Chicago MMXII

We've had summer hours for three weeks now, but I'll finally be able to take advantage of them and leave early today!

As if there are only a few theaters in Chicago doing work worth seeing!

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply such, just eliminating the 'big' stuff. Feel free to recommend.

are you guys ready for RIBFEST?

I wonder if the ribs are actually any good at RIBFEST? My one visit to Taste of Chicago made me skeptical of food-based festivals.

Jeff brought home ribs from ribfest last year and they were really good.

all i know is that it fucks up parking by our house

the street is overflowing with greasy rib bones i bet

Ribfest makes my vegan FB friend who lives nearby very vocally self-righteous. He has suggested that the dummies at Ribfest should try a saladfest instead. Looking forward to this year's rants.

Yes, our ribfest ribs were good.

Every day is saladfest.

last year (?) the vegetarian cafe down the street from us had a booth at ribfest with vegan ribs. don't think they're doing it this year though.

testing out a tweet with you guys: "when you've had a rib surgically removed so you can give yourself a blowjob, EVERY day is ribfest!"

(i'm not actually going to tweet that)

(i probably shouldn't have posted it here either. sorry.)

Tweet it!

Somehow I've never been to ribfest, but I'm determined to make this year the year where I attend

Nick if you tweet it you have to use #ribfest

FINE

i typically try not to go too blue on twitter but whatever

@ribfestchicago

I did actually got to ribfest yesterday and, guess what, it sucked. I don't know why I ever held out any hope that it wouldn't, really.

We bought a meatstravaganza when we got back into town in Friday. Brought it back home though. Would never actually hang out at ribfest.

The meatstravaganza was delicious, but I credit a good part of that with Jeff going to get the food while I stayed home in the AC and unpacked.

Here's a depressing article about Chicago if you are in the mood: http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_chicago.html

That's an excellent -- but, yes, depressing -- article. Logan Square Kitchen is now defunct, in fact.

as with everything nowadays, do yourselves a favor and don't read the comments

Yikes at that article. It's depressing because so much of it is true.

City Journal does have conservative/libertarian leanings, so perhaps some of that article should be taken with a grain of salt. But, yeah, i think chicago is fuct.

Holy shit I read the comments. :( forever

xp I've never read anything on the site before but yeah, it became very obvious right about when the first mention of unions came up

I am unfamiliar with the publication but I guessed it had some conservative leanings, particularly since the first thing the author mentioned as ruining Chicago was unions*. And since so much of the solution revolved around business-friendly policies.

But the bit about byzantine government, corruption, being broke as hell, and a decade of quick fixes that just make problems worse is OTM.

*I have some specific issues with some specific unions vis a vis city and state government that I do think make some of these problems more difficult to solve, but I don't think SCAAAAARRRY UNIONS BOOOOOO are the main problem here.

Ha! xp to Dan, who is OTM

hi 5

You all are approaching the comments section wrong. Just embrace them as a hilarious epilogue.

There are too many talking about how great it is for the city that black Chicagoans moved to the suburbs (or how terrible it is for the suburbs). It's just straight up hateful.

a friendly reminder that this is on wednesday!

http://www.justforlaughschicago.com/justforlaughschicago/stories/story/0,,262043,00.html

Chicagoans, I have a favor to ask of you.

You may remember last year many of you attended and very generously donated to a fundraiser I held for The Organization On Whose Board I Serve. I'm not going to hold a fundraiser this year, but you can still help us out in a very easy and delicious way!

On July 18, Homemade Pizza Company on Southport is donating money to us based on their sales. We get $5 for every large pizza and lesser amounts on salads and breadsticks. Each member of the org has been asked to "sell" five pizzas, and if we all do as instructed, we'll raise $1,000! Whoa man! So if any of you people who occasionally enjoy a delicious Homemade Pizza Company pizza, or have always wanted to try one, would make such a purchase from the Southport location on July 18, I would be very grateful.

*Fine print bad news: it's only at the Southport location and it's only takeout, no delivery. But HPC is very easy to transport and this store is right next to the Southport Brown Line.

Also if any of youse want to post this info on Facebook when the time draws near, email me and I'll give you more specifics.

Oh and you have to make your purchase between 1 pm and 8 pm.

And you have to pay with a Discover card.

Just kidding about that last one.

ok i will do that

I'll do it too, though a reminder closer to to july 18 would probably be a good thing

Definitely. I have a calendar reminder set to remind you all the week before. I just wanted to give you lots of advanced notice so you can apply for your Discover card.

For Jesse, because we just discussed it at lunch, but also for Amanda, who IIRC likes this kind of thing (also: Ohio connection) -
http://gawker.com/5914621/the-long-fake-life-of-js-dirr-a-decade+long-internet-cancer-hoax-unravels

Thats a fantastic read, but OMG at the horrible editing. Come on Gawker. Sorry, this shit just makes me IA.

J.S. had embedded himself firmly in online the online lives of hundreds of people.

"Everybody was devastated when she was died,"

I guess since that second one was a quote, it may be verbatim, but I doubt it.

Yikes, that is bad.

I usually pick up on that stuff but I didn't notice, which either speaks to me being very engrossed in the story or reading it clandestinely on my phone at work.

Who can tell me about Fitzgerald's and whether I should go see the Waco Bros there on July 3?

http://fitzgeraldsnightclub.com/AmericanMusicFestival.html

don't know anything about fitzgerald's but it's going to be a little bit of a hike out to berwyn, especially without a car

I wouldn't bother, but that's just me.