I have a bunch of items here I wrote up during those thirty postless days, that I decided not to actually post. I have no idea why. It actually seems stupid when you think about it, so logic dictates that less thinkin’ = less stupid. Whatever. Like I would have let Big AL’s previous sixty thousand word point form post go unchallenged? Forget that noise – I’m back, baby.

Does that provoke you? Because it’s a fact. And guess what? That makes it a provoking fact. And guess what? That makes this Choking Yak’s Provoking Facts.

– First off, let’s just all have a little moment of silence for OrangeToast.org, my babygirl’s late blog. It’s unfortunate that yet another of those few blogs associated with The WAMBAG has gone the way of teenage abstinence. I’d like to say that it was just the natural course of life, that all things have their time, and that she had a good run. I’d like to, but I can’t, because I know for a scientific fact that it was the sheer power and charismatic might of this site, The WAMBAG, that was ultimately responsible for destroying her little online world. Like the mighty tidal wave that swallows up other, smaller waves on its path of destruction towards the coasts of mankind, so have we feasted on oranges and toast, taking her strength as our own on our path towards Internet relevance. We are this much closer to our goal of exceeding three visitors a day. It’s gone now, wiped from the collective memory of society. Remember Queen’s Quest? Remember this?

Exactly.

– I’ve been driving around everywhere today – downtown, midtown, Willowdale, Markham, Ajax…and all day long I can see these ominous lightning flashes in the sky, but no thunder and not a drop of rain. And then I’m ten kilometres from home, and it’s like all of a sudden I’ve driven right into this wall of water. Rain drops so big, that if it was fifteen degrees cooler, Richmond Hill would be buried under a field of dead snowmen. And then all of a sudden the rain turns into mist. And driving along, I look at my rearview mirror and I swear to fucking God I can’t remember the last time I was so scared out of my mind as when I saw that the mist on my rear window had revealed the imprint of a hand. I thought someone was there, lying in the back of my car for the last hour. Now that I’ve had a couple of murderless minutes of rational thought, I’d wager a guess that it’s my hand print from when I closed the truck earlier today. But just in case, if no one can find me tomorrow then you’ll know what happened. I love it when it rains though. I means I don’t need to water the plants outside. Sometimes it seems like everything comes down to laziness with me.

– I hope that in the future, granola bar technology will have advanced to the point where we can subsist entirely on like five mini-meals of granola bars a day. And I just know that we’re on the verge of a breakthrough, because over the last couple of days I’ve actually proved that it can be done with just minimal liver and brain damage. I’m not a big fan of the whole “needing to eat meals” part of the human existence. It just seems like too much work. Why can’t my ADP’s get treated to some awesome photophosphorylation instead of just plain old vanilla phosphorylation? No fun.

– Because the only reason people have blogs is so that they can whine about things…you know what really peeves me? When I’m waiting for the elevator and someone else comes along, sees me waiting for the elevator, sees that the “^” button is lit up…and presses it anyway. …why would you do that? Because I love just standing around in elevator lobbies downtown at 8:00 AM, with my laptop bag slung around my shoulder, just staring into space? Do I not instill the faith necessary in people for them to believe that I do indeed grasp the concept of how you have to push the button to summon the elevator? Every time someone sees me just waiting there and presses the button again, that’s a personal insult – that’s them telling me “I think you’re retarded, so I need to confirm that the elevator button has indeed been pushed.” Or is it that you think the elevator has sensors and behaviour algorithms that can detect the fact that we’ve pressed the button multiple times, so it’ll hurry on down to get us faster? That dark ball of hate within me grows bigger and bigger everyday. See, it’s the little things in life that matter the most.

– But you know what’s awesome? Granola bars. I love that shit. Did I go over that already? Right, my mistake. How do they make them and what the fuck is granola?

– Didn’t realized that the DVD for the third season of Arrested Development already dropped on August 29th. Picked it up two days later and although I haven’t had much of a chance to watch it yet, I am very excited about going through these episodes…again. Still, I’m somewhat upset at myself for not being there to pick it up and support its sales numbers as soon as it dropped. I was thinking of preordering it a couple weeks back, but then I realized it was Arrested Development and then I wasn’t so worried about the necessity of preorders. On one hand, I’m disappointed that not everyone in the world rushed to pick this up, which would have hopefully boosted up DVD sales numbers high enough to justify a return for another season. Just like for Family Guy, Chappelle Show, and how it was supposed to be for Futurama. And all you Raymond Lovers and War At Home watching motherfuckers would have finally seen the light.

…but on the other hand, too much interest means I wouldn’t be able to find a copy for myself. And also that I wouldn’t be able to keep being an elitist poser fag, which is something that I honestly and truly enjoy. Specifically the “poser” portion of the designation, which is why I picked it up two days late.

– According To Jim is also a terrible show, but I find his wife so attractive that I can’t help but enjoy it. I don’t know her name though. The character or the actress. I don’t watch it that much I guess. I don’t know if I have a type, but I’m almost 60% sure she used to be on Melrose Place and I’m like 85% sure I’ve seen her on Spin City once. She was like a…city lawyer…District Attorney? And she was on a date with Mike. I may be high right now, I can’t tell.

