Chicagoist would like to add several more people to our staff to fill in some gaps in coverage and make the site even better. more ›

Saying he can hold his head high at his career as a police officer, Joseph Finnigan was sentenced to 12 years in prison today. more ›

Lee Bey looks at the ghost town that is Evergreen Plaza. more ›

Who needs a drink after this year's primaries? Don't worry, with both Mardi Gras and Super Tuesday today, there's plenty going on around town where you can get your drink on, and watch the election returns. more ›

The Chicagoist offices were abuzz on Tuesday with word of pre-sale ticket acquisitions for a reunion tour 20 years in the making, taking place at a Chicago ballpark. more ›

Chicagoist loves television. Chicagoist loves all television. There are no prejudices here; we watch an episode of "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency" with the same reverence as we watch "24." We’re rooting for Rob and Ambah as much as we’re rooting for Chris Sligh. We’re looking forward to "America’s Next Top Model" as much as we’re looking forward to answers on "Lost." more ›

Yesterday, Chicagoist took a trip over to the Tower Records downtown, where it’s all over but the shoutin’. If you wanted to own the complete Tony Orlando and Dawn series on 3 DVDs for less than twenty bucks, you were in luck. Other than that, finding recognizable artists in the dregs was a challenge (we managed to pick up recent releases from Cougars and Damone but nothing else held any appeal). It was pretty obvious... more ›

Remember all those articles from several years ago about women who were “doing it all”? Bringing home the bacon and frying it up for hubby and the babes? more ›

The Chicagoist offices were abuzz yesterday with the petition that Illinois' senior senator, Dick Durbin e-mailed to his supporters, urging Barack Obama to run for President in 2008. Although Durbin's press secretary was unavailable for comment when we contacted his office, CBS 2 scored an interview with Durbin, and he pretty much denied any coordination with Obama & Co. on this, claiming "I didn't tell him in advance I was gonna do it." Obama's press... more ›

With the holiday season fast approaching we have noticed our organized and more responsible friends becoming busier and busier. We like to avoid the hubbub and we are guessing you do too. It is time to get out in that weather we love so much. As always, feel free to add more events in the comments section. more ›

Just a quick admin note: You may have noticed, but we wanted to let you know anyway: The Chicagoist staff has been working our asses off and rockin' out lately. We've been putting out 15-20 posts every weekday and about 4-7 each weekend day. That's right. We're not taking the weekends off any more, so be sure to check in on to see what's happenin'! Also, because we're publishing so many posts during the weekdays and only 10 posts are listed on the main page, scroll down, and press "Next" to see all of the day's posts and get in on the conversations. more ›

The Chicagoist offices are alive with the sounds of schadenfreude as we turn our attention to television’s biggest losers. The first bit of news that had us chortling with glee was the mercy killing of that ersatz-Chicago Fox sitcom “Happy Hour,” which we ranted about last week and has been cancelled. Technically it’s only been put on “hiatus,” so it’s more life support than euthanasia. But we all know what that means. It’s the approximate... more ›

Today's RedEye feature story reports that Americans spend almost two hours a day at work goofing off. A big part of this slack time is wasted on the internet -- checking personal email, IM, shopping, updating fantasy sports teams, and reading crap like Chicagoist. Based on hourly rates, that's $500 billion lost in productivity. There seems to be a story like this every few months, but we'll bite anyway and contribute to the efficiency drain. more ›

This morning the Trib’s Eric Zorn discusses what he calls the beginning of “to help my school season.” Now’s the time of year when young kids start going door-to-door selling wrapping paper, candy, etc. to raise money for their schools. While he supports the idea of giving kids some idea of what it’s like to earn money, he avoids putting the guilt on his co-workers or neighbors but hopes anyone selling Girl Scout Cookies stops at his house twice. more ›

As Pitchfork looms on the horizon with Lolla not far behind, we’re getting more and more e-mails from folks wanting to know what there is to do in the city if you’re a non-Dockers-wearing tourist. So we figured it was about time to make some updates to Act Like You’ve Been Here Before: The Chicagoist Guide To Chicago (PDF link). The Guide has doubled in sized thanks to several new additions (sadly, none of them... more ›

