In a couple of hours, I'll be en route to my favorite city in the world, a place where, although I lived there for but a brief three years, I felt completely at home.
Chicago, baby!
Yes, I'm on the way to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago. While there, I'll be checking out the latest and greatest findings from the world of cancer therapy. As any blogger would, I'm hoping not just to learn something but to find interesting blog material.
In the meantime, don't forget that the 88th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is fast approaching on Thursday, June 5 at Jyunri Kankei. If you're a skeptical blogger, don't forget to submit the best stuff you've written over the last couple of weeks, and then both bloggers and readers should join us on June 5 to peruse the best of the skeptical blogosphere. It'll be just one day after Jenny McCarthy's antivaccination woo-fest of a rally in Washington, D.C.; so I'm sure we'll all need a healthy dose of sanity, science, and reason. Instructions for submitting to this week's Circle can be found here; the schedule and guidelines for submissions, here; and, if you think you might want to host one of these puppies, the guidelines for hosts, here.
Finally, I don't know if there will be time for me to indulge in a meetup in Chicago (meetings always seem to suck me in until well into the evening), but I'm going to see if I can find time. What I thought I'd do is to ask all my readers in the Chicago area who might be interested in seeing the man behind the clear plastic box of blinking lights either to e-mail me or leave a comment below. Depending on the level of interest expressed and whether I can find time on Sunday or Monday night, I might just do it. (No interest, no meetup.) If I decide there's interest and time, I'll probably choose someplace in either Bucktown, Wicker Park, or Lincoln Park, all of which I know quite well (indeed, one of my favorite pubs when I used to live in Chicago was John Barleycorn at Lincoln Ave. and W. Belden Ave.), unless someone can suggest a place downtown, which I don't know as well.
So, what say you?
I'm jealous. Hi to my old home for me!
A stray medical dubiety: Placebos sold as a dietary supplement... for kids.
Oncology! Hey, maybe those brainy doctors will finally catch up with the Ojibwa of several hundred years ago and realize the anticarcinogenic benefits of Essiac tea! It comes from the First Nations, who were obviously much smarter than us, so that makes it good/effective, right?
North Side supremacist! I'll bet you're hoping that the basic structure of the universe will somehow change for the "better" (i.e. the Tribune uses up Illinois' entire soybean crop by printing "HOLY COW: CUBS SWEEP SERIES"). Well I'm pretty sure that won't happen.
If you want decent Chinese or Mexican food, go south of Madison. Oops, that's not far enough. Go south of 16th. Seriously, if you plan to go to Ed's Potsticker House (Northern Chinese, located on Halsted just south of 31st; we're talkin' deep Sox territory) let me know; I'll walk the block to get there.
You might want to check this forum for reccommedations of Chicago restaurants.
Now, now, no need to be touchy. It's just that I lived in Lincoln Park and my sisters live (or lived) in Wicker Park or Humboldt Park. It's what I know.
As for the best Chinese food, I recommend Emperor's Choice on Wentworth in Chinatown. That's right, my wife and I used to go there fairly regularly; we liked Chicago's Chinatown, even though it's rather small. If you want Italian, though, Club Lucky is the place to go. Thanks to my sister, who at the time lived within a few blocks of it, I learned of it back in the 1990s, and I still go there whenever I can when I'm in town. I certainly plan on going there once before heading back home.
As for a meetup, though, thus far interest has been pretty--shall we say?--limited. Oh, well, I guess not everyone can be PZ or Phil Plait, attracting adoring fans to meetups wherever they go...
Chicago, Chicago!! or so the song goes. Cannot remember by whom. The windy city. Give me any place much, much farther south.