We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, which introduces three new designs a week. Enter for a chance to win a pair of tickets to see Jeremy Fisher at Schubas Tavern on Feb. 28th. If you're interested in advertising on Chicagoist or any other site......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, which introduces three new designs a week. If you're interested in advertising on Chicagoist or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, selling a special shirt to honor the New England Patriots. If you're interested in advertising on Chicagoist or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, giving you free shipping when you buy three shirts. If you're interested in advertising on Chicagoist or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

The Cool, Lupe Fiasco's much-anticipated follow up to Food & Liquor, dropped on Tuesday to a cloud of bittersweet press. Some critics have blasted the album for its darker sound, wishing for the breezier days when Lupe's rhymes were all about meeting cute girls and skateboarding. Others question if the change in sound is a move in the right direction. However you feel about the album (or if you haven't had a chance to......

In his new memoir/cookbook Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile's Hunger for Home, author and playwright Eduardo Machado spins a nostalgic account of the Cuban exile experience, framed by meals he remembered as a child in Cuba, as an exile entering the States during the Peter Pan airlifts, as a young actor and writer and, later, on return visits to Cuba as an adult. "All my life I've been trying to get food to taste like......

The talk of the "indie rock diet" that's been tossed around the blogosphere this week is ripe with irony; any of us who have hung out with a band for even a night know that the stereotypical indie rocker replaces food with alcohol whenever given the chance. And when on tour, anything goes. A friend of ours, who happens to drum in a band coming to Chicago next week, once told us about how the......

Sometimes, in the world of blogging, mistakes are made. In the rush to publish, we obscure the occasional fact and allow our less-than-reliable memories to run away with the truth. And so it was yesterday, when we received an e-mail from a webmaster about a post we did on Monday about Richard Marx: Below you will find an email from Richard Marx. I am his webmaster for his 2 websites and he asked me to......

Chicagoist has a dark sense of humor. And, we’ve got a hardcore caffeine habit. Lucky for us, the two now come in a controversial 8.4-ounce can. Las Vegas-based Redux Beverages recently rolled out their marketing campaign for the new energy drink Cocaine. It compares in calories to Red Bull (only 70 vs. Red Bull’s 80) but weighs in with 350 percent more caffeine (280 mg, about the same as four espresso shots). The drink also......

Remember the movie Ghostbusters II? We’re a bit fuzzy on it ourselves, but most of it seemed to revolve around a guy in a painting that looked like the Highlander. But what does stick out in our mind is the climactic scene at the end when the Highlander-looking dude was defeated by the Statue of Liberty coated in some pink “mood ooze” while millions of New Yorkers threw out good feelings by singing Jackie Wilson’s......

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddie for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bid's Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has some suggestions to fix that. They're also throwing Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash. Yeah, we may have a few issues with our World Cup broadcasters here, but this guy......

As more than 8,000 athletes prepare to head to Chicago to participate in this summer’s Gay Games 2006, a new book touts Chicago as a “thriving gay capital.” "The Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago" (Lake Claremont Press) by Kathie Bergquist and Robert McDonald, says the city is often overlooked by gay-friendly travel guides, and those that mention it usually focus on the bar scene. McDonald argues that authors of other guides have only......

Oprah's decided to throw a bone to authors who are like.. uh.. alive. For the past 2 years her popular book club has only featured classic books, but now she's returning to the present, announcing yesterday that her book club will now feature all books, including contemporary works. She made this announcement as she told the world her latest book club pick - James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces," which is a memoir of his......

Frequent are the days, especially in summer, when Chicagoist finds ourselves struggling to make a decision between two or more fabulous things to do. Of course, we're usually deciding between work and sleep, but tomorrow night is something special. We know what we're doing, mainly because our roommate has never in her 24 years seen Star Wars, but we also really wish we could go to the Bookslut Reading Series at the Hopleaf. It's the......

While we haven't yet picked up our own copy of Bodies in Motion by Mary Anne Mohanraj, we think it's pretty safe to say that her reading tonight at Women & Children First will be a good one. Mohanraj, currently a visiting professor at Roosevelt University, be reading from her new collection of stories about Sri Lankan immigrant life, which has been well-received by critics and gets mixed reviews from readers on Amazon. We heard......

Man oh man do we wish we'd been able to observe the Illinois House floor today when the Predator Accountability Act came up for discussion. The act, Rep. Constance A. Howard's (D-Chicago) bill HB1299, will allow "persons who have been or are subjected to the sex trade to seek civil damages and remedies from individuals and entities that recruited, profited from, or maintained them in the sex trade." These damages include, among other things, financial......

In a cut scene from Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace tells Vincent Vega that there are “Beatles people and Elvis people.” And while some people can like both artists “nobody likes them equally.” Chicagoist isn’t sure if the same holds true for Nirvana people and U2 people but a pair of release parties for Nirvana’s With The Lights Out boxed set and U2’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb are making it seem like it’s......

School's just around the corner, and that means book reports. For everybody. Yes, even you. Today, Mayor Daley announced the latest selection in the city's "One Book, One Chicago" reading initiative. The latest selection is In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez. According to Amazon.com, Butterflies is a tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In......