monzyummylunch

Demanding Excellence!

Today's spectacular lunch is a pastrami and peppered turkey sandwich on wholegrain bread with horseradish cheddar cheese and beer mustard (from Dominick's), plus carrots, an apple, two pieces of light string cheese, a lunch pack of fig newtons, two jello sugar free (lime/orange-y) snacks, and a fortune cookie leftover from yesterday's Big Bowl adventure. Whew!

Many marvel at how Monz has mastered Taste of Waukegan. Such mastery did not come out of thin air (though it could!). For Monz has had experience with such similar moveable feasts, like Northbrook Days, just as readers of the blog may remember. While we're disappointed to see the Beatles cover band drop yet another notch (even if they are managed by George Harrison's sister), you gotta love having both the New Colony Six and the Association! Monz' empty pen will be as sweet as the punch!

(If you're still admiring Monz lunch, know that he commanded the editors to go to the Marquette Inn...and we did for their shrimp in a basket special!)

Get a Life!

We postpone our promissed tie-in from yesterday(only until Monday, honest!) to discuss the huge going ons with the comic strip Garfield. After 28 years of utter loserdom not seen since the likes of Mr. Bill (which to this day causes the EIC great mental anguish and nightmares), Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, finally achieves happiness (check the archives for this date if you are looking at it post 7/28). Speculation in the net is rampant: is creator Jim Davis retconning? Putting the storyline in line with the movies? Retiring? Setting up a Dallas-like "It was all a dream" route?

We report this confident that Monz likes Garfield and would approve of us writing about the strip on his blog, just as we are confident that Monz enjoyed his yummy lunch. Wait, the phone's ringing! "Why do I do this to myself?" Oh-oh. "Music at the library -- Obie's stand -- I have now tried everything the stand offers by today having the sausage with mustard and onions. It is easily the greasiest thing ever...it was really hot, burned my lip, got slimy mustard on everything and now I feel like I am going to have a heart attack." Um...dude, do you like Garfield? "Intellectually no, but I have a sentimental attachment to the old boy."

And how do you spell relief?

Foreshadowing!

"Oh my gosh, what a lunch!" said Monz at the start of his lunch report, raising our expectations to enviable hights. "Chicken pasta from Bacci, the fancy new place on Genesee." (What kind of sauce?) "I'm not sure: not a red sauce, the deliciously oily vinegary type of sauce, not a red sauce. Mmmmm." But Monz was not through. He proceded to "La Finca" for a couple of tacos, which sadly weren't up to his standards and went unconsumed. Of course, Monz would not let a lunch end on such a lunchless note, and proceded to order "Stuff on a Stick" (i.e., chicken shishkabob with some sort of glazy sauce) from Hussey's Tavern.

How could Monz do all this and still have time for his numerous court appearances? Taste of Waukegan is back, that's how! Which reminds us, and maybe you if you are a longtime reader of this blog, of something. Can you guess what it is? Tune in tomorrow and find out!

Snow Patrol!

Ever since an allegedly 28 year old Taylor "Soul Patrol" Hicks won American Idol, we've seen some cases of suspect self-age-identification that no amount of Oil of Olay could convince us of. For example, see this dude? He's one of this year's "40 Lawyers Under 40" as anointed by the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. He went to Harvard, works in a huge downtown law firm, does business litigation and in his spare time runs marathons and charges his Blackberry (tm). In other words, he's an "under 40 (ahem) power user."

There's another paradigm, exemplified by an attorney of a similar age. Standing in line, talking to Judge Hall about his band and their upcoming gigs. Walking up to the person behind the counter. Ordering a roast beef and swiss on rye, with chips and a pickle, and caff free DC. Joking around with the cashier. Responding to the sheriff who recognized him from court today and said "how are you counsellor?" These are the things that made up a yummy lunch at the CSC.

Grrr!

