The Heat Is On. . .

I'm back from Miami, and recovered from my bout of food poisoning or whatever that was. I ate 3 things on Tuesday: a couple pieces of sushi from Dominick's, dinner from Chili's (shanghai chicken bites), and some Coldstone, and I'm betting (and hoping) the sushi was the target. Now, on to more palatable topics. . .I'll start with H-N news today since so much of this entry will be focused further south. In the three strikes, you're out category. . .

Traffic violations

JOLIET — A man arrested twice last week in a matter of hours for allegedly orchestrating a dog fight and then urinating on police property ran afoul of the law again Tuesday for a moped-related crime, officials said.Elijah Manuel, 20, was charged with obstructing a police officer and various traffic violations in connection with a moped ride on South Richards Street shortly before 8 p.m.
A woman with Manuel, 24-year-old Florine Hale, also was arrested on a charge of obstructing justice. Both Manuel and Hale were taken into custody and released on their own recognizance.
Manuel's recent run-ins with the law started May 31, when he was taken into custody for allegedly inciting a dog fight and arrested a second time moments after he walked out of jail for urinating in the station house parking lot, police said.

I wish they'd detail the "moped related crime." It sounds intriguing, and who rides mopeds?

'Injured' man leads cops on wild goose chase
JOLIET — A man claiming he was sprawled in a ditch after being hit by a car repeatedly called police with his tale of woe early Monday but failed to turn up at any of the places he claimed to be.
The man first called 911 shortly after 1:30 a.m. and told a dispatcher he had been hit by a car on Interstate 80 near Houbolt Road. He also said he was injured and laying in a ditch, police said.
State troopers searched for the supposedly injured man but could not seem to find him.
The man then called emergency dispatchers again and informed them he was in a residence on Capri Avenue with his mother and brother. He provided the address and told them a brown camper was parked in the driveway.
A patrol officer headed over to Capri Avenue and stopped at the only residence on the block with a camper in the driveway. The man of the house reportedly told the officer everyone in his home was accounted for and none were laying in an I-80 ditch.
The mystery man proceeded to call police numerous times but the law was unable to track him down.

Odd. This next one is pretty awesome because the title sounds like something I'd write:

When boyfriends meet

JOLIET — An altercation between a woman's old boyfriend and her current paramour ended with one getting knifed in the forehead and arm Sunday night, police said.
The stabbed man told police he was riding in a pickup truck over to a near West Side liquor store when he discovered that his former girlfriend's new boyfriend was traveling in another vehicle.
Both vehicles stopped for a traffic light at the corner of Hunter Avenue and Washington Street about 10 p.m., police said. The new boyfriend then emerged from his vehicle and cut the old boyfriend in the forehead and arm with a 4-inch Buck knife, police said.

How are we keeping all these men straight? And are these the same people involved in the Comfort Inn debacle? I see we're using the term "paramour" again. . .


Man allegedly tried to break in to cop's home
JOLIET — An unwise intruder, who claimed to be a lost partygoer, tried forcing his way into the home of an off-duty police officer Saturday night.
Jose R. Hernandez, 21, of 6214 Nashville Ave. in Chicago, was arrested by Joliet police and later released on a $1,000 I-bond for criminal trespass to a Will County Sheriff deputy's home in the 2700 block of Stonehaven Drive in Joliet.
The incident occurred about 9:25 p.m. Saturday night when the 36-year-old officer and his wife were in the kitchen of their home. The officer said he had the sliding glass door open to the home.
Police said the officer and his wife suddenly heard the screen door being shaken. The off-duty officer, who happened to be in uniform, went to investigate the noise and discovered the suspect trying to gain entry into the home.
The officer told Hernandez to "back off," but he continued to try to open the screen door, police said. The officer then drew his pistol and ordered Hernandez to the ground, police said.
Hernandez told police he was at a party and got lost, but he could not provide a name or address where the party was being held. The officer told police he had not known of any parties in the area, police said.

Apparently our officers of the law are now also expected to be social directors. This next one isn't that hilarious in itself, but the wording is fun:

Lottery tickets stolen

JOLIET — A thief took 150 chances at hitting it big when he stole that many instant lottery tickets from the Commerce Lane 7-Eleven.
Police said the store had run out of "Carloads of Cash" tickets Saturday and a representative of the store went to retrieve some from the office. He then learned 150 of the $2 tickets had been pilfered.
The tickets were stolen between April 18 and Saturday, police said.
The approximate overall odds of winning, including break-even prizes are 1 in 4.88, according to the Illinois Lottery.

