999. Anticlimaxes.

1,000. Seriously, why did Phil Hartman have to die?

957. If you’re not on a bike anymore, you can take off the helmet.

958. I saw a homeless man the other day who looked just like George Clooney. What a stark reminder that looks aren’t everything!

959. Library fines. I slipped up and had to pay the library twelve bucks last week. I probably could have bought the damned book for twelve bucks. Totally my fault, but still.

960. Apparently, when you owe the library twelve bucks, they send a letter to your apartment telling you to pay up. Why give a person who hasn’t gotten around to finishing a book another thing to read?

961. I can’t believe the guy playing Doctor Who is leaving the show and they’re replacing him with some weird English emo kid. This complaint has been brought to you by my nerdy girlfriend.

962. I bought a leather wallet last week, and I’ve been feeling really guilty about it. I spent weeks searching for a wallet that hadn’t been made from animal products. But I couldn’t find one, so I caved and bought a leather one. Don’t tell the other self-righteous hippies, okay?

963. I bought an imitation leather belt on the weekend, after waiting for a couple of months for the shop I bought it from to get a new shipment. Throughout that time, I had to wear the most frayed, cruddy looking belt you ever saw. Sure, I feel really great about supporting an awesome vegan clothing store. But boy, was I getting sick of wearing that belt! You don’t even know, dude!

964. Needles. I can’t stand them. I don’t get flu shots and I don’t give blood because I hate the very thought of needles. It’s stupid, and in a way it’s selfish, but there you are.

965. When you’re one of only three people on a patio, and the other two know each other, then you’re basically going to get dragged into their conversation. There’s pretty much nothing you can do about it.

966. Good news! It’s a loud, lengthy talk about how tough it is to find a good man in this town! Enjoy an hour of two complete strangers rambling on about that!

967. When a woman says that all guys are idiots, she’s basically saying she’s not mature enough to deal with the differences and disagreements that are inevitably a part of every relationship. Either that, or she’s been dating the wrong guys and she’s resigned herself to repeating the same mistake.

968. When a man says that all women are psycho, he’s basically doing the male version of the above. Except the male version sounds a little more offensive for some reason. Plus, he’s probably one of the idiots that all those women are talking about. Also, does anyone smell Axe?

969. “I just don’t want to have to be alone all the time.” Well, then don’t, you know? Dating is tough and relationships are hard work, but you’re never going to find love if you’re the sort of person who thinks they have to be alone all the time. Break out of that bubble! Wayne Gretzky once said that you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. Get over yourself and start shooting, already!

970. I’m getting pretty tired of that couple in the eHarmony commercials. You know the one I mean. I’m glad they’ve found each other, but no relationship is that cute, cuddly and perfect. I’d be much more inclined to recommend eHarmony to my single friends if they did an ad that was just a thirty-second clip from that couple’s next fight.

971. Hospitals. They’re a great idea and we can’t do without them, but that doesn’t mean they’re any fun. If you’re at a hospital right now, then I’ll bet you’re having a bad day.

972. Unless you’re a nurse or a doctor or something, in which case I thank you for choosing such a noble career. I hope the long hours and the many cuts to the health care sector haven’t put a damper on it.

973. Spending the Memorial Day morning in a hospital waiting room meant watching a precocious toddler in a suit recite the names of all the presidents on Rachael Ray. Believe me when I say you can’t throw up in a hospital waiting room without four or five orderlies tossing a clipboard full of paperwork at you.

974. Hot pink toenail polish. Man, don’t wear that.

975. “How’s it going, Matt’s Facebook friends? You don’t know me, and Matt hasn’t seen me in years, but I thought you might like to see a photo of him in the fourth grade. Okay, bye!”

976. Why doesn’t anyone believe me when I tell them I love heavy metal? I’ve been into it since I was a kid. Is it because I’m into other kinds of music? Is it because I don’t have a mullet? Is it because I’ve got a day job with a computer?

977. Maybe it’s because I look more like Marty Friedman than Tony Iommi. But I don’t see why that should matter. Would you tell Marty Friedman he’s not metal just because he’s thin and he looks a bit womanly and he probably can’t grow a beard? No, you wouldn’t. So what’s the problem?