– I won’t lie to you. I think I have a gambling problem. But for someone who doesn’t live within two hours of a real casino (no, the CNE doesn’t count), it’s a surprisingly managable problem. I also have an addiction to wild sex with Jessica Alba, but again…surprisingly managable.

– You know how when you peel off the label on a bottle of water there’s some of that glue residue left stuck on? When I peeled off the label on my bottle of water today and unsuccessfully tried to wipe it off with a tissue, I realized that it all looks a lot like boogers. (I can now correctly claim that’s actually the first ever usage of the word “boogers” in the four year history of this site.) This is signficant, because I’m already paranoid about the cleaning staff here at work rooting through my garbage bin and judging me based on the garbage I throw out. It’s been a problem for me ever since that first week when I came back from lunch to find someone else’s McDonald’s waste in my bin. I don’t want to be labelled a McDonald’s eater on days when I’m not actually eating McDonald’s. And now I’m afraid of the cleaning staff coming around, picking apart my trash, and finding this booger encrusted tissue paper in there – only they’re not actually boogers. I think I’m just going to write “NOT ACTUAL BOOGERS” directly on the tissue as to clear up any possible misunderstandings. And in highlighter, because it’s impossible to write on tissue paper with pen.

– You know what I’m really enjoying right now? Reminiscing about the good old days along with the fine fellows at The Flagrancy (of RickBrunson.com infamy) in their wildly entertaining feature, The 50 Most Dubious Moments in Toronto Raptor History. And check out this chat transcript with Chris Bosh. Is he not allowed to use “LOL”? What’s the purpose of “Ha-ha (Laughing)”? You don’t need both – one implies the other. Beware if you ever catch me on MSN, because I’m going to start doing that now. (Blogging)

– I miss ICQ. I can still bang my number out in 0.14 seconds. 17177338!!! Send me a message. I look forward to not responding to you.

– I think I saw my old Physical Chemistry TA from first year today on the subway. CHM139 – I got like a 83% on that course, which at the time seemed like a huge disappointment after coming off a strong 90%+ showing throughout high school. I should have realized that was going to be one of the few times I’d ever taste 80%+ again in a Life Sciences course. I had the course in the Fall term and the tutorial was on Tuesday, so he was like the first or second TA I’d ever seen. He was a good TA, but the only thing I remembered from those tutorials was this one time when he was late, and his excuse was that some of his lunch had spilled out into his bag and he had to clean it. His girlfriend had made it for him that day, which got one of those big, semi-sarcastic “Aaawww” sounds from the class.

I can remember that it was a tuna casserole to this day, but I would not be able to recall Boyle’s Law if my life depended on it. And by saying that, I realize that I’m just inviting fate to trap me in some lethal gas chamber full of pressurized gas with some elaborate temperature-based release switch. (pv = nrt? nrv? What was Accardo’s number again? Avocado? Avercado? Avacado? Some combination of 10, 6.022, and 23? Then what’s r?)

Ah, $40,000 well spent. Thanks, University of Toronto!

– I lied. I never went to Frosh Week. I just slept in for an entire week instead. Not an ounce of regret.

– I keep finding my shoelaces untied when I get up from my desk. I don’t know what I’m doing at my desk that’s so strenuous that it causes my shoelaces to become undone. I don’t know if I need start double knotting, if there’s a tiny gnome under there that keeps messing with my laces, or if I’m unknowingly dancing out entire Riverdance routines while I answer emails. And I don’t know if it makes me feel better – because maybe this job IS really that physically demanding and my being out of breath after typing out a particularly long email is justifiable – or if it’s just depressing because my shoelace tying skills are so crappy. My life is just full of failures, one after another, piling up higher and higher…until the day I’m crushed to death beneath a mountain of assorted setbacks, defeats, and missed opportunities. God, I wish I was dead.

– All the summer co-op students left two weeks ago, to return back their respective educational institutions and whatnot, and we had this big lunch to see them off. I vaguely remember this great bit I had during that, about how they all had to subjected to the amnesia ray before they could officially leave, that was very well received (ie. people laugh lots). I didn’t think about it much at the time, but now (even though some of those kids were still older than I) I’m the youngest guy here…but I don’t feel young, and I don’t think I am anymore. But then I realize that they’re paying universities to rape them up the ass, and I’m getting paid full time to essentially sit on my ass, and I feel a little bit better for some reason.

In hindsight, I probably could have fluffed up like half of those bits and spread this one post over two weeks. No one would have noticed. Damn it.

“Stewart, I don’t feel well. Knowing about Mike’s mom and the Mayor is killing me.”
“James, secrets are power. You get something good like this, you sit on it. Right now, you leak it, it’s just office gossip that makes everyone uncomfortable. BUT, in 20 years when Mike’s running for President, this little gem gets me an ambassadorship to Sweden.”
“What do I get?”
“Topless postcard from Sweden!”