Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

And it's better now.

I like this title!

I saw it too and loved it. Kristen Wiig was great, way better than I've seen her do on SNL. Not that I judge anyone for not being impressive on SNL - I just hadn't noticed her much. I think I might want to own the DVD so I can watch it in bits and pieces while cooking or sewing or just to watch it. Also I am looking forward to the special features.

If we're talking about Bridesmaids, I liked it too. I have to admit, though, I really don't understand what's funny about gross-out humor like the scene in the dress shop. Apparently Apatow fought for that scene to be included, despite Wiig's reservations. Maybe he was right to do so, since the audience with whom Kr and I saw it was uproarious with laughter, but we just kind of looked at each other, baffled. Thankfully it was the only scene like that in the movie.

I dunno. The girl sitting on the sink screaming "DON'T LOOK AT ME!" made me larf.

Fisrt HUGE laugh for me, though, was, "I cracked a blanket in half."

My companions (whose identities I will let them reveal if they want to) and I laughed hard at that scene.

God yes, "DON'T LOOK AT ME" and "LOOK AWAY!" were pretty hilarious.

I want to recommend to you guys The Antlers' new album, Burst Apart. It's great - very quiet and contemplative. At first I was concerned that I wasn't going to love it b/c it isn't devastatingly depressing like Hospice (a critic said that the new album "marks a move away from the stifling bleakness"), and b/c sometimes slow, quiet music is hard for me to get into, but I love it.

Courtney and I (and one of the bartenders from 5c07's) are going to see them in June. Yay!

I laughed at that scene because poop jokes are funny but I don't think the movie would have suffered too much for its absence. I also hid my eyes for most of it so I'm not entirely sure how gross it got (saw the woman pooping in the sink, which was just horrifying, and Lil pooping in the street, which made me LOL, especially when the car honked at her and she just waved it passed). Annie stubbornly eating a jordan almond while sweat poured down her face made me howl. Also the conversation in the car afterwards was pretty funny.

Yes, the best parts of that scene were Wiig trying to deny that she wasn't suffering and Maya Rudolph plopped down in the street in her dress. The projectile vomiting was just ... no.

Yeah, I hid my eyes for that. I am of the belief that projectile vomiting is pretty much never necessary.

But people love it! Why?

I watch Black Swan on the plane. I think I could really be a good ballerina.

John, it's been a long time since we've seen you not get something. Welcome back.

(said in the spirit of friendly ribbing)

Ha.

John - One theory of humor says that we find things funny due to a clash between how we think things should be and what we actually see happening. Women in fancy dresses vomiting and shitting in a sink and in the street goes against our expectations, so we laugh. It's not only the juxtaposition of the setting and the activities that makes the scene funny, it's that seeing such extreme examples of bodily functions that are normally private is a violation of norms, and many people find that transgression funny. From there we have to get into questions that are biological and psychological mysteries.

While my first reaction to your question is "People find it funny because that's just how it is!" I also love dissecting humor. It bugs the shit out of me if I hear somebody say that that kind of analysis ruins a joke - for me it a joke new life and maybe leads to discovery of further humor. Analysis some time after the moment of the joke being different from explanation while the joke is still fresh, of course.

Analyze battleshits from Harold and Kumar.

Damn is this this Bridesmaids analysis thread o que

Godammit I am on the train on the way to the dentist. This is what I get for being snotty.

I am finally watching Lost, am on S2. Major negative feelings about M Rodriguez's dental makeover. Speaking of the dentist, I mean.

Oh man, Amanda. Are you sure you want to do this to yourself? :(

I think in many ways watching Lost on DVD would be much healthier than committing to the broadcasts.

I recommend stopping at season three and making up your own ending.

Agreed with the both of youse.

It's on netflix streaming so why not watch it? It feels like an exciting escape at this point even if I basically hate everyone.

Treated myself to latte and croissant from intelligentsia after the dentist and it is soooooo good.

The first few seasons were awesome, then it dipped, which would have been no problem, except that the finale was fucking horrible.

Not horrible: my croissant. Good lord that was tasty.

Cool map of IL in 1818

http://www.19thcircuitcourt.state.il.us/SiteCollectionImages/1818il.jpg

that needs some serpents/dragons/etc

Indiana: Here Be Dragons

Spoiler: Soiler

Hey, do any of you have a cooler I can borrow on Sunday?

