Chicago MMXII

Not that I'm aware of.

Well it came from somewhere.

Heaven

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-bird-strike-cracks-window-causes-downtown-street-closure-20120713,0,6318944.story

Small Bar Logan has an even more impressive beer list going than what I posted earlier, and their pig roast is starting to waft throughout the neighborhood.

Two things about food:

1. I made this for breakfast this morning and it was super delicious - http://ohmyveggies.com/recipe-coconut-mango-overnight-oatmeal/. I don't know about agave syrup; I just added sugar this morning. I used frozen mango from TJ's. Also I increased the recipe by half because I am a woman of hearty breakfast appetites. But I love oatmeal and get sad when it's too hot for it and this was good and refreshing.

2. I just ate at Green Apple Grill. Nothing smelled weird in the food court, either from the fast food places or from upstairs, and the food was great. I got bulgogi and you seriously get a heap of food for $7. I probably could have saved half for another lunch but I was too busy for any morning snacks and was ravenous when I was finally able to get away from my desk and eat. Definitely adding this place to my regular lunch rotation (bonus points for it being on the pedway, although it's also like 100 feet from my building so whatever.

i am at a conference

i was gonna see if anyone wanted to go to trivia night tomorrow or next week?

also there was something else i wanted to tell you guys but i have since forgotten what it was :-/

You should make that oatmeal. It felt like a very Amanda kind of food to make and eat.

sounds pretty good, would def skip the agave b/c i like my oatmeal not too sweet!

Not that I give much of a hoot about these things, but I read somewhere that agave has a much higher glycemic index than regular sugar and makes you get all shaky faster or something, so it actually isn't very good for you. Or something. I don't know.

mango is pretty sweet as it is, so i can't imagine it needing more sweet?

Hey Jeff/carl -- have you been to Atlas Brewing Co. yet? Was thinking about checking it out soon, but it looks like they're not serving their own beer yet?

YES. Jeff has gone there a bunch bc it's right by the house. I've been there once. I had a very interesting stuffed squash blossom sandwich (vegetarian).

They are on the verge of serving their own beer. My verdict is still out on them. They could go great places w/ the food or end up kind of meh like The Fountainhead or generic like, I don't know, a million other bars in the Lincoln Park corridor of Lincoln. But I'm sure we'll go back since they have a decent list of other people's beer right now and it is the closest bar w/ food to our house (Delilah's is closer).

Word.

Alert: I have finally had the opportunity to write "pussy motherfucker" in an official legal document. Thank you.

I've been waiting for this day since I first got my law school acceptance letter.

They keep saying they expect their beer very soon. Maybe this week.

Alert: I have finally had the opportunity to write "pussy motherfucker" in an official legal document.

Awesome. I felt a mild thrill at work last year while writing about Cee Lo's big hit.

Carl, that is a truly impressive career achievement.

Thank you! Thank you!

I am so pleased to receive the Pussy Motherfucker career achievement award. I want to thank He Who Walks Behind the Rows in whom all things are possible, and the Illinois bar, and all the pussy motherfuckers out there in the audience tonight! This one's for you!

That really is a great achievement!

You get mega bonus points if you were not quoting anyone.

Tonight T'mas and I went to visit the racoons of Belmont Harbor. There were 4 or 5 other people visiting them, including an old white haired woman w/ an accent and a big bag of peanuts, which she had fed to the racoons. We took some of her peanuts and got very close and got some really good pictures. Also, I briefly touched one very small one who was standing on the lady's foot. Some of them were 100% chill w/ humans.

I counted 10 of them (only 4 on our side of the chain link fence) but there were many others rustling around, cooing, growling, and barking at each other when they scuffled. Very cool. Will definitely take a stick and some other kind of defensive tools when I go back. And a better camera.

You're gonna get rabies.

What kind of document did you write those dirty words in?

I hope on top of not being a quote, they were in something mundane like an extension form or a request for information.

I think it would be advisable not to feed the racoons. That woman should be arrested.

It is illegal.

She was somewhat nutty or senile.

I want to thank He Who Walks Behind the Rows in whom all things are possible

I just want to big up this reference.

i am not one for references as communication, but i also appreciated that

Still have very fond memories of the night we rented and watched II through V.

i am not one for references as communication

Can you explain what you mean? I am not taking that as a criticism, just curious.

Just imo, I prefer when people don't try to communicate stuff (whatever sentiment) by namedropping other stuff (stuff unrelated to the feeling they desire to communicate)

-- for example, someone says, "You've got a real Nico look today." and you are supposed to interpret 1) whether that is negative or positive (old grizzled heroin Nico? pretty young Nico?) and if you are really disadvantaged, you will have to ask who the fuck is Nico before even getting to whether it's a positive or negative remark. It's disingenous to say that it's uniformly positive because understanding that relies on a lot of cultural knowledge that just not everyone has.

Double negative points if it is designed to weed out people who "understand" and people who don't.

i should say more specifically that i find this behavior tiresome, not offensive.

Namedropping, especially as a gatekeeping tactic, is super tiresome. I went to law school with a guy who did this so incessantly it was impossible to have an actual conversation with him. Like, we'd find a thing in common (once it was enjoyment of Neal Stephenson's books), exchange two sentences about it, and he would immediately say something like, "And of course there's Pierre Robert's 1932 book 'Rain Smash'* to which Stephenson owns an obvious debt."

We also took a class in economic justice (the commie answer to University of Chicago's fiscally conservative law and economics school) and he would very ostentatiously come in early to read the Financial Times before class started. We had all of our first year and a good chunk of electives together and he'd never done that before.

*I made that up

Anyway, I am sure I communicate via references a lot, because the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to draw the line between relying on a shared body of references to improve communication, and assuming a shared body of references and thus impeding conversation. Plus really all language is references when you think about it.

So let me just close by saying:

"I read the Financial Times."
"I read the Sun and the Times!"

That makes me a little scared to talk around you bc I throw around more references than Dickey throws knuckleballs.

Xp

...

say hello to my little friend

i mean everyone does it, i just prefer it when people don't use it as a gatekeeping tactic, as jenny said. i don't even want to walk through the gate at that point.

OH HEY

Don't forget that tomorrow is pizza night at HPC on Southport. We were tasked with selling five pizzas each so I just need two of you to eat pizza for dinner. Please!!!

"I read the Financial Times."
"I read the Sun and the Times!"

<3

That one was for you.

Re references, I get tired when all of a person's jokes and LOLs are references and they don't seem to have any original material. That's right up there with the weird urge some ppl have to repeat a funny conversation that just happened seconds ago to laugh at it all over again.

"She just said 'Blippity bloo!' and then I was like, 'Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabbadoo!'"

No idea what "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" is, though.

It's what the kids call the evil corn demon in Children of the Corn.

outlander!

by that i clearly am referring to

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/11/outlandergtfd_01_opt.jpg

I am still at a conference

We are definitely getting pizza from HPC tomorrow

I am only going to make cultural references to books or TV shows I made up in my brain. I'm an equal-opportunity gatekeeper.

I've known a couple of people who frequently make casual references to relatively obscure people or historical events in a way that's not necessarily ostentatious so much as just oblivious of their audience. In conversations like that, I feel simultaneously annoyed that their communication isn't more inclusive and flattered that they assume I can keep up.