The Virgin Megastore is carrying these shirts now, so I got Erica and myself ones. I had been looking for one ever since I read this article in the NewCity (it’s out of date, by the way, the shirts are no longer available at the MCA).

When I read the article I was amazed that anyone could have that strong of a reaction to such an abstract design, but since I’ve been wearing it around, it’s gotten the most comments of any t-shirt I’ve ever worn (and I like to think I wear interesting t-shirts).

No one has expressed distain or hatred of the shirt — mostly they’re trying to parse it into a sentence:

• I dot Chicago?
• I circle Chicago?
• Is that a Blue Man Group thing?
• Is that an IO thing?
• I go around Chicago?
• I blew Chicago?

We headed out to Cafe LaGuardia in Bucktown last night based upon the glowing review it received on Check,Please! and were not let down. The interior is incredibly cozy and sexy with great lighting and overstuffed couches. The staff was very friendly and helpful, giggling when Ruth slipped and accidentally said “Shredded Wheat” instead of “Shredded Beef”.

The mojitos were strong and tangy, and the caipirinhas were pretty awesome too. I ordered the Cuban Pulled Pork special, which tasted like spicy heaven. The pork was insanely tender and the sauce was so hot my stomach felt like it was on fire. In a good way. Be sure to ask for bread if you order the shredded dishes as the sauce is just as delicious when you dip some bread in it.

Best part is, it is inexpensive for the quality and quantity of food you get (appx $8 – $15 per entree, with rice and beans included). I would suggest going on a Tuesday because they have live music, but it was cozy and conducive to conversation with our group of 7 without the music.

So my friend Kurt found a pretty interesting little flyer at a store in his neighboorhood. The flyer is called unscene. It’s a little map of independent businesses that has well done little pics and info (phone, address, url) about each business on the sorrounding edges and back of the map. The map is done really well.

-It folds up quite nicely (unlike most maps) but unfolds into a usefully big (but not too big) map.
-It is full color
-It has a handy map of el train stops in the area
-It done on some nice stiff paper so it can take some abuse
-The paper also isn’t glossy so it absorbs ink nicely when you jot notes on it.
-There is also a little selected calendar of events on it.

The Chicago version covers the West Lakeview, Roscoe Village, North Center (I didn’t know that was a neighboorhood), Lincoln Square, and Andersonville.

I checked out the unscene site and it looks like it is actually put out by some folks in Chicago. They have Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and St. Louis maps as well.

My friend Jon just did a simliar thing on his own for people coming from out of town to attend his weekend wedding. It got rave reviews.

All hail the useful map!

Speaking of road trips…
With Wisconsin still being a “swing state”, there’s a fair bit of politicking to come north of the border this week.
Tonight, John Edwards is in Racine. Thursday, Senator Kerry will perform live with the Foo Fighters (I am not making this up) in Madison at 10 AM.

I think everyone here would agree that Chicago is one of the great cities in this country. I might even argue that Chicago is urban America at its best. When I talk with friends in certain other cities, one in particular, they often patronizingly imply,

Some family did a little overnight at the W Hotel Lakeshore last weekend. Nice place – they really did impressive things with that property. I think it was what, a Quality Inn before? Particularly impressive are the little zen rock boxes at the baseboard in the hallways…must have been a serious amount of manual labor to get those right.
Anyway, the big surprise – valet parking only… and it’s $39/day.
Some of the downtown garages have like $10 a day again for parking, so this just seemed obscene.

(Note: for those who have previously flamed me for not using public transport — the parker in question this time was my mother-in-law. :)

Spam is a bad thing. Comment spam is a very bad thing. Fighting spam is a good thing. But sometimes any kind of fighting causes things to go haywire.

*UPDATE* *COMMENTS WORKEE AGAIN*
The commenting feature on metroblogs has done just that. We’re all over it, so it should be back to normal shortly. So the comments no workee might no workee. But they also might workee. Feel free to just scream at your monitor in the meantime. It is surprisingly therapeutic.

For the past month David Crosby’s “Almost Cut My Hair” has been going through my head as I’ve been wondering what to do with the tangled mess on my head.

Well, yesterday, I finally succumbed to the need and headed over to Big Hair in Roscoe Village. What resulted has to be the worst haircut in the history of this planet.

Why did I go there? I heard that you can get a haircut there for twelve dollars. Well, that much is true, but I also forgot that you usually get what you pay for. I’m not very particular about my hair, so I don’t really like to pay ridiculous salon prices for someone to take scissors to my head. However, this is ridiculous in itself.

How difficult is it to cut hair? One side is shorter than the other. There are huge uncut tufts of hair sticking out from the trimmed line. It looks worse than beforehand; I look like I really did get into a fight with a lawnmower. Seriously, here, I’m trying to figure out how to do emergency damage control without paying more money for a REAL haircut before showing my face outside again. Someone suggested shaving it all off and starting clean.

All I can do is exact my revenge by telling you all: DON’T GO TO BIG HAIR IN ROSCOE VILLAGE. Don’t be tempted by the twelve dollar haircut! Heed my words! I’d show you a picture, and maybe that would convince you more than my words could, but NO! I cannot in good conscience unleash it onto the unsuspecting public. This hair must be stopped! Those of you who know me know that I hate exclamation points! So I must be really serious!

I get Tribune Daywatch headlines sent to me, and about died when I saw the following headline in the title…

CBS is planning to destroy Chicago

Oh, those copywriters and journalists are so funny. OK, so CBS destroying Chicago is a lie. They are just planning on making a movie that DEPICTS Chicago being destroyed. That is also a lie. Because Chicago gets destroyed by a ….. HURRICANE?

Of all of the natural distaters that can befall this city (tornado, earthquake, fire, blizzard, etc) they had to pick to one that is GEOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. Because that just makes it more fun. The writers obviously failed out of geography or else they would have known that Chicago is about as far away as you can get from any source of salt water. And hurricanes only occur in salt water environments.

Basically, it looks like it will be “The Day After Tomorrow”, but less scientifically plausible, smaller budget, and made for TV. Sounds like a real winner to me.

Stella, my old roommate’s band, is opening up for The Ike Reilly Assassination at the Bottom Lounge tonight, and it promises to be an awesome show. I know there are many other posts out there imploring you to do something rad this weekend, but this is the only post that might promise you a free beer. And I might buy you that free beer. Maybe. Besides, Ike Reilly puts on an awesome show and is my homeskillet, living just down the street from where I grew up. He told my sister and I that we are the prettiest girls from Carter Street. We got very excited until we remembered that Carter is only about 2 blocks long. Dammm.

Show starts at 10pm with a $10 cover.