Last one in is a rotten egg!

- Monday’s Rules Commitee meeting came to the conclusion that we did “pretty well” in lapping up stimulus funds. $750,000 wil go to updating the Shani Davis Center, $350,000 to water plants, $1 million to District 65 to get greener. No word on the $1 million Michael Brett grant. Get working, Jan!

- The committee also discussed whether we need a lobbyist in Springfield. If by lobbyist, they mean someone who’s willing to make moral compromises, spread money around, and make Free Lunch his middle name, than Evanston, I’m your man!

- A bunch of people announced they were running for Hamos’ seat. I don’t know any of them.

- Evanston is investigating whether to place cameras on some intersections. Get out your wallet, Mr. Rolling Stop Right Turn! I’d be more in favor of them on stop signs. How ’bout on Washington and Elmwood?

- Local bar owners won’t put in gambling machines. Well, we still got ‘dem scratch-offs! Now where’s that last penny…

- A thief was busted lifting quarters from cars on the 700 block of Sherman Avenue. Times is tough, yo.

- The most dangerous intersection is Dempster and Dodge. Of course, that’s not putting into consideration the constant stop-sign blowing at Washington and Elmwood.

- The wife and I went to the Lakeshore Art Festival over the weekend. Booths-meh. Carny food-meh. Crazy lookin’ Evanstonians-hell yeah.

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The inspector general for the TARP program announced Tuesday that more than $2 trillion of  the $3 trillion dollars handed over to the financial industry lacks proper accounting. If you use the FBI figure that 10% of all federal money given to the private market gets lost to fraud, you have $30 billion dollars. Over the first three months of the year companies like GM, AIG, Citigroup, and others spent $9.2 million to lobby the government for more funds. GM received an extra $5 billion dollars last week, and Chrysler received $500 million in temporary loans to stem the tide until their restructuring deadline. Yet The Post reported that Chrsyler Financial turned down financial aid because their executives did not want to accept mandated compensation limits. Meanwhile, the rest of us struggle to make our bills and hold up our heads. Don’t let the Man ever fool you. He’ll always get his.

- The Supreme Court heard a case this week regarding the strip search of an Arizona girl at her school after she gave another student an ibuprofen. An Advil, for chrissakes. God save the ignorant administrator who make the decision to strip search my child. What kind of training does an education official or security officer have to conduct a strip search? I knew we allowed torture of foreigners without even a shrug, but strip searches of our children is too far, yo. Too far.

- Heard the Fridge, always Bears 72 in our hearts if not our media guides, is in serious condition. Keep the big-hearted guy in your thoughts and prayers.

- Our ex-gov, Rod left court Tuesday after having his request to appear in a NBC reality show based in Costa Rica was denied to greet the disenfranchised outside the Payless Shoe Store kitty corner from the federal plaza. Rod told reporters an admirer gave him a Tiffany candlestick before he entered court. No photograph of Professor Plum exists to know if he was the considerate stranger.

- The major problem I have with the talk surrounding torture investigations is how everyone says they want to depoliticize. Come on, that’s bull! Torture progressed in the first place because the Bushies were scared shitless that another terrorist attack would dislodge them from power. Of course, that turned out to be true. It was just they were the terrorists. Anything involving politicians is always politicized. That is why it should be a truth committee set up with policy wonks and old hands with no ambition of higher office. Give them a nice sized budget and staff. Let them name names and state deeds. State bar associations can handle the rest.

- Maggie Daley left Northwestern Hospital yesterday after receiving treatment for a bone lesion. Mrs. Daley has lived with the effects of breast cancer for the last seven years. It is a terrible disease. In these hard times, less women will undergo mammograms. Those who do sign up for them may find a long wait in their location because there are not enough radiologists in the system. Black women especially need to be careful, as the latest research indicates that they are more than three times as likely to suffer from the most drug resistant form of the illness. The numbers- 250,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, over 500 a day. These are our wives, mothers, sisters.

The more you know, kids.

- Finally, I read where Evanston’s police officers now must turn off their squads when writing tickets or accomplishing their other duties. I don’t believe the fine member of Evanston’s Finest turned his engine off two days ago when, after almost clipping my bike, he U-ed to order me to the other side of the street. I wanted to ask him if he was going to be so conscientious with the motorists who fail to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks or stop at stop signs. In other news, the proposed high-rise at 1890 Maple received half-off their property tax to the city for the next twenty years. Keep this in mind, ‘Stonians, when you send that property tax check later this year.

