Kinetic Loop

Ed O’Neill talking to his bird, Zippy, in John from Cincinnati. “So this isn’t an evenhanded back and forth. This is me on the receiving end of you delivering unalterable instructions.” Also: “I’m here on orders from my bird.”

DJ Steve Boyett’s GROOVELECTRIC progressive house podcast mixes (and his intros to each one). I’ve played ‘Numinous’ the past three runs, but today it’s going to be ‘Paterfamilias.’

Women’s weight training info at Stumptuous.

My friend’s wonderful and new-ish blog, MY YEAR with JAMIE. Her goal is to cook every recipe in Jamie Oliver’s Cook With Jamie. Here’s her first post. “Jamie’s books, unlike those of some other celebrity chefs, actually have recipes that are easy to follow and work in reality, for normal people.”

Annabeth Gish’s crow doodle for USA National Doodle Day.

Elvis Mitchell’s laugh on The Treatment.

Spielberg directing Liam Neeson as Abe Lincoln.

Graham Crackers comics on Michigan and Madison, and the manager, Matt, who knows everything and helps me find stuff.

Two tiger pythons and an albino tiger python were discovered in a German post office when one of the snakes bit through the mail parcel. Their destination was somewhere in east Germany, but the snakes were taken to a reptile house instead.

Just a moment before, they were all looking in the same direction…and the first guy was lined up with the others. Oh well.

I guess the city doesn’t really want you to register in advance for Great Chicago Places and Spaces.

When I go to a text link that says “Click Here to Register Online” on the main event site, I’m taken to an active.com event page. I don’t notice the green ‘Register Now’ button on the top and instead I click on a link where it says you can register. That link takes me back to the city’s main event page.

Moreover, the box right next to the text registration link on the city’s main event page — “Click Here to Register Online for Advance Registration Tours” — goes to the same active.com event page. There should never be any doubt what the call to action is; i.e., what you should do next. But the city’s main event page has two adjacent links with different wording that take you to the same destination:an active.com event page.

The green ‘Register Now’ link on the active.com page takes me to an Accept Waiver form where I have to okay an extensive legal waiver. Then, it’s to a registration form that wants my name, phone, email and postal address. So I have to give active.com all that info if I want to register for Places and Spaces tours? No frakking way.

The alternative is to go to CAF before 7:30 am on the 17th or 18th to register for Event Day Tours. Also, Great Interiors doesn’t require tickets, so you can show up during certain blocks of time.

Foes of the the Grant Park Children’s Museum formed a coalition and collected petition signatures on Monday.

In response, Mayor Daley said: “They’re threatening everybody—your political life. They’re going to defeat all aldermen. They are going to beat everybody in the world. But, one thing, those children grow up and remember them.”

The WSJ reports today that a former Spitzer aide is joining a law firm specializing in white-collar defense work.

They quote the former aide as saying, “I’ve always thought public service was one of the highest callings.”

Spotted on Chicago Ave and Wells.