Happy New Year: Hello 2024 Goodbye 2023

GOODBYE 2023 HELLO 2024

2023 was a year... well a year that WAS. It is time for a new year and in 2024 we in the United States of America have the "honor" of voting for a "new" POTUS. Fun fun fun.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Life Interupts Blogging.

 So yeah. I had somethings to do from around Thanksgiving until forever. It didn't leave me with time to work on my blogs. Basically my personal montly quota of 1 post per month suffered a huge set back. In the past I have thought about hanging things up completely. I don't think I'll do that, but my not so frequent blogging will continue to be not so frequent. It might have long periods of non-activity from now on. Blogging definitely doesn't mean as much to me as it once did and hasn't for many months maybe even a few years. As with many other facits of life things that meant a whole heck of a lot to me just a few years or even in some cases a few months ago, now I can shrug my shoulders at and say "Ehh Whatever".

EEK soon it will be time for my yearly "year in review" and such.

November Update.

November, November, November let me count the ways. UM NO. So looking back on this month from the end of the month point of view was there anything majorly significant this month? No, not in the grand scheme of things whatever that is. I did sell a DVD - Season 5 of the Television Show "Castle" on Ebay.  Unfortunately I lost out on shipping the package was over 1 pound. I charged $5.00 shipping and real shipping was $8.55. It was my 3rd sold item on Ebay for this year. Right now there are 68 items listed. "And there was Much Rejoicing"

Not sure if I'll add anything to this or not. Got some things on my plate.

Blogging Rant And Work Moves Around

 Of my 3 blogs this one is sometimes the most difficult to come up with posts for as it is the most personal and I don't want some stuff made public. The draft posts that I do have in the draft queue for this blog still require more effort than I am willing to do, or rather take more time to complete than I usually allow myself. A good portion of them are reviews that I still need to actually start the writing of the review. Several of them will require re-watching, or rereading, or re-listening to whatever it was I wanted to review. Sometimes I wonder why I bother even writing a rant about my inaction. Well in some ways it gives me something that I can post about. So there is that.

Meanwhile at work our office is in the process of vacating one of the floors of the building we are in. We are currently on 3 floors, 2 of which we occupy the entire floor and 1 (the one I am on) our offices are maybe 1/4 of the floor. One of the full floors we are exiting from with most of the people moved. We have til the end of the year to exit completely when the lease runs. After that we will be only on 2 floors one the full floor and the other one at about the 1/4.

Name Game: Didn't Even Try

I've made many of these posts on variations of my name and the misspellings I have seen. We all have had our name misspelled at the very least once. If you haven't then you are extremely lucky. Anyway a month or so ago (almost 2) on one of my visits to Chick-Fil-A and their standard asking you for your name for your order. I thought things were sort of normal. The cashier asked my name I gave it to him and he even asked to spell it. Then I saw what was on the receipt and it was not my name spelled correctly. It was a note to the order preps to give the cashier the order for him to give it to me.

Chick-Fil-A receipt

That is right instead of my name which I spelled out for him "K-I-R-K" he put in "G-I-V-E-2-J-E-F-R-Y". Hmm I wonder if he spelled his name right? Does he use one "F" or two?

Chick-Fil-A order sticker for bag

As you can see on the sticker for the order's bag they even have a line to identify the customer by a brief description of what they are wearing, under the line that tells them if the order is dine-in, take out, or a delivery service like DoorDash or Uber Eats. I could have been wearing a green long sleeved t-shirt, or green long sleeved sweater, but I wasn't.

We Didn't Start The Fire Updated

This post is not about the tragic fires in Maui, Hawaii it is about the update cover of a popular song from the late 1980s. One of Billy Joel's popular chart toppers "We Didn't Start the Fire" was released in 1989. The song is just a well-organized and mostly chronological list of newsworthy events and pop culture from Joel's first 40 years of life 1949-1989 set to a catchy rhythm. He was 40 when he wrote it. The song became a popular teaching tool for history classes. Well now in 2023 some 34 years later an updated cover version has been recorded by the band Fall Out Boy. I heard part of the new version on the radio and thought it was OK. Not great but I can accept it a bit. I have since watched a YouTube video of it. The update picks up from 1989 to 2023, however the events listed are just randomly placed not in chronological order. The band has made a statement that they intentionally listed things out of order because of the way the world is currently in a state of chaos. It also concentrates more on pop culture than just historic events.

Unlike some recent amateur "updates" this official recording does not have a liberal bias against a certain Ex-President that the amateur versions have. Those seem to be intentionally biased and tend to be recorded by Never Trump Activists for the sole reason of spewing their hate for Trump. There was one version that just covers events from 2020. The only reference to Trump that I could hear/see in the Fall Out Boy cover is the lyric "Trump gets impeached twice". Many of their pop culture references you seem to have to be of a certain age to get or be a part of the later video game generations.

