Events

John Scalzi is a professional writer, and I am not. That's why he can encapsulate the past year in one paragraph better than I could do in three: Biden’s not perfect by any stretch, and clearly his current approval ratings are, uhhhhh, not great. That said, he is performing pretty much to my expectations, and as well as he can, considering the 50 Democratic senators he has for his majority are actually 48 Democratic senators, one clearly-a-Republican-but-pretending-to-be-a-Democrat-for-lulz, and one...

Today is the 50th anniversary of DB Cooper jumping out of a hijacked airplane into the wilds of Washington State. It's also the day I will try to get a Covid-19 booster shot, since I have nothing scheduled for tomorrow that I'd have to cancel if I wind up sleeping all day while my immune system tries to beat the crap out of some spike proteins in my arm. Meanwhile, for reasons passing understanding (at least if you have a good grasp of economics), President Biden's approval ratings have declined even...

I had planned for Saturday to cap off the Union Pacific North Line segment of the Brews & Choos project with a trip up to Kenosha. I'll still visit the now-infamous city this weekend, but it turns out, I'll have one more spot to visit before completing the first entire Metra line: Elements of Cultivate by Forbidden Root, which opens Saturday, will seem familiar to anyone who set foot in Band of Bohemia during the six-year run for the Michelin-starred restaurant and brewery that carved out one of the...

Welcome to stop #63 on the Brews and Choos project. Distillery: Koval, 4241 N. Ravenswood Ave., ChicagoTrain line: UP North, Ravenswood (also CTA Brown Line, Irving Park)Time from Chicago: 13 minutes (Zone B)Distance from station: 1.2 km (Metra), 500 m (CTA) Koval is the granddaddy of Chicago distilleries. Conventional wisdom is that Koval's owners, Drs. Robert and Sonat Birnecker, taught all the other Chicago distillers how to make spirits. Conventional wisdom is also that everyone else does it better....

Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle has some theories about cooking an entire bird for Thanksgiving: The time is here again when millions of Americans anguish over a nearly impossible culinary task, in hopes of producing (by any objective measure) an insipid result. I speak of roasting an entire turkey. This yearly project dates back many centuries, to an individual named Satan, who specializes in devising infernal tortures. Roasting a turkey involves placing an irregular form — meaty lobes, bony...

Welcome to stop #62 on the Brews and Choos project. Note: A massive fire destroyed the brewery on 21 February 2022. Brewery: Twisted Hippo, 2925 W. Montrose Ave., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Brown Line, FranciscoTime from Chicago: 38 minutesDistance from station: 700 m I will say this: Twisted Hippo has awesome beer names, and I respect the way they portray Africa's deadliest animal as kind of cute. And inebriated. I was less impressed by their brewpub than I had hoped, though. It seemed more like a suburban...

I finally got a chance to re-edit some of the photos I took in London last weekend. Here are four from Thursday, in chronological order. Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich: Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn: St Paul's Cathedral, west façade: Blackfriars Bridge:

While running errands this morning I had the same thought I've had for the past three or so weeks: the trees look great this autumn. Whatever combination of heat, precipitation, and the gradual cooling we've had since the beginning of October, the trees refuse to give up their leaves yet, giving us cathedrals of yellow, orange, and red over our streets. And then I come home to a bunch of news stories that also remind me everything changes: Like most sentient humans, Adam Serwer feels no surprise (but...

The richest person in Illinois has bought one of the only remaining original copies of the US Constitution at auction for $43 million, and I think this says a lot about where America has gotten in the 21st Century: Citadel Founder Ken Griffin bought a first printing of the U.S. Constitution which sold for a record-setting $43.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction, the auction house announced Friday. Griffin said he will loan the document to Billionaire Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American...

A nearly-all-white Kenosha, Wis., jury acquitted Killer Smurf Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges today, which will have the immediate effect of turning Kenosha into a war zone, and the long-term effect of escalating violence at what would otherwise be peaceful protests nationwide. I haven't followed the case closely, though I do trust the sources I've read who say an acquittal would make sense under Wisconsin law. But I doubt that most people who haven't gone to law school will see it that way, or even...