Chicago MMXII

The artist seemed to think that people in the 1990s would be obsessed with flying buttresses and apparently non-functional viaduct looking things. And that we would spray paint everything gold.

the fashions were a little bit off too.

The woman's clothing looks like sportswear c. 1900 or 1910 or so (jacket, small hat) and while this is kind of facile, if you look at these silhouettes:

http://i.imgur.com/GRmDZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/beRTS.jpg

you can see that outside the brief dalliance into empire waists not a lot changed in women's fashion other than skirt width, sleeve shape, and hat size for over 100 years so I suppose I could see someone assuming that trend would continue for the next 100. The dude has some futuristic looking epaulettes on his jacket, though. Slick.

i did spray paint everything gold (and silver) in the 90s

Actually I did too, for a while.

i haven't left the apartment yet. but it's kind of chilly in here. even with the thermostat set at 70.

I'm coming to find that my place is kind of drafty. The big "balcony" door lets in a lot of air. That's really NBD in the winter, but I'm going to want to fix that in the summer to curb the cost of A/C.

It's weird that today is a bank holiday. Courts and state govt. are one thing, but I thought the banks and markets would be too busy and important to close today.

We have officially taken down all Christmas trappings. I even repotted our tiny, live Christmas tree into a regular pot. If it lives until next year, which I think we can all agree is highly unlikely although hope springs eternal, we can just decorate it again.

In other news, our upstairs neighbor is playing guitar which wouldn't bother me except that he's still in that phase of slow, 4/4 chord-chord-chord-chord guitar playing in which everybody I knew in college seemed eternally trapped. If he starts playing "I Know You Rider" or "Jane Says" I'm going upstairs and http://i.imgur.com/dGGQj.jpg.

It's more like chord-chord-chord-chord-chord-chord- stop, reposition fingers -chord-chord- stop, start over -chord-chord-chord-chord

I don't think I knew that you had a tree. You can totally keep it alive, probably.

That reminds me: You know which product works exactly like it's supposed to and is super useful, and actually better than expected? Bitter Apple.

http://i.imgur.com/aDOpYl.jpg

I bought a pony tail palm

http://imgur.com/WshHT

which I'm sure you can see is made to look appetizing to cats. After I sprayed it w/ Bitter Apple the would lick and start to nibble a blade, move on to another, and finally lose interest. 3 weeks have passed and the plant is not chewed up and puked out on my carpet.

I say it's better than expected b/c it effective deters the cats without seeming to be horribly disgusting. It's not scorched earth level disgusting, which I didn't want. I tasted it and it's bitter, but it doesn't linger.

http://imgur.com/WshHT

ponytail palm

http://i.imgur.com/WshHTl.jpg

ooh i like that plant! it looks like a muppet!

i had a long day of EXTREMELY DULL errands and now i'm in for the evening, relieved and thinking about houseplants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o42ilT_SxE

The groan at around 1:20 is hilarious. Love this dog.

Stumbled onto this when searching for something else:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b62TERsnhP0

Interesting how that glass-domed building in the poster does resemble Ogilvie.

Oh, wait, isn't that a glass-domed El station at Chicago and Franklin?

i'm in Lincolnshire waiting for my room service. not gonna do much on this business trip other than work and lounge in hotel room. too damn cold!

What are you doing in Lincolnshire?

That's a general question for anybody in Lincolnshire, really.

business...here to work in the Lincolnshire office of work for two days, then back home. easy in, easy out for the most part.

I don't really know where that is tbh but I'm glad life is easy for you there.

I had to look it up but it's way far northwest.

well I live in FL, this is a two day excursion. not even gonna visit Chicago cuz there's no time.

Those trips can be frustrating, particularly if its an exciting city that you've never been to before. Flying out to Austin again tomorrow night, but absolutely no time to sight see. Site surveys all day before flying home Wednesday afternoon. Same thing with a two-day trip to D.C. a couple months ago - got to see the Capitol building from afar as we drove to the job site, and that was it for my sight-seeing.

Interesting how that glass-domed building in the poster does resemble Ogilvie.

― Love stream of mic checking (Eazy), Monday, January 2, 2012 8:12 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Oh, wait, isn't that a glass-domed El station at Chicago and Franklin?

― Love stream of mic checking (Eazy), Monday, January 2, 2012 8:12 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You're right, it does look a lot like the Ogilvie Trans Ctr/Citicorp Building. I don't understand the second post. I don't recall a glass-domed El station at Chicago and Franklin, but I could be wrong.

Oh, I was mixing up Lincolnshire with Lincolnwood, which is the 1st suburb you hit when taking Lincoln Ave. out of Chicago.

Is the "shire" Lincolnshire pronounced "sheer"?

