Too bad the drinks are so good

This is a sign posted at a local watering hole. The drinks are good, but the pretentiousness runs a little high for my taste. Every once in a while, however, I want a well-made cocktail, whatever the price.

The Chicago River

Chicago has been pretty warm the last few days and all of our snow melted! I took a walk along the Chicago River at lunch today. It was a little breezy but warm in the sun. I remember two years ago when I first moved to the city I could see the river from my office. One day in the spring, the bridges all went up and stayed up for a while. The bells kept ringing and it was sort of annoying. Finally, I looked out the window and saw what all the commotion was about - people were sailing up the river to Lake Michigan. It was beautiful. It's still a little early for the sailboats and we are expecting some more chilly weather, but the river was pretty this afternoon.

6 Degrees - and I'm not talking separation

This is a picture of the instrument panel on my car last night on my way home from the gym. Yup, it says 6 degrees, fahrenheit. That's pretty cold and it's supposed to get colder. But it reminds me of a few cool things about my car (and cold weather):

1. It is six and a half years old and still on the original battery. It sat for four days through temperatures in the low teens without me driving it anywhere. And the battery still had enough juice to start. That's pretty good.

2. It was nearly out of gas, so I filled the tank. I checked my records and the last time I got gas was November 28, 2010. Amazing.

3. It only has 53,194 miles on it, despite a number of round trips between Philadelphia and Nashville, then Philadelphia and Chicago.

4. It has heated seats! And during a cold spell like we are having in Chicago now, heated seats rock.

5. At -40, the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are equal.

6. At -40, you can pour water out of a cup and it will hit the ground already frozen. Try it sometime.

A new s'more

This is an Oreo (minus the insides) plus a roasted marshmallow and a piece of gourmet dark chocolate with sea salt. Brilliant!

Finally!

The wait is over - whipped cream with alcohol in it. This is perfect for all those silly shots for which you are not supposed to use your hands. I don't plan on trying this, but if it's any good, let me know.

To all persons with a proven interest in usage and grammar

Here are a few more of my favorites:

People / Persons:

The traditional distinction—now a pedantic one—is that people is general, persons specific. Thus, one would refer to 300 people who had assembled but to the twelve persons on the jury. Persons has been considered better for small, specific numbers. But twelve persons on the jury seems stuffy to many readers, and most native speakers of AmE would say twelve people on the jury. In contexts like that one, people has long been used and is the more natural phrasing. The NYT and AP recommend using people over persons except in quotations and in set phrases, e.g., third persons or Missing Persons Bureau.

Proved / proven:

Proved has long been the preferred past participle of prove. But proven often ill-advisedly appears In AmE, proven, like stricken, properly exists only as an adjective . One accepted use of proven as a past participle is the legal phrase, “innocent until proven guilty.”

My kind of store

'nough said.

Snowed in

This car is not getting out any time soon. We are expecting some sun and temps in the low thirties, which will be just enough to melt the snow into an icy cocoon. Lovely. And his neighbors apparently had no qualms about shoveling snow from around their cars to on top of his or hers. I'd be pissed if it were my car, but then again, I shoveled for four hours the day after the storm. Hungover. You snooze you lose.

Look closely

At first glance, I thought this dude was wearing sandals - like those crazy hippies at my college who wore Birkenstocks and wool socks through subzero snow-filled winters in upstate NY. Nope! These are boots that look like the sandals. Pretty neat.

More snow

This is another shot of snow under the el. This will be here until May.

Bean!

This is a picture of the bean in millennium park just after sunset. I am facing east and the sun is setting at my back. It was below zero plus wind chill and I was the only person out there. I've been to the bean about ten times and I've never had it all to myself. It was eerie and fantastic. I'm not sure how it got warm enough for the snow to start to melt and slide off. Beautiful and serene.

Snowpocalypse!

So Chicago got hit by a big storm - third largest storm since they started tracking these things. It was awesome. We had thunder and lightning during the heaviest periods of snow. It's sort of like christmas - go to sleep and wake up to see what the snoclause left you. This picture was taken 24 hours after the big storm. As you can see, there's not much of the two feet left in the loop, which brings me to a few observations about my adopted city.

1. They know how to do snow removal. At least on the main streets. My side street has not been plowed yet but let's be honest, in Philly it would not get plowed until garbage day, which means there is a good chance I'd get plowed two or three times before the street did. Point Chicago.

2. During a snowstorm in Chicago, people are much nicer than otherwise. A stranger helped me shovel my driveway. I was pushing a friend's car and standing next to another friend. I looked again as the car started to move and there were strangers on either side of me. Point Chicago.

3. People put chairs out to save their cleanly shoveled spots. Draw. They do that shit in Philly, too.

4. People in Chicago wear hats and functional winter clothing. Nobody in the northeast sacrifices fashion for function. Point NYC for that, they're wealthy, beautiful and well-dressed.

5. A man walked into the state office building the day before the storm wearing a full snowmobile suit and carrying a nice leather briefcase. Ridiculous. Whoever you are, you looked stupid.

6. I don't care who you are, if it's not cold enough for you to put on a hat, then you can't wear an animal carcass for a coat. Shame on you, even I you were also wearing a hat.

If you don't know the difference between affect and effect, learn it

I think it's more common to get this one wrong than to get it right, even though it's simple.   

Impact / affect:

 

Impact has traditionally been only a noun.  In recent years, however, it has undergone a semantic shift that has allowed it to act as a verb.  So uses such as the following have become widespread (and also widely condemned by stylists):  "The researchers concluded that this low level of intensity may have impacted [read affected] the results." (citation and other examples omitted)

 

This use of impact would be perfectly acceptable if impact were performing any function not as ably performed by affect or influence.  If affect as a verb is not sufficiently straightforward in context, then the careful writer might use "have an impact on," which, though longer, is probably better than the jarring impact of impacted.  Reserve impact for noun uses and impacted for wisdom teeth.

 

Interestingly, impact as a verb might have arisen partly in response to widespread diffidence about the spelling of affect.