Corned beef and buffalo turkey sandwich on wholegrain bread with beer peppercorn mustard, carrots, orange, string cheese and...Fig Newtons(tm)! Seems like the perfect lunch to us. Yet nobody's perfect, not even the Monz. So we gave him the "Major Personality Disorder" test. Ok, actually we weren't certain that Monz isn't perfect, but the test has a couple dozen questions so we figured it must be right. Until we saw what came back, then we realized it's all a lot of hooey! But Monz doesn't keep secrets and we know you're curious, so:

Brute You are 28% Rational, 14% Extroverted, 57% Brutal, and 71% Arrogant.

You are the Brute! You are introverted, arrogant, brutal, and more intuitive than rational. Like a big, dumb animal, you are driven by your emotions more than your reason, and as a result of the fact that you care very little for the feelings of others, you tend to be rather selfish. You also possibly fling your own poo. Because of your selfishness, you also tend to be a bit arrogant, seeing yourself as big or strong or smart or always correct. This makes you a stubborn, irrational, emotion-driven brute. King Kong best represents the gorilla-version of your personality. Emotional, introverted (King Kong was isolated on his own island, after all), brutal, and arrogant (proud to be the largest ape on Earth!), Kong would probably get along very well with you, seeing as how you share many of the same traits. Aside from, you know, all the fur. You probably keep to yourself and take great pleasure in watching fat people fall down stairs. (But who doesn't, really?) You probably also have dreams of becoming famous or well-known, but this most likely won't happen because your introversion limits your Hollywood connections. Being introverted, ape-like, and arrogant isn't so bad, though. It beats being dead. So your personality defect is simply that you act like a large, overgrown ape that thinks highly of itself whilst brutalizing buxom blondes. Or something. Try to stay off of buildings. To put it less negatively: 1. You are more INTUITIVE than rational. 2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted. 3. You are more BRUTAL than gentle. 4. You are more ARROGANT than humble. Compatibility: Your exact opposite is the Hand-Raiser. Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Class Clown, the Schoolyard Bully, and the Sociopath. * * If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits. Be sure to take my Sublime Philosophical Crap Test if you are interested in taking a slightly more intellectual test that has just as many insane ramblings as this one does!

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 6% on Rationality You scored higher than 11% on Extroversion You scored higher than 69% on Brutality You scored higher than 83% on Arrogance

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

A Tough Walnut to Crack!

Hi-ho, the editors are back from Champaign-Urbana after 10 long days of researching yumminess (and researching researching) for the Monz. Today Monz did not wait for yumminess to come to him, he went to the yumminess, again with Mrs. Monz, to the famous Walnut Room at Marshall Field's for their signature chicken pot pie, with mandarin orange salad and some crandberry juice. Monz and all the editors have fond memories of this eatry, having been escorted their as children and having escorted friends alike. The EIC particularly likes their cinnamon ice cream (the light, subtle flavor cinnamon, not the hot candy flavor cinnamon) on top of apple pie. Thus we are sad that Macy's is taking over and changing the name: the food may be the same but the experience won't be.

As we were saying, our exhaustive search of Champaign-Urbana produced the following recommended lunch for Monz: a dish we found at Radio Maria: coffee crusted steak filet, served in a light vanilla bean cream sauce with sweet potato and assorted roasted vegetables. And if you, dear reader, are eager to try this mouth watering dish,here's a recipe to start you off!

Surprise Lunch!


Today Mrs. Monz and I were both in Court up here, so we HAD LUNCH TOGETHER! Yes, you heard right! We hightailed it over to the newest of the new places in town, right around the block, Bacci. We had dinner here a week or so ago, and it was excellent, so I was looking forward to my first lunch here. And it lived up to the dinner! They had a lunch menu, with a selection of pastas and sandwiches, salads and hors doeurves. We had the calamari appetizer, which was really yummy, and I had spaghetti Pomodoro, and the sauce was unlike any tomato based pasta sauce I've ever had. It was incredibly yummy. I can't wait to go back, and I can't wait for the other new places to open across the street.



