I think it's the next thing, getting out of the comfort-zone readership, that at some point you have to try and break out of that and see if you can go in new directions. I wanted to do something that felt a lot bigger than a book that's going to sit on a toilet.

I occasionally get glimpses, but I have to reprioritize, because that's how it naturally progresses - things like family, responsibilities, and your job all take precedent.

I'm always amazed by people like David Simon or the people at The Simpsons or J.K. Rowling who can create dozens and dozens of memorable characters. It seems so effortless, and even people who have just three lines in the shows or in the book have a very distinct personality, and you can feel the richness of their personal history.

I've hated cockroaches my entire life.Tweeting jokes about it helps me cope, in a way. I'm not as jumpy killing cave crickets as I used to be. I still jump plenty though.

My job happens to be sports-related, so it's like my duty to watch football. It's my job. But that's not a change for me. When you're 18, it's life and death, because you don't have a kid, and it's a much bigger deal when you're 18. Having a kid - when the Vikings lost the 2009 NFC title game, it sucked, and I'm not happy about it, but my kid is still alive. You have to have that horrible forced perspective that you don't want.

On the Internet, Spencer Hall at Everyday Should Be Saturday is the best writer in the universe. He's very funny. They're jokes about college football, but they come from somebody who's clearly smarter than the rest of us; it's always fun to get your jokes from someone who's a genius.

Once ESPN leaves you, and you don't have a foothold anywhere else, you're done. It's very hard to do anything else, because in some ways, they're the only game in town.