wednesday february 26

today i was so bothered by how cold it was in my bedroom/office that i experimented with typing with gloves on. these aren't the kind of gloves that have finger holes or anything, but i was still surprisingly effective while wearing them. still, despite the fact that i wasn't really making any typos, i felt like i was about to hit four letters at once with every keystroke i made, so it was only a couple minutes before i gave up on the experiment and decided to just live with cold hands.

tuesday february 25

today i realized while listening to yet another podcast featuring people expressing their thoughts on true detective that i'd probably enjoy the last two episodes much more if i stop reading or listening to anything anyone says about the show. really burnt out on true d theories and opinions and thinkpieces, you guys.

monday february 24

today i was walking along margueretta street when i noticed a strawberry on the sidewalk. a couple seconds later, i realized there were strawberries all over the sidewalk -- someone had dropped one of those clamshell containers and spilled them everywhere. still, the fact that the container itself was sitting on the ground with three or four berries in it seemed a bit odd to me. i mean, if i'd dropped a thing of strawberries and saw that a few of them had managed to avoid spilling onto the sidewalk, i feel like i'd at least pick the container up and salvage the survivors.

sunday february 23

today i went to trivia, where one of the questions asked what the very center ring on an archery target was worth. after some thought, i recalled playing an old archery computer game on a 3.5-inch floppy disk about 20 years ago. in that game, the scores ranged from 0 to 10 per shot, so i concluded that if the game was accurate (and why wouldn't it be?), the bullseye must be worth 10. this memory also conjured a related one -- as an eight year old, i hadn't entered my own name when i recorded an archery-game high score, but rather the name of the girl i had a crush on at the time. in addition to being embarrassed all over again about this, i was a little depressed, since i know she died a few years ago. so, i was right about the bullseye, but really had to run the gamut of emotions to earn that one point.

saturday february 22

today i was at a party when the subject of my book club came up and i was asked by a couple friends what sort of books the club has read. struggling to think of many recognizable titles, i started to say, "i think it's been..." but before i could identify a specific genre or pattern, i was interrupted by a girl passing by, who derisively echoed me and said, "i think it's been white-man books." while this sort of interjection could be delivered as a light-hearted joke, in this case, it was far more accusatory and combative, like an angry internet commenter denouncing the patriarchy. she didn't stick around to follow up, and i finished my sentence as if she hadn't said anything, but i still felt like it was an unfair indictment. after all, we totally read their eyes were watching god.

friday february 21

today i missed a good six or seven minutes of the first period of the canada/u.s. men's hockey game when my roommate's space heater cause a power surge that knocked out our cable box. i didn't think it was even that cold in the living room.

thursday february 20

today i let out a very weird cheer/shout/giggle when the canadian women's hockey team tied the americans in the gold medal game with less than a minute to play. it was such an odd, loud noise that i immediately became embarrassed that my roommate had heard it, and was relieved to discover that i was home alone.

wednesday february 19

today i was thrilled to see the following tweet show up in my twitter feed:

while i have no real investment in either the lakers (steve blake's old team) or the warriors (his new team), the tweet was remarkably similar to a hypothetical one i'd fabricated back in october 2013. tasked with hiring a pair of new basketball writers, i had several applicants send me a sample story based on the following tweet, which i'd essentially created out of thin air (there had been no rumors linking blake to golden state):

it's just nice to finally get confirmation that yes i am a clairvoyant basketball expert.

tuesday february 18

today i entered a contest to be kristen bell’s date for the l.a. premiere of the veronica mars movie. my sole motivation for entering was that it would make for an incredible story if i somehow won -- i'm not sure how much i'd even actually enjoy the experience itself. the only way i can picture it in my head is me preparing a bunch of jokes ahead of time to impress kristen and then plowing through all of them one after another like gob's presentation for sitwell.

monday february 17

today i found out halfway throught eating dinner at my parents' place that the sauce on the chicken i was eating had white wine in it. while normally this wouldn't be a concern, i've told anyone who'll listen that i'm not consuming any alcohol this month, and now this sauce was putting that streak in jeopardy. ultimately though, since i hadn't known about the wine and in fact couldn't even taste it, i decided it didn't count. finished the chicken too.

sunday february 16

today i paid for breakfast at belleville's "old firehouse" restaurant with my credit card. when i got to the point where i'd choose a tip percentage, the four options presented on the screen were: 8.75%, 10%, 12.75%, other. i was left wondering if most patrons have to select "other" to enter their own amount, or whether belleville is just a town of modest tippers.

saturday february 15

today i took a bus to belleville to visit my parents. since they were going to meet me at the bus station, i texted my mom a couple times in the morning to let her know that the bus was indeed running on time. the first one let her know that we'd left toronto, while the second one said the bus was in trenton, about 20-30 minutes from belleville. about five minutes after i sent the second text, i got a reply that read: "worng number... not expecting company." it was at this point i realized that, for whatever reason, my phone had deleted my mom's new belleville cell number and was using her old london number. in fact, this had happened to all my parents' contact info in my phone, leaving me no way to contact them. luckily, the bus arrived exactly on time.

friday february 14

today i discovered while reading the constantines' reunion announcement that their name was a "constant teens" pun. was this obvious? did anyone else realize this for the first time this week, or am i a big dummy? anyway, pretty excited about that summer tour.

