Geektastic was relaunched almost three weeks ago, and we have FINALLY started to get some props (a prop, to be specific). Thanks to The Backer for putting Geektastic under “Chicago Stuff” along with Chicagoist, Gapers Block, the Sun Times, and Daily Candy. We feel we should point out that we have scooped The Chicagoist on several different stories in the last few days, not that we aim at timeliness here… Maybe our lunch break is a bit earlier than theirs? At any rate we are sure that this is the beginning of a meteoric rise to fame, appearances on VH1, and joyously quitting our day job.
Stepping on the president’s face is a surprisingly gratifying experience. If you haven’t seen the “one term president” stencils all over the city’s sidewalks, you can download one here. We don’t condone vandalizing public property though (or private property for that matter), so maybe you could just stencil it onto your bathroom floor.
Bill Zwecker interviews Billy Bob Thornton on the set of “The Ice Harvest.” Obviously, whenever anyone asks a celebrity what they think of the city they’re visiting, they have to be diplomatic. But Billy Bob summed up our opinion perfectly, saying “I describe Chicago as New York without the assholes.” Amen to that. [Sun Tmes]
Surprisingly, there is not much worth doing this Memorial Day weekend except firing up the grill. Geektastic is not a fan of parades or International Mr. Leather competitions, so we will be spending half the weekend in the suburbs garage-sale-ing. (That is a verb in the suburbs.) We might check out the St. Charles Downtown Fine Art Show.
If we had more money, we’d check out the Chicago Antique Market on Randolph and Ogden.
We will probably go to Navy Pier, but only because Mr. Geektastic lives near there, and not because we like tourists and gimmicky shrimp restaurants. We were there last weekend, and they were selling draft beer for $2.
Quite a controversey brewing about a column in something called “Sporting News” supposedly penned by Governor Rod “Bad Hair” Blagojevich. In the column, the governor claims he is a die-hard Cubs fan and would never wear a Sox hat. This despite the fact that he threw out the first pitch at Cellular Field last year, wearing a Sox warm-up jacket. Geektastic sees nothing wrong with this, as the Gov. was not, in fact, wearing a Sox hat, and therefore the statement in question holds true. When you’re speaking about politicians, you have to speak in their language, right? Also, in a campaign stop last year (two years ago?) Blagojevich told a downstate crowd that he was actually a Cardinals fan.
As it turns out, the column was ghost-written, and the governor didn’t actually write the offending sentence. But the question remains about the governor’s baseball loyalties, and Illinoisans are left wondering who, in fact, their governor roots for. Geektastic finds the controversey slightly amusing, but then again, we didn’t vote for Blagojevich in the primary and never really wanted him to be governor anyway. [Daily Herald]
Well, Barack Obama was featured in the New Yorker, but Jack Ryan has been in the media too. Investment Dealers Digest, to be specific. Yes, we felt a little dirty going to Mr. Ryan’s website, and even though we were still repulsed by his flagrant abuse of hairspray, we managed to read this article from the aforementioned digest. The article is about former Goldman Sachs employees, and you’ll have to scroll through the information about The Apprentice’s Kwame Jackson to get to the info about Ryan, which is pretty much the same information you’ve already read. Did you know that Jack Ryan quit his cushy job to teach BLACK KIDS in the INNERCITY? Good God. Jack Ryan voluntarily associated with BLACK PEOPLE?!?!?! Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Jack Ryan is a tool.
All of the Chicagoans in the World Series of Poker have been eliminated. Frank Brabec, from Crystal Lake, didn’t win, but he won $15,000, because the top 225 “losers” still get money. Geektastic wishes there were more opportunities for losers to get $15,000 for being losers. [Red Streak]
Wilco is going to be webcasting their Barcelona show on their website. We’re a little confused about the date, though. The website says “Friday May 27th.” So it’s either today (the 27th) or tomorrow (Friday) at 6:30 pm Chicago time. (We prefer “Chicago time” to the less cool “central time.” We’re pretty sure it’s Friday evening, which would be Saturday morning in Barcelona.
Genart is hosting Ignite! Chicago tonight at Kaleidoscope. They call it the “Debut of Fab Multi-Media Extravaganza that has rocked NYC for years.” We don’t like getting NYC’s sloppy seconds, but a multimedia party sounds… OK, it sounds like a bunch of performance artists and hipsters getting together to drink overpriced cocktails. But we *do* like cocktails…
The New Yorker piece on Barack Obama includes the phrase, “drinking the Obama juice.” Um. Gross. We’re all for Obama, and we even think that he’s pretty studly for a politician. But really. Gross. [New Yorker]