I feel bad including another blotter entry because it involves a 15 year old stabbing a 12 year old in the arm due to a spaghetti squabble, which is actually somewhat serious (the stabbing, not the spaghetti), but the squabble is referred to as "the spaghetti incident," which is also the name of a Guns N' Roses album.

In Common Sense news, kudos to Catie Cryder for keeping up the sass factor. Her column on Britney Spears' fragrance (and I'm not talking Essence O'Cheetos) was inspired, especially the song-title puns. I feel Catie's pain as I kind of like the Paris Hilton perfume.

In Tribune news, there was a hilarious article (you might have to register to read it) in yesterday's paper about minor league baseball that featured a segment on the Jackhammers, Jammer in particular. Apparently Jammer is 26 year-old substitute teacher Scott Adams. Also of note: while our stadium is known for its frosted nuts, Schaumburg is known for their foot-long corn dogs.

In radio news, I was dining on a sandwich at Le Sandwicherie (the name=fancy, the place=not so much, but the food is awesome) in South Beach, when I received a call from Joe Block of Gnome Attic fame. Joe was distraught and needed some info about a change in radio stations. Oldies 104.3 is no more (except online), and JACKFM has taken its place. Jack is apparently a 99.9 ripoff. The first song that came on when I turned the station to 104.3 was by Creed, so my first impressions aren't good.

In Joliet social news, haven't done much since I've been home, though after my recovery, I went out with Melanie for a bit last night, staying away from the liquor and enjoying some Sprite as an homage to the Wisdom Teeth Weekend of June '04. We started out at Jameson's, where, oddly, no one was sitting on the new outside patio. Was it too humid? Is it not open yet? It looked finished, who knows. I ran into Smithwick's enthusiast Tim Placher and we discussed how the McBrody's waiter, though he made a valiant attempt, still pronounced the name of the beer wrong, as it should have been "Smith-icks" rather than "Smitticks." Though I have no clue about what's going on in the NBA these days, Melanie and I were amused to see how much Spurs star Manu Ginobli looks like Bronson "Balki" Pinchot. After Jameson's, we went to Heroes for a bit, and oddly, it wasn't like the usual Heroes summer Thursday. There was a decent crowd, but it wasn't packed like in the past. No one was dancing, and I didn't see as many people that I know as I usually see when I'm out. It was just a little off.

Ok, Miami Beacb stories. I went with my college roommate Julie and Regina, another one of my Northwestern pals. Note: never during the trip did we hear "Welcome to Miami (Bienvenido a Miami)," which I found distressing. Julie and I flew in Thursday morning. The flight was unexciting, except that the guy next to Julie was wearing a t-shirt from some kind of snake convention. We got to Miami, and our first amusing sight was a man carrying a giant Chuckie doll. Scary, scary stuff. We got in our cab and headed to the hotel, then headed off to get some lunch and explore. We walked over to Ocean Drive and found a cute restaurant, then continued to walk around. I was very excited to see what kind of shopping Miami would have in store for us, and I quickly learned what kind of stores were most common: whore stores. I will post pictures later, but if you want overpriced skank tops, clear heeled shoes, and other items to add to your whoredrobe, bienvenido a Miami. I don't know where the hell Dorothy Zbornak got her caftans. We continued strolling Ocean Drive, then headed over to Lincoln Road, a pedestrian mall also known for its shopping and restaurants. Lincoln Road, like the majority of the main streets in South Beach, has both a nice section and a sketchy section. The sketchy section on Lincoln, which we had to walk through to get to the nice pedestrian mall, reminded me of the sketchy part of State Street downtown you have to walk through before you get to Old Navy, Field's, and the lake. We walked down Lincoln for a while, I got some gelato (I eat a lot of ice cream when I travel), then we decided to walk up Washington and back towards our hotel. Unfortunately, we were in the sketchy section of Washington which included a variety of bad smells. We stopped at a liquor store to get some beverages for the room, where the first attractive man (note: these were surprisingly, and disappointingly, few and far between) we had seen thus far in Miami rang up our purchase. We crossed over to Collins, the street our hotel was on, and it proceeded to downpour. We spent the rest of our walk back ducking into various shops (I bought a t-shirt, one of my only souvenir purchases of the trip) to avoid the rain, and headed back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner. After getting ready and watching part of the OC, we walked to Senor Frog's for dinner. My sister had raved in the past about the cheese filled shrimp at Senor Frog's, but unfortunately, I was informed that they were out of "shrimps." Apparently they were not out of extra "s's" to tack on to word that were already pluralized. Forgoing the "shrimps," I had some chicken fajitas and a margarita, and we watched the employees set up for the dance party (?) that was to follow and avoided the looks of older bar patrons. Tired from our day of flight, we decided to opt out of the dance party scene and head to a more low key bar. As we left Senor Frog's, one of the bouncers seemed sad that we weren't staying for the party. I understood their chagrin when I saw the array of underagers hanging out out front. We went back to Ocean Drive and found a bar called "Ocean's 10" (how clever). Their beverages were half-priced for Happy Hour, and for some reason, they were out of small pitchers, so basically we got a large pitcher for a quarter of the price. What a deal! Alas, we didn't finish it, but we enjoyed people watching (a guy told me my shoe was untied. I looked to check (I'm an idiot) and informed him that my shoes didn't have ties, to which he replied, "but I got you to look.")

