Bad Copy of the Day Award

And just think, whoever wrote this is getting paid a salary to work at one of the country's larger insurance brokerages.

Just get a raincoat with a good hood on it.

I've never been a big fan of umbrellas. An umbrella uses up one of my two usable hands, I must hold it for the duration of desired protection from rain, and it does nothing to keep the lower 80% of my body dry. Here in the Windy City (tm), there's the added problem of the winds that whip through the steel canyons of downtown, especially in the vicinity of Sears Tower, which pretty much manufactures its own weather patterns. Umbrellas don't do well in such a harsh environment. This picture was taken at the corner of Jackson and Wacker, right next to the Sears Tower. I took the picture and then proceeded smugly, protected from both wind and rain by my Marmot rain jacket. I am less smug now that I see how blurry the photo came out. Stupid CrapCam.

I think it's safe to post this now.

I very much hate ZOMG SUPER PINK CANCER OCTOBER PINK BOOBIES PINK MONTH (tm) for more reasons than I care to go into right now, mostly because it's late and I have to work in the morning. So I had to hang on to this picture until the rage subsided a bit. I saw this on my way into work one morning and was just... astonished. It's a street sweeping truck. It sweeps the streets. It is also very aware of breast cancer and would like you to be the same. Just... no. Come ON. It's a street sweeping truck! Where will the madness end?

Man, you know what I love?

I love that every day when I leave work, I turn east towards the lake and take a 10-minute walking tour of Chicago. I cross a crumbling iron and concrete bridge over the mighty Chicago River, then pass the Sears Tower and smile at the tourists taking their picture in front of the Skydeck sign. Sometimes, when the moment is right, I offer to take it for them, so they can all be in the photo.

Further down Jackson street, while waiting for the light to change, I look to my left and see the Rookery -- a beautiful building in its own right, but also the place where Daniel "Make No Little Plans" Burnham dreamed up the parks, harbors, and avenues that saved Chicago from itself. To the right is the Chicago Board of Trade, which has one of the finest art deco interiors (and hell, exteriors) I've ever seen. After passing the Federal Reserve building, I cut across Federal Plaza and between the impossibly airy monolithic Mies van der Rohe-designed federal buildings. Then it's an approving nod up to Calder's Flamingo sculpture before I head down into the belly of the subway for the ride home to my neighborhood.

This is the greatest city in the world, and you won't convince me otherwise. Unless you're willing to front me a plane ticket to your city of choice for analysis purposes.

Man, you know what I hate?

I hate that when I sign into this blog, it tells me -- nay, admonishes me -- when my last post was. I live in a big, important city now. I'm busy doing big, important things. Nothing strange or anything of note ever happens here.

Nothing at all, including the following posts I've been saving up.

Funniest typo I've made all day

Applican't

"The die is cast."

After ranting out that last little post, one of my friends brought it to my attention that the saying "the dye is cast" could be useful if one interpreted it as "the cloth is colored -- there's no going back now." She also mentioned that it could have been a quote by Julius Caesar (purveyor of fine blended orange drinks and salad dressing).

So I looked it up.

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

Turns out, the quote "The die is cast" is attributed to Caesar after all. The "die" refers to one of a set of dice, as in "the game has begun/the move is made." I like this meaning -- it pleases me. A Google search reveals that an awful lot of people use "the dye is cast" to mean the same thing. I guess I'm not completely against it, as the metaphor has some sense. And I am aware that similar bastardizations of sayings are what make this language great (and damn difficult to learn as a second language).

But... still. I cling to my outmoded belief and shake my tiny fist nonetheless.

Bad copy of the day award

Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more "professionally edited" items online with terrible mistakes. I'm not sure if it's because of staffing cutbacks, increased usage of Web 2.0 user-generated foolishness, or a global conspiracy to cause me, personally, to go insane, but I've seen ridiculous crap popping up on AP and Reuters-type stories more and more. I don't always put it up as a BCD award, mostly because it would just be depressing. On to today's un-ignorable example*:


What does that even mean? What is the symbolism of throwing pigment? Has nobody ever heard of a, say, die-cast toy car, wherein metal is formed into a final, unchangeable shape? Aside from the questionable use of the metaphor, you can't just use different words that sound the same! Your phrase is meaningless! WHY AREN'T THERE MORE EDITORS LOOKING OUT FOR US? WHY, GOD? *breaks down into untintelligible sobbing noises*


Thank you for your time.

*Yeah, I was reading about Paula Abdul leaving American Idol. I never said I had much pride.

I never thought it possible, but a crime has been committed in my office even more heinous and un-neighborly than the Quarter-Donut-Leaver.

