![]() |
My fourth blog. Amazing yet disconcerting. Don't worry; this'll go away in a year or so. |
![]() Hey guys...sorry for the prolonged absence and everything. I just really needed to finish judging the Official January Round of the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() And in all of this mess, I've come to find out that I've been one of the last to be eliminated from brothernature's Unofficial Elimination-Style Fundraiser Challenge Event Thing...I've never felt more confused and alive at the same time. Does that mean I still have to write about today's prompt? Did we even get a prompt? Feels like there's been too my emails, IM's and forum posts since the last prompt I remember seeing, and I'm too lazy/spent to go back looking. But do I get an exit interview? Any parting shots gifts? Anything? I'll just take the satisfaction that my end of the participation chain is over, and I can see how this plays out over the next two days if I so choose from a safe distance. Good luck to the fortunate few still stuck in this madness duking it out for the sake of the blogging community...as the good doctor Hunter S. Thompson once said, "Buy the ticket; take the ride.", and I have and did and will. ![]() Huh...never thought I'd be asked that question. Might sound silly, 'cuz I'm not expecting any of y'all cats to come around here anytime soon, but I just figured whatever you guessed would be on my walls is what's actually on them. Although...this is a rental, and I'm not into puttin' holes in the walls that I'll have to worry about at a later date. I actually don't have a whole lot goin' on in this place...some adhesive hooks for jackets and hoodies, a wooden clock my uncle made, and a calendar which ironically doesn't do much to help me remember what day it is. Oh, and a mirror, in case I ever want to see how terrible my hair looks on any particular day. That's it. I'm not going crazy on decorating because I don't plan on being here forever, it's a small space, and I don't really have a whole lot of stuff to begin with anymore. Plus, I pretty much outgrew posters after high school, and most of the photographs I own are of people I don't wish to be reminded of on a consistent basis. If I want to look at pictures I'll go on Facebook. And I've always been a bit of a minimalist anyway with the decorating. Let someone who's more capable at it do the damn thing. I couldn't really be bothered; I'd rather be sprucing up the place with language anyway. Playing to my strengths. I'm not out to impress anyone right now...if you're looking at what my walls say about me for clues as to who I am, maybe you should take a closer look at me instead. Jus' sayin'. ![]() ![]() Again, not a question I think I've ever been asked before. It's not like people have thought to visit by pondering the statistical chance they'll be robbed or murdered in my vicinity. It usually doesn't come up in conversation. And I'll speak on this topic in Buffalo terms, because that's what I'm most familiar with even though I reside in Cortland (which is much closer to Syracuse)...for some reason I still seem to get more news updates from Western NY than the central part of the state, but that's what happens when you rely on Facebook as your primary news source on most days. Also, most of the crimes around here seem to be more petty, like chickens getting stolen and meth-heads fighting over their last few teeth. And like many places, some years are worse than others, but if I had to guess (and I am because I'm far too lazy to Google any actual statistics) I'd say murder is the biggest problem as far as reported and known-of crimes. Buffalo isn't the murder capital of the world by any means, but someone's always gettin' shot up or stabbed if you pay any attention to the news. The only plus to that is there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of "white collar crime", but that's probably due to the dwindling amount of white collars in the area. But that doesn't mean it's an unsafe community. Crime happens everywhere unfortunately, and often it's the most sensational of occurrences that become the ones you hear the most about. It's not "who died", but "who's watching" that broadcasters seem to focus on. Ratings trump results; details are secondary. If you're basing where you want to live on what you see during a half-hour news telecast, you wouldn't move anywhere. And you might laugh at that, but you know it's true. Earlier this week it was announced out of nowhere that Blur is dropping a new album in 2015 ![]() And I think that during the whole mid-nineties Britpop explosion that crossed over to the US, which gave us Oasis and Radiohead primarily, Blur got overlooked. They were just the band with the "Woo Hoo!" song ![]() I really dug "Song 2" though, and as a young adult consumer I wanted to check out more of this band, but with minimal risk in case all their songs didn't sound like that one and I didn't like them...so I joined a record club. And I selected Blur's greatest hits compilation. Y'all know record clubs...you've seen the ads: "Get 12 cds for a penny!" and you rip off the stamps depicting the cds you want and tape a penny to a card and mail it in, and six weeks later you get a box full of cds with a bill for $32 because shipping & handling...and you have to buy more at ridiculously marked up prices, because suddenly it's a commitment and the more you buy, the more they give you, and there's almost no end in sight. But there is...because no one pays them. Don't be lookin' at me like you ain't never stiffed a record club, because everyone's done it at some point...I don't care how innocent you are or how perfect your damn credit is. Oh sure, they might send you a collection notice, and that $32 s&h charge becomes $57.28 after awhile with interest, until it gets sent to another agency that's willing to settle for $17.45, and you pay it no mind because eventually it gets written off. It costs them more to try and track down your delinquent ass than what you owe them, or even the actual value of the merchandise you received. But you didn't hear none of that from me ![]() ![]() And this is the first song on that Blur compilation, which I listened to in heavy rotation when my extended family took that Caribbean cruise many Easters ago. "Beetlebum". I know what it's really about (heroin), but to me it's also about not doing anything...being lazy, letting life get out from under you for a bit, and not worrying about any repercussions. There's a nervous sense of enjoyment I attach to this song...maybe because of what I was feeling when I was really getting into the music along with the situations I was in between family and the girl I was dating at the time back home and being on a vacation of that magnitude. I could just wake up, have breakfast, pop in my earphones, grab a spot down next to the bar on the boat for awhile with some Long Island Iced Teas, and lay in the sun with zero fucks to give for a week. Sure, life would catch up to me eventually...but it'd have to catch me first, and I wasn't gonna let it for as long as possible. "She turns me on and all my violence is gone... Nothing is wrong. I just slip away and I am gone." Lyrics. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() And I think that's as good a place as any to end tonight's conversation with you. Maybe I'll see ya again sometime. Peace, because you're young, and GOODNIGHT NOW!! |