Kanye West's mother Donda West's autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday. The Chicago Board of Education is going to approve plans for a culinary arts high school for juniors about to drop out of school. Mark your calendars: On weekends between November 17 and December 23, Fannie May will be offering free ferry rides "between Chicago's commuter train stations and the Michigan Avenue shopping district." Moo Moo, a 2-year-old shih tzu was stolen from his Wicker......

We know that we're unhealthy, and probably have all manner of toxic death chemicals kickin' it in our bodies. According to a recent study, though, everybody does, and that includes vegans and people who jog for fun. Environment Illinois and other groups released a report of a study that found at least three toxic chemicals used in everyday products were found in the bodies five Illinoisans and 30 other volunteers in a nationwide project. The......

We got the privilege of attending last weekend's Blogher conference, and in an ironic twist of fate, our two computers went on the fritz. However, it was an experience we still wanted to share with you. Blogher is a conference geared directly toward women bloggers. It was filled with lots of interesting and useful sessions aimed at helping women in the blogosphere. Whether you hadn't yet started a blog or you were looking to really......

Sometimes we long for the old days when there were no cell phones. Text messaging was only for the über-rich Skytel set, and there was no reminder to silence your phones at the beginning of every concert, movie, poetry reading, dance recital, etc. It was much quieter then. And much, much cheaper. But in 2007 we are all carrying around computers in our pockets. Just over thirty years ago, in order to get a fraction......

The Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation in Uptown was robbed late Friday of computers, audio-visual equipment and donated food on Friday. This is just one of several crimes committed at the synagogue in the last year. We're not sure how we feel about this ... Wendy's International will begin selling breakfast in Chicago, part of a national expansion into the breakfast market, the Dublin, Ohio-based hamburger chain said last week. Steve Irwin is helping......

Techies and geeks, rejoice: goddesses walk among you. These aren’t high-maintenance, untouchable fantasy goddesses. Nor are they freaky tentacle-fresh hentai maidens, either, you otaku junkies. They’re gearheads just like you, only made from softer parts. At least, they will be with enough guidance and teaching at a young age. Enter the Geek Squad. That’s right, Best Buy’s computer repair mavens are making young girls’ dreams come true by introducing them to technology. It all started......

When the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office first admitted that they couldn't find the body of the recently deceased Rosalie Schultz, they thought they had sent it off to the wrong funeral home by mistake. After calls to the funeral homes, a second look-see, and causing the family to panic (to the point of nearly calling off the funeral), they discovered that the body was, in fact, in the morgue after all. Apparently Schultz was......

Friday night, Chicagoist sat in the Kroc University Theater of the Adler Planetarium to hear Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" presentation given by someone with PhD style credibility, Dr. James Sweitzer. The majority of the presentation had the same slickness of Gore's documentary without the cut scenes of impending doom (though the excessive rumbling of traffic above the theater was slightly ominous). However, in lieu of soliloquies about being a boy on a farm,......

We don't know about you, but those pesky activities like eating, sleeping, cleaning, having a social life and working out? They just get in the way of precious online time. But now, with the help of Mayo Clinic physician and professor of nutrition, James Levine, MD, we can have our virtual cake and eat it too (albeit, on the treadmill). Levine has designed the NEAT office in which computers sit atop treadmills. NEAT stands for......

In the interests of making our readers' heads explode, we deliver the following story right to your mental doorstep. An Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago is attempting to test a theory relating to the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, computers, and the very fabric of the universe itself. We don't know about you, but we get a funny feeling just thinking about it. Cheng Chin plans to dump some spare atoms he just had......

There was finally one thing we heard President Bush did that we could get behind: he signed a bill changing Daylight Saving* Time (DST) so that it was longer. We get so excited for Daylight Saving Time to come and start to relieve our S.A.D., that anything that would hasten this process sounded great to us. Under the new Daylight Saving Time, DST will start March 11, 2007, (holy early!) and end November 4, 2007.......

We're a little behind on this because we missed the Sunday show and just watched a recorded showing last night, but did anyone see Chef Homaro Cantu on Iron Chef America on Sunday night? Kitchen Stadium had never experienced anything like it. Cantu was up against Chef Masaharu Morimoto, and he sure gave him a run. We thought it would be a pure-traditional vs. way-modern matchup, but Morimoto did end up pulling out some......

Predicting the actions of the city and county boards is nearly impossible. One never really knows who will be arrested on corruption charges this week, what sort of zany plan alderman will propose next, or as we recently learned, how easily sensitive data can magically go missing. The Chicago Board of Elections announced that about 100 CDs with 1.3 million Chicago voters’ Social Security numbers were given out to alderman and ward committeemen, along with......

Remember back in September when we warned you about the impending rate increase from ComEd, and everyone talked about TV shows instead? That was awesome. But you might want to think about switching off the telly every now and then; ComEd's 24 percent rate hike goes into effect this week, meaning that the "Ugly Betty" marathon you watched this weekend just cost you approximately $485. The Attorney General has sued to reverse the increase, which......

You know how it goes. It starts off buying a Christmas present online during your lunch hour, then you remember that you haven't gotten your lovah anything. Then you think about something you'd like to see them in. Then you think maybe you don't want to see them in anything. Then why bother waiting until home, why not just check out some naked people RIGHT NOW? IS that how it goes? We don't know, because......

