When it comes to watching sports, are you the ultimate couch potato? Really? If so, ESPNZone is giving you a chance to prove it. On January 1, four contestants will have the opportunity to prove that they can outsit anyone and win the title of Ultimate Couch Potato. The competition requires all contestants to plop down at 10am on New Year's Day and remain in their DreamSeat recliner inside the ESPN Zone's Screening Room, watching......

The Sun-Times takes a break from reporting actual news to ask an important question: which team has the hotter fans, Cubs or White Sox? To help answer this question, they ask readers to submit photos of cute Cubs fans and sexy Sox fans which will be added to their gallery. The winners will be announced on June 20 -- but we know that the Cubs will win this vote. Even if we like the Sox......

Movie attendance is down 10% this year. Bad word of mouth when it comes to this year's mainstream releases perhaps? Moviemaking competitions are a great way to put our money where our mouths are, and here are some worth shooting for: -- In surely the first competition of its kind (outside of some obscure William Gibson story maybe), this January filmmakers will converge in Second Life for the 48 Hour Film Project. It's an abstract......

We didn’t grow up in a big city, so as parents we’re a little perplexed about the whole urban trick-or-treating thing. We’ve even heard that it’s taboo to go door to door in any neighborhood not your own (seriously?). Luckily, there are plenty of places in Chicago to celebrate and get your kids' hands on some candy. The Lincoln Park Zoo hosts its annual Spooky Zoo Spectacular Saturday. Kids trick or treat in the zoo's......

Voting for Lollapalooza's Last Band Standing contest officially began on June 1, and Chicago is already leading the pack. Although the standings are always changing, when we last checked the leader board, four out of the top 10 bands were from our fair city, with Evanston-based Rachel Metter at the top of the list with 1727 votes at press time. The band's profile says it has "gained a fan-base among high school students in the......

Scientists announced that they have found a 4-mile-square fossilized rain forest near Danville, IL. They say it was preserved by a major ancient earthquake and that it has a bunch of big leaf impressions, trunks of extinct trees, and tree-sized horsetail plants. LaSalle Bank getting bought by Bank of America? Not so fast... HowToOpenThings is a new local online venture where site members have contests to get videos created that demonstrate how to open......

Much like the French, many people gearing up for tomorrow’s election are nervous about the results; the vote on the 17th is, without doubt, one of the most significant contests to take place in our city in years. With a dozen council seats up for grabs, and voter distrust and anger at an all-time city high, it’s no wonder that the Machine is uneasy. While the future of the City by the Lake is at......

Saturday night, the Chicago Fire won their first season opener in five years. The game time temperature was a frigid 31 degrees but that did not deter nearly 15,000 fans from coming out to Toyota Park to cheer on the Fire. The fans were barely in their seats before the Fire netted the game winner. In the fourth minute midfielder Justin Mapp(right) drove down the sideline and crossed a ball to Logan Pause who flicked......

The media elite and tenured intelligentsia are making you feel like an unwashed plebian if you aren’t fawning over Fermilab or Millennium Park. And you’re sick of your relatives braying on about thrilling tourist traps like Medieval Times and Six Flags. You know better, don’t you? For the rest of the month, the Illinois Tourism Bureau gives you the chance to make your alternative views heard… and then promptly drowned out by the voters who......

Two aldermanic races that are shaping up to be real contests in the city have drawn a lot of attention not only from locals, but also from organizations that would like to put a dent in Daley's grip on the city. Two higher-profile candidates, Greg Brewer and Scott Waguespack, have gotten endorsements from labor groups that are itching for a fight with the mayor and his allies on the council. In the 32nd Ward, things......

It’s taken us a week of mourning, but we’re finally able to talk about the death of Chicago jazz vocalist Anita O’Day, who suffered cardiac arrest last Thursday in Los Angeles at the age of 87. Born Anita Belle Colton in Chicago in 1919, her father left when she was one and her mother found work in the city’s then-thriving meatpacking industry. She left home at the age of 12 to compete in marathon dance......

If you think you overate this Thanksgiving weekend, you might feel a bit better after learning how much Patrick Bertoletti threw down his gullet. The 21-year-old culinary arts student at Kendall College won the annual turkey-eating contest at Artie’s Deli in New York last Wednesday, the Sun-Times reported. Bertoletti took first place after eating 4.8 pounds of turkey – and beating the second-place contestant by a whole pound. The competition had eight participants, and the......

If the CTA seemed a little more crowded at 6:46 yesterday morning then perhaps it’s because the U.S. just passed the 300 million mark in total population. Or maybe it was last week. The Sun-Times reports (or guesses) that Alyzandra Marcella Ruiz became the 300 millionth person in the United States when she was born at University of Chicago's Bernard Mitchell Hospital yesterday at 5:58 a.m. Except she was born 48 minutes shy of......

We’re busy people, and you probably are, too. So if you’re not getting out to the clubs to see enough live music, this edition of Friday Afternoon Diversion is for you. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah haters will want to skip this clip of the band's recent appearance at the Vic. Turn down your speakers a little for this Wolf Parade clip from Metro back in August, when they peformed a new song called......

