One Stop Shopping in Norridge: From Sexy Shoes to Mattresses to Dave's Bridal

You've got to hand it to the commercial realtors in suburban Norridge. They really know how to group businesses together to make it easy on the shopper.

You can start your amatory Norridge shopping
spree with the sexy shoes at Lover's Lane

Take the strip of Harlem Avenue just north of Montrose.

You could take care of all your shopping needs of an amatory nature, from seduction to marriage to wedding night -- all at shops within a stone's throw of each other.

You could start out at Lover's Lane at 4453 N. Harlem. Their neon window sign apprises the consumer that they carry a fine assortment of "Sexy Shoes," as well as a wide selection of other enticing feminine apparel and the ever-popular "foreplay essentials."

A necessary corollary to this is a comfortable mattress. Since you are now in possession of "foreplay essentials,"we recommend you get one that is sturdy and spacious as well.

 For that you simply have to cross the street to the American Mattress storefront at 4410 N. Harlem. They'll fix you right up.

Then continue by crossing the street to
American Mattress and David's Bridal

Then, if all goes according to the seductress' plan, you just have to duck in next door to David's Bridal at 4412 N. Harlem where they boast a breathtaking array of "spectacular wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, & accessories."

Of course, the moralists among us will object to our recommending the purchase of the mattress before buying the "spectacular wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses and accessories", but these are wicked times in which we live.

And, after all, you really wouldn't buy a car without a test drive, would you?

Bruce Rauner's Cash Bar and the End of Citizen Campaign Participation

Nothing confirmed the wisdom of our decision to forgo voting in yesterday's Illinois primary election better than Bruce Rauner's election night cash bar.

Come Celebrate with Bruce Rauner
-- only Ten Bucks a pop!

The Winnetka billionaire speculator held his election watching party at the downtown Chicago Hilton and Towers.

There, Rauner's friends and campaign hangers-on were shaken down to the tune of $10 for a drink or $8 for a cheap domestic beer.

This really signals the end of citizen participation in the election process -- at least on the GOP side -- here in Chicago.

Time was when campaigns would actually need real live voters and activists -- political junkies, if you will, -- to do the grunt work needed to win an election.

They needed people to man volunteer phone banks, to go door-to-door, to get up at 5am on election day and put campaign signs in front of the polling places.

Not so much, anymore.

Today, a billionaire with no discernible Republican pedigree, like Rauner, can simply waltz in, shell out a few mil for incessant media buys and walk away with the Gubernatorial nomination of the decrepit Illinois Republican party.

Beach Buddies Rauner and Rahm

No need to get the great unwashed involved in the process. If there should be some need for a physical entity to perform some actual campaign task, there is plenty of temporary casual labor that can be put on the payroll.

And since they're paid lackeys, there's no need for the candidate to show appreciation.

"They're getting paid. They can buy their own damned drinks."

Oh, and by the way. Should Rauner -- or any other candidate -- want a yard sign up on my lawn this fall -- the lawn rental fee is $10 per day for front and center placement -- or $8 per diem for sign placement on my side lot. It's a good deal!!

Chicago's Filthy Weather Pt.2 - Our March 12th Snow Day

March 12, 2014 and Chicago's weather is as filthy as it's ever been.

Wonderful snowstorm this morning. 

As of 5 pm, the temperature was 22F with winds howling from the north at 18 mph so it actually feels like a Siberian 8F.

This is 5 days before St. Patrick's day, mind you.

But hey, Chicago's rotten weather notwithstanding, you've got to get out and about. So today, we crawled out of the cabin to enjoy Chicago's vaunted parks. 

We  took some photos for you.

Hey, Chicago plowed the snow off of its bike paths, so you can always go out and take a nice little ride:

Tennis anyone?

Or maybe a little dip in the pool:

And hey, isn't the Chicago Park District's catchy new slogan for kids, "Come on out and play"?

But fear not, WGN's highly annoying weatherman, Tom Skilling, assures us that Chicago's temps may actually inch above freezing tomorrow, March 13th, and the gale-force northerly winds will probably stay below 20 mph.

On the bright side, we are happy that we get to wear our real nice, expensive, hand crafted, Irish cable-knit sweater again.

Hell, we may be wearing it in May!

Chicago Hot Dogs Flop But North Dakota Goes Ga-Ga For Gyros

One of the grand delusions that most Chicagoans entertain is that the rest of the world loves our unique style of hot dog.

Chicago expatriate hot dog magnates
Aramburu and Hackett

That, of course, is the Vienna red hot on a poppy seeded bun with mustard, relish, tomato, onion, a deli pickle and perhaps a hot pepper and a dash of celery salt.

