ooh! the blogher conference is going to chicago next year. although i have no idea if the conference is actually worthwhile and provides anybody with any enlightening information (my fault for not having researched it very much) it would certainly be a cool excuse to visit my favorite recently-departed city. (via)

one of my favorite stupid things about the el in chicago would be that when you were riding the red line downtown and approaching the grand station, the disembodied announcer voice would inform you that, "this...is grand." and i always said to myself, "yes, yes it is!"

but apparently that's now changed, sadly, and when i found out i wept a little tear.

one of the things i miss most about chicago is, perhaps strangely, the el. i know - dudes are always masturbating on it, hobos poo in the corner, the howard station always smells strongly of urine, and the sounds that emit from it are unholy and unworldly. but it managed to sneak into a special place in my heart and stay there. truth be told, i love it much more than the metro, even though the metro is about 100x cleaner and the el didn't have a super duper last call thingie. anyways, gapers block (gawd how i wish atlanta had a gapers block) recently put up a piece about five films in which the el is a prominent feature. check it out.

can you believe it?

just a note to say that i see that cappseus has been uploading pictures from his fine, fine trip to chicago at the end of april. (what kind of flickr delay is that, anyways? i start getting the shakes if i don't upload stuff to flickr in under eight hours.) this shot? we're probably posting to effing zunta or something. regardless, it's what we look like 75% of the time.

enough people have sent me this awesome mcsweeney's list that i now know for sure that the legacy of Noisy Upstairs Neighbor will live on through the power of the internets. good riddance.

the first: last night after returning from some delicious margaritas, i saw a guy struggling with a heavy-looking box and trying to get into my apartment lobby. i ran to hold the door open for him, then was, like, huh. i hope i am not letting in psycho murderer dude. so i asked him if he was moving in, because i didn't recognize him. and he said, yes, he was moving into I2, but just for the summer. and then i wept tears of joy. because I2 is the apartment above mine. and that must mean that NUN has moved out. noisy upstairs neighbor is dead, long live noisy upstairs neighbor. of course, this only happened when i have approximately 10 days of staying in my apartment left, but i'll take what i can get.

the second: we're having a party! the O street gang (that sounds terribly retarded but i'm going with it anyways) is having a party june 10. no reason, except i'm in town and am super eager to see all the lovely d.c. people in one convenient place. if you didn't get an evite, don't feel slighted - i'm just disorganized. you're certainly all invited, so just shoot me an email if you want the details.

well, looks like i have a 99% sure subletter. phew! too bad i totally ignored the issue of NUN. i'm an evil person. i've also got a place to live in DC in the fall as well. (i'm really just sticking around there to see if the balcony will burn down again.) all that's left is finding a place in atlanta, which is proving much more hellish than i would have liked. thankfully, i have atlanta encyclopedia matt at my disposal, which has already proved helpful. for now, two out of three ain't bad.

what happens when some medill folks head to the sketchiest bar in evanston on cinco de mayo? well, actually, not that much. mostly they drink a ton of beer and play pool badly.

photographic evidence that the two lads were here and duly squired.

the weekend also provided the opportunity to meet up with several unfogged folks and dan from iconoduel, and everyone was wonderful. have i mentioned how much i love the internet?

the only crappy thing was the sucktastic experiences both tommy and kriston had getting out of the city. kriston's account is here; tommy took a cab this morning at 5am to ostensibly catch his 6:30am flight...which ended up being instead at something like 11:30am. fabulous.

so a lot of the el stops as you go along the purple line up to evanston have murals hung on the platform walls. i don't know who commissioned them, who painted them, or when they were put up, but they all have one grand unifying factor: they are so awful, both in painting and in subject matter, that they make your eyes bleed. but i think this one, at the dempster stop, is the worst offender:

what in the world is going on here? we've got a floating rhienoceros head, an enormous evil rattlesnake, weird silhouettes and faces, and some landscape that looks like a second-grader painted it. what exactly might have been going through the artist's mind during the creation of this shot? the answer is probably: lots and lots of bad acid.

our class spent today at the chicago tribune building, talking to the folks of Red Eye (the chicagoan version of express, for you d.c. folks), chicagotribune.com, and tribune interactive. everyone there was lovely and smart, of course, but what was really great was seeing the inside of this gorgeous building. even better was the office space for tribune interactive, which was in the basement, where the printing presses used to be!!1!! i found that really cool, for some reason. it's very sleek and modern and loft-like down there - not your typical basement office. certainly a space where i wouldn't mind working. apparently it's won all sorts of awards. check it out.

