TOC’s own Jake Malooley spoke live last night with a presenter on BBC 5 about Oprah’s imminent departure from broadcast television. Best moment: When they asked Jake if Oprah might go into politics and become a U.S. ambassador, he said no, because she’d have to take too big of a pay cut. Listen to the segment above.

Starting Friday 20, The New York Times will attempt to give the Chicago Tribune a run for its money, publishing two pages of Chicago content twice a week, generated by local start-up Chicago News Cooperative (CNC). Over the past several weeks, the CNC, which was founded by former Tribune managing editor James O’Shea, has lured some staffers out of Trib Tower, including big gets like City Hall reporter Dan Mihalopoulos and business columnist David Greising. Sitting on the CNC board is former Trib top editor Ann Marie Lipinski. My favorite line critiquing this curious amount of Trib recruits came from Gawker: “New York Times Hires Gang Who Killed Chicago Tribune to Kill Tribune.” NYT editor Jim Schachter has the task of ensuring that “The Times’s standards of excellence are maintained” at the CNC, his paper announced this week. Good luck, Jim.

Female mud-wrestling troupe the Mud Queens of Chicago got down and dirty last night at Reggie’s rock club as the Bad Knights (a quartet of what looked like former-D&Ders in cardboard medieval helmets) comically ripped through speed-metal riffs.

Backstage before show time, the colorfully-named cast of hard-drinking Mud Queens—among them Smother Theresa, Twisted Fister, Tinker Hell, and Andy Kaufman’s Cancer (printed on her shirt: “You can fight cancer, but you can’t beat it”)—were most of the way through a 30-pack of PBR cans. However, the troupe’s founder and ringleader Meg Bell (wrestling name: the Fulsom Prison Manhandler) was a little worried. “You can show your whole breast in public, but you can’t show nipples,” she said, wondering aloud whether the girls should should apply duct tape to their nipples before hitting the ring—you know, just in case. “No one said anything about it, so I think we’re okay,” she concluded, tipping back her head of jet-black hair toward the ceiling and taking a big gulp of beer.

Bell’s concerns were not baseless: As the bikini-clad Mud Queens pummeled each other in the ring of mire, it seemed bared nipples were unavoidable. Lucky for Bell and Reggie’s, the cops didn’t show.

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The end of daylight saving time might give Halloween partiers an extra 60 minutes of barroom revelry this year.

This Sunday, November 1, at 2am—when many of us will be drunkenly howling at the moon on a dance floor somewhere—daylight saving time ends, and it’s time again to “fall back” an hour. The question is: Are Chicago’s bars allowed to honor the change, giving you more time to show off that badass Jacko/Mad Men/Balloon Boy/Swayze costume?

We checked with the city, which surprisingly has no beef with the extended party. “Whatever time it is, that’s what time is going to be enforced,” said Efrat Stein, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Licensing. Which means it’s the bar’s discretion whether you have another hour to dance with that anonymous dude dressed like Max from Where the Wild Things Are.

“In years past we’ve stayed open, if there were people still drinking,” said Map Room barkeep Tom Lee. “But Halloween tends to be a house-party holiday, so we’ll see.”

Delilah’s owner Mike Miller says you can count on his bar serving for the extra hour. “In the spring, when we jump forward an hour, we close early,” added Miller’s wife, Sally. “So why not?”

Have a happy Halloween, everyone—and safe time travels.

Photo: Andrew Nawrocki

As you well know by now, the broke-ass CTA is again threatening doomsday fare hikes and service cuts. And, like a penniless stoner fishing for Funyun money beneath couch cushions, the agency will take whatever spare change it can get its grubby little paws on.

Incredible what a little scrounging can do: This week, the CTA managed to find $122 million in its budget, bridging almost half its projected $300 million budget gap, after booting 2,000 bus drivers and other union employees, and preparing to scale back contracts, cut expenses and transfer capital funds to its operating budget. The Regional Transportation Authority is chipping in, calling for an end to Blago’s incredibly foolish free-rides-for-seniors program, which it says would generate about $37 million in new revenue. Oh, and thanks to our junkie-like thirst for high-fructose corn syrup, the CTA secured another $1.4 million over the next five years, reupping a vending deal with Coca-Cola. A five-year parking operations contract inked with Central Parking System will bring in another $1 million annually. And it sounds like CTA prez Richard Rodriguez is not against selling naming rights to El stations or entire lines—just like in Dubai! (See more transit ideas from other cities.)

It remains to be seen, however, whether the agency’s early efforts will stave off the fare hikes and service cuts slated for February 7, 2010. In the meantime, sound off on the transit doomsday below.