While Chicago churches are trading computers for guns, one suburban kid found out that turning in a pellet gun gets you expelled, instead. In Plainfield, a thirteen year-old boy allegedly discovered a pellet gun in the boys restroom of Troy Middle School and turned it in to an assistant principal, only to be kicked out of school. Several local news groups are covering the incident. The kid's parents are protesting the expulsion and they......

It hasn’t been all that long since Chicagoist was in high school, but a lot has changed. Instead of passing notes to arrange fights, students now use their MySpace accounts. Then again, a lot has stayed the same. Bad things still happen in the lunchroom, and principals can still be total creeps. Either way, we’re just glad we’re out of there. A group of 11 girls and one boy from downstate Illinois will not be......

Whether it be for work, pleasure, or out of sheer ennui, we sometimes find ourselves sitting in front of our computers for hours at a crack. Eyes strained, our carpals tunneled, our back giving us a beatdown; we feel like we are years above our chronological age. When did we get so creaky? How could we be falling apart like this? We've tried to do the right thing — sit up straight, hold ourselves in......

There are bad guys, and then there are really bad guys. A bad guy might not tell cashiers that they gave him back a dime too much. And then there are the people like the recent vandals on the South Side - really bad guys that ransack schools for their taking. Several phone calls were made to police around 1 a.m. on Sunday regarding strange activity at Hendricks Community Academy, located at 4316 S. Princeton;......

Over the weekend, the city announced that it has a solution to one of your many, many problems. Rather than turning all your old TVs and computer monitors into plant holders and cluttering drawers with old batteries because you have no idea what to do with them, you can now take them somewhere: a recycling center. Not just any old recycling center, though - those are solast season. This is the city's first permanent computer......

Forty years after their historic four-day space mission, Capt. James Lovell and Dr. Buzz Aldrin were reunited with the Gemini 12 spacecraft at the Adler Planetarium. Lovell (above, right) remarked that the capsule looks more spacious than it actually is but that it's “a good bird.” Aldrin (left) asked his old friend in jest: “are you ready to fly again?” And they exchanged a look suggesting that's not such a crazy idea. During the......

Ever since watching the movie Hackers we've always had a sort of jr. high school fascination with the people who hack computers in real life. How badass! The problem, of course, is that we always forget that anyone who is willing to spend 23 hours a day on his or her computer figuring something out, well, they've got to be a nerd of the "bleegin, blobbin" school of thought. The computer wizards involved with the......

When Chicagoist is ready to get rid of an old computer or gadget, we try to donate it somewhere. We know, that 233 MHz, 32 MB RAM PC with a dot matrix printer may not be a hot seller at the Salvation Army store, but as long as it's working, we figure someone could get some use out of it, if anything for a stress reliever. But sometimes the damn thing is just broken, a......

While looking into the story about Chicago moving some of its servers to Red Hat Linux we stumbled upon what might be a trend for the city. Let’s call it a trend in blowing lots of hot air. Chicagoist is very into both the ideas of the city saving money, and in supporting Linux, but we hope this venture is not just an “us too” kind of a gesture. Jumping on the bandwagon is cool......

Part of us thinks we're paranoid for protecting our personal identity like the Holy Grail, changing passwords every couple months, shredding every piece of paper with even a scrap of identifying data on it before it leaves our house, refusing to ever give out our Social Security number unless it's absolutely necessary. The thing is, we're not so much worried about someone actively going after this information as we are about it falling into the......

Admit it. You’ve got a secret (or not-so-secret) nerdy streak. You long for your old Atari or Genesis that your parents heartlessly ditched at in the process of cleaning out their basement. You’re familiar with segfaults and/or gelatinous cubes. You have wet dreams about the Cthulhu mythos. You’ve memorized 90% of the entire Simpsons catalog (the other 10% being the new epis and therefore don’t count), and you can’t wait for Kraftwerk to come back......

In recent news, the TSA has updated the rules pertaining to liquids on planes. Starting today passengers are allowed 3-oz. travel-size cosmetics in their carry-on baggage, but they have to be in a sealed plastic baggie. "After clearing security, travelers can now bring beverages and other items purchased in the secure boarding area on-board aircraft." For more details check the TSA's website. Chicagoist knows how you love to travel; seeing as O'Hare is the busiest......

We don't, but Motorola did before yesterday. Apparently, in the communications device market, 3.5e9 dollars will buy you a company with its fingers in the RFID market, health care, transportation, and other spiffy places where people like to buy mobile gadgets. The move is expected to beef up Motorola's presence in the enterprisey business markets as opposed to having any effect on their consumer-facing business that includes cellphones and cable set-top boxes. So what does......

Of course by now you know all about how the Brits foiled a terrorist plot to blow up airplanes flying to America with liquid explosives. The news caused absolute chaos at airports yesterday as passengers had to dispose of all liquids, gels, creams, and lotions, and subject themselves to more intense searches. Add to that the simultaneous freakout that occurs at the mere mention of terrorism near an airport these days, and you have an......

When we heard the new Bucktown/Wicker Park library was opening, we knew we had to go see it for ourselves. We don’t know what we were expecting - some kind of church-like haven for the Borders' battered and beaten down. What we found was a lovely, tiny, friendly library that looks just like every library we’ve ever seen. Our first thought when we rode up on our bike was, where’s the bike rack? Alas! There......