The Best or Worst Roscoe Village Real Estate Ad Ever

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to know that when you want to sell something, you make it appear in its best light in the advertisement.

With that in mind, perhaps this real estate listing for a Roscoe Village apartment could use a revision.

• Not because of the snarky Roscoe Village is better than Lakeview boosterism ("...like Lakeview, but without all the drunks.")
  
• Not because the writer misspelled village "Vilagle."
  
• Not because the second sentence makes no sense at all ("Roscoe Vilagle has this, you bright, spacious, updated apartment.")
  

No, we're talking about the last photo in the listing -- the guy hosing himself down in the bathtub full of empty beer cans.

I thought Lakeview was where all the dunks are?

The question is -- is this ad really a "Fail" (to use the parlance of contemporary internet thugs)?  Probably not.

The one goofy photo, clearly lifted from another web site, does not detract from the listing.  More importantly, it is drawing attention to the listing from web sites and blogs across the internet.  Thousands of people who would otherwise not have looked at the ad are seeing it for the first time.

Sure, the majority of them aren't interested in real estate in Roscoe Village.  But it only takes one person to make a stunt that took virtually no effort all worth while.

The Hen Roosts Backwards Tonight

Convenience stores are a little less convenient in the West Loop these days with the closing of one of the White Hen Pantry shops.  I'm sure in the daylight it made sense to simply flip the old "White Hen" signs around in the pylon outside the store.  This was obviously done by a manager or some other person who only works 9-5 and didn't realize that signs light up at night.  Doh!

The Biggest Mall in South Korea is... Chicago!

These days lots of companies are cutting corners.  One of the ways they tend to do it is to skimp on their art production.  Instead of hiring professional graphic artists to design their web sites, they get the C.E.O.'s nephew Jimmy to cobble together an embarrassment of a web page.  Who cares, as long as it's cheap?  And instead of hiring a professional photographer to shoot their property, they'll just grab some exciting stock photos and clip art off the internet. Who cares, as long as it's cheap?

Well, as three French internet providers found out a few years ago when they all picked the same shot of the same girl to splash across their home pages, stock photography is rarely the right answer.

Case in point: The I'Park Mall in Yongsan, Seoul, South Korea.  It's the largest in that country, so it must have cost tens, probably hundreds, of millions of dollars to build.  But the "penny wise, pound foolish" people in charge didn't spend a couple of thousands dollars to have the property photographed.  Instead, they used a stock photo of Chicago's North Michigan Avenue on their web page to illustrate the dynamic shopping experience at I'Park Mall.

The photo in question has to be at least five years old.  It has the old "Marshall Field's" sign on Water Tower Place , and the old red Westin logo instead of the new blue one on the Westin Michigan Avenue .  Judging from the red lights at the top of 900 North Michigan , the photo was shot around Valentine's Day.

So let this be a lesson to all you big wigs out there -- if you cheap out on the photography, you'll only end up embarrassing yourself in the end.

What's in a Name? An Obamanation.

Lots of people are trying to cash in on Barack Obama's ascendency to the White House.  We're happy the hype is over and the nation's first half-black president can finally get to work and do some good.  But while the balloons and confetti are done flying in Washington, Obama is still being celebrated here in Chicago.

Case in point:

Yes, that hair salon is called "Obama's Hair Design."  It's in the Manhattan Building (431 South Dearborn).  I guess if Walgreen's can cash in with six months of Obama merchandising, we can't begrudge a local entrepreneur from attempting the same.  Still, this seems more appropriate in Hyde Park than in the Loop.

Obama's Hair Design (actual address is 433 South Dearborn) is owned by Mahmoud M. Elsheikh.  He registered the name with the state on November 12, 2008, one week after the election.  The name had to be re-registered because of a typo on the 25th (it happened to us once, too).  

Changing the name to "Obama" was probably not such a bad idea.  The business' previous name was Ossama's Hair Design.  Talk about an opportunity landing in your lap.  

There are actually eight companies in Illinois with "Obama" in their names that are not campaign-related.  There's a barbecue joint, a tax company, the afore-mentioned hair salon, a souvenir web site, and even a trucking company.