Everyone's favorite all-ages coffeehouse, Pressure Cafe, hosts the Squeeze Live Comedy Showcase Saturday at 9, this week featuring James Fritz, Liz McCarthy, Kumail, and Pat Brice, hosted by Jeb Cadwell. As James says, "It's a coffee shop, so slip some whiskey in a Coke bottle or something." Well, if you insist.

Sunday 9 at the Playground you can catch the variety show style experimental comedy of the gang at the Overstock show. Time Out Chicago calls it "the best show on Sunday night that no one knows about. Change that."

Also, Mike Bridenstine and Kara Buller are both celebrating their birthdays this weekend, so the Bastion expects to hop online Monday morning with tales of celebratorious (yeah, it's a word now) debauchery. Well, unless our head hurts too much.

The Don't Spit The Water gang is keeping a group blog while they're on the road at New York's Fringe Festival. They haven't even left Chicago yet, and there are already travel complications, involving the banning of any liquids in luggage, thanks to those jerks in al-Qaida. Hope the airlines don't ban liquid-based comedy acts as well.

Also next week, our final wrapup on Chicago comedy's presence at Lollapalooza (from the performers' perspective), more on The Elevated's 10th Anniversary, and the Bastion shadows comic Pat Brice through a high-adrenaline day on the trading floor, a radio spot, and an evening of stage-storming comedy. Whew.