Who do I still think I am??

This one's about the sound that won't quit.

MOB-RELATED ACTIVITY:

What's up folks? I hope everyone's sufficiently recovered from last night's festivities or whatever it was you've been up to. I certainly have had no shortage of excitement here since "The PreQuill Gala (7th Annual Quills)"  wrapped up...my catching up now has catching up to do and my to do list has a to do list all its own.

I've lost track of Andre The Blog Monkey the last couple of days, which makes me no better than our bOSS (with an uncapital B), Brother Nature ...I thought I saw somewhere that Elle - on hiatus was gonna have him at some point this week, but since I can't remember where exactly I saw that, you didn't hear that from me. I don't like to tell secrets and stuff , and I'm a day or two behind (which is almost an eternity to a monkey).

Anyway, good to see that slots are filling up for March's next official "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" ...and if you're reading this and thinking about joining but aren't sure or have questions, feel free to ask (I should wear a button that says "Ask me!", but then I'd feel like the privilege was being abused and I'd wind up trying to stab someone with the little pin in the back). Seriously...you should probably enter any contest that gives me a third place prize. You have my endorsement.

BCF PROMPT: "Write about a noise — or even a silence — that won’t go away."

I had an answer for this earlier today, but I couldn't remember the prompt and I never wrote down what I was thinking (see CJ Reddick , this is why I take notes about this kind of stuff!).

The walls in my building aren't terribly thick, so occasionally I'll hear conversations between neighbors or the random disturbance, and sometimes on Saturday afternoons and evenings I can hear the music from the bar down below. But last week, I heard something that really started to grate on my nerves. I hesitate to call it noise, because as blainecindy will attest, piano playing is almost always a beautiful thing (and I mean strictly playing actual music, as opposed to someone like me who merely makes sounds on the ivories like it's raining bricks...I'm the reason most pianos, when not in use, have a little sign on them in fancy font that says (usually with the quotation marks left in for some kind of weird, misleading emphasis), "Please, Do Not Touch!" and the whole area is roped off like Prince is pretending it's a crime scene). And once I get irritated, I become fixated until I tire myself out.

It wasn't that my neighbor was playing loud, or that he was playing poorly (and I won't even go into the thought that anyone in this building has any sort of musical inclination or ability because it's just so unlikely). No...it was the same damn piece of music for at least two hours. Two hours!! I know at one point I audibly swore to myself something like "Please God make it stop!". But it did not stop. I knew it wasn't a cd or mp3 (or heaven forbid, a cassette) playing on repeat, because of the variances; it legitimately sounded like someone with at least some kind of musical background learning and practicing a new song. Over. And over. And over.

And what was this song? "The Pink Panther Theme" by Henry Mancini (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OPc7MRm4Y8), with piano parts replacing the lead saxophone. Certainly a tolerable song, and I enjoyed the cartoons as a kid more than the movies, but try putting that YouTube clip on repeat for two hours...you'll be reaching for your Ambien and other sleep aids a little earlier than usual as well.

Which leads me to the one downfall I have about living in this town, and it's more a personality flaw on my end than anything...I don't feel comfortable enough knocking on my neighbor's door and asking him to turn the volume down whatever he's doing. Partly because I really don't care about these people more than I'm that bothered by what they do. 99.368% of the time they leave me alone, and I leave them alone, and the world spins another day. In fact, I think I've only seen that guy once or twice, and he certainly doesn't look like the jazz piano type, but what do I know these days? I'd just rather not get involved with some of these people and their drama...I hear enough in the ambient noise from the limited interactions I do allow myself with the general public out here to know that I've heard too much already.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

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I kind of drew a blank on today, believe it or not. I have a few songs in mind but I wasn't really in the mood to share them just yet. Not sure what made me think of this, but The Muppets...I loved watching them when I was a kid! The "variety show" aspect, plus puppetry mixed with live actors and singers...crazy and fun and it never gets old. While I was laid up over the spring/summer after my accident last year, I was pretty geeked to discover my local library had the entire first season of The Muppet Show on dvd, and I spent the better part of two weeks watching it repeatedly. I have no problem admitting that, and I even learned a few things as well...neither of which will surprise you once you've read "This one's about sex, violence, and forever." .

