Death. Destruction. Hockey playoffs. These are truly difficult times. Now, more than ever, we need reasons to celebrate. Here are 500 of mine:
1) Baby talk...when you're three months old.
2) Big, fat, easy targets.
3) Bad manners and rude behaviour...directed at others.
4) Debt, the sludge that greases the wheels of commerce.
5) Being an individual, even if it means enjoying Survivor: Enron Executive Suite.
6) People who know the word "...not!" added to a statement is not a funny form of irony.
7) Low cost licorice sticks.
8) Snow - you don't have balls without it.
9) The Wailing Wall, and other links to the past.
10) Being right (especially if it doesn't happen often, wise guy).
11) HBO - long may it be payin'!
12) Letting the day take you where it will.
13) Not getting pulled over for following your bliss too closely.
14) An embarrassment of riches.
15) Other people's rich embarrassment.
16) Romantic comedies that do not contain a scene where the main characters dance and lip synch to a song from the 1960s or 1970s.
17) Being able to control your autonomous system.
18) Pink snorts.
19) Nemesis.
20) The fact that most people are not full of profound insights, because, frankly, after a hard day's work, who wants to come home to Immanuel fucking Kant?
21) Passion. It's overrated, but diverting.
22) Questions for which there are no wrong answers.
23) Knowing that it's good. Really good.
24) Vampires, who are at least entertaining when they remind us of our mortality.
25) People who know the correct use of the phrase "begs the question..."
26) People who put hearts over their "i"s.
27) People who need people (they're the luckiest people in the world, don't you know).
28) Canada, still the greatest country in the world (except, maybe for Patagonia...)
29) Having a middle distance to focus on when your subconscious mind needs to be left alone to work out a problem.
30) Nobody knows the kinky shit you fantasize about.
31) Fantasizing about kinky shit.
32) The Fool may morph to better fit his surroundings, but he's always there when we need him.
33) We don't taste colours.
34) The human heart isn't found in the right elbow, or hockey and Christmas shopping would be deadly pastimes.
35) You don't know what the guy who just phoned trying to sell you a subscription to Brutality Monthly is doing with his hands.
36) Curtains - they're what makes good neighbours.
37) The big whoop.
38) When The Powers That Be let you be.
39) Pith, becauth you can't hold it in forever.
40) Big screen television, because how would you be able to read all the crawls on all-news television networks without one?
41) Brutalist architecture - it makes your dingy home much more appealing.
42) Lucky for you, there's no such thing as "normal."
43) Poetry doesn't have to rhyme.
44) You don't work in advertising.
45) If you do work in advertising, you probably have a substantial majority of your 10,000 lives left to make up the deficit in your Karma.
46) The organisms in your gut that help break down food in the digestive process are micro.
47) Messy fun somebody else has to clean up.
48) You're not having a day like Jack Bauer.
49) Knowing whether "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" or "Sometimes, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many" is appropriate in a given situation.
50) Acceptance.
51) Clocks with a 50s diner look.
52) The stage musical and film versions of Man of La Mancha manage to completely invert the parody of romantic fiction that dominates Cervantes' Don Quixote, but nothing stops you from reading the original.
53) Authority is so easy to question.
54) There is time enough in life, even if you don't realize it.
55) The infield fly rule.
56) Lord of the Flies doesn't rule. Everywhere. Yet.
57) Independent surveys that really are independent.
58) Knowing the difference between drinking through straws and clutching at them.
59) Being able to start fistfights over whether your writing is dry, willfully obscure or simply childish.
60) Bulletproof strawberry-scented panties.
61) Believable characters in art.
62) Unbelievable characters in real life.
63) Thirty minutes or it's free.
64) A club sandwich on toasted white bread. Not rye. Not a kaiser. Not an onion roll. Toasted white bread. (And, don't even get me started on where the mayo should be...)
65) Knowing what s/he is going to say before it's said. Well, most of the time, anyway.
66) Interregnum is now spelled interim.
67) When love is gone, there's always pizza.
68) Sim City, because everybody wants to rule the world.
69) Mike Harris can't be cloned.
70) The Oscars. No joke. When that bloated, masturbatory, corrupt exercise in public relations is over, don't you feel like celebrating?
71) God loves fools. (At least he's trying to level the playing field for us.)
72) Democracy - the worst form of government except for all of the others for its 53rd year, and counting.
73) The gag reflex, without which many bad jokes could turn fatal.
74) The women who have loved me over the years.
75) The women who have tolerated my presence over the years.