No but you have a porch and a large apartment so you should own your own. Let me know if you want me to go pick one up for you I you don't have time.

I'll get back to you on that, Daddypants.

Heh. http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/andy-rooney-for-president

Awesome. I'm totally stealing that link for Facebook.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Sn8TOFd_eLg/TdJoZCWvNLI/AAAAAAAANcw/inUbMjUQdOs/s1600/patridiot.jpg

kind of amazing it's all on a japanese car... maybe that's progress being made?

I think they're trying to convince themselves of something.

btw you guys, inflicting malort on jjj's bachelor party was a smashing success

next up: inflicting it on Boston ppl

You are like Johnny Appleseed except with Malort and your name is Dan. Danny Malortinflicter.

Jesse: Where did you get that cool little sweater shaver that gets rid of pilling? I have some pilling going on on a couple of critical items.

You can use a cheapo disposable razor (without the lube strip) to depill, too.

I've tried that, and it does do something, but it doesn't work nearly as well as that thing that Jesse has. It's like how some devices for removing cat hair are great, and some aren't so great.

LOL! I thought, if Jenny sees that post before me, she's going to try to talk him out of it.

Kenan, I think I bought that one on Amazon. The ones at Bed, Bath, and Bajingo were tiny and really flimsy. Maybe call Michael's, or try Target.

I love my sweater shaver and I will never let anyone come between us again.

I'm thinking Target might be good. That giant fuck-off box of a store at Clark and Roosevelt might be the way to go.

You have one much closer. Is it smaller?

I want to go to Target.

in other news, I recently got hired as director of my library. I officially start on Monday, though I've been acting director since June so it won't really change much immediately.

But of course literally the day after I found out I got the job, we discovered various issues with our foundation and so now all this work is being done and I had to close the library 3 hours early yesterday and today our children's floor is totally closed too. Just venting'.

That's prett great! Right? A promotion and stuff?

Great news! Congratulations.

yaaaaaaaaay! it's about time.

(better the foundation of the library than the foundation of your own house, though amirite)

will this guy ever get here? am i going to have to slug around in my sweatpants all day?

extreme hardship!

Sweatpants are a practical way to be comfortable and warm without having to be in bed the whole time. Sweatpants are ACTIVE pants!

yes it is a massive promotion and I'm very excited about it! I mean the raise and the extra vacation and the phat office are enough, but obviously it will also be able to have the authority to DO things.

But I am a bit stressed too.

"it will also be nice to be able" rather

omg you have an office! And a raise! That's great. The stress is pretty normal, I think.

Yay. We have to go to the Barrelhouse now to celebrate!

The only book I've read more than once is 20k leagues under the sea.

I read short stories, essays, poems, and plays many times, more than full books.

I think Clark/Division used to be a real "side of the tracks" divider between the Gold Coast and Cabrini Green. Now the projects are mostly gone, Old Town is spiffy, but the Mark Twain SRO and the rest remain. I wonder what the real-estate story is behind that, since you're right, Jesse: it would be the perfect spot for the kinds of stores near the Chicago and North/Clybourn stations.

Congrats, AJ! I will buy you a beer next time I see you.

Thanks!

Shouldn't you be buying all the beers now?

I finally got around to taking the water flow regulator out of our shower head (our water pressure is just okay, not great, and I want great water pressure (yeah yeah firstworldproblems I know)) and in search for a diagram of which part actually is the flow regulator, I found this hilarious how-to page:

http://www.freeexistence.org/highflow.html

Next time somebody asks me why I think libertarianism is ridiculous, I'm going to just point them to this page and be done with it.

Haha. The desire for a good shower makes for strange bedfellows.

My shower is all muffed up. I have a showerhead that I take with me to any apartment I've ever rented (got a new one when I moved to Chicago from Gso) and it finally cracked and it sprays all over.

That's manageable, but what really sucks is that the hot water is 120F, and the cold water pressure that fluctuates greatly. It's a pretty crappy shower experience, having to keep the water lukewarm so that when the cold water drops off, there will still be enough cold water to keep it from being scalding.

jeff is right, I should be buying all the beer

Now that you're in the 1% with your fancy, high-end library job and all.

I wonder what the highest paid librarian in the country makes?

