A quick thought on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and local tranist in general.

I like the CTA. I lived in the city until a year ago, and I was a fairly regular user of the bus and rail system (Archer Heights: 62 Bus, Orange Line). I moved to the suburbs in Brookfield, and though I am closer here to the Metra station than I was to the Orange Line station, I use transport much less.  The trains are fewer when I would need them, and they're all locals so it takes forever to get into the city on teh weekend.  The pace bus that runs on Ogden shuts down way too early to be of any use. 

If I were designing the system from scratch, I would scrap the Metra system and have something like a more unified CTA throughout the metro area. It already has trains that go to the Suburbs -- I have a friend who takes the blue line in from Forest Park, and there are no trains for a wide swath of the city.

My favorite story about the efficiency of the CTA is that after the big snow storm in 2011, I was able to make it to work downtown with the CTA. When I got to the Depaul Center in the south loop, the whole city was pretty much closed down, but the CTA ran. For all the horror stories that pass around about Metra delays and the like, you can't beat the fact that the CTA ran.

Breakfast of Champions: Vonnegut's book, not a breakfast cereal.

This book stars Dwight Hoover, who is locally rich and famous in an Ohio town. 

This book also stars Kilgore Trout, who before being honored by Eliot Rosewater is nowhere famous. 

Actually, Trout is famous because the writer who created him, Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut is famous, and he wrote this book. Vonnegut is also a character in the book, and he knows that he is writing it.

Vonnegut makes Hoover, Trout, and Rosewater his puppets.  It is a fun breaking of third and fourth walls, almost metafictive, and it doesn’t make you feel like Vonnegut is trying to say “Look how clever I am” because he really is clever.  In an understated way. All the characters come together for a thing that happens.  I won’t spoil it for you. 

I first read this when I was in my early 20s. I lay on full-sized mattress as the springs poked me through the cheap foam pad, and I was deep in Vonnegut’s world.  The time passed too fast.  I read it again this weekend, after a dozen years or so. The only difference is that I sat up for the most part, on a comfortable couch I own. That, and I appreciated the drawings differently (There are a number of drawings). The younger version of me liked them because they were a bit risqué. Older me wanted each new drawing to be a new tattoo.

Learning the guitar the Rocksmith way

I have played the prior version, but I have spent more time with this one. The servers say I am at sixty or so hours. I'm not a gamer, so that seems like a whole lot to me.

Here's the thing about Rocksmith, from a beginner's standpoint. You will get a lot better. Period. I feel so much more comfortable with the format here than puzzling over books and youtube videos. You will make mistakes, but the game adjusts. It is an incredible pedagogical tool masquerading as a game.

...but...

And this is just my feelings on it, but, I feel a bit of a parrot.  I can play the songs (better on the bass, less on the guitar) as they are presented but I have not memorized any. I can't just sit down and jam out, because the game throws these things at you that you can get good at without any understanding of music. It tries to force you to experiment, in the jam session mode, but that has been a leap for me.  I have an overall understanding of music, and I can play, but it lacks a certain nudge.  I know I need to find that in myself, but I am at the point where I need lessons and to talk to someone and to read books.  I like that I am at this point and I hope I continue perusing it, but this game is not the final point.  That is something you need to conjure from inside your self.

Good luck.