76) The women who have been civil to me in the street over the years.
77) Sleep.
78) Loose clothes.
79) Loose change.
80) Escalators. If god had wanted us to walk up or down them, he would have created stairs.
81) Love, in its many and varied forms.
82) Chocolate, in its many and varied forms.
83) Alcohol. It ensures that a lot of undesirable traits are removed from the gene pool.
84) The patella.
85) The uvula.
86) Paul Attalah.
87) The infinite malleability of language.
88) Families. They fuck you up. But, they can sometimes also help put you back together again.
89) B sharp.
90) I have yet to make a joke about the film 24 Hour Party Sandwich People.
91) You don't have three eyes.
92) The sky isn't purple.
93) Frida wasn't callow.
94) Cameroon isn't in the south of France.
95) Writing so full that it can only be properly enjoyed by being dipped into every so often over a period of days or weeks rather than read all at once. (Get the hint?)
96) The possibility of free will usually shuts determinists up at parties.
97) Scissors cut paper, but rock smashes scissors.
98) O. J. Simpson showed how American racism can actually benefit the black man...well, one specific black man, anyway.
99) "When irony is outlawed, only outlaws will use irony" bumper stickers.
100) This is the 500th article to appear in Les Pages aux Folles.
101) That I didn't use this milestone as an excuse to get all maudlin and shit.
102) The lies we weren't told.
103) The pain that wasn't inflicted on us.
104) The extra-spicy double cheese super-sized burrito we didn't eat.
105) You don't live in Iraq.
106) You don't live in the country the United States will attack when it's done with Iraq. Well, probably not.
107) The moon o'er Bloor Street of a summer's e'en.
108) Observational humour. (What do you mean, you hadn't noticed?)
109) FM radio until the mid-1980s.
110) Community and campus radio after the mid-1980s.
111) Adult humour that's not just juvenile humour in revealing clothing.
112) Being an armchair critic. If you're going to take the thankless job of critic, you may as well be comfortable doing it.
113) The letter U and the number 2.
114) Tesla discovering electricity.
115) Dylan discovering electricity.
116) You don't have psychotic friends. Well, not many, anyway.
117) Mom's apple pie (and, I don't mean biker Boucher).
118) Indoor plumbing.
119) The Writer's Guild script registration service.
120) Readers will forgive factual errors if you make them laugh enough.
121) The larger the Harry Potter books become, the more value they'll have as family heirlooms.
122) The rule of three in bridge.
123) The rule of three in comedy.
124) Instant French fried pudding sticks.
125) Morning radio (because it feels so good when you turn it off!).
126) The Albighensian Heresy.
127) The Seinfeldian Heresy.
128) Low interest personal loans.
129) Dispatches from the edge. Or, at least, not so close to the damn centre.
130) Public health care.
131) Substance over style.
132) Reason over passion.
133) Eggs over easy.
134) I could put practically anything on this list, and you would find meaning in it.
135) Chicken lips. (See?)
136) The Patruschko-Lazarre Opening Gambit...Declined.
137) You know that time of the morning? You're not quite awake, but you're not asleep any more, and you can't tell the difference between waking and dreaming, reality and desire. You know that time? Well, not that, but something sort of like it.
138) God. If he didn't exist, we would have had to invent him.
139) Automated Teller Machines (ATMs): they allow the plebes to do their mundane chores while those of us with important business can be assisted by tellers.
140) Lips like sugar...sugar kisses.
141) Intellectual masturbation. (Hey - I'll take my exercise anywhere I can get it!)
142) Marilu Henna.
143) Interactive bedhead forever.
144) Keeping it real, homey. (Or, was that keeping it home, really? Boudrillard would know...)
145) Hedging your bets with hedgerow clippers.
146) The ebb of life, and some of its flow.
147) Getting a babysitter at the last moment.
148) The anniversary of the invention of the plastic nipple.
149) Official bilingualism: la plume de ma tante est sur la table tous les jours!
150) Suffragettes have their own city.
151) Ronnie Rocket, because David Lynch can dream.
152) Giving pets names (giving you the opportunity to get revenge on your parents for the name they gave you).
153) Low brow high tech.
154) The Plains of Abraham.
155) The planes of her face.
156) Plain speaking.
157) Elastic waistbands.
158) Knowing now what you didn't know then. (If you didn't know it now, years from now, you would be lamenting that you didn't know then - now - what you know now - in the future. You should think about things like this every now and then.)
159) Sunshine on your face (for at least another four billion years).
