I've had a pretty shit day, which is why you didn't see a Discountoid today (maybe early tomorrow, but I'm a little drunk by this point). Reading all of these "10 Things" lists really brightened my day. So, I thought the best thing I could do is post one of my own. Some of these things have probably been mentioned by me at some point or another. You'll live.

1. I'm a real estate agent. One the one hand, it's a really shitty time to have my job. On the other, it affords me more time to write for Destructoid.

2. I have always wanted to write fiction. Fortunately, I had an excellent creative writing professor in college who pointed out that my skill at fiction is less than mediocre (this is true) and who pushed me to follow more journalistic pursuits. Still, there's a part of me who desperately wants to write novels and I've had ideas for them on the back burner since high school.

3. Prior to Destructoid, my "professional" writing career consisted of my role as Editor-in-Chief of a local arts and music magazine in Phoenix, where I live. It was a job that did not pay but taught me some valuable lessons in terms of managing a team and determining where one's artistic desires have to be mitigated by the talent of those around you. When you can't pay people, you have to take what you can get. Some of the issues are still available online.

4. The Wii is the first console from Nintendo which I have owned during the peak of its lifecycle. I did not own an NES until 1996 and I bought my SNES in 2001. Most of my experiences playing these systems in my youth are due to friends.

5. I'm an Eagle Scout. It was a lot of hard work and basically means that I have something neat to toss onto a resumé. To be fair, I think that the Boy Scouts of America is a fantastic program which teaches valuable lessons to boys far beyond how to build a fire and tie knots. I do take issue with their policy on homosexual troop leaders, however, which has prevented me from taking a role as an adult leader.

6. I am a staunch Republican. I'm also ashamed of my party and feel they have dramatically shifted away from the ideals on which they were formed. I believe that government should have no direct or intervening role in the lives of its citizens, apart from peacekeeping at home.

7. I voted Obama, something I have never admitted to anyone except my fiancé.

8. I was chubby until college, where I lost about thirty pounds on a diet of chocolate milk and illicit substances. One of my greatest fears is to be overweight, despite doing nothing to prevent it. Even when rail thin, I was self-conscious about my gut and it terrorizes me now that I've gained back some of the poundage.

9. I love pop music. While I don't listen to mainstream radio often, I'm a sucker for a catchy hook and absolutely cannot resist dance music, despite not having any rhythm of my own.

10. I am still in complete and utter shock that I have a job with Destructoid. I never actually believed that I would have a job writing anywhere about anything, frankly. The thought that so many people are reading the things that I write is humbling, to say the least, and the realization that I am even a tiny part of the industry that I have worshiped since the first time I played a videogame is incomprehensible.

So, umm, yeah. There's ten things. It was really difficult to come up with that many, as I honestly don't think of myself as being all that interesting of a person. Thanks for reading it and thanks for all of the support you have given me over the last year that I've been posting on the site.

EDIT: Just thought of something else.

11. One of my front teeth is almost entirely false. I fell off a large boulder, face-first, into a rock face on a camping trip when I was twelve and chipped half of the tooth off (because it was a little crooked; I might have lost both that way had it not been).