saturday october 30

today i was walking down my street when i heard a kid calling "excuse me!" off to my left. from across the road, he was imploring me to toss back the tennis ball that had escaped from the fenced-in schoolyard he was standing in. eager to help, i picked up the ball and heaved it from the opposite sidewalk -- immediately, i realized two things. first, that this was my first full-fledged throw since that fatal january toss. second, i'd need to build up my arm strengh. my throw came up short, bouncing off the fence and back toward the street. "don't worry, i'll get it!" the kid said, hopping out of the schoolyard and onto the sidewalk. real nice, luke. real big help.

friday october 29

today i woke up at 7:00 am, despite the fact that this was the last weekday i'd be able to sleep in for at least the next month. luckily, i went back to bed by 7:45 and slept for four hours, a luxury i won't be granted in the coming weeks.

thursday october 28

today i was walking along college street and saw a homeless man about 20 feet in front of me. he was standing on the sidewalk, holding a baseball cap out for money, but didn't seem to be talking to passers-by or doing anything to solicit donations. to my surprise, however, as i passed him, he lunged forward slightly and shouted "BOO!" as if to scare me into giving him money. though the strategy didn't work (i kept walking), i nearly burst out laughing, and later thought that maybe i should've given him some change to reward one of the most original and bizarre homeless-guy tactics i'd ever seen.

wednesday october 27

today i bought some halloween candy in preparation for potential trick-or-treaters this weekend. unsure whether or not we'd actually get many kids ringing our doorbell, i decided to make sure to buy candy that i liked, just in case i ended up having to eat leftovers. i bought a pack of 95 mini-skittles and mini-starbust. i've already eaten four. looks like it'll be the trick-or-treaters who are getting the leftovers!!

tuesday october 26

today i returned in toronto from windsor at about 3:00am. after parking my rental car outside my house, i scanned the other cars on the street and noticed that they all had permits on their front windows, meaning i probably wasn't able to leave my car on the street overnight. instead, i drove around the neighbourhood until i found a nearby pay parking lot, and spent $5.50 to keep the car there until i could return it to discount in the morning. it wasn't until later in the day that i realized it probably would've been easier, or at least cheaper, to just park the car in the discount lot, regardless of whether or not the building itself was open yet.

monday october 25

today i was required, as part of my election-day job, to drive back and forth between the towns of amherstburg and lasalle. both towns were near the u.s. border, and at one point during the drive, my phone company seemed to think i was actually in the united states -- i received multiple "rogers welcomes you abroad!" texts at the same point in the drive. one time, when i was passing this specific point, i received two texts from a friend at nearly the exact same instant as rogers' message came. the timing was concerning, since it makes me wonder whether those texts from my friend will be charged as out-of-country, roaming messages on my next phone bill.

sunday october 24

today i drove from toronto to windsor in a rental car. after a few minutes of adjusting to the new car, the drive seemed to be going smoothly for the first couple hours. once i passed london, however, i ran into the worst thunderstorm i'd ever driven in. even with my windshield wipers on the highest possible setting (they were really flying), i could barely see the road in front of me. still, i decided it was better to keep driving, rather than pulling over, as other cars had done; i trusted myself more to continue in a straight line (using the taillights of the car in front of me and the yellow line to my left as a guide) than i did to get over to the right shoulder from the left lane. it turned out okay, but it was probably one of the most terrifying five-minute periods of my life.

saturday october 23

today i went to a coffee place for the second day in a row. for the second day in a row, i ordered a lemonade while my company ordered coffee(s), and for the second day in a row, i felt like i was 12 years old.

friday october 22

today i wore a pair of shoes that i hadn't really worn extensively until now. much to my chagrin, when i walked for a few minutes in them, the back of the left shoe rubbed against the back of my foot, causing an unexpected and uncomfortable amount of pain. when i finally arrived at my destination, i glanced down at the back of my left foot, and noticed that there was a blood-red stain visible through my black sock! although the fact that i had to do more walking in these shoes was both irritating and painful, it kind of made me feel like i was curt schilling in the bloody sock game, which made me feel all right about it.

thursday october 21

today i googled "jewbacca" just to be sure that i wasn't the first person to think of it. i got over 15,000 results.

wednesday october 20

today i received a phone call from an unknown number around 11:00 am. not entirely into the idea of having a conversation with what i assumed would be someone from the bank or cable company, i considered not answering. knowing, however, that my curiosity would eat away at me if i ignored it, i picked up. this turned out to be a good decision -- the unknown caller was someone from the ministry of health and long-term care offering me a job.

tuesday october 19

today i watched game 4 of the yankees/rangers alcs in a bar with friends. for most of the game, i debated whether or not to take advantage of the bar's special on wings (half price), finally deciding against it. however, i was into the idea of getting a shawarma at ali baba's on my way home. unfortunately, as it happened, ali baba's wasn't exactly on the way home, but rather past my house. as soon as i decided to stop in at home and use my own bathroom, it was over. i wasn't leaving the house again. sorry, hunger. you're welcome, gut.

monday october 18

today i was finally revisited by the mouse/mice that first made an appearance in my house over a month ago. after seeing one dart through the kitchen and behind the stove, i decided it was time to set some traps. unfortunately, the only bait we could find was organic peanut butter, which i don't think will be as appealing to a mouse as, say, kraft chunky.

sunday october 17

today i accidentally left a cloth shopping bag with a bottle of wine in it at a friend's house party. while i wasn't overly concerned about the wine, which belonged to another friend, i was upset at having forgotten the bag, which i'd been relying on for grocery runs. i'd become very familiar with its size and capacity, and have no idea if i'll achieve that same level of comfort with another bag.

