Visit

Eric came to visit a little while ago. Despite multiple flight delays and cancellations, he (reluctantly) arrived at my place. Unfortunately, I had to work a lot but we managed to get in a trip to the Field museum to learn all about mammoths and mastedons and tried a bunch of dark beers. I also took him to Kuma's Corner which is a heavy metal-themed restaurant that blares music at high decibels while patrons eat gigantic burgers. Each burger is named after a ban like Iron Maiden. Some of the ingredients are things like "anger." Some burgers have fried eggs and bacon on top; one is topped with a hotdog.

This is my burger:



It was so big I couldn't unhinge my jaw enough to get my teeth around it. It was delicious but could easily give one the meat sweats. I skipped that stage and went straight into a coma. A delicious coma.

Eating My Way Through Chicago

Lately I've encountered some interesting food over here. On Canada Day I threw a poutine party at a restaurant that specializes in southern-style cooking. The poutine was surprisingly delicious. Friends who are unfamiliar with the dish got a kick out of the name as seen in the second photo down...The first photo is fried green tomatoes with watermelon slices. Surprisingly delicious.






At a different dinner party I decided to try a corndog as I haven't had one before and they scream 'America.' This one was a little more upscale as it was made from rabbit. I felt bad, but not bad enough to not eat it.



Finally, I ran across this bizareness in the cracker isle - wtf?

Dun, duh nuh nuh, duh nuh nuh, duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh

Even though I'm not a huge hockey fan it's hard not to get swept up in Hawks-mania. I was at a pub in Lakeview to watch the Hawks win the Stanley Cup. We were sprayed with victory champagne, received hugs from strangers, and ran amuck in the crowds. Two days later, I attended the parade to celebrate the win which went right past my school. Apparently 2 million people filled downtown to see the team and the cup. It was amazing and here are some photos:




If you zoom in on this picture you will see the Stanley Cup. I was running out of my school just as it drove by.



Illinois flags replaced with Blackhawks flags:




A guy who worked at my school climbed up a three story fire escape to take this picture:


This guy was awesome:

Dishes, Theatre, and Weird Disorders

Since I got home I've been waiting for a day when I didn't have dishes in my sink to provide you with a triumphant picture of a clean, empty sink. I'm still waiting. Ever since I ran out of paper bowls my motivation to wash my dishes on a regular basis has taken a nose dive. So, refer back to my original picture of my kitchen and that should give you an idea of what it looks like right now :(

In unrelated news, I recently saw the Greatest Show on Earth:

Point Break Live

Random disorders I just learned about:

Remember the movie Blink? I do. I just learned that there is a visual disorder that is very similar to the one the chick in the movie experiences. It's called palinopsia and it's quite freaky.

Also, a recent National Geographic had an article on sleep and described a rare sleep disorder called fatal familial insomnia which renders a person unable to fall asleep ever again.

Update

Rest assured, when I get back to Chicago I will post an "after" photo showing how well my behavioural modification plan turned out for my dishes. Feel the suspense!

In the meantime I am presently languishing at my mother's house dying of food poisoning. I ate a rotten omlette in the Midway airport before I flew to Buffalo and haven't been the same since. I can't go anywhere or do anything. Fortunately my mom was around to take care of me...until she gave herself food poisoning by eating 9 day old leftovers. So now we're both sick, stuck on the couch watching episode after episode of Criminal Minds.

We tried to make a list of foods we can eat without making us sick (it's a short list). Actual conversation:

Me: "Ok what about pickles?"
Mom: "I've got some Klassen's upstairs in the fridge."
Me: "Will pickles destroy my stomach?"
Mom: "I don't know, it's a good pickle."

Behavioural Modification

As per the requirements of my cognitive-behavioural therapy class, we have to design and implement a behavioural modification intervention for ourselves to target a problem. In keeping with my last post about my messy apartment, I chose to focus on dish washing for the rest of the semester.

I abhor doing dishes and usually put it off for days or until I run out of cutlery. This is obviously problematic. To change my behaviour, I'm using a website called www.mytomatoes.com. It's an online timer that keeps track of how long to work, when to take breaks, and saves your progress online.

As part of my write-up I had to provide baseline data so I took a picture of my sink on a typical day. Behold:



We'll see what happens over the next 5 weeks!

Bulls Game

I actually hate basketball but I attended this game under the assumption we'd have seats close to the court. Sadly, we were second to the highest row in the United Center which is approximately 396390458409584058404 feet from the court. It turned out that basketball in person is just as boring as basketball on TV. Fortunately, there was wine and hard liquor available. Also, Vince Vaughn was in the audience which was the most entertaining part of the night. Oh well, one more thing to cross off my list of things to do in Chicago.