I have to admit, I'm a blog snob. Just like anything else on the web, there are a gajillion of them, and it's hard to sort the good from the rest.

Mike Choi, though, I have to say, runs one of the most thoughtful, entertaining and good-looking blogs I've seen thus far. It's not usual that you find somebody who tells you about their personal life but makes you think about yours at the same time.

And, he's a hell of a nice guy, too.I defy you to not be able to find something in this interview that you'd like to talk to him about. (That was a great sentence.) Learn about him today!

The Mike Choi Interview: Exactly Twenty Questions!

Please explain the entertainment value of adding "zilla" to one's first or last name.
Disappointingly little. I had already written my first entry for my Web site and needed a name. Tongue in cheek suggestions from a friend included Choi To The World and Choizilla, among others. Not one to idly sit there and get my balls busted, a blog title was born.

Why should we read Choizilla as opposed to the blog of this Mike Choi?
Claire, you Googled me. I'm touched.

For one, I type in sentence case. I think he blogs to keep his friends abreast of what's going on in his life. If I compose a "this is my day" type of entry, I try and give it a topical focus, as opposed to "I'm really busy!" I'm finding it harder to do as I get better at it, which explains my infrequent posts. That, and I'm really busy! Lastly, I don't know the majority of my readers personally; just their IP addresses.

It's kinda hot.

You were born in Seoul, but now live in the Boston area. Are there any conceivable similarities between the two cities?
At first look you wouldn't think so, considering that Seoul has 20 times the population. The two cities have what I call the "short older brother complex". Boston is to New York what Seoul is to Tokyo. They're all fun cities in their own right, but the first seems to walk in the shadow of the second.

Twenty-five percent of Boston claims at least partial Irish ancestry. By comparison, I've heard Koreans called the Irish of Asia: known for the ability to drink and fight, and generally having a scrappy dispositon from millennia of battling belligerent neighbors. Translate that through Ellis Island and a coupla-few generations, and you have a "townie" in a nutshell.

Lastly, it takes 45 minutes to drive 3 miles.

How do you reconcile loving old baseball parks but not knowing anything about baseball?
That's wicked retahded, isn't it? There are two reasons. I get caught up in the tradition of baseball and what parks like Fenway represent. It's like being in an old familiar home. The seats creak. The vendors sell their goods with thick local accents. And the fans… Red Sox fans are hilariously obnoxious.

Old ballparks represent a simpler America before corporate stadiums and random bag searches. Before, the only threat of biological agents was the mustard gas being passed by spectators indulging in a few too many beers and hotdogs.

Baseballs games are always fun. Watching it on TV sucks.

You, like my Aunt Barbara, collect masks from around the world. Which one has the most interesting story?
They all have stories to tell, but this one is probably my favorite. A friend of mine went backpacking through Europe shortly after graduation. Though he had nearly the entire six weeks to go, he saw a Kenyan mask that he felt I absolutely had to have. He dragged that thing, with its many delicate parts, all throughout Western Europe before giving it to me. It was very thoughtful.

Those are the kinds of things I try and think about when I'm parked in traffic listening to the news about the Administration's Phase I plan to push the reset button on humankind.

Do you think that cigarette brand loyalties say something about a person, or is that just something people make up?
Yes, that he's a product. Preferences are definitely real, but marketers also spend small country GDPs to gain them. I'm no scientist but my guess is that, more or less, the same tobacco and additives go into every cigarette. The rest is driven by lifestyle print advertising. Well, except mine. My cigarettes are Lights with less tar, less nicotine, and encourage large breasted women with strappy sandals to stare playfully at me from around pool tables. It's pretty sweet.

Congratulations on being married to the very cute Jen. The story of how you met is on your site, but it didn't have a very auspicious start. How did you eventually charm her?
Thanks. She's got a pretty good noodle too. I did it the old fashioned way: I showed her the size and length of my music collection. In those days, we called it [air quotes] al-tern-a-tive.

Truthfully, it's all a bunch of mushy stuff no one's going to want to hear. I must have done something right because we're coming up on the 10-year anniversary of our first date. Have I sufficiently skirted your question?

Tell us how you know Matt Herlihy. Can you reveal something scandalous about him that the average Sweet Fancy Moses sycophant doesn't know?
Matt and I met in college. Shortly after that he introduced me to Jen. Other notables include being a former roommate, editing my terrible fiction, teaching me a few obscure guitar chords, and even body passing me a time or two.

He's got a weakness for the well-written word and, secretly, haute cuisine. Either one of those would get you into his good graces.

I've got plenty of MH stories (and he of me), but these lips remain sealed. Siloed possession equals nuclear deterrence.

One of the many things I like about your site is that you link lesser-known sites and blogs (like this one). Which are some that we probably aren't familiar with, but should be, and why?
There are, quite literally, tens of thousands of sites out there with 25 readers that have something to say. And for two to five minutes, over meatball subs and root beer, I've loved them all.

