Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about more conspiracies, a meal, and corruption.

30DBC PROMPT: "Things are a little wild around here this morning so I am going to go with picking an interesting article and give your views on it. Personally I have been enjoying Huffington Post links on my Facebook account but you go with what interests you."

Hey people! We've got a lot to get to today and I don't wanna lose my place in "Barrel of Monkeys" , so I'm gonna jump right into this tonight, if you don't mind.

It's been kinda a slow news day on Facebook...where the saddest thing is that I've joined the many millions of people who now get the majority of their news via any form of social media. I suppose if you use Twitter to hear gossip about your favorite celebs, that's better than getting no news at all about anything. Not by much though .

But yeah, Facebook caught me up on some happenings in WNY...a string of arsons set in a suburb, a 12 year old kid riding his bike at an intersection I grew up near was hit by a car and killed, and of course the daily Bon Jovi bashing speculation about who's gonna wind up owning the Bills. Well, if you're like me, after a long day you almost want no part of any real news. That's why I'm sharing with you 10 Internet Lies That Won't Die  , provided by Mental_Floss (and yes, this is the kind of story I'd normally put at the end of a blog entry, but it's too interesting not to use it as the response to today's prompt, given all the crap going on in the world...and I wasn't put here to be the source of anything but your distractions ).

Hopefully, this article puts to bed some of the crazier stories being perpetuated by people who have nothing better to do than read and believe everything they see on the internet (I know I've seen #2 shared word-for-word as a Facebook status more than a few times over the years). Of course, it's making me a little sad that so many people won't see this article or my blog entry about it, and sure enough two days from now someone's gonna post a link to the story about #3, probably from I Fucking Love Science   and also probably without having read the article...which will also have the true story, but they just thought the picture was so cool man. Those people need to stop being helped with "the world wide webs" or whatever they called it back in '93.

My favorite though is #10, about the Victorian Era man supposedly hit by a car in 1950. If the internet has exposed how gullible certain members of society are, this story claims that YouTube didn't invent the hoax as an art form.

BCF PROMPT: "Can you single out a perfect meal? What was your experience either making it or eating it? Were you alone, at a party or with someone memorable?"

Straight up? Nope, I can't. And I've had my fair share of meals over (most of my) 39 years. I know I've cooked some great meals, but something always seems to not be right (or goes flat-fuck wrong) and you can't call that perfect. Same probably for any "special" meal someone's tried to cook for me...especially when the biggest detail I can remember now is not what we ate, or the ambiance surrounding the occasion, or even the bill at the end, but either that we're no longer together, or the fancier restaurants are now closed (or both).

But memorable meals don't have to be fancy, or homemade, or shared with anyone. Sometimes, all you need in life is a fresh peanut butter and jelly sandwich...nothing more, nothing less. Well, maybe you want two fresh peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but you know what I'm sayin'. It's ready in seconds, it satisfies, and there's minimal cleanup and wait times to fully relax off the satisfaction of your hunger being assuaged by the original comfort food, as endorsed by six year olds like...oh man...this guy:

If someone tells you you're putting too much PB on your PB&J, don't listen to them.
You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

And really, there's something seriously wrong with you if you fuck up the creation of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Talk about ruining what should be a sublime moment.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

Looks like it's my turn again for Team O-Tang in the "Barrel of Monkeys" , following Charlie ~ 's entry "Invalid Entry" . My letter is D, and there's so many great D songs to choose from, but I'm going semi-obscure (again) with "Dwarf Invasion" by Reggie And The Full Effect.

RATFE is basically a side project of The Get Up Kids' keyboardist, James Dewees  , covering all sorts of different genres..."On the various Reggie albums, James has created a series of different personas that appear as "guests" on the album. One of these personalities is "Klaus", the frontman for the fictional Finnish metal band Common Denominator. There have been four Common Denominator songs on Reggie and the Full Effect albums; "Dwarf Invasion" on Promotional Copy, "Linkin' Verbs" on Under the Tray, "Deathnotronic" on Songs Not to Get Married To, and "Dmv Featuring Common Denominator" on No Country for Old Musicians. The other personality present on many of his albums is "Fluxuation", a British techno-pop star. His credits include "Gloves" on Promotional Copy, "Mood 4 LUV" on Under the Tray, "Love Reality" on Songs Not to Get Married To, and "Sundae, Booty Sundae, Feat: Fluxuation" on No Country for Old Musicians." I saw them play a show where they opened up as Fluxuation and played two or three songs, then came out as RATFE and played their standard, post-punk/emo hits for an hour and a half, and then they closed the show with a five or six song set from Common Denominator ("Go buy a t-shirt! You must go buy a t-shirt!") It was hysterical to see a band play an entire three-act gig in a tiny club as their different alter-egos.

