Metamorphosis

If there's anything I have a weakness for - aside from Buffalo Chicken anything - it is a good chili. It's a relatively-recent obsession of mine, culinarily speaking, as I only had my first chili experience with Patrick, he who introduced me to the world of total non-sucking.

It's kind of a stereotypically Guy Food, chili. It's said that every guy has his own recipe, and will never share it with the world except when he's drunk, or really wanting to impress a girl. As false as this preconception is - most of my favorite chilis were made for me by awesome girls - the fact remains that it is as varied as the people who make it. Pat's chili, for example, favored heavily on the beans and lighter on the meat, and due to dietary restrictions was far more hearty than spicy.

Ever since then, I've sought out chili wherever I went. Sweet Tomatoes (also called Souplantation in other states) will often rotate between three different kinds, and once had all three available one frabjous day. When visiting Tessa before she moved up to Chicago, she took me to one of Cincinnati's three most famous chili places, where the chili is soupier and meant to be a condiment instead of a meal, and they give you funny looks for ordering just a straight bowl of chili even when it is right there on the menu, this is not like hot dog thing because Chicago doesn't even give you an option, no I am not still bitter about this.

(It actually is very good chili, despite my grousing.)

In any case, last week at work a box of chili mix was left at the front desk, and after a few days without anyone claiming it, I was allowed to take it home.

( EXTREME! CHILI! )

All things considered, it turned out pretty well. Two pounds of beef makes a lot of chili, and I'll have some for tomorrow. Thus begins my epic journey of chili-making; I plan on getting a slow-cooker (or registering for one for the wedding) and breaking it in with some Chili Around The World. It will be an EXTREME! EXPERIMENT!, in that I'll be researching a crapload of chili recipes from all over the internet, adapting and extracting and assimilating where I can.

Eventually, I will create the O'Shea Signature Chili, and when I do, internets, I will share it with the world.

It will be...

...extreme.

Morning Weigh-in: 225

Still going the proper direction. You may have noticed that it slowed a bit, and that I didn't check in last week. Adam (skybreak_seeker) was visiting us, and we went out to eat more often than not - including a trip to the Melting Pot up in Arlington Heights, which is not conducive to anyone trying to stick to a diet.

(Unrelated side-note: Their Fiesta cheese appetizer is heavenly. It's as if a choir of angels swooped down, deposited a bushel of jalapenos on my head, and flew away whilst laughing their wings off.)

That said, I did at least try to stick to my portion control, though I've slipped a few times. I've also stuck to the diet soda restriction I've placed upon myself, no matter how many times I've been tempted to stray from this vile imitation.

In any case, I'm hesitant to declare that I'm tapering off, because of said extenuating circumstances. Once I do, however, I'll take a look and see what I can change of my diet next. One thing at a time, after all; I want to keep my eating habits as unchanged as possible while still achieving my goal.

SCIENCE.

In somewhat related news, I still need to upload the pictures and video from this Sunday's excursion to Pekin/Peoria, where my family and I attended the annual Pumpkin Chuck. There were trebuchets, catapults, and actual gigantic cannons, including the Illudium X-36 Pumpkin Modulator. ("Where was the gourd-shattering kaboom? There was supposed to be a gourd-shattering kaboom!")

I'll get them uploaded. IT WAS AWESOME YOU GUYS.

I ate'nt dead. The tops of my forearms feel like it, though.

My cousin from Seattle¹ came in town on Monday; she hadn't been to Chicago since she was 2, so she didn't remember anything about it. (Besides, she had only come to our house at the time anyway.) I took Tuesday off work, and the five of us - Cousin, myself, my parents, and Cheer Sister² - went down to the city. We stopped by Navy Pier, Buckingham Fountain, Millennium Park, and checked out the observation deck at the Sears Tower³.

(The girls all went out on The Ledge - those new extensions on the deck that lets you stand in a bubble outside the building and look 103 floors straight down - but my father, who is terrified of heights, was content to take pictures from the safe carpetted area. I took one step and realized that I was becoming more and more like my father every day.)

We also took a Segway tour of the city. We actually covered a pretty fair amount of ground of the South Side - Millennium Park, The Island Formerly Known As Meigs Field, through the Museum Campus and Soldier Field, and roughly Grant's Park. A three hour tour, all on Segways.

I know what you're thinking. Segways are ridiculous. And yes, they are. I looked completely foolish on it. But regardless of how ridiculous they look, they're wicked fun. We were pushing 15 miles an hour on those things.


