Chicago MMXII

Take an upholstery class.
And blog about it.

i wanna make music that sounds like this
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7066/6799445772_34daa8447f.jpg

amanda do you have a way to record stuff? if you record keyboard drones/noises i'll play trash guitar and bleep bloops over it. we can discuss via email if you prefer.

ok!!

that's skin with sun damage btw

Some shit is freshly fucked up on the Red Line. Purple Line conductor is telling everyone not to transfer to the Red because of a "1072." Whatever that is.

Ugh somebody said a 1072 is someone got hit by a train.

Why would a conductor use code when talking to passengers FFS.

also totally unrelated I am 1. glad the anti-eavesdropping law that was used to make recording cops in public spaces illegal has been ruled unconstitutional and 2. amazed that the comments on the trib article on the subject are pretty much wholly in favor of the ruling -- fully expected some major insanity there

This is great. I don't know how I missed the news. Great news for Occupy this May.

To reiterate: Great great great.

Happy 175th birthday, Chicago!

Yay!

so for the week around the g8/nato summits, my office building is:
closing the front entrance completely
requiring everyone to show their building id to get in the building
requiring everyone to show their building id again to use the elevator
setting the elevator to only take you to the floor indicated on your building id
requiring all guests to sign in and be escorted upstairs by someone from the office
having a "shelter in place" drill

we are right next to the federal reserve building and apparently some "foreign dignitaries" are staying in our building. i'm betting we'll close the office completely or work from home some days

R's office is telling everyone to work from home. They're afraid of "looters".

<3 this fucking fearful police state we live in.

My students are all talking about it too -- h8 on the G8 brings Chicago together on this marvelous Pulaski Day

http://www.benmeadows.com/images/xl/Pulaski-Axe-BEN-_i_9Y903_AS01.jpg

Unsurprisingly, there has been absolutely no announcements/preparations/planning related to this at my work. Which isn't to say I think these terrifying hippies and their anti-g8 communist riot terrorism looting bedbugs anthrax whatever are actually going to cause me any harm other than possibly some public transit irritation. I just think it's funny that out of all of the places to have concerns, an actual gov't building is just like "meh."

the library's going to be closed because i can't go downstairs and escort everyone up to the library who wants to visit one by one. but i also can't really work from home.

meant to post this a few days ago but here's some good news for my neighborhood/chicago in general: http://ecojusticecollaborative.org/breaking-chicago-coal-plants-closing/

Hey, that's great!

Nick, I hope you're getting paid for those days.

those two power plants were a big issue in the most recent aldermanic election. the company that owns them (midwest generation) sent out a p cynical letter "from the employees" basically saying "please don't take these jobs away from pilsen". of course most of the workers in the plants don't even live in the neighborhood, and the electricity they generate isn't used in chicago, it's sold to other areas.

Oh man, I hate that kind of manipulative evil PR bullshit.

oh i'm salaried so don't worry

Hmmmm... apparently he G8 summit is now going to be at camp david but NATO will still be here?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-g8-summit-to-be-held-at-camp-david-not-chicago-20120305,0,2787373.story

whoa

Oh, well I guess you suckers are all going to work after all.

I had actually taken off the week of the G8 summit so my car wouldn't get firebombed on the way to work; now I will have to reconsider my options.

Maybe you should keep the days off and schedule a vacation in Thurmont, MD.

#OccupyMaryland

my hotel room in thurmont has been booked.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/03/05/g8-moving-to-camp-david-one-less-summit-to-protest

LOL at this

http://www.chicagoreader.com/binary/c332/1330984856-nomoreg8.jpg

Wait

http://www.chicagoreader.com/binary/c332/1330984856-nomoreg8.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/431528_10150569572611861_682376860_9518526_958449922_n.jpg

Pretty.

Oooh -- Wolcott's is gone and cool new french bar to open in its place!

http://troquetchicago.com/

$5 pints of Blue Moon just wasn't enough, I guess.

Wolcott's didn't last long. Did we ever go there? I can't even remember.

What does it mean to be a "French bar"?

We never went there. At least not according to my untappd.

Sometimes I go places without your untappd.

Yeah, Wolcott's was almost never full, even for big sporting events. There was even a short-lived Wednesday karaoke night -- I walked by one time, and it looked like it was just one dude mangling "Edge of Glory."

What does it mean to be a "French bar"?

Chicago Magazine:
“‘Troquet’ is actually the French word for bar,” Nicole Outrequin Quaisser says. “It will have your croque-monsieur in different varieties, and we will have traditional baguette sandwiches. And we will have something like a small plate, like a pork belly or veal breast with traditional french fries and some salad.” French, German, and local beers will be offered on tap, and chalkboard menus will give the place a traditional atmosphere.

From the owners of LM (the French restaurant in Lincoln Square), btw.

Tricky having that just two blocks from Fiuntainhead, though LM has its foodie fans.

Hopefully that area can sustain two such places. That particular intersection really can use a bar/restaurant. Wolcotts, for its shortcomings, was a good idea.

A brand new Mariano's is being built by my work, at Halsted and Monroe. That's only one block south of the Dominick's at Halsted and Madison. Sort of a weird choice.

Further retail updates while I'm at it: Wal-Mart is under construction at the former Pearl art store at the Chicago Brown line stop and a Target is being built near mu work on Van Buren about 4 blocks west of Halsted.

Also that CVS in the Century shopping ctr is going to be pretty huge.

xp Well, that one Mariano's at Roscoe/Western is right next to a Jewel.

it's 9:30 am, why does my stomach think it's lunch time?

the gut wants what the gut wants?

other neighborhood restaurant updates:
* the shitty thai restaurant at byron and lincoln closed, is being replaced by ... another thai restaurant. hopefully less shitty.
* a grilled cheese/soup/coffee place is opening on lincoln across from the jewel. i think this is the fifth restaurant that has been in that location since i moved to the neighborhood.
* big bricks looks to be doing pretty good business. would like to eat there sometime.