The Chicago Traveler

It’s been a while, but b5media’s Travel & Culture Channel is celebrating another Theme Day soon, centered on “Changes.” Change is necessary, but it can be stressful, and we Chicagoans certainly know stress. In fact, last week Forbes declared Chicago as America’s Most Stressful City. Eep!
Chicago has had to endure plenty of changes recently: flood-inducing rains, a depressing economy, expensive gas prices, and an unbelievable sales tax. Combine all this with the country’s second-highest population density, and you have the formula for a stressful situation.
Forbes examined the country’s 40 largest metropolitan areas and looked at things like unemployment rates, housing …read more

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A few folks from San Francisco, California, have created a website where they list some basic etiquette rules for riding public transit. I think politeness on buses and trains is a universal necessity though, and many of the suggestions can apply even to Chicago’s very own CTA commuters.
For example, they advise riders to keep cell phone usage to a minimum while on the bus or train. I could not agree more. Oh, Mr. Inappropriate-Volume, all of us do not want to hear your conversation, no matter how interesting you may think it is. Please, please lower your voice or, even …read more

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Are your taxes done? Or have you been scrambling these past few days (or hours) to meet the deadline? If you’re among the latter, you’re not alone.
Intuit, the maker of TurboTax products, put together a list of American cities that are full of procrastinators when it comes to filing federal income tax returns. And guess who’s at the top of that list? That’s right… Chicago. The list is established by the number of tax returns filed electronically by the TurboTax Online service from April 14-17, 2007. The top twelve cities are…

Chicago, IL
New York, NY
Houston, TX
Austin, TX
San Francisco, CA
San Diego, CA
Seattle, …read more

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There are a couple of new additions to our b5media Travel & Culture family.

Paul Springer writes StarkedSF, a very straightforward, no-punches-pulled look at the events, politics, and culture of the San Francisco area.

At Sirened, Alex Kallimanis reveals the misdeeds of the political and corporate world.
A big welcome to both. Be sure to check them out, especially if you have an interest in news without the television media spin.

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