978. I’ll bet you don’t even know who Marty Friedman is, do you? Well, then who are you to judge me?

979. Also, why do people assume that metal fans are idiots? Sure, a lot of us are, but isn’t that true of any genre? Just because you like songs about the devil doesn’t mean you’re a moron, and just because you don’t doesn’t mean you’re not.

980. Did you know that Toby Keith is a Democrat who claims he’s never supported the war in Iraq? Why don’t you think about that the next time you feel like making snap judgments about musicians?

981. To be fair, in this case, I think we’re going to have to blame the confusion on the fact that Toby Keith supported Bush’s re-election, or on the many, many songs he wrote about America kicking some Arab ass. But who knows? Maybe he’s just a complicated person, like many of today’s top artists.

982. Then again, is it really that big a contradiction to oppose an unjust war while supporting the young people who are out there fighting it? And do you really have to be a rabid conservative to disagree with the Dixie Chicks? Wake up, America!

983. Conservative pundits are mad because Obama delivered a landmark address to the Muslim world, and he didn’t say all the things they wanted him to say. But the thing is, not saying all those things is what distinguishes an important progressive speech from a steaming pile of insane reactionary bullshit. It’s not like he had the Fox News viewer vote before he made that speech, you know what I mean?

984. Two and a Half Men. More like one and a crap show!

985. Zombies as a played-out artistic theme. I’ve heard that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn’t bad. But now that it’s out there, maybe we should cool it with the zombies for a while.

986. I was standing on the curb the other day, waiting to cross the road. A fellow drove by with the windows down, singing along to a song on the radio, just having a great old afternoon in June. “Keep singing,” the guy standing next to me muttered to himself as the fellow drove off. “You’re never going to make it.” What an asshole, right?

987. I think I’m officially too old to hear a song like “Santeria” in a pub, or on the radio, or anywhere at all.

988. I think we’re all officially too old to hear a song like “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in my Hand” in a pub, like I did last week, because we’re not the same age as we were during a few unfortunate weeks in 1996.

989. To be honest, though, I don’t understand why we as a culture ridicule our one-hit wonders. Do you realize how tough it is to score even one hit? You’ve probably never done it, that’s for sure. But I’ll bet if I looked at your CD shelf, I’d find a bunch of embarrassing hits from days gone by. So you can make fun of one-hit wonders all you like, but you’ve sung along to “More Than Words” at least once, and everyone knows it.

990. That said, there’s no way I’m going to get to the end of this list without calling out “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind. I know it came out twelve years ago, but frankly, I’m still mad about it.

991. And you know what? Once that song had been written, there was officially no need for “Closing Time” to exist. Think of all the grade eight dances that could be salvaged by going back in time and destroying the master tape.

992. We are indeed coming to the end of this list, and I’ve got more things left to say than I’ve got numbers left to use. As such, I’ve had to leave a few potential items off this list. The world may never know how much I hate it when the little plastic thing peels away from the end of an old shoelace, for example.

993. I guess there comes a time in the life of every work of art when you simply have to step back and say it’s complete. I mean, the alternative is basically those lame “special edition” Star Wars and E.T. remakes, and who wants that?

994. I could have easily used either of the previous two slots to talk about one of the things I’ve had to leave off this list. For that matter, I could have used this one.

995. Or I could have used this one! Damn it!

996. Contradictions. I’ll bet this list is full of them. At this point, checking to making sure it’s not would be a long, pointless ordeal.

997. Repeats. Ditto.

998. Cliffhangers.

929. Ah, spring! The time when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, and I remember that my second-floor apartment isn’t air conditioned.

930. Clicking the link to an online video, sitting impatiently through an ad, and then finding out you can’t watch the video because you don’t live in the States.

931. Going down to the laundromat, discovering you haven’t got anything smaller than a twenty in your wallet, and walking home with eight or nine pounds of quarters in your pocket.

932. My hair is the longest it’s been since the ninth grade. It’s getting a little unruly, and I don’t know what to do with it. Every day, I get up and go to a grown man’s job with an unkempt, shaggy haircut. I think I might have midlife crisis hair.

933. The whole idea of having a midlife crisis at twenty-nine implies that I’m going to die at fifty-eight. I don’t like that one bit.

934. Hey, you know the “good old days” that everyone’s always talking about? Well, they never existed. There has never been a time in human history when everything was great and nobody had any problems. Whenever a politician starts rambling on about the good old days, it’s a pretty safe bet that he’s trying to talk you into voting to screw somebody out of their rights. You know it, and I know it, so let’s come right out and say it.

