Mayor-elect Emanuel and Dan Sinker, author of the "@MayorEmanuel" twitter feed, finally had their face-to-face yesterday on WLS-AM's afternoon drive show with Roe Conn and Richard Roeper. In the process, Emanuel made good on his promise to donate $5,000 to the charity of Sinker's choice, Young Chicago Authors. Causes matched Emanuel's donation, while Conn and Roeper each contributed $1,000 each. Not a bad day for one of Sinker's favored charities. more ›

Two days after outing himself as the author of the MayorEmanuel twitter feed, Dan Sinker will be coming face to face with the man he emulated/parodied/"made fun with" this afternoon. more ›

EbertFest, the annual celebration of film and panels curated by renowned Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert, was held last week - Wednesday through Sunday - in Champaign. The fest included screenings of films small (Munyurangabo, Song Sung Blue), large (Apocalypse Now/Redux, Pink Floyd's The Wall), and local (Vincent: A Life in Color, about Vincent Falk). The fest included panels made up of filmmakers, actors, producers, critics, and writers, a smörgåsbord of film for the movie-lover. Friend of Chicagoist Sandra Kofler paid a visit to the fest and snapped some photos for us. more ›

• Roe Conn, of WLS 890 AM, will have a new partner starting April 12: Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper. The show will be called “The Roe Conn Show with Richard Roeper,” but Michael Damsky, president and general manager of WLS, told Robert Feder, “I anticipate that we’ll hear a lot of the shorthand ‘Roe and Roeper.’"
• Coming soon to all Chicago Police squad cars: tasers. Currently, there are 280 tasers in use by the CPD but only sergeants and field training officers are allowed to carry them; the expansion will add 380 more and every squad car assigned to a beat will receive one. CPD Supt. Jody Weis said, "It's a level of force that I want to authorize to use before the situation escalates. We want to use every other option before we use lethal force." Of course, as the Tribune points out, the announcement came shortly after a man died after being tasered by police in suburban Midlothian (though the official cause of death has not been determined).
• In happier news, Time Out Chicago has a great feature on Jeff Jenkins, lead local trainer of the Humane Society’s End Dogfighting campaign and the Pit Bull Training Team, and his battle to, well, end dogfighting.

• Prosecutors raised the amount that Chicago Police Sgt. John Pallohusky has been accused of stealing from the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association; previously listed as $600,000, it was increased to almost $1 million. Pallohusky faces charges of with felony theft and money laundering.
• The Washington Post is closing several bureaus, including the one here in Chicago, in an attempt to save money.
• The owner of a pair of Gary, Indiana casinos has filed for bankruptcy as he awaits a decision by the state about allowing casinos to be built on land.

"Well, we can’t change the world, so let’s just enjoy the good news: old, fun, dangerous playgrounds are not completely extinct." —#980: Old, Dangerous Playground Equipment [1000 Awesome Things] more ›

Richard Roeper and critic-we-actually-like Michael Phillips will be on the upcoming season of , which returns Sept 7. [Deadline Hollywood]
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Roger Ebert announced today that he too is leaving , which means that poor ampersandy bastard has to run the show all by himself; Richard Roeper already announced his departure. more ›

If you haven't figured it out by now, the Chicagoist offices have a "Top Chef" fever. How the makeup artists at Bravo make Gail Simmons (pictured) look not so Canadian, we'll never know. But we thank them. more ›

Todd Stroger, today is not your day. The panel he appointed to analyze Cook County healthcare announced today that an independent board should take over because the County has so royally fucked it up. Oh, and his tax plan ain't so hot either; the $4 per phone line is actually illegal. Two people were arrested for stealing vases from Chapel Hill Cemetery in Oakbrook Terrace. Loehmanns! On State Street! The old lady in all... more ›

We can be scatterbrained sometimes. There's just so much cool stuff going on all the time that it's easy to forget a few things now and then. And that's exactly what happened yesterday when we neglected to give a shout out to Mr. Roger Ebert, who celebrated his birthday. There's a soft spot in our collective heart for Mr. Ebert. Long ago we forgave him for his once-scathing reviews of David Lynch films; for one,... more ›

Torontoist immediately wins our heart by using the word "Jackass" in a headline. In fact, we love their use of it so much that we're going to use it as much as possible throughout this post. For example, it looks like there are Toronto-area jackasses besides those who misuse the sidewalk: look at the crap on sale on Toronto's craigslist. But it looks like Toronto doesn't contain the kind of jackasses who pee in public... more ›

Now in its fifth year, Columbia College’s Manifest Urban Arts Festival has grown larger than most of us could ever have imagined. Then again, it's run by arts students. Their imaginations are larger than most. We’re sure someone’s done a study to prove it. Manifest is an arts festival good enough to rival any summer street fair and a graduation party large enough to make students from more conventional schools jealous. We’ve already told you... more ›

With temps expected to hit the 70s on Thursday, it’s clear that spring is on the way. Of course, this means summer will be here in a matter of ... well, hours. And with summer comes the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival in Grant Park. more ›

While Chicago may not be the "First town" of the nation, the babbling rant from the New York Post's gossip columnist Cindy Adams was odd in general, hilarious at best. In a column reminiscent of, oh, the fight over the World's Fair of 1893, the more ›

Chicagoist may have had our disagreements with Richard Roeper in the past, but we're happy he didn't hold that against us when he chose his favorite local website. In the January 2006 issue of Today's Chicago Woman (available for free in newstands all over the city), Roeper chose to include Chicagoist as one of his favorite online reads. more ›

With Chicago being the number three market in the country, you’d expect that when Howard Stern departs Infinity for the greener ($$$) pastures of Sirius satellite radio, he’d be replaced here with a marquee name befitting the great radio history of Chicago. Or Adam Carolla. Instead, Infinity chose to go with…Rover. *crickets chirping* Allow us to explain why: Infinity is hoping that the Glen Ellyn-born Rover (whose real name, Shane French, sounds much cooler in... more ›

"Kill Your Idols" never rang so true. more ›

How far can you stretch an art form until it snaps under the stress? Is there such a thing as being “too indie?” The organizers of the Chicago Underground Film Festival are asking for your answers to these and other imponderables. Submissions for the fest in August the fest are being accepted now through June 1st. The entry fee is $35 or $30 if your entry is postmarked by May 1st. Check their site for full details. more ›

With all the Lollapalooza hullabaloo yesterday (the Sun-Times and the Trib pick up the story today), we missed the chance to put our two cents into an argument that Richard Roeper started. It’s an argument guaranteed to inflame any barroom in the city when you include just three little words: “...of all time.” more ›

The 5th annual Chicago Outdoor Film Festival kicks off tomorrow evening in Grant Park. For the next seven weeks, some of the classic films of all time will be shown under the stars on a huge 50� x 34� screen. more ›

Congratulations to the Chicago print media for finally mentioning one of Washington�s hottest stories, the unveiling of Washintonienne, D.C.�s biggest blogger and sexual activist, Jessica Cutler. �Sun-Times columnist and (usually) film reviewer Richard Roeper takes a break today from movies to tell Chicago how disgusted he is by Cutler�s behavior and heavily detailed sex acts � not to mention her taking money from older men post-coitus. more ›

Lately, Ebert's been telling people to see films like Spirited Away, All or Nothing, 13 Conversations About One Thing, Innocence, You Can Count on Me, The Son, and Owning Mahoney as well as well-made studio films (Minority Report, Master & Commander, and A Beautiful Mind). It's not about agreeing with him, or being angry with him after we see a movie he said was good but that we hated - it's about reading and understanding the things he likes and looks for in a film that can help us be better viewers. more ›