CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: The common destiny of a ubiquitous 20% off coupon.)

True to their word, Intelligentsia Coffee is now keeping the Millennium Park store on Randolph Street open until 8 p.m. weekdays (10 p.m. weekends were never in doubt). Monday evening I dropped by to enjoy the new hours, only to be seduced into making my weekly whole-bean coffee purchase a day early. Regular Intelligentsia customers cop to twofer Tuesdays when all beans are discounted $2 a pound. But my Ethiopian Mocha Java ran out Monday morning, and the Brazilian Fazenda Vista Alegre, even at 14 bucks a pound, just sounded — and, as it turns out, is — too good to pass up (and not just because I can pronounce it in Portuguese).

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(Photo: In downtown Chicago, history goes by in the blink of an eye. Credit: Looper.)

Okay, so I’m partial. Today, my downtown Chicago architecture photo-essayist extraordinaire boyfriend (did you get all that?), Devyn, launched a retooled version of his popular photoblog, Looper. The site has moved from its former blogspot location to its own new URL, www.iconeon.net. (Why “iconeon”? Think iconic neon: Devyn’s other great dream is to put his long-ago neon school skills to work and open a neon workshop).

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Today marks the start of my second year blogging about life as a determined non-driver living in downtown Chicago. Beginning my blog and moving to Marina City both coincided in June 2005. Back then, I thought I could get Marina City out of the way in my first post and go on to writing about downtown life in general. Little did I know that the unique trials and tribulations of Marina City residency would motivate me to write so often about the historic corncob towers.

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You West Tower residents, you think you’re so high and mighty, laughing and lording it over us East Tower folks just because we’ve been the ones stuck with most of the fires, floods, and water pressure poop-outs lately. Well chuckle no more, you ne’er-do-well neighbors. It’s your turn now, do you hear? It’s your turn! Ha, ha, ha! I am the pumpkin king — er, I mean…

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(Photo: You’ll find no stigma attached to these flowers.)

Marina City’s controversial and shadowy floral arranger, Deep Stem, has struck again. This week, just in time for Independence Day, Deep pulls out t

he patriotic stops to take us on a trip to…Tuscany?

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(Photo: If you plant it, they won’t grow.)

For the better part of a year the elevator lobbies in both Marina City towers have been graced with officially sanctioned rotating floral displays. Lucky for us Marina Citizens, to keep costs down, instead of using the services of a floral designer, or of an actual flower for that matter, these budget bouquets are created in-house by Marina City’s stealthy florist, let’s call them Deep Stem, using plastic parts in place of pistils and petals.

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(Photo: Off the chain at Marina City.)

Last night, Marina City was full of crap. Literally. Barely one month after suffering through three days of water shutoffs in order to replace the 60-story condo complex’s aging high-rise water pumps with new equipment, at least one of the brand-new pumps began to fail yesterday morning. One resident with whom I spoke while leaving for work asked whether I had noticed the water pressure falling on our floor. She said she’d noticed the pressure dropping steadily for more than a week. In retrospect, so did I. But with 40-year-old pipes full of grime and sediment lacing the towers, the first suspicion to come to my mind wasn’t that the new equipment was at fault.

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