Results tagged “badidea”

Mark your calendars, old people: March 17 isn't just St. Patrick's day, it's also the day free rides for seniors begin on Metra, Pace and the CTA.

Unless you stayed inside all day yesterday (and that wouldn't have been a bad idea, because it was dis-gusting out there), you couldn't miss the super-slippery sidewalks all around the city. An ice storm Saturday night made traveling around the city extra-treacherous due to the thin coating of ice on sidewalks. Chicago city officials, being their normal helpful selves, urged people to salt their sidewalks and walk carefully when it's icy. And also to look...

Following Sunday's 19-16 win in Philadephia, Bears QB Brian Griese seemed to think that because there is an "I" in win, he would take the credit and claimed to have called the plays that resulted in the game winning 97-yard touchdown drive at the end of Sunday's game. He had no choice, he said, because the radio communication in his helmet stopped working just before the drive began. When the season's going as poorly it...

Once in a great while, Chicagoist has one of those moments of social and moral awareness that we like to call “maturity,” when we take a quick glance outside of ourselves and think about how our lives could be different under less auspicious circumstances. Not to get too existential on your asses this fine Friday morning, but there’s a big world out there, and sometimes it’s not a bad idea to take a peek. Luckily you can do it from the comfort of a neighborhood bar, thanks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ GOAt (Globally Occupied Attention) series.

Janice Dutts Goes to Life Camp is a fun time. This late-night style comedy slotted in prime time is a goofy little show brimming with pop cuture goodness and, yes, campy humor, lovingly satirizing the self-help movement and its well-meaning psychobabble. Actually, it's funnier than it has any right to be. The script by Laura McKenzie, who also plays Janice, hedges its bets between an affectionate tribute and a middle finger to a self-help industry...

We read a little story in the Sun-Times the other day that had us scratching our heads a little. Well, actually, a lot. First, we were thrown off kilter to see that the story advocated bypassing 311 in all sorts of situations (squirrels in gutters, potholes in the street, needing a building permit) for ringing up our alderman (alderperson?). However given that our alderman can "intervene on our behalf to resolve these problems twice as...

When Magdalena Abakanowicz brought her headless statues to Grant Park in November, she was trying to make a statement. Whether that statement is about individuality or lack thereof, about such familiar things as our own bodies that can be blown up and rendered monstrosities, or about interacting with the unknown ... well, that's for artists and critics to debate. What she probably didn't intend was for her works of art to become makeshift urinals for Chicago's dog population.

Say you were wronged grievously by the government. You want them to pay, and pay big. You sue the two individual agents responsible for your downfall successfully, and get a nice chunk of change. Then, suddenly, the huge sum you just received is revoked, and you get bupkus. And it's all your fault.

Chicagoist's dad is sort of weird. Well, lots of weird. He refuses to use his turn signal in nearly every occasion unless someone is right up on him because he doesn't see the need to "waste blinks" and burn out the fuse. Whaa? Better yet, he likes to shift his automatic and put his car in neutral at stop lights. We have NO clue what this is accomplishing, but he claims that this "saves gas." OOO-kay.

The return of fall means no more suburban sheds or city parks filled with the sounds of rock. Instead, it’s time for live music fans to head inside to dark clubs that smell of cheap menthols and stale beer. We couldn’t be happier. Apparently, we’re not the only ones, as shows from Sufjan Stevens and Social Distortion/Supersuckers are already sold out. Here are a few with tix still available. We've never really bought what Cursive's...

We know how it is. Sometimes things seem like a good idea at the time. Sometimes we don’t realize until it’s too late that something is really stupid. Of course, our dumb ideas don’t land us in jail, at least not usually. Some people, on the other hand, are taking the bad idea to a whole new level.

We held off writing anything about gay marriage opponents trying to get a referendum to change the Illinois Constitution to define marriage as a relationship between a woman and a man on the November ballot because we didn’t want to give the haters at Protect Marriage Illinois any attention, and we hoped they would fail in their quest to collect the needed signatures. The good news is that organizers of the referendum fell short in...

Chicagoist admits it, we're impatient for summer. We wanted to make corn chowder so badly that, even though it will be a good three months (or more) before we'll be seeing the loveliness of in-season corn on the cob, we couldn't stop ourselves. The chowder we ended up making used exclusively frozen corn but it gives us (and you, dear reader) something to think, dream and obsess about until harvest time rolls around. What little improvements can we make? How can we spice it up or tone it down? Chipotle peppers: good or bad idea? Our recipe serves about six and will make your heart stop, whether out of love or too much half and half we can't be sure. Either way your belly will be pleased.

As we mentioned yesterday, and in early November, Judy Baar Topinka wants to be the next governor of Illinois, and she is delivering the smackdown on Governor Blagojevich.

Remix albums are often a very bad idea riding the back of the easy cash-in cow. There have been exceptions, as with Massive Attack’s Mad Professor mauled No Protection or even The Space Monkeyz Vs. Gorrilaz collab Laika Come Home, but usually they just end up more like P-Diddly-doo’s We Invented the Remix. Recently Vice Records gave us a re-tooling of this year’s Bloc Party debut in remix form and that arguably could be filed...

Calling attention to unique and threatened urban spaces, Preservation Chicago has released their annual list of endangered Chicago buildings. Not much on the list will surprise anyone who follows the ongoing drama of developer/preservationist smackdowns. We expected to see: Promontory Point, with its beautiful but fading limestone steps. If the City has its way, these will go the way of their concrete-laden counterparts to the north. DePaul University’s Hayes-Healey Center, which the CTA plans to...

With the fears of an epic choke bubbling to the forefront of most White Sox fans minds lately, manager Ozzie Guillen pulled no punches when he blasted his team following yesterday's loss,

Chicagoist cancelled its subscription to Jane Magazine a few months back after an article on How To Date Eight Guys At Once left us with nothing more than a weird rash. Maybe if we kept it then we’d be the ones with the early lowdown on the lineup for Lollapolooza and not Jim DeRogatis. The lengths that man will go to scoop the rest of the press!

Chicagoist doesn't have any children (holla, contraception!), but if we did, we'd want them to know aaaaaall about death. Because what do kids love more than death? Maybe Dora the Explorer, but that's about it. We're moving to Elburn to raise our bloglets.