Favre un-re-retires: The Divisionaries Are Born

WTF.

Brett.  Seriously?  Go play for the Birmingham Barons.

So, the Football blog I’ll be writing on is called The Divisionaries.  We’ve already got some bitching going on about Favre-gate3.0.  We’ll be able to make fun of the Lions… lots.

And if a weekly post is not enough to get your fix, we’re also on twitter here: http://twitter.com/Divisionaries

And yes.  Gridiron Girl will be making appearances in the as well.

BPRB Updates – The Fork, The Whistler, and The Nineties

New stuff added to the “Bored People Are Boring” things to-do list…

Photo from Flickr by Steph Wesolowski

Wow, it’s been a while since I updated.  First July show is up, Pitchfork has announced some of their lineup, and people, namely TimeOut Chicago and Chicagoist, have already begun tittering about Lollapalooza.

I’ll talk about a few of the new exciting ones coming up later (HELLO Yo La Tengo all-request show?!?!), the ongoing free shows at Logan Square’s The Whistler and the continuing resurgence of Early 90′s Alterno-rock… two more of which are from Chicago.  Hi Smoking Popes!  Jesus Lizard! Also, hi Toadies! Make up your mind… MAKE UP YOUR MIND AND I PROMISE YOU!

All dates added on 3/16:

March:

• Cut Copy (DJ Set)
• Knightlife
• Daisy O’Dell
• Jordan Z
• Mr. Russia
• Amrita
• Raise High The Roof Beam
• Surrender Dorothy
• D. Rider
• Bobby Conn
• Monica Bou Bou
• Blue Ribbon Glee Club

April:

• Barcelona
• Northpilot
• Tight Phantomz

May:

• Ponytail
• Leonard Cohen
• Crystal Antlers
• Vivian Girls
• Manchester Orchestra
• Audrye Sessions
• Winston Audio
• Loney, Dear
• Chin Up Chin Up
• Yea Big
• Kid Static
• The Hood Internet
• Mad Happy
• Melvins (performing Houdini in its entirety)
• Toadies

June:

• Smoking Popes
• Built To Spill (Pitchfork Music Festival)
• The Jesus Lizard (Pitchfork Music Festival)
• Yo La Tengo (Pitchfork Music Festival)
• Tortoise (Pitchfork Music Festival)
• The National (Pitchfork Music Festival)
• Pharaoh Monch (Pitchfork Music Festival)
• The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (Pitchfork Music Festival)

July:

• Explosions in the Sky

Pay Per Yelp?!

GapersBlock reports, via an East Bay Express article, that user-generated review site Yelp.com suppresses bad reviews, but only for good money…. Hmmmm.

John’s restaurant has more than one hundred reviews, and averages a healthy 3.5-star rating. But when John asked Mike what he could do about his bad reviews, he recalls the sales rep responding: “We can move them. Well, for $299 a month.” John couldn’t believe what the guy was offering. It seemed wrong.

GB also posted another a link to about a martial arts specialist blog about what seems like more Yelp scrubbing here in Chicago… either than or rampant flagging by someone.

This is when the problem began. After a few days, the reviews started disappearing one by one on the Yelp site until I went from 28 reviews to 18 reviews. I was pissed. I know you can flag reviews, and I suspected that maybe a competing business who’s reviews weren’t so glowing was flagging my students’ reviews.

Yelp is indeed a cool company, and useful (ed. note; I am a Yelp Elite member).   But I’ve had a few experiences when there definitely seems to be tampering going on, whether it’s internal or with other parties abusing the site.  First instance was the failure of Mojoe’s Hot House in Avondale on Belmont.  It went under new management and the place just went to shit. (As evidenced by not only the reviews on Yelp, but the crafty graffiti stencils found all over Avondale that read “MoJoe’s Sucks Now”).

Despite all the verbal vitriol, and spray paint that spoke the opposite, at some point positive posts started cropping up on Yelp.  While it’s possible they did, indeed “turn it around”, two of the final eight reviews of the place (which eventaully closed) were most definitely “inside jobs” — both 4-star reviews of the place written by people that I knew actually worked at Yelp (Though, I’m not naming names).  This, of course, is just one place I was directly familiar with –  I have no idea how common this is.

