Chicago: Malort Cocktail

Maybe there's a pocket of nice postal workers near Lincoln Square, because the small post office on Montrose near Damen is always very easygoing. I've heard hell stories about the one at Division/Ashland.

i can verify both of these points

http://www.filmdope.com/Gallery/ActorsT/17337-9011.gif

^ love that dude - he's a big-time steppenwolf THEE-AY-TURR actor and was also prez on the wire but the elevator operator in hudsucker proxy is still my favorite role of his "SAY BUDDY"

Is that where the old Fine Arts movie theater was?

Could not find a photo of Lauryn Hill as the gum-chewing elevator operator in King of the Hill (the movie, not the TV show).

i always thought the people at division and ashland were really nice! i guess you guys haven't been to the hinterlands post offices. the lady at 7000-something N. Clark is a beast.

Last week I stopped in the post office to buy some stamps and their automated machine thing was out of order. So I waited in line and went to the counter to ask for stamps, the lady sighed like it was quite possibly the biggest inconvenience she's ever had to deal with and said "you know, you can just go buy these at the Jewel down the street instead of bothering us" as she slapped the stamps down on the counter. I told her I would do just that next time, but resisted adding the "and hopefully you'll be out of a job" after it.

Post offices are so last century. I can't remember the last time I went to one for actual "post" reasons, aside from renewing my passport. I bought a postal money order a few months ago too.

The PO at Broadway just north of Argyle is infuriating because it has space for like ten clerks and there are usually only two there. The PO here in this building is staffed by reasonably pleasant people, but they have absolutely no sense of urgency, and at least in the case of the woman who processed my passport application, are pretty damn dumb, too. (Although I did get my passport, so I should give her credit for eventually doing something right.)

Post offices are so last century.

I totally thought Jeff posted this comment. It's a very Jeffish thing to say, like last night when, during a commercial for some new cop show starring Captain Mal Reynolds, I disgustedly commented, "I hate banter."

I had to go to the PO earlier this week to mail a crossword puzzle to Will Shortz, since I was short on stamps. And I used to have to visit the post office frequently to mail C4n4st4 CDs to people who had ordered them. Other than that, though, it's pretty rare. I drop off rent at my landlords' house (they live by Nick and Sarah), Netflix doesn't require postage, and I pay all my bills online.

I thought Jeff posted that too!

How the hell did you get $33 more on your paycheck? Are you paid bi-weekly? Maybe I don't understand numbers in even the most simple ways.

battlestar is definitely changing my life

So say we all.

yeah, for the nerdier

corrosive to my, uh, studies

j/k i love BSG

or at least i did for the first couple seasons

Please to tell me how to convince my wife to watch that. She has a kneejerk DO NOT WANT reaction to sci-fi, but once she gives things a shot she generally likes them. This being on the OMG SCI-FI channel gives her even more pause.

2x

i guess you guys never have to mail packages? where else would you mail packages but a post office?

xp Although I think I may have convinced Kr to watch Friday Night Lights when we finally finish The West Wing.

What sorts of packages do you mail, A?

I have such a reaction as well, and I tried watching an episode and it wasn't the worst thing, but it did make me roll my eyes.

xp- I mail packages from my office. But then again maybe I'm stuck in the past and matter is SO last century.

I had to go to the PO to receive a Certified mailing w/ signature confirmation. If I hadn't taken a sick day that day I don't know if I ever would have received it.

i just mailed my tax returns (first time i haven't e-filed, b/c my dad printed them out with turbotax...also the first time my dad has done my taxes) and i think i put way too postage on them because i didn't know how much was necessary. how much could a banana cost anyway, ten dollars?

i spent all last summer going to and from the g-d post office
worst: beast in rogers park
second worst: angry woman at uptown PO who took her damn time
third worst: the manager at the devon PO who refused to open the doors because the woman who normally works called off and he didn't want to deal with the people standing in line so he just ignored us until 8:45. was supposed to open at 8. i refused to leave and spent my time calling the customer service number.

i am in charge of the work series store, so i was/am constantly mailing DVDs to europe. less so now that the initial rush is over, but we get about 1 order a monk.

haha
month

I was selling stuff on Amazon for a while and AFAIK, the only way to mail something book rate aka media mail is to do it in person.

yep
also you have to do customs form to send shit to europe. i have lots of the forms at home and i fill them out before i go, but you can't use the APC or whatever it's called

to JVC - Well, I have a general suspicion of a lot of SciFi, to the point that I was all "meh" to BSG at first. The thing that makes BSG different is that it's not about the science. It's not like Star Trek, which I never, in any of its billions of iterations, been able to get into. It is very much a really intense, character-driven drama that happens to be set in space. Space as a setting is certainly important to the story, but the focus is on the people and their relationships with each other.

