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…