Chicagoans have lots of skills. Some are intriguing: A headline like “Ever get pulled over and have to give away your drivers license,” sort of draws me in. I guess a lot of people are having more fun / DUIs than I am.

In this inaugural edition of the Windy City Roundup, I'll be fracturing the usual spotlight to accommodate a number of different Chicago-area sports stories that I feel are worthy of comment as well as listing a few select national plot lines.

• Bumbling Bulls: Just because they've lost Luol Deng, Ben Gordon and Joe Smith to various injuries does not give the Bulls license to lose 83-67 to the worst team in the NBA.

“Wait. Girls pick up guys on the CTA? How (often) does this happen?” asked “Anonymous Coward” after Monday’s post. And to that question I say, I guess… I mean I’m a girl and I guess by definition I "picked up" that guy. But believe me, it was no great feat. I mean, my pickup line was directed at his toothbrush. So you see that it is entirely possible, though the more I think about it, I’m not sure how commonplace the Girl on Guy pick-up is around here.

On a night when freezing rains and wind kept much of Chicago inside, a handful of Chicago comedians hit the streets to rally for a bizarre cause: preserving a massive street hole in north Chicago.

Sometimes a building design is so confounding, so out-of-sync with its surroundings, that you have to admire the audacity of its architect. I don't know who designed the hyper-modern rowhouses that stretch from 1801 to 1815 N. Leavitt St. and continue around the corner from 2127 to 2149 W. Churchill St., but whoever it was, here's to your moxie: to your clean lines and abstracted chimneys, to your false balcony railings.

Hi… you must be, Chicago? So nice to meet you… So! Do you want to sit down? Cool, cool. Umm… ooh I’m good, yeah, and you? Great… oh, sure! I’ll have a vodka tonic. Or ya know what? Make it a whiskey. Neat.

For those who think that Craigslist is mostly a flea-market gone awry and without much-needed psychological screenings, I just need to say: Not so. Some things there can warm the cockles of your hearts (assuming you haven’t had them all removed in your last bypass).

The Bulls' playoff position exposes Eastern Conference inferiority

The Bulls have missed the presence of Luol Deng, who enjoyed a breakout season last year.

Because this is a blog about unusually unattractive new buildings in Chicago's residential neighborhoods, I cannot resist inaugurating it with this doozy: Would you spend $1.9 million for this giant, 4-bedroom, 4.5 bathroom single-family mirror?

About a week ago, I received an e-mail from the Burning Man Chicago list inviting me to a night of "art, music and mayhem" in Wicker Park at the Burkhart Underground, home and studio of "freak chic" photographer Fred Burkhart. Despite the bitter cold outside, I ventured out. Here's my write-up, broken up by a few photos I snapped of Burkhart's studio early in the night before things picked up (unfortunately my trusty Canon Powershot was running low on battery juice that night...).

All Chicago was abuzz yesterday about the pit that opened up in Montrose Avenue after a 3 ft. water-main pipe broke around 1 a.m. Tuesday, swamping cars, swallowing parking meters and trees, and collapsing an 80 ft. section of the sewer, according to the Department of Water Management. The carnage has forced 10 businesses to close and flooded every basement on the block. The Trib's got a nice wrap-story.

Unless you are dead, undead or en route to becoming either, you know Craigslist and have used it. Chicago’s Craigslist site alone is nothing to sneeze at (although I’ve seen couches from here whose dust bunnies had their own offspring). On Craigslist (a sort of a poor man’s ebay) you’ve probably found some incredible deals, and met some incredibly scummy people who you probably shouldn’t have let inside your house / car for even a second.

Welcome to Wish You Were Here, a new column on the newly relaunched Windy Citizen. From October 29, 2006 through December 2007 I ran the Windy Citizen as a blog where I'd post the occasional feature or news story as well as work from friends and colleagues at the Medill School of Journalism in Chicago. During that time I scored a few viral web hits and found I really enjoyed the whole online publishing thing.

(Editor's Note: Matt Medved's Sports Matters blog will launch next week. In the meantime, enjoy his prediction for this weekend's AFC championship game.) The San Diego Chargers continue to make mockeries of my Super Bowl dreams.