935. According to one reviewer, Angels and Demons is supposed to top The Da Vinci Code “in every way imaginable”. By that rationale, Angels and Demons is louder, funnier, longer, shorter, and has a lot more grizzly bears driving monster trucks over school buses.

936. Also, Meg Ryan’s not in it. Which is more than you can say for a surprising amount of the movies that Tom Hanks has starred in. I think we’ve all seen enough of their “chemistry” to last us a lifetime.

937. Plus, there’s a… Look, would you mind if I changed the subject? I don’t really feel right about criticizing Tom Hanks or anything he’s done. By all accounts, he’s a wonderful, wonderful man. I just… I mean, talking about him like this makes me feel like a jerk, you know?

938. We can talk about Dane Cook instead, if you like. Now, there’s a guy who’s left his mark on the genre! More than anyone else, he’s proven that even the most wooden, obnoxious, unoriginal comedy pariah can land a leading role in a romantic comedy.

939. I mean, at least Kate Hudson was in Almost Famous. That movie came out nine years ago, and she hasn’t done anything in the same league since, but what does that have to do with anything?

940. Also, why did Anne Hathaway just team up with Kate Hudson to do a “crazy bride” movie? Isn’t that more than a little beneath her? Is she trying to balance out the one good Kate Hudson movie by doing one terrible movie of her own?

941. Sure, Microsoft ripped off the competition by working the whole “I’m a PC” thing into their own ads. But they made it their own by doing it not nearly as well.

942. And cramming their ads full of cute children? Why, that’s the extra touch that says “Our multimedia applications are easy to use, we’re conspicuously ignoring the practical applications you’ll actually use, and maybe that ought to raise a red flag or two.”

943. I’ll bet all those smug Mac users are loving this. God, those guys are so smug.

944. If the most significant thing you’ve done today is sign an online petition to bring back a television show that’s recently been cancelled, then I’m sorry, but you haven’t yet justified your day of existence on this planet. Don’t go to bed until you’ve called your parents or held a door open for someone.

945. Meanwhile, if the most significant thing you’ve done today is post an indignant, uninformed comment on your favourite newspaper’s website, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to work extra hard to prove your worth as a human being. And yes, the same goes for just about everyone else in the comments section, but that doesn’t let you off the hook.

946. I just saw an ad for a new birth control pill. Supposedly, if you take it, you’ll only get your period every three months. Now, I’m a guy, and I don’t menstruate, so I probably don’t have a right to pass judgment here. Instead, can I ask all the ladies out there if this idea is as unbelievably bad as it sounds?

947. This week, the plastics industry warned consumers that reusable cloth grocery bags could pose a public health risk. In what I’m sure was a totally objective study, they found that the bags can become contaminated with bacteria and fungus if you don’t wash them properly. I guess we’d better go back to plastic bags, right? Either that, or we could wash our cloth bags once in a while. Actually, yeah, do you guys just want to do that?

948. Journalists and news programs that cover politics the way you’d expect them to cover sports. There’s a lot more to government than one team squaring off against another. I know the way our politics are structured lends itself to that, but… I mean, you know how certain people occasionally need to be reminded that wrestling is fake? Well, maybe we ought to be reminded more often that politics is real.

949. Like the first robin of spring or the national anthem before a hockey game, the half-assed Conservative smear campaign has become an integral part of every new Liberal leader’s selection. Isn’t it cute the way they zero in on a negligible flaw, find a couple of quotes that loosely support it, and throw them at Canadian television audiences every ten minutes for weeks on end? What a completely uninsulting non-waste of everyone’s time!

950. I mean, I’ll be honest. I don’t have a problem with the fact that Michael Ignatieff lived abroad for many years. If anything, I think a little international experience is a good trait for a Prime Minister to have. It’s all fine and good for the Conservatives to claim that Ignatieff’s got no real investment in this country, but you know what? I live in Ontario. The guy who’s in charge right now has made it abundantly clear that he’s not all that bothered about my part of the country.

951. In fact, why are these ads even airing in Ontario? If I promise that there’s no way I’m ever going to vote for Harper, no matter how bad the other guy is, can I just go back to watching nothing but Rogers ads?