On a sad note, I noticed that the Gennessee Restaurant, fresh from installing their brand new sign outside, is now closed and has a For Sale sign in the window! They were a reliable stand-by place around here! And they had good tacos and burritos. Bummer . . .

Why In Tarnation!


I don't know why I did it, but I did. Perhaps it was because I couldn't get up the gumption to drive back to gator's Wing Shack to try their Chicken Gumbo, or I didn't want to cross Gennesee St to go the Genesee Restaurant because of the ripped up sidewalks. Whatever it was, it did not bode well. I went to Fong's for Shredded Hunan Pork. OMG. It is the greasiest thing I have ever seen. I had three mouthfuls and I am done! I have too much work to do to risk food poisoning! I am, however, eating the side of Pineapple Fried Rice I ordered. It's not greasy and is OK. Fongs, this was your last warning!!

Failure To Lunch!


Well, not really, but certainly failure to keep going on the Gastronomic Tour! Work load dictates a home made lunch today -- a corned beef on wheat with unground mustard sandwich, an apple, an orange, and some string cheese. Now I'd like to compare the apple and the orange . . . ok, again, not really. It was all pretty good, though I am looking forward to going back on tour. The problem really lies in that I've run out of obvious places to go, the obviousness of the place indicating my desire to go there, I suppose. I feel like going back to Louie's. Onward.

Tour de Gastronome!


Some of you more attentive readers may have noticed that for he past month or so, I've been on a little gastronomic journey around Waukegan. Partially this is due to feeling more comfortable, and my natural inclination to expand my lunch horizons. So far this tour has been fairly successful, with Louie's being the big winner. Today was a mix of old and new. It is time for the weekly farmer's market by the courthouse, so I went down there to see what was going on. Alas, the only lunch offerings were Obie's, with the same set-up they use on Fridays (and same offerings) and a roasted corn booth. I wandered into town looking for food, not having planned the day's lunch meticulously. Turns out the sidewalk up and down Gennessee St is ripped out! Hard to get to lunch places! So I walked down to Subway and got a foot-long turkey on hearty Italian. It'll do, but I was still left with that empty, lonely pang of an unsatisfied lunch urge. I walked back to the corn booth and bought some roasted corn, slathered in butter and lemon salt! It was so yummy that words fail. I'll have to buy some lemon salt for home!!!

Three Strange Years!



Off to a decent start, however, with a southwestern wrap from the CSC. Bottled water and an orange from home round things out. I'm exhausted today from working outside in the yard yesterday in the 100 deg heat! This translates into no photos or fun today!! And no time for a siesta either . . . sorry!

Smiling Rock Monz!


The editors make a brief return from Central Illinois Hel...sabatical to share a third year anniversary thought about the blog. One thing we've never talked about is the title. Oh sure, "Monzyummylunch" has a nice lilt to it. But, like Monz himself, there is more to the title than meets the eye.

For centuries man has contemplated the interaction of ying and yang. MYL takes this marvel of taoism to another level. Call it triaosm. You have Monz, of course. And you have "yummy" -- not just a cute word for "very tasty" but one whose roots are in the sound of smacking lips (check out dictionry.com if you don't believe us!). And lunch, the midday meal. Look how these three interplay. Lunch was on a definite decline prior to 2003. What once stood proud as the most important meal of the day had been demoted to a "grab a bite" afterthought, why, with everyone telling you to "not skp breakfast" or so-called "sociological experts" stressing the social importance of dinner. And as Monz elevated lunch, lunch elevated "yummy," which had taken a hit from the introduction of things like drinkable breakfasts and the like. Yummy empowers the Monz, who uses his lip-smacking chops to battle legal evil in court, literary evil on page (something Monz has been doing for nearly 25 years, ever since he heard ludicrous theories about Nathaniel Hawthorne's work being promoted as fact), evil in music, and of course evil Russian mafia in the backyards of America! A yummified lunch turns Monz into the munificient hero that he is, laying the smack down on the minusbeans of the world with smakcking lips.

