Who knew there was a lucrative market in helping college students get laid? UChicago Hookups has expanded past Hyde Park, changing the website name to eduHookups and widening its reach to Northwestern and Columbia College Chicago. eduHookups is also set to make an Ivy League invasion by launching for Brown University April 4. more ›

The Internet age has been marked unprecedented access to mind boggling amounts of information. That access may used in service of the good, like tracking the influence of money in politics via opensecrets.org or slicing up census data in productive and enlightening ways. Or it can be used to answer immediately (via wikipedia) a trivia question that would never have bothered you if you hadn't just spent 20 minutes clicking on "related videos" in youtube. With great power comes great responsibility... and incredible timewasting potential. more ›

Everyblock, the website that takes hyperlocal news to its block-by-block conclusion, launched a full-on redesign. Founder Adrian Holovaty explains the methods to his madness in a blog post. more ›

Time Out Chicago Editor-in-Chief Frank Sennett recently used the "reading level" function on Google's "Advanced Search" page to determine the reading levels of Our Town's media websites. more ›

The Cabrini-Green housing projects are now part of history, but the lives and memories of hundreds of its former residents continue to bear witness. A few of them are captured most eloquently in a new interactive documentary, Out My Window. more ›

Former Tribune Metro reporter Dave Wischnowsky has created a website of odd Chicago and Illinois-related photographs and ephemera, Odd Chicago Photos. more ›

Launching today just in time to keep tabs of the Bulls annual road trip of woe is Bulls Fan Report. From the team of Andrew Hilsberg and Joel Reese behind the entertaining Cubs Fan Report, BFR follows that template to the letter, giving you all the latest news, analysis and minutiae about the Bulls. Sign up today. more ›

Metropulse Chicago, a joint effort of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and the Chicago Community Trust that serves as the lynch pin for their Regional Indicators Project, launched today. Metropulse intends to serve as an open source portal for media, government officials and concerned citizens interested in tracking the regional quality of life of the greater Chicago area. more ›

Today in "Rahm Watch 2K10-11" (anyone up for renaming it "Rahmadan?) the probable mayoral candidate got off to a fast start on his "listening tour," campaigning greeting commuters at the Roosevelt Road Orange/Green "L" station this morning. I took the train Orange Line into downtown this morning and have been kicking myself ever since for not exiting and trying to convince Emanuel into flipping me off with his half middle finger. He's looking for votes; I think he'd be game. Meanwhile, take a look at Emanuel's new website. Wouldn't doubt it if his campaign registered the domain with GoDaddy. more ›

Picture if you will two well-informed dining adventurers. Clad in their safari hats and clutching their Zagat guide - or, dressed in work clothes and clutching a Google map printout - they close in on their prey, their restaurant of choice for the evening. They venture into a strange neighborhood, eyes wide and scanning for an unfamiliar sign. There it is! They crow with victory. Approaching the door, their stomachs growl with anticipation. Inside, the restaurant is awash in inviting yellow light. They pull the handle. Nothing happens. They pull harder. Nothing happens. more ›

Congratulations to Rob Gardner and the folks at the Local Beet, who are celebrating their one-year anniversary removed from beta testing and are still the go-to guide for all foods and drink locally sourced. Gardner reflected on the past twelve months Monday, their 2010 CSA guide has just been released, and they were on top of it late last week with a roundup of new farmers markets popping up for the warm weather months. more ›

• Sky Full of Bacon's Mike Gebert offers up his Rules for Dining (inspired by/apologies to Michael Pollan) [SFoB]
• Chicago Eats TV launched this week, promising "hot and fresh videos about some of the most unique places around." So far their curioaity has taken them to Yak-Zies, Jake Melnick's, McGee's Tavern, Cans and Redhots and Fries. Way to take the road less traveled. [Chicagoeatstv.com]
• Bleeding Heart Bakery starts a bread co-op this Saturday with Polenta Asiago Roasted Garlic Bread. Orders must be received no later than 7 p.m. every Friday (order by calling 773-327-6934 or via e-mail) and will be ready for pickup 1 p.m. Sundays. And it's only $5 a loaf. [Inbox]

One aspect of the farm-to-table movement lacking from the Local Beet's coverage of all things localvore is a roundup of restaurants, grocers, bakeries and caterers. The Local Beet is more policy and example-driven, which is great for the home cook and farmers market enthusiast. For the localvore who's looking for a restaurant, however, there really isn't a one-stop guide. more ›

There's the kind of food pr0n that Stolpman and others embrace, with beautiful shots of carefully crafted dishes. I like to call that "culinary erotica." Then there's the food photography equivalent of Hustler's "Beaver Hunt," with a little bit of snuff film added, for good measure. more ›

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as... more ›

With such a proliferation of food- and cooking-focused blogs and web sites out there, some days it's all Chicagoist can do to get to a handful of them to keep up. However, as is the case with the industry itself, the more the merrier. So in the same way we're always stoked to find a new approach to duck breast, we're equally as happy to find a blog with a different twist. more ›

Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals more ›

Illinois state politics is a continuing marvel. Three powerful positions, three Democrats, no agreement, and the budget annually amplifies those differences. The Three Tops, (in order of appearance, above) House Speaker Mike Madigan, Governor Rod Blagojevich, and Senate President Emil Jones. Last year Madigan staked out the no taxes territory and hammered the governor with calls for paring down state spending. Meanwhile, Jones repeatedly called for increased education spending and the need for education... more ›

Governor Blagojevich officially launched the I-SaveRx prescription drug re-importation plan yesterday at a press conference. The plan allows consumers in Illinois and Wisconsin to enroll over the phone or at www.i-saverx.net and then compare pricing and buy drugs from a variety of state inspected and approved pharmacies in Canada, Ireland and the UK. Blagojevich has lobbied the FDA for a year for approval to import drugs from Canada, but has been denied. While in a sense I-SaveRx is quite an "eff you" to the FDA, Blagojevich mentioned that the FDA has not prosecuted states with web sites that connect citizens with pharmacies in Canada, which, in effect he says, gives his plan the go ahead. more ›