255. People who fret about the number thirteen just because they think it’s unlucky. Much of the reason for this is because there were thirteen people at the Last Supper, and Judas was supposedly the thirteenth person to take his seat. Now, I’m no theologian, but I know that God’s an omnipotent being who sent His only son down to Earth specifically to die for the sins of humankind. So doesn’t associating the Crucifixion with bad luck suggest that things didn’t work out the way God planned? I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty blasphemous. Maybe all the “bad luck” these people have been having is just God going to town on all the doubters.

256. Look, you can’t just call the thirteenth floor of your building, the thirteenth house on your street, or the thirteenth row of your airplane the fourteenth. Not only are you not fooling anyone, but you’re defeating the very purpose of numbers. If Descartes was right, and God is a watchmaker, then you’re really just adding insult to injury.

257. How many times are we supposed to believe that a mentally disabled boy in a hockey mask can rise from the dead to kill yet another batch of horny teenagers?

258. Zombies as a comedy crutch. For every Shaun of the Dead or Evil Dead: The Musical, there are hundreds of uninspired wastes of time in which zombies are the supposedly wacky twist. It’s been done to death for so long that there’s no more room in Comedy Hell.

259. 3 Musketeers. What the hell does this disgusting candy bar have to do with swashbuckling?

260. Canada celebrated its hundred and forty-first birthday this week, and that’s gotten a lot of people talking about our patriotism. If they’re actually saying that we love our country and we’re willing to make sacrifices for it, and not just that we like to yell and scream about doing whatever the guy in charge says we should do, then great. In fact, let’s celebrate that with yet another self-conscious game of Judge the Americans and Their Ridiculous Orwellian Habit of Using Words to Mean the Exact Opposite of What They Really Mean.

261. By the way, that’s easily the weirdest name for a board game since Stratego. Talk about a name that isn’t even a word!

262. Fireworks. Damn it, I’m trying to watch an episode of South Park that I’ve already seen about twenty or thirty times!

263. Political partisanship, at least in the sense of feeling like you’ve got to check with the group before you know where you stand on an issue. If you’re an adult, then you can probably get away with thinking for yourself and expressing your own opinions.

264. If you ever want to hear a long, boring, pointless story, then spend some time with a toddler. Get to the point, little man!

265. Male models. All of the objectification of the human body to sell a product that nobody needs, with none of the simple pleasure of looking at a pretty woman.

266. Getting caught by a pretty woman in the act of checking her out.

267. Getting caught in the act by her boyfriend.

268. No, wait, getting caught by your girlfriend.

269. Have you ever done a double take at a really attractive mannequin? Because that’ll make you feel like a pervert.

270. Why are there so many beer commercials full of frat boys gawking at half-naked bimbos? Do they think I’m one of these guys just because I like beer? I can’t decide whether this offends me more as a sensitive modern man or as a drinker.

271. All right, I’m not going to cry when Kevin Costner asks his dad if he wants to have a catch. I know I’ve cried every other time, but this time it’s going to be different. I know it’s coming up, and I’m ready for it, because it’s just… Damn it, I hate this movie! Every single time! Why can’t I find that kind of redemption? Oh, God, hold me!

272. I hurt my hand pretty badly playing Rock Band the other night. My fingertips are covered in cuts and blisters. I think I’ve got a bad case of Rock Band Hand.

273. Some people like to have loud conversations on their mobile phone while they’re in line at the post office. Some people like to pace around the room while they talk. Some people like to spray a cloud of perfume on themselves even though there’s a random guy standing right behind them. I met a woman this week who likes to do all three, and guess what? She sucks.

274. In a related story, I recently spent an entire afternoon smelling like a French prostitute.

275. Can you believe I’ve been shooting my mouth off for nearly three months now, and Bill O’Reilly’s name hasn’t come up once? Doesn’t that seem like it would have been an easy and obvious place to start? I really feel like I dropped the ball on that one. So just for the record, Bill O’Reilly’s a clown. He’s the biggest clown in town. He’s got no more right to call himself a journalist than I’ve got to call myself an invisble wolfman. Hey, let’s shoot him into the heart of the sun!

227. Summer vacation is about to start. I swear to God, I’d better not catch any of the kids in my neighbourhood laying around or goofing off. My tax dollars pay their salary.

