Chicago MMXII

after a few listens, I love "call me maybe".

c.r. jepsen is a delight.

we're seriously considering going to the "rock around the block" fest to see the led zeppelin cover band this afternoon

now that the weather is broken, we have jesse's more powerful a/c installed in our living room and it is blissfully cold. however we are learning a lot about the locations and abilities of the fuses in our apartment.

oooh is it the one with bruce lamont in it?!?!

(the zep cover band, not the a/c)

probably not. It's Kashmir

ok phew
he's in LZ2

c.r. jepsen is a delight.

don't you mean jeppson?

speaking of immature jokes, our external relations person just sent us a draft of our monthly newsletter with the organization name "b1g duck" spelled as "b1g d1ck."

Lol someone googling big schlongs would wind up here.

Did you go with Chicago Pet Sitters??? Because they do that! They also leave absolutely PRECIOUS little notes about your cats. I love them so much.

Yes. They are attentive and twee.

Weird that Big Chicks would be full of kiddies. I haven't been in a year or more but Uptown and RP bars were always pleasantly "older."

Morbs, maybe you remember when the gay guide books were popular, one of the (Spartucus?) had a tag for bars with older clientele called "Wrinkle Room," which they change in about 1996.

Today I saw my first Subway. Still standing after 24 years later. Nothing EVER seems to change in places like this.

Went to Winston today - super charming little city. The West End is like a time capsule of the mid-late-90s bars and music clubs and shops, but in a pleasant way. I could almost imagine having a home in the hilly, woodsy, walkable downtown neighborhoods.

BC had a 'party' on Thursday, I'm sure it's different in non-dancing hours.

I didn't trust seeing Letts/Chekhov before the reviews, so I went to the WestFest and then to Schubas (Jon Langford/The Sadies).

BC is better without dancing l, it's true. As is all of life.

The Glenwood, near LL's home, is sort of similar to BC and AFAIK doesn't tolerate dancing.

I'm in the UP and my phone kinda works! It's lovely here. The end.

I'm right good and sick of North Carolina. I really don't need to hear anymore about how scary and ~~dangerous~~ the literal wrong side of the tracks are in this pissant little town. When I ran out of gas (shut up) the guy who gave me 3 gallons of free gas said: "you're lucky you ran out here cuz it gets real dark across the tracks." My brother's (black) co-worker concurred and called the area, "East Africa," a play on its real name, East Spencer.

PS- A maid service in town is called Hire-A-Wife.

:/

I'm in the UP and my phone kinda works! It's lovely here. The end.

Woohoo! Hope the bugs aren't too bad.

Kr and I finally made it to the Fountainhead rooftop last night around dusk. It's kind of great. Interesting that there are no small-format bottles on the menu but there are about 30 cans.

Cans are cheaper than bottles and in my understanding, better for the beer, so now that there is reliable canning technology on a craft brew scale, a lot of breweries are really into it.

I remember there being a real stigma about beer in cans when I was younger, since craft brew (we called it "micro brew" back then, sonny) beer only came in bottles.

Oh yeah, I know that a lot of craft breweries are moving toward cans, but I still thought it was interesting that Fountainhead decided to focus their rooftop menu so much in that direction.

Maybe so people don't get drunk and throw bottles down onto the sidewalk.

Wait, is there a different menu for the roof than the rest of the restaurant?

Yes

That seems weird.

Is there a second bar up there?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

Maybe so people don't get drunk and throw bottles down onto the sidewalk.

The thought actually did occur to me!

yeah, I commented on the can thing too when we were there on Saturday. I think it's kind of cool, and it makes sense, in a weird way, for an outdoor space.

They have a different food menu for the roof too, and it seems better than the food inside.

sounds like I should give the place a second chance, I was really put off by my first visit there (which was 2 years ago of course)

still hate the name

I've had consistently mediocre food experiences there. Regardless, on some nights they have the best beer list in the city, so it's worth it.

I'm still not too impressed by the food. It has improved but still nothing special, which it seems to want to be. Good burgers, though sometimes the char is bitter. Good booze and nice enough space though.

Xp

Love their beer list, and the range of $5 pints they have.

Yeah, I agree about the food, too. Mostly, though, I love having a bar with a such a large, diverse, and constantly varying list of beers two blocks away from me.

ugh is it really going to take more than an hour to get from my house to mccormick place via cta?

Probably, its a haul.

i'm going to a conference there next week from mon. to weds., that's gonna be a lot of commuting. at least i get out of the office for a few days.

McCormick Place is super inconvenient from our neck of the woods on the CTA. Can you drive? Will your employer reimburse you for parking?

I feel the same about Fountainhead's food/beer. I love the beer list and I also appreciate that they have a range of ABV represented on the list. Some bars with a decent selection will only have a couple of beers in the session range, but the Fountainhead has enough that I will sometimes run out of drinking steam before I run out of beers to try.

It seems really weird that they have a different food menu for the roof than for inside.

Same with Bad Apple. Great beer list, never been very impressed with the food. Also hate the logo, but we've been over that before.

There's a new brew pub that opened on Lincoln a couple doors down from Delilah's. They aren't serving their own beer yet, though.

It seems really weird that they have a different food menu for the roof than for inside.

Think of it as a completely different establishment. In addition to the bar on the roof, there's also a little kitchen. The servers never have to go downstairs.

I disagree about the bad apple, their burger are wunderbar. xpost

My brother still claims that the Fountainhead's burger is the best he's had in Chicago, though he admits it may have been a fluke (or that he may have been especially hungry when he ate it).

Fountainhead burgers are actually pretty good, but "best in chicago" seems a bit far-fetched. As we all know, owen and engine's burge takes that honor.

Now that we can agree on.

God damn those are good burgers.

I did not know they had a separate kitchen up top, too. As a server who used to work in a restaurant with a roof top patio, I am very happy for the servers that they needn't mess with stairs. That was brutal.

i really like the portobello and goat cheese sandwich at bad apple

I had both a v good burger and a v good beer last night at Burger Bar (North/Clybourn). They were trying a bit too hard to push a milkshake on me (to go with my half-pound burger and beer), but everyjng was really tasty.

Chicago Fire <3s Equality: http://gay4soccer.com/2012/07/09/chicago-fire-begins-a-formal-partnership-with-equality-illinois/

I've been to Burger Bar once. It was okay. Honestly if I'm going to deal with that part of town (I have an aggressive dislike for that intersection and the shopping district around it) I would rather go to Goose Island Cybourne.

xp hey cool!!!

The bugs are insane and won't stay out of my eyes but this place rules. That's all. Dinnertime.

On my way to an o&e burger RIGHT NOW.