babbling blue

From two separate “30 Best Burgers in Chicago” lists, these are the places I want to try, in no particular order. Anything marked with an asterisk(*) appears on both lists; these places are top priority to try.

• Marc Burger* at Seven on State
• HotChocolate*
• Kuma’s Corner*
• Custom House
• Naha*
• David Burke’s Primehouse*
• Bull & Bear – I’ve had their Kobe beef sliders at a Yelp event, and they were amazing!
• The Capital Grille

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“We’ve done everything here. We’re leading the way with our inspector general, office of compliance, all the things we’ve done,” Daley said. “We’re more transparent than any other government. Look at it.”

“We’re doing a tremendous job here, we lead by example,” he said.

In a story last week, the Tribune documented how the Daley administration routinely cites exemptions in the state’s public records law to avoid releasing information and frequently drags out for weeks or even months efforts to get records.

Federal prosecutors convicted several top Daley aides for running an illegal hiring scheme, and a federal monitor has complained the city still is not complying with court requirements to keep politics out of hiring.

(Chicago Tribune blog)

Does he really believe the nonsense he spews, or is he just that deluded? I can’t tell.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. All hail King Richard II, King of Chicago!

No, this isn’t a post about underwear… I’m too lazy to write full-blown blog entries, so I’m just posting some brief snippets of things that I find interesting right now.

• Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, the second one in a row.
• The day after is Pi Day! I plan to celebrate by eating pie. Maybe I’ll even calculate the circumference and area of the pie before I eat it! What are your plans?
• I haven’t really seen Peanut Butter Twix–which was one of my favorites–in a long time. Apparently they were discontinued for awhile, but were brought back briefly and then were discontinued again. Anyway, I was excited to see a commercial for Twix PB. This candy is like Peanut Butter Twix, but with a chocolate cookie part instead of the vanilla cookie in the original. It appears that Twix PB was introduced in 2007, yet I don’t remember ever seeing one. What’s up with that? Of course this “new” candy is getting mixed reviews, so I’ll have to try to find one to taste it for myself.
• The Sears Tower is going to be renamed. The fuck? Hell no, we won’t go (along with that bullshit)! OK so Sears hasn’t had any offices in the building for a long time, and lost naming rights a few years ago. I don’t care. I don’t even associate the Tower with the stupid stores. The Sears Tower is an icon. You don’t rename a mother-fucking icon (nor paint it silver)! I will not call it by its new name, Willis Tower. The name was given away to a British insurance company who will be occupying a relatively small amount of space in the building (though it will be the largest new tenant since 2001). I guess management really is desperate for tenants.
• I’m sick of fucking winter weather!

Thank you, that is all.

Multiple blog posts in one day? Goodness gracious!

Most Chicagoans will hear about this sooner or later, but for my vast nationwide audience…

A 14 year old boy was arrested over the weekend for impersonating a police officer. That’s not the incredible part. . . what’s incredible is that he showed up at a police station and reported for duty. They assigned him a locker and put him out on patrol with a real officer.

The boy, who has been charged as a juvenile for impersonating an officer, walked into the Grand Crossing District station, 7040 S. Cottage Grove Ave., dressed in a Chicago police uniform, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. The boy, who reported for duty about 1:30 p.m., partnered with another police officer for about five hours.

source: Chicago Tribune

The police spokesperson (whom I mistrust from her days as the mouthpiece of my archnemesis, the CTA) claimed he “did not write tickets” and there was “no information to indicate that he [was] ever behind the wheel.” However, a CPD blogger’s report conflicts with that statement:

He signs out a radio and jumps in with the female officer and away they go. They handle a traffic accident and when she realizes he doesn’t have a ticket book they go back into the station and he signs one out.

Away they go again. This time he asks if he can drive and she lets him. They write a few tickets and finish their tour.

Ah, Chicago. Gotta love it.