I mean, by the last season, I pretty much cried during every episode because I had become so attached to the characters at that point. I like Lost a lot, but it doesn't make me cry.

europe/out of the country, that is

Monk might be a pretty interesting installment in the series.

wiseman already did that

I actually watched Star Trek TNG for a while (with Courtney!) b/c it was AWFUL.

what i told john a while ago is that bsg is mainly about the morality of war. i don't think this really helped convince him to watch it though

Also re: BSG, the acting is of a much higher caliber than a lot of those cheeseriffic SciFi channel shows, and the CGI space battle stuff is totally quality, plus the guy who writes the music is super talented.

The biggest danger of BSG is that it might make you more tolerant of other nerdy entertainments. For example, I'm not going to say I'm some sort of Torchwood fangirl, but I'm also not going to say I don't watch it when Jeff isn't around to roll his eyes all over the place. (Note: BSG beats Torchwood on all fronts, except camp.)

Oh! Hey, I saw a car yesterday w/ a pink ribbon breast-cancer awareness sticker on it. The sticker read

SAVE THE TA-TAS

is torchwood about the wild west?

that's deadwood

and maverick

Thanks Jenny, I will certainly try to convince her with some of that, sounds pretty reasonable.

Plus I mean, tell her she can watch just the pilot, which is movie-length, and then decide if she wants to watch the rest of the show. It's not like agreeing to spend two hours of an evening watching BSG commits her to a lifetime of Dragon Con attendance or anything.

Torchwood is a new Dr. Who spin-off about a secret organization of paranormal/space-time rift investigators led by Captain Jack Harkness. Typical modern British television special effects cheese, a la the new Dr. Who.

I actually watched Star Trek TNG for a while (with Courtney!) b/c it was AWFUL.

;_;

I LOVE Achewood!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood

Sorry, they deal with mostly extraterrestrials, not necessarily paranormal stuff.

whoah wait i think i actually missed the pilot

the first episode i saw was the one where there was 33 minutes between each jump

yeah you missed the pilot, smooth move ex lax

Going back to the post office talk, the worst was when we did mailers to the press, because I'd always have to send out multiple packages (CD plus press kit) at once. Usually it wasn't too many, but after the remix album came out last year, we did a national press blitz, and I showed up to the post office in the Merchandise Mart with a trash bag full of like 100 envelopes.

i had roughly 8 brats over the weekend, not too bad

okay 6 brats and 2 kosher dogs

Well, for one, he's a journalist, not a nutritionist.

It's 4:15 on Tuesday and there are no trivia titt..er titles here.

I like the way that "eat food, mostly plants" is almost anti-nutritionist. As if he's saying, deciding what to eat should not be about getting individual nutrients or staving off cancer or whatever, it should just be about eating things that are meant to be eaten. I also like his rule to avoid food products that make health claims about themselves. Though I give a pass to products that make hilarious, unnecessary health claims, like a bottle of V8 that trumpets that it's fat free.

Oh, did you see this?
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/05/12/fda-warns-general-mills-cheerios-is-a-drug/
If Cheerios is going to continue claiming that it's clinically proven to reduce cholesterol, the FDA says it will have to register as a drug. That's funny to me.

Also: love Eric's thread title idea.

I had a Poachers Pie the other night. It contained: pheasant, venison, wild boar, bunny rabbit, bacon, oranges, and port.

It's 4:15 on Tuesday and there are no trivia titt..er titles here.

Tonight I'm going to see C4n4st4 play a fundraiser for the Evanston/North Shore YMCA that Kr helped organize.

If you're in an anagramming mood, however:

1) No Coitus Tint 11 pts
2) Slim Ogre Girl 12 pts
3) Match- Where They Served 13 pts
4) Bizarro World 16 pts
5) Dead or Canadian 11 pts
6) Pictures 15 pts
7) General Knowledge 22 pts

1) = Constitution

xxp oh my god. Yeah, that's definitely food.

Holy moly, Jeff, where did you get that Poachers Pie?

and 2) = Gilmore Girls

sounds like famous British cuisine to me

Michael Pollan tried to steal my wallet too. But I had it in a money belt.

xpost. London

I would not be good on either of those two de-anagrammed topics.

I've watched a fair amount of Gilmore Girls, actually.

If I know Dave, one of the answers will be "Sebastian Bach."

Jesse, I'm six hours in the future and I've seen you die. It was at the hands of Michael Pollen. You were just too good and organic to ignore.

― Jeff, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:48 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This made me L and L.

xxxp I can't believe I'm wanting to go to England to try food.

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