952. I’m a little more concerned about the fact that the Prime Minister’s Office announced that campaign to the press in an official briefing. That’s public officials, on public time, pushing their party’s campaign. That actually happened. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they didn’t shut down the federal government again for the sake of a rollout. But if Michael Ignatieff’s looking for a quick rebuttal, then there you go.

953. And what the hell is Cheney doing on television all of the sudden? Howcome we barely saw him during the eight years he served as vice president if he likes appearing on TV so much? Don’t you kind of feel like he had his chance and he blew it?

954. Grammar. “Hey, you know the thing you just said? Well, you were supposed to say it like this.” Oh, yeah? Well, you were supposed to get the hell out of here!

955. Hey, you know what Al Gore and I have in common? The closer we get to the end, the preachier we get.

956. All right, I’m sorry. You can’t make fun of Al Gore. He’s just… I mean again, same thing, he’s just such a great guy. I’m sorry.

901. I know this was a long time ago, but it always bothers me whenever I hear John Fogerty sing “toinin’ and boinin’” instead of “turning and burning” in “Proud Mary”. That’s my problem, and I accept it, but still.

902. Speaking of bands I heard on the radio this week, I know this was also a long time ago, but it really sucks that Layne Staley of Alice in Chains is dead.

903. Of course, it was an utterly predictable death. That doesn’t make it any less tragic, but you know what I mean.

904. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what does make it tragic. You see, a tragedy is a tale of the inevitable downfall of a great but fundamentally flawed character. Layne Staley’s death by drug overdose was tragic in the literary sense. But you can’t just throw that word around whenever something bad happens, like a car crash or a landslide. Watch the news one night and count the number of times they misuse that word.

905. In fact, why don’t you make it a drinking game? Everything else on Earth is a drinking game, so why not that?

906. Kurt Cobain died too. Did you hear about that? It was terrible.

907. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden is still alive, and good for him. I’m not going to joke about his death, and I want to go on the record right now with the fact that I don’t wish him any harm. On the contrary, I’d like him to go back to living with the passion and intensity of his early creative output, instead of teaming up with Timbaland or Moby to shrug out a track too dull to play at a dentist’s office.

908. Oh, for God’s sake! Jessica Simpson didn’t get fat! She put on a few pounds, and that’s it! She’s not fat!

909. Neither is Kim Kardashian, damn it! Also, who is she, exactly? Why is she famous? For not being fat? That’s the impression I’m getting from all those magazine covers.

910. People who shout “spoiler alert!” before they give away an important plot point in a movie or a television series. I know it’s a courtesy, but it’s still pretty lame.

911. How are we supposed to believe that Jack Bauer, a man who has sacrificed everything for the good of his country, is about to spend a two-hour season finale trying to save Kim Bauer, a one-dimensional character that America basically hates?

912. Oh, no! Miss California said something about gay marriage and how she’s against it! And that’s a big deal, because let’s all care what a beauty contest winner has to say about an important social issue! No, I mean it! Let’s argue about that for a week!

913. As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Donald Trump, who I think was asked to comment on the Miss California debacle this week because he owns the company that built her or something like that. What he essentially said was that if Miss California wasn’t a beautiful, famous woman, then nobody would care what she thinks about same-sex marriage. And when you put it that way, you make it sound like North Americans in general are the shallowest bunch of dinks you’d ever want to meet. But you know what? He’s not wrong.

914. God, I hate that Donald Trump. He’s just such a jackass.

915. Miracle Whip is pitching itself as the nonconformist’s condiment. “We’re not like the others,” their ad says. “We will not tone it down.” Miracle Whip, by the way, is mayonnaise.

916. If anything, horseradish is the nonconformist’s condiment.

917. Just because you’re guaranteed the right to demonstrate peacefully doesn’t mean you can protest on a major highway and jeopardize public safety.

918. On the other hand, the fact that a number of people did that on Sunday night doesn’t invalidate anyone’s right to protest, let alone negate the issues at hand.

919. Mind you, it did shatter in an instant a lot of the public support that peaceful protestors had to work hard to build up. In fact, I’ve heard that counter-protestors are now showing up at the demonstrations.

920. Of course, I’m willing to bet that a lot of those people are motivated by ignorance and fear of the protestors themselves, as opposed to a well-informed opinion on the violence in Sri Lanka. In fact, I’d say there’s a whole lot of people out there right now telling a whole lot of other people to go back to where they came from.

