Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about the bad guy, 500 days of BC, and words.

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Ugh...what's happenin'? I just woke up a little while ago from a nap I didn't expect to take, ate a quick dinner that was basically half a bag of pizza Combos, and I have no idea how I'm gonna feel like pullin' out an entire entry this evening. But that's for me to worry about, and not saddle you guys with.

Sorry, people of the "Invalid Item" ...the "teddy bears in a suitcase" picture was just too cute for my liking today. And I just realized it's more like an envelope with a stamp in the corner, but my inattentiveness at 11am has no bearing (oh geez...no pun intended) on my choice tonight.

So about the guy in this picture instead...there's an ominous tone going on here, as in wherever this guy ends up next, everyone else is probably gonna have a bad time. Whether he's gonna jump from that building, or retreat back inside and head for a conference room with some kind of assault weapon designed to take out mass quantities of white collar criminals, the only breath of certainty I have is that there won't be a happy ending.

I'm inclined to think that a mass shooting is gonna occur. Maybe because anytime one happens in our country, the media dickrides it for clicks and giggles as a means of keepin' the fear fresh...whatever "fear" that is. And I'm not trying to trivialize any recent tragedy, but you can pretty much swap out names, locations, and bodycounts, and the story is basically the same. <young white male> enters <site> in <location>, opens fire, and kills <x-amount of> people. The only thing different is the killer's backstory, but even then how much variance is there...or, perhaps more importantly, how much is the media willing to tell us?

And I wasn't gonna approach this angle, but since I'm wingin' this entry anyway I may as well. On Tuesday in the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" , I posed this prompt: "When a situation such as a mass shooting occurs, a lot of people tend to throw out their own theories regarding what needs to take place in order to prevent them from happening again. Often you'll hear someone say there should be a better focus on mental health, but seldom does anyone saying this go into detail it seems. What do you think someone suggesting mental health as a solution to violence is referring to?" And I haven't had a chance to see everyone's responses yet, but the mental health aspect is very curious to me because it feels like the media wants to throw around the phrase "mental health" without actually going into detail as far as what they mean and how exactly they think it should be addressed. I think it's a valid question from a general reporting standpoint alone, but it's also concerning to me because I'm considered a mental health patient due to severe depression and anxiety...if this is an issue worthy of discussion every time some kid shoots up a church or school, then any particular social outcome may lead to ramifications for people like myself down the road.

I mean, ok...that could be a bit of a stretch, but given the nature of the subject it's gonna be something that stays in the back of my mind whenever violence like this occurs. Certain mental health illnesses are still stigmatized in many societies, even as we become more accepting and understanding of them. It's a complex topic alone, and it's clouded even more by people who aren't clear in what they're trying to say when speaking about it at a national level. This tends to confuse people who aren't familiar with the subject, and what happens when there's confusion? We make assumptions and lump everyone into the same basic categories...leading to the stigmatization of what is generalized as "mental illness". It becomes a circle that everyone who isn't afflicted with it or affected by it seems to become an expert on, without really saying anything in terms of what they mean or how to go about determining what role it plays in certain tragedies. It can be frustrating to someone like me, who has to consider how the general public reacts in these circumstances. How much information will I have to disclose to an employer, who may decide not to hire me because I have an illness that has led a tiny percentage of people to do terrible things? Who else needs to know, and how much? Even though I'm absolutely on the side of less guns and wouldn't know how to go about hurting anyone with one, it only takes enough politicians to say they don't want to take any chances with people like me if they want to restrict our freedoms "for the sake of preventing senseless tragedies in the future". Don't laugh...if it's ok for Joe Sixpack gun owner to be concerned that the government wants to take away his huntin' rifle, then I have just as much reason to be concerned that America wants a return to pre-20th century institutionalization for those with mental disorders. I'm critical enough of a thinker to understand that neither scenario in this argument is likely, but don't we all occasionally fall down the "what if" rabbit hole? If one of the many roles of media is meant to encourage discussion, and discussion opens up avenues for change, intelligent people should be able to rationalize both sides of the topic. The problem is that most corporately-controlled media outlets come with prepackaged agendas that blind and bind everyone into a black/white, us-versus-them mentally, and intelligence gets thrown out the window.

I could continue, but I've rambled so far off the original purpose that it's better if I just save that for another day and start reeling this entry in. Suppose this guy is just an average, normal guy on the surface. Maybe he works in this building, with bankers or lawyers or executive types. He sees what goes on...unscrupulous activity, legal loopholes, etc. He knows people are getting screwed by interest rates, bad mortgage deals, and higher-ups who are just lining their pockets on the backs of everyday people like him. And he's had enough. He could call them out on it, and risk losing his job and his livelihood, or he can take matters into his own hands and eliminate another negative force in society. He's got a choice to make, and neither one is going to end well for him. He knows he can't live with himself much longer if he's associating with crooks who will never see the inside of a jail cell. He has to ask himself which option he would prefer, if the closest outcome either way is death. There's no right answer. There are no winners here.

"Create a set of circumstances which a reasonable person would indeed cry over spilled milk. Or, create something with an unwise owl, a disloyal dog, a demanding cat, a slow rabbit and a fast turtle...a story, a poem; make it yours."