I really like Joel's original version and when it plays on the radio, I will listen to it all the way through even if I found it in the last few seconds of the song. The update slash cover I am unsure about. I think it is cool that there is finally a semi-decent update, even if it is a few years too early for a full 40 year chunk of history. Due to its randomness and the fact that I am not a huge Fall Out Boy fan I wouldn't say I fully like it. I like it some, but I would not go out of my way to listen to it over and over. I might listen to it if I hear it start and then I might not.

Here is a YouTube video of The Fall Out Boy version with some images of what they are singing. There doesn't seem to be an official video at this time if there will ever be one.

Name Game: Kirok In A Hard Place

 OK so this latest "is this the last one?" misspelling of my name isn't "Kirok" from The Star Trek Original Series (TOS) episode "The Paradise Syndrome", but it is sort of close. 

This time the Chick-Fil-A cashier, where most of these fun misspellings happen, forget that stuffy room in Philadelphia with that Mr. Hamilton guy, was as I said similar. Except it was with a "c" CERCK. 

I AM CE-RCK HEAR ME ROAR!

I wonder what the next one will be? I don't think I have actually seen the KI-ROK one, maybe one day.

Wheel Of Hosts

 

It has been announced that game show host Pat Sajak will be retiring from Wheel of Fortune next year  (2024) at the end of the show's 41st season. Sajak announced his retirement a few weeks ago and although there was some speculation about who would be his replacement, this past week it was announced that Ryan Seacrest will take over as host. Meanwhile letter "turner" Vanna White has mentioned that she might be leaving the show soon as well. Her reasons seem to be salary related.

Meanwhile across the pond in the UK it was announced that ITV will revive the UK version of Wheel of Fortune, which ran from 1988 to 2001. The UK revival will have talk show host comedian Graham Norton Stepping in as its host.

I casually watch Wheel because in my area it comes on before Jeopardy so I sometimes need some background noise while I am having my dinner. I like Vanna and always have but honestly for several decades since they shifted from having her physically "turn" the letters, to her just touching the puzzle screen to electronically change the letters, she doesn't have to do a whole heck of a lot. As for these new incarnations of these game shows I would rather watch the UK version with Graham Norton and adjust to British Englishisms than watch a single second of Ryan Seacrest hosting.

Reading A Book About A Visit To "The Future"

Once again I find myself facing the end of the month and not really knowing what I really want to blog about. I have plenty of long term ideas for somethings, but many of those take lots of planning or at least a bit more planning that I am willing to do in a short  period of time. I don't want to rush some of those ideas. A few have been sitting for a long time. I have 11 drafts for posts for this blog, I'm not sure about how many drafts I have for my trading card blog but it is probably quite a few more. Some of the abandoned drafts may stay abandoned. There have been a few times when I had a lingering abandoned draft for so long I lost total interest in it or it seemed to be so far outdated that I just deleted them.

I suppose that some of my problem with post subjects comes down to things that I feel comfortable with presenting to the entire world. Sort of what you decide to post on social media. I try to keep some things off it. I guess I should evaluate the things that I like or enjoy doing or reevaluate them.

Well I guess one thing I can talk about is a book that I am currently reading. I have stumbled with it a little probably due to the format and quite frankly some of the writing style, prose I think it is called, The Book is titled "Chronicles From The Future - The Amazing Story of Paul Amadeus Dienach (Based on his Diary Pages)" Edited by Achilleas Sirigos. The basic gist of the book is it is the "diary" of a man (a Swiss-Austrian teacher) from the 1920s in failing health slips into a year long coma and when he wakes up recalls that he had "lived" in the body of a man in the year 3906 while in his coma. Knowing that he doesn't have much more time to live he records his memories of "the future" in a diary, written in German, and then gives his diary to his favorite student George Papachatzis who translates it into Greek. It claims to be a true story about time travel. The "student" was a real person, however the existence of the "author" is a bit sketchy. The only references to the "author" are linked in someway to this book.

At any rate the book is somewhat interesting, but it has taken me a bit of an effort to plow through. At times the "future" reminds me of something like "A Brave New World" or "Logan's Run" with the culture of society and an emphasis on youth. In the future presented, which is a few hundred to maybe a thousand years post-nuclear war money and wealth is no longer a priority, Young adults after their formal schooling spend roughly 2 years working like crazy and then retire to appreciate the finer things in life. A few people work longer than the standard 2 years but the majority don't. Currently I am 32% through the book.

Some have criticized the book because of some more modern references to later technology. The reasoning for the modern references is in part due to the publishing "history". It appears that the first Greek translation wasn't published until after WWII and was only shared with the free masons or some similar group who decided to hide the book. Its first major publishing was the 1970s. It has only in more recent years been translated into English. So any claims of the events being factual are very suspect. I think most of it is to just give more mystery to the overall story.