i should also mention that we got to check out the printing plant of the daily herald last week, and for all i think of print papers, that is one impressive piece of machinery. check out some images of the press (not the DH's; a german company, i believe) here. though the daily herald is the third largest paper in illinois, it's still what many consider a suburban paper, but its printing presses are some of the newest and most sophisticated in the country. they also have scary machine forklift type robots that load the enormous 20-ton rolls of paper and i almost got run over by one. or, like, it came within 20 feet of me.

printing presses. i know! exciting! alright, more voyeurism - you can check out the pretty faces of some of my classmates here.

well, well. i was strolling along this morning towards the journalism building, coffee in hand, when one of many of the taped-to-the-ground fliers advertising various student activities caught my eye.

"STEPHEN MALKMUS" it read, in huge block letters. in smaller type it went on, kind of weirdly i thought, "acclaimed singer, songwriter, formerly of pavement."

hmm. i would go see malkmus again, i thought. i've seen him twice, once in charlottesville and once in milan, and he put on a pretty decent show both times.

then, in even smaller letters at the bottom, it read: "with new pornographers and my morning jacket."

$10. the best part? they're playing in northwestern's crappy ancient gym that can't hold more than 1,000 people on a good day. i'm so going saturday night, after an excursion with classmates to a brewers game in milwaukee. first minneapolis, now milwaukee. that's right. when will my midwestern adventures end?

the pitchfork festival line up has been updated again, for those interested:

Saturday, July 29

Main stage:

• Silver Jews
• The Futureheads
• Ted Leo/Pharmacists
• Art Brut
• Destroyer
• Mountain Goats
• Band of Horses
• Man Man
• Hot Machines

Biz3 stage:

• Dominik Eulberg *
• Matmos
• Ada *
• Ghislain Poirier
• 8 Bold Souls

Sunday, July 30

Main stage:

• Os Mutantes
• Spoon
• Yo La Tengo
• Devendra Banhart
• Mission of Burma
• Aesop Rock
• The National
• Jens Lekman
• Tapes 'n Tapes
• Chin Up Chin Up

Biz3 stage:

• Diplo
• Tarantula A.D.
• Tyondai Braxton
• Bonde Do Role

tommy, sommer and kyle will be making the trip. will you?

UPDATE: mother effer. i am not changing all those crapped out bullet points. sorry.

UPDATE 2: I'm enough of a dork that I will. -Tom

i agree with matt - the chicago lakefront is one of the city's best attributes, and on a nice day, running along it can become an almost enjoyable activity instead of the life-draining suckage of suck that it normally is. you see park, you see pets, you see rollerbladers (i love chicago. people rollerblade here unironically. i feel like that wasn't really the case in d.c.), you see bikers, runners, beach, water, statues, and a fabulous view of downtown as you round the bend around north avenue beach. i even had a moment while running out on a narrow concrete pier that curves around into the water that felt like i was back in cinque terre. beach, wind, sun, happy.

that said, i have no plans to ever go running in a skirt. what is up with this? (via bexgirl)

even with the gorgeous lakefront trail mere minutes away from my apartment, i have been getting somewhat bored with the running routine lately. so i briefly thought about fulfilling my promise to give yoga a shot...but ended up back in bed with spinning. except, apparently on thursdays now, they do a fun bit o' a thing called "big spin," which is 80 minutes of spinning as compared to the normal 45 or so. it was great! "big spin" makes you want to die, be resurrected so you can vomit and roll around in it, then die again. but i'm sure my butt will thank me for it later.

a friend told me a while back about this, but it's still nice to hear it confirmed: According to sources in the industry Radiohead will play the Auditorium Theatre on June 19 and 20.

i'm an idiot. i think, on the way down from observing the amazing view from the hancock tower this morning, my family and i rode in the elevator with eric zorn. who is eric zorn, you may ask? only my FAVORITE JOURNALIST BLOGGER EVER. he's a columnist/blogger for the chicago tribune, and he's excellent. he covered the ryan trial and recent local elections like no one else's business, but he also uses his blog for silly, fun, bloggy stuff.

i didn't recognize him - he was outfiitted in cubs gear, with a similarly-styled young daughter, and he was very talkative, but pleasantly so, on the 96-story ride down. at one point on the elevator, the sign, for whatever reason, reads "EZ," and his daughter said, "look, dad! your initials!" a small lightbulb went off at that point, but i really didn't think too much of it. but a google image search seems to confirm my suspicions, i believe. ah well. two ships passing in the night, or the elevator, or something along those lines.

