friday january 31

today i received a phone call from a charity to thank me for a recent donation i'd made. while the conversation was fairly quick and painless, i couldn't help but wondering the whole time if, by attaching my phone number to the donation, i'd ensured that i ended up a list of people who the charity will frequently call to extract more donations. for karma's sake, i held back from saying "please don't call me again," but i hope they don't. i'm not about that talking-on-the-phone life.

thursday january 30

today i exchanged 84 emails with my boss to coordinate and troubleshoot the public launch of our new website.

wednesday january 29

today i was racing through the food options at the blue jays' state of the franchise event at the rogers centre, intending to make the most of the two-hour window of all-you-can-eat free pizza, sausages, fries, chips, fish tacos, and so forth. as i was shoving a mini meatball-on-a-bun into my mouth, a friend's dad sized me up and asked, "have you been putting on weight?" luckily, this comment didn't induce enough shame or guilt to slow me down at all. on to the pulled pork sliders!

tuesday january 28

today i overheard my roommate yelling things like "oh come on!" and "enough of this shit!" at the television and had to remind myself that he was watching obama's state of the union address rather than a leafs game.

monday january 27

today i was running some errands while listening to my ipod, as i normally do. at one point, one podcast ended and i pulled my ipod out of my coat pocket to pick a new one. upon finding one and hitting play, i shoved my ipod back into my pocket and immediately felt something hit my leg. looking down, i realized that the ipod had fallen right through a hole in my coat pocket and was simply hanging there by the headphone cord, against my leg. while i was able to quickly untangle it and avoid further embarrassment, it was yet another reminder that i really ought to think about buying a new coat.

sunday january 26

today i went to pizzeria libretto with someone who claimed to have "never been to a pizza place before." as we looked over the menus and prepared to order, she asked if it would be terrible if she got something besides pizza. although my mouth eventually said no, it wouldn’t be so terrible, the reaction by my face and entire body said "yes" so strongly that i think i guilted her into ordering a pizza after all.

saturday january 25

today i was called "jays hat" multiple times by the cashier in the beer store who was trying to get my attention while i was standing there daydreaming.

friday january 24

today i ordered a $5 beer at bmb karaoke. after handing over a $20 bill, i received a $10 bill and a $5 bill as change. accustomed to leaving at least a $1 tip on every drink, i quickly scanned my wallet for change, but found nothing bigger than quarters. so instead of trying to count up a bunch of small change, i put down the $5 bill and said: "i'm leaving this here now, so i won't be tipping on the next couple." when the guy enthusiastically replied, "oh thank you, that's so generous," i briefly felt the need to clarify again that it wasn't that generous, since it would basically be my tip for the entire night. still, it didn't feel great dwelling on the part where i wouldn't be tipping anymore, so i just said "thanks" and walked away with my beer.

thursday january 23

today i received a facebook friend request from an unknown girl from ireland, then got a phone call from an unknown number with an edmonton area code. i was kind of hoping i'd also get a twitter follow request from someone i didn't know before the day was out to complete the hat trick, but no dice.

wednesday january 22

today i arrived at the laundromat to find that not only was no one else there, but there were also no wash or dry cycles going — i had the place entirely to myself. while this didn’t last all night, it lasted until my wash cycle was almost over. at that point, a girl came in and started loading up the machine right next to mine. although i don’t think laundromat etiquette is anything like urinal etiquette, where you wouldn’t set up shop right next to someone else, it still seemed like an odd decision. after all, i had to gently push her open door out of the way to unload my own machine, and obviously there were plenty of other options available.

tuesday january 21

today i stopped by no frills for a few groceries and decided to pay with debit so i could get cash back. while normally i can navigate through their touchscreen by tapping it with a finger nail, this particularly screen was uncooperative. i ended up picking up and putting down the little touchscreen pen (which was also ineffective) multiple times, and taking about twice as long as usual to work my way through the various menus. by the time i finished, i was regretting not simply stopping at a bank.

monday january 20

today i was talking to some friends about saturday night live when one friend started listing off all the key cast members who had left the show within the last year. in the middle of his list, he said "jason segel," which obviously wasn't right, but because he plowed through a few more names after citing segel, there was no chance to correct him. 30 seconds later, when i mentioned a couple writers who had also left the show, my friend again named segel. by now though it seemed as if the window to correct him had closed, like it would be weird to address it now when i hadn't initially. so i let it go without comment.

sunday january 19

today i anxiously skulked around my living room, constantly looking out the window for the 20 minutes before my pizza delivery arrived. normally i'd be a lot more chill about it, waiting for the delivery guy to call my phone to announce his arrival. but there have been a couple incidents recently -- one where a delivery guy missed my instruction not to try the doorbell, which i can't hear upstairs; another where the guy tried calling my phone but claimed there was a busy signal, even though i hadn't spoken to anyone on the phone all day. although i could've easily assigned blame to the delivery guys in both cases, i still felt a little guilty for making them wait longer than necessary, so i felt i had to make sure it didn't happen again today.

saturday january 18

today i finally unpacked the egyptian cotton sheets my parents gave me for christmas. while they look and feel very nice, i was slightly concerned that upgrading to relatively high-quality bed sheets would throw off the feel of my bedroom, making the bed seem too good for the rest of the room. sort of like if you saw a multi-million dollar mansion in the middle of the slums.

friday january 17

today i dreamed that i had celebrity sightings of all three female friends from friends, separately.

thursday january 16

today i watched the pilot of true detective. there’s no twist or punchline coming here -- i just really loved it and thought about it for pretty much the entire rest of the day. the end.