So on behalf of us all: thank you Mark Monz. And have a yummy lunch!

So Sad About Us!

Bummer! The Who tour hits Chicago When I will be out of town. Maybe it is time for a road trip to catch them in another city?? Today's lunch is a tavern ham / turkey on whole oat bread with black peppercorn-beer mustard, some clementines and some organic string cheese. Damn good. I did a bit of research and I think I discovered what "tavern ham" is: it seems to be something created in Virginia in the colonial days (to serve in their taverns, duhr!) and it is salt-cured hickory smoked hambeast. I'm still getting my sails up this weekplus of guest-blogging so stayerd tuned for some old favorites once I get my act together: perhaps some before and after photos! Who knows??!! Sky's the limit!

Swelter!

Last night's dinner was a lie! We wound up going out -- again -- to a brand new Waukegan joint called Bacci (Which was really really good, and which will be dealt with more fully when I go for lunch) and so Louie's leftovers become today's yummy lunch. Cold Spaghetti with cold meatball and a couple of pieces of cold plate-sized pizza (cheese, green pepper, onion and sausage) make Monz a lethargic boy. Or is it the broken air conditioning in my building? And why won't this pulsing headache go away???

Games For May!


R.I.P. Syd! Today I took "the wife" and a client back to Louie's where the ambiance and food were greeted with such enthusiasm that I found myself caught up in it! I had spaghetti with meat balls, which was huge, and a salad with Italian dressing. Other items ordered at the table included the classic Brown Bread Burger and the small plate-sized pizza, which will be our dinner.

One of my favorite memories is playing a fingerstyle version of "See Emily Play" for Jorma, a version I arranged myself and which went down well. I'll have to re-learn it now!

Shush That Fuss!


Monz returns to an old favorite: Tavern Ham /Turkey sandwich, this time on whole oat grain bread with beer mustard and provolone cheese, along with two clementines, apple and string cheese. And no, we still don't know what "tavern ham" is. So Monz has decided to send the editorial staff to the nation's #1 ranked library science school for the next several weeks. During our absence Monz will graciously step in to handle the blogging duties. And it's not even May!

King of Lunch!

The Judge threw a party in the county seat
At the library where they serve tasty treats
He plays in a band, but where's Obie's?
They've beenscooped by a local Leona serving ham 'n cheese

Let's eat
Everybody let's eat
Everybody in Waukegan
Is dining on Monz' command

Security guard played the tenor saxophone
Appellate judges blowin on the slide trombone
The drummer boy was from Illinois like all the rest
So why does Monz advertise for jam mates on Craigslist?

Let's eat
Everybody let's eat
On Friday's Monz takes a lunch reprieve
Over by the Waukegan Library

Sad sack was sitting on a sidewalk of stone
Way over by North Avenue, weepin all alone
The Monz said "hey you, sad sack fellow!"
"Either get me some food or stop harshing my mellow!"

Let's eat
Everybody let's eat
Lake County has a friendly bar
Monz is its rising star

Monz e-mailed us with this thrilling tail
Lunching in the sun, the boy ain't pale
Wherever you are in this great big land
Get out of your office and make your lunch stand

Let's eat
Everybody let's eat
Use your hands, spoon, knife, or fork
"And then I went back to work"

We Have Friends In High Places!

Monz makes a significant trek down the mean streets of mid-town Waukegan to go to this place for their lasagna special.

Yesterday we told you how Monz inspires us to deal with consumer reps. Today we show you how Monz inspires consumer reps to deal with us.

07/02/2006 07:58:00PM Session Started with Agent (Veena P.)

07/02/2006 07:58:05PM Agent (Veena P.): "Thank you for contacting Dell Customer Care Chat. My name is Veena. How may I help you today?"

07/02/2006 07:58:15PM Agent (Veena P.): "Hello MYL, how may I assist you today?"