i know when i talk about the george ryan trial, to anyone living outside of illinois it sounds like this "BLAH BLAH BORING BLAH." and you're a little right. if you ever sat in on the testimony during the trial, you might have fallen into a deep REM sleep caused by the hour-long discussions of license plates and real estate contracts. totes boring.

but now! look! shit has gone and gotten all totally hysterically bad ass in the form of a group of petulant, immature jurors!

first, and less interesting to me, is that the tribune exposed one juror as having been convicted of a felony back in 95 when ryan was secretary of state. that is bad, and could potentially cause a mistrial, but most likely the juror will just be dismissed and an alternate will step in.

second, and too funny, is that all the jurors hate each other with the burning passion of a classroom full of 13-year-olds:

The potentially explosive development came on the heels of earlier signs the Ryan jury was close to exploding.

They come and go together, but during the day reporters have seen the Ryan jury gathering in smaller groups. The judge told them to cut it out Thursday.

"You have at least two factions in this case that apparently aren't speaking to each other," said CBS 2 Legal Consultant Irv Miller. "They're deliberating in different rooms, in different places."

In a hallway Wednesday, CBS 2 heard one juror say to several others, "We've got to stop with all this name calling."

"I expect you to treat your fellow jurors with dignity and respect," Pallmeyer said in a stern, three-paragraph note sent in response to two notes received from the jurors in recent days.

they've got cliques! the judge is sending them notes to express her concern! they call each other names. it's JUST. LIKE. HIGH SCHOOL. except, um, these are a bunch of middle-aged illinoisians who should be discussing oh, only, the MOST IMPORTANT TRIAL THE STATE HAS EVER SEEN. get it together, fools.

for what it's worth, my chicago friends, i had a very accurately-detailed dream last night that george ryan, the former illinois governor charged with racketeering and mail fround, was found guilty of about half of the 22 counts. (the jury is in their sixth day of deliberation right now after a five-month trial.) seeing as i have previously proven myself to be a political oracle, i think we should assume that ryan will be spending at least part of the end of his life (the dude's nearly 80) sitting on his bum in jail.

anyway. sorry for the lack of posting up until now. i'm sick and miserable, tommy leaves for seattle tomorrow for a few days (bah!) and i have all these things i'd promise myself i'd do during break not getting done (i HAVE done well at drinking tea and watching the food network, though; how i miss cable!). so, i'm a lazy git. hopefully i'll be inspired later on.

the lollapalooza lineup is pretty great, isn't it? goddammit. not another music festival i'll have to throw money at.

...sort of. rather, my last legal reporting assignment for the quarter was to visit, with my class and instructor, the metropolitan correctional center in chicago, the federal facility right downtown (next to the sears tower, in fact). it's designed to hold inmates before and while they need to appear in federal courts before their acquittal or sentencing. we all went on a funtimes tour with the warden, and i learned several interesting things. lucky for you, i will now relay them in educational bullet points. yes, you get catherine's wise lesson on federal prisons for the day:

well, i had meant to do a more detailed, full-blown review of this show earlier, but i succumbed to that disease that affects so many of us bloggers: laziness. or was it wine? either way, here are my much abridged thoughts:

new porngraphers - just should not tour without neko case. carl newman sounded great, but kathryn calder, sick or not, does not have the interesting or full sounding vocals to carry her songs. additionally, the mix sounded strangely tinny, and the band seemed weary and determined on tearing through the set with business-like speed. i believe i remember exactly one line of in-between song banter from newman. which is sad, because he's quite funny.

belle and sebastian: it sure SOUNDED like they put on a great show. however, in between the two bands, dcsobloop and i opted for a trip to the bathroom and another beer, which meant we ended up on the slightly-raised second level platform. you'd think "slightly-raised" would mean "with a view of the stage," but that is exactly the opposite of what it meant. we couldn't see a bloody thing. additionally, stuart was crazy with the stories in between songs; unfortunately, apparently when not singing, he can only manage incomprehensible scottish mumbles. and, as i mentioned previously, i was frustrated that they only played one song off of "if you're feeling sinister." oh well. i guess i got my fill of IYFS songs when i saw them back in 1998 at the black cat. that's right, i'm cooler than you. i'm also old. that was eight years ago. christ.

sigh. at least i got a new t-shirt out of the show. methinks i like it better than the old one.

