Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

she was pretty funny in "get him to the greek"
i liked that movie more than i should have, kinda like Insidious

she also reminds me of my super good friend, so that helps

oh yeah i liked her in get him to the greek as well. she should just do comedies.

Insidious scared the bejeepers out of me (and Jesse and Sarah) for the first hour. Then it got kind of dumb but I was so fucking tense from the first hour of being scared shitless that I continued to be scared through the ending. (While also being relieved that it got dumb bc I prob couldn't take a whole movie as scary as that first hour.)

I was actually going to say that RB is kind of a Mary Sue in Damages but we've seen all of three eps and don't know her involvement in The Big Mystery so I didn't want to be premature.

my favorite thing about Insidious was its use of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skU-jBFzXl0

jenny, my reaction exactly
i was so traumatized that i cried quietly through like 2/3 of it like a self indulgent third grader and spent the rest being like "yeah ha ha spray them with your special equipment"

also i loved that song when i was a little kid
i wish youtube had existed when i was in elementary school

What song is it? I have a cruddy data connection today and can't load the video.

tiptoe through the tulips

hey chicago thread, i have a quick thought experiment for you guys: imagine your parents are visiting you for your 24th birthday this weekend. where would you want them to take you for dinner? preferably places that aren't too hard to get a table at without a reservation. (n.b.: i am a vegetarian; they aren't, although they aren't the type of ppl who freak out at having to eat tofu)

Indian food on Devon St.?

i like khan bbq but it's pakistani i think
still, best meats if you are looking for meats
get the chicken boti and beef kabob

oh wait
i did not read far enough sorry
still, there are lots of great vegetables at khan bbq

devon is a good suggestion! thanks. they like indian food but i don't think they can get it where they live now. plus, devon st is really far out of my way and i want to take advantage of their car. khan bbq looks pretty good but is there anywhere else up there i should look at?

Bhabi's kitchen is supposed to be good but I have never been there. Tiffin is parent-friendly for sure.

Is it still open?

Bhabi's that is.

iirc Hema's is the thread standard

Hi.

I was just skimming some craigslist jobs and saw this childcare position. Check out this requirement: "Qualified candidates will have previous experience taking care of my son." Don't you think that kind of limits the applicant pool? ha ha!

I like Rose Byrne. She's pretty, but not in a cloying way.

I'm excited about the new Damages viewers. Do you sing along with the theme song yet?

I don't like the theme song. I've already substituted my own. A modified version of Hot Hot Heat's song Bandages.

Don't you think he says "little bird!" at the beginning?

Do any of you have a Chicago Card through your work? Have you had any problems with it of late, like mysterious deactivation etc?

I do have one and no issues.

ditto

sarah, i thought he sings "little bear" not "little bird"

Wait. Which brand of tea had the minstrels?

Do any of you have a Chicago Card through your work? Have you had any problems with it of late, like mysterious deactivation etc?

Yes. No problems lately BUT I have had problems in the past where the bus meter won't read the card, I'll retouch it, and they'll deactivate the card because it registers as a pass back. Another time they switched it from 30 day unlimited to pay as you go and I didn't notice until I had depleted the funds. That was a pain in the ass to get remedied.

All the problems originated with something registering as a pass back, though. I get an email when it happens and call right away and they fix it. I think it happens a lot.

Hey - in the Middle School episode of TAL that aired last Saturday, they go to a dance at my former middle school! It was junior high when I was there, though.

I like the Damages theme, btw. Catchy.

BUT I have had problems in the past where the bus meter won't read the card, I'll retouch it, and they'll deactivate the card because it registers as a pass back. Another time they switched it from 30 day unlimited to pay as you go and I didn't notice until I had depleted the funds. That was a pain in the ass to get remedied.

omg this is what I was talking about, and yes it is a huge pain in the ass

They will fix it but it takes some doing.

Re my TAL claim to fame, the dance they attend is the costume dance and when I was in 8th grade I won first prize for my costume at that dance, which was kind of a crass redneck trucker thing. I really played it up during the judging by pretending to blow my nose in a bandana.

In 7th grade I wore a ghost sheet covered in chains, which I wasn't allowed to take into the dance, but I had another creepy monster costume on under it. Clearly the superior costume, but jr high is about slapstick. Sigh.

middle school is the one time i honestly can't remember what my costume was
did i dress up? i have no idea. so much trauma during those years that virtually all of my salient memories involve one or all of the following things: orthodontia, music, boys.

Fuck middle school nostalgia, that was a hard episode to get through. Such a traumatic time for almost everyone.

The researcher at the beginning who said that our brain cells kind of go crazy and then… coalesce (not the right word but you know what I mean) around middle school so that what we learn at that time tends to be what really sticks has got me doing some serious thinking, though, via a via my grown up neuroses and less healthy mental habits.

omg totally

i have spent more than a decade undoing the mental damage i did to myself during that time

a decade, maybe two
god who knows

in retrospect I think traveling and getting into punk rock during middle school saved me from a lot of trauma... or were maybe the cause of a lot of trama, I dunno

being into music is the only relic of that particular time period that i still relish/enjoy
everything else can suck it, including orthodontia

Most of this time for me was just spent being bored.

i cut up a lot of magazines and taped a lot of shit off the radio and wrote a LOT of letters.

i was lucky in spending middle school with other kids who moved around a lot and who knew what it was like to be the new kid or the outsider, plus my middle schools were really small so there was a strong sense of community. things didn't turn to shit until moving back to the US for the last two years of high school.

also: umbrella music fest, chicago
http://www.chicagoreader.com/gyrobase/umbrella-music-festival-avant-garde-jazz-berne-halvorson/Content?oid=4922308&showFullText=true

considering saturday at the hideout or sunday at brain

oh snap, i'm going to be out of town this weekend or i'd be seriously thinking about going to see the Mary Halvorson Quintet on sunday. don't know anything about her but she was part of the group playing sun ra pieces at jazz fest and she totally shredded.

i'm playing at the hungry brain with advance base in a few weeks btw. probably said that already.

Man, we moved so much during those crucial years that I was always the new kid. Being nerdy and into suitably nerdy things never helped very much.

She and Joe McPhee did an improv duo on WFMU a few months ago and it was really great. I hate to be missing this festival. xp

You're right Nick about bear. How quickly we forget!

I had some great moments in middle school, but also most of my most embarrassing moments. Let's forget about those.

I rocked the Debbie Gibson look in 7th grade. I began my love affair with school dances. I had a birthday sleepover at a cabin in the woods and didn't invite my bully or her best friend, even though they tried to scare me into inviting them. And it was an AWESOME TIME. My buddy rapped all of the Humpty Dance as we gathered around her feet.

sorry wmc :( the good news is that without exaggeration, there is almost always some weirdo jazz/improv thing happening in chicago on any given week.

Dan M look at these Great Danes: best animal friends

squee

just went and gave our guy a good ear scratch/face rub because of that