friday may 30

today i went to aqua golf, the local driving range that lets you hit your balls into the water. no one else was there, but the sign read 'open' so we walked up to the window of the shop, only to find no one there, or anywhere else on the premises. unsure of quite what to do, we helped ourselves to a couple buckets of balls, with the intention of paying if anyone showed up. five minutes later, a truck pulled up and a guy who presumably owned or at least worked at the shop, amicably asked if we'd found everything all right, acting as if it was the most normal thing in the world to leave the driving range, including the cash, entirely unattended.

thursday may 29

today i sprinted three blocks down richmond st. in an effort to miss as little of the lost season finale as possible.

wednesday may 28

today i had a nightmare which involved me climbing through a narrow passageway that turned into the inside of a beehive, with sticky pollen and honey everywhere. it made me realize just how terrified i am of being small enough to be stuck inside a beehive, a fear which i believe stems from my first childhood viewing of honey, i shrunk the kids.

tuesday may 27

today i mistakenly said "writ" instead of "wrote" not just once, but two times in one conversation. i'd like to say that this word misuse was just me being old school, but sadly, this was not at all the case.

monday may 26

today i rode a bus that had 'byron 4 life' etched with marker on a seat near the back. it was the second time i'd seen this graffiti on (presumably) this same bus, and it reminded me that i'd originally intended to write about it in this very blog, the first time around, but did NOT remind me what exactly i was planning to write about it.

sunday may 25

today i was assigned to change a set of fluorescent tube lights. there were four lights in the fixture, and two had burnt out. not wanting to burn or electrocute myself, i turned off the breaker leading to the light, and after some strenuous effort getting the two dead ones out and the two new ones in, triumphantly turned the breaker back on, only to find just one of the four lights now functioning. frustrated, i climbed back up to the fixture without bothering to turn the breaker off again, and began fiddling with the brand-new light that hadn't turned on. within about three seconds, sparks flew everywhere, nearly throwing me back off the ladder in surprise.

saturday may 24

today i dreamed that i got kicked out of a brian wilson show for eating one of his french fries. he stopped in the middle of a song to do it himself.

friday may 23

today i coerced a friend into telling me where i would place if he were to make a list that ranked his favourite people at the house party we were at.

thursday may 22

today i received a phone call just after i ordered at the beer store. when the call came in, i was in the middle of attempting to shove my six-pack into my backpack, but i didn't want to let the call go and continue the game of phone tag we'd been playing, so i picked up with my right hand and attempted to shove the beer into my bag with my left hand. after approximately 10 or 15 seconds of struggling this way and feeling vaguely aware that everyone in the store was watching me, i decided it'd probably be best to put the phone down for a few seconds to get the job done and be on my way.

wednesday may 21

today i made a resolution to start running every day (or at least five times a week or so), in an effort to both curb my growing gut and to improve my stamina while playing one-on-one basketball games. while my first foray into this 'running' wasn't exactly a return to my glory days of physical fitness, i ran about a mile and a half without passing out or puking everywhere, so i'd call it a good start.

tuesday may 20

today i realized, after a week of using the darwin awards (paperback edition) as bathroom reading, that i didn't even particularly enjoy its accounts of stupid deaths. rather than finding it amusing or entertaining, it usually just left me feeling a bit more down than i had been before.

monday may 19

today i was preparing for another day of work on a spring landscaping project in our garden, slipping on my work gloves. as i shoved my right hand into the glove, a pine needle, hidden in the last finger of the glove, lodged itself into my pinky finger, jamming under the fingernail, causing me to recoil in surprise and pain, and drawing blood under the nail. it was an ominous beginning to the day.

sunday may 18

today i used two bathrooms that were probably among the top five dingiest in london. the first was the wick's, where a drunken middle-aged man stormed in while i was using a urinal and demanded that the guy in the stall "get the fuck out of there!" the second was at the salt lounge, where there were so few urinals or stalls available at one point that as i stood at the sink, i noticed someone using the garbage can as a toilet. i shot him a questioning sideways glance as i washed my hands (like any amount of soap and water could cleanse me), to which he exclaimed "well don't look at me, dude!" which seemed fair.

saturday may 17

today i attempted to throw a football over my own house, the first step in a process whose eventual goal was sealing a leak in a bathroom skylight.

friday may 16

today i listened to bruce springsteen's "glory days" in the afternoon, and was inspired to consider what my glory days were, and when they happened. later in the day, while reminiscing with my brother about recess football games in public school, i decided that my glory days took place in the era in which one of my friends and i were not allowed to play on the same team for fear of unbalanced competition.

thursday may 15

today i waited outside williams for 20 minutes to meet someone while she waited 20 minutes inside.

wednesday may 14

today i prepared for the prospect of hosting a talk radio show for the first time with no guests in the studio with me, and the potential of having to deliver a half-hour monologue. to instill some form of 'debate' into the proceedings, i pondered the idea of reading fabricated e-mails from fictional listeners, posing questions that would allow me to make arguments on various subjects. any listeners flipping through stations that happened to hear me would probably think i was fairly schizophrenic.

