Nostalgialicious

• In a Huge major shocking upset, Da Mare wins again. But seriously, he could be convicted of armed robbery and still get elected, right? Because we all love The Bean. [SunTimes]


• The Reader looks back at coverage of our Beloved Barrack dating waaaay back to 1995. Our favorite part is his being given advice to put his creamy caramel face on all campaign materials "so people don't see your name and think you're some big dark guy". Oh, the old days. [ChicagoReader]


• And just to be fair, here's a look back at Hillary back when she was a preppy know-it-all Republican teen in Park Ridge, all straight A's and bobbysocks. "They didn't drink. Or smoke. Or stay out late. Or have sex." We like Barrack's stories better. [ChicagoMag]


• Get yourself an alibi, you cheating lying jerkstore. For cheap too! [Chicagoist]


• Marshall Field's loss is Neiman and Nordstroms gain. Macy's is still universally detested, and no one shops at Saks. [ChiTrib]

BYODouche

• I always forget douche-rock band Fall Out Boy is from Chicagoland. That makes me hate them less, but I still have issue with Pete Wentz. Is he hot in that lame bad boy way, or not hot in that lame bad boy way? Sigh... I'll have to google up that picture of his wang again to decide... [ChicagoMag]


• $1.2 million raised for lung cancer by those willing to Climb the Cock. Kudos, suckers. [CBS2]


• Teyonda Wertz demaded some Human Servicing from her employee Carlos Estes at the Drury Inn while on a state business trip. Related- is there anything creepier and less sexy than silk pajamas? Oh right, the Drury Inn. Shudder. [SunTimes]


• If you're really bored today, I suppose you could vote. Or just plop on the couch and watch a Law and Order Marathon. Either way. [ChiTrib]


• BYOB- it's one of so many things that make us better than NYC. Wait, they have it too? Well, they don't have Tango Sur. [TOC]

Just Like a Mini-mall

From Entertainment Correspondent Miss Banyay comes this piece of small market commercial genius made famous by YouTube. Peter Francis Geraci and Harlem Furniture need to take notes.

Morning Linkage

• In a very sad case a dog was electrocuted walking through Grant Park. The horrible, sad, hilarious twist? The dogs name was Smokey. [ChicagoTribune]


• We might be getting a new expressway, It would form a ring connecting the Kennedy, Dan Ryan (I thought they were the same road?), and TriState. No snark on this one, I think it sounds like kind of a good idea. Though I do imagine it will be dubbed "the circle of death" after the first big snowstorm pile up. [Chicagoist]


• Cubs sign Zambrano to a one year, $12.4 million deal. They will still suck. [SunTimes]


• Carsons closes, Lord & Taylor and Macy's to follow. The good news? A little bird told me that the word on the street is that there might possibly be a Target going in WaterTower. Sounds crazy... Crazy awesome! [CBS]


• Ciao Chief Illiniwek. Drunken U of I frat boys will have to learn a new dance. [NBC5]


• The 815 area code nightmare has begun. If you don't hear from your parents and grandparents for awhile, it's because they can't figure out how to dial out. [WREX Rockford]

OMFG Ya'll!

Heeeeeey ya'll! It's me, Britney! What. is. UP yaaaaaaall?! I just wanted to let ya'll know that you won't be seeing this Big Bad Bald Biotch for a lil while. See I gots to go get the treatment, to get off the Wild Turkey and nose-candy. It has been a crazy ride these past couple months ya'll. Do you mind if I smoke? See, it all started when I kicked Kevkev out. At first I was SO excited ya'll. I mean, I hadn't had a moment to just be Britney for such a long time ya'll! And at first it was So Fuuun. My manger Larry Rudy took me back, and we went ice skating in Rockafella Place and went shopping at the Gap and I got to eat with silverware and he took me to get my hairs cut. It was so nice. Then me and Paris started hanging out, and everyone loves her for being a pantyless slut, so I thought that you would all love me for baring my bukiluki, but you didn't yall. Ya'll laughed at me. And those laughs hurt. Paris wouldn't take my calls and Sean Preston and Braden or Jaden or Sutton or whatever I named him wouldn't stop crying and JUSTIN BROKE UP WITH THE AMAZON SKANK BUT STILL WON'T TAKE ME BACK AND WE ALL GO A LITTLE CRAZY SOMETIMES, YA KNOW!? Sorry. Anyway, ya'll didn't love me, but the pills and booze did. For a little while. But today I put on a green wig and tried to leave the house to buy Kools and tequilla, and Mama blocked the door and told me I have to get clean or she'll give my kids to Jamie Lynn. And I said I don't think she can do that, but I was so tired I laid down to take a nap, and next thing I know I'm in PromiseLand or something. So, I'm just gonna relax and let my hair grow back, and I'll see ya'll in 28! Have fun with the Anna Nicole Smith thing!