so, i'm in the medill newsroom. i tried to leave about 20 minutes ago to get home, but i could not. because i am in the middle of this. and it is literally a wall of humans and it is impossible to move. i spent 10 minutes going 10 feet and gave up when i saw from a distance that my el stop appears to be servicing approximately 12 gazillion people right now. i mean, i'm all about immigrant rights. but what about catherine's right to get home, have a beer and see the belle & sebastian concert? gah.

see, this is what i was dealing with:

more photos at my flickr stream of the enormous crowd.

but, you will be so relieved to know, i eventually was able to escape the clutches of the newsroom and make it to the new pornographers/belle & sebastian show. a full report to come tomorrow. but for now, i say this: ONE SONG OFF OF IYFS? SERIOUSLY? SERIOUSLY?!

gnight.

in doing research for an article about judicial elections i found out something interesting - judges in cook county, IL are something like two billion percent more likely to be elected if they're female and/or have a distinctly-irish sounding name. some wannabe judges even change their names to sound more irish.

i love this bit from an old chicago reporter article:

In the 2002 Democratic primary for Judge Thomas R. Rakowski's appellate court vacancy, James Fitzgerald Smith beat William D. O'Neal, Thomas H. Fegan and Roger G. Fein...

Smith received seven "not recommended" or "not qualified" marks among his evaluations from 12 Chicago-area bar associations. O'Neal received eight unfavorable marks. But Fein, who was slated by the Democratic Party, received one unfavorable rating and Fegan, who is Irish, got approving marks from every bar group.

Slated judicial candidates are supported by a committee of party leaders. Beating them is not an easy task, according to a Chicago Council of Lawyers' unpublished analysis of judicial candidates from 1988 to 2000, which shows slated candidates won elections for vacant judgeships 72 percent of the time.

In addition, Smith was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times to have run for judge in 1992 as "James G. Smith" but then ran as "James Fitzgerald Smith" in 1994, when he was elected to the bench in a subcircuit race. Smith did not return repeated phone calls from the Reporter.
...

In 1998, Bonnie Carol McGrath ran as a Republican candidate for a Cook County circuit court judgeship. Under the advice of her election lawyer, former Chicago Board of Election Commissioners Chairman Michael E. LaVelle, McGrath dropped "Carol" and replaced it with "Fitzgerald" even though it was neither part of her name nor that of anyone in her immediate family, she said.

She won the primary but lost in the general election to James Patrick McCarthy.

just in case you ever wanna be a judge in cook county.

i also find the fact that women have an easier time of being elected to judgeships interesting. tommy guessed it might be because people perceive them as fairer and more even-handed. what do you think?

anyone interested in attending the pitchfork festival/visiting me this summer in chicago, take note: passes for the festival go on sale monday, and they've announced six of their 36 bands:

Mission of Burma

Ted Leo/Pharmacists

Mountain Goats

The National

Jens Lekman

Hot Machines

a decent if not blow-your-minds sort of line up, and there are still 30 slots left.

anyway, i'm going to try to snag two tickets for tommy and myself this monday. the magic futon is available for all who dare...

hanging out in my favorite cafe, i was waiting for my drink by the register while a man next to me was ordering what appeared to be several pints of ice cream. it appeared, by the expression of the lady helping him, that this had already been a long, arduous process. it was going something like this:

"uhhh, do you have quarts of ice cream?"

"yup, right here!"

dialing cell phone..."they've got quarts, okay? what do you want? okay, okay." hangs up. "i'll take a quart, of, uhh...vanilla, and....shit. hold on." dials cell phone. "what was the other one you wanted? okay, okay." hangs up. "and a quart of chocolate peanut butter."

the lady smiles and nods and goes to scoop the quarts, then comes to the realization that they don't actually have a flavor called chocolate peanut butter and informs the man as such.

"shit." dials cell phone. "they don't HAVE chocolate peanut butter...i DON'T KNOW, OKAY? they're OUT, or something."

and totally audible from the other end of the line, at least to me: "BUTJESUS, I WANT MY CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER!"

dude quickly hangs up. "i'll just get a quart of chocolate. plain chocolate. thanks."

in other news...if anyone is an expert, or, hell, even familiar with telecommunications law, i would greatly appreciate you contacting me. or if you even understand the following: Whether 47 U.S.C. § 201(b) of the Communications Act of 1934 creates a private right of action for a provider of payphone services to sue a long distance carrier for alleged violations of the FCC's regulations concerning compensation for coinless payphone calls.

seriously, what the fuck, law. what the fuck.

i'm looking for people in chicago or illinois who have used match.com, eharmony.com, etc, for an article i'm writing. (really.) it's about a bill going to the senate about online dating safety regulations. if you know anyone, shoot me an email!

