Who do I still think I am??

T1'sA pills, music and humor (in condescending order).

30DBC PROMPT: "Invalid Entry" , courtesy of Charlie ~ .

What's goin' on y'all? Today is a great day in the history of all non-official months of the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  (at least in the last two years or so). Not gonna lie...the first thing I did after I came home from work and got settled this afternoon was open up the 30DBC forum to see what today's prompt was (because there wasn't one again last night before I went to sleep, and there still wasn't one before I left for work this morning). I saw that there was an entry written for today, but it wasn't authored by who I thought it would be by...and once I opened the link I said to myself, "See, someone gets it!"

Back in the old, old, old days, the "Follow Me" version of the 30DBC was nearly as popular as its hotter, sexier, prize-wielding cousin, otherwise known as the "Official Months". People took it seriously. They cared. And they respected their fellow challengers. When the schedule of prompts came out (and it was no different then than it is now), your entry- not your prompt, but your entry- was ready first thing in the morning, if not sooner, and usually no later than noon. And if something came up, you switched days with someone else...sorta like when you work in retail. If there's an emergency and you're not able to come in to work, you find someone that can cover your shift, and if you can't then it's up to the boss to pick up the slack. Now, I know this isn't work, and I get that it's supposed to be a fun practice activity, but (and trust me, my preferences on this matter are farther from this discussion than most others' are) to some people not having a prompt in a timely manner isn't just a minor inconvenience, but it also puts others who may reside in different areas of the world at a disadvantage...take for example the people who live in New Zealand, where they're in a perpetual tomorrow compared to me on the United States' east coast. I don't know the exact difference in hours, but say it's 3pm by me (which would also coincidentally be WDC time)...it's probably past some bedtimes over on the other side of the planet.

All I'm sayin' is have some consideration for the folks runnin' with ya each month (especially when it's a month where we're the ones supplying the prompts). Not to mention that it's kinda rude to leave a group of people hangin'...if you're not gonna be able to contribute your part, that's quite ok, as long as you let someone else know. I'm not sayin' this because I'm mad, but I'm a little frustrated (and I know I'm not the only one), and I respect everyone who has the courage to blog with some of the most talented people on WDC for thirty straight days and share in something that's specific only to the same group of people each month...we're unique compared to the group from February of 2011, and there won't be another cast of characters quite like us down the road.

Alright, I'm climbin' off my rocking chair now...so sorry not sorry to start off today's entry with a lecture.

So my man Charlie found us a prompt and had the grapes to post it after a reasonable amount of time had passed..."If you could get all the nutrition you needed in a day with a pill   — no worrying about what to eat, no food preparation — would you do it?" He raises good points in his entry about it being cost-prohibitive and whether or not certain cravings could come into play, but I think there are some other things to consider as well.

I'd like to say no, and it's not just because I fear it would fall under consideration as a Genetically Modified Organism (or GMO, which I won't get into today but is a battle prompt itself if I've ever heard one before). Look y'all, I take enough pills as it is on a daily basis. Pills to wake up, pills to make me happy, pills to make me not wanna choke a fool, pills that make me dizzy, pills that keep me from falling over, pills to- is it to lower my cholesterol or my blood pressure? I don't even remember- and pills to make me sleepy...I don't need another pill.

Besides, last time I worked in a drug store, they actually already sold pills that provided all your daily nutrition. They're called multivitamins. And they're not meant to replace food, but I'm also not here to get all sciencey on you about that either because I'm not smart like that. I also don't know the history of food, or why some of it comes up from the ground, or whoever came up with the idea that certain parts of different animals taste better when you combine them with fire. No, friends. No.

The real vice here is twofold: flavor, and oral fixations. We want things that appeal to our sense of taste, while keeping all the mechanisms used in the process of that particular skill set satisfied. Taking a fancy, newfangled nutrition pill doesn't remedy what we're really looking to satiate. There is a big, juicy world full of sensations waiting to be indulged by all that your face can take. Your jaws long to be worked and stretched, your lips and tongue want to massage its feast, and you can bask in the filling delight of your throated glory. Perhaps a meager little pill can only simulate the tiniest of these pleasures, but to feel the greatest stimulation you must take in no substitutes. A thick, hearty diet should be the answer for appetites of all types.

BCF PROMPT: "Does music speak to you or is it just noise?"

"Or is it just noise?" Oh, this guy! "Turn that noise down! We're trying to do some real non-noise stuffs here!" Screw that guy good with a hot curling iron. Yeah.

