Chicago: Become Familiar with its Distinctive Neighborhoods

it's nice not having to worry about xmas :>

so yesterday pfork ran its list of the year's best videos and this bat for lashes video is blowing my mind ... looks to be all one take?

I did my holidays in california last week so i will be free to hit the titty bars with the jews on xmas eve.

I can't imagine not going home to my family -- we sort of have this extended family tradition of marrying people whose own families are small, distant, or dysfunctional, thereby freeing all the Smith/Girvan/Vosses to get together on the preferred family side. It's rad. Future spouses of Girvans take note.

OMG. This is ridiculous. My mom is now sending me very, very passive-aggressive e-mails about how hurt she is that her and my stepdad are only getting "leftovers" of the weekend.

i loooove one-take music videos

Give her the right wing response: If you want a family christmas, don't get divorced.

Hahahahhaahaha. Thats awesome.

that video is fucking fantastic. when the freaky bunny bikers first appear! i like the song too.

Fogerty's "the old man down the road" is a good one-take video. lisa loeb's "stay" is redeemed by it being one take.

i haven't seen a family member for xmas since 1999. up until my nephew's christening that was the last time i'd seen my younger sister. i don't remember what i did last year. this year i think me and amy are going to the movies or something.

hopefully thai food will enter the equation at some point as well.

i have been blanking out on this for like two days now: what's the name of that instrument that has strings that you strum, but has keys that you press that automatically make the chords? i think it's mainly a folk instrument, but dude from xiu xiu uses it a lot...

i actually wish we were going over to toby's parents for christmas, but am relieved to not be flying anywhere over the holidays for the first time in 7 years. rural france, lots of wine and champagne, and his mom is a great cook. my family will: bicker, play some cards maybe (this is a new introduction by me to help us find something to do together), go to a movie and eat not great food (i'm trying to sort this as well).

we're going to cook a bang-up christmas meal here in chicago for just us, though! and open a nice bottle of champagne. and some 94 sauternes we've been saving, i think. mmm.

harpsichord?

Dulcimer?

no, a harpsichord is piano-y ... what I'm thinking of is small

autoharp?

autoharp?

my elementary school music teacher had one of those and HOLY CRAP did i want to play with it

dulcimer is closer, but doesn't have the keys and is still a little big

xpost yeah i think it's an autoharp

they had an electric autoharp at midwest buy and sell once and i would have bought it but it didn't work ;_; i'm going to look on ebay for one right now

me too, amanda!

Oh cool, I've heard of autoharps but didn't know what they were. They look pretty sweet.

Mine had two harps (regular, not autoharps), so my best friend Nadia and I got special permission to take harp lessons from her after school. My family got tired of lugging it home for me to practice every weekend though.

we all played with autoharps in elementary school! other instruments in that class included guiros, washboards, and spoons.

I just remember learning "Hot Cross Buns" on the recorder. :(

Hey, ladies. Where do you guys go shopping for dresses? I want something I can wear to work and to parties and - who knows - maybe even play shows in. I got my Christmas money from Daddykins. Woop woop!

I've been looking online at Banana & JCrew but for the most part it's all too expensive or ridiculous.

My family has fallen apart, in a weird way. The MI relatives have separated into upper-mid class and white-trashy, and my dad and his sisters were kind of the bridge between the two sides. Plus now my mom has moved to NC. And my brother's crappy wife is determined to consort with rednecks and one in particular who is a lesbian baby machine. Blech.

I know I should just go try stuff on, but also it's fun to browse online in between work tasks.

Is a lesbian baby machine a lesbian who keeps having babies? Does this mean your sister-in-law is bi?

i don't shop much, really
but when i want dresses i look on ebay.

or i would go to h&m i guess? i dunno.

I like h&m, but also it's so crazy, especially at this time of year. Hmm... Might go there anyway. H&M Hmmm...

i bought one at BR and it was expensive (for me), but it's all wool and i feel like it's a versatile winter dress. it's the one i wore at the party, actually.

what about urban outfitters? nordstrom's online also has a lot of dresses...

No, she's not bi, it's just that one of her friends from church has a daughter who she gets along with really well. The daughter is pretty trashy , which is weird b/c her family used to be solidly middle class, but then the whole lot of them took a dive.

Anyway, she loves babies and she used to monopolize my niece in a rude way--when my parents wanted to spend time with her, this gal would allow it for a minute or two, but then she would take her away, saying, Oh, she wants to be with me now.

She got herself pregnant "accidentally" at 17 and then turned to a gross diesel-dyke lifestyle, which she only interrupts to get knocked up again by a gross headbanger dude.

I tend to like a lot of party dresses from Anthropologie but then I think "OH HEY that's like $250 and it's made of cotton and some ribbons and I could SEW IT" and then I can't possibly buy it anymore but of course I never get around to sewing, either.

I think I just talked myself out of going to NC for Xmas. If it were just me, my mom, my brother, my niece, and nephew, I would have a very merry Christmas. The rest of them can fuck right off. He needs to divorce that piece of shit leech.

Wow. I have never said anything like that EVER before. Wow.....

I admire those too, Laurel, but have never actually bought one.

My last two nice dresses were from BR (for my birthday) but they only really have one that I want right now, and it hasn't been marked down.

You know, I might actually go to - gulp - F0rever21. I was just looking on their site and while I didn't find any dresses, I could use some cheap sweaters.

x- Are you serious, Jesse? About not going?

I'm going to go on Priceline on Friday. If the God of Abraham wants me to go, She will allow my bid to be accepted. I will bid $1.99

Wait three weeks and dresses will be on sale.

That's the smartest idea, though my Dad would be disappointed not to get to see my presents from him at Christmas.

i am eating a pizza with shrimp, chicken, and corn on it. don't tell the pizza toppings thread.

F those haters. As long as it's put together tastefully, bring that shit on.

I haven't been. Summarize the Hate, plz.

You know what the hate is all about, the purist/rockist/"I'm a critic so my opinions are well-crafted rhetorically yet based on nothing in reality except my own preference" BS that's present on every single "what is your favorite ________" thread ever.

I was really surprised how chicken extracted such distaste from otherwise seemingly reasonable people.

Make several hundred pizzas a week for a year or two, then come talk to me about what toppings work in what ways.

i really like chicken on pizza. some of my favorite pizza ever was from street stands in bogota -- i always got the pollo y champiñones. it was crispy and good!

i was thinking about the scary new chipmunks movie last night, and realized that my two grade-school crushes were:

1. alex p. keaton
2. alvin the chipmunk

i don't know if it's weirder that i loved a short republican or a rodent that wears a dress, but both are a bit weird to me now.

yep. and while i don't like that pizza places feel that they have to have kr-azy toppings these days, i'm all for creative stuff done well.

hey, i just heard from gr8080, looks like the plan is the clipper around 9 for those who want to go.

i like cheese, tomato and mozzarella, but only because that's what i like the taste of best, and i don't try to inflict it on anyone else. i guess a lot of pizza toppings are meaty, so they're out. i can imagine some kind of fancy truffle oil pizza would be good, too, with the right crust...