160) You're not Moammar Khadafy, Jeffrey Dahmer or Rush Limbaugh. Especially Rush Limbaugh.
161) Being unilingual (because you can't understand insults in other languages).
162) Being bilingual (because you can watch CPAC in both official languages).
163) Being multilingual (because you'll be able to deal with Asians when their economies overtake ours).
164) M&Ms (especially the colours you don't like).
165) They might be giants. (And, what are we gonna do unless they are?)
166) 2 + 2 still = 4.
167) Rio doesn't have an ice hockey team.
168) Other people's crazy ideas and foolish behaviours.
169) Repetition with variation.
170) Other people's crazy taste in partners and foolish clothes choices.
171) Arts communities.
172) Alison Janney (for no particular reason).
173) Not needing a reason to celebrate.
174) Indecision. (I think...)
175) Not having to conduct extensive market research before putting pen to paper.
176) Times when words are not necessary.
177) Integrity.
178) Integers.
179) Internal combustion.
180) Not spontaneously combusting...yet.
181) Little fluffy clouds.
182) Traveling hopefully.
183) Arriving.
184) Nstnt mssgng (because vowels are soooooo overrated).
185) Facial tissue (not Kleenex, because Kleenex is a trademarked brand name, and anybody who uses it without - oh, shit!)
186) Quicktime. (Who wants to watch slow movies?)
187) Quicklime. (Who wants to spend an afternoon disposing of a body when there are fast movies to watch?)
188) In the end, there is only the end.
189) Disagreeing with David Frum.
190) Ballpoint Penn and Automatic Teller.
191) Singing in the shower.
192) I never had any desire to be a self-help guru.
193) Beaux and Eros.
194) Hunting and gathering at Wal-Mart.
195) Michelle Forbes. (Sorry, Allison.)
196) Term limits for quadratic equations.
197) A well-provisioned larder.
198) A functioning bladder. (No comedian should ever be withou - what were you thinking?)
199) Perfect pitch (as important for writers as it is for musicians).
200) You had nothing to do with the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. (And, if you did, you have my sympathies.)
201) Not being around when others are singing in the shower.
202) The Home Shopping Network doesn't sell chocolate.
203) Anarchists are, by definition, unorganized.
204) Parallel lines don't meet where you can grab a hold of them.
205) Being able to read your own handwriting.
206) Kelly Lynch. (Tall women - what can I say? I prefer not to think of it as the sign of a Napoleon Complex - I've never wanted to conquer Europe, after all. I prefer to think of it as an attraction to women I can look up to...)
207) You don't live in Afghanistan.
208) If you do live in Afghanistan, you don't live in Iraq.
209) A virus didn't kill your computer yesterday.
210) A virus hasn't killed your computer so far today.
211) Tomorrow is an unknowable mystery.
212) Nobody has hung a "We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by." sign on your life.
213) The persistence of inner vision.
214) Folk wisdom, like: "If you look around the table and you can't identify the freak, it's you."
215) There are bigger losers in the world than you. You can find them by turning to the latest reality television programme.
216) If you have been on a reality television programme, you will be forgotten by the time the next new reality television programme oozes its way onto the tube.
217) We don't need another hero.
218) The number of important things that happen in a day can always be summed up in a half hour news broadcast.
219) David Caruso is back on TV where he belongs.
220) Mel Lastman didn't have an interest in federal politics.
221) Your job doesn't include having to calculate how little powdered cheese you can get away with including in the packet in order to maximize the company's profits.
222) Your job doesn't include stunning dumb animals before slaughtering them, much as you might do it for free to some of your co-workers.
223) The Bible wasn't written by Arthur Andersen Consulting.
224) There are seven days in the week, because Thank God It's Thursday just isn't that catchy.
225) People don't feel an overwhelming need to tell "knock knock" jokes any more.
226) You're under Michael Moore's radar.
227) You're under Michael Jackson's radar.
228) Human beings weren't designed with the spleen on the outside.
229) You're no longer forced to learn Latin in grade school.
230) We don't have our IQs tattooed on our foreheads.
231) I make sense most of the time.
232) Life makes sense at any time.
233) The universe is large enough that there is a statistically significant possibility that there is a civilization out there that has never heard of John Tesh.
234) Good villains. (You know what I mean...)
235) Ice cream doesn't come in orange rhinoceros flavour.
236) Champagne doesn't come in popcorn flavour.
237) Sometimes silence says more than words ever could.
238) Internet porn. Whatever else you may think about it, you have to admit that it keeps people you wouldn't want to meet off the streets for much of the time.