saturday october 16

today i was tasked with buying cauliflower at the grocery store. having not eaten this particular vegetable for years, i wondered aloud if i even knew what it looked like, and was instructed to look for the "white broccoli."

friday october 15

today i was walking home from the dufferin mall beer store at about 4:00 pm when i passed kevin beaulieu on the street. though he surely didn't recognize me from the housecall he'd paid a few weeks ago, he was in campaigning mode and said hi as we crossed paths. given how our conversation ended the last time we spoke (refer to the linked entry), i briefly thought about how funny it would be, probably only to me, if i showed him the bag of beers i'd bought and yelled "it's friday night!!!"

thursday october 14

today i had a dream in which i was walking through a schoolyard and passed multiple guys dressed as characters from the wizard of oz for halloween. while many of them were dressed as the tin man, none were dressed as the scarecrow. when i woke up, i had no idea how to interpret what this dream said about my heart and brain.

wednesday october 13

today i was the guest on a st. louis-based show called "united cardinal blogger radio hour," which discusses the st. louis cardinals. i talked baseball with the hosts for about 30 minutes, and after i was let go, the show continued on for a few minutes without me. after i hung up, i loaded the page that streamed the show and glanced at its chat room, where listeners could discuss the on-air goings-on. while the chat only displayed the ten most recent lines of chat, the tenth-most recent message made reference to a jeff foxworthy joke about people's accents. though i had no concrete proof, this made me assume that the conversation leading up to that line, in messages that had since been pushed out of the window, consisted of the show's listeners mocking my canadian way of speaking.

tuesday october 12

today i saw a license plate that read "CYANCRT." it took me a good ten seconds to realize it meant "see ya in court" rather than "cyan cart."

monday october 11

today i was asked by my brother and mother (separately) how much i weighed. then my mom offered to pay for my first month if i joined the y. thanksgiving family fat-ervention!

sunday october 10

today i earnestly explained to a friend the irony inherent in the murphy lee song "wat da hook gon be," a track whose chorus claims not to "need a hook on this beat."

saturday october 9

today i took a london city bus downtown while sitting across the aisle from two mind-numbingly annoying teenage girls. at one point, attempting to determine how far along they were in their journey, one girl looked out the window and announced "we're at springbank." "i thought we got on at springbank!" the other replied, confusion ensuing. the bus was the 5-springbank -- a good chunk of its route, in fact, ran along springbank.

friday october 8

today i went to the library to pick up a hold i'd placed there. i scanned the shelf for a minute, looking for #1148, my four-digit library number under which the hold would be filed. finally finding it, i picked up the book i thought was mine, and noticed it felt unusually thin. i looked at the title, which read, in a funny font: why do cats have whiskers? confused, i looked back at the shelf and back at the number, and realized that i'd picked up #1138 rather than #1148.

thursday october 7

today i threw together an itunes playlist of 17 songs that i considered my absolute favourites. songs that i could listen to indefinitely without getting sick of them. songs that i never wanted to skip over if they started playing. of the 17, 16 were released since 2001.

wednesday october 6

today i bought a trash can at walmart and had to carry it under an arm all the way home. the only upside of the situation was not having to remember to bring my own bag to the store, or to feel guilty about getting a plastic bag.

tuesday october 5

today i planned to meet a pair of friends at 3 speed. when i showed up, they had yet to arrive, and i was concerned to find that a small two-person table was the only place to sit in the bar. when they arrived ten minutes later, the timing was perfect -- a table of four guys was just paying their bill and leaving. while i was happy not to have cram around a too-small table, i was ever so slightly annoyed that their tardiness had been rewarded.

monday october 4

today i received a warning from rogers that our house had used 75% of its monthly bandwidth allotment. at my old house, when i had no idea when the "month" began and ended, this would always be concerning, since i didn't know whether i had a day or a week to coddle that last 25%. now that i'm living in a new house and control the internet, i knew that the current month ended tomorrow. so rather than cutting back following the warning, i took it as a sign that i should cram as much downloading as possible in before midnight tomorrow.

sunday october 3

today i came into the kitchen briefly to put some used dishes in the sink. while i was doing so, my roommate's boyfriend asked me whether i liked coffee, and seemed surprised when i turned up my nose and said i didn't drink the stuff. "why would i need coffee?" i joked. "i wake up at 11:00 am every day." this response resulted in what seemed like a disproportionately large laugh from my roommate and her boyfriend, which i interpreted as an opportunity to pull a george costanza and leave the room on a high note.

saturday october 2

today i was walking home from nuit blanche festivities when i came about one step away from being hit by a cyclist. considering last nuit blanche was the only time in my life that i've ever been run over by a bike, i'm going to be exercising EXTREME caution next october.

friday october 1

today i was working an evening shift for mlb trade rumors and was dreading the 7:00 pm red sox/yankees game. more than any other team's beat writers, the red sox and yankees writers clog up the mlbtr twitter feed with tweets about what's going on in the game (not exactly useful info for mlbtr). when i saw that the game had been delayed due to rain, i was initially delighted, but that was quickly wiped away when the beat writers began tweeting about everything that was happening during the rain delay. killing me, guys. killing me.

thursday september 30

today i went to opera bob's to watch the blue jays/twins game with a slew of other jays fans. the bar was so crowded that, right before the game began, a stranger asked if he could sit at our table, rather than taking up an entire table on his own. for the next three hours, we sat and watched the game and talked baseball with adam, who we eventually found out had a wife and kid(s?). you're welcome for the guys' night out, adam!