Busman's Holiday -- Austin, TX

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.  Well worth the trip!

Sunday Rambles

Blame Jimbo for this:

Which American accent do you have? Northern You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

(Born in Massachusetts, raised in Ohio and Illinois -- yep. It nailed it.)

... and this:



... which had me jitterbugging by my ownself in the middle of my living room. I double dog dare you to sit perfectly still while listening to that.

Fabulous.

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Ouch!

In-N-Out is the Barack Obama of hamburgers. Puny, over-hyped, from a union-led blue state that’s fiscally boned, and laughably inadequate once you take time to research it and its alternatives.

That's gotta hurt.

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This sounds like fun, and I'm thinking it could make for some serious mayhem for a blogmeet:

An assistant museum curator who questioned the authenticity of a Leonardo da Vinci has been murdered — but before he died, he left a code in his appointment calendar and a cryptic trail of clues connected to secrets in works of art that point to the killer.

Now, would-be gumshoes must figure out what drove one of four suspects to kill him. Was it greed? Fame? Lust? Or revenge?

That’s the plot of Murder at the Met, a murder-mystery scavenger hunt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York run by Watson Adventures, a private company offering a series of such games at 27 museums in seven U.S. cities, including Chicago.

Anybody interested?

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Quote of the Day:

Pat Quinn is Jerry Brown without the hot-chick past. Like California Moonbeam, our Governor Soybean is signing the Dream Act. The Dream Act is a boilerplate pander piece that gets good press and WOW Progressive support. A Progressive would step over a starving Mexican blocking his way into Whole Foods.

Who wrote that? The same guy who wrote this:

I worked to help Pat Quinn, become Governor and I voted for Pat Quinn. It took the Governor no time at all to prove to me that he does in fact believe in the Easter Bunny: Gov. Quinn immediately paid off Planned Parenthood by wedging in Terry Cosgrove for a State salary; Quinn sprung more felons than George Ryan in much less time; pushed the Civil Union and made war on Catholic Charities; ran business out of Illinois; crawfished on Real Labor as well as his bet with Gov. Walker; and now is signing the Illinois Dream Act that completely ignores immigration and the economic jackpot that is our State economy in the hope that Ralph Martire is correct that more people will vote for Pat Quinn again. Hug that Bunny, Guv....

Pat Quinn will sign the Illinois Dream Act on Monday.

Way to go, Hickey. Way to vote.

When you alienate your base, you're really screwed here in Illinois.
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Drive-Bys

I want one. In fact, I'll park it right next to my motorized barstool with built in cup holder, cooler and autopilot.
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While I'm certainly not his target audience, I've become a huge fan of John W. Fountain.

I have come to understand that your speech does indeed betray you. For one’s enunciation and command of the English language can be as revealing about one’s roots as a buttered southern drawl. But in my mind, mastering the King’s English is no more a betrayal of one’s roots than choosing a mode of transportation to get you to a destination. The point in either case is access.

For me, there was no greater vehicle for changing my status from ghetto black boy to successful American black man like learning to communicate effectively — in the spoken and written word. Both were at the core of my education and extrication.

And I believe they remain important bedrocks for future generations of boys and girls — especially black and brown — who, like I once did, find themselves today drifting far from the shores of the American dream, dwelling in hyper-segregated communities, separated by that great divide: language and ideas. This is exacerbated by the perpetuation of this idea that for black folks to use proper English is to “talk white.”

That's just beautiful stuff.
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Quote of the Day:

"With blond hair and a barbarian headband, Giamatti appears something like the less handsome medieval brother of Bjorn Borg." -- Jake Coyle

Yes. I giggled.
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I didn't know that the Federal Reserve Bank here in Chicago has a Money Museum. How cool is that?
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Irish Fest starts tomorrow at the Irish American Heritage Center. Yay!



I'm looking forward to The Tossers, among other great bands. See you there?

Weekend Rambles

Friday:

1. The Hubble IMAX show (interesting) and Jim Henson/Muppets exhibit (absolutely charming!) at the Museum of Science and Industry
2. A stroll through the Chicago Cultural Center, with lots of time spent on the Vivian Maier street photography exhibit (fantastic -- don't miss it!) and the Portrait Project and Project Onward (loved!)
3. A force-march (I'm famous for these) over to Klay Oven for a delightful dinner
4. Another death-march back across town with stops at the original Billy Goat, the Wrigley building and Tribune Tower
5. Back to DP for cocktails at the Miner Street Tavern
6. Home

Saturday:

1. Brunch at the Sugar Bowl (huge! "Crepes? I can't get through a day with you on crepes!")
2. Gold, Sue and Africa exhibits at the Field Museum of Natural History
3. A leisurely drive up Lake Shore Drive and the Lake Michigan Circle Tour as far north as Glenview
4. Zip back down to Golf Mill Mall for a quick dinner of pulled pork sandwiches (who knew food court food could be that good?) and then off to see True Grit (how many Oscars will this movie be nominated for?) at the AMC theater
5. Back to Jimmy's in DP for the end of the Packers/Ravens game and cocktails

Sunday:

1. Lunch and Bears game in the bar at Jimmy's
2. A swing through Shop 'n Save to pick up exotic groceries that the mad Minnesotan can't get up in the frozen north
3. Home and collapse

See you later!

