weird

In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I am not a boat guy. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against boats. As a matter of fact, I've never been out on the Rock River boating without having a great time. It's just that I don't want one, I want friends who have one.

Last week in this space I posted a piece called "You Probably Didn't Know These Things are Against the Law in Illinois." To be honest, I thought that would be the end of it. I mean, how many bizarro-world laws can one state have? Turns out, thanks to some research by alert listener Mike, we've got more. Plenty more.

Every state (and many a city and town) has a few rather unusual laws on the books that while rarely enforced, remain in effect to this day. Illinois is certainly no exception to that.

I was just watching something on YouTube that had people from anywhere other than the Midwest trying to pronounce Midwestern place names. As you might imagine, it was pretty humorous to watch folks take on names that we're fairly familiar with, but they had never heard of.

A year or so back, I posted a piece in this space called "Some Illinois Towns Have Weird Names." Some of the Illinois towns mentioned as being weirdly named were: Goofy Ridge, Oblong, Lowpoint, Muddy, Ransom, and Preemption. Time to make the move from weirdness to lewdness.

You never know what would might see at the grocery store, but this takes the cake.

When I was a kid, like most every kid, I had questions. Lots and lots of them. My parents would do their level best to answer most of them, but sometimes, when they a) didn't know the answer, or b) they were tired of the barrage of questions, I was told to "go look it up." Since this time-period was before the advent of the internet, that meant going to the library. Today, as a parent, I

In case you hadn't been paying attention (since the only Bears and/or Packers you'll see on Sunday are spectators), the Big Game, or Super Bowl 51 (LI) is happening this coming Sunday. If you don't really care at all about football, then take a look at some of the "prop bets" that can make it a lot more fun for the person who couldn't care less about Xs and Os.

When we get into late December and early January of any given year, many news outlets publish lists of new laws and regulations that go into effect at the beginning of the new year. What you don't often see are lists of the odd, archaic, or just plain weird old laws that are still around on the books throughout the state. Let's fix that.

A few of us were sitting around the office wasting precious company time planning out the remainder of the week, when the topic of Christmas traditions came up. One staff member says it's not Christmas unless they line their driveway and sidewalk with their annual "lumineria," or, to put it more simply, lunch-bags with candles and sand in them. Others had different ones. Like, "Hide