From a 2006 NYT article about the New York Public Library:

The library’s most recent federal tax filing shows that the total compensation for Paul LeClerc, the library’s president and chief executive, had increased to more than $800,000, a jump of more than $221,000 from just a year earlier.

I don't know if he'd consider himself a librarian, though.

congrats aj

i checked out museum of love from the library on jesse's recommendation like 5-6 years ago, didn't finish it, returned it but it wasn't checked in properly so they said i still had it out. it's still on my record as "contested."

i am also not a big rereader but there are a few books i've reread multiple times: lolita, pale fire, confederacy of dunces. and some books i reread obsessively as a kid, though mostly not novels: more things like the book of lists or the guinness book of records or the rolling stone record guide.

oh yeh, Confederacy of Dunces, too! I occassionally reread bits and pieces of Lolita.

Obsessive childhood re-reads are like a whole new category. I had a pile of YA books that I reread over and over, some of which I checked out repeatedly from the library (all the John Bellairs eg). I have forgotten most of the titles but there was one about werewolves and there was a band in the book called the Sebastopol Simians bc they were from Sebastopol and wore gorilla masks.

(note: I found this confusing bc I thought Sebastopol was in a foreign country until probably high school.)

There was one about a friendly robot, too.

god I kind of want to read some John Bellairs books again, I was all about them in 6th grade. But I suspect they'd be crap.

OMG you guys he was MY FAVORITE

my bff and i would sit in her attic, read john bellairs books, and listen to buddy holly. it was the only thing i liked about 6th grade.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nKJ_uvquASQ/SgJCjM6v1WI/AAAAAAAAAe4/EuExO202gq8/s400/house+full+dj.jpg

THIS WILL NEVER BE CRAP

Aww, nuts: No results found for "Sebastopol Simians".

never even heard of that dude before

Not only did I take the flow regulator out of the shower head, I soaked it in CLR, too. And I Drano-ed the tub and bleached the shower curtain. I'm going to take a second shower, I think.

http://www.goreybooks.com/images/covers/mummywillcrypt.jpg
the gorey covers drew me in, but the stories were good too iirc -- scary!

(i did not know who he was at the time, but i liked the covers)

http://littlewolfblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/gorey_treasure.jpg

i have this one at home, and the cover is laminated with contact paper because that is the phase i was in at the time i read it
the "cover everything with contact paper" phase

tbh I remember almost nothing about the bellair books other than the gorey illustrations and the fact that I imbibed them like they were ambrosia

this one was SO good iirc

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__HE5SocNmDg/S23Gx0yLrbI/AAAAAAAAAwQ/guhTgivfaYA/s320/weatherend.jpg

Actually, the only other thing I remember is the location where they were shelved in my elementary school library, which is very strange but I guess it makes sense considering my current profession

another 6th grade favorite was John Christopher

don't know him, i don't think, but the gis for his name brings up a startling number of creepy mug shots :-/

I think I still own this somewhere:

http://s11.lucyphotos.com/images/orig/q/2/q2781ih8rri42q8r.jpg

or rather
http://s11.lucyphotos.com/images/orig/q/2/q2781ih8rri42q8r.jpg

actually come to think of it I read the chronicles of narnia in 6th grade too. this leads me to believe that my reading life has been all downhill since I was 12.

Are any of you guys working today? Its gross out there, apparently the City decided that shovelling, plowing, and/or salting was out of the question on a holiday.

I'm actually flying into Lincolnshire today. kinda scared of driving, but I don't have to be at work until tomorrow so I'm content driving as slow and methodically as possible (see cos we don't get snow/ice in FL so I have never driven in it, megalols)

Well, according to the forecast this stuff is supposed to taper off soon and it'll hopefully be cleared off before you'd have to worry about it. The only two roads that were salted and/or plowed, Michigan Ave & LSD, were actually pretty smooth, the trouble was just that they hadn't even touched any of the other streets.

No work for me today. I don't think I'll leave the house.

^^^ man with a good plan

If I didn't have a huge project deadline tomorrow, I'd have called off. Problem is, now that I'm here, I realize that I have all of my work done but the people I need to coordinate with are all off today.

I'm off today, too.

today is errand day and i'm wondering how i can make this fun for myself

New year, new thread: Chicago MMXII