07/02/2006 07:59:17PM MYL: "Hi Veena -- I'm having problems with my order. I've e-mailed customer support twice but they 1) told me to call a phone number (which did not answer) and 2) then didn't understand my problem. I've tried calling a different number on the invoice and was told it was wrong. This is the url on the invoice. Here's the problem: I recently ordered a laptop. Two days after ordering I called to upgrade to a 100 GB hardrive"

07/02/2006 08:00:10PM MYL: "I notice that it doesn't have a 100 GB hardrive. It says it has 66.6GB total -- there's 55 GB available right now, probalby the preinstalled software and the files I transfered from my desktop computer."

07/02/2006 08:01:33PM Agent (Veena P.): "Please give me 2 minutes. Let me check your order information."

[time keeps on slipping slipping slipping into the future]

07/02/2006 08:03:22PM Agent (Veena P.): "For security purposes, please verify the name, full address,

07/02/2006 08:05:35PM MYL: "MYL Big Ass Office Building Chicago, IL 60614. Pleaes understand, this is my sixth attempt to contact Dell on this.

07/02/2006 08:06:08PM Agent (Veena P.): "Thank you for verifying the information."

07/02/2006 08:06:50PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, the hard drive size may appear up to 15 gigabytes smaller than what is listed on their order. This discrepancy is due to the partitioning of the hard drive to allow for a PC restore function. This is commonly known as a “go back” function, and"

07/02/2006 08:07:53PM MYL: "This is more than 15 gigabites -- this is 33 gigabytes. Also, I have no way of verifying that the missing memory is due to that partitioning -- nothing indicates that on the invoice of bill."

07/02/2006 08:08:06PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, if you would like to have the option removed you need to contact our Consumer Hardware Warranty Support who can check on this and assist you better."

07/02/2006 08:11:40PM MYL: "That presumes that it is indeed a 100 GB harddrive and not a mistake -- from what you wrote, it sounds like it's a 80 gb harddrive. Dell made a mistake one way or another -- either they overdid this partition or they sent the wrong harddrivfe. I'm reque"

07/02/2006 08:13:14PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, I do understand how you feel about this and I certainly do apologize for the inconvenience caused."

07/02/2006 08:13:52PM Agent (Veena P.): "Unfortunately we would not be able to refund in this regard. However I can transfer the chat to our specialized Consumer Hardware Warranty Support who can remove the partition so that you can have the full 100 GB hard drive."

07/02/2006 08:16:41PM MYL: "Why are you certain that Dell didn't send me a smaller harddrive. From your own words only 15 gb should be taken up by the harddrive. If you can't refund the upgrade, BEFORE transfering me to hardware support, tell me how I can just return it -- if they take too long or give me another runaround at that point I'd just prefer to return it"

07/02/2006 08:18:08PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, I do understand your concern. As we are in customer care support we are not technically trained to check as to why the hard drive sent was less. I suggest you contact our Consumer Hardware Warranty Support who can check on this and have corre"

07/02/2006 08:18:36PM MYL: "Ok, but please tell me how I can return the unit for the full refund just in case."

07/02/2006 08:19:01PM MYL: "(I don't trust Dell's support -- it took so long just to get to this point, I'm not spending all my vacation doing this)."

07/02/2006 08:19:48PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, please do not worry. I can transfer the chat one of our Consumer Hardware Warranty Support who can check on this and assist you better."

07/02/2006 08:20:11PM MYL: "NO! PLEASE DO NOT TRANSFER ME!"

07/02/2006 08:20:23PM MYL: "Please tell me how to return the computer -- The invoice says 21-days no questions asked guarantee."

07/02/2006 08:20:30PM MYL: "WE KNOW THE MONZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

07/02/2006 08:20:57PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, I have checked with my manager and as an exceptional case we can credit the amount charged for the hard drive to your account."