239) Reviewers watch the bad movies so you don't have to.
240) The bubonic jerkies is not a real medical condition.
241) Three ring binders.
242) Cell phones going off in a theatre after the curtain has gone up. After all, becoming too involved in a work of fiction is a form of psychosis.
243) Credit cards, more proof (as if more proof were necessary) of the futility of trying to hold on to material things.
244) You got your botox injections before scientists discovered that they just make wrinkles appear on different parts of your face.
245) Avoiding people who believe that bowel movements are an acceptable subject for dinner conversation.
246) Human spines last longer than book spines (the way you read, in any case).
247) Rock stars don't usually have opera training. Deciphering mumbled lyrics has given millions of people hours of innocent pleasure.
248) We don't sneeze at escape velocity.
249) Baby talk - the only truly non-sexist, non-racist language.
250) Your life isn't an episode of Jackass.
251) Egos are easier to inflate than balloons (because, well, uninflated balloons are a threat to relationships far less often than insecure egos).
252) British humour.
253) French cuisine.
254) Japanese technology.
255) American finance.
256) Biological clocks don't need winding.
257) Staples, nature's tiny, perfect paper fasteners.
258) I could have said British cuisine, French technology, Japanese finance and American humour, but didn't.
259) Flat screens, not fat screens.
260) H. L. Mencken wasn't a carpenter.
261) Elephants won't be dancing the samba on your grave.
262) The path less taken.
263) Johnny Cash covering a Nine Inch Nails song. (When reality becomes self-satirizing, it forces satirists to dig deeper.)
264) Good, wholesome, animal sex (except in parts of rural Ontario, where they prefer curling).
265) Since the sun won't go nova for at least three billion years, there's plenty of time to settle the crisis in the Middle East.
266) First blood.
267) The last laugh.
268) Government propaganda. (It relieves citizens of the onerous burden of having to figure things out for themselves.)
269) Breast reduction - a gift for the woman who has everything.
270) After the Big Bang, there were 101 particles of matter for every 100 particles of anti-matter.
271) We may know we're dying, but we'll never know we're dead.
272) You can Jekyll, but you can't Hyde.
273) Second chances.
274) Third chances.
275) Fourth chances.
276) n chances.
277) Forgetting. (You really want Little Nicky to stay with you for the rest of your life?)
278) Cloning, one way to get in touch with your outer child.
279) Embarrassment is rarely cited in Coroners' reports as a cause of death.
280) Enrique "The Big Bad Body Slam" DiFilippo.
281) Interrobang: the evolution of punctuation.
282) Bruce Willis is successful enough that he doesn't have to moonlight as George W. Bush's double.
283) The agony and the ecstasy of flight.
284) Mr. Potatohead - the Spud Stud.
285) Six team hockey leagues.
286) A good story, well told.
287) A bad story, poorly told, but with great special effects.
288) I'll be able to write "1,000 Reasons To Celebrate" to commemorate the publication of the thousandth Les Pages aux Folles article...if I start now.
289) The music of the spheres (closely followed by the music of the pentagons, then the music of the octahedrons, the music of the grammatrons and the music of The Fuggs).
290) The unexpected. (When I say "the unexpected," I mean the good kind, not the kind that makes you go "What the hell was that?" or "That's gonna leave a mark!")
291) Unreality TV (what used to be known as "fiction").
292) Self-reference.
293) Happy endings.
294) Happy middles.
295) Happiness wherever you can find it.
296) Sex, and other pleasures that can be measured with an egg timer.
297) Nobody will ever force you to read a two page spread on George Bush's personality, even if it does appear in the Globe and Mail.
298) Winning. (But, my mother insists that I add: but playing the game well is a good thing, too.)
299) Having enough money to cover all your needs, but not enough money to cover all your wants.
300) Chuck Jones' attitude and Tex Avery's speed.
301) Your next breath.
302) There aren't more women with mouths too big for their faces in Hollywood movies.
303) Excerpt for divorce lawyers, we didn't evolve from piranhas.
304) You don't have to worry about the looming extinction of bananas because you could never digest them anyway.
305) Habeus corpus.
306) Spoons.
307) Double chins: it's good to have a spare because you never know when one will be sheared off your face in a freak industrial accident.
308) Iridescent cherry trees.
309) Every integer except seven.
310) Missing the tree careening down the hill.
311) People who are older than you, because they're slower, so they won't be able to catch you.
312) People who are younger than you, because they don't know as many tricks.