228. George Carlin died on Sunday. He was seventy-one years old and he had a history of unhealthy behaviour, so I guess he had a good run. But I liked the world better when I knew that George Carlin was out there somewhere, giving someone a hard time.

229. Remember the utopia depicted in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? The one based on cool guitar riffs and people being excellent to each other? Sure, it looked a little too Eurythmics for a way of life based on the work of two Van Halen fans, but it beats our crappy society. I’d gladly dress myself in lame “future-retro” fashion if it meant that nobody had to go to war anymore.

230. Compare that vision of the future to all the lazy, selfish people who just want their own jet pack. If your biggest issue with the twenty-first century is the fact that you don’t have a jet pack, then screw you where you stand. As far as I’m concerned, the only public good that jet packs could serve is one of fiery air collisions and natural selection. Show me a way to cure cancer with a jet pack, and we’ll talk. Until then, get the hell out of here!

231. William Shatner’s live rendition of “Rocketman”. Why would anyone want to watch a person do that?

232. Why doesn’t “Eurythmics” pass the Microsoft Word spell check? I think they’ve earned the right to be a word, don’t you?

233. “You’re dead!” said the guy at the bus stop. I shrugged and said nothing – what else could I do? – but he kept on shouting that I was dead until he got bored and left. That was days ago, and I’m still alive, so I guess you could call it a victory.

234. Living in a neighbourhood where a lot of people drink, a lot of other people have serious mental issues, and isn’t always easy to tell which is which. Was this guy mentally troubled, or just really drunk? I can go ahead and judge the latter, but not the former.

235. Okay, I guess I can’t judge the drinkers either. I mean, I’ve never threatened to kill anybody, but still.

236. Maybe I’m being too picky, but I think we should stop saying it costs less than the price of a cup of coffee to help poor people in other countries. The average cup of coffee wouldn’t be so cheap if the people who produced it were paid a decent wage. As it stands right now, the coffee industry is driven by poor people in other countries.

237. Hey, remember that Gatekeeper dude from the Nightmare video board game? That guy was a dick.

238. Why did I feel bad about being rude to that Scientologist? If somebody came up to you on the street and said “Hey, you look like the kind of guy who’d like to hand his life savings over to our church”, then wouldn’t you feel justified in yelling at him?

239. That’s enough, Gene Simmons!

240. Did you know that there were people who thought that Kids was a documentary? Supposedly, the guy who played Telly used to get calls at his day job from people who threatened to come down there and kick his ass. Can’t you picture those people running out of the theatre in the middle of Cloverfield to call 911?

241. The strip club down the block changed its sign again. The Dirty Dancing reference is gone. Now it says “Hot sinful and nude girls inside. VIP room. The Hulk was filmed here.”

242. Boy George was supposed to look like a woman, right? So what’s wrong with telling a woman that she looks like Boy George? Is that really something to get so mad about?

243. Entertainment news shows. Access Hollywood, The Insider, that sort of thing. They’re produced, hosted, and watched by parasites.

244. Billy Bush, the co-host of Access Hollywood, is the president’s first cousin. This is a guy from an extremely powerful family, who could have bargained or bought his way into the government job of his choice. But apparently, he decided that he’d rather host Access Hollywood. I guess when a good man gets it in his heart to do something noble, you just can’t stand in his way.

245. Maury Povich. What do you want to bet that guy’s father has taken a few paternity tests?

246. How can Megadeth’s “Hangar 18” be both the best and the worst music video ever made? It doesn’t make sense!

247. The 9/11 truth movement. Everybody’s got a right to their opinions, no matter how far-fetched they might be. But there’s an old saying about never ascribing to malice what can be explained by incompetence - and I think you’ll agree that when it comes to this administration, “incompetence” is practically a motto.

248. Kanye West got into a lot of trouble for saying that George Bush doesn’t care about black people. Why, some people even called him a racist. I can only assume that those people didn’t understand what racism actually is.

249. To be fair, Kanye got it wrong. It would have been fairer to say that George Bush doesn’t care about poor people. But that’s an easy mistake to make, since a really disproportionate amount of poor people in America are black.

250. And you know what else? George Bush has never really had to care about poor people, because they’re not the sort of people who would vote for him.

251. What do you mean, millions of poor people voted for Bush? Why would they do that?

252. Ants! Ants everywhere! Oh, my God, so many ants!

253. Tuesday apparently marked the launch of the Canadian version of BeautifulPeople.net, an online dating site with a “No Uglies Allowed” policy. I’m really worried that the site is going to draw traffic away from my new dotcom venture, ShallowAssholesGalore.com.