07/02/2006 08:22:02PM MYL: "I would find that acceptable. I could live with less than 100gb, but not 35% less. Will some confirmation be sent that the amount will be credited?"

07/02/2006 08:22:47PM Agent (Veena P.): "Please bear with me for couple of minutes let me process for credit and provide you confirmation number."

07/02/2006 08:26:28PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, the confirmation number for credit would be 074323314. The amount will be credited to your account within 5 to 7 business days."

07/02/2006 08:27:41PM MYL: "Thank you -- is the amount approx. $60?"

07/02/2006 08:28:29PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, the total amount that you have been charged for the hard drive is $31.56."

07/02/2006 08:31:22PM MYL: "That's not true and I have the Dell e-mail and credit card bill to prove it (it was over $60). But I'll compromise -- I appreciate you talking with your manager and it's possible that the harddrive is the 100GB that was just "over-partitioned" as you ind"

07/02/2006 08:31:49PM MYL: "In other words, the refund you stated is acceptable - again, thanks."

07/02/2006 08:33:01PM Agent (Veena P.): "Thank you for accepting the refund. If you would like to get the full hard drive and remove the partition you need to contact our Consumer Hardware Warranty Support."

07/02/2006 08:34:04PM MYL: "(I just cheked my e-mail -- it was a Margarita R. who placed the upgrade order for $67). Do you have a url for consumer hardware warranty support or is it only through chat?"

07/02/2006 08:34:54PM Agent (Veena P.): "MYL, I can transfer the chat to our Consumer Hardware Warranty Support right away."

07/02/2006 08:35:04PM Agent (Veena P.): "You may also reach Consumer Hardware Warranty Support by calling 1-800-624-9896."

07/02/2006 08:35:14PM Agent (Veena P.): "The chat link would be, http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/en/chat?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~pbar=true"

07/02/2006 08:36:03PM MYL: "I'll call them -- I'm not online with the laptop at present. Thank you again."

07/02/2006 08:36:09PM Agent (Veena P.): "You are welcome."

07/02/2006 08:36:10PM Agent (Veena P.): "Is there anything else I can assist you with?"

07/02/2006 08:37:44PM MYL: "That was everything -- have a good remainder of the day."

07/02/2006 08:37:55PM Agent (Veena P.): "Thank you. You have a great day."

07/02/2006 08:37:57PM Agent (Veena P.): "Are you satisfied with the level of service that you have received from me today?"

[NOTE -- we were not trying to be rude at this next point, we had already typed "Goodnight" and imediately logged off before seeing the "Are you satisfied..." question and honestly were surprised to see the chat log in this order]

07/02/2006 08:38:03PM MYL: "Goodnight."

07/02/2006 08:38:17PM Agent (Veena P.): "Thank you. You too have a great night."

07/02/2006 08:38:50PM Agent (Veena P.): "Are you satisfied with the level of service that you have received from me today?"

The American Dream!

Early Monday evening the EIC did something every American dreams of doing but few get the chance to do. That was when he received a telephone call, mysteriously identified on the Caller-ID as "Illinois Call." With so many friends out and about for early holiday celebrations, he decided to pick-up. What he heard shook him to the core: it was an automated call asking that he participate in a five minute survey -- actually it demanded it, because the EIC was shocked into silence and soon after requesting participation the automated call launched into the questions. The EIC shook himself out of his trance and hit the "0" key or somesuch. No human being came on the phone, rather, a message anounced the name of the company - The Survey Center LLC - and assured him that all applicable laws were followed, with a particular note that the National Do Not Call List did not apply to survey calls. Still, the EIC recalled a state law requiring accurate names on the caller ID for commercial phone calls, plus he was overwhelmed with the nerve, the affront, of a massive, inhuman disruption of holiday cheer. Nor was he confident that the survey was indeed non-comercial and not a "push poll" type thing. Nor did it sound like the "add to our private do not call list" was working, or at least it seemed uncertain. So the EIC launched into a little research and found the Survey Center LLC Web site, complete with metatag spamming so blatant and sloppy that they didn't bother to hide it. More research turned up related/similar companies...

