Events

Yesterday, Democrat Mary Peltola beat former half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin in the special election to fill deceased Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) seat: Peltola finished fourth in a crowded nonpartisan primary in June, when 48 candidates battled to secure one of the four spots on the Aug. 16 special election ballot. But heading into Wednesday’s final tabulation, Peltola was leading the pack. The special election was the state's first test of ranked-choice voting, which was implemented after a 2020...

Meteorological summer ends in just a few hours here in Chicago. Pity; it's been a decent one (for us; not so much for the Western US). I have a couple of things to read this afternoon while waiting for endless test sessions to complete on my work laptop: Former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev died at 91. Julia Ioffe looks at Ukraine's risky counter-offensive—that might just work. Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle, who has covered the XPOTUS since the 2016 campaign, wonders if the...

Longtime Daily Parker readers know that I always want my software deployments to be as boring as possible. Push some code, watch the automated continuous delivery pipeline whirr for a bit, and boom! Dev/test deployment done. If any part of the deployment fails in the pipeline, the deployment stops. I've spent a lot of time making it vanishingly unlikely that a bad deployment will succeed. Cryptocurrency start-up OptiFi apparently had not learned this lesson before they locked themselves out of their...

McSweeney's channels Lovecraft—at Olive Garden: Cheese Ravioli A homogeneity characterized its flaxen cast. Bubbling sacks of slime upon a platter scorching. Beware! Doused in the pureed remains of a dozen orbic fruits, I feel my breath quicken and hands tremble as I pen its likeness as well as I might. My own mind conspires against me when presented with this frightful entrée. To dine? Or will my own visage mirror its sickly jaundice? I have touched with too much haste the vessel of Hades, a burn be my...

A line of thunderstorms just blew past my office about 3 hours ahead of schedule, which means I might get home at a reasonable hour without drowning. Of course, we might get more storms: Scott Lincoln, a National Weather Service meteorologist. The first storms are expected to hit Chicago as early as 1 p.m., but that could vary — and more storms will be possible throughout the afternoon, he said. Some parts of the city could get 1-2 inches of rain or more if they’re hit by strong storms, while other...

When I visited Hailstorm Brewing in March 2021, I chose not to walk along the sidewalk-free 80th Avenue and instead, after Froggering across the aforementioned stroad, I went through one of the most depressing subdivisions I've ever seen. I had to repeat that stretch in order to visit Soundgrowler Brewing last Friday. And since Banging Gavel Brews is just over 3 km away (directly, anyway), I decided to walk from one to the other. The walk did not go as planned: Most of that trip, until well past the 4...

Cassie, on Thursday night, not letting me go to bed: You're welcome.

I posted this last night on Facebook: It's so interesting to me that we're having a (manufactured) political argument about canceling $10k in student debt while all the countries we compete with are horrified that people even have to pay $10k to go to university. Even privatization-happy Brits flipped some constituencies to Labour in the last general election because the Tories raised university fees to £9,250 ($10,900) per year. The outrage isn't that we forgave a token amount of Federally-held debt....

Welcome to stop #77 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Banging Gavel Brews, 6811 Hickory St., Tinley ParkTrain line: Rock Island District, Tinley ParkTime from Chicago: 35 minutes (Zone E)Distance from station: 100 m The owners of Banging Gavel Brews opened a beer garden at the historic Vogt House in Tinley Park to get people interested in their beers while they restore the house. Since they have an abbreviated beer list at the moment, and they expect to open the brewpub proper next spring, I have...

Welcome to stop #76 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Soundgrowler Brewing, 8201 W. 183rd St., Tinley ParkTrain line: Rock Island District, Tinley/80thTime from Chicago: 37 minutes (Zone E)Distance from station: 1.4 km When I visited Hailstorm Brewing in March 2021, I really should have gone to Soundgrowler next, as they're just a short walk from each other and I'd never have to go to their industrial park in Tinley Park again. They're both great in their own ways, don't get me wrong; but now...