Today, I entered the kitchen to discover a decapitated muffin stump. That's right. Instead of cutting the muffin in half, as is marginally acceptable, some faceless person in my office took a knife and carefully sliced off the crusty, sugar-sparkled, perfectly browned top of a blueberry muffin, leaving only the tiny, textureless stump behind. Come ON. Nobody wants the stumps, including the homeless. Exhibit A: Seinfeld episode 155, "The Muffin Tops":

Rebecca: Excuse me, I'm Rebecca Demore from the homeless shelter.
Elaine: Oh, hi.
Rebecca: Are you the ones leaveing the muffin pieces behind our shelter?
Elaine: You been enjoying them?
Rebecca: They're just stumps.
Elaine: Well they're perfectly edible.
Rebecca: Oh, so you just assume that the homeless will eat them, they'll eat anything?
Mr. Lippman: No no, we just thought...
Rebecca: I know what you thought. They don't have homes, they don't have jobs, what do they need the top of a muffin for? They're lucky to get the stumps.
Elaine: If the homeless don't like them the homeless don't have to eat them.
Rebecca: The homeless don't like them.
Elaine: Fine.
Rebecca: We've never gotten so many complaints. Every two minutes, "Where is the top of this muffin? Who ate the rest of this?"
Elaine: We were just trying to help.
Rebecca: Why don't you just drop off some chicken skins and lobster shells.

I hope the Muffin Top Bandit regrets his or choice, be it through regret of their gluttony or some manner of exceedingly embarrassing digestive process.

Things I've knitted recently

I just finished this here squid for my brand-new cousin, Dylan. His birth coincided with my bizarre urge to knit a squid, so there you go. It's one of a kind, and can never be replicated because 1) I knit it without a pattern (if I wrote a pattern, it would say, "Step 1: knit a squid-shaped thing."), and 2) this stupid boucle yarn is hard to work with and impossible to see individual stitches in, so I can't go back and map it out. Anyway, I'm really happy with the way it came out and I look forward to knitting more marine creatures. No, I don't know why I tend to work in themes. Every other artist does it too, if you think about it. I guess my mind just gets wrapped around one idea and I want to see where I can take it.

I finished these a while ago, but felt like putting them up for the good of the Google search (so other people can see what they look like when finished). These are based on the Broad Street Mittens, but with a BUNCH of alterations that I decided on as I knit the first pair for my mom. Thanks for being a guinea pig, mom. I hope they are still okay.

Disappointment comes in every language.

As seen while trying (unsuccessfully) to download an R2-D2 paper model:

As seen in the city

I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and passed two police cruisers. One was parked on the side of the road, and he had his window down to talk to the guy in the other car, who was basically blocking traffic just so he could hang out with his buddy. This alone would have been a pretty effective snapshot of Chicago's finest at work, but wait -- there's more.

As I passed the curbmost car, I was treated to the sight of a box of Dunkin Donuts sitting on the dashboard. A big ol' box of a dozen donuts. Just sitting there, doing the dual duties of 1) being a box of donuts and 2) bringing a stereotype to vivid, Technicolor life.

First blog from my new job!

I just overheard an amazing phone conversation. Since the individual making the call had helpfully put it on speakerphone, I was privy to both sides of the conversation. It went a lot like this:

Man: Hey, do you know which of our printers is the XP5 printer? One of the interns is printing to it and he doesn’t know which one he’s printing to.
Woman: You don’t know which printer to use?
Man: No, I need to know where the XP5 printer is. The interns need to know.
Woman: Have you asked [IT guy]?
Man: No, [IT guy] is out. Is there someone else I can ask?
Woman: No. You’ll need to put in an IT ticket and they can tell you. [Note: all IT tickets get sent to our corporate office and then routed back here to our IT guy, who is out as previously mentioned. Nobody in our corporate office will know where exactly a particular printer is located.]
Man: Okay, I’ll put in a ticket.


Look, people. Why not either print to a printer that you DO know the location of, or perhaps print out a piece of paper that says “REWARD! IF YOU CAN READ THIS, PLEASE CALL [INTERN] AND TELL HIM WHAT PRINTER IT IS!!!” It would be both good for a laugh and might actually solve the problem of where the XP5 printer is. Just saying.

Happy fourth birthday, Funundrum.

You've seen me through three states, several jobs, and one amazingly terrible neighbor named Heidi.  For your gift this year, I've brought you to one of the more bloggable cities in the world.  It's okay that nobody reads it. I'll always know you're here, and I'll read this many years from now and laugh.  Thanks, Funundrum.

Pints at the Goose Island Brewery

The closest goose represents, obviously, their Summertime seasonal.  The phone is the tap for 312, one of my new go-to favorites. (312 is the main Chicago area code.)  I just love this picture because it required a long exposure with the camera balanced on top of a pint glass.  And it doesn't show, but the place was mobbed because it's a block away from Wrigley Field, and we were waiting for the game to start.

Cubbies fans ahoy.

When we moved to Chicago, I was concerned about my baseball loyalty. Though my hometown team has always been and will remain the Angels, I've moved around this country enough to realize that it's a good idea to support the local team because 1) it's fun to go to games surrounded by fellow fans and 2) they're the only games you can get on TV. I've held temporary fan cards for the Marlins, the Padres, and the Rockies so far, and now we've moved to a dual-team city. I kind of figured I would just go with the White Sox, as my dad was raised on the south side, and that's the closest thing I have to a connection to either team. Also, I was a little leery about trying to shoehorn myself in with Cubs fans, a community of pain and disappointment that reaches back over five generations and 100 years. That's the kind of losing that's born, not made.

