saturday july 11

today i was playing basketball at st. cecilia elementary school with a friend when we were joined by a shy eight-year-old boy named ace. ace didn’t have much to say, but he loved jacking up jump shots, and took particularly delight in the moments when both of our basketballs bounced toward him and he tried to keep them away from us by running away dribbling one with each hand.

after we'd been shooting around for a while, a pair of college-age guys came by and suggested playing a game of two-on-two. not wanting to just tell ace to get lost, my friend and i suggested he play on our team. of course, this made the numbers uneven, giving us a 3-on-2 advantage, but ace had no interest in playing defense or dribbling or passing -- he was just here to shoot, and based on his middling performance during our shootaround, we figured his one-dimensional game wouldn’t give us a real leg up. so you can imagine our surprise then when he started hitting nearly every shot he took, scoring all but one of our team’s baskets en route to an easy victory. "get this kid outta here," our opponents complained as ace headed home after the game with a huge grin on his face.

friday july 10

today i went to pauper’s with my girlfriend and her friends. while the rest of us were drinking beers, my girlfriend was just doing ginger ales. this made it a little confusing when the server came back with our drinks, handed out the beers, then concluded by saying "aaaand, the ginge," because it wasn’t clear if she was referring to the ginger ale or my redheaded girlfriend herself.

thursday july 9

today i received a text message from a friend telling me that she had laughed out loud at a recent entry on this blog. "you still got it!" she said in her text. this was clearly intended as a nice compliment - and it was - but her assertion that i’ve "still got it" made me consider for the first time that there might be people who don't think i’ve still got it, and might say things like "your blog's okay now, but nowhere near as good as it was in 2010," or "i like early one thing i did today better."

wednesday july 8

today i decided to use the port-a-potty at christie pits during the maple leafs game, since it was just a short walk from my spot on the hill, whereas the full-service public washroom beyond the fence in center field was a longer trek. like most people, i assume, i'm not a real fan of port-a-pottys -- the smell; the lack of a real hand-washing option when you need it most; the irrational but always-nagging fear of having it tip over. there's a lot not to like. in this case, i was able to add another gripe to my list of them, when i entered the port-a-potty, thought i'd locked the door, then had someone open it on me 20 seconds later. apparently i turned the bizarre circular lock the wrong way and couldn't tell in the dark. port-a-pottys are the worst.

tuesday july 7

today i was adding together some nfl salary figures for a story i was writing, and put the salaries into the search bar in firefox just as a placeholder. to my surprise, when i put the numbers into the search bar, with a plus sign in between them, firefox actually showed the sum right there, like so:

in addition to catching me totally off guard, this function actually turned out to be pretty useful, saving me the hassle of going back and forth between firefox and the mac calculator. thanks, search bar!!

monday july 6

today i bought a lone garlic at no frills and realized after getting home and putting away my groceries that i’d managed to leave it at the store. so embarrassing. what am i even doing buying a single garlic? garlics cost like 25 cents, just gonna get the three that come in the mesh bag from now on to avoid this sort of stupidity.

sunday july 5

today i went to the motown museum in detroit, taking part in a group tour that concluded with about 30 of us packed into the motown records recording studio, singing "my girl" and doing the temptation walk in unison. while this was happening, i was mainly thinking two things:
1. am i doing this temptations walk right? it doesn’t feel right.
2. wow i guess i only know the chorus of "my girl."

saturday july 4

today i began walking down woodward avenue toward comercia park with a couple friends a few hours before the tigers/jays game was scheduled to start, anticipating that we’d take our time to explore a little and then grab some food and a beer somewhere before eventually going to the park. about two minutes into our walk, a van pulled up beside us and a couple of middle-aged jays fans asked if we wanted a ride to the game. while it certainly was a nice offer, it was hard not to notice that they seemed to be more worried - on our behalf - about the neighbourhood than they - or we - needed to be.

friday july 3

today i went to detroit with a few friends. as we neared the border during the drive there, my friend behind the wheel prepped himself for the questions the border attendant would be asking, refreshing his memory on our jobs, how we met, the hotel we were staying at, and so on. when we finally arrived at the border and pulled up to the booth, the first question the attendant asked was, unsurprisingly, "where are you heading?" also unsurprisingly, my friend froze, mumbling "uhh…" for a second or two before my friend in the passenger seat jumped in to say "detroit." luckily that was the toughest question we faced.

