A tip for those going to the NDLS “Chicago Architecture Tour,” a.k.a. 100 Days Party, a.k.a. Pub Crawl…

If you go to Hotwire.com and search for hotels in Chicago with availablilty from February 10-11, you’ll find a “4-star hotel in Magnificent Mile Area - Streeterville” for $72. Hotwire won’t tell you what hotel it is until after you buy, but I will: it’s the Hyatt Regency Chicago. I just made a reservation there, and for two people, it ended up costing $88.27 after “taxes, recovery charges, and fees.” That’s still a nice discount from the $148.87 that you’d pay (after taxes) if you went through the Hyatt website. And it’s a great hotel. Becky and I stayed there two years ago for the 2005 Pub Crawl and loved it. Among other amenities, it has the longest free-standing bar in North America! Not that we’ll necessarily need to be visiting another bar, but still. :)

The Hyatt is 3.4 miles by cab from Beaumont, which I assume will be the final stop on the “Architecture Tour.” So, it’s not right in the immediate vicinity, but it’s not too far, either. And there isn’t too much right in the immediate vicinity anyway, at least not within easy (drunken) walking distance.

P.S. As long as I’m extending unsolicited advice to my fellow law students, I just want to reiterate (since this post will be on top of the homepage during class tomorrow morning) my tip about the CitiAssist Study Loan. Most of you probably already know about it, but for any who might not: you can get up to $11,000 to bridge the gap between your spring-semester student-loan funds and the receipt of that all-important first paycheck. More details here; Citibank site here.

Stanford 75, UCLA 68. Wow. I daresay the Cardinal just took one giant leap toward an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. Also, USC’s loss on the Farm three days ago doesn’t look so bad now. Thanks, Bruins. ;)

Next up for Stanford: a home date with Gonzaga on Wednesday at 11:00 PM EST on ESPN. Big, big game for both teams.

The Pac-10 standings are now a complete jumble, with five teams within one game of one another. Oregon and UCLA are 7-2; Stanford, Wazzu are USC are 6-3. It’s anybody’s conference! Whether USC has a legit shot will be determined in the next 10 days. After a home date with Oregon State on Thursday, the Trojans host Oregon on Saturday and then travel to UCLA next Wednesday (the 7th).

Alas, while the news was good for Stanford and, by extension, USC on Sunday, it wasn’t good at all for Tennessee and its mercifully clothed, orange-clad coach, Bruce Pearl. The Vols got creamed by rival Kentucky, 76-57. According to Joe Lunardi, the Vols are currently “the very last team in the at-large pool.” Bubblicious!

Becky has been Instalanched.

I may have link-whored her to the Professor… hehe.

(That sounds mildly dirty, doesn’t it? Link-whoring your own wife out! Oh, the Hugh Manatee!)

P.S. She got more than 1,300 hits on Sunday, most of them between Glenn’s 10:37 PM post and midnight. She’ll get a lot more than that on Monday. Stats here.

The first legitimate lake-effect snow event of the season (the National Weather Service is calling it “EXTREME,” which should make our resident Buffalonians laugh very, very hard) gave Robbie ample opportunity to run around in the powdery white stuff this afternoon:

As graceful and athletic as Robbie looks when he runs, it’s surprisingly difficult to get a good still photo of him running; more often he looks like Gollum or… well… like this. But here’s a pretty good shot:

Woof! Whee!

Also, while it’s not exactly graceful-looking, this picture is kind of cool, as you can see how his hind legs are actually in front of his front legs as he launches himself forward.

More photos here.

Casey just posted a bunch of new awesome pictures of his octopus. For example:

I have a hard time understanding what anyone could possibly find objectionable about this statement:

I’m going to do what most independents and a lot of Democrats and Republicans in America do, which is to take a look at all the candidates and then in the end, regardless of party, decide who I think will be best for the future of our country.

But I guess some people think party should come before country. I believe there’s a word for such people: unpatriotic.

“I heard it was sort of intellectual snobbery tomfoolery boobishness.” –Becky, referring to the movie Babel

Attention fellow 3Ls eager to take full advantage of their last semester in the rich cultural wasteland uh, center that is South Bend… Brooke has a list of various upcoming events. It also includes events in Chicago, Indianapolis and Milwaukee.

A couple of events that didn’t make Brooke’s list, but that Becky and I will be going to: Mozart and Salieri, today at DPAC; and Cape Breton Island fiddler Natalie MacMaster, also at DPAC, on March 8.

Becky says enough with “bipartisanship” — what’s needed in Washington is simple respect.

Saturday was a good day for all of my favorite teams, as Gonzaga beat San Francisco, Notre Dame beat Villanova and USC beat Cal — the latter despite blowing a 17-point lead, and despite some confusion on ESPN.com’s part:

76-76, final? Heh. Somebody was asleep at the switch there.

But perhaps the biggest win for a Brendan Loy-preferred team was Central Connecticut State’s overtime victory over Sacred Heart. The Blue Devils rallied from an 18-point deficit — 53-34 early in the second half — to win 103-96 in OT.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: you don’t hear me talk about Central Connecticut State too often. But this isn’t some sort of bandwagon thing. CCSU is the closest thing I have to a “hometown school,” as it’s literally one town over from Newington, in New Britain, and a large percentage of my high-school graduating class went there. The reason I rarely blog about them is simply that there usually isn’t much point in following the Blue Devils during the regular season, since the Northeast Conference is a perpetual one-bid conference, so really, the only thing that matters is the conference tournament. But this win was big, because CCSU and Sacred Heart had been tied for first place; now, the Blue Devils move into sole possession of the conference lead. If they can stay there, they’ll have the #1 seed, which means home-court advantage throughout the conference tournament. And even if they lose in the conference tourney, they’d be NIT-bound as regular-season NEC champs.

Anyway, at this point, the Blue Devils probably have a better chance of reaching the Big Dance than that other team from Connecticut, which lost its fourth straight yesterday. So, on the men’s side of March Madness, my Connecticut pride (which I can’t hide) may be entirely tied up in the fate of good ol’ Central Connecticut State. (The other possibilities are Fairfield, Hartford, Quinnipiac and Yale, but none of them are looking too strong this year.)

Of course, if they do go dancing, CCSU will face mighty long odds: Joe Lunardi had the NEC champion seeded #15 in his most recent projection. But hey, Central was a #15 seed in 2000, and they almost beat Iowa State in the first round (presaging the Cyclones’ loss to #15-seed Hampton one year later). So anything is possible. Thus I say: Goooo Blue Devils!! (Beeeeat Blue Devils? How awesome would that be… if Duke gets a #2 seed, Central gets a #15, and the Blue Devils from New Britain pull the upset… heh.)