Recently, music geeks and fans of funny shit on the Internet were saddened to hear that Channel 101’s Yacht Rock series had come to an end. Over the past year, the show quasi-fictionally chronicled the lives of artists like Michael McDonald, Hall and Oates, Toto and Christopher Cross. They ruled the FM airwaves in the 70s and 80s with an iron fist, wrapped in a velvet glove. more ›

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos. There's this trick where you can read information from... more ›

People are constantly emailling us asking "Hey, Chicagoist, I'm going to be in town next week. What's a good place to grab a drink and some grub?" Or "Hey, Chicagoist, I've got an hour to kill between sessions at my conference next week. Can you tell me something I could do in the Loop?" Lately these emails have been more like "Hey, Chicagoist, I'm going to be in town for Intonation/Pitchfork/Lolla. Can you give me some tips about where to drink/eat/shop/take in the sights?" more ›

(Editor’s Note: Are you an out-of-towner preparing to make the trek to Chicago this summer and wondering how to spend your time? Then download Act Like You've Been Here Before: The Chicagoist Guide To Chicago, a compendium of the Chicagoist staff’s tips for getting around Chicago and our favorite places in the city to eat, drink, shop and rock) in convenient PDF form. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the lion’s share of the press about... more ›

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Chicagoist is giving away two more weekend passes to Intonation, but this time you’re going to have to work for it. Even though some people broke the rules and uttered The Words That Must Never Be Spoken in comments, we decided to give away two more passes anyway. Because we love you. What intrigued us most about the last giveaway was that a couple of you believed you should be awarded the passes as a... more ›

This is a public service announcement reminding Chicagoist readers that there are few better ways to prepare for Halloween than putting yourself in the zombie's shoes. "How can I do that?" you ask. Good question. more ›

The Chicagoist Arts and Entertainment department has been suffering from a month long movie news drought that officially ends this week. more ›

The Chicagoist Prize Closet has been awfully bare as of late so we were thrilled when the folks at V2 Records offered up a pair of tickets to this Saturday’s Brendan Benson show at Metro with Robbers on High Street opening. Both groups are looking to build on recent good press thanks to some high-profile gigs. Benson last visited Chicago in April on the heels of his album The Alternative To Love. Since then he’s... more ›

Believe it or not, some people actually seem to get off on tragedies such as last week's London transit bombings. While the rest of us try to go about our day-to-day lives, mourning with our English counterparts and nervously eyeing bag-toting passengers near us on the L, a select few bastards out there use these unfortunate events as an opportunity to spread even more fear. What fun! Early yesterday morning, authorities shut down the CTA... more ›

Tickets go on sale at 10 AM this morning for Neil Diamond’s August 1st show at the United Center. Of course, alertChicagoist readers have already had their first crack at tickets for Neil’s first world tour in four years in The Chicagoist Neil Diamond Contest. We’re giving away three pairs of tickets to three lucky winners. Tickets for this show are expected to sell out so save yourself the trouble of standing in line and check out our contest page instead for your chance to win. more ›

When Chicagoist was growing up our musical influences were not, shall we say, diverse. Before we learned to use the buttons on the radio, they consisted of classic country (Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash) and the local oldies station. We eventually expanded our musical tastes, but when certain artists become the bedrock upon which you form the rest of your musical experience, you never really get past them. Our heart still melts when we hear naked emotion accompanied by acoustic guitar and we still thrill to a good three-minute pop song. more ›

Movie accounting practices are clear as mud in the best of circumstances but mix in the mob and thinks get decidedly murkier. Yesterday’s Movie Answer Man column tackled the nerdiest aspect of the movie Deep Throat: the math. Specifically, did the movie really make $600 million? Ebert says signs point to no (plus, it gives us another chance to mention that The Chicagoist Inside Deep Throat Contest ends tonight at midnight. Click the link for more details). more ›

“Admission is free.” more ›

We’re a little behind the curve on this one but we needed to wait until a few more details fell into place before we announced...The Chicagoist Inside Deep Throat Contest! The distributors of Inside Deep Throat (playing this weekend at the Three Penny) sent some movie swag to the Chicagoist offices a few weeks ago. Initially, there was a big throwdown over who should get to take the stuff home with them. Just as a... more ›