One of the cool things about Illinois is our governor's name. The newspapers usually abbreviate it to 'Blaggo.'

His website used to have a little icon that spelt it phonetically to answer the rhetorical question "How do you say that name, anyway?"

Growing up in Illinois, I thought that you could get all sorts of booze at the grocery stores/liquor stores at all times of the day or night, and was surprised by my sister's reports of Washington state's state-run liquor stores.

I am one of the cool kids now. Fraudulent charges on my Citibank Mastercard number.

Having BTDT, I say, "Yay, ita?" Did you catch them early, at least?

Liquor laws are among the weirdest laws out there. In Georgia, you can't buy wine by mail unless you've actually been to the winery. You can buy beer and wine in grocery stores and minimarts, except on Sunday, but liquor is only sold in package stores. For a long time, you had to be able to physically separate beer and wine from hard liquor, leading to some rather odd floor plans that still linger. In Tennessee, you can't buy beer anywhere that sells wine or liquor, so beer is sold in grocery stores, but not wine, and wine is sold in liquor stores, but not beer.

Speaking of beer, Michael Jackson's last column was about cheating death [link]

Growing up in Illinois, I thought that you could get all sorts of booze at the grocery stores/liquor stores at all times of the day or night, and was surprised by my sister's reports of Washington state's state-run liquor stores.

Both of our local grocery stores were in Wheaton so we had to buy our booze at the liquor store until the mid eighties.

Add me to the list of peeps glad they are able to get booze in the grocery store. I feel like a criminal or something when I have to go to the booze stores in other states. It's weird.

Florida you can only buy hard liquor at the package store, there's one with a drive thru here. Actually it closed and then reopened under new ownership becuase the new owners thought the town still needed the Beer Barn.

At the grocery store and convienence store you can buy beer, wine, and wine cooler type drinks (including Jack Daniels brand and Smirnoffs). But not after 2 am. But some grocery stores, like Albertson's have a liquor store attached to them (but not all Albertsons).

We're relatively close to the Florida/Georgia line and right before the line there's a liquor store -- you can't buy alcohol on Sundays in Georgia.

Allen Park police find man's body, guillotine in wooded area

ALLEN PARK, Mich. - The body of a 41-year-old man was found in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself, police said.

The man, from the Detroit suburb of Melvindale, was discovered Monday by workers from a shopping center near his home.

Allen Park Deputy Police Chief Dale Covert said the roughly six-foot tall guillotine was bolted to a tree and included a swing arm. Covert said police also found several store receipts detailing the materials used to assemble the device.

"I can't even tell you how long it must have taken him to construct," he said. "This man obviously was very determined to end his life."

Fraudulent charges on my Citibank Mastercard number.

You've called Citibank about this, right?

Right?

I'm guessing that Evanston had a similar restriction to Wheaton's for most of the 20th century (being the home of the WCTU). If, OTOH, you grew up in Joliet, steel and coal town with tons of hard-drinking immigrants, you had access to booze.

Oak Park recently opened its first wine-bar that didn't require food to be served--until just a few years ago, the rules didn't allow for liquor to be served at non-restaurants, so there were no bars per se, which is why they're all over in neighboring Forest Park, with one of the highest bars-to-residents ratios in the state.

Did you figure out how they got your number?

Nope. I asked how they knew these were fraudulent and she said that the magnetic strip info didn't match up. So it sounds like they might have had the number, but other info was different--but I'm not sure what gets put on the strip.

About $400-$500 was charged. My last real charge was the ER, and then they went on a beauty store shopping spree with my info some time afterwards.

Nothing but inconvenience, and I think I only have one thing regularly billed to that account, so I have to make sure I go into my gym and change that before my next payment is due.

You've called Citibank about this, right?

Oh, no.

Citibank called me.