UPDATE: how morally dubious would it be for me to create and post a profile, then interview anyone who contacts me in the next few hours?

our lovely legal instructor loves us all so much that as we're all desperately struggling to finish our terrible 1200-word articles, she ordered us lunch - pizza from piece (her husband is an investor there). unfortunately for me, it's located somewhere in wicker park and not really accessible to my 'hood, but i'd highly recommended it. yummy thin crust.

an anecdote:

i was out the other night with a friend of the male persuasion (who shall remain unnamed and unlinked for purposes of discussion, though many of you in DC in the LOOP will know him; ha ha, make note to remind self to pat self on back for being so clever) and we were grabbing a few drinks at a bar. this friend is an engaging conversationalist, so as we were sitting at our little table we were having a good time, laughing, chatting and drinking it up. the bar was fairly crowded, but we didn't really know anyone else there very well and weren't making an extroverted overtures towards anyone else or anything. partway through the evening, i excused myself to go to the bathroom.

when i returned, said male friend was bemusedly holding a scrap of paper in his hand. he told me that while i had been in the bathroom, a woman had dashed over to the table as he was sipping at his beer, handed him this scrap of paper, said, "here, i think you dropped this," and dashed away so quickly that he almost wasn't even sure what she looked like.

the scrap of paper? a name and a number. the next 15 minutes? we spent pondering whether someone else had actually dropped this scrap of paper, or whether this was a very roundabout way of picking up said male friend.

emboldened by beer, and the fact that though we had been staring pointedly at the woman for several minutes while she studiously avoided even glancing our way, said male friend walked over and chatted the lady up.

turns out, it was a pickup strategy. any results that might be forthcoming aside, my questions are thus: 1. is this a smart or stupid method? would everyone involved not have been better served if she had been a little more direct? 2. THE HELL? WE VERY WELL COULD HAVE BEEN ON A DATE. in fact, i think she thought we were. if i remember correctly she said something to said male friend along the lines of "....well, i wanted you to have my number just in case your date wasn't going well..." let's leave aside the fact that a) i am enormously cute and witty and no date with me could ever go badly b) uh, we weren't actually on a date so i have no right to be offended, am i wrong to, um, feel a little bit offended? that's an awfully ballsy move, considering a guy could be out with a date or girlfriend. i simply can't decide if it was good ballsy or bad ballsy. i guess if they get married and have little ballsy babies, it will have been a good one.

i give FTD and its already-renowned shitty service no respect whatsoever in this matter, but i will say that the local flowershop they used for the somewhat-imperfect valentine's day order came through today. they called while i was at a friend's house for directions (this was apparently the fourth time they had gotten lost trying to deliver the rest of tommy's order; granted, my apartment is pretty difficult to find) and when i came home this evening, i had a box of delicious chocolates and an extra arrangement of three roses and baby's breath waiting for me by the mailbox, along with a note apologizing for the delay.

i know. poor me. i got my valentine's day chocolates from my wonderful boyfriend THREE GODDAMN DAYS LATE. mother of god...what kind of sick, deprived life do i live?

anyway, props to mai flowers & gifts, their sweet delivery man and their sweet owner. the chocolate is tasty and the roses (both the first and second bouquets) beautiful.

it's probably because i've turned into a meat popsicle.

just fyi.

fun stalkable moment: i (along with dcsobloop) will be at chicagoist's first local concert event, ctrl-alt-rock, on thursday evening. the assembly, may or may not and the alphabet will be playing. 8 p.m., $8, schuba's. if you all remember correctly, i was involved in dcist's concert last year, unbuckled, so i'm all about supporting this show.

and guess what? i'll be at the second coming of unbuckled as well! you should be there. thursday, february 23, dc9. excellent d.c. groups the hard tomorrows and olivia mancini and the housemates will be playing. come on out!

just a note to mark the launching of beepcentral, a web site aimed at young chicago surburbanites published by the daily herald, a newspaper serving the areas northwest of chicago. beepcentral grew out of a recent medill media management project, one of the reasons i applied to medill in the first place.

every year, a group of students who select to do the project basically spend a full quarter working as a consulting group to a local newspaper or publishing company. essentially, the company says "we want _____"; the students design, build and market a product from the ground up to suit the company's needs. generally the companies want a) something designed to bring in younger readers and b) an online component.

i'll be doing the project this spring quarter. i've heard rumblings that the partner this time around will be the minneapolis star tribune. i'm really excited about it, even though i have no clue as to what the project could be this time around, but i'll keep you informed!