Then we moved to the north side. We're only three train stops north of Wrigley field, and I pass the ballpark every day on my way to and from work. If I'm sitting on the correct side of the train, I can look up and see whether the "W" or "L" flag is flying and know whether the Cubs won or lost during that day's game. The game is on in every bar you'll ever walk into, and you had damn well be ready to sit down and root, root, root for them Cubbies. It's kind of required by law, amirite?

So here we are, three months into living here, and we're Cubs fans. We made it to our first game at the Friendly Confines on Memorial Day. It was a bit chilly, but it didn't rain, and that's always a good day in Chicago. We started our day off by having a few beers at the Goose Island Brewery and the Cubby Bear, two of several dozen bars in Wrigleyville. We didn't even have time to hit up the other neighborhood icons, Murphy's Bleachers and Harry Caray's.

I am sorry to say the Cubs lost to the Pirates, but it was a high-scoring game and we had a great time eating peanuts and drinking Old Style. Mr. T led the crowd in singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." We had such fun with watching the scoreboard getting changed by hand, the train trundling past, and trying to figure out how long we had to decently wait before getting Cubs ballcaps.

This is the greatest city in the world.

City Life, Part 2

We recently enjoyed a delicious German meal at the Chicago Brauhaus.  After stuffing ourselves silly with bratwurst, schnitzel, plenty of sauerkraut, and a selection of German beers, we stumbled back to the bus stop and caught the 81 east back to our neck of the woods.  The bus was packed, so we barely managed to sidle our way back a few feet.  We made small talk with the lady we were squeezed up next to for the next ten minutes, as there's nothing much else to do when you're inches away from a perfect stranger.  She was very pleasant, and we had a few crowded-bus-related laughs before arriving at a stop that belonged to an old lady who was sitting down behind us.  

As we realized she needed to get off, we all started to shuffle around as best we could to accommodate her.  Despite the existence of roughly 435 people on this bus, this cranky old woman began berating us for our failure to create a suitable egress for her: 

"You know, if you would all just move towards the back, there would be room for everybody."

The three of us were kind enough to keep our fool mouths shut until she made her way off the bus.  Then we took another look around the sea of faces surrounding us and just about fell all over each other laughing. Best cranky lady ever.

City Life, Part 1

We just walked back home from the Bar on Buena*.  It's the best, laziest-titled bar/restaurant ever.  It's a bar.  It's on Buena Street.  It's the Bar on Buena.  Until two weeks ago, the Friday night barkeep knew our names.  He's left to manage a bar in the North Loop (it's called the Motel Bar, and word is that they do a mean Sidecar), so we'll have to get down there and check it out.

So anyway, we were walking back from this place, through the heart of multicultural and multi-socioeconomical Uptown.  We passed a crowded bus shelter, and a young lady emerged to tell us, "Y'all look like a Gap ad!  You look like a Gap ad!"  I glanced at my husband, and realized that we were wearing matching styles (but not colors) of $125 Marmot rain jackets.  There was no denying that we did, in fact, look like a Gap ad.  Very astute of the aforementioned young lady.

I started doing The Dance, which pretty much consisted of me throwing my hands in the air and waving them like I just didn't care, unless of course some corduroy pants or button-down shirts were about to go on sale, in which case I cared very much.  On account of being in a Gap ad.  The young lady was very entertained by my display, and Chris took some time out to tell me how I have a magical power.  Apparently, hobos are fascinated and entertained by me.  

*I love this place.  They have good beer.  It's the kind of thing where you can tell the barkeep, "I'm feeling kind of hoppy tonight," and he'll give you four choices.  Mmmm.  I enjoy drinking beer.

Sweet Baby Chuck

I was at the shoe store yesterday.  I had to get new shoes.  There was no getting around it -- my black low-top Chucks were finally dead, as the holes in the bottoms of the soles were getting big enough that I couldn't wear them on wet pavement without having to change my socks.  Some of the lacing rivets had come off, and were hanging on the laces.  The laces themselves were the same gray as the previously white rubber toes.  Those were some good shoes.  

Needless to say, I got new ones just like the old ones.  I am pleased to report that I managed to attain a few scuffs on the walk home, so they're well on the way to attaining cool-shoe nirvana.

As I was trying on my shoes to make sure they weren't, like, two different sizes, I overheard a woman buying shoes for her son, who wasn't with her.  She pointed to the Converse display and asked a salesperson, 

"I'm supposed to get some of these Converse shoes.  There's a different name for them, though, and I can't remember what he told me to ask for.  I want to say 'James Taylors,' but I know that's wrong."

That just about made my day right there.

What Fist-bumping Lions may look like.

That is, if they were captured via CrapCam and shopped together in a really lazy fashion.