markpetrowsky.com

My Bloody Valentine is back together and doing a short North American tour this summer. Fortunately for any Chicagoland residents they’re making a stop in our home town September 27th. I just grabbed my tickets and I’m anxious for this show. MBV hasn’t played in the states in 16 years so it’s pretty big deal… well to some. It reminds me of when the Pixies got back together a few years back. If you’re a fan of shoegazer My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless is an essential for your collection.

I wish I ran across this project before I headed into vote this morning so I could have participated. The New York times with the AIGA is asking the voters of the United States to snap and upload picts of their voting places. This is a great way for the regular Joe American to document there voting environments and give us online users a way to sneak a peak into the worlds of other voters around the country. It’s kind of interesting seeing schools, public buildings and even firehouses turned into makeshift voting places.

Anyone who lives in Chicago in our around Wicker Park has probably seen Mean Gene the Dancing Machine. Gene Lee was that crazy dancing character often found at the three way intersection of North, Damen and Milwaukee cranking out out some footwork while jamming to his headphones. According to his MySpace page and other rumors on net, he’s passed away. I have to admit every time i’ve seen the guy he’s brought a smile to my face so hopefully his passing is a prank and not reality.

Chicago based poster designer Jay Ryan of the Bird Machine has an exhibit on display at the University of Illinois’ I Space gallery down in River North. If you’re unfamiliar with Jay Ryan’s work he’s known for his whimsical hand drawn posters promoting rock band shows which often include images of an assortment of animals. I believe the exhibit focuses on some of his newer work from 2005-2007.

Luckily the exhibit just started last week (Dec 7th) so there’s plenty of time to check it out. The exhibit is running through February 12, 2008, check the I Space site for the gallery address and hours.

Last week I attended the PhizzPop Design Challenge in Chicago. The event was sponsored by Microsoft and and it was pretty much a big marketing event to raise awareness of Microsoft Expression Suite and woo the creative web community into trying the product. I’m not one for attending events as such but I decided to give it a shot since I heard about it through the IxDA group. I was pretty much clueless as to what was to take place other than the vague description of designers competing in some type of challenge. The event was held at the Underground and I figured at the very least it would be worth attending for the free drinks.

(more…)

The ChicagoTribune has a nice set of 30 vintage winter photos to get you in that holiday spirit. In particular I especially like photo number 16 (shown above) of the motorists snowed in on Lake Shore Drive up near Foster Avenue. That reminds I need go toss a bunch of random junk in the street to reserve that parking spot i just shoveled out!

If you missed the first SEED conference in Chicago with Jason Fried of 37 Signals, Carlos Segura of T.26 and Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners like I did, this is your chance to catch it the second time around. From what I read and heard from an old coworker, the conference focuses on design and entrepreneurship, and it definitely sounded worth the money. Unfortunately I’m out of town that weekend so I’m missing my chance to go again! Doah!

Last week I attended my first Chicago IxDA group event. The topic was RIA’s (Rich Internet Applications): what are they, how do you define them, etc. The monthly discussion is only the second the IxDA chapter has held, and on my first attendance my impression was very positive. Some interesting conversation came about, and overall I thought it was definitely a worthwhile way to spend a school night.

A couple interesting questions from the session:

1. Does an RIA have to exist in a browser window? For example, is iTunes a Rich Internet Application? iTunes pulls from the web so does that justify calling it an RIA? (more…)

My wife and I joined a couple friends at Habana Libre located on Chicago Ave, just east of Ashland, for some Cuban eats. The restaurant had been on my list for some time since it’s BYO and we live in the neighborhood and walk past its storefront every week.

From the outside Habana is a pretty modest looking place, and upon entering you won’t be blown away by the interior decor (although it’s not terrible either). The real focus here is the food for sure.

I called and made early Friday evening reservations for our party and boy was I glad I did when I saw the line of customers waiting outside the restaurant around 8pm. For appetizers we ordered a few empanadas, including chicken and a guava and cheese, which I highly recommend! In addition to the empanadas we had plantain chips with garlic sauce and pappas rellenos - little fried mashed potato balls with beef inside. Very tasty!

I ordered the Cuban sandwich, my wife had the chicken sandwich (pan con pollo) and our friend had the Pan Con Ropa Vieja (shredded beef sandwich) and informed us its literal Spanish translation is dirty laundry. Every dish was fantastic. In fact on our second visit to Habana I actually ordered the Ropa Vieja because after tasting my friend’s sandwich the first night I thought it was even better than the Cuban I had. All the sandwiches are served on a toasty French-like bread and come with black beans and rice for a bit extra, and I’ll also note were some of the best black beans I’ve had in some time.

The best part of the evening was the price - after a couple bottles of wine and an extremely satisfying dinner with our friends we walked out of the place after paying a mere $55 bill between the 4 of us. Needless to say we’re starting to become regulars at Habana Libre.