Who do I still think I am??

This one's about a likely fish.

MOB-RELATED ACTIVITY:

Hey folks...sounds like that was quite a finish in Canada's and the US' women's hockey game. I knew I should've watched it, but I spent a chunk of the morning and early afternoon with my internet randomly dropping out every couple of minutes, and that's not an ideal situation when you're trying to stream live video. When I finally had a stable signal, I was able to follow what was happening on Facebook...if there's a reason to ever have so many friends from all different points in your life, it's to follow live events as they happen. Even if 5% of your friends are following something as it happens, and you've got 200 friends...you can see where I'm goin' with this. And all I'm gonna say about it is good game, Canada...see ya tomorrow when the US and Canada square off for the men's gold.

As for the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  Blog Mob, we've been keepin' this body alive without a head now for nearly two weeks. There are eight days left in February...what are the odds that our bOSS (with an uncapital B), Brother Nature , shows up by the 1st of March? And speaking of March, who's down for the next official round of the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" ? As a group our Mob has raised over 60,000 in gift points this month for the "30-Day Bloggers Group"  so far, and for no apparent reason at all besides spending quality time with a fictional monkey. Imagine if we actually put our heads together during these non-official months and came up with a way to raise funds that actually made sense? We could easily top 100k, even during the really slow months. But I can't thank you guys enough for the outpouring of support...the 30DBC is one of my personal favorite contests, and I look especially forward to the rounds that count every other month. It's always fun, and it's rewarding when you get to the last few days and you realize you've been blogging all month. So no matter what happens from here on out, kidnapping Andre The Blog Monkey was a success because hey, normally only a handful of people show up during the non-official 30DBC months, let alone tries to raise gp's, so the Mob's done quite well.

And what'll become of Andre after all is said and done? I think we've all learned a little perspective (whether we needed it or not), and he'll eventually return home to Joel a changed man monkey. Further proof we can do anything we want!

BCF PROMPT: "If you had to choose an animal to represent yourself, what would it be?"

That's a tough call, because it's never been something I've considered in the past. It'd be easy to say "lion" because that's my Zodiac sign...or a monkey, because I've always found them to be cute in strange ways (all references to Andre aside). I'll resist the urge to be represented by the buffalo even though it's where I'm from...sorry, the buffaloes native to the region nowadays are the cast-iron ones local businesses purchased a few years back as some kind of charity fundraiser or something like that.

So I've got options in the animal kingdom, I guess. Can I pick a goldfish? I don't see why not. I can swim around in my bowl (I don't need a big tank, and I don't intend on sharing my living arrangement with other fishies), see out into the world, and not really be affected by my surroundings. Plus, your dinner rains down on you! How amazing would that be if, like, you knew at a certain time every day hot dogs or burritos would just fall from the freaking sky, and you'd be hungry enough to eat about as much as you can...and whatever you couldn't eat or didn't get eaten by everyone else just magically dissipated into the surroundings, so you didn't have to worry about cleaning it up? That's a win-win-win for everyone!

Sure, I'd have to deal with the occasional kid bangin' on my bowl with his or her greasy fingers, and I'd literally be shitting where I eat, but I'd be a fish...obviously if I swim in a bowl all day I can't be too concerned with my intelligence level. And I don't have to worry about heading off for slaughter where I'll become someone's dinner, 'cuz nobody eats us stupid little goldfish. I float and I eat and if I live a year or two, great...anything more's a bonus. No worries...just point me out in the direction of a little sunshine in the morning, and we're cool. When I'm belly-up, I'll have had a full life, so it won't matter if I'm flushed down the toilet or buried in the backyard; it's not like other fish are gonna visit my memorial...after all, you wouldn't leave a dead cat hangin' aound anywhere, right? Be humane...that's just weird. Do whatever you want, but don't leave my rotting carcass in a bowl, especially if your intention is to replace me.