I favor minimally designed sites by people who keep it light, but write essays and fiction elsewhere on the Web. The ones I read without fail include The Morning News, Team Monkey, Zulkey, Mighty Girl, and Dooce, who recently pulled a Michael Jordan and came out of retirement. From there, I follow the links out to other sites until I hit a dead-end, or close the window when an entry references "ranting".

For my fiction jones, I visit Sweet Fancy Moses, Mecawilson, and The Harpold 500. I admire people who can write fiction in 500-1000 words. I have never successfully done it. Not once.

You post your Amazon wish list on your site. Has anybody bought you stuff? Or made fun of your choices? I like how you mix up intellectual choices with things like "Dazed and Confused," and "Office Space," two of my very favorites.
No one's made fun of my choices yet, but I've recently updated it so rip away.

To date, only one person has bought me anything: the Reservoir Dogs DVD. Other than that, it's sort of an extension of my About page. I haven't told many people about my blog because I'd just censor my entries into pointlessness, so I don't expect to get much from it. It's pretty doubtful someone's going to click through my iBook selection.

Why don't you like pets?
Let me put that into context because I actually do like them. In a pinch I'd even watch Major for you. When I was a senior, I kept a saltwater tank with a pair of Clown Fish: Oliver and Wendell. I loved those little guys and they loved me. We had a lot of laughs together.

I lost them to a power outage in the Great Ice Storm of 1995. It's really about heartbreak. That, and I like the freedom of not worrying about kennels during vacations.

As somebody with East Coast perspective, reveal something lovely about the Chicago suburbs that people wouldn't ordinarily expect.
You can't throw a Gonella roll without hitting an Italian Beef place. Chicago has the best street food in the country. It's the first thing I do when I roll into town and the last thing I do before I leave.

Give me a Polish sausage-deep-fried, not boiled-and drag it through the garden. I once carried one from Midway to Logan, so I could enjoy it at home. What's better than that?

You were in a fraternity in college: which one was it? What percent of it was frat cliché and what percent was it something wholesome/hateful/boring/unexpected?
Yes, it's all true. Have you ever seen Porky's?

I don't have HBO. I've watched "Sex and the City" a good deal, but know next to nothing about "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under." Tell me why I should whine and beg my parents to upgrade our DirecTV package.
They're two of the only well-written shows on television. I figure it only costs me 12 clams a month. I'll spend more than that on one night at the movies. After parking, two tickets, dinner, two blue raspberry Icees, and a box of Dots, they're into me for like half a C-note. They're squeezin' me!

Looks like you're going to have to call a sit-down with the Family. Put a couple of cotton balls in your cheeks and follow this script: "My associates and I think it would be in your best interest if we changed the nature of our agreement." Follow up with the whattaya-want-from-me face. It'll work.

This is a very intriguing post. Can you tell us the story behind it?

FRIDAY, FEB 15, 2002
Well, it was bound to happen. The one person in six billion that I didn't want to
know about this blog, now does.

Not a word. Not a fucking word. I don't want to hear it.

The explanation is much more pedestrian than the post would indicate. The person in question is a consummate ball-buster. I think I had just reached my limit that day when I received his comments.

In terms of marriage technique, my mother recommends taking your partner completely for granted. You recommend marrying a woman who affectionately calls you an "ass munching fuck face." Is there anything else we should know, or does that pretty much sum it all up?
Marry a woman who is much smarter than you, but equally comfortable downshifting to your base level of intellect. This ensures a wide breadth of discussion topics from international affairs to what Homer really meant in the last episode.

Have you ever told anybody that the vegetable Bok Choi is named after an ancestor of yours? Because I would totally do that if my last name is Choi. And, Bok Choi is good, don't you think?
I hadn't, but thanks. When I moved from California, where Koreans are apparently grown, to the East Coast, my parents had the foresight to give me an American name. Playground kids are definitely cruel. If not for my kickball prowess, I would have been a goner for sure. I remember this kid named Amos Yang. Christ on a cross, why didn't his parents home school the kid and give him the atomic wedgies there?

And to answer your question, it's quite delicious. Especially when sautéed with a little bit of crushed garlic and chicken stock.

You've traveled to a lot of places. I, for once, am not going to ask which is the best, or have you tell me something about each of them. Were there any places that were just a big waste of time and you'd recommend never seeing?
Taiwan's kind of boring to visit. I could also do without most everything south of the Mason-Dixon line, but including Indiana. Other than that, I really couldn't say. It's all about your partners in crime. One of the best weekends I've had in my life was spent on a farm in Central Nebraska where you have to count the grids to keep from being lost in a cornfield, or to a Klansman.

I've also had a terrible time in NYC before; something that is nearly impossible to do.

You know what comes next, and I apologize to Ken Gordon, Tracy Lyons and Ben Brown, who, due to my miscounting, were asked the wrong question. So, catching up, how does it feel to be the 25th person interviewed for Zulkey.com, and the first person in several weeks to be correctly informed of their number?
Like a dream come true! But following Ben Brown is like following Bono.

Bonus question: How does it feel to be the first person interviewed for Zulkey.com who asked me how it feels to be the first person interviewed for Choizilla?
I'm feeling pretty damn good about it. Do you think I can have your mom's number?