thursday february 13

today i came home from running a few errands and went to spit my piece of gum into the kitchen trash can. however, when the gum hit the pile of garbage in the rather full can, it bounced out and disappeared from my sight line. i'd felt it hit my foot, so i knew roughly what trajectory it must have taken and where it must have landed. but i spent about two minutes looking for it on the kitchen floor, inspecting various spots it may have gotten stuck and even lifting up the garbage can to look at the underside. no dice. frustrated, i concluded that if i couldn't find it, there was no chance of anyone stepping in it, so maybe i'd just give up. but the mystery kept nagging at me, and i returned two minutes later determined to find it.

finally, success: the gum had somehow managed to sneak into a crevice near the bottom of the trash can that can only be seen when you step on the foot pedal to open the lid. it had wedged itself so far into this crevice (and stuck there) that it ultimately made more sense to leave it there rather than trying to dig it out, since there was no risk of it ever escaping or being noticed.

wednesday february 12

today i abruptly decided at 9:00 pm that i was tired and wanted to go to bed. since i knew i couldn't sleep through the night at that point, i set my alarm for midnight, napped for three hours, then was up until 4:00 am. i missed several calls and texts during that 9-12 window, but no regrets. i'm living life my way.

tuesday february 11

today i spoke on the phone with a friend who was adamant that the blue jays ought to be showing more replays of home runs and other exciting plays on the jumbotron during their games. while this seemed like an unusual axe to grind on a tuesday morning in february, he insisted that we needed to "start a movement" for more in-stadium replays, and encouraged me to bring it up during my next season ticket-holder meeting.

monday february 10

today i decided to make openly-gay nfl prospect michael sam the subject of my website's daily facebook discussion thread. although i deliberately encouraged responses that focused more on his on-field talent than his sexuality, the conversation got off to pretty much the exact start i feared:

sunday february 9

today i waved goodbye in the general direction of a few friends as i was leaving the ossington. halfway through the wave, i realized no one was looking at me, prompting me to make the second half of the wave even more exaggerated, in the hopes that the big movement would be noticeable in someone’s peripheral vision. it wasn’t.

saturday february 8

today i bought $35.60 worth of groceries. instead of just handing over two $20 bills, i decided to make things easier on everyone by digging out a couple of quarters and a dime to go along with my twenties, so i could get a $5 bill back. yet, after i handed this money to the cashier, she spent about 10 seconds going through the register and eventually handed me what seemed to amount to nearly $5 in change. i was almost positive i hadn’t accidentally given her, say, a nickel instead of a dime. but even if i had, shouldn’t she have recognized that i was trying to make exact change, and maybe asked for that extra nickel, rather than giving me a handful of change that included several coins i’d just handed her? amateur hour out here.

friday february 7

today i was in the midst of my usual work routine on tweetdeck, which involves constantly clearing all the tweets from my columns so that i don’t fall behind. at one point, there was a single tweet in my timeline, which i read and cleared. around the same time, i checked my clock, which said 5:27. so far, so good.

about 20 seconds later, i glanced at the clock again, and saw it change from 5:26 to 5:27. weird, but i assumed i’d just misread it the first time. a second later though, the same tweet i’d just cleared showed up in my tweetdeck timeline again.

the most logical explanation here, of course, was that i initially misread the clock, and that the tweeter in question had perhaps fixed a typo and published his tweet a second time. still, for a few seconds, i seriously considered the possibility that i’d just experienced the world’s most inconsequential time travel.

thursday february 6

today i stuffed a coat check ticket in my pocket after checking my coat at the ago. because the ticket was in the same pocket as my phone, however, i was paranoid it would fall out unnoticed during one of the many times i expected to pull the phone out over the course of the night. just to be safe, i decided to memorize the coat check number, and was happy to discover it was incredibly easy — it had nearly the exact same first few digits as my old icq number, which i’ll never forget as long as i live.

wednesday february 5

today i totally misjudged the appropriate depth and distance required as i went to shake someone’s hand upon meeting him, and ended up smushing my fingers into the open palm of his hand.

tuesday february 4

today i contemplated the possibility of buying a ginger ale at a bar and realized i had no idea what it would even cost, since i've never bought a pop at a bar in my adult life.

monday february 3

today i browsed the produce section at no frills, looking to score some baby carrots. unfortunately, the small bags that i usually buy were sold out. in another spot in the produce section, there were still two bigger bags available to buy, but these things looked awfully imposing. i'm only one man after all. after shopping around and grabbing the rest of the groceries i needed, i returned to produce and saw that only one of those big baby carrot bags remained. i made a snap decision to buy it, committing in the moment to eating a lot of carrots over the next couple weeks. in retrospect though, i'm not sure why i didn't buy a smaller bag of regular-sized carrots.

sunday february 2

today i was walking home from a friend's party at around 2:30am when i encountered a group of young people at the corner of bloor and lansdowne making a lot of noise and crossing the road annoyingly (they weren't crossing against the light, but they were still standing in the middle of the intersection far too long for my liking, as if they owned the place). a second or two later, one of the girls in the group wiped out on the slushy road and hit the pavement, butt-first. i had to look down at the ground as i walked by so no one would see my smirk.

saturday february 1

today i had an inexplicable and overwhelming craving for a glass of milk, and eventually had to pour one for myself. i still don't really understand it. it was my first glass of milk in years.