Chicago

I went to Chicago yesterday for a wine tasting and they have glorious greasy meats in that town. Just look at this shit:



Then look at this shit:



Now look at this shit:



Now clean up your keyboards, you philistines.

Chicago feels like a city in which the monopoly man would live - the streets are wide and all the neo-gothic and art deco architecture just reeks of rich dudes in snazzy wintercoats living the high life. Just look at this handsome motherfucker.



He just got off the phone with Treasury Secretary Paulson and won a slice of the bailout pie. Take that, shoe.

Wine tastings are bizarre because you need to be on your fucking game - your mouth feels like a wound by the end of the three hours and all you have around to help the cause is a platter of blue cheese, which as anyone who has ever tasted blue cheese knows, is far from crisp and refreshing. Thankfully this was a trade tasting. Monday I went to one that was ostensibly a trade tasting but somehow turned into this one sloppy girl using the word "mulatto" in mixed company and someone else urging me to "throw the fuck down."



Those dudes have a ridiculous cover of "Baby Got Back."

Wearing a suit makes it a lot easier to walk into random businesses to use the restroom. Herein I will rate the restrooms of the following fine retail and commercial establishments that let my suspender-and-pinstripes cracker ass use the facilities as I schlepped around town for 5 hours:

Neiman-Marcus on Michigan Avenue: quiet and sequestered into an obscure corner on the third fucking floor, and the escalators were too thin to let my piss-logged self pass the lollygagging Indo-Chine tourists. Gawkers must've wondered why a fine-threaded white dude was dancing behind the wealthy asiatic financiers. At least my job is recession proof. Fuck your recondite pissholes, Needless Markup. C-

Potbelly's in the Financial district: The one on 7th avenue NW in DC has some dude singing white boy blues during lunch break. I was looking forward to being serenaded by some Jack Johnson covers as I urinated. There were none but the bowl was rather clean by fast-food establishment standards, and also highly visible and right across from the main entrance, which allows beelining towards the door without awkward contact with employees. Decor was lacking. A-

W Hotel in the Financial District: Who thinks it's a good idea to blare deep house music during a Nurse Practitioner Convention. These dudes do. Thankfully gender stratification in the workplace meant no line for the men's room. I even snuck a peak at the presentation, which was about helping patients across the language barrier. All the world is peachy, but I can do without associating my toilet business with a Moscow discotheque. B-

Boda Putin's harem of dour Slavic goddesses gives the world a big fucking thumbs up.