J5, I was trying to figure out the vantage point where that picure is from, and realized that it could be a block north of Franklin & Wells, with the Ogilvie-type structure actually being a domed thing on the Chicago brown line El platform.

I'd like to share the most infectious song about construction equipment that has ever been written. I watched this video approximately 30 times with my 22-month-old nephew last week. Its effect on him is amazing to see, and the tune quickly becomes buried within one's brane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXhhXXsxSfE

Will definitely have to share that with our little guy. Right now he's absolutely loving the Good Night Good Night Construction Site book he got for Christmas.

Good Night Good Night Construction Site

Love that title.

http://images.indiebound.com/824/877/9780811877824.jpg

Oops, its actually Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. Hopefully that doesn't dampen your love.

^^Neil Michael Haggerty side project

My in-laws live a couple of miles from Lincolnshire -- don't know much about it otherwise.

downstairs neighbor died
RIP

(btw she was v old and v sick, i am sure she is in a happier place now)

RFI: Trader Joe's

So R and I got a TJ's gift card for Xmas but we're not sure what to spend it on. Being that I've only set foot inside one of their stores like twice, what have they got? We were kind of thinking of using it to stock up on staples. I know they have a lot of prepared/semi-prepared stuff but we cook pretty much all our own food. Can you go there and just buy a shitload of pasta or other similar things?

BTW I still kind of hate the public ethos of the place but who cares? Free food!

stop sweating it and just get a ton of beer

or wine
or cheese to freeze

Hummus and triple ginger snaps

This is the kind of stuff I get at Trader Joe's:

bread
soy milk
cereal
orange juice
frozen pizza
wine
dry pasta
applesauce
peanut butter
Lara Bars
tortilla chips
salsa
hummus
cheese
paper towels/T.P.
laundry detergent
frozen fish
veggie burgers

TJ's is admittedly not great for produce, but I will buy stuff like bananas or mushrooms or tomatoes there if I'm running low and I don't feel like stopping at HarvesTime.

Also...

olive oil
canned beans

yeah they have good oo for decent price

in sum:

olive oil
wine
beer
cheese

I am the poster child for Trader Joe's ethos. I'll buy the gift card from you for 75 cents on the dollar and you can use the cash to join a CSA.

lol

we got a huge basket of stuff from there in addition to the card, R's aunt is a convert as well

Things I buy most often at TJ

tube o' polenta
frozen fruits and vegetables
OO
frozen chicken breasts
frozen tri-color bell pepper strips
hummus
packets of heat and serve Indian food, and tuna w/ curry (usually unavailable)

CHILI SPICED MANGO STRIPS
CHILI SPICED PINEAPPLE
FUCK YEH

I get those flaxseed vegetable chips.

So, right before Christmas they installed this giant, touch-screen, interactive advertisement in the Clark and Lake station. If you go through the turnstiles on the JRTC side and look to your right, it’s there at the bottom of the escalators that go up to the Purple/Green/Orange/Pink platform.

Anyway, the first ad was one for Ford and you could paw at this giant (taller than most people) screen to customize a Mustang. I never saw anybody touching this. Now it’s some kind of a “game” with a “time to beat” of 27 seconds. I’ve never seen anybody using this iteration of it, and the “time to beat” has remained 27 seconds since I first noticed the change.

The thing is, did it occur to anybody that they are sticking this ad in the middle of a major, moving pedestrian traffic area? The vast majority of people passing by that touch screen are either going to or from work, or to or from the airport, and nobody in that situation is going to stop and fart around with an advertisement. It’s like, nobody realized that touch screens are not particularly enticing now that so many people roll with little touch screens in their pockets. At least not enticing enough to get people to pause on their daily commute or in the middle of the stress of traveling to or from the airport and subject themselves to a commercial.

I think this would work in the actual airport, or maybe even in Block 37, somewhere that you have a lot of foot traffic but you also have people who are not passing by on the way somewhere else.

tl:dr - the giant touch-screen billboard in the Clark & Lake CTA station may have edged out the Miracle Whip Addison stop for first place in my personal list of "tone deaf CTA advertising."

About a month ago there was this big alert sent to all parents of school-aged kids in Oak Park that a convicted child molester had been hanging around his old house on Halloween while the court worked his case, reportedly with the judge's permission. He was also apparently a dick about it. Anyway, the judge ultimately rescinded his permission and he's reportedly gone. But a couple of weeks after that, two kids (high school or middle school) reported attempted abductions at the hands (literally) of some dude driving a van; one actually had to fight her way away from him. Said dude was arrested in less than a week. But then yesterday I get three more alerts from the school district about three more possible attempted abductions, all yesterday, two at the hands of one dude, and one possibly by a woman, all three driving vans (natch). I asked at the school office if this stream of reports and alerts is the result of some new policy, and she said no, it's just a troubling uptick in these incidents, all within a few weeks of one another. What the fuck is going on, man?

