Chicago Love and Life in the USofA

So many things, so little attention. These last few weeks have been super hectic, between brother's wedding, High Holidays, the other Jewish holiday (I know it's a tired joke, but when you tell people that there's one more Jewish holiday after Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, they start to think you're making things up), car madness, loan madness and oh yeah, school...I'm looking forward to some peace of mind.

Luckily, the car is done. It cost way way more than I thought it would (let's just say the last post about car repairs turned out to be very optimistic), but the mechanic said it should be good for another 3 or 4 years. Loan madness goes on, but it looks like there will be some resolution (I've got some very nice people here at HR who are helping me out).

And I got $6 movie tickets for Nick and Norah (school discount :-) )!! $6 is great, the movie, however was not. I wanted to laugh more. I tried to laugh more. I was starting to annoy myself, so I just gave up.

On to the goodies.

Election season is in the air, and I've become a bit of a junkie. If you've seen my computer screen anytime since February, I'd have election news up from CNN, NY Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, and most recently, FiveThirtyEight.com. They're a little outfit, just two guys, that run daily stats on polls to give an idea of what they all mean (they favor an Obama victory by 90-some-odd percent currently) and also look at both campaign's ground games across the country.

Some context: last week, John Murtha, congressman of PA, said that while Western PA might be racist, they're still gonna go Obama. Horribly offensive and perhaps inaccurate, BUT, it does provide for some funny anecdotes:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

I laughed out loud. I don't think this as a generalization to all Western Pennsylvanians, racists or anyone for that matter. But damn funny.

Personally, I'm going for Big O and so is R. I don't "hate" John McCain, I just really don't appreciate the fact that, like Hillary, he is appealing to the lowest common denominator in all of us to get us to vote for him. Also, Obama seems smart enough to be practical and has a solid organization--good predictors for what he might be like in office. At least one has been in short supply these days.

And finally, a paean to Chicago and Evanston. I miss those places. Miss the restaurants, miss the people, the food, the stores, the sidewalks, miss a lot of it.

Today R and I were strolling around Huntington, the nearby town, where she was shopping for a dress for my cousin's wedding. First off, if you want to see people trying to look cool and failing, I've got some places you can look. If you can stomach it. We stopped in two stores for dresses. Fox's, a classic, proved to be a bust. Then we went to a local store, where the proprietor tried to unload a $250 dress on R (hahaha...riiiight), saying it was the cheapest prices in the town (luckily we have a car) and that if R really wanted, she could probably buy a dress for cheaper then fix it up. We think the woman was trying to be helpful, but it really didn't come off that way.

The food here, not as good (oh Ken's, Slice and Taboun); the stores here, not in walking distance or as cheap; no sidewalks. Siiiigh. I'm coming back in December for a bit, and I'm getting out of this area next June or July. I'm already looking for new places (closer to New York), any thoughts?