Drive-Bys

Everything you ever needed to know about baseball booty. Mmmmmmmmmmmm! Baseball booty!
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This is fantastic news:

If you want to buy a meal of doughnuts, chips and soda with food stamp benefits, you'll have no problem in Chicago. But if you want to use them for fresh fruits and vegetables at a farmers market, it's been impossible.

That's about to change. In a pilot program announced Monday by the Mayor's Office of Special Events, five city-run farmers markets — Lincoln Square, South Shore Bank, Daley Plaza, Division Street and Beverly — will accept LINK cards, Illinois' debit cards for food stamp purchases.

The first is expected to be Daley Plaza, which opens May 13.

It's really great that technology has caught up enough that this is possible.
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If you're using nicotine substitutes to try and quit smoking and you are anywhere near young kids, please put the substitute somewhere where the kids can't get at them:

A candylike lozenge designed to satisfy a smoker's nicotine craving could prove dangerously tempting to little ones and lead to nicotine poisonings, a new study warns.

In addition...

Beyond the prospect of unintentional poisoning, researchers flagged the attraction of the flavored cigarette-replacement product to teens, who could then become addicted to nicotine.

Cold turkey was the only successful method of quitting smoking for me... and I've tried just about every method of quitting there is, including Welbutrin, Chantix and gum, patches. I'm pretty well convinced that the tobacco companies have an interest in keeping you hooked on nicotine, and these so-called smoking cessation tools are designed to keep you dependent, rather than freeing you.

Smoke 'em if you want to, but be careful with the Nicorette, etc., if you do decide to quit.
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How'd you like to be one of the guys responsible for this?

A track crew inadvertently turned off the gates and warning lights at a rail crossing in University Park late last week, shortly before a deadly crash in which a train blindsided an SUV driven by a Chicago woman, according to the preliminary federal and state investigation disclosed on Monday.

Yeesh.
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Just a quick plug for the very nice folks at Virgil Films and Entertainment, who accidentally shipped the movie I ordered to the wrong address... and then arranged to refund the cost of shipping. There were no questions and no hassle -- just really polite service.

(Shhhhhhhhhh! It's a gift for my Son-in-Law, who bleeds Cubbie blue... and who'll most assuredly make sure my grandson does, too.)
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