can anybody recommend a decent, reasonable hotel in chicago, preferably in the area of lakeview/belmont/whatever you call it?

UPDATE: speaking of hotels in chicago, jeff has put up plenty o pictures of our last stay there, courtesy of the lovely gray family, for johanna's graduation. i look normal in about 40% of them and really godawful in the other 60%. so enjoy!

DOUBLE UPDATE: totally unrelated, but, heh, i look like i'm singing in this photo. drew has a bunch more of great shots from Unbuckled.

Alright folks -- the incredibly nice Johnny of Blank Of The Day emailed me and let me know that NO ONE has submitted an entry to their Slashdot contest.

Look, it's not an easy contest, exactly, but it's an intriguing one, and the winner gets a Nintendo DS. You've only got until whenever midnight of July 10th is in Japan, but the field is wide open. I'm wracking my brain. You should do the same.

Last night I went and did the moonlighting that I had whined about previously. And it was pretty godawful. Six hours rebuilding systems I told them to junk the last time I was there to specifications that changed halfway through the evening, then again at the end, at which point I finally said no. Topping everything off: I was soaking wet from the 10-minute downpour that marked my trip to the metro. Since when does Washington have a rainy season?

But enough whining. It was good to see the two guys who work there, and it sounds like they've hooked a contract that should help them get back on their feet. Good for them -- they're nice guys, and I wish them luck.

But I do have to ask... doesn't this seem like an unusually large selection of moisturizers for a man's desk? From left to right: Jergen's Soothing Aloe Lotion, Palmer's Cocoa Butter, pink cup, bottle of ibuprofen, Lubriderm of some sort. Browser homepage: Drudge Report. I report, you decide.

By using precise pulses of radiation, researchers have found that they can store up to 5 megabits of data on your fingernail -- that's a little less than half a floppy disk's capacity. The data persists until the nail grows out.

I know this is awesome, but I have no idea why.

man. my opinion of tom sietsema just dropped several notches. for the record, i read several food blogs, almost all of which i find to be a) more entertaining b) more informative and c) more accessible than most of the stuff he writes.

Washington, D.C.: Tom,

Wanted to know your opinions on the proliferation of online "foodie" blogs. It seems that there is little sense of journalistic objectivity in some of these; whereas you are required to fact check your articles, anyone with a computer can post with no filter.

The other day one dc foodie (hint hint) blog writer even wrote that "you don't have to try something to know what it tastes like." I don't know about you, but I've had some great food that looked terrible?

Does the same go for food blogs - is there less or more than meets the eye?

Tom Sietsema: The proliferation of food blogs -- everyone really CAN be a critic these days -- only makes journalists at subscription-paid newspapers and magazines more important. I know that sounds self-serving, but who would you rather get your information from: JudyLikes2Eat or (insert name of serious publication here)?

Don't get me wrong. There are some smart online foodies out there -- but there are also a lot of whiners and crabs and people who wish they could be in these jobs and hate us because they can't be. They don't have the "cred."

I could write an essay about this, but I won't right now.

"only makes journalists at subscription-paid newspapers and magazines more important. I know that sounds self-serving, but who would you rather get your information from: JudyLikes2Eat or (insert name of serious publication here)?"

whiny whiny whiny. it's exactly this sort of sentiment that ensures i'm going to read less of the post and more of the bloggers.

an interesting and completely depressing column about italy and why it's almost ensured its political and economic doom.

If anyone belongs to Italy's tight group of power brokers -- in Italian, the salotto buono -- it is Carlo DeBenedetti. He briefly ran the Fiat industrial conglomerate before a falling-out with the controlling Agnelli family, whose members he knew from childhood. As the head of Olivetti, he made a bold if unsuccessful run at IBM in Europe but used the remnants of the company to make a fortune during the heady days of telecom privatization. Today, his "group" includes a media empire of newspapers and radio stations, a giant auto-parts company and an energy division.

But sitting in his small, unmarked headquarters on a narrow side street here in Italy's capital of finance and fashion, the 70-year-old DeBenedetti speaks of a "perverse and unwritten alliance" among politicians, financiers and company owners. This alliance, he says, is slowly destroying Italy, enriching its members while undermining the nation's economy through excessive debt, protectionism, serial devaluations and shortsighted "concessions" to unions -- concessions that Italian workers are paying for in the form of meager take-home pay, high unemployment and deteriorating public infrastructure.

"There have been 52 postwar governments, but in truth they have all been the same," said DeBenedetti of the oligarchy's enduring power.

i don't consider myself much of a fashion buff. i know what i like, i buy trendy pieces once in a while, and mostly keep my criticisms to myself. i like to think that most of the time i don't dress like a deranged bag lady, but neither do i consider myself a fashion knowitall. normally i'm all about personal expression. people are gonna wear what they're gonna wear. trends come and go. it'll all be okay, man.

but this summer, my head, it is exploding. every time i step out on the streets of d.c., i see what i consider to be massively misguided fashion choices that have obviously trickled cross country from hollywood. ginormous shiny bags? check. sunglasses the size of the planet saturn? check. enormous strands of chains and plum-shaped beads draped over the cocaine-flattened bosom? check. shapeless tiered peasant skirts that can make a woman look like she's hiding a family of four? young ladies who seem to think that "geriatric chic" is teh hotness? LEGGINGS UNDER MINISKIRTS?!?! gaaaaaaaaaarh.

it's a world gone mad. and i, for one, am not sure i can take it anymore.