254. God, Statler and Waldorf! There’s just no pleasing you!

202. Toronto is a great city. I’m proud to live here, and I can’t think of any other place in the world that I’d rather call home. But if you’re so enthralled with it that you can’t walk down the street without your neck craned upward in amazement, totally oblivious to what’s going on around you, then you’re probably not ready to be a pedestrian yet.

203. Just because I like Toronto doesn’t mean I think we’re better than anyone else. So those of you out there in the rest of the country can stop going on about how much we hate you just because you don’t live here. We don’t, all right?

204. When is Tourism Toronto finally going to cut the crap and adopt “please like us!” as a slogan? Who are we trying to impress with all of this “world class city” rhetoric?

205. Sudoku puzzles. So they’re like crossword puzzles without any words and with a whole bunch of math instead? I grew up and got a job so that I wouldn’t have to do homework anymore. Thanks anyway.

206. When I was in high school, my mother almost bought me a Savage Garden CD for Christmas. She knew I was into Soundgarden, and she’d gotten the two confused. My brother found out just in time and set her straight. Where does Savage Garden get off having a name so close to that of a much better group?

207. The Doors. I wasn’t around in the sixties, and maybe that’s why I don’t understand how such a mediocre band could become the voice of a turbulent generation. Were all the other bands in Vietnam at the time? I really don’t know the whole story there.

208. Did you know that Ray Manzarek used to be in a band with Jim Morrison? You didn’t? That’s weird, because I’m sure I remember him saying something about it at every possible opportunity.

209. Biting into a salt and vinegar potato chip, thinking it’s a regular chip, and getting a mouthful of pain and sorrow.

210. So, I notice you’re an able-bodied person who’s taking the elevator up to the second floor. Don’t you wish the offices of Lazy, Jerk & Dropdead were located here in the lobby, so you didn’t have to go up a whole entire storey? Wouldn’t it be cool if you didn’t have to take the elevator all the way up to the second floor and waste everyone else’s time instead of taking the stairs? Maybe someday, my friend.

211. A woman yelled at me as I walked past her on an escalator last week. “The stairs are over there!” she shouted. Can anyone out there tell my why a person would get so mad about something so trivial? My theory is that she once had her heart broken by a man who really loved walking up escalators.

212. I saw a dude in a beret the other day. Just the sight of him made me physically angry.

213. As official federal opposition leaders go, Stephane Dion just isn’t very inspiring. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.

214. That said, the Conservative Party’s “Not a Leader” campaign against Dion is just pathetic. What kind of political party dumps that kind of time and money into discrediting an opponent outside of an election cycle? Canadians are used to dirty pool when there’s a vote coming up, but this is a different story. I’d like to think that our government isn’t run by a bunch of bullies, but these ads don’t make it easy to believe that.

215. Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently issued a public apology to the victims of residential school abuse in Canada, and that’s excellent. But reportedly, before he issued that apology, he told the press that he hoped the opposition parties wouldn’t attempt to politicize the event. First of all, yes, that’s big talk coming from the head of the “Not a Leader” party. But beyond that, doesn’t that statement in itself politicize the event?

216. Hey, did you hear about Bill C-61? It was tabled under the radar during the residential school abuse coverage, and it just so happens that it’s a really big deal as far as copyright and free expression are concerned. Go ahead and Google it if you’ve got the time to spare.

217. Residential school abuse. Don’t let my tangential rants and raves about copyright law detract from the fact that residential school abuse is a terrible, terrible thing.

218. Oh, come on! Who threw up in the men’s room sink? Do you know how many items there already are on this list about the terrible things that have happened in this one particular bathroom? I’m starting to think the place is haunted!

219. There’s a giant billboard ad, fully two storeys high, wrapped around the side of my office building. It’s an ad for some kind of vitamin water, declaring it “Water that multi-tasks”. The problem is, it only makes sense if you’re standing on the southwest corner of the intersection, where you can see the whole billboard. From the northwest corner, for example, all you can see is “Water that mu”. For a minute, I thought there was a new KLF album coming out. There, I hope you enjoyed that joke.