Drew Peterson Murder Countdown: Update

Hey hey!  Sun Times finally posted a picture…

There is also a Chrissy Raines on Facebook but with no real connection to Chicago… and there’s a NUMBER of Christina Raines none with many local connection.

 

 

Yesterday, I gave you a quiz to see if you were good Drew Peterson Date Material… today, in keeping with the Shock-Jock & Peterson tradition, Chicago’s Q101 scored an interview with a gal named Jenny who is, allegedly, Drew Peterson’s fiance’s cousin.  That’s hot.  Check out the audio here: http://www.q101.com/blogs/shermantingle/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10016864

Based on the interview,  here’s what we know now, I guess

• The unfortunate fiance’s name is Christina “Chrissy” Raines Reigns/Rains
• Her cousin, who she used to live with, is named Jenny
• Chrissy’s has a kid
• She was dating a guy who was taking care of the kid
• She’s a “hard worker”
• She likes bad boy types
• Christmas Dinner will be AWKward

In related news, Chicagoist via the Sun Times dropped that Dead Chrissy’s dad is also (understandably concerned)…

“I said, ‘You need to take that back. If you don’t want to, I will,’ ” said Ernie Raines, 53. “I said, why would you want to marry someone like that anyway? He’s my age for Christ’s sake.”

Ernie makes many good points.  What should make Ernie 80-times madder?  Well… Einstien Wbbm780 reports that Chrissy decided to pop the question to Drew. 

Hmmm.  I smell a Reality Show that combines the criminal glam of Growing Up Gotti with the assured behind-the-scenes beatings of Being Bobby Brown.

Also just learned alterno-Christina Raines was a 1970s actress.

Stately Designs

Gotta a tattoo of a State?  My boy Tim’s just created a Flickr pool that’s trying to compile tattoos from every state in the union — cleverly called “The Statoos Pool“

BTW, Tim’s already got Wisconsin covered…

 

Oh, and if you just have a tatoo of a rectangle, I’m sure Time could find some Great Plains/Mountain Time state that it will accomodate.

End of List Year List Best-Of List List

NOT YET!!!!  There’s like, 30 days left in the year — who’s to say the blogovironment won’t blow their (impotent?) loads over something else within the next few days.  Here’s to speculating!

So, that’s coming, and I’d have to reccomend that you go here and share your ever-so-valid yet undoubtedly populist opinion:

(and while at it, maybe vote for me maybe?)

Bye Bye Trees

As much as Chicago likes to tout its greenness I was very saddened this morning to walk to my El Stop and see that our fine city workers in the “City That Works” cut down all the trees on the plaza.  Granted, it wasn’t the prettiest of grottos but it was nice to have some greenery around.  What gives?

I only now regret not taking a good summery picture of them, because as I peruse Flickr (google maps) there’s really not a good photo.  There are some great photos of the EL Stop, just not of the trees.  Ah well… enjoy what once was:

Image Courtesy of Katherine M. Hill -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/cupcakecaptain/

Favre and The Bears, Cont’d.

The rumor mill is still working overtime about Favre in a Bears any uniform but a Packer one.  And hey, with the Go Sox just picking up Ken Griffey Jr. today, maybe it’ll be a new trend to pick up all stars five years past their prime.

ChicagoSports.Com just got in on the action with a column “Is This Shirt a Good Fit?,” by David Haugh.  Haugh makes some good points, though the article is mainly speculation illuminated by fluff.

I love the mention that “a Packers source close to the situation replied, ‘Not a chance,’ when asked if a scenario existed where Favre could be wearing the hated blue and orange this season.”   Ha ha ha.  Why not?  As Haugh point out, a half-year ago would anyone believe the Packers would be actively trying to marginalize Favre — keeping the face of the organization, the heart of Green Bay, and the sole reason for a successful Packer decade on the sideline in favor of an unproven QB with a questionable haircut?

