John's posterous

For everything that's slightly less than a blog post but slightly more than a tweet (thanks Guy Kawasaki)

Hailing from the great state of Minnesota (though people have told him he doesn’t have one of those Fargo-esque accents), John came to Chicago for college. He's studying in DePaul University's M.A. in Journalism program. He loves simplicity, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and a great story.

John's first journalism gig was an internship with Centerstage Chicago. He got paid to write about bars and restaurants.

He also worked as a stringer for the AP on Election Day, but the highlight of his, well, "career" so far was covering Barack Obama's Inauguration in D.C. for his school's newspaper, The DePaulia.

In D.C., John, along with three other DePaul students, blogged for the Sun-Times, used Twitter like it was his job, shot video and even made the Sun-Times' home page because of a story about presidential historian Lonnie Bunch. That story, however, was quickly replaced with Jill Biden's infamous gaffe on Oprah. So it goes.

He received his B.A. in English from DePaul in November 2008, and will finish the M.A. program in November 2009.

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Best Entertainment Weekly Cover Ever?

August 3, 2009

Three pretty fantastic videos

I loved Roald Dahl books as a kid. Really looking forward to the movie.

Bobby McFerrin = incredible. Though I wish this were a tad longer and we could hear more of the discussion.

Thanks to TimeOut Chicago for this. Words cannot do this weirdness justice. Just watch.

July 23, 2009

My favorite tweets about Buehrle's perfect game

WBEZ The City Room editors were just talking about stories to fill the newscast this afternoon. Thank you Mark Beuhrle. 23 Jul 2009 from TweetDeck

WBEZ Joke in the newsroom re: sending reporter to Cell: "If this happened at Wrigley, we would have sent somebody up by the 4th inning..." 23 Jul 2009 from TweetDeck

bigleaguestew Only thing separating Buehrle from being the only pitcher in MLB history with two perfect games is a walk of Sammy Sosa. 23 Jul 2009 from TweetDeck

richardroeper - Baseball history. 23 Jul 2009 from TwitPic

TheCubsInHaiku #Cubs fan or Sox fan / Today we're all #Buehrle fans / Gotta love this game! #whitesox more at http://www.chicagonow.com/haiku 23 Jul 2009 from TweetDeck

AnnaTarkov Unifying power of baseball is still miraculous even in today's fractured media and society. Love it. 23 Jul 2009 from web

Adambuckled Stat confirmed: Mark Buehrle has 3 CG facing 27 batters (and 1 facing 28). Crazy. http://bit.ly/cKKH2 #sblog #whitesox #cubs 24 Jul 2009 from TweetDeck

-- this quote was brought to you by quoteurl

July 22, 2009

Five reasons why I love Nike Plus

1. Fantastic website: Stores every single piece of data (time, distance, calories burned, pace, etc.) from all of your workouts. You can set goals, start a training program and the graphs are a great way to visualize your progress over time. Looks great, too.

2. Great motivator: There's something about having Nike Plus that simply makes you want to run. Adding and tracking your mileage is so cool, so satisfying and so easy.

3. Incredibly easy to use: Once you have the necessary equipment (Nike+ shoes, iPod and sensor kit), using Nike Plus becomes second nature to your workout. The sensor stays in your running shoe, the other sensor plugs into your iPod nano (unless you use you iPhone/iPod touch, which I believe has the sensor built in) and storing your data is as easy as connecting iPod to computer--something most of us probably do every day.

4. Audio feedback: At any time during your run, you can hit the center button on the iPod and you'll receive audio feedback for the elapsed time, distance and your pace. During the run you'll also hear updates at .5 mi/km and whole mi/km as well as the halfway point of your workout. These tidbits make the run much more enjoyable.

5. Syncs with Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkristoff/status/2680646106 That's awesome.

What others are saying

"The Nike Experiment: How the Shoe Giant Unleashed the Power of Personal Metrics": http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-07/lbnp_nike?currentPage=all

"Nike Plus Starts to Open Up to Web": http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ibdf529f18374f6c9c0e0eb03e840bf6c

July 20, 2009

Summer reading? Pick up "Shutter Island" now

I cannot recommend this book enough. Dennis Lehane, author of "Mystic River" and "Gone Baby Gone" has written fantastic mystery that's dark, cryptic and wonderfully paced. I don't think I've ever read dialogue this good. Read it before the movie comes out in October.

Here's the trailer.

July 15, 2009

Fireworks from my South Loop balcony

So they're a little blurry, but I think the actual fireworks in these images look pretty cool. I used my Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS. That orange-ish looking building is the Field Museum. This is looking northeast toward the lake.

(download)

July 14, 2009

Batting Stance Guy = Awesome

Just saw this on Awful Announcing. And I found his site. Brilliant!

July 13, 2009

This new Modest Mouse song is pretty fantastic

I love the horns and the easy-going tempo. Really good stuff. I'm looking forward to the album--No One's First and You're Next --which is due out August 4.

Right now, you can only listen to it exclusively on Spin.com. Go ahead, have a listen and get swept away to N'awlins.

July 13, 2009

Posterous might be my new best friend

So I'm on the Internet quite a bit, perhaps too much. And I use Google Chrome, which is fantastic, and it lists the top nine sites that I visit. Not sure if they're in the order of most visited, but I think so.

1. Twitter--no surprises here.

2. Chicago Tribune--also not a huge shock

3. Facebook--I post links here every now and then, and, obviously, keep tabs on friends.

4. Windy Citizen--I'm an intern for the summer at this snazzy site. Come here for the best Chicago stuff on the web!

5. Gmail--This is pretty much always open when I'm on the computer. I've been thinking about using that app that makes you take a break, but I haven't done that yet.

6. MLB.com--Because I'm too cheap to buy mlb.tv, this is how I keep tabs on the Twins' games.

7. TCF Bank--So I don't overdraw in my checking account.

8. Awful Announcing--One of my favorite blogs. Hilarious content. Great finds.

9. YouTube--Always trying to find cool stuff to post to Windy Citizen.

Welp, that's it for now. Oh, and the picture is my wallpaper right now. It's pretty fantastic, and, no I didn't take it.