Common questions

Every now and then I get a "what are you up" to IM. Many of you ask me the same questions which means I’m not doing a good job of staying in touch. Maybe this will help.

Where do you live?
I moved back to Chicago. For those of you keeping track at home, this marks the 4^th city I’ve lived in the last two years. This one looks like a keeper though. Chicago is awesome. Tons of stuff to do, plenty of restaurants and bars, and I can watch all my favorite sports teams for free on TV. Only complaint is the girls. It wouldn’t kill them to run a little more, and cut back on the deep dish pizza.

What do you do?
I work as a programmer in the video game industry. In the last few months I’ve worked on two games that will hit stores shortly.

My first game titled Zathura comes out in October. It's a kids platform jumper based on the movie that comes out around the same time.

The second game I'm working on comes out mid-2006. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to talk about it since the game is still in the R&D phase but it looks awesome. I highly recommend giving it a play when it comes out. I’ll add more information about this as soon as they allow me to divulge the details.

What do you do outside of work?
I go to the bars. A lot. You can find me at Duffys for $2.50 imports, the Apartment to see the Lincoln Park trixies, and anywhere else the Chicago crowd wants to take me.

I also play basketball Monday and Thursday nights, and tennis whenever anybody is up for it.

Family stuff also takes up a pretty good chunk of my time now that I live near the majority of my immediate and extended family again.

And then there's fantasy baseball. I finally got serious about it again this year. After failing to do the draft or managing my team for the first 6 weeks, I've gotten the boys up to 3rd place. My goal this year is to take home the championship, and slowly but steadily this starting to happen.

Do you still travel a lot?
Of course! So far this year I've visited the following places:

• Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Okayama, Kyoto, Hiroshima… and everywhere else where there were little to no whities)

• Florida (Marco Island, more blue hairs then you shake a stick at)

• Cedar Point Amusement Park (home of the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world)

• Philadelphia, PA (the Liberty Bell is overrated, the cheese steak is not)

Dating anyone?
Usually I just ignore this question because nothing good ever seems to come out of it. I'm feeling candid tonight though so here you go.

Currently I date Alina. Here's a picture of her. She's studying to be my meal ticket.

Are you getting married anytime soon?
No.

When are you going to grad school?
As soon as you are willing to fork over the money to pay for it.

I thought you wanted to live in New York?
Chicago’s cleaner and way more reasonable…. at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Someday I’d like to rock the east coast. When that’ll be? I don’t know.

Gringo: A disparaging term for a foreigner in Latin America, especially an American or English person

In my opinion, everyone has a piece of their day where they encountered something that could be considered comical or out of the ordinary. Yesterday that something was Chi-town’s gringo pizza.

Some background on this. The gringo pizza is a currently non-advertised item at the Chi-town pizza parlor in Chicago, IL. Deemed by locals as one of the spiciest in the world, it features a fiery mix of four different types of habanero peppers. Topping at around a 200-300K scollville heat unit rating, the pizza registers 4-6 times as hot as Tabasco sauce.

All of that meant nothing to me though. I’ve eaten some of the best of the best. Dave’s insanity, Indian curry, the extra-hot at a Mexican burrito joint, all had with little or no problems, so on Friday night I decided to try the Diablo pizza. One bite and that was more than enough. None of these prior experiences could have prepared me for what I was about to incur.

It literally felt like someone had lighted a match under my tongue, kicked me in the balls, and ran. All I could do was pace back and forth withering in pain. The owner, laughing like the jack ass he is for creating this contraption, offered me a tall glass of ice water. It did nothing. Eating the crust helped, but only momentarily suspended the pain. It was pure hell and only seemed to intensify. For about 15-20 minutes the throbbing continued. Rotating back and forth between my mouth and my stomach, my whole body began to feel like this things punching bag.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it either. Round 2 began the next morning. The familiar feeling of my stomach being pummeled erupted every 20-30 minutes, and I had to repeatedly stop whatever I was doing so that I could singe off another ass hair.

After all this the “wifey,” asked “Was it really worth going through all that?” And in my opinion of course it was. Not many people can say that they braved the spiciest pizza in the world. Sure at one point or another it felt like the thing was trying smoke a combination of either my mouth, ass, or stomach, but I finally think I found my spice limit. For some it’s crushed red pepper, others it’s a whole jalapeno, for me it’s the gringo pizza.

Another blog?

My daily life is important, funny, and worth sharing. You are all going to hear me bitch and leave comments to help soothe my pain. My boyfriend’s an ass and I can’t belie… Sound familiar? Another day, another blogger is born. Cliché if this is but I promise this will be different. No bitching, no gossip, just my life presented in a humorous tone is what this all about.