313) People who are your age, because we all need somebody to brag to.
314) Selective inattention.
315) There aren't as many serial killers in the world as you may think.
315) J. A. (damn her).
316) The right ventricle.
317) Clapperboard culture.
318) Recyclable to...to...reycl...uhh, sorry. My mind wandered there for a moment. What was I talking about?
319) Icing, on or off the cake.
320) Being the one who wears the pants suit in the family.
321) Things better left unsaid that actually remain unsaid.
322) Letting x = x.
323) Letting things b.
324) The Bell Curve.
325) Dextrose, soy lecithin, mono and diglycerides, artificial flavours and salt.
326) Laughter - still not taxed.
327) Beautiful voices.
328) Repetition...with variation.
329) Even people who are full of shit have assholes.
330) Wanting what you have.
331) Being impressed despite yourself.
332) The violet end of the spectrum.
333) You can't be ticketed for speeding on a sex drive.
334) Children, the hype of the future.
335) The mouse's moral superiority when the elephant in the bed with it turns over.
336) Mouse pate.
337) Quotation, the Hamburger Helper of the literary world.
338) Modern medicine: a pill for every ill.
339) Tim Horton's. (You don't think they kick Krispy Kreme ass?)
340) Obscure references, because you feel so smart when you understand them.
341) Safety scissors.
342) Before safety scissors were invented, Band Aids.
343) Before Band Aids were invented, leeches.
344) The fact that I'm not going further back into the past than leeches.
345) Cheap thrills.
346) Psychedelic Psundays and Retro Sunday Nights from Joe.
347) The Heimlich Maneuver: a great way to meet people.
348) The Bangles are back!
349) Strawberry rhubarb - nature's perfect fruit.
350) Lichtenstein, which manages to keep its imperial ambitions really well hidden.
351) Vaginas. (But, if you've been reading Les Pages aux Folles faithfully, you already knew that.)
352) The fact that Hunter S. Thompson knew when his time was up and found himself a new gig.
353) When your fridge and your stove communicate, you will have no choice but to diet.
354) Daylight Savings Time.
355) Sheila Copps. If she hadn't been born, Mike Bullard would have had to invent her.
356) Reversible clothing - hours of fun for the chronically indecisive.
357) Newfie humour - the real glue that holds Canada together.
358) A news anchor who doesn't come across as a prettier version of the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.
359) Being an empty vessel.
360) Sailing on an empty vessel.
361) Not being an empty vassal.
362) Valium patches.
363) Racial differences. (Neopolitan ain't just an ice cream flavour, baby!)
364) Above the line costs/below the belt accounting practices.
365) Children's programming. Thanks to The Magic Schoolbus, I know now the difference between the small and large intestines.
366) Pre-ketchupped Kraft dinner.
367) A warm compress applied directly to the achy part of your body.
368) Deconstructing hot tubs.
369) Firmness of purpose (hopefully when coupled with justness of cause).
370) Being able to impress people with made up Latin phrases.
371) De gustibus est non disputandum.
372) Women who have the conviction of their natural hair colour.
373) Nothing is ever as good as its proponents claim, not drugs, not decades, not political systems. If it was, what would there be left to strive towards?
374) Culture jamming. It goes good on toast.
375) Enlightenment nostalgia. How human.
376) The opening of Phone Booth was delayed as long as it was.
377) Inspector Gadget 2 was released straight to video.
378) Tension and release, tension and release - the basic pleasure of dramatic art. (Why? What were you thinking?)
379) Criticism is an equal opportunity offender.
380) That tie really does go with that jacket.
381) Rob Schneider hasn't been chosen to play the knight in the American remake of The Seventh Seal.
382) Loganberry Froot Loops.
383) The American Information Awareness Office. Now, if you forget your debit card PIN number, you can phone John Poindexter to get it.
384) Jack McCoy is always there to make sure the bad guys end up behind bars.
385) The time for bellbottom trousers has truly passed.
386) Nobody ever lost their Canadian citizenship because they didn't listen to Celine Dion.
387) Unstructured time.
388) Not killing the thing you love.
389) Videotapes that last six hours long, even if you don't.
390) Being an organ donor - somebody may as well get some use out of your body when you're done with it.
391) You favourite song appearing in a tacky commercial for a product you'll never buy - it encourages you to listen to new music.
392) Red hair, naturally.
393) High school - because it does end.
394) Being better than you give yourself credit for.
395) Wrinkles, hair loss and other signs of aging - if you pay attention to them, they can keep you from hurting yourself.
