All Out, the Chicago Bean, and Here Comes Riot Fest
Issue #25: Sorry, no list this week
Hello faithful readers! I didn’t put out an issue last week because, quite frankly, I didn’t get around to writing it.
As I mentioned in the last issue that I put out, I went to Chicago with my wife and youngest offspring. We attended the AEW All Out Pay-Per-View and did some sight seeing around the town.
AEW All Out was a lot of fun. Mandy had never been to an AEW PPV and I think she had fun there. Overall, the matches were fun to watch. Some of the results were disappointing but the storylines are interesting and, at the end of the day, what AEW is doing is better than what some other wrestling promotions are doing in my humble opinion. There was some crazy stuff that happened after the PPV, particularly in the media scrum and some locker room stuff after the media scrum but I’m not going to talk about that here. There are plenty of places online where you can find out about all that nonsense.
Other than the AEW All Out event itself, I would have to say the highlight of the trip was the Riverboat Architecture Tour that we took. As many times as I’ve been to Chicago, I have never been on this tour and I’m glad I did. Essentially, the boat takes you along the Chicago river and tells you the history of the town from teh perspective of its buildings. We saw some pretty cool buildings from a vantage point we don’t normally get to see them from. Seeing the Chicago Board of Trade building was cool. Mostly because that is the building that was used as Wayne Enterprises in the movie Batman Begins.
Also, I finally saw the Chicago Bean (Cloud Gate). It is really strange that, as many times as I’ve been in the city, I’ve never seen this thing other than on TV and movies. Anyway, it was cool to finally see it. And to make it more interesting, we witnessed a marriage proposal in front of the sculpture, along with an acappella performance to accompany the proposal. Cool stuff.
We also had some really good food. Sorry no pictures. Friday evening, we ate at a Chinese restaurant in China Town. Actually, the same place that I ate at when I went to Chicago to see The Methadones back in June. For lunch on Saturday, we had what is quite possibly the best pizza I have had in my life. The name of the place is Pizzeria Ora and it’s on the corner of Ohio and LaSalle. Mandy had never had “real” Chicago deep dish pizza so she had that but I, being a thin crust guy, had their thin crust. If you are ever in Chicago, I HIGHLY recommend this place. It’s not a franchise like some other Chicago pizza places. It is family owned. And it is absolutely incredible. Their marinara is amazing but their pizza is top notch.
Speaking of Chicago, I will be back there again with the youngest offspring this weekend for Riot Fest. I have been to Riot Fest before, when it was a “traveling” festival but I have never been to the Chicago Riot Fest. I went to it back in 2012 with my friend Dave when it came to Dallas, Texas. It was a fun event (despite the fact that I was nauseous all day for some reason) and saw some cool bands. The offspring and I are both really looking forward to seeing some cool music. A friend of mine that I met recently here int the Grand Rapids area will be down there too so it will be cool to get some time to hang out with him as well.
I’m hoping that I remember to take some pictures while I’m there so I can post some of them here but I make no promises. I might be too busy enjoying myself.
Rogue One Radio
The Journey to Andor continued this week with a discussion about the various locations that were featured in the movie Rogue One. We also played some cool tunes by Billy the Kid, Charlie Bit My Finger, and Give You Nothing. You can check out the episode on YouTube here:
There was nothing in my pull list this week and I haven’t really been reading anything lately. I’m really behind on all of my reading, both comics and not. I’m hoping that I’ll get back on the reading train sometime before the end of the year.
Dan Vapid and the Cheats put out a new single recently and I’ve been listening to that one quite a bit so that’s my track of the week. You can listen to it on Spotify here: