Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about your news and my best friend's girl.

"Write a blog entry for Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, write about a current event of issue you are strongly in favor of. Then on Sunday, pick a fellow blogger's topic from Saturday, and write your opinion on their topic."

What's up you guys? It's Sunday, which means I should be watching football and not paying too much attention to anything else, and that's how I spent the early part of my afternoon...until halftime of the Bills game, when my body decided a nap was more important. I dozed off knowing the Bills were in a tight game against the Bengals, and when I woke up they were being curb-stomped (more on that later). Now I'm in a bit of a bitter mood, having pissed away a good another Sunday, and on top of it I don't really feel like writing this entry anymore.

But here I am anyway, because I signed up for some stuff and I should contribute, and I hate starting things and not finishing them (like, say, multi-part blog entries of the serial variety). Plus, I made the effort to read all of yesterday's "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  entries first thing this morning, so it would make sense for me to not let all of the information I've gleaned from them go to waste. Everyone stepped up with some great takes on current news, which was nice to see...and then I made the mistake of leaving thought-out comments on them, when I could've just sandbagged them all into one big entry for myself. I could've been Selfish Norb!! What was I thinking?!

So, I mean, I guess you could go into the 30DBC forum and read all the 10/17 posts and then read my responses. But your weekend is dwindling away and you probably don't have time for that and frankly, I don't blame you. Instead, allow me to use my amazing powers of recall to share with you a couple things that have stayed in my memory since this morning (which is no small feat in itself, ya know ).

skeason 's entry, "Invalid Entry" , about the Bill Cosby sexual assault accusers being on a magazine cover: First of all, if you're not reading Skeason's blog, shame on you, because you don't know how awesome it is. Second, she makes great points (as usual), in a voice only she can. Third, I wrote an entry earlier in the summer about Cosby and his situation, but I can't find it because I don't feel like looking for it. And when I used my blog's search bar to look up any mentions of "Bill Cosby", an entry came up where I didn't really talk about it ("This one's about your drink, your food, and my muse." )...and honestly, my feelings on it are summed up quite simply in three words: fuck Bill Cosby.

amyjo-Keeping it real and fun! 's entry, "Invalid Entry" , about how schools need to be better: I absolutely agree. Schools need to do better by both students and teachers. It needs to be said that it's not always the fault of the teacher or the student when the child doesn't do well. Not all kids learn at the same pace or in the same way. I understand that most public schools are trying to work within budgetary constraints to accommodate as many kids as possible in an economically sound manner, but it's not enough. Something's gotta give, and right now the way things are, it's the students that suffer the most. But that's just my way of looking at it, which I can do because I don't have kids and don't really care...except that eventually these kids are gonna be fighting for more jobs that just aren't out there anymore, because companies that hire minimally-educated people for minimum wage are constantly trimming that segment of opportunity every chance they get. And that's a fact.

Prosperous Snow celebrating 's entry, "Saturday, Ocotober 17, 2015, Current Event or Political Rant" , about presidential candidate electioneering: This might've been my favorite entry of the day, actually. It's concise and to the point. And every four years, or however long election cycles are running these days in the US, it gets worse. Almost as soon as a party loses an election, they start wondering who will run in the next one. Sure, on some level it makes sense to take time figuring out who the best person to trot out in a race to see who gets to be the figurehead of the free world, but how much is too much? At what point do we stop and ask "How much of this dog and pony show is really necessary?" All you have to do is look at the slate of Republican candidates at their primaries. The list reads like one of my insane babbling blog entries. There's, like, 16 of 'em. And probably ten of them have no business running for treasurer of the chess club at your local high school, let alone President Of The United States. It's a waste of time and an insult to our intelligence. How effective can a debate between that many people really be? Let's cut through the bullshit, and say that on January 1st of an election year, your party can run out no more than five people. Maybe then we'll see the growth in strength of an actual third political party. And if your team can't produce five solid candidates, then try harder next time, or good luck, or whatever. If you give people too many options, then you're giving them no options. Americans have too much other shit on their plates as it is, between jobs and families and lives of their own and who's coming back from the dead on Game Of Thrones...the last thing most of us want to do is create an Excel spreadsheet cross-referencing every candidate's stance on all the "issues", just to see who'll probably fuck us over the least for the next four or maybe eight years.

So there's my take on your takes for The Sunday Saturday/Sunday News. In short, everything's broken, no one knows how to fix it so that everyone's happy, and (in case you forgot) the New York Mets are still good this year.

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Day Two of the "Resurrection Jukebox" ! Look, I'm not gonna sit here and make you read through the umpteenth rehashing of a good friend of mine dating a girl I really thought was the one for me like twenty years ago. We weren't even dating so much as she would just come over a few nights during the week after work to watch reruns of The Golden Girls and make out on my couch. I'm over it, she's over it, he's over it...the details don't matter so much anymore. It was just the basic boy meets girl, girl doesn't know what she wants, friend winds up going out with her for a few years, and I grow up sad and bitter throughout my 20's. Happens to the best of us at some point, even if it's something I personally am not into. Was I heartbroken? Of course...I lost the girl and (for awhile) the friend. And it made things awkward at times because we all had multiple mutual friends in common.

And that's why I guess this song is fitting. The original version of "My Best Friend's Girl" is by The Cars, who broke up in the late 80's and reformed briefly in 2010 minus bassist Benjamin Orr (who passed away from cancer in 2000)...and the cover is from Nirvana, a little trio from Seattle that was fronted by some guy named Kurt Cobain (who is also dead, either from a suicide or a psycho wife, depending on who you believe).

Not Kurt Cobain.

I don't know if this counts because technically Nirvana never released this song officially. Bootlegs exist all over the place of them playing it live though, and most versions I've seen on YouTube are crappy at best, but who knew anyone would be interested in video for blogging purposes back in 1992? If you say you were, please stop because no one believes you.

"Oh, when you bite your lip it's some reaction to love.
(Here she comes again) When she's dancing 'neath the starry sky, yeah...
she's my best friend's girl, and she used to be mine"
Lyrics.  

So yeah, the Bills started a backup quarterback and lost bad to a good team. I fell asleep at the start of the 3rd quarter, and I never really recovered until the game was over. My laptop had gone into sleep mode somehow while I was out, and sometimes when I'm streaming football games the feed gets really choppy anyway, and I'd care more if it were a closer game, but whatever. The best part of a shitty game is the Nick Mendola recap   anyway. And next week is another attempt at the NFL invading Europe, with the Bills going across the pond to play the perennially shitty team from Jacksonville, which means if I want to watch the game I better be up at 9:30am (no guarantees on that currently). I wish the NFL would stop forcing itself on other countries, I wish Jacksonville would stop forcing their team on the rest of the league because the franchise is an embarrassment, and I wish football players (and professional athletes in general, and we may as well include dopey old-man comedians, rappers, entertainers, and the male side of the human race) would stop forcing themselves on women. I also wish weather wouldn't force itself upon me, because I shouldn't have to wake up in the morning when I've planned to go anywhere and see this out my window:

Fuck this. I haven't prepared for hibernation yet,

That's the view from my second-story window around 11am-ish. The lovely clock tower, the Cortland Diner, and snow. If you live in an area that doesn't receive snow very often and would like to trade places with me, I can definitely hook you up. I don't know how much longer I can stand it here in these conditions...no joke. The first really cold day we had last week, my body felt like it was rebelling internally. My joints were refusing to cooperate smoothly, like they've actually started rejecting anything less than 45 degrees. The old joke used to be "If I have to wear pants, it's too cold!" Now it's a rule. It's not even November yet and I'm sick of it already.

Hey, there was some positive stuff happening too! Last night the Mets beat the Cubs in the first game of the NLCS. Game Two starts in less than two hours, so I guess that means I better put a lid on this entry soon. Unlike football games, the baseball games I stream are pretty smooth most of the time...which means maybe I should be like the rest of society and actually get a tv, so I don't have to bitch about it anymore.

And finally, speaking of tv, if I don't get one maybe I should at least invest in a decent (read: legal) streaming option for on-demand television I can watch on my laptop or tablet. Last night was comedian Tracy Morgan's return to Saturday Night Live   after a serious limousine/semi truck accident that left one person dead, and because I use the basic service from Hulu, who knows when it'll actually air. Seems like every year new episodes from popular tv shows run later and later than their original on-air broadcast, which kinda sucks because if I want to avoid spoilers or anything like that, I pretty much have to avoid social media...which probably isn't a bad idea anyway, but still...get your shit together, Hulu! Stop trying to make me pay for something that everyone has the chance to watch for free anyway! Bastards. They wanna getchya comin' and goin'. I just wanna fall asleep at night watching the couple shows I watch each week without struggling to remember when they're on or having to plan my life around them at certain times each week.

Ok, well, put it in the books. We're done here. Time to tie up a couple of loose ends around here before the first pitch...and hopefully my weekend will end on a more positive note. It feels like it's too early in the season for me to become a bitter old man just yet...luckily the snow hasn't started sticking yet, so the ice hasn't begun to form in my veins. Peace, he doesn't know the real surprise, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!