Haugh also makes a good point that the Packers last year (sans-Favre) were a more dismal looking team than the Bears were last year, or will be this year:

A year ago at this time, the Packers’ offensive line looked as shaky as the Bears’ does now, with at least two positions considered question marks. Their wide receivers included Donald Driver, but the rest were as green as their home jerseys, similar to the Bears’ group that will report to Bourbonnais on Tuesday. And please don’t even mention the running backs the Packers started last season with before Ryan Grant emerged—nobody would recognize their names if you did… Somehow, Favre unified the group of misfits into an offense eventually respected and feared. His quick release made the offensive linemen better pass protectors. His ability to read coverages made his young receivers more open. His implied deep threat opened things for the running game.

Brett.  C’mon south.  Enjoy the city.  Maybe you and Griffey will hit it off.

TeeCycle: People Actually Like Us

  

Whoa Baby.  Lots of stuff to go on about.  First of all, the love of TeeCycle is spreading.  Check out these great comments from all across the blogosphere:  (read ‘em ALL here)

Talk about doing a fuck of a lot with a little, bravo guys -Tcritic.com

The reasons to buy used and vintage clothing are growing exponentially. There’s the cash-saving factor, the environmental factor, the ever-important hipster factor and there’s a charity factor.-onmilwaukee.com’s picks featuring teecycle

If you believe in Karma this is as ethical as you can get. -buy-tees.net

(Teecycle’s) broader, philosophical goal is to remind people you can reuse these old things and value them, rather than going to the local Target and buying another thing off the rack. -Marquette Tribune

I must say it’s a pretty cool concept. -Troundup

This is a genius idea for tee afficionados, enabling us to get our hands on an amazing variety of pre-loved tees at bargain prices. -Thunderfrogs

Awesome idea, cool blog posts, funny photos. I’d say check it out! -Katrina’s Site

What a great idea! -T-Shirt Rater

T-shirts kick ass, green t-shirts kick even more ass. Teecycle.org is a cool new site that sells “gently used” one off t-shirts- a great price at about half the average cost of other cool tees online EarthFirst

 

Also, we’ve switched over to WordPress which has proved to make the site better looking AND better working.

 

A bazillion more t-shirts are on the way, so much so that we need some people willing to model.  As much as we love taking pictures of ourselves, we want to see your smiling face too!  We’ll be happy to plug any projects you’re working on.  Got a blog? Got a band?  Got a cause? Live in Chicago or Milwaukee?  I know you do.

By for now.

-Battle

Whew. Phew. That Was Fast

Hi Chicago!

The Promoter Ordinance that I just mentioned earlier today has been pulled from the table. Thanks to lots of concerned citizens andTONS of letters going to local aldermen. As of right now, the main site, SaveChicagoCulture had this to say:

WE DID IT!!! THE ORDINANCE HAS BEEN PULLED!!!!
I’ll get the details and post them ASAP.
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO RESPONDED SO QUICKLY AND PASSIONATELY ABOUT THIS ORDINANCE, AND PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. WE’VE SAVED CHICAGO’S CULTURE!!!

As of now there’s 5,700 comments on the S.C.C. blog. So, yeah. Are they excited or what? Thank’s all for now, but remember the ordinance is going back to committee, and may get adressed in another month or so, so keep your eyes peeled. Jim DeRo’s got more thoughts about it, check out is just-updated blog post here.

Made aware of concerns in many corners of Chicago’s arts communities, Schulter asked DBA for more facts and figures about the alleged “problem venues” and “underground promoters” that the ordinance was designed to curtail. Some of those who attended the meeting said DBA had to admit that it had no hard information and that it has not formally studied the extent of the alleged problem that the law was crafted to address; they had only the anecdotal evidence of the single tragic incident at the E2 Nightclub five years ago.

Ouch. Well, let’s hope this can facilitate an open-forum type discussion among the committe and the city’s reputable venue owner/operators. Check out Chicago Tonight tonight (WTTW) at 7pm to see a roundtable about this. Huzzah, etc.

-B