since my special gentleman friend isn't around this evening to celebrate that most retarded of holidays, i thought i might go off on a Great Adventure and do something i've never done before. no, not whatever you're thinking of, sicko. i want to get a manicure!

the truth is that i have been biting my nails since i emerged from the womb. i don't do it explicitly because i'm nervous and anxious all the time (though it is a fact that i bite my nails the most when i am a) anxious b) writing an english paper on victorian literature...man, it was a brutal scene after that dickens paper on rosa dartle). i am fully aware it's a gross habit, and frankly, i thought i would magically grow out of it as soon as i became An Adult. like, adults just don't bite their nails. because they are super human. but i'm 26 now, and really, it wasn't like that.

anyway, for the past few weeks i have appeared to break the habit and thanks to my super special friend mr. nasty tasting nail polish designed to help me stop chewing, i now have nails of a normal human length. i know it's only temporary - it always is - but i'm determined to keep it up as long as possible. and i thought maybe getting a manicure, actually spending a chunk of money to stop myself from biting off parts of my own body, might prolong the experience.

but i've never done it before! and i don't know what to expect! and frankly, i'm kind of scared. how much should a normal manicure cost? what color should i get? do i tip? will i be infected by nail tool gross fungus stuff? how long will it last? will i become addicted if i go just once?

girlier UN readers: help me out here. walk me through the manicure experience. you'll be helping me become a better person, i promise.

i'm doing an article on the lawyers for the creative arts, an organization where lawyers donate their time and services to artists and creative entities in chicago to help them with contracts, intellectual property, tax exemptions, etc. i have an interview today with the head of the organization, but i'm also looking for people who might have used their services and i'm having a bit of a hard time. i'm sure the head of the org. will point me towards the right folks, but i was hoping someone out there might know somebody, too! so if you do, shoot me an email.

i don't mean to be cynical (she said, smirking evilly, because she almost always does). the chi-town daily news seems like a good organization, intent on focusing on citizen journalism, which i, as a new media person, should totally be behind (though i must say that sites that think they can exist solely on the efforts of citizens' articles, without any work or input or guidance or pieces by editors, are doomed to fail - though it doesn't appear as if this site isn't trying to do that).

but i just find it funny that, without fail, almost every news story published on the site every day is written by somebody from the medill news service. (we're a free wire service that sends out stories to several local newspaper clients.) that doesn't seem very citizen-journalism-y to me...

please, do me a favor: if you live in the lakeview area, stop in at cafe latakia at 3204 belmont. it is my favorite little wifi coffee shop in the world, and yet, i am generally almost always THE ONLY PERSON IN HERE and i'm terrified it will go under if the owner doesn't start getting some business soon.

the place is a charmer. it's beautifully decorated, with plenty of small tables, comfy chairs and sage-green paint on the walls. the owner is middle eastern or eastern european - somehow i haven't quite figured that out yet - so he's always got delicious mediterranean pastries in his glass counter. you can get delicious turkish coffee, or a wonderful affogato (vanilla ice cream drowned in espresso), and when it gets warmer, he'll have a selection of ice cream and gelato available. the rest of the coffee choices are pretty basic, and not any cheaper than starbucks, but it is illy coffee, and therefore pure goodness. plus free wifi abounds, and the owner is just the nicest man ever. usually i am a mean, rushed, cynical person - i hate exchanging pleasantries with anyone outside of friends or people i am sucking up to - but somehow i don't mind having a 5-10 minute chat with him every time i come in and get settled down at my table to work. he remembers everything about me - asks how tommy is doing, asks how northwestern is treating me, asks jokingly if i've scored a job at the washington post yet.

there are a few drawbacks - the owner is the only employee, and can often take an agonizingly long time to make your drink if you order anything more complicated than a basic cup of coffee. the bathroom is weird and behind the counter, through the dank, messy back room and is very small and kind of creepy. but i figure that's just a result of the rehabbing process not being done yet.

anyway, i just learned today that his one-year anniversary of owning the cafe is coming up, and i would LOVE to start seeing more people in here. (i may be making this sound more dire than it is; i only come here on saturday mornings and the occasional weeknight, and he probably does better at different times of the week). so, all three-to-four of my chicago readers, i command you: come visit cafe latakia, near broadway and belmont. you'll enjoy it, i promise!

UPDATE: of course, in the process of writing this entry like 10 people have come in. he's fine. but still, come on by! it's a delightful little place.