Update: Add a massage at the mall for the Minnesotan, another visit to the food court and The King's Speech (stupendous) to the day's activities. I didn't get a heck of a lot accomplished this weekend, but we covered a hell of a lot of ground in the process!

P.S. -- Whoohoo! Go Bears! Go Hawks!

Sunday Schedule

I have another new heroine:

The real story of bigotry and intolerance is the fact that it lives and thrives on the left. As a gay woman who spent most of her adult life pushing the cart for liberal causes with liberal friends in a liberal city, I found that sexism, racism and homophobia are staples in the liberal world. The huge irony is liberals spend every ounce of energy promoting the notion that they are the banner carriers of individualism and personal freedom, yet the hammer comes down on anyone who dares not to conform to, or who dissents even in part from, the liberal agenda.

Think about what would happen if you did act up? If you dared to say you like Sarah Palin, or admire Margaret Thatcher, or think global warming is a hoax, or think Bill Clinton is a sexual predator, or that George W Bush isn't to blame for everything, or that Barack Obama has absolutely no clue what he's doing, you know there would be a price to pay. Odds are that your "liberal" friends would very liberally hate you. At the very least, being shunned would be your new experience, condemning you to suffer that horrific liberal malady called social death.

Sing it, sister!

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Now here's a little blast from my past:

The bulky, blue machines are all more than 40 years old now, but the idea behind them remains as irresistible to Chicago children today as it once was to their parents and grandparents.

"Now You Can Operate the Amazing Mold-A-Rama Automatic Miniature Plastic Factory!"

I can't wait until my grandson's old enough to start his own collection. Lincoln Park Zoo, Field Museum of Natural History, Shedd Aquarium, Museum of Science and Industry and Brookfield Zoo -- Oh, the fun we'll have!

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Yep. I called this one a year and a half ago, and once the price of the Kindle itself went down, the sale of the device... and eboooks... went way up:

Though they only make up 9 percent of the consumer book market, e-book sales are up 193 percent over a year ago, according to the Association of American Publishers.

An estimated 4 million U.S. homes have an e-book reader such as Amazon's Kindle or Barnes & Noble's Nook, according to Forrester Research, which predicts sales of more than 29 million devices by 2015.

HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray reports "a sea change in the past few months" among new best-selling books: "On some books, the e-books are outselling the hardcovers."

Seriously, my Kindle was second only to meeting my daughter for the first time on my list of all-time great Christmas gifts. I use it all the time. It weighs next to nothing, fits in most of my purses and I can get books in seconds any time I want. On top of that, I've used it for simple Google searches lately, and I can even check email or blog from the darned thing if I'm really stuck far away from my laptop.

One more thing -- I've been introduced to a lot of new authors through the Kindle store's best seller list, and I've gotten a lot of interesting stuff either free or at a discount that way. (And when I've liked the discounted/free stuff, I've gone back and purchased more of the authors' works at the regular Kindle price.)

They really are dandy little devices.

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Getting ready to put together your Christmas shopping list? This article is loaded with tips for saving money on all your holiday purchases. (You may even want to print and save it for future use!)

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More Facebook privacy issues. Sheesh!

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Quote of the Day:

Braun's ego -- remember her run for president in the 2004 cycle? -- is matched only by her leaden political ear, behind which she had dabbed a little eau de Stroger. Yeah, that'll bring out the vote.

Zorn's got her number, all right.

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Where are you on the empathy scale?

My score: 67
0 - 32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
33 - 52 = average (most women score about 47 and most men score about 42)
53 - 63 is above average

64 - 80 is very high

80 is maximum

Found via LL, who found it via Vox Day. Dr. Helen also took the test.

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Blogthings!

You Crave Inspiration

You are optimistic about both your present and your future. Things are going well for you. You see love as companionship. You're the type of person who would fall for his or her best friend. You expect other people to respect you. You are respectful of them in return. Your inner child is playful. You can have as much fun as any kid!

The City Park Test

The First Rule of Blogthings Is: You Don't Talk About Blogthings

... and...

Your Workspace Says You Work Best With Others

You are generally fairly organized, but you have occasional slip ups. You find keeping organized challenging. You are hardworking and driven. You have an excellent work ethic. You are proud of your life, and you want your co-workers to know how great it is. You're not afraid of some subtle bragging. You don't switch careers often, and you intend to stay at your current job for a long time. At work, you tend to be an extrovert. You enjoy working with other people and drawing people into your work space.

What Does Your Work Space Say About You?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes