Chicago: customers are advised to allow extra travel time

seeing it made me think of you.

That Moskowitz piece is great, by the way. From what little I've read of her (that piece and the Dave and Busters one), she seems to be a great example of how criticism that's ostensibly about one thing (food, music, film, whatever) can really be about lots of things (herself, the bridge collapse, the ordinary lives of Minnesotans).

Which reminds me of this quote from Carl Wilson's blog:

I was being interviewed for a teevee show about music writing and blogging today, and among my staircase moments afterwards, I thought that my answer to the question, "If writing about music is such a non-lucrative career, why do it?" should have been that precisely because music is so abstract and inimical to verbal capture, it opens up an infinite field to write across, an unending series of creative near- or far-misses -- and because music is so insinuated in everyone's personal lives and consciousnesses, it burrows tunnels into every subject matter, making it a subject that potentially permits you to write about anything and everything in the world. But then again, I thought, that could be said of writing about food or clothing or a hundred other things.

Do you have that quote stashed in a special place so you can post it whenever you want? I swear I've seen that at least twice before and I don't even know who Carl Wilson is.

I just trawled through a year and a half of posts on my old blog to find it.

Ooh, I've never had that beer.

I just trawled through a year and a half of posts on my old blog to find it.
aw, that's a lot of effort.

Carl Wilson is the music critic for the Toronto Globe and Mail, btw. I know EZ is a fan of his.

Also, he played guitar for the Beach Boys and died in 1998.

my stomach just started a revolution & now i want to go home. blech.

http://www.virtualfools.com/filler/videogames/jimmy2521revx1.jpg

The focus of my evening is the free, well-reviewed pizza we're supposed to get at a gig in Stoughton, WI tonight.

xp that game was fucking terrible

It was no http://www.arcade-history.com/images/game/2870_1.png, that's for sure.

^actually I don't think I ever lasted more than 5 minutes on that game

\prom night

Oh yeah, that one ruled.

what wii games are supposed to be good?

mattttt to thread

My critics' hall of fame: Dara Moskowitz (food and wine), Carl Wilson (music), Jed Perl (art), Joan Acocella (dance), Robert Brustein (theater), Roger Ebert (movies), Dale Peck (novels). All of them both care and think passionately about the medium they cover, and their best essays are as important to their medium as the work they cover.

There could be a whole other roster of critic (Tim Perlich in Toronto being a big one, Monika Kendrick) who aren't writing those long essays but whose tastes are important as far as being the first ones to discover artists and entire movements rather than following them. They're equally important in a different way. Perlich told me about how Nirvana stayed at his apartment when they first played Toronto, and how he woke up the next morning to find Kurt Cobain having spent the night watching tapes of Twin Peaks for the first time.

(the point of that last sentence being that Tim P. is not well known but is a guy who has been at the crossroads of a lot of moments like that)

Like here is a typical Perlich article: writing about The Ponys in 2003 when no one knew them.

Right now, the Wii is all about the party games, which are great cause it's a fantastic way to spend a lazy evening at home drinking beer with friends. But bad because 4 controllers are expensive. For the uninitiated, party games are those that are made up of many many many smaller mini-games. Play a series of these, get points, win the game, etc. The original Wii Sports is great for this shit (ohmanohmanohman, Tennis). Mario Party 8 and Wario Ware are both a lot of fun in this setting. And I hear Mario Super fucking Strikers whatever is also supposed to be good.

If you like more traditional games, I have to recommend Super Paper Mario and the latest Zelda game -- both are absolutely wonderful for the reasons that those franchises normally are. Other upcoming games to look out for: the new Metroid and of course Guitar Hero 3 (although fucking Rock Band is going to eclipse the shit out of that one).

we play the wii sports game a lot and i think leaf wants zelda & i'm intrigued by paper mario...
are party mario & wario ware good for two people? what would you get?

How often do you see dan? I've got Wario Ware, Zelda, and Paper Mario. If you want to try them, I'll hook it up. For two people, I'd say Wario Ware is fun. If you two are the type to swap a controller back and forth whenever you die, Paper Mario could be pretty fun. I have honestly never played Mario Party 8, but Nintendo knows how to make some fun games, and in college I spent many an enjoyable night with Mario Party 2-4 and 40ozs.

I want to try Resident Evil 4 for wii, but that is not exactly a party game.

RE4 is fucking terrific also. Now if you'll excuse me, stop talking about nerdery so I can get my ass back to work.

Wow, neat:
Another bit of Surly news that interested me: You can now get "growlers"—resealable, refillable gallon jugs of beer—from the brewery in Brooklyn Center almost every Saturday, from noon to two o'clock.

Is Surly in a lot of bars/stores in Mpls?

i'm in minneapolis so i see dan about as frequently as i see any of the chicago-ans (which is to say not nearly enough). the local video store has wii game rentals - maybe we'll just do a trial run of games there.

I love growlers! Dogfishhead has them & there's a brewery near my office that has them as well.

EZ: It's in a few, actually. I think I last had it at the bulldog, but a few other bars & even restaurants carry it.

although most recently i've been savoring oberon since it's exactly the kind of summer brew i love.

Hey, this is neat: Roger Ebert is going back and writing some four-star reviews of movies he missed last year. Today he's got Casino Royale.

That's cool.

I think you can get growlers of beer at Piece.

Btw, Eric, I saw Zodiac the other night and like it the more I think about it, but I really wish I'd seen it in the theater.

I had a kobe beef hot dog for lunch.

You can get growlers at most brew pubs, which unfortunately Chicago is severely lacking.

we first tried the surly beer b/c we thought it was put out by surly bikes.

i don't know why i'm adding this detail.

I was just going to ask about that. They're both based in the twin cities no? That doesn't help things.

Yup. I wonder if anyone is mad about it. Surly bikes are well established.

If the other surly was like an advertising firm or something, probably. But it's beer. Bike dudes love beer.

They do! Plus, surly bikes makes booze accessories like bottle openers & flasks, so it would make sense for them to brew beer.

...and promote beer.

I wonder if it's a Simpsons reference?

http://figures.nohomers.net/Custom_Contest_Surly_Duff.jpg

Casino Royale is excellent.

And Superbad looks fantastic.

I wonder if George Michael will ever cease to be George Michael in my eyes.

You should all have invitations to sarah's b-day at this point ... if you don't, let me know.

That's gonna be one busy weekend. I think we're gonna go to Hideout Block Party on Sat. afternoon.

We're going to the Dan Deacon show that night. I guess he goes on early at the block party.

Us too after another party.
It will be a CRAZY PARTY TIME EXTRAVAGANZA!

Yeah, that is kind of an insane weekend.

Cubs are tied for first in their division.

I wish I could afford to go to a game anytime soon.