Acoustic entrees

It's snowing like bejeezus outside. The wind is up and the snowplow hasn't been by all night. Believe it or not, this is an improvement over what it was like a few hours earlier when it was several degrees warmer. I'll take blowing snow over driving rain any day of the week. After work, monshu and I met up to buy carpeting and then trudged through the mess to Broadway Cellars for a disappointing meal in a near-empty dining room. The music was a perfect accompaniment: Some XM station that played nothing but bland overexposed pop stars doing acoustic versions of their hit songs.

That's what the food was like: Stripped down versions of run-of-the-mill dishes that revealed all the shortcomings of their ingredients. monshu's salmon was underseasoned and overcooked and it was still superior to my dish of pheasant sausage ragout with "gnudi". These were described to me as "gnocchi with cheese instead of potato"; I would call them "great big bland pillows of ricotta". A little Googling shows that "gnudi" is apparently a cutesy respelling of "(ravioli) nudi", and that the original versions (which are basically ravioli filling cooked without the pasta) generally have spinach mixed in to give them some character. We couldn't wait to get back home to the two pieces of e.'s chocolate cake that were waiting for us.

Total recall

Now that antidote to that last kvetchy post: I've actually been giddy much of the day. Everyone in Illinois knew that Gov. Blagojevich was a shameless, delusional weasel, but we still weren't prepared for today's indictment. It takes a special kind of stupid to openly solicit money for Obama's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat on the phone when you already know you're under Federal investigation. You just don't find that kind of monumentally reckless arrogance against the old-school machine pols like Daley and Madigan, making you wonder if Rod missed his calling by seeking public office rather than a position with an investment bank.

If you haven't yet read the transcript of the DOJ briefing, then you owe yourself a quick skim. The bit about Blago trying to get $8 mil in funding for Childrens Memorial revoked because the director refused to kick back $50,000 almost makes you nostalgic for the comparatively restrained venality of George Ryan, doesn't it? No wonder you have Atty General Fitzgerald telling the press "Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree. We acted to stop that crime spree."

I'm happy to see I'm not alone in indulging my schadenfreude. Of the many choice bits appearing on my flist, none has made me chuckle more heartily than niemandsrose's suggestion to search eBay for "Illinois Senate seat". Kinda restores your badly bruised faith in humanity, doesn't it? This one is my favourite so far, but the news is still young, so keep checking back!