Britney loses mind/hair

This really has been the quickest public downward spiral ever. I guess her stock started to drop the fuck off around 2003 when she stopped brushing her hair and started walking into gas station bathrooms sans footwear, but she seemed to be at least maintaining until a couple weeks ago. I guess what goes around really does come around, and then it makes you lose your mind and shave your head. Or something like that.

[PerezHilton, who is pretty much updating this non-stop]

Happy Singles Awareness Day!

Oh Feb. 14th, how I miss the innocent days when I looked forward to you as a fun grade-school holiday, filled with candy, My Little Pony cards and class-interupting craft projects. But alas, those days are gone and now this day is one of contempt. Well not really, more annoyance, and I dislike any holiday that requires people to feel or plan something. You'd think this would be easier as a single person, but unfortunately we poor solitary singles are forced to plan an alternative evening, one that highlights that how we are really not pathetic but rather Fabulous and look just how Amazing we are! Delicious fancy dinners with a group of girlfriends, getting shit-faced and finding a random V-day companion at Hye Bar, having friends over for a mani-pedi and "Fatal Attraction"viewing, all these activites only serve to acknowledge the very Hallmark-holiday they are organized to give the big Fuck You to. So, I am planning an alternative alternate. From this post on, I am completely ignorant of the fact that today is anything other than Wednesday. I suggest, unless you really like Glenn Close or one night stands, which I suspect you might, that you do the same. Who put a freaking holiday in February anyway? We should all be hibernating right now.

Snow Day

Congrats on choosing the best career, teachers. Seriously, kudos on that. Besides only having to work around 83 actually days a year (71 on strike years) you may be the only adults with unexpected *bonus* vaca days. So while the rest of us are out shuffling around today, trying to get to work on impassable pile-up prone expressways or slushy crowded public transportation, you all get to curl back up into a happy little ball warm in your comfy beds.

Excuse me, I have to go google 'masters in education'... I just may be willing to teach your germ infested little bastard if it means Adult Snow Days...

Afternooner

• Have I mentioned how much I love the Gawker Subway Smell Map? Well, I do. [Gawker]


• I had no idea Barrack is a smoker. What a bad boy! Yeah, I really do find him even more attractive now. [CBS]


• Chicago magazine suggests giving your booty call a last minute getaway. I suggest a cock ring and a bottle of jack. You make the choice. [ChicagoMag]


• The least scary movie villians ever. I was such a wussy child the witch in "The Last Unicorn" terrified me. [thephatphree]


• Vote for a felon! Only in Chicago. [SunTimes]

American Idolfreude

scha·den·freu·de [shahd-n-froi-duh]
–noun
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune

We lack an English word for Schadenfreude, literally in German 'harm joy', but the delicious tingling pleasure of seeing anothers misfortune has managed to become to the 00s what apathy was to the 90s. What is it about seeing another person suffering and making an ass of themself that gets us so hot and bothered? Does seeing other people fail make us feel better about our own lack of talent, style and physical attractiveness? We love it when celebrities get busted, politicians get caught, and the rich go bankrupt, but we also love seeing regular people get taken down a peg.

The American Idol auditions that have been airing 68 hours a week on Fox are a prime example of our national schadenfeudic obsession. Why watch someone with a terrible voice attempt to belt out a Christina Aguilera song and then get ridiculed by psudo-celebrity judges? For the humor of it, and to enjoy the fact that you might be a talentless slob, but at least you're not making a fool of yourself on national television. And aren't the contestants just asking for it, knowing that they aren't going to be taken to Hollywood but desperate for their 15 minutes of fame in whatever form they can get it. Makes you long for the days when you could watch contestants dry-heave from eating pig testicles on Fear Factor.

