Happy Pride Day everyone! The parade kicks off at noon, so don’t miss it. Have fun!

Isn’t it great when our fine city comes to national attention for the careful and considered positions of our Aldermen? Like how Ald. Burke has railed against a radar detector that alerts you to red light cameras and lets you… stop. Instead of running the red light. Which is the point (theoretically) of the cameras. Why is he so upset? Because the city needs the money from the fine they can assess you when you run that red light and nearly run over me on my bike (sorry, that’s a personal flashback).

(via Boing Boing)

Q: Who likes temporary tattoos?
A: Little kids and drunk people.

Q: What do little kids and drunk people like more than historic buildings?
A: Nothing! Wooo-oo, Water Tower!!!

(Get yours from Uncle Fun (1338 W Belmont) or direct from Dover.)

It’s really gonna be a great weekend in Chicago! With all of the things to do my choice is the Belmont Arts & Music Festival. Here are my reasons:

It’s only steps from my house.

The Beat Kitchen is taking care of the music with acts like The Wrens, Heartless Bastards, Bob Mould and others! I don’t know all of the artists, but didn’t see a single crappy cover band on the bill!

It’s close by and there’s great music. Do I really need anything else? Anyway, see you there!

500 Clown (it is obligatory to pause at this point in any review of the company and note that there are only three of them*) are bringing two of their pieces — 500 Clown Macbeth and 500 Clown Frankenstein to the Steppenwolf Upstairs Theater (1650 N Halsted) through July 29, 2007.

Reviews of both shows after the jump:
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It’s somehow comforting to me to remember in the middle of our current (deserved) out-pouring of “Roger Ebert is a Chicago treasure” that he’s not some kindly old lover of movies — the man is a critic who can dish it out as he sees fit. Your Movie Sucks is a sequel of sorts to Roger Ebert‘s earlier I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie — both collections of his reviews of movies he enjoyed the least.

The earlier book covered a few decades of reviews and so it had the stringent requirement of one star or less; the new book covers just the 21st century and so, I assume to pad out the book a bit, includes 1.5 star movies. It does mean that some of the reviews are less vitriolic and more Ebert basically saying, “eh.”

But when Ebert is on a tear, ripping into a terrible movie, it’s quite a sight to behold. The book opens with an extended introduction detailing a few reviews that resulted in public exchanges with the director or stars, like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (from which review comes the title of the book) and Vincent Gallo’s Brown Bunny.

It should be noted that these books are, like so much these days, effectively free online — just go to the Advanced Search on Ebert’s site, set the “Star rating To” field to one or one-and-a-half stars, and click Submit. But it’s harder to take your computer into the bathroom, which just might be the natural home for this sort of book. Of course, you might also want to use it as a sort of affirmational — read one of these reviews right before you leave the house and there will be a certain spring in your step. No matter what you do or don’t do during the day, at least you didn’t make a terrible movie.

I guess our hosting service had a power supply cable catch on fire this morning and so we were down for a while. I didn’t notice, because I’m in a stuffed-up, foggy-headed state. I probably shouldn’t be trusted near a keyboard. Lil’ fluffy clouds! Lil’ fluffy clouds!

CNN tried to find out if Congress was keeping to its promises of openness and transparency by asking all 435 U.S. Representatives for their earmark requests for the 2008 budget. Only 31 responded and 68 just declined, the rest didn’t return calls. Two of the thirty-one were Rahm Emanuel and Tim Johnson — the only ones from Illinois to respond.

If you’re interested in asking your reprensentative what they’re planning on spending our money on, you can find phone and fax numbers at Contacting the Congress.

Responses to the earmarks request from CNN’s complete response list.

Update: As noted in the comments, some Representatives have released their earmark requests after this report.

(via blogging.la)

And speaking of Gary Rudoren, here he pops up writing for MSN City Guides answering the musicial question, What’s America’s Funniest City?

But when it comes down to it, in my humble semi-educated opinion, in the big non-title fight to determine the “Funniest City in America,” let’s just say that if Chicago had another big accidental fire, comedy as we know it would be crippled and the cows would win. Sorry, coasts.

(via The Bastion)

Coudal Partners use some innovative technology to investigate the pressing(?) question of whether you can clean a computer keyboard by washing it in a dishwasher.