B12 Solipsism

I am reminding you that you should sign up for my daily email. Signing up should only take a minute or less if you are a fast typer, I absolutely promise to never send you unsolicited email (unless you want me to, of course. Ahem). Feedburner/Google has enabled the email to include items that don't necessarily make it to my weblog, but that I still think are interesting, or are otherwise topics of note. Like news stories that I Digg, YouTube video I "favorite", Flickr photos I upload, etc.

Plus you should subscribe to my daily email (usually gets released around 1 AM CST) so that you have something fun to read as you drink your morning beverage. A dose of B12's Solipsism can only enhance your day!

Oh, and you should follow me on Twitter too, if you are so inclined. I have other social media accounts, but I don't care if you friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Tumblr blog, for instance.

Short version: this blog has moved, across the street, to http://www.b12partners.net/wp/
Go check it out.

I've also installed a new photoblog which is pretty cool. Click here for the first image, click to image to advance to the next (or use the forward and back links). You can have a backdrop of white or black - black looks better, imho.

I installed WordPress 2.5 last night, and have been playing around with it for a few hours. Seems so much more responsive than Movable Type, at least at the moment. I don't know if that is because I have over 4,000 entries in MT, or because WP uses PHP, or if WP just is faster. MT gives one more control over the layout (templates for every page, archive, index), but this control also makes MT much more complicated to configure. I never did get the category archive to work properly, and gave up after struggling with the formatting for hours. Also, about every 3rd post made in MT doesn't complete the first time, I have to repost up to five times to get a proper response (though, this could be webhost-related, but then doesn't happen in WP).

www.flickr.com swanksalot's Your favorites photoset

Morgan and Lake, to be precise. In general, a new station is a good idea, if the capital is available. The West Loop has really boomed, and having an additional El stop would help traffic flow in the area.

[The new station will basically be right here - there is a sign for Rubenstein Lumber in this photograph, and Rubenstein's address is 167 N. MORGAN STREET.]

A new el station will be built on the Green Line at Morgan Street in order to serve an increased population in the northern part of the West Loop. The station, expected to cost between $35 million and $40 million in tax increment financing dollars, will be built despite a feasibility study that found more potential riders for a Western Avenue stop on the Green Line.

Brian Steele, a spokesman for the city's Department of Transportation, said a 2002 study that examined daily boarding at potential stops on the western and southern Green Line branches found that around 1,000 people each day would board a new station on the Green Line at Western, with 800 boarding at Morgan. But Steele said the facts have changed.

"Since that time, the area around the Morgan station has seen big jumps in residential and commercial development," Steele said, speaking anecdotally. The '02 study, said, "was based on 2000 census numbers. This is 2008. Clearly, the Morgan station has seen significant growth, much more than the area around Western. Another thing that led to the decision was in 2006, the CTA introduced the Pink Line service, which goes through the corridor the Morgan station will serve."

[From A Green Line station at Morgan]

Lake Street Green line, from my building's roof. The new station would be about 5-6 blocks west.

I am already on record supporting Cuban as the new owner of the Cubs, even though baseball bores me, and I haven't watched a baseball game in Chicago since 2005.

[Las Vegas Showgirls at Wrigley Field]

Think of it: Mark Cuban as the Chicago Cubs’ owner, bonding with the Bleacher Bums at Wrigley Field, splurging for rounds of Old Style beer and screaming at umpires. The concept is almost Veeckian, as if Bill Veeck, the populist former owner of the Browns, the Indians and the White Sox, had had zillions of dollars.

Buying the Cubs is the latest project for Cuban, the owner of the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks, but he is not alone in the expensive quest. Four other individuals and groups have given the debt-laden Tribune Company nonbinding offers of at least $1 billion for the team, its stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, and 92-year-old Wrigley Field.

Cuban is reported to be the top bidder, at nearly $1.3 billion

[From Cuban Wants Cubs, but Will Baseball Want Him? - NYTimes.com]

Richard Sandomir of the NYT keeps harping on the dollar amount of fines Cuban has gotten from the NBA, but there is a clear pattern of decline there, and Cuban has been less publicly inflammatory in recent years. I follow the NBA very closely, and Cuban has been a boon for the Dallas Mavs. The Cubs, and Chicago, would be well served to have an owner as activist as Mark Cuban.

• Sadly, No! » Even Worseness: The Even-Worsening
  Amy Chozick starts a thread: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 15-Jul-08 06:04 pm Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his “no excess body fat”? Please let me know. Thanks! A reply is posted: Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 15-Jul-08 10:21 pm Yes I think He is to skinny to be President.Hillary has a potbelly and chuckybutt I’d of Voted for Her.I won’t vote for any beanpole guy. Amy responds: Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 16-Jul-08 09:12 am Love your response and your username (onlinebeerbellygirl). Would you mind shooting me an email so I can ask you a few more quesitons? My email is [redacted] Thanks so much! -Amy
  (tags: Corporate_Media WSJ Murdoch Obama)

Tony Clifton may well be the rudest, crudest, most musically talentless lounge lizard ever to stalk a stage. But for those of a certain age and/or sensibility, he is an entertainer nonpareil.

As part of a national tour, his performing prowess will be showcased starting Thursday at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division. Accompanied by the Katrina Kiss My Ass Orchestra, the bellicose balladeer will croon from a vast repertoire of Sinatra, Lynyrd Skynyrd and even Led Zeppelin to raise funds for Gulf Coast artists who were hit by the hurricane.

"This is an amazing, amazing showman," says Clifton's longtime pal Dennis Hof, who owns the Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel in Carson City, Nev., where Clifton is said to be a frequent guest and winter boarder. "And he's the last of his kind."

Hof met Clifton a few decades back, when the late hooker-loving comedian Andy Kaufman would swing by the cathouse (which then bore a different name) with his Chicago-born friend Bob Zmuda, who now runs the charity Comic Relief.

In those "crazy" times, Hof says, Andy wasn't always himself.

"I remember one time, Andy partied with 18 girls in two days," he remembers. "And sometimes it was Tony."

[Click to read more of Kaufman's alter ego Tony Clifton is all trick and no treat :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Entertainment]