...and an ubiquitous contact name of a woman who, it turns out, has a unique and non-unlisted (or at least findable on public web sites) phone number. Two in fact. The first turned out to be a fax. Monz-inspired persistance paid off: the second number hit paydirt -- person up from the dinnertable, sound of a young child in the background paydirt. Why yes, the uncertain voice answered, this is the contact person for this group. Why no, she was not aware of the caller-id law. Why yes, she could imagine that people who are on the Do Not Call list probably don't want their holiday evenings disrupted with their dinnertime phone calls regardless of the legality of such calls.

Monz celebrates this revenge of the overmarketed with a trip to
"Lake County's Favorite Mexican Restaurant for the spicy pork tomale/beef burrito special. Con agua!

Lunch Knows No Holiday!
Monz here, filling in for the holidaying editorial staff. Today, in a patriotic mindset, we all rode our bikes up to the local parade and 4th food and fun fest. After the parade (which featured an interesting blend of politicians running for office this fall . . . I shook a lot of hands!) we went over to the park and waited in a long line for a turkey wrap and an ear of corn, with some water. We went over to the lawn under a shady tree and ate this only-slightly-below-yummy lunch and looked for people we knew in the game lines. We saw some, and avoided them as best we could! Happy 4th all!

Diablos en Lunchico!

With much of the working world taking the day off for an extended holiday, including the federal courts for the Northern District of Illinois, as well as the Lake County state courthouse, Monz carries on. At noon(ish) he ventured into hot, humid downtown Waukegan. Little was open. A devil of a day! So what else could Monz do but have a chicken diablo sandwich (grilled chicken with hot spices of somesort, onion, mayo, lettuce and tomato, some of which Monz removed.)

With this as our inspiration (though we didn't know it at the time), the editors traveled to Champaign-Urbana (central Illinois for readers out of the area - more on this later) to take care of some ministerial tasks. On the way back to Chicago, we knew we had to get Monz one of the purportedly greatest pizzas in the world: Papa Del's. Unfortunately, the Food Editor (FE) discovered he forgot to bring the large "keeps hot food hot and cold food cold for up to 3 hours" bag. So we traveled to a CVS (which until three weeks ago were Osco's -- so sad). THey had no coolers large enough for a frozen za except for an Igloo(tm) brand that was so large it might not have fit in the car and cost $40. So we went to Walgreens and found a styrofoam cooler which looked big enough to do the job, plus two bags of ice. We had fun smashing the ice bags on the parking lot to break-up the ice, but should have known better than to put the ice in the styrofoam cooler. Because when we arrived at Papa Dels, ordered 2 pizza slices for each of us and went to the freezer for Monz' za, we decided to pick up two more: one for our friend T.T.T. (who attended school there and was one of the testifiers for this joint) and one for the EIC's folks. After paying the big $$$ we discovered to our chagrin that no way in Hell (which is what Champaign-Urbana felt like this hot, humid day) would these fit in the cooler. We shreded our hands taking out the ice, puting two of the 'za's in bags, shoved them in the cooler and refilled it with ice. OMG! Not enough ice!! We went back to Walgreens, bought 3 more bags of ice, dumped all the emergency car stuff out of a large plastic box and into the trunk, put the other 'za in the box and used the ice (also crushed on the Walgreens' parking lot floor) into the containers. We then headed back to the city with the A/C on full blast (though the car was low on that fake-freon stuff), hoping and praying we'd get back in time before the ice and/or pizza melted. We did! They're in the freezer now.

Without the Monz' inspiration and munificient spirit, those pizza's would have been donated to the dishevled homeless guy we saw on Old U.S. Route 45! How he'd have cooked it we're not sure...

On behalf of the myl staff and the Monz, we wish you a happy, safe and yummy holiday!