wednesday january 15

today i blew away my previous best time in freecell by such a wide margin that it almost seemed impossible that one game in the 14,000+ i've played could be such an outlier.

tuesday january 14

today i was on the subway when i guy got on at spadina and started frantically asking everyone if our train was going eastbound. when someone confirmed that yes, it was heading east, he said "thank you!" in a was-that-so-hard tone, then proceeded to get off at the next stop. even at that point, i couldn't tell if he hadn't wanted to be going eastbound at all, or if it was just really important that he be heading in the right direction for his 45-second trip.

monday january 13

today i watched the trailer for the upcoming season of game of thrones literally seven times, and even then, i felt like i was doing pretty well to exercise such restraint.

sunday january 12

today i felt way too much pride when i correctly identified a snippet of a coldplay song at trivia as "speed of sound" rather than "clocks." all those years riding for x&y, finally paying off.

saturday january 11

today i took a cab and ended up with a pretty chatty driver. attempting to be sociable, i noticed a cast on his wrist and asked, "what'd you do to your arm?" he replied: "oh, i punched a mirror... not a great night, man!" and then laughed. not 100% sure if he was being serious or telling some sort of weird joke, i didn't ask any follow-up questions. we exchanged a few more comments up until we arrived at my destination, at which point he wished me a good night, and i jokingly said "don't punch any more mirrors!" he didn't react at all to this comment, which i assume was because he didn't hear it, but also may have been because he was unamused by my flippant treatment of his injury. either way, i resolved never to go out of my way to talk to my cab driver again.

friday january 10

today i worked my last shift at the job i've had for the last two years. so long, hoops rumors.

thursday january 9

today i was walking along dundas st. when i stopped at a red light alongside another guy, plus a mom and her two young kids. after a single car drove through the light, the coast was clear to jaywalk across the intersection, but as is often the case, i was hesitant to do so in front of children. it's not so much that i want to be a good role model -- i just feel sort of guilty forcing a parent to explain why it's okay for adults to cross on red lights when kids can't. as i stood there debating whether or not to wait out the light, the guy beside me began walking across the intersection, giving me the "green light" (figuratively) to do the same, a couple steps behind him. sure enough, as i started to cross, one of the kids tried to follow me before being told to stop by his mom. "but that man's doing it!" i heard him exclaim. fortunately i was out of earshot by the time his mom had to explain the situation.

wednesday january 8

today i did the annual online jeopardy! test, obviously not expecting to do well enough to qualify for an audition -- it's just pretty fun. still, my typically mediocre performance this year was particularly frustrating due to the fact that i totally blanked on several pretty simple questions. for instance, when tasked with the clue "it's the learning disability in which sufferers reverse words like 'was' and 'saw,'" i was convinced, pretty ironically, that the answer began with the letter p.

tuesday january 7

today i went to see the movie her. knowing it would be busy, i arrived more than a half hour early, immediately heading to the automated machine to buy a ticket. after clicking my desired movie and time, i was stopped halfway through the process, with the machine informing me that the quantity of tickets i was buying (1) was no longer available. upon collecting my thoughts, regrouping, and returning to the machine to buy a ticket for a different movie, i notice that my showing of her was just x'd out completely from the opening screen this time, no longer teasing you with its supposed availability. i assume this meant that the first time around, the last ticket sold halfway through the process, and i missed out on getting it by about 15 seconds.

monday january 6

today i took my recent antisocial tendencies to a new level, when i turned plans to go see a movie with a friend into plans to each go see the movie separately, then maybe talk about it afterward.

sunday january 5

today i was walking home in the snow late at night along bloor when a driver pulled up alongside me and asked if he was heading in the right direction to get to spadina. always happy to be tasked with an easy inquiry about city geography, i said "yep, just another 5-10 minutes that way, and you'll hit it." after expressing his gratitude, he followed up by asking: "do you need a ride somewhere?" i was just around the corner from my street, and told him as much, but if i'd still had a long walk ahead of me, i'm only 95% sure i'd still have declined. is there a certain age where you're no longer concerned about getting into cars with strangers?

saturday january 4

today i heard an odd, persistent beeping noise before i went to bed. it was faint, and it didn't seem like it was coming from anywhere inside my apartment, but it was loud enough that i knew i wouldn't be able to sleep until it stopped. luckily, it was cut short after about five minutes, but by that point, i'd developed a hypothesis -- it was the smoke alarm in the downstairs apartment. although i never confirmed or denied whether that was actually the case, the theory resulted in my spending a half-hour in bed thinking about a favourite topic of mine, dating back to childhood: how i'd escape from my place in the event of an unexpected fire, and what i'd grab to take with me before being engulfed by the inferno.

friday january 3

today i continued to sort through the hundreds of job applications i'd received for the nfl website i'll be helping to launch. of the applicants whose submissions i read today, perhaps my favourite was one who simply wrote: "I would like to be nil writer. I have good grammar and I'm a sports freak!" that was it. that was the entire application.

thursday january 2

today i finally discarded a piece of cross-shaped jewelry that had been sitting on my desk for the last several months. it had somehow ended up amongst my clothes when i came home from the laundromat one time, and despite the fact that it looked pretty cheap, i still intended to return it to its owner somehow. it occurred to me though that it's not like my laundromat has a lost and found, and i never see any manager/employee when i'm there. was i just supposed to bring it back and put it on the counter, in the hopes that the owner returned to look for it? instead, i checked the "lost + found" section of craigslist twice, at which point i felt like i'd gone well above and beyond the call of duty.

wednesday january 1

today i realized that every time i mention the movie the wolf of wall street, i want to call it "a wolf on wall street" instead. objectively, i recognize that my version is much worse, but for whatever reason, i can't help but like it more.