Feb Up

Man, good thing February only gets twenty-eight days or, when we're feeling generous every four years, twenty-nine. Know why twenty-eight days later is the title to a horror film? Because it's meant to remind us of February. Let's face it, it's a crap month. Winter lingers, it fits neatly into four weeks, unlike any other month. I know it's Black History Month and I know too, that somewhere, someone's made a joke about how they gave Black History the shortest month.

Along with that, February also has the most "days." Two presidential birthdays, Groundhog Day, every single day being a Black History month day. February doesn't get to relax and just do its thing. It's trying too hard. Is this analysis a stretch? Yes. But I don't have the liberty of two-three more days to stir up content and research on a self-imposed deadline.

You know what I do have? The top hit for those searching the term "suckway." Killin' it over here. 

Also, Microsoft HQ seems to hit my blog a lot. Probably Bing trying to catch up on the webcrawling. A shame that search engines must also crawl my sector of the web.

Speaking of crawl, I believe I shall be doing just that, on into a bed. 

Thanks February, it's been short.

Acronymical Use of Space

YOLO folks, YOLO. I know YOLO is SLY(so last year), but so am I sometimes. When I started hearing YOLO, whether it be hashtag (will people know what those are in a few years?), or Ke$ha telling me to make the most of the night — and it's not like Ke$ha's the only one — well all I could think was YODO. If you know YOLO I think you can interpret the definition of YODO. I mean hell, to me you've gotta take some chances and some risks in life, but not everyone feels that way. Not everyone's brain is wired like that. But even if it is, it's difficult to totally ignore fear-based limitation. Some of fear comes from sense.

But I'll cut it before I start talking no sense. Want the opposite of that and you're looking at YODA. Wanting a tasty, overly-sugared, bubbly beverage? That's SODA. What? Exactly.

This was going to devolve into far more AA (acronym analysis) but ATM I'm more concerned with how things are going at the ATM. So further acronyms will be withdrawn so this POS (post of shit) isn't a full-blown POS (piece of shit). Was there any POS (point of saying) this? Ah well, looks like I avoided no sense and went straight to nonsense.

If you're wondering, the answer is yes, I do annoy myself sometimes. Just like sometimes I'm ready for winter to be over.

Valenchimes Day

Well it is the day of St. Valentine and all that is now commercially associated, so I'm chiming in so as not to miss every important day in February as it unfolds. Groundhog day? Didn't see if any shadows were seen. Lincoln's birthday? Well, I'm in the adoptive land of Lincoln (IL) so rarely is old honest Abe away from my brain, honest.

This year I have a Valentine, and it's nice, the nicest one actually, but I think she knows that I love and care about her the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four. Leap year, thankfully, I get a day off.

But ah yes, Valenchimes, the gentle sound of wind imploring you to buy chocolates, flowers, and a fancy dinner. Enter one more opinion on how you're all for those in love to be celebrating, but it shouldn't be forced on you or expected, and nor should those in tenuous, ambiguous, or completely non-existent relationships feel bad. Because I do agree with that. Remember back in elementary school — assuming you are in the same bracket of timing as I, and that you attended a school that had similar practices — where you'd essentially give out Valentine's to everyone, or at least your friends? That was a nice thought save for the poor bastards who got far fewer or, worse, no Valentine's.

Unfortunately, that's life. We can't all be loved, nor can we all be loved equally, so from the cheesy recesses of my cheesy heart — I'm not belittling these sentiments, I just eat a lot of cheese — if you do have people you care about, let them know. It doesn't have to be February 14th. There are a lot of other days in the year. No day is the wrong day to tell someone you're thinking of them. What's the worst that happens? They didn't want you to be thinking of them? Don't worry, many of us are narcissistic enough that, even when it's not the right person, we're still clamoring for someone to care, maybe even our enemies.

If you came here in search of Valenrhymes, there're some from the past, and more specific doctorings of the word itself were the works of the Valenmime. Without even looking back, I can be sure that there is some repetition even in those two posts, but my brain can't always remember all that it's thought up. The best ideas come up more than once, right?

So if you Valenpine for a Valentine, I hope one comes for you all in good Valentime, and if you're bothered by all of my rhyme, well then you can just suck on a fresh Valenlime. Know that the future may just hold further Valen-decline.

PEDs

PEDs are a hot ticket item for discussion these days (not peds, people just find that sick and twisted, but hey, it's a disorder), what with the latest in Lance Armstrong confirmations (they were only revelations if you completely ignore all sense, what with the rampant doping in cycling as a whole), not to mention NFL and MLB allegations and busts. In my corner I tend to follow abuse by runners, and even more specifically distance runners. Iin the NHL and NBA, no one really seems to give a shit; see also: soccer.

It makes it a little bit hard for me to enjoy sports as much because I appreciate the naturally-occurring freakishness of the human body over the drug-enhanced one. Takes the fun out of it, no? This isn't a novel or unique feeling. Headlines might start to get Onion-like, reporting things like "MVP Tests Negative for Drugs!"

But since lots of folks are focusing on this kind of PED use, let's instead shift to PED use in the arts, another arena where drug abuse can be expected, if not encouraged. In a sense then, this isn't that different from sport. And if you step outside of sport, in my narrow world exposure, I tend to think most people are substance users, if not abusers. Definitions. Semantics. And while for some it could have dangerous implications, the study is still in relative infancy because frankly there's a whole bunch of shit we just don't know about the body.  

Think of Charlie Sheen who, though he did have quite the public meltdown, is still a functioning human being after consuming legendary volumes of controlled substances. And then think of how, in that meltdown, the focus was on the circus, not on how we might get it to change its act (there were those who expressed legitimate concern, but most were content to enjoy the show, and I certainly came in at best in the middle of that). Sure, there're the success stories a la Robert Downey Jr but only because he was given 7,500 opportunities. It's not his fault really that people were willing to endure it and help him, it's just a damn shame that non-celebrities really don't enjoy the same privilege.

Sure some of these substances may be performance-dehancing, with artists (I've cited only a couple of actors, but there are many famous substance abusers in any genre of art) perhaps succeeding in spite of, rather than because of them, but use them they do.

Then there's the matter of what you define as drugs. Take something like caffeine. In sport this is banned in excess, and yet old Voltaire is purported to have drank as many as thirty cups a day. No biggie. A good barometer for substance abuse successes? How about Stephen King? Through all of his use, it was an errant driver some decade into his sobriety that nearly ended his life.

So why bring any of this up? Well, if sports records are stricken from the books when the record-holder is found to have been using PEDs, why not revoke a National Book Award, a Pulitzer and you get the idea? I'm not saying it's what I'd do, but I am saying perception and subjectivity are funny, fickle beasts.