Friday morning, after I watched Golden Girls (but unfortunately, not the episode where they write the song about Miami), we had some brunch at a place called Big Pink which featured two hot pink Volkswagen bugs (pictures to come) out front, then went for our day of spa treatments. We got facials and massages, walked around and did some more window shopping, and stopped for daiquiris at a hotel on Collins. This hotel was where we encountered our first of the many, many spelling mistakes spotted in Miami Beach. I'd like to buy the city a spell checker. The mistake at this place was by far my favorite, but seeing as it was on a small sign on the bar, it would have been difficult to take a picture without being obvious. The mistake? Among the liquors offered for a hotel guest open bar was "jin." We walked around some more, got some dinner, and headed back to the hotel to wait for Regina to arrive. On the shuttle back to the hotel, we encountered a couple who were fellow patrons of the Hotel Atlantica. They were apparently adventurous souls, as they had eaten dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. They also advised us to later on check out a hotspot known as Mango's.

Once Regina arrived, we got gussied up and headed over to one of the clubs listed as a celebrity "hot spot," Opium Garden/Prive (Opium is the outdoor part, Prive is the inside part). We were on the list for this club through some website, and had also gotten passes from a guy outside the "jin" hotel, so we had the hookup. Little did we know we wouldn't need the hookup: when we arrived outside the club, there were a whole lot of guys and not many girls hanging outside the velvet rope. Basically, they wouldn't let guys in unless they had girls with them, so pretty quickly some guys who were on the list let us come in with them. Thanks dudes, whoever you were. Anyway, the club itself was really nice. Parts were indoors, parts were indoors, they had hanging lanterns, the music was decent, and it was really quite lovely. However, the crowd was cheeseball. Very, very clubby, scenester people who seemed more interested in being seen than anything else. Also, the majority of the people were really short, for some reason. I was at eye level with the majority of the patrons! We didn't really have any interesting encounters, it wasn't exactly a crowd that mixed it up, but at one point Julie got a drink spilled on her by a woman with the biggest ass I'd ever seen. Note to woman with the biggest ass: when you wear white pants (which might not be a good idea for you in general), don't wear underwear with a slogan on them. We hung out there for a little bit before the cheesiness got old (and no celebrities were spotted), then went back to the ho-tel.

On Saturday, it was overcast as usual, and we walked around, took more pictures of misspelled signs, and had some lunch. I got a dress at Express, and we headed back to the hotel for a while to figure out what to do before dinner. As it was still (shocker!)overcast, and we had time to kill, we decided to go see "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," or "Pyannnnts" as I like to call it. We took a shuttle to the street where the theater was, and among our shuttle companions was a Hispanic Kevin Federline lookalike who hoisted a boombox on his shoulder, 80's style, from which Phil Collins "In the Air Tonight" was blasting. I had a vague recollection that the song was on the very appropriate Miami Vice soundtrack, and after checking Amazon today, I learned that I was correct! How amazing. . . a random dude in Miami, blasting the Miami Vice soundtrack on his boombox. He had to turn off the tunes when he got on the shuttle, so I didn't get to hear "You Belong to the City" or anything else, but the dude proceeded to check out his CD purchases, Marvin Gaye and Barry White. Unfortunately he did not have the Don Johnson solo album.