220. Everything that Flavor Flav has done in the past five years has made me picture Chuck D watching television and sadly shaking his head. Have you seen his new sitcom? It’s like he’s going out of the way to emphasize that 911 is a joke by starring in a comedy that makes an emergency response call look hilarious by comparison.

221. Laugh tracks. TV producers make use of them because laughter is contagious. The logic is that if you hear a bunch of people laughing when they’re told to, then you’ll laugh as well. But in practice, laugh tracks are only one step ahead of a guy sitting next to you on the couch explaining why all the jokes are funny.

222. One of the first things that Boris Johnson did when he took office as London’s new mayor was to declare drinking illegal on the city’s public transit system. The funny thing was, most people didn’t know it was legal to drink on the tube until he said so. Once the word got out, the general public decided to get their kicks while they could. Since Johnson had the good sense to bring the ban into effect at midnight on a Saturday, the transit system was plagued by eleventh hour weekend revelers. Naturally, there was plenty of disorder, and the city’s transit workers had to deal with all kinds of abuse. Thankfully, Boris was apparently on vacation when it all went down, after only a few days in office.

223. “Oh, we have to pay?” a woman asked in regard to a five dollar cover charge at a show the other night. “That sucks.” Well, you know what else sucks, don’t you?

224. Radical religious fundamentalism. I’m probably one of the most embarrassingly liberal people you’d ever want to avoid meeting, but I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a point at which diplomacy and negotiation for the sake of the greater good are no longer possible. And I don’t want to go out on a limb here, but I think that once somebody declares that it’s their divine right to eradicate you and your way of life, you’ve hit that point.

225. To be fair, a lot of the people who run the most powerful nation in the world are basing their decisions on their firm believe that Jesus is coming back soon. I’m a huge fan of respecting the beliefs of others, but frankly, that kind of scares me. Especially since they’ve got the bulk of the nuclear weapons.

226. So what if I like the Pet Shop Boys? They’re a good band, damn it!

187. Why is there glitter all over the floor of the men’s room? I hate being presented with a mystery that I could never possibly solve. I’m an inquisitive man, damn it! Did a unicorn blow up in here? I can’t get on with my day until I know what happened!

188. On a patio yesterday, I saw a guy in shorts, sandals and shades smoking a cheap, foul cigar. I like to think that if I’d stood up then and there and shouted “I’m a jackass”, somebody else on the patio would have said “No, dude, that guy is.”

189. When the waitress calls you “sweetheart”. Her job is hard enough without having to flirt with me. That’s a weird bit of sexual politics that I don’t want to have to think about when I’m trying to have a beer and read a book. Plus, it sounds kind of phony when you end every single sentence with it.

190. Noticing that I’ve got one less Facebook friend than I did the day before. I know it’s probably just because their account got suspended or they left the site. But what if it was because of something I said?

191. Getting a friend request from someone that I’ve never actually met. I know this Internet thing is all the rage, but that doesn’t mean that we should start collecting people as if they were baseball cards.

192. The above goes double if you’re in a band or you run a club night. Asking people to sign up for spam from a stranger is a terrible way to make a first impression.

193. The “poke” function. That thing is useless!

194. The fact that all of those complaints are going to seem laughably dated as soon as the next big social networking site comes along and Facebook’s not cool anymore.

195. As long as I’m off on a rant about Internet fads, that’s enough with the damned Lolcats. I know that everyone’s already decided where they stand on this issue, but I’d still like to go on the record. I know a lot of people whose opinions I respect are going to disagree with me, but I don’t care. I’m sick of words like “haz” popping up in conversations with otherwise intelligent people.

196. A bunch of fast food chains have cut tomatoes out of their meals this week because of a salmonella outbreak south of the border. I didn’t even know you could get salmonella from vegetables. What am I supposed to lord over my meat-eating friends now?

197. Wait, are tomatoes a fruit? I can never remember.

198. The veggie burger I had for lunch yesterday had a tomato on it. Am I going to die? Because that’s really the last thing I need right now.

199. I didn’t eat anything at all the day before that. I had a few cups of coffee and some water, but I think that was about it. I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t eat. That can’t be good, can it?

200. I also got about ninety minutes of sleep that night. I think I need to make some changes in my life.

201. Hey, do you ever wonder if a publicly available list of your pet peeves and personal failings could be used to construct a terrifyingly revealing psychological profile?