The Chicago Fire won their fourth U.S. Open Championship and hoisted the Dewar Cup after defeating the Los Angeles Galaxy 3-1 on Wednesday night. In winning this game, the Fire continue a perfect 12-0 home record in U.S. Open competition. The Fire are also the most successful MLS team in U.S. Open Cup history, winning four titles and owning a 24-5-2 record. The Fire continued to play a dominating style of soccer in which......

This week brings an embarrassment of riches for art lovers. Longer, warmer days inspire artists, collectors, and curious bystanders to hook up, talk art, and put some serious coin in a few dealers’ and artists’ pockets. Everyday through Friday we’ll be featuring the highlights of another spring festival, helping you stay sane in these frenzied days of wheeling and dealing. Art Chicago in the Park (Friday-Monday) is the granddaddy of them all. The city’s only......

We’re not scared of big books. In fact, we love big books, the bigger the better. It’s like those restaurant contests where you win something if you eat that big, huge cheeseburger. We always know we can eat it and we see it as challenging more than daunting. So we were stoked when we finally picked up our copy of the “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova. So it might be a little too big and......

Kristen Romanowski, Fourth Annual Chipp Inn Spelling Bee Champion...

All you gotta do is go to the CBS2 Web site; register; watch cbs2 @ your desk, Chicago's first web-only newscast, and listen for a keyword; and enter the keyword in a form. The contest runs all week and each day you enter a keyword you get a chance to win. If you don't want to watch every day or don't have time to, just go into the archives on Friday, watch all 5 cbs2......

Halloween is gone and our "Stubbs the Zombie" giveaway is also finished. The lucky winner of the game package is Trent Marinelli of Chicago. Congrats Trent! As for the rest of you, stay tuned for new contests and giveaways. We're always finding things to giveaway.......

Chicagoist will fess up right now and say that of all of the things we are good at, keeping up with fashion trends is not one of them. We're classic dressers -- and snark never goes out of style. But just because we're hopelessly inept at such things doesn't mean that you, dear reader, aren't a fashionista to the nth degree. For that we, well, we're not jealous, nor are we particularly curious but we......

It's nice to see that William "The Refrigerator" Perry has found a hobby, even if he's not very good at it. These former pro athletes often have a lot of time on their hands when they retire so young. Of course, Perry seems to have blown his millions since he's now working as a brick layer. "The Fridge" will once again pit his stomach against those of the world's top competative eaters when he participates......

The owner of My Bar has extended our drinking special because he knows how much Chicagoist and its readers love to drink. Now $20 will get you all you can drink (beer and well drinks) from 9pm - midnight tonight. Come out and watch Chicagoist try not to make fools of ourselves (we tend to sing quite a lot when intoxicated, come out to point and laugh!). We'll also be announcing the winners of......

It's that time of year fondly known as "Spring Break" when the kids head to the tropical sandy beaches of... Chicago?! This year, our freezing city plays host to an alternative spring break for gay youth, ages 13 to 23. Events are jam-packed over the next two weeks, starting tonight at the Center on Halsted, Chicago's gay and lesbian community center. Throughout the festivities, five lucky Spring Breakers will participate in a MTV-style "Real World......

Most Chicagoans wouldn't know it, but Southern Illinois is leading the nation in judiciary politics. On Monday Gordon Maag, the loser of an intense race for supreme court in Southern Illinois against Lloyd Karmeier, filed a $110 million defamation suit charging that some of the groups opposing his candidacy lied about his record and ruined his reputation. Fans of Court TV know: Maag has got a tough case to make. And the great irony of......

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......

OK, we've got to rattle this one off quickly to be sure to reach you respectable people that wake up before 10:00 a.m. So moving right along, we'll give you a bit of information for the contests specific to Cook County on the ballot. For those seats that aren't contested, we recommend you write yourself in. After all, you do deserve it. When the rest of the citizenry is displaying their "I Voted" stickers with......

Chicagoist has been pouring over all of the local media sites trying to decide what we want to do this weekend to celebrate Halloween. There's so much going on. Last week we posted on some city-sponsored events and things going on at the big museums. This week we're trying to highlight other happenings around town. I'm sure we'll miss some, so feel free to add or make suggestions in the comments, but here are some......

Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., the world�s largest gum company, is suing GumRunners for patent infringement. GumRunners, based in New Jersey, produces Jolt Gum, a �caffeine-energy� gum that Wrigley claims infringes on its 2002 patent for caffeine-coated gum. Wrigley isn�t selling that gum, and it has stopped selling Stay Alert gum, which was caffeine-laced. But the lawsuit�s still on. Yeah, Wrigley, litigious, etc., but all this funky Willy Wonka-esque gum innovation is pretty awesome. Heart-burn relief......

Can anyone give Chicagoist a ride to Springfield? We really, really want to go to the Illinois state fair this weekend, if only to see the new and improved butter cow. Well, that and Clay Aiken. Eh, the cow, Clay, and "The Beast, A 150-foot-long exhibit... that lets visitors walk through the creature and see its heart and other innards." Aow, we love innards. We�ll pay for gas? This year�s theme is �Illinois�Start Your......