation about solutions instead of a conversation about problems

i hope that made sense

It makes sense. I'll watch it and see.

These students enjoyed graphic photos of brutal drug cartel murder scenes so I am not too concerned about their ability to deal with bleakness.

Yup, Interrupters is good.

tonight is the siam rice dinner. i had like 15 people rsvp.
pumped for road trip/mini tour this weekend. i like wandering around college towns/campuses.

lemme know if you need any food/hangout recommendations.

go for it.

oh, well, if you're just walking around i guess you'll end up on state street. i don't go down there much anymore, but B-Side Records is still there. for food there's a million college-y places (more chains than there used to be), but i like Nick's Restaurant (up by the Orpheum) for some real old-school madison vibe. there's always ian's too, and some great places on the capitol square (like Graze - the pro move is to get the soft pretzel, which is cheap and comes with really good cheese and mustards. also the mac & cheese).

my favorite stuff is on the near east side, where we live. the weary traveler is the greatest, and alchemy has really good food + changes out their whole beer list every week.

also sophia's cafe on johnson, they only do dinner thurs & fri but it's awesome (good veggie food too). we're probably going to eat there tomorrow night.

She spends a lot of time in the bathroom (singing hymns) and she was standing in the bathroom talking on the phone, and I was washing my hands and she walked out ahead of me, and then stopped short, turned around and went back into the bathroom saying, "Oh! I forgot to wash my keys!"

IIRC, this is the same lady who washes her bags of Cheetos!

Tonight guess what?

Tonight carl agatha and I are going to see Diamanda Galosh!

thanks.

kind of a longshot but i have an hour to kill between work and this dinner tonight if anyone wants to get a quick beer on the west side of the loop around 5ish.

nick, carl and i might be up for meeting you. let's ask her.

carl?

No can do. I have to be at work until around 6. Sorry, bro!

Darling Nicki - may I call you that? - let's go get liquored up in carl's office.

ok

That works.

There's a jazz ensemble downstairs playing popular soul and R&B songs in honor of Black History Month.

You guys seriously live in some parallel universe downtown.

Especially Jenny's building.

And I rode in the elevator with J3ss3 Wh1t3 and his entourage today.

He got on, smiled at everybody, and said "How's everybody's driver's license?"

Is there a name for that thing that politicians do when they imagine that everyone in the world is paying attention to who they are, so they need to address the "elephant in the room" by making a self-referential joke?

Solipsism?

Whenever he rides in the elevator with my SE Asian coworker, he asks her where she's from, to which she invariably responds, "Mudenlein."

He once followed that up by guessing various southeast Asian countries.

wow

Yeah, he's a tool. I've never seen him without at least two secret service body guard types. Probably because he's about 5'4".

xp

L gets that question a lot, and she says she's from atlanta. she gets lots of followup about no, where are your people from, because she looks arab/south asian/latina/whatev, and she smiles sweetly and says that her family lives in georgia. and then she gets the fuck away from the person.

seems that it's an incredibly common question from rude strangers if you look 'ethnic' or something.

I went to the DMV today. It was the best DMV experience I can remember having.

I'll tell JW next time I run into him.

i've always had pretty positive experiences with the chicago dmv! i have to go sometime before my birthday to renew my license.

The dmv in the loop is really great, it was so quick and easy. The dmv offices out in the suburbs are hell on earth and miserable, soul-sucking pits of doom.

yes but the real question is how was your commute

I went to the "express" office in a strip mall on Diversey out by Cicero. All I was doing was renewing my license so it wasn't too hard, but still, like half an hour in-and-out is A+ imo.

(Cicero Ave, nb)

The commute was no problem because I went at like 10AM. The only wtf moment was them accepting all credit cards *except* Visa, but I had enough cash.

I don't think I've ever had a pretty positive experience at a DMV. Maybe when I got my CA drivers' license. I had to take a written test, which I failed. They gave me a "study guide" (aka copy of the test) and I went across the street to Taco Bell, memorized it, then came back and got 100%.

btw have I told you about my soccer-supporting friend who traveled (with a large group of other Fire fans) to Canada for a game and was mis-identified by some kind of authority figure there as "J3ss3 Whit3" because the authority figure mis-read his ID? he is forever known as "J3ss3 Whit3 in Canada" now.

yes but the real question is how was your commute

Okay, for real, I haven't talked about a commute in a long time. I get that this is the chicago group's lol way of making fun of me, but its kind of old.

can you still get vanity plates for like free in Illinois? I remember when I lived in northern Indiana & went to Chicago that I'd see more vanity plates than anywhere else in the country, & figured they must be free, or free-ish. Is that right?

if so I am going to be delighted

however, the normal Illinois plates now are kind of a drag, dumb font on top, dumb blue fade on the bottom.

http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/vehicles/license_plate_guide/vanity.html

huh, a biggish initial surcharge, but after that nbd. nice!

omg i wasn't making fun of you specifically! everyone talks about their commute! jon i thought you knew me better than that.