396) There is no one "right" way to live. For all you know, yours may be one of the best.
397) The existence of vampires gives you an excuse to eat garlicky food even though it disagrees with you.
398) A dental adhesive so good that it needs no advertising on television.
399) The overblown nature of reporting on generational conflicts.
400) The overblown nature of tornadoes.
401) RePeTiTiOn...WiTh VaRiAtIon.
402) Billy Bob Bo Brain.
403) Paper wraps rock, but scissors cuts paper.
404) Introverts, because somebody has to keep the extroverts honest.
405) The Mogadishu punk rock scene.
406) Wisdom comes in many forms.
407) Sugar comes in many calories.
408) Lobsters swimming in increasingly hot water - a metaphor for all seasons.
409) Body modification - who wants all those freaks around when the Messiah comes and establishes heaven on Earth?
410) Having reasons to celebrate.
411) French fries - your forefathers died so we could eat those potatoes.
412) Books are still so important that an entire cable network has been devoted to them.
413) Relationships: meetings of the mines.
414) We always pay for our pleasures (because we don't value what we haven't earned).
415) Wamba, King of the Spanish Goths.
416) Acing [INSERT YOUR FAVOURITE TEST, TRIAL OR INDOOR SPORT HERE].
417) Whatever.
418) Anna Nicole Smith is not your mother.
419) Suicide is painless. (No it isn't! Slitting your wrists bloody hurts, mate! And, have you ever had your stomach pumped? It's like your body has turned inside out! And, what about people who jump off buildings and only break their legs, or people who shoot themselves and lose half their scalp but still live? Hellooooo! Does anybody actually edit this shit?)
420) Having the freedom to make mistakes.
421) The last times that were not interesting occurred in 1249.
422) What money can't buy.
423) Restaurants where they serve you water even if you haven't asked for it.
424) The smell of the Eglinton subway station.
425) Whispered non-confidences.
426) Living a life of noisy desperation.
427) Mixing whites and colours without a care in the world.
428) Everything is fair game.
429) Flaming asshole is, in the vast majority of cases, just a metaphor.
430) Ozzy Osbourne is not your father.
431) Loyalty. (No, I'm not talking about your relationship with your hairdresser...although I suppose that's a start...)
432) Success doesn't come too easily, because then what would you have to look forward to? (Uhh...lots of sex and toys - oh, and everybody doing what you ask them to and, and - are you nuts? Success should never be hard!)
433) Midnight, when the mole people come out to play. (What? You don't know about the mole people? Where were you taught - a private school? How can anybody claim to be alive and not know about the mole people? You know what? Forget the mole people. This reason will be about...puppies or shit.)
434) Dreams remain private (otherwise, we would all be in deep, deep trouble with our mothers).
435) Slug obedience classes.
436) Mozart didn't write many drum solos.
437) The ability to let out clothes (especially after a holiday).
438) Staedtler Stick 430Fs, and lots of 'em!
439) Having enough money in the bank that it doesn't charge you a fee just for having your money in the bank.
440) Whether the cat in the box is dead or alive really has no bearing on interest rates.
441) Open arms, an open heart, open source.
442) You haven't won the lottery, because people respect the money they earn much more than money they win.
443) The leader board doesn't engage in lengthy procedural debates before motions are called.
444) Belief - because if everybody questioned everything, who would make toast in the morning?
445) Dead parrots - who would have thought they could be so much fun?
446) You weren't born a medieval knight, because the job opportunities for people with chivalric skills are really slight these days.
447) Watching lite dawn on somebody. (Thank advertising.)
448) Smiley toxic waste dump warnings.
449) Pushing luck (when it doesn't push back).
450) You can't live inside another person's head, even if most people's heads have a lot of leg room.
451) There isn't an all "Stairway to Heaven" radio station. Especially not in digital audio.
452) The little things in life. (Short people need love, too.)
453) Dolphins make lousy union bosses.
454) Connecting on the first attempt.
455) Little fluffy toasters.
456) Not being superstitious (knock on wood).
457) Cheap irony (because it's about all most people can afford).
458) Still having wood to knock on, because our ancestors didn't have the foresight to develop superstitions about knocking on Lucite.
459) The rebel clef, because classical music is way too sedate.
460) Spam, not only a wholesome, nutritious foodstuff, but an excellent reason for lowered productivity.
461) I don't do this happy shit more often - man, does it get boring after a while!
462) In fact, the fact that I never feel bound by the premises of my columns...