Programming Announcements: Need Blizzard Photos; Tweetup TONIGHT

By Chuck Sudo in Miscellaneous on Feb 1, 2011 7:40PM

The weather outside my home office at 1:15 p.m., Feb. 1, 2011. (Chuck Sudo/Chicagoist)

Hey, all. I know that this blizzard talk is some serious business right now, but we want to have some fun with it, all the same.

This morning I put out a call on the Chicagoist Twitter feed and Chicagoist Facebook page for blizzard-related photos so that we can run a couple of galleries separate from "Around Town." Specifically, we're looking for photographs of grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores, auto parts stores and the like where there's been a bum rush for supplies, foodstuffs, snow shovels, windshield wiper blades. Things that people would buy last-minute to wait out, or venture into, the coming weather. There's one lonesome photo right now in the site Flickr pool of what we're looking for; feel free to add any you may have. Photos of cars having problems in the snow or large drifts are always encouraged, as well.

The second announcement is we're going to hold an impromptu "Screw the Blizzard" tweetup this evening at the Beer Bistro (1061 W. Madison St., 312-433-0013) starting at 6 p.m. or whenever CTA's ability to negotiate this weather can get me there. Irish Bistro owner Bob McDermott has promised free bistro chips to "anyone who skis or tries to ride a board into the bar" today and tomorrow. Given the weather that's predicted to come, this can be either an epic success or a monumental failure. There's no gray area here.

To follow the tweetup or join in, we're gonna use the hashtags #blizzaster and/or #Tuesday. I'll be the fat guy in the Burl Ives sweater.