Your Numbers Up

Google SMS is my new favorite thing. Thanks to Gaper’s Block for the tip. I am absolutely addicted to their SMS service.

You can use your mobile phone to get information by text message direct from Google. As Google explains, “Send your query as a text message and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions, product prices and more. Just text. No links. No web pages. Simply the answers you’re looking to find.”

For example, send a text message (called an SMS) to 46645 (GOOGL) that reads “China Garden Chicago, IL” and you get a message back that says “China Garden 2256 North Clark Street Chicago IL (773) 477-3219.” You can even be more general and send “Chinese food 60614″ and see what they recommend.

My friend Mike has several friends in Chicago’s improv comedy scene and she and I have been talking about going to see some of her friends’ shows for months. Well last night we finally got around to it. I went with her and some other friends to two shows.

We went to pHamily, an improv comedy show at Stage Left theater. It’s an hour-long totally improvised show about a year in the life of one character and his family. The show is completely interactive, very funny and surprisingly original. The cast is extremely talented; I was literally aching after the show from laughing so hard. The smaller venue gives the show an intimate feel. I’d recommend this as an edgier, funnier alternative to Second City (which can also be lots of fun) and as an especially appropriate place to take visiting friends looking to experience Chicago’s improv scene. ph Productions does several other shows as well.

I’m a bit of an NPR junkie. I also love food. So when NPR does a story about food - well, you can imagine.

In any case, Fresh Air interviewed Ruth Reichl, editor of Gourmet Magazine and the excellent Tender at the Bone. She was also the former restaurant critic for the New York Times. Not a shabby resume, eh?

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This is a word-for-word transcript of a voicemail message I received from my friend Simon. I swear to God I am not making this up.

I had this epiphany, like, you know we could write a theme song for you. And I’m thinking about it like, ya know sorta a la Shaft. Ya know, the first opening chorus could be:

Who’s the bad-ass banker that makes all the women swoon? And in the background we’ve got like an Isaac Hayes-kinda guy goin’: Gerakasae. And you can be like: Daaamn Straight. And I think it could be really cool and I’m thinking that maybe it’s something that, like, on first dates and stuff like that you can just play in the Z3 you know while girls are with you and stuff. I think theme songs are really under-rated and more people should have ‘um.

So in the past couple weeks several people have emailed me links to articles about Cereality, a new “cereal bar” that will soon be arriving in Chicago. The concept? Three to four bucks gets you one of over 30 types of cereal served in a wi-fi enabled environment by pajama-clad employees. It’s sounds like a potential train wreck, but like a train wreck, I can’t take my eyes off it. Or won’t be able to take my eyes of it, you know, once it opens.

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Saved! is released on DVD tomorrow. Seek out (rent, buy, whatever) this outstanding film and encourage Hollywood to produce more gems like this one.

Plot Outline: When a girl (Jena Malone) attending a Baptist high school becomes pregnant, she finds herself ostracized and demonized, as all of her former friends turn on her.

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Las Vegas was everything Las Vegas promises to be. I had fun and I think the rest of the group did too. We had dinner at N9ne at the Palms and spent some time at Ghost Bar. The beautiful people were out in force and we weren’t totally out of place, if I do say so for ourselves. Today I find myself back in Chicago, more tired and a little bit richer than when I left. Really, what more could one want from a trip to Las Vegas?

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Leaving for Las Vegas for the weekend with some friends. I haven’t really traveled much this year at all, and while this is just a quick trip, I’m looking forward to it. I’m told that what happens there stays there, but I might just spill some details on here next week.

Have a good weekend, everyone…

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From the Register US airport fake ID study ‘was found in al-Qaida cave’:

The US House Aviation Subcommittee yesterday heard how congressional investigators used false IDs to gain access to a series of federal buildings and two commercial airports, and how a copy of the report detailing their success was later found in an al-Qaida cave in Afghanistan. The investigators were 100 per cent successful in getting past security, but apparently less so in the case of their own report’s security.

Subcommittee Chairman John Mica told a hearing on biometric ID in aviation that the deployment of more secure ID needed to be accelerated, given that terrorists are interested in gaining access to restricted airport areas. The congressional investigators had made their fake IDs using software downloaded from the Internet, and apparently this passed muster.