Tag: Chicago

The FBI caught the guy that filmed Erin Andrews through a hotel room’s peephole

The FBI just might be a giant bucket of suck when it comes to finding Osama bin Laden, but it looks like they know what they’re doing when it comes to catching pervs that video women through the peephole of their hotel room door.  The FBI made an arrest last night in connection to the videos that had been posted online of ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews walking around her hotel room while completely naked.

From CNN:

Authorities arrested 48-year-old Michael David Barrett at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Friday.  Barrett faces a charge of interstate stalking, the FBI said.

Barrett is accused of taping Andrews while she was nude in two hotel rooms. He then made eight videos that he posted on the Internet, the FBI said.

Barrett allegedly filmed seven of the eight videos at a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee, in September 2008. FBI agents said they found evidence that a peephole to the door of Andrews’ hotel room had been altered.

Good for the FBI and good for Erin Andrews.  I’ll admit that that there was a part of me that thought this whole thing was staged by Andrews so that she could get some publicity. The whole thing seemed too weird to be true when I first heard about it. I never looked at any of the videos, but I did read quite a bit about it on the Internet.

So how did the FBI nab Barrett?

The FBI learned that Barrett checked into the same hotel at that time and asked for a room adjacent to Andrews using his home address to register for the room.

Well now, that’s certainly nice to know that when a quasi-celebrity is staying in a hotel, stalkers need only request the room next door to get all close and personal. Not only should Barrett be punished to the fullest extent of the law, the person working at the Nashville hotel should be charged as his accomplice.  Without them, the videos would never have been made.

2016 Summer Olympics wont be in Chicago

chicago 2016The International Olympic Committee voted today on what city would host the 2016 Summer Olympics and they eliminated Chicago from contention very quickly.  In fact, the Windy City was eliminated in the very first round of voting.   The IOC went on to award Rio de Janeiro with the privilege of hosting the 2016 Summer Games.

Though I’ve never been to Rio de Janeiro, I have been to Chicago.  It’s because of this fact that I never really quite understood why Chicago was ever in the running to be a host city.

Who wants to go to Chicago?

It’s not a fun place to go.  The traffic is terrible.  Crime is high.  The people there never seemed very interested in making strangers feel all that welcome.  Back when I did a lot of traveling, Chicago ranked right up there with Detroit when it came to places I did not want to visit.  Perhaps the voting members of the IOC agree with me.

I guess now President Obama can concentrate on his job and stop fooling around with which city will host the Olympics in 2016.

Obama is going to Denmark?

President Obama is planning on schlepping over to Europe to meet with the International Olympic Committee to plead with them to choose Chicago as the home for the 2016 Olympics. When the idea was first proposed that he should go and meet with the IOC, it was ruled out because he needed to work on health care reform.

What’s changed?

Either he knows that health care reform doesn’t stand a chance of getting passed or he somehow has it all locked up and in the bag. Of these two possibilities, only one seems likely, and it ain’t’ the one about it being in the bag.

This is dumb for many reasons. Obama recently had a lengthy vacation at Martha’s Vineyard. Now is the time for him to work, not screw around with the Olympics.

This is why it’s hard to take the Tea Party protesters serious [Pic]

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Imagine what the sign would say if Obama raised this man’s taxes instead of cutting them. What’s worse, that this guy showed up at a protest in Chicago or that none of his fellow protesters told him to ditch the sign?

The whole Wal-Mart Nazi t-shirt thing will not die

I got a call yesterday afternoon from a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. It was concerning my not-so-recent discovery of Nazi t-shirts being sold at my local Wal-Mart. I blogged about it at the time. Feel free to go back and read my posts if you want to.

I haven’t blogged about the ‘controversy” since November 21. I did write about some idiot that emailed me about it, but that doesn’t really count. I wasn’t blogging about how bad Wal-Mart was for selling Nazi paraphernalia to kids. I was blogging about how much of a tard some guy was. Others have been blogging about it though. Some have been quite active on the subject. Just not me.
It seems that congressperson Jan Schakowsky from Illinois has learned about Wal-Mart selling Nazi swag. She is pissed off about it. She wrote a letter to Wal-Mart and even got other members of Congress to sign the letter. In fact, she even got Representative Barny Franks to sign it.

Nothing demonstrates just how angry you are then than getting Representative Barney Frank to sign your letter.

The reporter from the Chicago Tribune wrote an article about it that was published in today’s issue. She mentioned in her article that I was the one who first wrote about Wal-Mart selling the shirts.

I hope this does not get me in trouble. There is a chance (albeit a small chance) that I am a wanted man in Chicago. The last time I was in the Windy City I drove through a toll without paying. I wanted to pay the toll. I had the money to pay the toll. Sort of. Illinois has these unmanned toll booths where the driver has to throw change into a big orange plastic basket. It’s really quite easy. If you have any change that is. I had just flown in and I didn’t have any change. I only had paper money. Not knowing what to do, I just drove through without paying.

I haven’t been back to Chicago since. I haven’t dared.