carol stream had a new nj style pizza place open up on geneva rd., right next to the jimmy john's. it's pretty good, chef. also they have the village pub, which is also in rochelle/schaumberg.

just finished the 2nd season, so now caught up to the new season which we'll probably start tomorrow. i have really enjoyed the addiction/rehab/relapse symbolism through these 2 seasons, and the group is great. lots of great music cues as well.

for anyone thinking that curtis was overacting, consider yourself lucky. my MIL is exactly like her, sans the drinking & smoking. the christmas dinner scene pretty much happened several times throughout the years...no forks thrown, no cars through the house...but many, many screaming fits. she's also italian (from italy).

i think my favorite character is uncle jimmy. he seems the most authentic chicago.

hands, chef.

I've heard Pizzeria Di Maria in Carol Stream is good. It's owned by the same family as Mamma Maria in Bensenville.

we've had the mama maria in elmhurst; it's good, but we like mangia napoli and armand's better.

i hear BPD is a really wicked thing for folks to deal with. and i mean the people around the person that has it

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

i'm through 3 episodes of the new season; i don't agree at all with the negativity. i like the focus shift to the actual process of running the restaurant, and the structure being introduced by the monotonous routine of building food in the first episode.

the music is decidedly muted and more like what a surgeon would listen to, which is kind of like what these uppity restaurants require.

on a food note, though, i would never *ever* fucking step foot in The Bear. i would totally have had a few beef sandwiches at The Original Beef. i can't stand to look at a plate that has so little food on it.

refined. lol.

"you've made nachos."

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

Agreed on little food.

As for the season I watched a couple more episodes last night. The one showing the black/PR lady was pretty good I thought.

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Elections have consequences.

I still haven't been able to summon the Trumpian level of steely defiance it will take to watch episode 3 of the new season.

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finished the 3rd season last night. i can understand that this is probably the most pretentious of the 3 seasons, but i still thought it was well done for what it was. much of it was internalized which is hard to convey in a visual medium. probably would've worked better as a novel. still, i appreciated it. unlike "ted lasso" and some other shows that started strong and completely faded, i think this has stayed true to itself. "ice chips" was a great reconciliation between donna and natalie. it was very sweet.

the "haunting" stuff did go over the top with the addition of (the most famous) fak brother, but it also works as a two-pronged meaning as carm is still haunted by the things he can't let go of.

if the first season is addiction and the second is rehab, and relapse, this is withdrawal. which can be slow, nauseating, and frustrating. again, i don't think this is a perfect allegory or anything...it just has notes of those themes. Syd is also at a crossroads with her future as carm is with his past...the last scene of the episode between carm and andrea was the literal passing of the torch.

the show is on the nose sometimes a bit much. i think the best way to critique it, though, is going to have to see how S4 pans out...because this ends on a cliffhanger.

i liked the story that claire tells carm about the girl who came in covered in glass, laughing because "she hadn't felt the pain yet". that can be true of a lot of trauma, before it's digested.

This show sucks

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The third season IMHO was a bit of a letdown from season two. JLC was phenomenal again -- that character and her portrayal of it is amazingly good. But overall, I felt the season lacked accomplishment and instead was nothing but trials and tribulations. Previous seasons had the players achieve a goal, have a brief celebration, then realize that by achieving that goal, they've opened three more challenges that they need to defeat. This had a lot more dilemma based drama and less achievement based (and when it was, it was often retroactive) so it did not have those nuggets of good feelings spread throughout. And not that life is always like that, certainly not, but we watch these shows to be entertained, not to double down on depression in our lives. Needs more accomplishment to help us along through to the challenges. Pretentious is a good way to describe it -- it would be hard not to be self-serving in your creation after you have such positive reviews and hundreds of Hollywooders begging to be on your show.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas