Results tagged “bbc”

Nature specials are amazing for many reasons. We just found another one.

WGN's Pat Tomasulo is cranky and by God, he's not gonna take it anymore. Normally, we're wary of mainstream media's take on social media, but Pat...actually makes us laugh with this video about Facebook etiquette, especially when he shouts his "status updates" to random people on the street. While not quite as cantankerous as Andy Rooney, Pat does remind us of Chicagoist's own curmudgeon, Tankboy. Plus, this video reminded us of another take on Facebook, a classic bonus video you can check out after the jump.

The BBC has a nice little page that runs down the facts, pros, and cons of the candidates to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. They also have Chicago as the favorites to win the bidding at 11/10 odds (followed by Rio, Tokyo, and Madrid). What does the BBC say of us?

If there's one upcoming event we here at Chicagoist unanimously want to nerd-out to, it's Walking With The Dinosaurs: The Live Experience, which opens tonight at the United Center. Based on a BBC Television show, this live 90-minute theatrical show with a $20 million dollar budget features life-sized dinosaurs (the tallest, a Brachiosaurus, being 36 feet tall and 56 feet long) in a simulated natural habitat. Realistic roars of dinosaurs, earthquakes, volcanoes, and comet crashes add to the spectacle, along with both live and recorded video.

Even though Chicago (the band) haven't called the city home in close to forty years and their later focus on lite rock didn't end with the departure of Peter Cetera, there was a time when they could kill live.

From the BBC website:

More bad news for and from the Sun-Times: business editor Dan Miller, a 2006 inductee into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, resigned today as seven non-union employees were laid off, including editorial board members Michelle Stevens, Lloyd Sachs and Michael Gillis, and Assistant Managing Editor Avis Weathersbee. Miller wrote in an email that he thinks the Sun-Times will be sold in a matter of months. [Crain's, Trib]

What do The Gap, American Airlines, the main titles for Little Miss Sunshine and Royal Bank of Scotland have in common? They all use the same typeface: Helvetica. Born in 1957 its clean, "neutral" look was revolutionary. 50 years later, and it's omnipresent. If you keep your eyes peeled you'll see it everywhere around you, on practically every city street, in every newspaper and magazine and, most of all, in advertising. Why? As Finlo...

Mainstream media journalism can be a fickle mistress. Company turnovers, budget crises, and lessening readership has thrown newspapers into a panic recently. It's no surprise to lay off a few reporters here and there. But when you're a foreign correspondent and your adopted country tells you to get out ... that hurts.

The BBC is reporting that Fire GM John Guppy admitted to trying to sign retired Real Madrid star and 2006 World Cup Best Player, Zinedine Zidane out of retirement to play with the Chicago Fire in Major League Soccer. According to Guppy, "We reached out to Zidane ... the feedback we've all gotten is that he's retired." The Fire has also unsuccessfully tried to sign Swedish striker Henrik Larsson but lost out to Manchester United....

“From Birmingham to Manchester to Brooklyn to Chicago, we’re tired of being poverty pimped by the politicians and poverty pimped by the rappers….” This is Rhymefest after meeting with David Cameron, the head of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. At a British Society of Magazine Editors event in June, Cameron stated that Radio 1, a British Radio station operated by the BBC, plays music which "encourages people to carry guns and knives." Rhymefest...

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly.

Daniel Barenboim has left Chicago, but he hasn’t stopped thinking big. Conducting his multicultural, multi-faith West-Eastern Divan Orchestra across Europe this week, Barenboim is taking a stand against war in the Middle East and, since 1998, has provided an example of how Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs from across the region can work together. But the commendable project isn’t exactly a musical utopia. The tours have been outside the Middle East and certain musicians won’t develop friendships across the divide, afraid of how that will look back home. Prior to this week’s European tour, Barenboim drafted a statement condemning the violence in Israel and Lebanon. After intense debate, the ensemble accepted it without amendment and the orchestra played to rave reviews.

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the...

The CTA has apparently gave up trying to be a viable agency altogether, begging off on making a decision and putting a significant choice in the capable hands of schoolchildren. The result proved once again that there's always something so funny in the world that you couldn't have written it if you tried: The newest CTA branch of the L will officially be called the Pink Line. Unofficially, it will be called crude names ......

Steep Theatre’s aim to produce ‘everyman theater’ fits nicely in Chicago’s self-made arts community. Strong performances and smart programming turned heads and filled the seats in 2005. Now the ensemble reaches further, offering two productions in repertory examining poverty, rural isolation, and misplaced trust. The Night Heron is a smart and funny look at that world; Of Mice and Men never completely captures it.

You have to hand it to someone who wants to be cremated when they die. Not only is going out in flames pretty rock n' roll--in a Darth Vader, Viking funeral pyre kind of way--but also because even in death you remain humble. It's your last act of consideration, telling your loved ones, "You know what? Don't spend all that money on a coffin and grave plot. Just torch me and put me in a ceramic jar. I don't want to take up too much space." The least you could ask after that is for someone to keep track of what's left of you.

You can't keep those Londoners down.

For anyone who like the animated sequences in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy movie better than the parts with actual people, you’ll want to head to The Gene Siskel Center tomorrow night. Chicagoist was perfectly happy swooning over Zooey Deschanel and Martin Freeman when we saw the film, but we were impressed at how the filmmakers dealt with the long expositional portions of the book that describe information from The Guide itself. The group...

File this under "No Shit, Really?" - Air pollution is 6 times higher in restaurants and bars that allow smoking. Wow, you don't say! We would have never guessed! We'd like to thank the National Conference on Tobacco or Health for this information. The organization conducted its survey earlier this month at 37 Chicago bars around downtown, Rush St., Little Italy & the West Loop. They found that at non-smoking places the average harmful particles...

We're always in favor of more places to see movies, especially if those places are in close proximity to alcohol. So the news that Smartbar is now hosting a FREE Tuesday night movie night (via DVD projection) called "The Reel Deal" was welcome indeed. Bad news: you have to be 21+. Good news: they're showing two (tenuously thematically connected) classic cult films per night (plus an entire showing of the BBC's The Office on March...

Often assailed as a huge megaplex with no soul, the AMC River East does have the occasional free screening that makes it worth braving the crowds who are all amped up to see National Treasure. Tomorrow night they’ll be showing The White Stripes – Under Blackpool Lights, which was released this week on DVD. Documenting a January 2004 show at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool England, the Detroit duo pulls out their own “hits”...

Hear that? That�s the sound of Chicagoist rubbing its last two nickels together, plus the background tunes of the smallest violins in the world serenading us with phrases like, �Maybe if you didn�t spend all your money on alcohol and sneakers, you could afford not to eat rice every day.� That�s one of our favorite ditties. But August is the month of no fucking fun, and it�s been so chilly that we had to invest in some fall wardrobe items, which were of course not yet on sale. Damn you, preppy looks of the fall! Damn you!

Chicago's Rush Institute for Healthy Aging found that niacin (vitamin B3) is linked to a reduced risk of age-related mental decline and that it could protect against Alzheimer's Disease. The researchers, whose report was published in the Journal of Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, said severe niacin deficiency causes pellagra - characterized by dementia, diarrhea and dermatitis - but its role in Alzheimer's has not been thoroughly explored.