Making light of the boot is a bootable offense.

On the all-time sucky thing list, getting a parking ticket for your disabled vehicle has to rank fairly high. Not over having a bird shit on you (still hot at No. 1( and something that has happened to me personally three times, THREE- really, what are the odds of that?)), but well above stepping in dog poop (a common occurrence in dog rich-owner poor Evanston). I walked out to my car an hour ago to move it because I believed the street cleaning days were Wednesday-Thursday. Alas, no. So now I have two parking tickets and not even one working car. Maybe I should take a hint and give away the busted car? Yes, I should. It’s on the list, people. It’s a real list. On a chalkboard. Next to the front door.

- Housing prices continue to slump here in Evanston. Homes here are selling $200,000 less than last year. No, that wasn’t a misprint. $200,000 less. K and I need to start our home hunting pronto.

- Has yet to snow here today. Pretty much the same miserable weather as yesterday.

- While you were watching the classic Bulls game last night, our very own incumbent Urkel appeared on Chicago Tonight. He came to address the firing of a $60,000-a-year admin who has been arrested twice in the last six months. You need to watch this.

Best parts if you don’t want to watch- Todd Stroger stating that “I’m certain employees get arrrested all the time.” Great. I’m so glad our county taxes go toward an effective disciplinary system. He inserts race into the discussion every chance he gets, as if that gives him a poor management waiver. “Just because people look like me doesn’t mean that they’re from the eighth ward.” Righto, Todd. But answer the question. How come so many county hires come from the eighth ward? And the follow up- what does your hiring have to do with race? Hmm…And about his cousin, who resigned over this new employee flap- “She didn’t do anything wrong.” Then why did you have her resign, Todd? Oh, to answer your critics. So, in short, it is OK for county employees to spend their off-times committing crimes. Gotcha. I’ll make sure to remind my close friends who work for the county that it is now open season. No matter what their skin color.

Operation ‘Pants Urkel’ remains in effect. Time to go, Todd.

- Obama released the CIA memoes related to the Bushies’ use of torture. Now the next step is to form a truth committee and lay open all the papers and names related to this mess. If this causes some CIA personnel to lose their jobs, oh well. I don’t want to see trials for those involved in the torture scandal. All that will do is inflict more wounds to our dignity. But we citizens deserve the truth. We need to know how a few individuals hijacked our country and sold our most basic beliefs down to river in the name of short-term political gains. Names. And deeds. After all of this information is released, than we can go through the courts to make sure the guilty individuals who hold law degrees are disbarred. Only after that can we say that the past is truly behind us. Without an investigation, we will provide an awful example for every developing country. Do the right thing, Barack.

Yeah, we’ve been on a lengthy hiatus here at Shambollocks!. An outbreak of paranormal experiences which would fluster the firm of Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler bombarded us since our last post. My computer breathed its last breath. A friendly neighbor took my bicycle, on which I put in a good day’s work fixing, off the back porch. Locusts swarmed over this cold, gray land by the lake. I fell into some Bootsy Collins kind of deep funk.

I left you. I apologize. I do.

I can’t promise it won’t happen again. But I will tell you that I will do my damnedest to prevent it.

Today we reboot the site with what will be the first in a series of new features- The Evanston Everyman. Yes, every day you can find the very best in local online news gathered from within a tiny newsroom/ apartment a mere five or six blocks from Chicago. Will it always center on the town of Evanston? Probably not. It will most likely end up as a cranky collection of stray thought and rants. But it won’t be boring.

Today in Evanston, well, why should I lie- it was miserable here today. You expect me to get out of a funk with this kind of weather? How come Scully and Mulder never investigated the perennial mystery of where Chicago’s springs go? If you like sodden ground and potholes with puddle camouflage than today was the day for you. If you’re like me, you kept inside and reveled in digital minutiae. Today, it was how to load the mp3 player. As with most things Windows related, the process was far from intuitive. I handled it, though. Tomorrow, I handle the rest of this messy world.

- Today marked the ten year anniversary of the massacre at Columbine HS. Dozens of protestors laid down in front of the Capitol steps to remind those in power of the students killed by the two sick kids. Elsewhere in America, hundreds of people picked up their guns. What a country!

- I should share with you what machine rolls out Shambollocks! each day. The new machine is a Gateway DX4720-03, with a Acer X193W LCD Monitor. We got a great deal on both from Newegg, plus a half-price refurbished 4G Sandisc Fuze. There’s my plug for the day. Maybe I could have cut a better deal? Hmm…