choose_your_own_adventure raze i used to love reading these books, making the first wrong turn i could, craving the grisly end. sometimes i wonder if some seed of that hasn't survived and doesn't poke its way into my adult decision-making now and then. "turn to page 62! get eaten by snakes!" 131108 ... raze "turn to page 28. you go to meet someone at some bar you've never been to before. she doesn't show up. you buy a drink and shoot some pool. you are then eaten by snakes!" 131108 ... raze "turn to page 37. the person who was supposed to meet you at the bar was actually sitting at a tim hortons while you were shooting pool, expecting you to walk through the door, because she isn't capable of writing down the name of the place she suggests you meet at herself and has her assistant do that for her, and her assistant apparently thinks tim hortons is a sports bar. she sends a text message to your land line, sends you facebook messages telling you you've wasted half an hour of her time and that isn't cool, and throws in a sad face to underline what a disappointment you are, when she's the one who was in the wrong place and the only mistake you've made is assuming she was paying attention to what came out of her own mouth when you talked on the phone. you are then eaten by snakes!" 131112 ... raze "turn to page 109. you have made a grave error of assumption. it was not her assistant who erred in the planning, but rather a voice-activated application for her phone, whose name you mistook for that of an assistant who, as it turns out, doesn't exist. she apologizes. you make plans to meet again on sunday, at a place that isn't a bar, where she will be easier to find if she shows up. you are then eaten by snakes!" 131114 ... raze "today is the day you're supposed to meet. turn to page 52 to show up at the agreed-upon place. turn to page 20 to stay home and eat eighteen hot dogs." 131117 ... raze "you turn to page 52. this has only now started behaving like a proper choose-your-own-adventure thing. you failed to pick up on that initially. but all's well that turns into what it was supposed to be. you meet at the place that isn't a bar. she shows up this time. you are not eaten by snakes, but eighteen hotdogs die of a collective broken heart. you mourn them the best way you know how — by buying a christmas present to mail to your friend in the philippines." 131117 what's it to you? who go blather from