Some cool stuff for a warm, muggy Tuesday afternoon:
A Big Thing: Senior editor Andrew Herrmann is reading a USA Today interview with members of the band Chicago ahead of its Heart and Soul tour with Earth Wind and Fire. The band plans to open its sets with a song called Introduction, the first track of its 1969 debut album, Chicago Transit Authority. Keyboardist Robert Lamm said the choice "is a tribute to the album and to Terry Kath, our founding guitarist" who died in 1978. Explains Lamm: "We sort of channel him when we start our show."
As DNAinfo.com's Heather Cherone has reported, Kath is being inducted into the Taft High High School Hall of Fame this year (he was shut out of an alumni HOF because of his drug abuse and issues surrounding his death.) Mark Konkol also wrote of Kath's daughter's efforts to produce a documentary on the Norwood Park native, calling Kath perhaps "the most underrated rock guitar player of all time."
Why Drink If You End Up With An Uggo?: Somewhere in Tennessee, a group of government officials tried to think up ways to prevent young men from driving drunk, reported The Tennessean. "I know!" one probably exclaimed. "Let's remind them that drinking lowers your inhibitions, which makes you more likely to hook up with ugly, clingy chicks." And that's exactly what the Governor's Highway Safety Office did, making fliers for bars that offer sage wisdom like, "After a few drinks, the girls look hotter, and the music sounds better. If your judgement is impaired, so is your driving." Coasters warn that too much booze could lead these hapless gents to "buy a drink for a marginally good-looking girl, only to find out she's chatty, clingy and your boss's daughter." The ever-chatty, marginally good-looking reporter Ariel Cheung is not amused.
There is no love like the love between a man and his burrito. Kristina Bakrevski / Twitter @_davidsikorski
I David, Take Thee Burrito: Not much to read here, but senior editor Lizzie Schiffman Tufano is still enjoying flipping through this engagement photo series of San Francisco-based writer David Sikorski and his "one true love," a burrito. Shot by photographer Kristina Bakrevski, the photo set made the rounds in local West Coast media outlets before landing — naturally — on Buzzfeed. It's making us rethink how serious we are about our ongoing love affair with Big Star's Taco de Panza.
Where Have You Gone Mr. Coffee?: A nation turns its lonely eyes to you ... for some perspective. Because the whole cult of coffee has gotten out of control. Want proof? We give you the World Brewers Cup, as covered by Sprudge, an entire website devoted to coffee news and culture. On the Pretentiousness ScaleTM, reporter Patty Wetli ranks the Cup a solid 11. And then Cup winner Odd-Steinar Tollefsen of Norway went and broke the scale: "To give the judges real-time brew data, Tollefsen used Acaia digital scales that were connected via Bluetooth to iPhones."
Per Sprudge, Tollefsen's first-place cup of java was brewed from shade-dried Ethiopian beans of which only seven bags were ever produced. Good luck nabbing some of those at the local Jewel but if you do, here's the play by play on how to produce the Best Cup of Coffee in the World: "Brewing with a Hario V60 filter cone, Tollefsen used 20 grams of coffee and 300 grams of water at 92°C, with a 45-second bloom. Total extraction time was 3:30. Tollefsen used natural mineral water from the West Coast of Norway, a water with a low mineral content for softness and smoothness." Gah, it's enough to send a gal back into the arms of Maxwell House.
"Escape Plan" Plays Out In Real Life, Starring El Chapo: Though the news of the world's most powerful drug trafficker El Chapo Guzman escaping from Mexcico's most secure prison (again) broke this weekend, there have been some new developments. For instance, The New York Times reports that drug agents knew about his escape plan. But Mexican officials denied it. A Homeland Security official said digging the hole 30-feet underground would've taken El Chapo 18 to 24 months.
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