REALLY, DENNIS KUCINICH??!

He let Larry Flynt stump for him.

This makes me glad I didn't vote for his ass in 2004.

If I hadn't just made such a delicious dinner (vegan teriyaki almond tofu), this would have made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Three, three, three posts in one

There are so many fabu restaurants I've been to in the last few weeks, but I have not been good about reviewing! How do I expect all of you, my friends and family and loyal blog readers, to move to Chicago to be my neighbors if I don't sell it hardcore?

FIRST: Home Bistro! They have two starters that I tend to always make my meal. Houloumi cheese (much like saganaki), and OMG almond-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon and baked with brown sugar. This is what, in fact, we ate tonight (Disc0 ordered some wild boar snausages - yummo). HB is our favorite restaurant of the moment. They also have amazing desserts, including cupcake flights and bread pudding. Nom nom nom nom...

NEXT: Joey's Brickhouse! We never used to go here because it is just slightly farther west on Belmont from our house than Cooper's. I mean like half a block farther west. But Cooper's is so good that we just never went past it. Well one night Cooper's was full, and Joey's was there to save us (it was after we caught a Gayco show at the annual Sketch Comedy festival...yeah, that happens in our neighborhood. No big deal.) Anyway, they have the cutest, quirkiest menu I've seen yet. (Hey, I love cute n' quirky - I LOL'd when Juno said "thanks a heap coyote ugly but this saguaro stings worse than your abandonment." anyway.) The food is also awesome (duh) and they have the best cocktail list ever - I had something with all of my favorite sugary treats in it such as bailey's, frangelico, kahlua, probably some caramel sauce, I don't know - it was fantastic - and there were a bunch of theater people from the sketchfest eating there too!

THEN: Hamburger Mary's! This Andersonville spot is where I come for all my red meat (Buffalo burgers)! Everything else on the menu, including the fatty fat salads, look great, but so far we've only gone for the burgers. And they are damn fine. The whole vibe is super kitschy, e.g. they give you your check in a giant high heeled shoe, and there is always a cute movie playing on the TVs (last time it was the Wizard of Oz). They have karaoke on Thursdays and I have to check it out as soon as possible (though my "HAVE to check out their Thursday karaoke night" list is growing longer by the day.)

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Fiddlehead Cafe! This is an amazing wine and cheese joint in southern Lincoln Square; it's so good at wine and cheese that it has no business making such delicious entrees and desserts, too. Each of us had a different red wine flight (delicious and well-matched) and shared the Spanish cheese flight. Seriously, FYI you guys, I shouldn't type, talk, or think about the cheese flight right now or I might get in the car, drive to Fiddlehead, and force them to sell it to me. And that's not safe because the driveway is icy and I will almost certainly hit one or more of my neighbor's cars. By the way, I also just went ahead and ordered a hunk of cheese for dessert because the cheeses were so delicious.

All four of these places have EXTREMELY friendly and helpful servers. HB is the homiest, Joey's is the quirkiest, Mary's is the kitschiest, and Fiddlehead is the most refined and cheesiest (in a very, very good way). I didn't want you to think the cold has kept us from enjoying the country's best restaurant scene (i.e. Near North Chicago).

Speaking of cold, it was 36 degrees today, and it felt balmy. I took a bit of a walk to meet a friend for a movie, and I had to take off my hat and unzip my jacket to stave off uncomfortable warmth. I am now...a seasoned midwesterner! There are rumblings that there may be two weeks of snow storms in our future, and I hope it's true. It's been quite a snowy winter and I absolutely love it. It makes the cold so much more bearable when all that pretty is just falling from the sky.

Is not Chicago; is a pointless entry

This entry doesn't have much to do with how awesome Chicago is (it's still awesome, don't worry) but I have a microphone and you will listen to every damn word I have to say.

Last night, disc0f and I played Rock Band for the first time. Our friends the Saunderseses had us over for a DELICIOUS dinner and then invited us down to their really cool Rec Room (it is in every way a rec room, and that rocks) to play the game. I was the singer. I totally started off humble and by the end of the night I was throwing bottles of Jack Daniels at the bass player's head from a half-prone position on a groupie's lap.

It's the best game ever! I can't wait to get it--there are great songs on the game but you can also DOWNLOAD songs, including Radiohead, Weezer, and a whole Bowie Pack. This might turn me in to a "gamer."