First, congrats to Lyn's a sly fox and everyone in Blog City on hitting Day 500! How exciting! That's a pretty solid milestone...here's to 500 more!

I honestly don't know what to do with either prompt offered up today. I could try to make something outta spilled milk, but I don't even like milk and the expression itself doesn't inspire me.

And I really don't feel like writing a poem or a story at the moment...even if the prompt with the different animals sorta feels like it'd be something out of a cutaway in an episode of Family Guy. I could totally see Peter saying something like "Yeah, like that time I was stuck in a knock-off of the Enchanted Forest, and instead of Winnie The Pooh I had to deal with a dog that constantly stole money from me and sold all my junk to support his outta control honey pie habit..." and then you'd see a clip of an orange-ish, overweight dog wearing only a t-shirt as he gets stuck in a doggy door because he's fiendin' again, while the rest of his forest buddies are like "WTF, not again, you asshole" and they just decide to go chill at the fast turtle's place because he's stealing wi-fi from his neighbor so they can binge watch the next season of Orange Is The New Black, even though Peter still feels kinda bad for the dog until he just kinda looks around like "screw this guy" and he snags the honey pie just so he can start eating it by the two-fingersful fistful...only to eventually get hooked on it himself, and the irony is that he's thrown into a rehab version of OITNB.

I know that's one giant run-on sentence, but it's the best I feel like doing today, and everyone always told me as long as I gave it my best shot it didn't matter if I won or lost, or somethin'.

"What words drive you crazy? They can be slang words, phrases, misused words, or anything else that riles you up when you hear it."

I had to really think about this, because there are probably lots of words that annoy me, but I've been trying hard lately (ok, for a couple years now) not to actively show it. And this might come off as sounding petty, but ever since I dated a girl in high school who jokingly called me a dummy, that word has the potential to absolutely grate my nerves.

And it's all semantics...but it wasn't the word itself or how she implied it. It was the way it came out of her mouth that irritated the fuck outta me. I don't believe she could help it; it was her normal tone of voice, but ironically it sounded really dumb when she said it, which obviously made it worse because she wasn't I guess what you'd consider a dumb person. It just sounded like she had a 1st grade reading level and some kind of speech impediment whenever she'd say it (and I don't mean to offend anyone who can't read or actually has a speech impediment, because even though I can be mean and rude at times, I would never make fun of someone for that, seriously).

So yeah, I've been called a lot of different things before, and I've learned how to take insults and kidding around with a grain of salt...but chances are, if you call me a dummy, the memory of her saying it is where my head's gonna go to, and I'm gonna do everything in my power not to knock your chiclets down the back of your throat.

The last couple of mornings I've woken up with an absolutely random song in my head, completely unrelated to anything I watched or read online the night before or dreamt. The other day it was "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole, which I don't even think is on my iPod (and if it was, with how I've been music-wise lately I would've skipped it anyway), and today it was this song. Before I looked at Charlie ~ 's BCOF prompt or even got out of bed, this chorus was repeating over and over. And it's not that I dislike this song, because I enjoy The Monkees, but there could've been better tunes by them stuck in my cranium.

"But all I can hear are those
words that never were true,
spoken to help nobody but you."
Lyrics.  

It's funny how sometimes different words can mean different things to different people, yet we generally associate images and logos with certain products and companies first, and our feelings about them second. Maybe that's why I think this list of images with honest slogans   is so funny...they're all well-known products, but you can't deny that all of these adjusted taglines wouldn't be out of place if they were actually on the packaging or showed up in commercials. The TMZ one especially nails it.

Remember back in April when the 30DBC went on the cruise ship for a month, and one of the ways Charlie ~ , Brother Nature and I would pass the time was by holding Roomba tournaments in the ship's hallways? Well, Amazon.com held a "Black Friday" type of event called Prime Day, offering a bunch of deals on crap nobody really needs, and I guess a lot of people weren't satisfied with what they were pushing...but I think this guy went a little too far and perhaps lifted an idea of mine from some of our April blog entries ...

Speaking of words, this writer makes a strong case for a new word of Japanese origin to be included as part of American etymology that I think we can all agree on  : tsundoku, which translates into "new books that pile up on our shelves". I'm pretty sure a lot of us have a decent TBR (to be read) stack that never quite seems to get smaller, no matter how much we read.

And finally, Buffalo and the National Football League as a whole lost a legend and a long-time institution last night when former Bills play-by-play man Van Miller passed away at age 87  . Like many Buffalonians, he was our gateway into football, with a distinctive voice that ebbed and flowed with the action happening on the field. He knew how to sell the moment, and he coined some of the most memorable phrases certainly in Buffalo's sporting history, and perhaps the game itself. Here's a really nice article reliving some of his greatest calls  . Rest in peace Uncle Van...thank you for the memories, and for teaching us how to Billieve.

Well, that's all I've got for you guys tonight. I'm gonna edit this, convince myself to keep judging 30DBC entries, laugh at the notion and tell myself I can get back into that tomorrow, and see how much more time I can waste on the ol' internet thingey before I waste time while trying to falling asleep. Peace, there's no denying, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!