I chose "Dwarf Invasion" because although "Deathnotronic"   is a better song with a funny/weird video, there was an online role-playing game that came out nearly 15 years ago where you were members of all these different emo bands going through these phases while trying to get to a Jimmy Eat World concert (if I'm not mistaken). It was crazy! But it was super fun, and I know I wasted a whole lot of time on days off playing it until it was removed from the internet...until now! It's back! Emo Game  ! (I know...original title, right?) Battling the evil Steven Tyler! With more levels! I soooo need to finish off this entry, print down the commands again, and pick up where I left off in 2002!

Oh yeah, from what I remember the "Dwarf Invasion" level was both hilarious and super hard.

"You can barely stand up to me.
You can't play basketball...this is Dwarf Invasion!!"
Lyrics.  

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

"Power corrupts; so does money, beauty, sex, freedom and health." Have you had any experiences with a person who has become morally or politically corrupt? Do people need to be persuaded like Shakespeare's Macbeth or does it happen on its own?"

I wanna say in some cases it happens subtly, without being being fully aware that there are powers like beauty, sex and money seducing them. I mean, how many fairly sane people would knowingly become enthralled by something enough to want to kill someone, without having anything to gain? But there are a lot of values and variables at play in this prompt, and I'm having a hard time coming up with a story that isn't lame or doesn't skirt the issue completely.

I've seen girls end relationships by cheating because they felt like they had no other way out of a bad situation, and the opportunity to find someone hopefully better presented itself but she wasn't willing enough to risk being alone in case the affair didn't work out. I've witnessed money going straight to some people's heads, only being able to hopelessly stand by and watch them piss it all away. And I've seen the damage done by a person's ego when they're not in the right frame of mind to consider the full consequences of their actions.

Is there persuasion there? Sure, most of the time...but that's not to say it also doesn't happen on its own. Not everyone is wired with the ability to keep themselves away from troubling situations. What looks like a no-brainer, common sense situation to you could be the thrill of the chase to someone else. The combination of both forces is really what I think leads people into abyss' end of poor decision-making...the will to pull oneself out of the depths their choices have led them to has disintegrated and been replaced by the lust for power, money, drugs, sex, you name it. The inability to separate the feelings of reason and chance. We may know when we're alone and not tempted, we won't have anything to worry about...but add a second party to the mix that knows how to play to your evil intentions, and all sortsa crazy shit can happen.

So I came across this article today while looking for something newsy...Girl Leaves For Vacation; Cubicle Gets "Lego'd"  , and I must say, I read it with a certain amount of joy. See, on my last day at Capco before school starts, my supervisor will be in Washington DC for a training seminar...and there are still a ton of Lego's in her office from the outdoor movie night we sponsored a few weeks ago (we were giving out little Lego kits to all the kids...and I was in Buffalo so I missed it). So now I'm thinkin' I have to do this. Somehow, someway.

Speaking of work, I was officially done with my 9am-4pm shift around 10am this morning. The other regular was a few minutes late, the donations we didn't get to on Thursday still hadn't been done (even though I was there yesterday working on more stuff that had been dropped off), a couple of families brought in their obnoxious kids (and lemme tell ya, the apples didn't fall very far from their ridiculous trees), and yeah, it was crazy busy again with drop-offs. Luckily we had some extra help in the afternoon...and one of the Mormon Sisters likes my Radiohead shirt and complimented me on it . But yeah, I was ready to choke some brats this morning, for real. It was early, I slept poorly (I'm back on that kick again, I guess), I hadn't had coffee, and random loud noises when I'm concentrating on other things jolt my anxiety to levels where if I become uncomfortable, I have to make everyone else uncomfortable as well. And to top it all off, just as we're ready to walk out for the day, another huge donation came in...so we're gonna come in tomorrow while the shop is closed for a little bit to get caught up. Good thing I like going there.

And that's my day, y'all...hopin' for an early night as well, but we'll see. Peace, thank you very much for having us in your country, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!