thursday july 2

today i finished my second listen through the dance with dragons audiobook. having forgotten that i’d thrown the audiobook on my phone into a playlist sandwiched in between more traditional pop music albums, i was pretty startled when the dramatic last line of the last chapter of the audiobook was followed immediately by the opening notes of a trey songz sex jam.

wednesday july 1

today i got on the spadina streetcar to head home after a canada day barbecue, and found myself on a fairly crowded new car. in order to get one of the fare-paying machines on the streetcar, i would’ve had to push through a bunch of people, so i decided to take my chances and not pay the fare. after all, i’d been taking the spadina car regularly for the last couple months and no one had ever checked my transfer, so why not take my chances for once?

predictably, when we arrived at spadina subway station, there were three inspectors waiting inside the station to inspect everyone’s proof of payment, blocking my path to the westbound subway car. unsure of what to do, i kept letting other people go past me, and even considered sneakily moving over to the line of people waiting for the car i’d just exited, then getting back on it. finally, just as i was on the verge of having to make a definitive decision, one of the three ttc fare inspectors walked off with a customer to look into some situation, and i was able to casually glide by and get to the subway without a proof of payment. lesson learned though -- i don’t want to feel that sort of anxiety again, i'll pay next time and every time after that.

tuesday june 30

today i bought a josh donaldson shirt at the jays shop in the rogers centre in preparation for an upcoming trip to detroit. before telling me the amount, the cashier asked if i wanted to make a donation to the jays care foundation. not wanting to be too thrifty, since i was paying with a gift card, i said yes, to which he replied, "how much?" this caught me off guard. normally when you’re asked if you want to donate to some sort of charity when you’re making a purchase - often at the lcbo, no frills, etc. - they give you a specific figure. for instance: "do you want to donate $2 to sick kids?" without any guidance, i had no idea what was an appropriate amount, and after hesitating for a second, i replied, "… five… dollars?" i never could tell if that was an average amount, or too much, or too little.

monday june 29

today i went to my friend's comedy show at milk glass co. since i got there a little early, there were only about five people there, and immediately another guy and i looked at each other and realized we were wearing the exact same plaid shirt, bought from the same store. we made a few jokes about it, and although i facetiously said i'd take mine off and throw it behind the bar, i wasn't bothered enough to actually do that, despite the fact that i had a t-shirt on underneath. still, i have to admit i was a little relieved when he took his off and wore just a t-shirt for the rest of the evening.

sunday june 28

today i participated in the press box’s guess-the-attendance game at rogers centre, and after i submitted my guess of 40,187, the guy who runs it replied, "i think you’ve used 187 before!" i knew this was probably the case, since i have a tendency to use familiar pop-culture numbers for my last three digits — 187, 212, 313, and so on. still, it was slightly concerning that he’d called me out on it. there it seemed like there was no way he'd remember that unless he knew what 187 signified, in which case i hope he knows i just like rap music and don’t have murder on my mind or in my heart.

saturday june 27

today i ordered indian food on just-eat.ca shortly before the restaurant closed for the night. while it was a rainy evening, and the place was pretty far away, i still thought the original delivery estimate, which suggested it could be more than a 90-minute wait, was overly cautious. however, 90 minutes later, at 11:25pm, the delivery still hadn’t arrived at my girlfriend’s place, which made us start to worry. calling the restaurant was no help, since it had already closed, and there was no real way to get in touch with the driver. so after i popped downstairs to make sure the delivery guy wasn’t waiting in the condo lobby, we logged onto just-eat’s support chat.

after we talked to just-eat’s rep for a few minutes, she told us that the driver was downstairs! i headed back down to meet him, but despite having given him instructions on the order for how to get into the building’s lobby and contact us, i didn’t see him, so i opened the front door of the building and poked my head out to see if anyone was out there. at this point, he came scurrying down the sidewalk and handed me our food, approximately two hours after we’d placed the order. he was in and out so fast that i didn’t get a chance to ask him all the questions i had. had he been waiting there for ages or did he really just show up? if it was the former, did he miss our contact instructions? how did the just-eat rep contact him? if he had just arrived, why did it take two hours?? in any case, it was a real relief, since we had no real plan b in place if the food had just never showed up.

friday june 26

today i made use of the "undo send" feature on gmail for the first time since i’d originally turned it on and experimented with it earlier in the week. the fact that, mere days after i’d started using it, the feature genuinely helped me (when i hadn’t expected to even notice it) felt weirdly gratifying.