So we went to see "Pants," and it was a great movie. I read the books and loved them, so I expected to like it, but it was better than I expected. Also, lots of unintentional humor. Three stars. After that we went out to a nice dinner at Wish, a restaurant that features glowing "electric" cocktails. A highlight of the dinner was when a fellow patron dropped whatever made his drink glow in the fountain. After a stop at Sephora, where the guy who sold Regina her powder told her about a couple random bars, including one that was a bar/laundromat, we stopped back at the hotel and changed shoes, deciding to head to Mango's, recommended by both my new neighbor and the people on our shuttle who went to Outback for dinner. Mango's was hilarious. It's a "tropical cafe" that features dancers dressed in animal prints doing routines on top of the bar. The crowd was huge, and I wish I could put this place into words, but it's difficult to express the sheer hilarity. Let's just say that one of the bouncers was wearing a mock turtleneck swolley, and I got a picture. I don't know how well it'll show up, but it'll be up later. I also got video of the guys dancing on the bar, but I don't know if I can put video up. After Mango's, we walked around some more for a bit, saw a guy who had created grasshoppers from blades of grass (yeah, I don't know about that one), watched passerbys mock other passerbys' fashion choices, and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday morning it was (say it with me again), rainy, so we went on an Art Deco tour of the area for some intellectual know-how. It was really interesting, but it would have been better if I had had my own umbrella. We did our usual exploring and lunch afterward, and then. . .the sun came out. We have pictures of this blessed event. Luckily we had come prepared and had our swimsuits and towels, so we headed straight to the beach for a couple hours, which was blissful. People watching was somewhat scary though. There were, of course, many suits of the "two Band-Aids and a cork" variety, and some unfortunately topless sunbathers. No Speedos though. I have the sunburn to prove it. After some time in the sun, we headed over to one of the swankier hotels, the Raleigh, for their Sunday pool party. There weren't a lot of people there, but we did have the best homemade raspberry sorbet and champagne drinks ever. We went back to the hotel, headed out to dinner, then did a little bar hopping at the Delano and the Shore Club, supposed celebrity hangouts. No celebrities were spotted, though apparently Jamie Foxx was at the Shore Club the night before we were there. We found the bar at the Shore Club under mysterious circumstances. We walked into the hotel, heard music playing from afar, found a random door and opened it. We peeked in to see if it was a bar, while some random guys happened upon our peeking and walked through the doors, so we followed them into a room where everyone looked strung out. The Delano had a more interesting bar with weird chairs, and their pool featured a random table and chairs out in the water. A guy dared me to go sit at it, and of course I complied. Not too difficult of a dare.

It was sunny on Monday, but my scary ass tan lines and the humidity helped us decide to pursue other venues during our last day. We headed out to greater Miami to tour Vizcaya, a gigantic mansion and gardens. It was absolutely gorgeous, but our views of the gardens were somewhat thwarted by the sheer number of teenage girls in giant ball gowns who were posing for their quinceanera pictures. It was hard to maneuver around all the photo ops. We had a tour of the mansion that would have been awesome if not for our somewhat inept tour guide. Tour Guide Tammy (her actual name is hilarious and quite appropriate, if you want to know it I'll put it on the tagboard but I hesitate to put it in an actual post where she could find it by doing a Google search. Yes, sometimes I'm sensitive) had been off for 3 weeks and seemed to have some difficulty recollecting many of the facts about the mansion, going off track a lot, and, at one point, confusing Bette Midler with Madonna. It was a bizarre experience. I was also told by another tour guide that I should pour alcohol on my sunburn and sprinkle baby powder on it. I'll stick with Banana Boat.

After Vizcaya, we went over to Bayside, an outdoor shopping/restaurant area recommended by one of our hotel's proprietors. I was mostly entertained by the name and hoped to find a Bayside shirt, in honor of Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski's alma mater, but no dice. Actually, there probably were dice, this place's shopping was similar to the kiosks o' crap at Navy Pier. We did have a really good dinner though. After that we headed back to the hotel, got our bags, and were off to the airport.

I'll try to post pictures of the trip this weekend or Monday, they'll probably make my stories a bit more entertaining. In other news, the new crop of reality shows is hilariously bad, especially "Dancing With the Stars" (down with Trista, up with J. Peterman!) and "Hit Me Baby One More Time." I have rarely laughed harder than when I watched A Flock of Seagulls cover Ryan Cabrera's "On the Way Down," or the Motels' uptempo version of Norah Jones "Don't Know Why." Poor Norah Jones should sue reality TV, as I also had the "pleasure" of watching Trista and her gigantic foreheaded (fiveheaded?) partner dance to "Come Away with Me" on "Dancing With the Stars." Ok, that's all I got for now, have a great weekend!