Peoria Illinoisan

Pictures from a container ship stuck on the beach in Ensenada, Mexico. It’s been there since Christmas Day, and they still cant make it budge. Yesterday they brought down six heavy tugs and got it to move “a few feet” at high tide. They’re struggling to lighten the load by pumping out fuel, and at the same time keep it from becoming too top heavy which would tip it over. If they still can’t make it move, they’re going to bring in larger ships from Louisiana to drag it out at a delay of another six weeks.

They say it’s becoming quite a tourist attraction.

From HOInews: (if you like video, you can watch WEEK’s report)
Some big changes may be on the way for a heavily traveled street in Peoria. The city’s new “Renaissance Park Comprehensive Plan” has marked Columbia Terrace as one major part of the project in need of improvement.

From North Street to University Street, city officials are proposing some major renovations to make the street more pedestrian friendly. The plan includes new sidewalks, curbs and gutters; ornamental street lighting, and new traffic signals.

I was glad to hear the improvements on Columbia Terrace are going forward. I first heard about this two years ago after chatting with a salesman at Oak Express, who happened to recently move into the area.

If you look at the neighborhoods surrounding Main Street, the area between North & University / Main to I-74 is the only downtrodden neighborhood. Many years ago when I heard of plans for this Med-Tech, and now Renaissance Park, I couldn’t get a grip on what it would take to turn that neighborhood around. When the salesman told me about the influx of money coming, and the fact that he moved into a house in that neighborhood, and cheaply, I was cautiously optimistic. How much of it is just an image problem, I wondered? I know people who still think Randolph Roanoke is in the “hood�.

The revitalization of Main Street, along with this neighborhood must go hand-in-hand. One cannot happen without the other. Lighting, sidewalks, landscaping and general city improvements are a good start. I remember an old state cop neighbor of ours who told me one of the easisest and best ways to fight crime is to improve street level lighting. Sounds a little simplistic, but I absolutely believe it. Better lighting, fix the sidewalks, fix the streets, give the homeowners the sense that the city cares and a reason to feel pride in their homes and neighborhood.

Two problems:
1. This seems to be limited to Columbia Terrace only, and not targeted to the neighborhood as a whole.

2. The homeowners in the neighborhood will have to cover 20% of the costs. At this point, the public does not know what the cost will be, and I would like to know how some of the residents of lesser means will be able to pay for it.

I must take exception to the Journal Star Editorial Board giving a “Thumbs Up” in regards to what they call the “user-friendly” web site www.gettingaroundillinois.com.

Go there. I dare you.

It’s the damn clunkiest site I’ve ever seen, and the map looks like I’m back on my Commodore 64! In about 5 minutes, once you figure out how to work the map, you will notice that Upgrade74 is complete. That’s right. No construction going on in Peoria. Nevermind the emails you get about current intermittent lane closures on I-74; and feel free to drive right off the edge of the Nebraska overpass, because apparently it’s open.

Now try to pan by clicking on the North or South buttons. Not happening? East? Sorry, not an option. West. Yes, you can go west. All the way into through Kansas.

Try the Statewide and Zoom Out features. Why do I have to highlight a small portion of the map, after clicking Zoom Out? The Statewide button doesn’t work. Period.

Why try to reinvent the wheel? Take a damn Google Map, and layer it with construction and traffic info. It would surely have saved a ton of money, and as a side benefit, it might actually be useful!

The Journal Star thinks this web site is “user-friendly”, when it’s barely functional. Hell, it even makes www.PJStar.com look good, and that’s saying something!

And lucky me, I’m the 50,000,000 visitor to this web site, and the POP-UP AD from the State of Illinois says to click for a trip to Florida…

Not all of us have the luxury of being able to watch or listen to the city council meetings, and I wish there were audio archives that could be played at a later date.

Thankfully, WCBU does have audio archives of Outside the Horseshoe. Check out last night’s show to hear a good discussion about the Renaissance Park name change, the marketing plans, and thoughts about the overall concept that is happening.

Double Hat Tip to PollyPeoria and PeoriaDad.

I received an email from an eBay member, using the eBay message system. If you’re not familiar with how it works, you don’t reply directly from your email, but you are required to sign in to eBay, which you do by clicking on a button that says “Respond to This Question in My Messagesâ€?.

Here’s the text of the email from a user supposedly named “sydatkinson�

Hello,
The package you sent me didnt arrive yet. Respond ASAP or ill report you!

There was nothing suspicious looking about the email other than the guy is acting like an idiot, and I had been late on a few packages after the holidays, so I assumed this was one of them. I flipped through my paperwork and didn’t see any transactions from this him, and he didn’t give me any other information to tell me which auction item he was referring to, so clicked on the “Respond Now” button.

I proceeded to type in my username and password at which point, I received an error that Firefox was not allowing cookies from this site and I needed to turn them on. Huh? Oh, the hell with that. So instead I clicked on my bookmarked link to eBay and signed in the usual way so I could respond to his question and ask him for more details.

There were several older messages, but none from this guy. Hmm. That’s strange.

