About Kevin Smith’s announcement of the making of Clerks 2, from a comment on slashdot.
In the new version, Dante shoots first.
Archive of entries posted on August 2004
Will Kevin Smith pull a Lucas?
DuPage Symphony Orchestra Concert on 9/11
Pre-Dinah’s birth, Sarah had been playing with the DuPage Symphony Orchestra. She stopped playing once she couldn’t sit comfortably for an hour, and the summer for us to get used to having a baby. She’s just started rehersal again preparing for the yearly outdoor concert at Cantigny Park.
This concert is great, you can picnic, you can listen to my wife play with the symphony, and…CANNONS! You can never go wrong with cannons.
Perhaps our friend Maggie will stay in her chair this year when the cannons go off.
I’ve quoted the information off DSO’s web page below since they didn’t have a static URL for this information.
The DuPage Symphony Orchestra will end its historic 50th season with a gala outdoor concert at 7:00 pm on Saturday, September 11 at Cantigny Park in Wheaton. The park is located on Winfield Road just south of Roosevelt.
The DuPage Symphony concert will feature music of both Scandinavia and America. The concert will begin with a spirited march by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius from his Karelia Suite and Finlandia, the stirring anthem of his homeland. Norway is represented by the music of Edvard Grieg with his charming Peer Gynt Suite No.1.
Traditional American music is presented in the second half of the concert when the orchestra performs Patriotic Melodies that Stirred Our Nation. To commemorate the events of September 11, 2001, on the third anniversary of the tragedy, the orchestra will perform James Grant’s Tribute for Orchestra.
Highlighting the concert will be the DSO’s annual performance of Tchaikovsky’s “explosive” 1812 Overture, with the assistance of Taylor’s Battery, First Illinois Light Artillery Division.
For details and ticket information contact Cantigny Park at 630-668-5161.
Parental Disney update
Okay, so this is a lesson that my brother exaggerates slightly. My parents were not in a shelter at Disney World during the hurricane.
This visit to Disney World they were stating in the Hotel that looks over the Animal Kingdom part of the park. When they got to the park and checked in, they were upgraded to a room with a view that overlooks the park. They were supposed to have a view of the parking lot from their room. Disney was moving people over from For Wilderness campground to take up shelter in the hotel. My mom figures they got an upgrade since they had a reservation at Animal Kingdom, and they were putting the Fort Wilderness people in the less desirable rooms.
When the storm really started to come in, they asked everyone to stay in their rooms, and everything was fine. They didn’t have room service and the restaurants weren’t open, but they had been given a bag dinner and the TV kept working.
All in all, sounded like a nice restful day on their vacation.
Fun in the internet age
There’s something that seems wrong about using a web page to reserve a campsite. However, I’ve now done it twice: once three years ago, and again today.
Alderaan had WMDs!
On Slashdot today there was a news item about the upcoming DVD release of the first three Star Wars movies. Of course, everyone is still bitching about Greedo shooting first, as they should. And it seems the Lucas is going to tweak the movies AGAIN for DVD release.
Anyway, in the discussion thread there was a post mocking the Greedo people that said:
I hear that in this version Alderaan shoots first.
One of the responses to that post was classic.
No, but there’s good inteligence that clearly shows Alderaan had a stockpile of WMDs that it planned to give to the Rebel Alliance. The new DVD further points out that its government was an anti-democratic dictatorship by a royal family, and goes on to document its sentient-rights abuses which while largely decades in the past, still play a part in building a convincing case for a pre-emptive planetary destruction by the Emp – er – Coalition Forces.
Random Openings….
According to an ad in the paper this morning, the Downers Grove Sam’s Wines is now open.
Also opening today, according to the radio, is the downtown Chicago Segway dealership. I might have to stop by for a laugh.
Brown bag lunch in the loop
Dave and I have been trying to bring lunch to work more often than not. However, we still want to get out of the office/our cubes, especially while its still nice out. The question is where is a good place to go.
So far we’ve been frequenting the courtyard near our building, and the courtyard in the area behind the Wrigley Building and Sun-Times Building. The latter spot may disappear when Trump Tower and Ego Palace construction begins.
So, anyone else know of a good place to eat outdoors near 430 N. Michigan Ave? (Please don’t suggest on the statue of Bob Newhart’s lap.)
More on Hurricane Charley
In my last post, I forgot to mention the other things in FL to worry about besides my parents.
My grandparents are snowbirds and own a trailer (with an addition) in Fort Myers. They spend 6 months out of the year there. Thankfully, they are in IL for the northern part of their yearly cycle. However, I wonder how their place is doing.
Also, my Uncle Mark is building a house on Captiva or Sanibel, I forget which. I think its Captiva. I wonder what shape that is in.
According to CNN, many places in Fort Myers have lost part, if not all, of their roofs. Among them are the Cape Coral Hospital and the post office.
Still no word from my parents at Disney World. However, I didn’t expect to hear from them until tomorrow.
It’s a small shelter after all….
My parents have a vacation scheduled at Disney World. Unfortunately, the vacation started today. They flew out of O’Hare at 7am this morning. Appearently, with the Hurricane Charley coming their flight still flew this morning. They also deceided to still go on it.
They called my brother a little bit ago saying they made it to Florida safely. They also report that they are at Disney and have been put into a shelter there. They said they’d call tomorrow to let us know all is good.
Thanks to Mike Maggio for the post title.
Update 7/15: My parents called my brother this morning. All is good. They didn’t call yesterday because they didn’t have any cell signal yesterday. They said 7/14 was really enjoyable at EPCOT, if only because they were the only people there. No word on what the shelter was like. I guess we’ll know more next week.
NY’s loss is Downers Grove’s yummy-alcohol-gain
For Sam’s Wine and Spirits, it’s Downers Grove over N.Y.
One answer about why Sam’s Wine and Spirits is making its first expansion to the western suburbs can be found in the store’s Lincoln Park shipping room.
Boxes of wine are stacked to the ceiling awaiting shipment to customers in Hinsdale, Geneva, Naperville, Western Springs and Forest Park, along with numerous other communities across the United States.
Widespread telephone and Internet orders have helped make Sam’s the largest volume wine and spirits store in the United States. This year, it expects to book $60 million in sales and employs 150 people.
Absent, however, are large numbers of boxes bound for New York City, where Fred Rosen and his sons had planned to make their first foray away from what has been their only location, tucked behind the new retail district along Clybourn Avenue, north of North Avenue.
“We put New York on hold because we’re like farm boys. It’s much harder to deal with the people there. It’s not like Chicago,” said Rosen, 67, who has handed day-to-day operations of the store over to his sons.
Sam’s Wines, if you’ve never been there, is an awesome store. Its only problem to date is that its a fair trip into the city for me to shop there. However, every time I’ve gone, I’ve not been disappointed. Also, its nice that its located right next to the Goose Island Brew Pub.
On those times I haven’t made the drive, Binny’s has fit the bill. The guys from Sam’s claims they aren’t doing it to compete with Binny’s, and I’ll accept that at face value. However, it’ll be interesting to see Sam’s give Binny’s a run for their money out in the burbs.
Downers Grove is getting all sorts of interesting places. First Fry’s, now Sam’s. I wonder what’s next.