In this week’s entertaining-as-hell Sex Issue, Chicagoans spill about first times—from hooking up via Craigslist to using a glory hole. Now we want to know about one of your firsts: the very first time. Don’t hold back those juicy or awkward details; that’s why we have a comments section.

The work week kicked off with a new transit outrage in Chicago: big proposed CTA fare hikes coupled with dramatic service reductions to fill the latest gaping budget hole. Public transit is such a ridiculously low priority in this city that our disastrous 2016 Olympic bid didn’t even include a significant overhaul. Where is the leadership at the RTA, which sometimes seems willing to throw CTA under the bus? Where is the state legislative leadership in not creating an adequate safety net during the downturn? Where is the leadership on the federal level with an urban-minded President and a Secretary of Transportation from Illinois who both presumably understand how beneficial investments in top-flight transit systems are to supporting employers while reducing automotive pollution and congestion? Talk about green stimulus! Instead, we get yet another doomsday scenario that will most harm low-income workers–and, indeed, the companies that employ them. It’s time for everyone from the city to the RTA to state and federal officials to make a core commitment to investing in efficient, affordable public transit. In the long haul, it generates economic and environmental benefits far beyond whatever revenue it generates at the turnstile. Who’s with me?

We're giving away one 16GB Zune HD in TOC-ish red.

You might have heard a bit about Microsoft’s Zune before, but have you heard about the Zune HD? When I got wind of what was new in the Zune HD—which dropped in September—I must admit I was curious, impressed even, that Microsoft had digital media device (gadget to you) that was worth shelling out some dough to own. What’s the deal? The Zune HD has a built-in HD radio receiver, HD-video-capable output (to hook up to your flat-screen or your hotels when you travel with an extra HDMI A/V docking station) and a spacious 480×272 OLED touchscreen plus WiFi for instant streaming or download of music to the device from Zune Marketplace (Microsoft’s answer to the iTunes store where Zune users can also get music, videos, TV shows and podcasts). Most Zune Marketplace music selections are DRM-free. You can even buy songs directly from the HD radio mode or access millions of songs with a subscription-based Zune Pass service ($14.99/month). And you set up your Zune to sync to your PC at home wirelessly—to get new podcasts without the hassle of the dreaded cord. Sounds pretty nifty, eh? We’ve yet to secure one to review on the blog, but in the meantime, we’ve got one to give away. It happens to be red—one of the colors exclusive to ZuneOriginals.net, the Zune’s customization Web site.

To enter the drawing*, simply sign up for the TOC Music newsletter via the black newsletter box on the Music page and email me with “Zune HD giveaway” in the subject line. We’ll pick a winner at random on November 1.

More about the Zune.

*Contest rules after the jump

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Linda Harper (right) learns Chicago is out of the running. Photo: Michael Jarecki

In Daley Plaza, as in Copenhagen, gasps greeted the International Olympic Committee’s unexpected first-round dismissal of Chicago from the 2016 Summer Games bid. But among the two dozen Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) members gathered around a TV at Ain’t She Sweet (4532 S Cottage Grove Ave, 773-373-3530), a bright little café just a short drive from the proposed sites of the Olympic Stadium and Village, there was a collective sense of relief followed by talk of the future. “We’re not overjoyed, like, ‘Yea, we didn’t get it!’” said Shannon Bennett, KOCO’s lead organizer. “We’re decompressing.”

KOCO wasn’t anti-Games, though it was concerned that Olympics-related development would accelerate displacement. The group lobbied the City Council to pass an ordinance included in Chicago’s bid book that called for at least 30 percent of the Olympic Village—planned for the site of the defunct Michael Reese Hospital—to be devoted to affordable, post-Games housing. “We have to keep the momentum going because the spotlight is on these communities now,” Bennett said. “With or without the bid, Reese Hospital is going to be developed. So the fight continues.”

Not everyone at the café, however, was pleased by news of Chicago’s ouster. “I was disappointed,” said Linda Harper, 60, a retired city employee from Hyde Park. “I really would’ve hoped that at least we would’ve gone to the next level before they pushed us out the door altogether. [The Games] would’ve been right in my neighborhood and I wanted to see people get jobs and see if it would improve our city.”

Did you know Billy Dec is on the Chicago 2016 bid committee’s payroll as “director of cultural relations”? En route to Copenhagen for Friday’s International Olympic Committee vote on a host city for the Olympics, the perpetually be-hatted nightlife entrepreneur has been starfucking his way around the world, conducting interviews on “how amazing it would be to have the Olympics here in 2016″ (as Dec puts it on his site, achicagothing.com) with any celeb who will give him a minute of his or her time.

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