A case of the Mondays

• Did you hear? We didn't win the Superbowl. And it's either Rexy's fault, or it isn't. [Chicago Tribune has some limited coverage]
• Wondering what happens to all those Bears Superbowl Champions t-shirts? Well, that slap in the face is on it's way to Nigeria or Haiti right now. [Chicagoist]
  
• Do NOT go outside! Don't do it man! It hurts so bad out there! [SunTimes]
• Really, just don't venture outside until Friday, when the MusicBox is showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show just in time for Valentine's Day. [MidnightMadness]
• Headline of the Week: "Fiery objects fall from sky". That, along with the KFed commercial being perhaps one of the best, means that the apocalypse is nigh [ChicagoTribune]
  

Nightlife Review: Republic & Underground

Nightlife Correspondent Shadestein stays up late and downs copious amounts of Redbull to find out what's worth checking out, and what should really be in Arlington Heights.

I don't know how fair of a review this will be as I only stayed for 8 minutes and ½ of a vodka redbull, but that time and partial drink was all I need to determine I would never return to Republic – Chicago's newest "ultra lounge"

Thursday night was the preview/friends and family/invite only party at Republic. Having been to these sort of events in the past, I was looking forward to the night as the crowd is usually top notch at theses parties before the general public is allowed in. HOWEVER, the general public would have been better than Schaumburg-esque, suburban, 19 year old, straight off the Metra, 1999 club spiked hair crowd that was waiting on line to get in. Clearly I don't wait on lines, so after giving about 42 dirty looks to the little kids on line, we walked up to the front, handed our passes over and then faced the BBBB (big bad black bouncer) who took his job of IDing everyone more seriously than anyone else I have ever seen. He literally held our IDs up to our faces for at least a minute each. After 30 seconds, I said "dude, I'm double the age of all the morons in line, let's move this along" He did.

The place itself looks nice. I saw it empty the night before and there was potential. There's a smallish room when you first walk in and it opens up into a giant second room. If you are in the first room, you get to hear a nice mix of the music from both rooms blending into each other. There's nothing like having a conversation whilst hearing a DJ Sammy song from 2001 mixed in with Lil John. I mean if it was an intentional "mash up" it might get creativity points, but this is strictly due to a bad set-up. Anyway, we moved into the main room, with our drink – there are a few bottle service tables surrounding the dance floor. This is the type of place where I'd laugh at anyone getting a table, buying a bottle(s), or for that matter committing more than a half hour to the place. It's not a place to see and be seen, it's a place to see and get the fuck out.

Pros: Its cool looking when it's empty. The bathrooms have nice stalls
Cons: Crowd, drinks in plastic cups, music, BBBB.

Anyway, after the 8 minutes were up, we left and went to Underground which although is more like a Disney theme-bar disguised as a cool club, is pretty much the only place to go in Chicago right now. We did swing by RiNo for a few minutes, and that place is OvEr Bring on Martini Park. Or, bring me a flight back to Miami.

T.G.I.F.-What a totally great restaurant that is.

• Punxsutawne Phil so totally comes through for us. What a great little guy. [CNN]

• More a crabby QB than a punky one, Sexy Rexy starts to lose his shit over the Superbowl media onslaught. [ChicagoTribune]
• Having finally scrolled through all the very important Bears related news, we finally found the um.. less pertinent news. There was a pipe bomb in the Loop. Stuff like that. [SunTimes]
• The best chicken wings of Chicago. We're Yak-zies people over at SCK. [Citysearch]
• Bears couture. Yeah, pretty much what we thought it would look like. Where the fuck is Tim Gunn when you need him? [More SunTimes. They are killing in Bears coverage]
  

It's almost, but not quite, Friday

• Hipsters have been going crazy for David Lynch's latest film, now playing at the MusicBox. They have been going as far as to wait in line. Outside. In the cold, with only their sense of superiority to keep them warm. I'd go see it, but I don't wait in line with hipsters. [MusicBox]


• The French are banning smoking and considering allowing naps on the job. They are SO trying to be us. Copy-cats. [Yahoo]


• You now have no excuse not to spend your Saturday at the Art Institute. Quit lazing around, you worthless hungover fatty, and go learn something. [ArtInstitute]


• Three new restaurants that look so good, I think I just came in my mouth. [ChicagoReader]