But yeah, other than that, I'm good. If I had to be anything, I'd just want to be simple...and it don't get much simpler than a goldfish.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

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You could almost replace "Public Enemy" with "Nirvana" in yesterday's entry and get kind of the same feeling. I was 13 or 14 when I first heard PE (maybe even younger), and by the time I was 15 Nirvana came out with "Nevermind" and like so many other kids, I became interested in how that would affect me going forward. There was this band that was part of a larger group of bands and artists singing about teenage angst in a way that felt new and raw. Where in the sixties and seventies guys would sing about girls and heartbreak, it was now fashionable to come right out and say what you were feeling. Sure, "I hate my folks" or "I'm alienated from society" weren't concepts that were foreign, but it's the way it was presented.

When you get older you can kind of see through some of the bullshit you're fed when you're younger. But that first wave, or that first blast...that tends to stay with you longer. Maybe it's the way it resonates, or how it feels relatable, or how it doesn't stop growing on you with repeated listens. After high school I'd gone back and picked up their first album and their b-side collection, and nearly every live recording I could find. I've read Kurt Cobain's Journals, which is a haunting collection. It's my opinion that had he managed to survive the nineties and his heroin addiction, he could've done anything he wanted musically at that point and it would've been pure genius.

I don't say that lightly either; there's not many who've died or are living today that I think deserve that high an accolade. The reason I can say this is that when Nirvana's "Greatest Hits" cd was released (album: Nirvana {link:http://www.amazon.com/Nirvana/dp/B00006V9A0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392931729&sr=8-1&keywords=nirvana+greatest+hits}), it was known to contain the last (or one of the last) vocal sessions of his life, and it may be one of the best overall songs he ever wrote between the combination of his lyrics and the music behind them. That song is "You Know You're Right" (lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nirvana/youknowyoureright.html), and I'm glad we got this as a bit of closure. A fitting end to a career and life taken too soon. Kurt would've turned 47 today...I'll probably slip into some sort of Nirvana binge when I'm done writing this, checking out YouTube clips and letting myself get sucked in to all kinds of interviews and concert footage with crappy sound. More so than Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or other bands from that scene, Nirvana's my reference point for that time.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

It's crazy that it'll have been twenty years in April since Kurt Cobain passed. Rolling Stone ran one of the last interviews he gave on their website this morning...I can still remember buying this issue when it came out and scurrying up to my bedroom to read it. I loved the look on Krist Novoselic's face, and contrary to all the rumors after reading this article I thought Cobain really was dealing with fame better than he had in the past, and that he'd be ok eventually, even if he wasn't the same. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/kurt-cobain-the-rolling-stone-interview-1...

Then I came across this blog post, from a person who clearly knows the situation playing out at my previous employer from an insider's perspective. Yes, these things detailed in this entry have all happened within the time the author suggests at the largest pharmacy chain in America. I saw a lot of this going down, and what I didn't stick around for I knew was coming soon enough. I'm glad I was able to get out when I did, even if it wasn't under the best of circumstances. From my understanding the conditions there are even worse than when this article was originally posted. http://thetruthaboutcorporations.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-greg-wasson-has-destro...

Looks like I'm gonna miss what hopefully is Team USA's gold medal-winning performance tomorrow. The game starts at noon but I've got an appointment to meet with two of the advisors regarding this program I'm involved in that'll hopefully give me a better idea if I'll be able to go back to school in the fall. Then I've got a therapist session, but I'm not sure if I'll be back in time for that...we've already rescheduled it once because he was out of town, and I didn't know about the other appointment until after I'd made this one. I'm finding out something people like to do in this town (maybe it's not just this town; I dunno)- they'll be more than happy to send you something in the mail telling you they've scheduled you for a doctor's appointment or to meet with advisors, but they don't wanna call you to confirm because it's less trouble for them and nobody tends to care if you've got other stuff to take care of. Twice in the last week it's happened; I get a letter in the mail telling me to be somewhere at a certain time...and one place that usually calls the day before to remind me of an appointment didn't, so now I've got to remember to call them and uuuuuuugh. I hate that...too much to remember.

I think that's all I had going on for this afternoon. Might make myself an early dinner, catch up on some late-night tv reruns (I'm interested to see how Jimmy Fallon does in taking over The Tonight Show) and get to bed at a reasonable hour...I've been going too early, so I've been waking up ridiculously early, and I feel like that's been throwing me off mentally (not that I'm ever really on mentally...but, you know). Peace, things have never been so swell, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!