tuesday may 13

today i bought a six-pack of beer at the lcbo in cherryhill mall and made my way over to the nearby td bank from there. as i approached the entrance, a van covered with the logos of local christian radio station 'grace fm' parked in the spot right by the door and a man with a cane and noticeable limp got out. not wanting to be that guy that blew by the disabled christian radio employee with a six-pack and an urgent need for cash, i patiently waited as he walked up the steps ahead of me. as he went to open the door, i jumped in front of him, attempting to be EXTRA polite and open the door for him, however, as is typically the case, one of the two side-by-side doors to the building was locked; i happened to pick that one, and was stymied. he casually opened the correct, unlocked door on his own, and what was meant to be a helping hand on my part ended up looking like i was trying to sneak in ahead of him at the last second by using the door that he wasn't. all of my consideration for naught.

monday may 12

today i taught myself how to play backgammon, for no particular reason. i don't even have a board.

sunday may 11

today i went out for dinner with my family for mother's day, and my dad, brother and i spent approximately half of the meal looking up at the surrounding televisions in the restaurant in hopes of getting updates on the jazz/lakers game. my poor mother. how badly did she want a girl.

saturday may 10

today i was recounted a story of how my grandmother dealt with a chest cold this week: by using a remedy of her grandmother's, which involves mashing up a potato, placing it into a sock, and then lying down with the sock laid out on her chest.

friday may 9

today i was playing basketball when i decided to test an estimate i'd made a night earlier, when i guessed that i was currently about a 50% free-throw shooter. i approximated where a free-throw line might be on the outdoor net and shot 100 from there, making 52. although my hypothesis was proven nearly to the exact percentage point, i was upset by the result, having hoped that i was at least a bit more of a sure thing from the line than shaquille o'neal.

thursday may 8

today i was questioned by the police as the prime suspect in a break-in.

wednesday may 7

today i listened to "the greatest man that ever lived" by weezer for the first time. it was the most unbelievable song i've heard since eminem released "just lose it" as the first single off of encore. and here i'm using not the typical definition of 'unbelievable' (ie. amazing), but rather the more literal definition.

tuesday may 6

today i finished downloading the 3 gb torrent of the wire season one that i'd been working on for days, and installed an entirely new piece of software that was required to watch the particular type of video files it used. when i first opened s01e01, i can safely say that my level of excitement for a first-time viewing of a series was the highest it's been since i 'reluctantly' started watching the o.c. years ago.

monday may 5

today i opened the cupboard door to the garbage can in my kitchen, intending to throw something out. as soon as i flung the door open, however, i was met by ants. ants everywhere, crawling around the garbage can and, especially, in the garbage can. i quickly pulled out the garbage bag, tied it up, and did a bit of a godzilla routine on the ants that attempted to scurry away. this display of serial insect killing got me thinking about how i felt morally about ending a life, even if it was just an ant's, and inspired me to write an entry on it in my OTHER BLOG.

(this is a crossover blog entry, like tv shows sometimes do. remember when george clooney and noah wyle showed up on an episode of friends, playing doctors? yeah, like that.)

sunday may 4

today i played some of the best ping pong of my life and entertained the notion of entering some sort of ping pong competition, despite the fact that i can count the number of opponents i've played on one hand, and really have no idea if i'd hold my own against very good players or get crushed.

saturday may 3

today i went to jack's for the first time in 575 days. i thought i'd be able to handle it, maybe even enjoy it, and for the first part of the night, while the bar was still fairly empty, i actually was having a decent time. as it started to fill up a bit more, however, and the dancefloor became busier, i began to feel very claustrophobic, often repeating the line "i have to get out of here," which we eventually did (without even hearing "lollipop"... ugh!!). so, having learned my lesson, a new streak begins now, sort of like those 'days without a workplace injury' tallies.

friday may 2

today i experienced the highlight of my summer so far (it's only been a few days, okay?) when i obliterated my previous record of 66 consecutive freecell victories in a row with a dimaggio-esque 74-game streak.

thursday may 1

today i prepared to get off a bus with my music playing pretty loudly in my headphones. whenever i ride a bus with only a handful of riders, i like to say thanks to the driver as i leave, especially when i'm riding one of those smaller buses where there's only one exit door (right beside the driver), which was the case in this instance. not wanting to fumble around in my pocket to take my ipod off of 'hold' in order to turn down the volume or hit pause, i was preparing to interact with the driver with the music still playing. this meant not only guessing at how loud i need to speak to sound 'normal' over the noise of both my headphones and the bus's general racket, but also hoping that if he replied with something, i'd still be able to deduce what he said and respond appropriately. just as i was about to dive into this whole procedure, all of the instruments in the song i was listening to dropped out, mid-song, leaving only softly-sung vocals in the mix, allowing me to hear perfectly what the driver and i were saying!! it was perhaps the nicest thing my music has ever done for me.

wednesday april 30

today i was sitting at my computer when i absentmindedly glanced to my left and noticed, no more than four feet away, a huge box containing the game crokinole (though the french side of the box was facing up, so it was actually: croquignole). the game has sat there for years, but because of the way it's stored, it was the first time in ages that i'd noticed it. my first instinct, upon seeing the game, was that i'd really like to play it. this desire, however, was closely followed by a vivid and immediate memory of a particularly lengthy crokinole session from my past that left my index fingernail sore for hours afterwards; the memory made me decide that maybe i'd just leave the game where it was for now.