Saturday, January 27, 2007

The crown fish

I went down to Chicago's old Chinatown neighborhood two weeks ago (not the one near me along Argyle St.) for some dim sum with The Girlfriend and another couple and their infant son. After eating, we went to some of the little shops where they sell inexpensive tchotchkes. Often the items are irregular in some way -- such as a misprint in the logo. For a couple bucks, I couldn't resist a flashing-LED Nemo (from Finding Nemo) necklace:

crownfish1

The packaging is attractive enough, except that Nemo isn't a crown fish -- he's a clownfish. It might not be the most hilarious example of Engrish, but I was amused. I also thought it was interesting that even though this was clearly a depiction of Pixar's Nemo character, nowhere on the packaging does it explicitly identify it as Nemo, and it doesn't appear to be licensed by Pixar. Hmmm...

And then there's the fact that my scanner was unable to detect Nemo's bright orange color. To my scanner, he looks a drab gray. Should I be concerned about this? What about the warnings printed on the back of the packaging?

warning

Thank goodness, it has the CE mark (printed incorrectly). There is a symbol indicating the product is not for children 6 and under, but then Warning #1 says it is for ages 5 and up.

Surrounding Nemo's flashing LED core is the same kind of elastomeric material from which super balls are made. I can't imagine anyone deliberately trying to swallow it, but you are warned against it just in case. And then there is Warning #3. Nemo may stick to or stain various kinds of surfaces. So don't let him come in contact with anything. After reading that, I put Nemo back in his packaging, where he will stay for a good long time.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Chicago (anti-)Democratic politics

I've mentioned a couple times that I've been doing some volunteer work for Chris Persons, a candidate for 48th Ward Alderman. Make that former candidate. To appear on the ballot, candidates must submit a number of documents to the Chicago Board of Elections. Among these are nominating petitions containing a sufficient number of valid signatures (at least 167 for aldermanic races), but there is a laundry list of other nomination papers that must be filed: Statement of Candidacy, Statement of Economic Interest, receipt for Statement of Economic Interest, etc. When Chris Persons filed his papers, he was told by the clerk that all his papers were in order, when in fact one of the documents had been mistaken for another. For this error, he was struck from the ballot without any recourse to get his name reinstated.

Chris Persons was not the only candidate to make a minor error such as this. In fact, both of the other two candidates running against the incumbent Mary Ann Smith were also removed from the ballot under similar circumstances. The other candidates were Christopher Lawrence and Rosita Spane. I don't know much about Ms. Spane. As for Mr. Lawrence, I've heard some good things about him, but I felt that Chris Persons was the most capable alternative to Smith. In any case, now there will be no alternative to Alderman Smith this February 27.

I first heard about all this around three weeks ago, but since I've been so close to the campaign, I decided to hold off on writing about it and allow Chris Persons to communicate this information to the public himself. For two weeks, he contemplated mounting a write-in campaign, but in the end, he realized that without his name on the ballot, he would be at a huge disadvantage. This past Monday, he announced that he was throwing in the towel.

For the time being, Chris Persons' website is still up, and there you can read his letter to the community announcing the end of his campaign. There is also a picture of Chris standing in front of a group of volunteers, including me. The caption reads: "You can take our voice, but you cannot defeat our spirit!"

Friday, January 19, 2007

Still here

I try to update the blog at least once a week. In the week following the last entry, as a result of my being out of town and then my being under the weather, I failed. I still have plenty to write about -- soon.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Habeebi's

At my last block club meeting, one of the members lamented that when you look down Bryn Mawr, all you see is dollar stores. Dollar store, dollar store, dollar store. This person needs to look again. Certainly there are some dollar stores, but only a few; and a dollar store here and there can be a good thing.

Already, for several years, the Bryn Mawr Historic District has been home to Francesca's Italian restaurant, Johnny Sprocket's bike shop, and a Starbucks. Recently, I've discovered Ben's Noodle Shop (a Thai restaurant). And a few more eateries have opened up in the past year: Flourish (bakery and sandwich shop), That Little Mexican Cafe, and Habeebi's.

I first noticed Habeebi's a couple weeks ago as I was getting a loaf of bread from Flourish across the street. At the time it must have just opened. I decided to give Habeebi's a try last Friday, and here's my review...

Habeebi's is a very casual sit-down restaurant. You order and pay at the counter, then wait for the food to be brought to your table. They also do carry-out. The dining area is furnished in a somewhat plain, yet appealing, manner. Prices are pretty reasonable at around $8 per entree.

I ordered the combination plate and a side order of hummus, and my companion (a.k.a. The Girlfriend) had the fatoush salad. The food was excellent. However, not all was well. We took cans of pop from their cooler and asked if they could supply us with cups and ice. "Oh, sure... No problem." But they didn't follow through and actually give us the cups until we asked again later. And we waited a long time for our food. To their credit, they understood there was a problem and gave us a complimentary plate of baba ganoush. But even this they didn't get quite right; the extra baba ganoush wasn't served with extra pitas. So what were we supposed to do -- eat it with a knife and fork?

It's not that the staff was lazy. On the contrary, the guys behind the counter were running around in a frenzy, mostly putting together take-out orders. But they were either so understaffed or inefficient that they struggled to serve a mostly empty dining room. I hope that they will correct these problems in time, but until then, I would recommend Habeebi's for take-out only.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

LeeVees

I saw the LeeVees a couple weeks ago when they played a gig at The Kinetic Playground, a performance space just a couple of Red Line stops down from me. Actually, it was only two of the LeeVees -- they said they couldn't afford to bring the whole band to Chicago. It was kind of like spinning the dreidel and getting a "hey." But I shouldn't complain. This was the only stop on their tour that was west of New York.

With this post, I'm trying out a new media type -- video -- via YouTube. It's a music video of the Leevees' song How Do You Spell Channukkahh from their only album, Hanukkah Rocks. I know we're a week and a half beyond the end of Chanukah (SP?), but a good song knows no season. I hope this shows up OK...