Look, I get it. We all have our tastes, our likes and preferences, and whatnot. About everything. I like music. It's an art form (FYI Charlie ~ and Future Mrs. B , my spell-check doesn't recognize "artform" as a word, so I hereby declare all spell-checkers invalid and communist). I don't get on Facebook and Twitter whenever Game Of Thrones or whatever the white trash real housewife flavor of the month's show is on and start rippin' shit like "historical inaccuracy" this and "oh no she diiii-iiiiint" that, so I'd prefer the same courtesy regarding a cultural medium I happen to enjoy even if you don't.

Case in point: I was friends with this guy on Facebook a few years back...we'd grown up a few streets away from each other, and we were both kinda losers, but we weren't friends, which is weird because usually losers hang in packs, but whatever. He's one of those people that you don't talk to for twenty years and you've forgotten about until he friend requests you, so you accept, and then he starts chatting you up as if he's your bestie and knows all your personal biz...he's one of the reasons I've disabled the Facebook chat feature.

So anyway, the day before a concert that my friends and I were going to, I changed my profile picture to the cover of the album that band would be playing the next night (it was a tour celebrating the 10th anniversary of their breakout album). Then I posted a video from that same album, with something like "Can't wait to see these guys tomorrow night!" or some other lame shit. My buddies all liked it, and we shared our enthusiasm in a very guy-ish way...until this guy comes along. He's like, "Those fags suck." And I lost it. I tore into him because 1) you don't call anyone a fag ever; 2) you're entitled to a respectful opinion, and it's ok to disagree with me, but come at me with something better than "fags suck"; and 3) trying to overemphasize your point by claiming the shit being passed off as "country music" these days is "so much better" and is "real music" (especially when you grew up ten minutes from the 'hood and probably still don't live all that far from it) just makes you sound real silly.

See, here's the thing. To paraphrase some famous quote from someone smarter than most of us (you can Google it if you want; I'm not inclined), "Those who can, do. Those who can't, mock and try to tear down those who can out of jealousy and the empty heartache in their own social life." I think it's great that people have certain abilities and are better than others at different things than we are. It takes all kinds to make this big ol' ball of Earth go 'round. I don't have any real musical talent (unless you consider playing Rockband on Xbox "musical talent"), but I have appreciation and respect. I don't go into McDonalds and tell you your fries suck, so don't tell me what shouldn't be bouncin' around my earholes.

I think that answers your question.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

This may or may not have been the video in question, but I know this definitely is the band.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

"What kind of world would this be if there was no humor?"

Good question. This world is a messed-up mess of a mess as it is with humor, so remove that from the equation and it'd be boring and lifeless. We'd be miserable, or worse, apathetic. There's nothing more frustrating than someone who lacks the capacity to give a shit, and the world would be pretty much divided into camps of people who either don't care or hate the people who don't care. Humor gives us an ability to laugh at some really terrible things while letting us know it's ok to do so. Humor can bridge cultural barriers and unite competing forces. How many of us would struggle to get through a day without your (or someone else's) sense of humor? Because sometimes, all you can do about life is laugh. Even when it's not easy, or if it's the only emotion left your body hasn't spent. When you think about all this time you spend doin' that life thing, are you gonna wanna remember the sad parts, or will you cherish the times you laughed so hard maybe you cried or even peed a little? It's easier to change wet drawers than it is to carry a piss-poor attitude around. Unless you don't have a spare set of drawers...in which case you might be considered Miles Davis  .

So work...yeah, I made it though the day, but I sat down a lot and it wasn't too busy. One of my coworkers also sells candles on the side...you know, those mega marked-up, "home party" candles out of a catalog. Party-Lite or whatever. Hey, if that's your thing, cool...I'm not one to discourage another person from tryin' to make an extra buck or two. But, ummm, we take in donated clothes and redistribute them to low-income families, so maybe there isn't a whole lot of crossover clientele, dig what I'm sayin'? And truthfully, some of these quote-unquote scents? Light cat piss on fire, because it's way cheaper than these things. They're that atrocious, no joke. Some of the citrusy-themed ones smell like garbage one day before it's absolutely too late to change it without it clouding your entire habitable airspace with the funk of leftover vegetables rotting. There were like forty or fifty samples she had me smell, to "get a guy's perspective". I think I liked six, and two of them were strawberryish.

Well, I think you've had about enough of this for another night...guess I should see what I've missed out on in the time it's taken me to carve up a few more indignant and irreverent notches in your ISP's bandwidth. Peace, words have taught me that words are folly, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!