State Rep. Edward Acevedo (D-Chicago) is no stranger to the long green. As one of the chief sponsors of HB 429, the wine shipping bill that aims to bring Illinois in compliance with the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Granholm v. Heald by limiting the ways consumers can obtain wines, Acevedo received $7,500 in campaign contributions from the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois for carrying their water. Turns out that Acevedo is also the litigious... more ›

Thanks to wcityw for helping us get revved up for this weekend's amateur drinking night! more ›

Despite what some people think, we've lived here long enough to know when a cabbie is starting to give us the runaround. And now we just nip it in the bud. We call out the Lower Wacker route before they start to pull some other crap. We tell them to take Ashland instead of going all the way east to Lake Shore Drive. But there's one thing we have never been really strong on —... more ›

Chicago? Tall buildings. A lake. A river. Stadiums. Sports bars. 'L' tracks. All the elements, in the minds of producers, needed to make our city look like somewhere else. Earlier this week it was announced that the new TBS show "My Boys," which is set in not-really-Chicago, has been picked up for nine additional episodes. When we posted about it earlier, we opined that it's really not so successful with capturing the spirit of Chicago,... more ›

Because Chicagoist is tired this morning, and because despite what some people think, we can't get up every single morning and just magically bring the funny, we're going to piggyback off this Sun-Times piece about Chicago's "scariest" places so we can whore for comments. We'll give this the old college try and make a brief stab at trying to disguise it as media criticism anyway, because the piece is really no less lazy than what... more ›

We're always slightly terrified to drive down through Lower Wacker. No matter how fast we're going, it always feels too fast, or we worry that some delivery truck is going to pop out of a hidden ramp and bash into us. It's like a video game. Well add another obstacle to that: two blocks of the Amazing Chicago Underground Tunnel of Death near Madison Street were shut down overnight when a water main broke and flooded it. Chicagoist isn't sure how many of its readers regularly venture down into the bowels of the West Loop, but if you have to today, plan ahead. more ›

There’s very little left to be said about how batshit insane Sharon Stone has become. Luckily, there’s plenty to say about how batshit crazy the film Basic Instinct 2 was (and we use the past tense here quite purposely as it's clear its 10th place showing last weekend will have it in your local video store by the time you leave work on Friday). more ›

Back in the waning days of the late 1990s, Chicagoist’s college roommate came to visit us. Since he was a big "ER" fan (remember this was the late 90s when the show was still good), he demanded to see where “County General” was. We had to delicately break it to him that there was no such place though we did take him by its doppelganger, the old Cook County Hospital building. We further shattered his illusions by driving him past Michigan and Wacker to illustrate how George Clooney and Anthony Edwards would have been idiots to talk a walk down by the river during their breaks from saving lives. more ›

The Chicagoist Department of Motor Vehicles would like to take this opportunity to urge all citizens to please exercise caution when encountering vehicles belonging to superheroes. Resist the urge to accelerate quickly, pull to the right, and stop so as to allow the crime-fighting vehicle to pass safely. Otherwise, pretty-boy actors will mock you in nationally syndicated interviews. more ›

If you read Chicagoist with any regularity � in which case, we love you � you know that we're always reporting about Hollywood coming to Chi-town (or just pretending to come here). Most prominently, we've bitched about Josh Hartnett posing as a Bucktown hipster and fawned over the caped crusader chilling on Lower Wacker. (We always knew Wacker Drive felt like another world and now we know it is: Gotham City.) This week's New... more ›

We've been super addicted to the Batman buzz over at Superhero Hype, but today's buzz is extra special. The Batmobile is/was in town, and last night the movie filmed on Lower Wacker (where they've been filming for a few days). Some devoted Batman stalkers snapped a few choice shots, so take a few seconds and go get you geek on. more ›