Why I Oughta...

While it appears I'm safely in the "manly" category on some of my hobbies like gardening and woodworking, it seems that " collecting Christmas Village buildings " and " baking breads from sourdough starter " both fall somewhere off the "Official Manly Hobbies List" .   

*NOTE* Yes...This post is out of order.  We went to Pequod's a while ago, but I forgot to post the pics and review. We drove up to Morton Grove planning on hitting up Burt's Place for some deep dish pizza on a random Tuesday - not heeding any warnings about pre-ordering our pies or any of that jazz.  Pulling up to the place, I was excited:  this place is a dive!  But...being the #8 pizza on the list, I was sure this would live up to they hype.  The place seemed quiet. Eerily quiet.  Turns out...they're NOT open on Tuesdays.  Bummer. But....lucky for us, all was NOT lost.  You see, Burt Katz - the proprietor of Burt's founded a little place called Pequod's - which just so happens to be on the list, too.  And the best part?  The original Pequod's is LITERALLY right around the corner from Burt's.  Off we went. My only experience with Pequod's was their City of Chicago location, but turns out this place was where it all began. Established in 1979,

Nope...not the movie.  We haven't seen that (yet?  Ever?).  Rather I'm talking about the car, which coincidentially - for you non nerd types - isn't called the Green Hornet.  It is a tricked-out Chrysler Imperial they call the Black Beauty !  They had it on display at the auto show in Detroit and I had to stop by to see it. Interesting to note, the movie has really driven interest in the Black Beauty. Here's a chart showing search queries in the US have gone up 100X in the last month.  Pretty amazing what a wide-released movie will do to drive American's interest in the car.

Coming in at #16 on the Top 25 pizza places list, I was excited to give this place a shot.  Natalie had scored us a groupon or living social coupon for half off, so we had already committed the money to this place, so there was no turning back.  We decided to go to the Montrose location without doing a lot of research.  The location was closer to the expressway and being suburban folks that matters A LOT. When we arrived, I was surprised by the size.  This is a take-out place!  There is only 2 tables and a counter to sit at!  Fortunately for us, we were the only ones dining in. That probably was because we arrived before 6 - baby dining out hours. We took two of our nephews with and had a great time in the car ride down - watching Garfield and giggling along. When you walk in, you see the pizza prep area right away.  There were two guys working hard to create the pies.  The ovens are conventional gas ovens so they're tucked away on the left side.  Apart must do a heckuva lot

One of the projects I've taken on at work is developing a "voice" around sports, sporting events, and the business of sports.  The first big step forward is in the shape of my 6th Official Google Blog post which covers trends leading up to the Super Bowl.  You can read it here .  Three of my six OGB posts are now sports-related (Olympics, Stanley Cup, and now the Super Bowl), so I'm already a bit down the path of covering sports. This post was a lot of fun to write and came together quick - once I started to type.  Having offices in both Pittsburgh and in Madison Wisconsin gave me some good fodder and some of the trends I unearthed are pretty fun.  Like.... Wisconsin residents idolize the Packers much more than Lady Gaga ! However, the most interesting part (and...we'll know a lot more after the game tonight) is that I *think* I have created a new Sports Illustrated jinx.  If the Steelers win, my theory holds up:  The QB with the Google Search Query Volume lea

My days as a beer-spotter continue as I found a bunch of 12 packs of Buck Range Light beer on an end cap near the dairy section at the Elmhurst Jewel.  There are both Miller and Bud products (as you can see) on the lower shelves, so this stuff clearly has priority placing by whomever is merchandising this space in the store. Priced about the same as Big Flats 1901 Lager , Buck Range comes in at less than 50 cents a can - which isn't terribly bad, especially for the Elmhurst College crowd.  But...can't you still get a $9.99 30 pack of High Life Light these days? As for the beer itself, there isn't much on the web to find out if this stuff tastes any good, but I'm guessing it falls down  near Milwaukee's Best and Natural Light.  I *think* it is new to market - as I sure haven't seen it before - and can't find much about it. Even the guys over at Beer Advocate haven't posted on Buck Range Light yet!

She couldn't stop eating the snow, but loved being pulled in her sled.  What fun!

Note that some of you more nerdy types are probably up to speed on this, but I'm sure there's plenty of folks who don't stalk Techmeme who might end up finding this so I'll explain the whole deal a bit.  (Disclaimer...I work in PR at Google!  Consider this my personal opinion, not that of my employer.) A few days ago, Microsoft and their search engine Bing were caught with their hand in the cookie jar.  Some smart folks at Google noticed that Bing's "Search Quality" (how they rank results) was catching up to Google's fast - even on particularly difficult queries.  So...they set up a sting where they seeded a few bad results in Google, watched those same results rise to the top at Bing and then told a reporter about it.  Pretty cute!  The reports have been scathing on Bing.  "Google innovates, Bing copies", etc. But the issue isn't that easy to understand for a lot of people.  That's where Nate Silver from the NYT comes in.  I think

Over on Rachelle's blog, she pointed out the hilarity in Peapod's labeling of American Cheese as "Cheese product" and how certain cheeses are labeled to be "made from REAL cheese" , but think I ran into a situation this week at our local Jewel that might be the BEST example when it comes to goofy cheese labeling.    Yup.  That's right.  Although it may be a good source of calcium, this is in fact "Imitation Cheese"!  They sell it in two varieties (mozzarella and cheddar) and as I was whipping my phone out to take photo, the guy stocking the shelves commented that they may have been to honest with their packaging for consumer's tastes.  This stuff was marked down and won't be restocked, he said.  $0.94 for a package of cheese is pretty good.  But...this stuff isn't cheese! Looking at the label, there is milk-ish items involved, but after that, the ingredient list goes downhill fast. I'm guessing that there are plenty of othe

Nat scored us tickets to see Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy perform at a fundraiser for Chicago Mayoral Candidate Rahm Emanuel on Sunday night .  We had general admission tickets which didn't guarantee us a seat, but we arrived shortly after the doors opened and snagged GREAT seats at the counter by the bar.  Unobstructed views and close proximity to the bar plus a seat = suburban dad's dream concert set up. Rahm showed up a bit after six pm and went about greeting people.  I have to give him credit:  he worked the room - and not just the high dollar tables.  He was back by the bar where we were sitting (I even got to shake his hand!) and glad-handing with us mopes.  Total retail politics.   (shhhsh!  Don't tell him that we're not voters and we live in the suburbs!) Jeff Tweedy came out - disheveled as usual - and performed seven songs in just a bit under an hour.  He played one new song, a few recent songs, and a few older songs (New Madrid!).  Apparently the campaign