WAIT A MINUTE!

I clicked to show the source code for the email to confirm my suspicions, and found this:
Received: from server5.freeonlinegames.com

…and the button I clicked on (and neglected to confirm where it was sending me) went here:
http://mail.eturn.com.tw/~lu/signin.ebay.com…etc…etc…

SHIT!

As fast as I could click, I went back to the REAL eBay, immediately changed my password, since I had just typed it into a fake site, and then went into Paypal and changed that too, just for good measure.

GODDAMN SPAM AND I FELL FOR IT!

A message from CP:

“Those of you who have checked in on the Puke Rock blog (which is linked to from this blog) may have been surprised to find that it had vanished into cyberdust. Yes, Constant Vomit’s band blog is no more. R.I.P. (rest in puke as my friend Dave said.) Being the collaborative work of three crazy yet literate and (in the daytime) professional dudes, each day could leave one spinning from the crazy topics, stories and pics. Although we tried to keep a policy called SOBAL (separation of band and life) in place which kept the insanity of our Constant Vomit world away from our real life - one member got too close to the fire. To avoid major issues with his employer we took it out. There you have it - 16 months and 1,000 posts later the puke rock blog is gone. So celebrate the death of the Puke Rocker and the birth of the Free Man.”

Stumbled across this web site and thought I’d share. It’s the Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, which chronicles stupid lawsuits and the idiotic warning labels we have to put on products because of ignorant humans and scummy lawyers.

Here’s some examples:
A label on a baby stroller warns: “Remove child before folding�

A brass fishing lure with a three-pronged hook on the end warns: “Harmful if swallowed”

The label on a bottle of drain cleaner warns: “If you do not understand, or cannot read, all directions, cautions and warnings, do not use this product.�

A can of self-defense pepper spray warns users: “May irritate eyes�

A dishwasher carries this warning: “Do not allow children to play in the dishwasher.�

A popular manufactured fireplace log warns: “Caution - Risk of Fire�

Click here for the complete “best of” list.

Sun-Times: Chicago officials said late last year they are eager to present more popular music in the parks this summer — and to reap the financial benefits these concerts bring for park improvements

Q Magazine’s readers placed three of their albums in the top 10 of the best albums of all time, with “Ok Computer� taking the number one spot.

The City of Chicago, who claim to want to bring more rock concerts downtown, won’t let them play a concert at Millennium Park and because of a scheduling conflict. The Grant Park Symphony Orchestra is holding a REHEARSAL!

Should I mention the fact that Radiohead was going to pay $100,000 for the priveledge?

Here’s Spin magazine’s report.

Mr Alito’s wife says that he’s a Springsteen Fan and once attended a Ska Festival. Why would she admit to him liking Springsteen, the flaming liberal who used to make great music before deciding to campaign in a losing cause for John Kerry? Or attending a Ska Festival? To appeal to the left, of course.

But not to piss off too many Republicans, and to shore up support on the right, she goes on to say that he’s currently reading about the Civil War and likes to shoot guns.

He married a smart gal.

Picked up my copy of the River City Times today at Cub Foods; the Best of 2005 edition. I love Best Of lists, but completely missed the boat in voting, so I will do my voting now.

There’s too many categories to list, so the following are some of my favorites along with the actual winners:

1. Leonardo’s
2. Agatucci’s
3. Hoops

Ok, everyone has their favorite local pizza place. I give my vote to Firehouse Pizza, (but only with a coupon.)

1. Rizzi’s
2. Basta
3. Johnny’s

Personally, I think it should be a three way tie between Rizzi’s, Basta, and Ponte Vecchio. Everytime I visit one of these three, I think now that’s the best Italian in town!

1. Fiesta Ranchero
2. Jalapeno’s
3. Cinco De Mayo

This made me chuckle. Fiesta and Jalapeno’s is the exact same restaurant with the exact same menu. Funny how many people haven’t figured that out. In any event, Fiesta/Jalapeno’s is easily number one in my book.. I’m ok with Cinco De Mayo in second, and I’ll put the new Vallata’s in third.

I went to Vallarta’s for takeout recently- it was late and they had a Mexican sitcom on at the bar. The greeter asked what I wanted to to watch on TV, and I said what was on was fine. I guess she didn’t believe me, so her and the bartender, speaking in Spanish were trying to figure out what channel was sports, because all White American’s like to watch sports at the bar, of course. They never did figure it out and they turned on the NASA channel instead. Didn’t know there was a NASA channel. I appreciated the effort, though, and the food was delicious as expected.

Honorable Mention: The late Pepe Taco; even though it wasn’t quite Mexican, there will be a place in my heart for that ol’ grease pit.

1. Chase Ingersoll
2. Rocky Vonachen
3. Bill Dennis

Gadfly Definition:
1. a persistently annoying person
2. a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or attempts to stimulate innovation by proving an irritant.

Hmm…

1. Sonar Tide
2. Sears Block
3. New Paint Job on the Murray Baker

The Sears Block… Is this before the demolition, during the demolition, or after construction is finished??

My vote: the Human Hair place on Main street.