Rich Mohr creates a chilling yet cool tribute to Heath Ledger's Joker Even if he's truly reformed, hiring Wallace "Gator" Bradley as a paid consultant could backfire for Judge Michael Hyman, who's running for election. Aldermen, real estate, lobbyists : lather, rinse, repeat. It's not chocolate: a new drug that helps women quit smoking. Starting next fall, high school athletes will be subject to random testing for steroids. The new buzzword of the moment......

Everyone knows Bratz dolls cause cancer of the AIDS. But Jammin' Jenna dolls, a slightly softer-seeming knock-off from Ty, are also poisonous. Her vinyl shoes contain an amount of lead that's illegal in Illinois, but Ty refuses to recall the toys, saying they'll stop selling new dolls to Illinois distributors but won't pull the dolls already on shelves. We guess we're not that surprised by a business wanting to sell its (dangerous) wares. But the......

Grapevines, like everything else in nature, have a limited life span. The older a vine becomes, the less fruit it produces. But the fruit that these vines yield is bursting with flavor and character that like fruit from younger vines lack. It takes a patient winemaker to make a quality wine from this fruit. The Gnarly Head vineyard in Lodi, California is highly regarded for the quality of their old vine zinfandel. Before trellising......

If Fox & Obel's new owners have their way, you'll be seeing a lot more of the gourmet markets throughout the city in the near future. The Sun-Times reports that Vulpes LLC, an investment group, bought out Fox & Obel and is earmarking an aggressive expansion campaign. Vulpes is headed by Bill Bolton, who has experience running Jewel-Osco and its parent company Supervalu. If Mr. Bolton is open for location suggestions, there's an recently closed......

Nothing screams nostalgia like advertising. It's not entirely clear why the commercials from our youth take us back the way that few other things can, but that "588-2300" animation (without the "1-800" tacked onto it) combined with a Charlie Brown-sized Christmas tree makes us all fuzzy inside for the 80s. After the jump: Cheap holiday chow from Jewel, the aforementioned Empire ad (featuring absolutely no computerized carpet guys!), a Chicago auto-dealer ad, spots for stores......

Last year, perhaps a little earlier, we gave you a quick run-down of where you could buy yourself a turkey and at what cost. We felt that it would be nice of us to do that again for you ... not to mention the fact that we haven't had time to get a turkey for ourselves. So, without further ado, a decidedly skewed to the north side turkey roundup. Dominick's located at 6009 N Broadway......

The dog days of August are here. And we've got some ways to beat the humidity or, even better, give it a big ol' raspberry. We've also got some food news for you. Let's get started. - From Crain's, Jon Young and Helene Albert, the folks behind Kitsch'n and Volo have a new gastropub opening later this month. The two-story Paramount Room at 415 N. Milwaukee in River West will center on pairing upscale pub......

- BREAKING: The Tribune and Sun-Times agree to a historic distribution deal where the Bright One contracts the Tribune to handle most of its delivery. More on this tomorrow after we've had time to let this one sink in. - A Dallas real estate investment firm is thisclose to signing off on an $850 million deal for four downtown office buildings, including 440 S. LaSalle, aka One Financial Place. - United Airlines files lawsuits......

Hold your tongues and stay away from the keyboard. Yes, we here at Chicagoist have levied more than our share of criticisms at Whole Foods. We're also familiar with the taste of crow, and have to give them credit where credit is due. When it comes to mission statements and core philosophy, Whole Foods walks the walk. We were joined by our markets writer Lisa Shames and primary food news writer Laura Oppenheimer Monday night......

The Mayor's Office and the Office of Inspector General have differing opinions on who should monitor city hiring practices. A newly signed deal ensures Illinois is Pepsi country for the next ten years. Albertson's, the parent company that owns Jewel Food stores, is one of the supermarket companies involved in the recall of botulism-tainted French-cut green beans. When the statewide indoor smoking ban goes into effect in January, the "cigar-at-a-steakhouse" dudes might have to......

Parents, we know it’s happened to you: you’re in the middle of running errands when your kid begins screaming, and you realize you’re starving, too. Where do you and your little one go for cheap, fast food at lunchtime that actually tastes good? Head out to Art of Pizza on Ashland Avenue! For $3 (tax included), you can buy a slice of pizza almost as big as your head, in your choice of thin crust,......

The annual Pride Parade roared through the streets of Lakeview this afternoon. Through its 38 years, the parade has become more corporate and mainstream. Channels 2, 5, 7, and 9 had a presence, as did every major bank in the city, Jewel, Whole Foods, Pepsico, AT&T, and many other corporations. Former NBA star John Amaechi, the first NBA player to come out as a gay man, welcomed the crowd as the parade’s grand marshall. A......

Humor us. Let's say - and this is purely hypothetical - that you were on the wrong side of the law. What lengths would you go to to relieve your targets of their hard-earned money? You could take the impersonal approach with a bank robbery or armored truck jacking. Or you could go hands-on, forcefully coercing individuals to give up whatever cash is on their person or in their back account. Now supposed you were......

On a rainy night last month, Chicagoist and a friend headed to Café Bionda, which is a perfect place for waiting out overcast skies. We split a 22-ounce, French cut, bone-in ribeye from Allen Brothers, served with sauteed vegetables, bleu cheese and a balsamic demi-glace. It tasted just as good as it sounded. We talked incessantly about that steak for the next week, to the point where some Chicagoistas could finish the story from......

Chicagoist is always interested in finding the newest ways to consume caffeine (one of the major food groups in our current diet). We grabbed a box of the new Diet Coke Plus(DCP) at Jewel this weekend and figured it was worth a try. Diet Coke (the regular kind) is a staple for us, and we figured that the new vitamin- and mineral-infused version could only be an added benefit. How wrong we were. From what......

This election has been one of the most significant in recent memory. With seven new aldermen set to take office in May, including the wife of Jesse Jackson Jr. in the 7th Ward, the stage is set for a new power struggle in Chicago. This year, more than any other, saw the city's labor movement — especially the service-sector unions — flex their political muscle. The result? A record-low turnout in the mayoral vote, and......

Chicagoist was taking an excursion down North Avenue this weekend, when we decided to stop and buy some groceries at what looked to be a standard Cub Foods. Upon closer inspection (a.k.a. actually reading the sign) we discovered it was not a Cub Foods. What was it? Though the "Foods" part of the "Cub Foods" name was still on the side of the building, a new set of lettering also read Grand Mart. Ans......

How 'bout that weather, Chicago? OK, we'll shut up now. A armed 19-year-old man holed himself up in his mother's apartment overnight with four hostages, but let them go without incident Sunday morning. Police responded to reports of a man with a gun at a four-unit building in the South Shore neighborhood around 1 a.m. The man in question gained access to his mother's place and locked himself in with three of his siblings, two......

Disgusted by conditions he found a few years ago at a facility that boards dogs, License Committee Chairman Eugene Schulter (47th) is advancing a crackdown on grooming, boarding, doggie day care and guard dog facilities. He would like them all to be licensed and subject to strict operating standards. For only $6 you can have your very own brainy and beautiful University of Illinois "Girls of Engineering" pinup calendar. Hey Motorola, KISS! 173 Jewel......

Cold and crime and Bears, oh my! Three teenagers were killed and another injured in a fatal car accident on the West Side early Sunday morning. A 2007 Pontiac Grand Prix carrying the four slammed into a CTA support at a high rate of speed near the Cicero Green Line stop (the Trib says Blue Line, but considering the info provided, that doesn't add up). Two of the passengers were thrown from the car. The......

Dominick’s announced on Friday that they will be shutting 14 stores in the area, leaving approximately 600 people without work. The grocery store, owned by Safeway, is not necessarily cutting back. They indicated they are cutting the stores that aren't performing in the hopes that it will boost their efforts for expansion. According to Crain’s, the company has closed nearly 20 stores in the past five years. Jewel Osco, on the other hand, is in......

Some wine grapes are grown in yields so small that they're either largely ignored by vintners or replaced by more popular varietals. Such seemed to be the case with viognier (vee-on-yay). As recently as 1965 this grape, whose existence can be traced back to Roman times, saw growth in only eight hectares of farmland in France's northern Rhône region, where viognier is the single permitted grape varietal of the Condrieu and Château-Grillet appellations. French vineyards......

It looks like 200-ish Starbucks locations in the Chicago area may have been a bit too much. For one reason or another (the company hasn’t given one yet) the coffee-slinging conglomerate announced the other day that it will be closing the 13 cafes it operates in local Jewel grocery stores. Seeing as how we will only peruse the cereal aisle with a double shot and piece of marble cake in hand, we’re not sure what......

Remember to crack a window. You don't want to die from inhaling Liquid Plumr fumes, like this guy. The Bulls are teaming up with WFP to feed hungry schoolchildren in Darfur, Sudan, with a $100,000 donation. Chicago Symphony Orchestra donated $60k worth of musical instruments to Chicago Public Schools. Jewel is closing Starbucks' in-store cafes and Dominick’s is adding them. Rivalfish shows how terribly white they are by trying to put together a remix......

We came home from work Friday night with a simple plan: order in from Phil's Pizza, crack open a beer, and veg out watching some DVDs while the dog curled in front of the fireplace. And the plan was unfolding effortlessly. Phil's had the pizza delivered in under an hour, the fireplace was roaring so strong Emmy wasn't begging for pizza, Val Lewton's "Cat People" was queued in the DVD player. And as soon......

Chicagoist loves stories of mischief and mayhem, bizarre crimes and the like, but they tend to follow a script. For instance, when a 32-year-old man punches a 63-year-old man walking with a cane, it's usually the younger fellow who gets in trouble. But most of the time the older gentleman hasn't just slashed 18 sets of tires with a pocketknife. The knife-wielding senior in question, Robert Evans of Niles, was upset at being out of......

The political season is over for most of the country. Hell, it's over for most of the media, and all the other people that sit around and watch it like "Monday Night Football." For the next month and a half, most of us will be thinking about eggnog, latkes, Wild Turkey with grandma, and how to pick up that cashier at Jewel with the intriguing accent. But if there's one group of people that are......

All that super security at the airport is supposed to make us feel safer, right? We mean, you didn't throw out your bottles of hot sauce and whiskey for nothing. It may be a hassle, but knowing that trained professionals are scouring every inch of every plane and passenger with bomb-sniffing dogs and high-tech detection equipment is worth the extra time in the security line, assuming of course, that said highly-trained professionals are actually doing......

Chicagoist found this bizarre video today: Yes, yes, the video is juvenile, disjointed, mildly delusional, and most likely from someone that has no affiliation whatsoever to the fellow that is challenging 46th Ward Alderman Helen Shiller this winter. But if you add it up with some other tidbits, you can see that Shiller is going to have to run a campaign this year to hold on to her office. Besides this bit of weirdness, there......

Here's a nice little wrapup to all of the assorted robberies, shootings, fires, car crashes and drug busts that happened this weekend: A woman in a Jeep slammed into a semi truck parked on the shoulder of the Edens Friday night. Nancy L. Nunez crashed into the rear of the parked semi around 8:40 p.m., starting her car ablaze. Rescue crews had to drag the charred Jeep out from underneath the truck; the driver was......