So, one week until I do stand-up comedy in front of a live audience. Tickets are still on sale, online and at the door. A class of nine, plus one professional opening, one professional middle act, and one professional closing act brings the total to twelve comedians. For a twelve-dollar ticket (plus a two item minimum), that's a great deal for an evening's entertainment. Details are here, including a link to buy tickets online if you don't want to wait and get them at the door. (Made of Fail listeners, feel free to come! It'd be great, plus I think I'll be sticking around after the show and you can come up and say hi.)

---

1. Well, one of them. The older one.


2. Who is incidentally back in cheerleading this year, making my referencial name to her valid once more.


3. What? No, the legal name isn't something else. No, you're imagining it. Go back to your own cities, you ketchupped hot dog eating crazies.

Roommate and I went out yesterday, just to get out of the house. I figured that as long as we were doing that, and as long as we've been living here for...six months now, we should probably know where the local comic and gaming stores are.

Found both of 'em. There's a Comix Revolution near the library, and an independantly-run gaming store not too far south of there; right across the street from the Metra station. Both in downtown Mount Prospect, which is a gorgeous area anyway.

I went out on a limb and bought Tessa her own dice set and a really nice purple-and-black velvet dice bag from the shop. Those were an early Hannukah present, so she's not getting the big final-night gift from me. I told her that she should take eight dice out of the bag and give them to herself, one every night. (I'll probably pick up some gelt for both her and Dayna, though; Dayna will be here for the first couple nights of Hannukah)

Of course she was a total girl about it and had to spend half an hour comparing dice colors and styles before making a final selection. Although I can't really blame her; it is an important decision. Shopping for your first set of dice is almost like shopping for jewelry; you have to compare and waffle and waver and go back to your first choice and then put them all back and ask to see something completely different and then the gold-and-silver or crystal sets get spotted and then it's back to square one.

She's taken her first step into a larger world, however. Now she just needs her own copy of the Player's Handbook; now that we're customers of the store, we can probably hang around a lot and see if there are any local games we can join. If not, Debbie said that her friends Kelly and Steve game, and I might try to get them to do something with us.

Okay, here we go. The Sparklening Part The Second.

Chapter Two

( Day and a half later. Seriously. )


Okay, this chapter seemed shorter than the last one. Taking a break, regardless.

I've tried rebooting my laptop multiple times at this point. Take it any way you want, really: I'm a masochist, I'm overly optimistic, I'm really really stubborn - whichever you think fits best, that's probably what it is.

I've pronounced Felix dead at 2228, Monday, and all attempts to Igor it back to life have failed. Wednesday night, I packed it up and will Shelve It Indefinitely once my new computer comes in. ¹

Speaking of which, the monitor arrived yesterday! It actually came in while both myself and Tessa were at work, so the nice FedEx Home Delivery man took it next door to the really sweet old couple in the unit next to us. They signed for it and held it for me until I got home from work. They're really nice people, and one of these days I'm going to actually ask them their names.

I'm going to set up the monitor tonight when I get home, to prepare for The New Computer.

Speaking of The New Computer, it was supposed to have been built today. Turns out the queue was smaller than the website predicted, and it was built (and shipped out) on Wednesday. The tracking number says Estimated Delivery: August 15th, which confused me since FedEx doesn't deliver on Saturdays unless you pay extra and I went with the free Standard Shipping, but then I remembered that Home Delivery operates on different rules.

The New Computer should be put together and running smoothly tomorrow night, but I'm not going to actually give it the name I've picked out until I know it's working properly. Likewise for any date estimates on the next episode of Made of Fail - Dayna wanted to know when I wanted to reschedule the episode we were supposed to record tomorrow³, and I really don't want to give her a date until The New Computer is working. Having watched cleolinda over the last two weeks has taught me to wait and see if The New Computer even turns on.

Whenever we do record it, however, it'll be pretty awesome. Getting back to basics. Jillian's even agreed to do a regular Music News segment, which she'll prerecord for us if she's not able to make the actual recording date. (That might even work better in some cases, so that I can just say "And now, here's Jillian with the Music News", and drop in her segment during editing.)


EDIT: Tracking number now says that The New Computer arrives on Tuesday, not Saturday. Bit of a change there, but I guess it's still better than my original estimate of next Friday.

---

1. I'm using the tag "bow down before skynet" to refer to all Compocalypse² entries I have.


2. The term "Compocalypse" coined by cleolinda who is having a REALLY BAD MONTH so give her lots of hugs.


3. You know. Before half the people on my LiveJournal friendslist had their computers die on them. I'm not even exaggerating on that; for the last couple months I've seen nothing but "MY COMPUTER DIED" all the way down the page.