TGIF

So yesterday after work I had a seminar to attend for my job. It was at the office in Westchester, so right after I finished up at my client in Rolling Meadows I drove down there. Actually, that's a lie—what I meant to say was that I crawled down there. The expressway was backed up so bad that I could have made it to my destination faster by walking there. (Just imagine the opening scene of Office Space, only worse.)

So after arriving an hour late, I finally learned what caused the backup (and forced the police to seal off one of the streets I planned on using): some nut robbed a bank, was chased into a home by police, and was engaged in a stand-off with them. As pissed as I was about the drive, I was relieved that the cause of the traffic wasn't something stupid, like a gaper's delay.

When the seminar ended, just before 9 P.M., I tried to take that same street to the expressway but was once again thwarted when I learned that the stand-off was still going on at that time. Apparently the whole incident, starting with the robbery, began at 12:30 in the afternoon. As of the time of this writing, the standoff is still going down, as the man refuses to leave the home he is holed up in. After peaceful attempts to get this winner to surrender failed, the police tried using tear gas, but even that did not work. He really doesn't want to leave that place—perhaps because he's trying to enjoy his last remaining hours of "freedom?" Well, my theory is that he's waiting for the police to come inside and take him away because he knows if he walks out himself he'll last about 2 steps before he's viciously beaten to death by thousands of disgruntled motorists.

In all seriousness, the SWAT team should have gone in and taken the joker out many hours ago, as this is getting pretty damn ridiculous. I mean, there are no hostages, so what is the concern? Maybe they're going to try blasting really loud music non-stop, like they did with Noriega. (Although to expedite things I'd recommend something a little more annoying than Guns & Roses—a little Backstreet Boys, perhaps?) In any event, you can only try the peaceful methods for so long before you finally realize they don't work (at least in this case). Then again, maybe they're just biding their time until he runs out of food...

(Here's a story from the Chicago Tribune about this whole mess.)

-Mark