It's Monday. We're back at work after a great Chicago summer weekend. What could Monday possibly have for us to enjoy? How about this: All you can eat?!?!? I know vegetarians are probably disgusted, and as an omnivore even I'm thinking, (continue reading)

I can't believe I forgot to mention this earlier, and because of Woot's weird t-shirt "Reckoning" thing, the shirt may not be available much longer, but anyway, let's finish this run-on sentence off and get to the point, which is... a t-shirt (continue reading)

It's already a pet peeve of mine when advertisers do a quick "insert name of city here" to try and make you feel like they have some sort of connection to your city. But the best stock photo that Bank of America could come up with to evoke (continue reading)

Hey, everybody! Do you like pirates? (Is there anybody who DOESN'T like pirates?) How about revenge, blood, and general mayhem and murderousness? You DO?!? Then you should come see my show! There's swordfighting, and swashbucking, and more (continue reading)

</a It's hard to walk a block in this city without seeing one of SOLVE's eponymous stickers. And that's not all SOLVE did -- there are other stickers, paste-ups, boards, prints tucked into newspaper boxes. I never met the man, but I'm a fan of (continue reading)

I recently picked up a copy of One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966) -- one of the classic Travis McGee detective novels by John D. MacDonald. McGee's normal setting is South Florida, but in this one he travels to Chicago to help out an old friend. McGee (continue reading)

I was taking care of some bills last night and realized that I was running right up against the deadline to renew my City Sticker by mail -- the current stickers expire June 30, with a "grace period" until July 15, and they say you should allow 30 (continue reading)

One of the features of John Hodgman's 2005 book The Areas of My Expertise is a list of 700 Hobo Names (expanded by 100 in the paperback edition). A group of illustrators, spearheaded by Adam "Apelad" Koford, took up the challenge of drawing the (continue reading)

Bunz (1134 W Thorndale). Bakery, I (continue reading)

Nobody does plays like the Strange Tree Group does plays. How do you define the stuff these guys do? Just listen to the title of their newest work, written by Strange Tree's resident playwright Emily Schwartz: The Mysterious Elephant and the (continue reading)

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v= E32Ll3Tga2Y[/youtube]All hail the hail. (This is summer, right? Just (continue reading)

With consumer goods prices burgeoning and my "still somewhat timid freelance writer" schtick not yet helping me rake large piles of cash into my wallet, I've been looking for more ways to cut costs. Having sold my Ford Explorer (did I really (continue reading)

Ron Chester traces the saying "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" back from a Bob Dylan lyric to an 1858 lecture in Bloomington, Illinois by (continue reading)

Legendarily irascible comics (and novel) author Warren Ellis will be appearing at Wizard World Chicago (out in Rosemont) on Friday at 9 pm. The event is free and you don't need a convention ticket to attend. If we're lucky, he'll bite the head off a (continue reading)

I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo last week. You can see some photos of the trip in my set here. But what I'm most interested in is this sign right here: The animals can turn invisible!!! I think I'll start my own zoo and have a bunch of (continue reading)