921. If you’ve been on the Internet this week, you know what I’m talking about. I actually had to get off the web and get back to work on Monday afternoon, because I couldn’t take one more poorly written, grossly uninformed and borderline racist comment. Not everybody who respects the rights of the protestors is a terrorist, okay?

922. You know what’s just as bad? Lurking in a comment thread waiting for someone to say something that could be mildly misconstrued as intolerant so you can call them out and show everyone how progressive you are. Not everybody who has some concerns about the protestors is a racist, okay?

923. What is it about the Internet that compels people to pick the dumbest, most ignorant fights they possibly can with each other? Is it because it gives everyday people a voice? Is it the instantaneous nature of the medium? Is is the fact that you can say whatever you want with anonymity and you’ll never have to back it up face to face? Oh, it’s all of those things but mostly the last one? Okay, then.

924. In fact, you might say that the violent conflict in Sri Lanka is a pretty complex issue that a lot of us here in Canada don’t fully understand! Maybe that’s why we’re yelling about semantics instead of talking about the real issues. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know the half of it. On the other hand, maybe it’s just because we’re lazy and self-involved.

925. I can’t stop biting my nails.

926. I can’t stop grinding my teeth.

927. I can stop drinking any time I want.

928. Andrew Lloyd Webber.

882. Hey, you know what? Don’t use the word “metaphorical” to drive home the fact that you’re being metaphorical in your writing. Don’t say “the tension filled the room like metaphorical storm clouds,” okay? Just say “like storm clouds.”

883. Also, that’s a simile.

884. Plus, it’s admittedly not a very good one. So if that’s where your writing is at, then perhaps you ought to just keep it literal for a little while longer.

885. The first time I typed out the sentence above, I typed “If that’s where you’re writing is at,” so I guess I don’t have much of a right to judge anybody’s literary skills.

886. “Are you glad that this moment happened?” I heard a hippie ask another hippie on Monday night. “Does it reaffirm your belief that you’re doing the right thing?”

887. Man, don’t talk on the phone while you’re at a urinal, dude.

888. What? Don’t tell the guy you’re talking to that you’re peeing! Why would you do that?

889. And now you’re bragging about the headset you wear around so you can take a call when you’re at a urinal? What, do you sell those things? Nobody wants to hear about that. I can tell from your end of the conversation that the guy you’re talking to certainly doesn’t!

890. This whole awkward moment at the urinal feels like it’s been going on forever! How much did you have to drink today, anyway?

891. Even though medical science has firmly established that the swine flu doesn’t pose any more of a threat than the typical flu, certain news organizations are still covering it like it’s a global pandemic in the making. I guess it’s a slow news month.

892. I mean, I get that people are scared of this strange new flu, and they want to learn as much as they can about it. But maybe they wouldn’t be so scared if the media hadn’t blown it all out of proportion right from the start. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s almost as if they want their viewers to be scared so they’ll keep tuning in!

893. Did you know the flu supposedly kills thousands and thousands of people every year? I mean, the flu!

894. The Liberal Party of Canada has a new leader, and the first thing the Conservatives had to say about it is that now is not the time for an election. Well, sure, because they’d lose big time.

895. But even though I don’t often get to say this, Harper’s kind of right. “We just had an election,” he told the press. And yes, that election was his idea, but still.

896. It’s bad enough when a street car gets rerouted because of construction, but nothing makes the extra miles seem longer like sitting next to a couple of morons arguing over whether “the Terminator guy” did a good job of playing Batman.

897. The “bro” who knew that Christian Bale played Batman in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight wasn’t loud or obnoxious enough to convince the “bro” who thought it was a different guy in Batman Begins that he was wrong - even though he clearly, totally was.

898. I mean, come on. You’re both playing with brand new iPhones on the bus and you can’t take the time to look it up instead of continuing to argue at the top of your lungs at the back of the street car about it? Then why do we even have technology?

899. While you’re at it, look up Michael Keaton’s name and stop talking about how “the Beetlejuice guy was fuckin’, like, the best Batman, bro.”

900. Anyway, at the end of all that, the guy who didn’t like Christian Bale spent a full five minutes pretending a banana was his penis. The other guy loved it so much he called him a fag.