Maybe it was your smile. Teeth just crooked enough to be distracting. Just yellow enough to cause one a moment’s pause. How the peppery tang of your breath was noticeable regardless of proximity.

Maybe it was the way that you punched me in the kidneys and insistently shouted “No!” when I asked you if you had been eating pizza that day.

Perhaps it was the confidence that you projected. Although you hadn’t met me before, you treated me as if we’d been married for years, barking orders and whittling away at my self-image. You didn’t even feel that you had to wear deodorant. That’s how comfortable you felt with me.

Now, I don’t usually do this. But I’m writing you to let you know that I’d really love to see you again.

I know the evening didn’t go as smoothly as it could have. I suppose it’s on me to take the blame for that. Things got off on the wrong foot as soon as we were kicked out of our second cab. I know that it was out of line for me to point out that, yet again, our cab driver was clearly a landed immigrant with a cordial manner and a firm grasp of the English language. It wasn’t my place to make note that both drivers were wearing baseball caps and most certainly not wearing “towels”, as you put it. I apologize for that. Maybe you were right. Perhaps they really are parasitic agents for a pagan death machine. I suppose I may not have significant background in these issues to have argued the point.

Although it became extremely clear that taxi cabs weren’t the way for us to travel, the opportunity to walk together to the restaurant was very pleasant. I think we really grew closer. We both learned a lot about you and about my ability to nod and act surprised or engaged. I’m really glad that you got to see that. I’m really proud of it.

I feel that things really started to turn around for us when we got to the restaurant. When our drinks came back a little bit late, you asked the waiter if he’d gotten “lost inside of one of your poofty friends’ assholes”, and I think we all shared a good moment there. While all of my drinks after that point seemed a little thicker than they should have, it was still pretty clever of you!

I don’t mind that you ordered an expensive crab platter and only wound up spooning up the garlic butter. Maybe you were nervous. It certainly seemed that way, as you pounded back Malibu rum cocktail after Malibu rum cocktail. Nerves. That had to have been the reason for the drinking. Don’t worry, I understand.

You really started to open up to me, I felt. I can pinpoint the moment that I really felt like you were letting me in. Around your seventh or eighth drink, you looked right into my eyes. Raising your hand and pointing your index finger right at my face, you said: “My mother… is a rotten cunt.” Your candid appraisal of your mother made me feel like you really trusted me. You couldn’t share this kind of intimate conversation with just any stranger… could you?

After I picked up the massive bill and you pocketed the tip that I had left for the waiter, you grabbed me by the tie and pulled me in the direction of the club playing loud dance music next door. It choked me a little bit and you got butter stains all over my tie, but your assertiveness really excited me!

I bought you a drink and you dashed off into the crowd on the dance floor, presumably to stake us out a good spot to cut a rug. It took me quite a while to find you, though, which is strange considering your distinctive mustard-yellow hair colour. When I finally did catch up with you, you were delivering CPR to a large, muscular choking victim just outside of the men’s washroom. Your compassion is incredibly attractive. I stopped for a moment and watched you stroke his bald head for a moment after he has started breathing normally again, comforting him.

The game of hide and seek that ensued for the rest of the evening was fun, but ultimately exhausting. I would constantly look for you, but only find you near the bar, where I would buy you a drink and then lose you again. After the dancehall cleared and the place was closing up, though, you became a lot easier to find. You were pretty stumbley at this point, but I would like to think that you would have put your arm around my waist even if you hadn’t been.

We got out into the street and you vomited onto my shoes. I started to say something comforting, but you immediately cut me off and insisted “I don’t vomit! I voe-mais!” I was slightly puzzled at first. I then realized that I had been right all along. You had been eating pizza that day.

When that car pulled up and you got in, I was a little bit disappointed that our night had come to an end. Obviously, you must have made arrangements for a ride to pick you up, although I didn’t catch his name and he didn’t seem to know yours. You grabbed onto my crotch and squeezed hard, while jamming your tongue down my throat. It was the slimiest moment of bliss I can recall from my last 26 years on this planet. And with that, you were gone.

I never expected to fall for a girl named Vonda. I certainly never expected to spend an entire week’s pay on a date. And I definitely wasn’t expecting this ferocious cold sore. But wasn’t it a wise man who once said “The greatest joys in life are those that are least expected”? Don’t ask me because I have no idea. The only thing I do know is that I would love to see you again.

You have my credit card.