Perhaps people are feeling more comfortable reporting incidents than they did previously? Creepazoidal no matter what.

Yeah, we're hoping it just means people are being vigilant. But it still means this shit is happening!

Very cool collections of old CTA/L brochures, maps, and other iconography http://imprint.printmag.com/uncategorized/keeping-everyone-in-the-loop-50-years-of-chicago-l-graphics/

carl agatha, this reminds me of your former co-worker

http://www.youtube.com/v/yeqwDLsZJn8

Grr. Youtube changed their sharing options and they don't seem to offer the "Long link" anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqwDLsZJn8&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqwDLsZJn8

The sweater part, def. Maybe not so much the implied spousal abuse part.

No, I know. That was a strange turn at the end. Though she does have a tendency to cling to authoritative males.

I love the idea of space heaters being scams.

Yeah, that was pretty good.

I finally used the express driver's license facility and it was very fast. They made me take a new picture, though, for which I was ill prepared. It's nice to have a non-expired license, however, so I don't care.

How was everybody's xmas? Jeff and I lounged around, ate food, read books, played video games, and watched TV. Xmas OTM.

Ran into both J3ss3 and Lechera within an hour of each other yesterday.

Good. Quiet. Got a raise today, over lunch at Bl@ckbirddddddwwwwwwwwwzzzzzzzzzzzzzso sleepy u guys

I've been under the weather since Friday. No fun. Hopefully on the mend, though...

This is pretty interesting, on the Ravenswood Bar--a windowless place I always passed on the way to the Fireside:

http://www.talestavernsandtowns.com/uncategorized/a-bitter-farewell/

I've never been there but now I'm sad it's closing.

It was an Iowa bar. Probably sucked, especially on Saturdays.

Oh! I just remembered I had a dream about n/a last night:

We ate mushrooms (as in psilocybin) and went out to catch butterflies. There was a woman out in a field with a label maker and we wanted her to make us some labels for our butterflies, but neither one of could say "label maker" - we kept saying "label makel" - so instead of asking, we just laughed and laughed and laughed.

There was something also about riding in my old car to Milford, DE and me eating steak but the shrooms, butterfly catching, and label makel is the only part I remember that made any sense.

"label makel" detail sounds pretty OTM

Let's all shroom soon.

On NYE.

Only if Nick does.

Label Maker Records = pretty good name.

I visited a ~certain ILXor's~ office at a ~certain~ fancy l~w f~rm today, and what was the first thing I saw upon entering the floor? A bottle of Malort on the breakroom's fancy dark wood bookcase.

It's been like ... 13 years since I took mushrooms but I think I could be convinced to do so again with the right compatriots.

jaymc I am listening to your 2012 playlist finally! Yay!

Cool! It's now in mostly finalized order, too! Been giving it a final listen in the last couple of days to make some last-minute sequencing changes and also to delete songs I realize I don't actually like that much.

I GOTTA FEELING
THAT TONIGHT'S GONNA bE A GOOD NIGHT
2013

John, I'm honoring your chosen order by not listening to it on shuffle.

I like listening to lists compiled by people I know because I like to think about why that particular person put this particular song on the list. Right now, I'm listening to Kinski Assassin by Ariel Pink and I can hear John singing, "Who sank my battleship? I sank my battleship!"

Ha. Yeah, I like the silliness.

Btw, I don't know that any of my song-to-song transitions were particularly inspired, though I do think the sequencing makes for a more pleasant and manageable listen in general. I like being able to dip into the mix at any point and hear a few songs with a similar vibe.

i will not be shrooming tonight. i think at this point i'm going to wait until i'm 85 before i start doing drugs again. i've got a good streak going.

wait did i miss something?

Let's all shroom soon.

― (*・_・)ノ⌒ ☆ (Je55e), Thursday, December 27, 2012 9:34 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

On NYE.

― (*・_・)ノ⌒ ☆ (Je55e), Thursday, December 27, 2012 9:34 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Only if Nick does.

― carl agatha, Thursday, December 27, 2012 9:41 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry i've been away from the computer and so am responding to earlier this week

Note: I only said I would do it if n/a did it because I knew he wouldn't do it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Nancy_Reagan.jpg/230px-Nancy_Reagan.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/hangover-clinic-chicagos-_n_2388820.html

I can think of multiple hangover instances where I would happily spend my last $99 at this clinic.

man her forehead is so weird

Whose?

Oh - Nancy's?

yeah
it leads directly into her nose

hope u have a safe & happy new year, ppl

(w/ or w/o shrooms)

Same to you! Happy new year, everybody!

Happy new year! It is almost 2 am here which is quite impressive for me. I also cannot fuckng wait to get back to Chicago.

Chicago MMXIII: Walk Don't Run