But for my part in "The Soundtrack of Your Life" , I'm sharing the second-coolest all-time favorite Muppet song ever (nothing tops the strange awesomeness of "Mahna Mahna" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_tupPBtWQ or Cake's incredible instrumental cover of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_1HobDmuPg). "There's A New Sound" (lyrics: http://www.songlyrics.com/muppets-the/there-s-a-new-sound-lyrics/) was a spot shown only in the UK because over there they had an extra minute or two of content that needed to be filled- too many commercials in the US- and later surfaced on "The Muppet Show: Music, Mayhem, and More!- The 25th Anniversary Collection" ({link:http://www.amazon.com/The-Muppet-Show-Anniversary-Collection/dp/B00006IZP8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393297695&sr=8-2&keywords=muppets+greatest+hits}). You're not a real music nerd if you've never owned a copy of that.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

Further proof that Buffalo is that city that doesn't know when to quit: a group of residents now wants Jimmy Fallon to broadcast a week's worth of Tonight Show episodes from historic Shea's Buffalo Theater in downtown Buffalo, after Justin Timberlake's apology for postponing a concert. C'mon people, really? Setting up a Facebook page only proves you know how to work the internet, and you might get heckled a little, and I doubt it's gonna work (says the guy from Buffalo who started his own forum on WDC to get a hockey emoticon and ended up with four of them...now you know where I get it from ). http://www.wgrz.com/story/entertainment/2014/02/24/jimmy-fallon-tonight-show-buf...

I'm having mixed feelings about this, but I think what I'm about to say is the right way to go about it. Twice last month the "Blogging Circle of Friends "  voted me as their "Blogger Of The Week", something I'm proud to be a member of and I'm very appreciative of the honor bestowed upon me from my peers. Part of winning this award means you get to be considered for "Blogger Of The Month", which is fantastic, it really is...but I'm withdrawing myself from consideration. I don't think it's the right thing to do for me at this time, and you can tell me I'm wrong or I should just do it or call me an idiot, but this is how I feel. I'm not crazy about the idea that in order to win BOTM, I have to create another static item just to answer a special prompt that only the weekly winners get, set it to "Private" with a Pass-Key so it can be posted "anonymously", and then have everyone vote on their favorite entries. I don't like this for two reasons: 1) Even if you've only read each of the four candidates' entries over a short period of time, our writing styles are so defined that it wouldn't be hard to pick out which of us wrote what entry; and 2) The idea of writing a non-blog entry to be judged for a blogging competition puts me off...it's like having a photography contest and then taking away the finalists' cameras and handing them a sharpened #2 pencil. Even if I were to restrict access to an entry within my own blog's entries with a passcode, the idea that I'm hiding anything (if even for a short period of time) irks me. I just think it'd be better for me if I continue to write and post my entries the way I like to, rather than write some bland essay in order to provide some magical "cloak of anonymity" over my words in hopes that someone who might not otherwise read my entries could possibly be swayed to vote for me on the basis of what I write and that alone (as opposed to the people who like to just play favorites). So unless I have some kind of change of heart, I'm forfeiting my opportunity at "Blogger Of The Month". I've won enough stuff over the years and it's not really what I wake up and hope for each morning or whenever I've got a new email, and every award of any kind is always special, but it's not my style. Plus I've got a few prior commitments this week I should start working on, including...

...My blurb/intro/presentation for Best Comedy at next week's running of "The Quills" ! Yes, as I predicted in yesterday's entry, I did get called down to the principal's office...but it was to be told I'd be allowed to present and for which category, and it wasn't really an office, but more like an email. Ok it was an email!! Back off!! I was thanked for, well, I quote: "Way to keep things, er, lively.", which was bookmarked by some emoticons I won't disclose. So I'm in! That's almost as cool as being nominated for or winning a Quill! Or hosting...yeah, hosting's cooler. The shot fountain was pretty epic over in the chat room also. Ok, so presenting is, like, the 7th or 8th coolest thing about The Quills. But still, me! Yay me!! (If you were at The Pre-Quills Gala you'd get the reference. )

Speaking of The Quills, congrats to Wordsmitty ✍️ for being named a finalist for Best Newsletter Editing (and for being nominated twice in the category)!! Smitty did a fine job on this month's issue of The Blogging Bliss, which should've hit your inboxes this morning on the bright...you can also find it here: "Invalid Item"  if you're not a subscriber (and if you're not, you should be). When you're done checkin' that out, don't just delete it! Go over to the "Blogging Bliss Newsletter Forum"  and start up a discussion about a point you read or would like to make, and who knows...your blog could be featured in the next issue. Mention I sent ya and you'll get a free subscription for you and a friend!!

Here's something I stumbled across this afternoon for my fellow Soundtrackers in "The Soundtrack of Your Life" ...someone needs to create ultimate mash-ups for all of these pairs: http://www.mandatory.com/2014/02/24/hit-songs-that-were-stolen/.

And tonight is the debut of former SNL Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers on his own late-night NBC show, so here's ten things to get you acquainted with him: http://mentalfloss.com/article/55063/10-things-you-might-not-know-about-seth-mey....

That wraps things up on my end, y'all. As usual, I've overstayed my welcome and will be heading off to a quieter side of the evening shortly. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to keep you from doing better things. Peace, it's deep down in the ground, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!