The 52nd annual Chicago Air and Water Show occurred this past weekend and, unless you were out of town, you probably heard the noise as jets raced overhead over two afternoons. Hundreds of thousands of people hit the Lakefront - while no attendance has been announced yet, estimates are usually in the two million range - and many more took to rooftops all over the city to take in the sights and sounds of the annual event. more ›

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA... more ›

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making... more ›

Anyone working downtown realized today that the 48th Annual Air & Water Show is this weekend. Aircraft participating in this year's event started roaring up and down the lakeshore today in preparation for this weekend's show. Chicagoist had the opportunity fly with the AeroShell Aerobatic Team this morning to check out the pilots to ensure they were ready for the show. The AeroShell Team is comprised of four T-6 Texans and four planes used to... more ›

Saturday and Sunday, the water show portion of the event runs from 9:30am - 10:30am and the air show runs from 11:00am - 4:00pm. Longtime announcer Herb Hunter delivers play-by-play coverage from North Avenue Beach. more ›

With all the planes flying just overhead, Chicagoist has deduced that either we're being attacked (orange alert! ...er, red alert?) or it's Air and Water Show weekend. Thankfully, it's the latter. Well, "thankfully" in that there will be tons of people in Chicagoist's neighborhood over the next few days and parking will be a mess. We need to escape from Old Town, fast, and Doc Films fortunately has a solution. This Saturday they'll be playing Hoop Dreams, a quintessential Chicago film. We call it quintessential because this classic documentary provides a touching, in-depth portrait of our city's low-income residents and public school system. And besides all of the personal drama in the lives of its subjects, there's plenty of good basketball. more ›