thursday june 25

today i came across a "best of" compilation for the band everclear and was surprised to find that, despite running for 21 tracks and 76 minutes, the album didn't include "one hit wonder," one of my favourite everclear songs. this discovery led me down a wikipedia spiral in which i conducted some in-depth research on everclear’s discography and the makeup of this best-of compilation. while the full details of my research are too embarrassingly in-depth to share, one thing i did discover is that no less than seven songs on the best-of album come from a pair of records released in 2000, which wikipedia refers to as "loose concept albums based around art alexakis' second divorce." i find it hard to believe those seven songs, most of which i don't remember at all, are better than "one hit wonder."

wednesday june 24

today i spent five minutes trying to remember the source a snippet of a conversation that i assumed was from a tv show or movie. as best i could recall, it involved one person saying "he does exist!" and the other person responding "they do exist!" when i finally remembered what the exchange was from, i was disappointed to realize that it was from an m&m's commercial and that their advertising had apparently really done a number on me.

tuesday june 23

today i went to david byrne’s contemporary color at the air canada centre and sat dead center in the fifth row. there was no one in the seats directly in front of me, and my spot was so centralized that i often felt like the color guard performers were focusing specifically on me when they looked into the crowd, as if i were a judge they were trying to impress. i wouldn’t even have known how to score them.

monday june 22

today i went to the gap to buy jeans. buying any sort of pants is one of my least favourite things to do, so i’ve gotten into the habit of buying the exact same pair of jeans from the gap, since i’ve become very familiar with their sizes and styles, and know that a specific one fits me well. after finding the lone pair in the store that matched the size and style criteria i was looking for, i went up to the counter to pay, and was informed by the gap employee that there was a special sale happening today — buy one, get the second item 75% off. given my distaste for shopping, my need to run other errands, and my desire to get out of the store, i only hesitated for a second or two before saying "eh, that’s alright, just this is fine." i regretted it for the rest of the night. 75% off is ridiculous. i could’ve bought a second pair of jeans for basically nothing, who even cares if they’d fit.

sunday june 21

today i bought a bag of all dressed ruffles chips on my way home from trivia at the ossington. while normally this wouldn’t be any sort of special occasion, it was a big victory for me in this case, since it was the culmination of the following sequence of events:

• last sunday night: my girlfriend narrowed her chip choice down to sweet chili heat doritos and all dressed ruffles and ultimately went with the doritos, which i was happy to go along with because i would've eaten way too many all dressed chips.
• monday: bought all dressed ruffles at the grocery story for my girlfriend's upcoming birthday barbecue on tuesday.
• tuesday: kept seeing the all dressed ruffles on my kitchen counter during the day and thinking "i should have some!" before remembering i was saving them for the evening. when i finally brought them to the party, i ended up eating about five chips before they were all eaten by other people.
• wednesday: wanting more than the five i ate the night before, i tried to buy a bag of all dressed chips on my way to christie pits, but they didn't carry them at the variety store i stopped at.
• earlier today: tried at a different variety store to buy a bag of all dressed on my way to christie pits, and couldn't find any there either.

saturday june 20

today i went to yonge-dundas square to see a free show that included best coast and the new pornographers. around the time the new pornographers started their set, i received a text from a friend asking if i was at the show. i said yep, i'm near the back of the licensed area, and she replied that we should meet up afterward.

while i was happy to catch some of the new pornos' set, i had mainly just showed up to see best coast,  so i didn't immediately reply to that text. then, when the friend i was there with suggesting going to chipotle before it closed at 10:00, i agreed, texting my other friend to let her know i couldn't meet up because i was leaving the show to go to chipotle. a moment later, she sent me a text that read "you're garbage," which seemed harsh but fair.

friday june 19

today i decided that, after dealing with some stomach issues for the last few days, i might as well just challenge them head-on, placing an order at domino's for myself that featured pizza, boneless chicken, and parmesan bites. in the end, it actually ended up making me feel better, which probably reflects poorly - albeit unsurprisingly - on my body and what it expects to be fed.

thursday june 18

today i received an email from my friend in which he referred to my old email address as "shawarma platter." confused, i asked him about it, and he informed me that the display name on my old address showed up as "shawarma platter" rather than "luke adams" when he typed my name into the "to" field of an email. even though i'm obviously a big fan of shawarma platters, i had no idea why this would be the case, and logged into my old address to see if my display name had changed for some reason. it hadn't -- i was still "luke adams." although my friend and i never determined with certainty what the deal was, my best guess is that he somehow altered my display name in his own email contact list, even though neither of us could figure out how to do that. a real mystery.