We grew up downing these things and are crazy about them. The rest of the world -- maybe not so much.

That unhappy reality was painfully discovered first hand by an ex-Chicago cop and his buddy, who lit out for the wilds of the North Dakota Bakken oil fields to make their fortune purveying red hots.

The 33 year old former cop, one Joe Hackett, got tired of providing bullet fodder in the war on Chicago's West and South side ghetto rats. So he persuaded a childhood friend, Steve Aramburu, to wipe the dust of this frigid, multicultural hell-hole off their feet and bring Chicago red hots to the hungry denizens of the new oil-rich boom town of Williston, North Dakota.

For some strange reason gyros are
all the rage in the North Dakota oil field

They perfected the rather elementary recipe and set up a roadside joint along one of the busiest stretches of highway near the oil patch. In deference to Hackett's previous calling, they call it "Chicago's Finest."

In the wake of the new "fracking" technology, oil roustabouts in North Dakota are pulling down 6 figures for essentially blue collar labor. The economy of Williston has been booming.

That little windswept town at the oil extraction epicenter, now boasts the highest rental housing costs in the nation -- outstripping even Manhattan, NYC and San Francisco.

So Hackett and Aramburu figured to make a killing -- one hot dog at a time.

Now going into their 3rd year, they've done OK, but not quite well enough to be able to afford a year round rental in the hyper-inflated North Dakota housing market. Consequently, they move their road show down to Austin, Texas for the winter and resume in North Dakota when the snow stops flying.

What they've discovered, though, is that the relocated Southern  "good ole boys" who comprise their NDAK clientele aren't so hot on Chicago hot dogs.

Gyros -- mmmmmmm!

But for some strange reason, they've gone ga-ga over gyros.

That big fatty Greek slop atop pita bread, has been outselling the famed Chicago "garden on a bun," there by quite a long shot.

Seems that we Chicagoans have a tendency to forget that not all the US citizenry descends from long lines of enthusiastic sausage eaters.

So with the ice soon to melt up there, Hackett and Aramburu will once again be setting up shop alongside Highway 85 next to the Patriot Fuels truck stop.

And maybe they still will make their fortune up in Williston, North Dakota.

One sloppy Greek sandwich at a time.

Northwestern Seeks Jed Foundation Seal: Campus Shrinks To Grab Students' Guns

Try as it might, Northwestern University can't overtly deny their students their constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms -- off campus at least.

The Jed Award

But the Stalinesque bureaucracy at Chicago's Big-10 school has conjured up a neat little KGB-styled trick for a backdoor ban on any and all student gun ownership.

They're going to use campus psychiatrists to ferret out the gun owning students and thereby meet their stated mental health goal to "restrict students' ability to access lethal materials."

This was straight off of page 1 of the January 9th edition of the Daily Northwestern student newspaper.

Seems that NU is determined to get a seal of approval from a New York outfit called the Jed Foundation.

The Jed Foundation was formed by a couple of Manhattan busybodies named Donna and Phil Satow whose depressed kid, Jed, offed himself around 15 years ago.

So now they run around to college campuses with the ostensible aim of getting them to "explore and enhance their mental health and suicide prevention programming."

If they do the things this outfit prescribes, they'll get the "Jed Foundation Seal of Approval" along with such renowned institutions of higher learning as Alfred University and Gateway Community College.

So now, lusting after that coveted honor, the Northwestern Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), is going to assess how it can best "restrict students' ability to access lethal materials."

Since this is supposed to be all about suicide, one would guess they're not talking about keeping NU kids away from TNT or phosphate bomb possession.

It's guns these lefties want to grab.

Guns that can legally be owned and carried in a concealed fashion for the purposes of self-protection.

Over the past few years, Northwestern students have been the equivalent of rabbits to the preying packs of South Evanston coyotes who regularly hold them up and steal their cash and cell phones.

But Northwestern University's ridiculously bloated mental health bureaucracy thinks their students best not own the means for self-defense.

God knows, they might blow their brains out.



For the Record, here are the current Northwestern Code of Student Conduct rules pertaining to firearms. They have yet to be challenged in court in the wake of  Illinois' new conceal and carry gun provisions:


Misconduct related to firearms, weapons, explosives, or dangerous substances and devices (including ammunition, air or pellet guns, paintball guns, slingshots, knives, weapons of any description, firecrackers, fireworks, dangerous chemicals or substances, or any other object or substance designed to inflict a wound or cause injury, or imitations or replicas of any such items), including the following:

Possession of any such item on University premises or at University activities or events (except as specifically authorized); and

Use or brandishing of any such item, even if legally possessed, in a manner that harms, threatens, causes fear to, or otherwise endangers others.