Sixteen years ago this Chicagoist contributor was sailing around Indonesia's Flores Sea on an oceanographic research vessel re-mapping shipping lanes that hadn't been charted since the original Portuguese and Dutch colonists claimed Indonesia for their respective monarchies 400 years prior. We originally met up with our ship in Darwin, Australia, where a carved-from-granite tattooed bartender/"Thunderdome" extra shoved a Victoria Bitter in our right hand and a XXXX bitter in our left, after we ordered a Foster's in our most lame Yahoo Serious-inspired accent. "Foster's is piss water, mate. Like Budweiser in the States," he said. Unknown to us then, that bartender set us on a path from which we haven't strayed. more ›

Major League Baseball announced its All Star rosters over the holiday weekend, and at least five Chicago players will be in Detroit for the game on July 12th. Representing the White Sox will be Paul Konerko, Jon Garland and Mark Buehrle. Konerko was a bit of a surprise, considering his .247 batting average. But it's kind of a make-up call for last year's snub when he was hitting close to .300 at the time. Garland and Buehrle clearly deserve their selections. In fact, one or the other is likely to be the starting AL pitcher for the game. Having already earned $15,000 bonuses for making the team, each have an additional $10,000 bonus riding on starting the game. more ›

It's the eve of the first meeting between the Cubs and the White Sox in 2005. For the players, it's an off day. But their fans are beginning to get riled up across the city. Debates, and probably fist fights, have fans of both teams disagreeing on the merits of their team vs. the other team. While the Sox are clearly the better team, reason played little part in these debates. And sometimes reason is... more ›