I'm also almost done buying my outfit for Yahootie!'s wedding! This is essential since it's only four months away. It has made me a little bit nostalgic because it reminds me that I used to have the Most Perfect and Fabulous Dress of All Time. It was a black, pull-on, stretch silk, sleeveless, cowlneck number that I bought on Girlshop (R.I.P, Girlshop.com). (FYI, note that Mindy Kaling's shopping blog is now on my links page. I just found out about it last night, and I adore it. Even though it reminds my of my glory days of really out of control consumerism. R.I.P., Tubesy's really out of control consumerism.)

So the Most Perfect and Fabulous Dress of All Time would have been absolutely effing perfect for B & G's wedding. But I realized in law school (during a musical fashion montage) that it doesn't technically fit over my ass anymore. I'm not going to mourn my old 100-lb frame, because that wasn't the best look, but I will mourn the dress and the way I looked and felt in it the 18,000 times I wore it. Despite my growing out of it I was keeping the MPAFDOAT around because, with strategic placement of my Vintage Leopord Print Half Slip of Awesomeness, I could fashion a pretty fun look. Not wedding wear mind you, but I liked having it around. Now the MPAFDOAT is missing. It may not have made it all the way to Chicago, and perhaps I should take this as a portent of maturity - because I found a Grown Up Version (e.g., it has a lining and a zipper, and it covers my ass) of the MPAFDOAT, and it is the Grown Up Version that I'll wear to the wedding. Grown up versions things are great, but I still miss the original. The fact that I found some Christian Louboutin knock-offs on Zappos helps a little:



All I know is I am NOT letting my kick ass camo-lined combat boots slip away. Disc0 loves them, and that's a great sign, because I do too even though certain friends and hangers-on have been trying to make me get rid of them since I was 23.

Ahh memories...memories of clothes.

What the French Toast?!

So I will admit that I've gotten a little bit cocky about my ability to handle the ol' Midwestern Winter. You may remember my post on long johns a while back.

For the most part, the cold really hasn't bothered me. Often it comes with pretty snow showers. Long johns really do make the trip to and from the train quite managable, and furthermore I've always been a sci-fi, nerdy...indoor kid, so not being able to jog, or yog, whatever you outdoor types do, has not been a major impediment.

But the elevator TV (have you heard of these things? Captivate Networks? The name is horribly, unabashadly appropriate), which shows the weekend forecast, listed the high/low for this coming Saturday as "4/3." This is what I did when I saw the figure: (sorry-I really do love that scene).

Anyhoo, my point is that 4/3 is just not an appropriate amount of degrees. I'll let you know how it goes, because we have a dinner engagement on Saturday night. We may have to abandon our commitment to public transportation for the evening and take advantage of what we really paid for when we bought our condo--the garage. The Chicago Tribune had some scare tactic pictures of frostbitten appendanges on their website today and I am not trying to get in on that.

ruh roh

There are now outtakes from "The Landlord" on http://www.funnyordie.com. This is my favorite internet video content of the year. Why yes, I am having an attack of baby hormones, why do you ask?

Here is the original:



And here are the outtakes:



Well now that you're done watching that, I write a little...

I spent last weekend in sunny Atlanta, at the bridal shower of one of my best and dearest friends, Becky of Yahootie! It was so, so good to see Beck and many of the other fabulous women I know and love from the Dirty Dirty South. And I got to MEET a bunch of new friends too! Now all I have to do is convince them all to move to Chicago, and the circle will be complete...

Seriously though, I really miss having my closest friends CLOSE to me. From Charlottesville to Indiana to Atlanta and back to Charlottesville, I have always had amazing women around me who inspire me and make me feel at home. I know that they will be around forever, and I love that so much and am so lucky to have them, and I cherish the opportunities to see my girls when I can. BUT I know that I need to meet some fabulous, progressive, feminist girlfriends here in my new home. I know they are out there and I'm trying to make some changes so I can find them easier. I need my friends from afar and I need some here, too!

(and then, when my friends from afar move to Chicago, I will introduce you all and it will be a hell of a party.)

For now, there are a number of high-spirited (AKA drunk) men in my living room and I have to escort them to Sheffield's before they get deep-dish pizza all over my good couch!