Mondegreen Fun - Misheard Lyrics A Rush Job

 It is time for another round of Misheard Lyrics or as it is technically known as "Mondegreen". Sometimes they can be earworms, sometimes not. But usually they will stick with you until you learn the real lyrics, if you do.

So for this episode I present a song from the rock group Rush. From their 1980 Album "Permanent Waves".

The song I misheard the lyrics to is "Freewill". 

The words are from the chorus, this line "I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose freewill". 

What I heard was "I will choose a bathysphere, I will choose freewill". I admit it was decades before I realized what the real lyrics were.

Ebay And A Name Misspelling Repeat Of Sorts

 Hello and welcome to a typical "I don't know what I'm going to post about" post.

So on Ebay I did a minor little goof on ordering something. I ordered a DVD I wanted from a seller that is in Canada. I usually try to just order from USA but will order from Canada from time to time. It is not that I am Anti buying from Canada, I just prefer to order from the US because tracking is more accurate and if there is a problem with the item and I have to return it I don't have to go through the whole shipping to another country thing. Anyway I ordered a DVD and I could have sworn it was from a US seller, but now that I think about it, it was more a case of I wanted the item so bad I didn't really care where it came from. Also I had the item on my watch list for quite sometime, so I probably just assumed it was located in the US. OH Well no biggy.

Not a goof but another Ebay oddity for me was I ordered some vinyl 45s singles. One seller I bought 4 singles from and another seller I had purchased only one. In an odd bit of irony the lot of 4 singles was shipped in a polybag bubble mailer protected by cardboard, and the lonely single was shipped in a 9" x 9" x 6" box. Packed with bubble on top and the single at the bottom of the box. I had expected things to be the other way round.

Quick misspelling Name Game. A year or two ago I once got a receipt with the name "Cork" well now I can add a variant spelling with a "K" twice. Now there are two recent trips to Chick-Fil-A where my name was misspelled as "Kork". I was bad  for a while in February and early March by going there about once a week for 3 or 4 weeks on Friday evenings or on Saturdays around lunchtime.

An Update? Name Game and Nantucket Nectars

 I guess this will be an update post.

So in the "Name Game" area nothing really new but maybe a parallel variant? At Chick-Fil-A where they use your name for the order ID, and the source for many of my misspellings. I got a "Kurrk" with TWO "R"s. Usually I just get it with one "R". Good thing it wasn't "Talk Like A Pirate Day" or it would have been at least 4 "R"s.

In the ever popular "Who Really Cares?" category the latest plastic bottle top from a "Nantucket Nectars" Island Orange juice the underside of the cap was "When looking for a place to live, or anything else on Nantucket, the bulletin board at the Hub might be your best bet." Oh the previous cap I had gotten (I think from a Peach Orange bottle) was "The winning pumpkin at Nantucket 2002 Island Fair pumpkin contest was approximately 660 lbs."

CD Update: Discogs Order From Japan?

 

OK so in my last post of 2022 I mentioned that I was waiting for a CD I had ordered through discogs from a seller in Japan. Well the CD arrived on 03 Jan 2023. I placed the order on 25 Nov 2022 and the seller marked the CD as being shipped on 27 Nov 2022. In my previous post I mentioned that I got it for a good price it was $20 for the CD and $10 shipping and tax. A total of only $30. Often when I saw the CD listed the price of the CD itself was at least $30 and shipping was often at least $30.

So to end the curiosity the CD in question was "Here We Go Again" (2004) by the band SR-71. I mainly got it for track number four "1985" a song that was covered by the band Bowling For Soup the same year 2004 and they turned the song into a big hit. The original version is a bit cruder in sound and overall quality in my opinion. Also the cover adjusts and smooths out some of the lyrics. A few weeks back I discovered another cover of "1985" by a group called First To Eleven which is pretty good. The first few seconds to the first minute I didn't like it but it grew on me.

SR-71 Here We Go Again (2004)

Image from discogs.com

Anyway part of the story with this disc is when it did arrive 5 weeks and some odd days after the initial order I noticed the package came from Utah. The mailing label was printed 25 Dec 2022 HUH? The company I ordered it from is in Japan. Apparently the company has a shipping center in Utah so they can send orders to the US (with AG after the company name). I don't really mind it because apparently the Japanese pressing of this CD is the only one thus the "rarity" of the release. Yes my copy has the OBI strip with it. That was one of the reasons I got this particular copy, some of the other copies don't have the OBI strip. A few years ago I didn't even know what an OBI strip was. It is the strip of paper on the side with all the Japanese writing that all Japanese album pressings have. They also include a booklet that has all Japanese writing. For some CD releases it is more that they include a booklet written in English. It is not a necessity for Japanese pressings for me but it makes them more fun.

On a different note: I had an odd Ebay experience. For one of my purchases in which the seller didn't give a tracking number, about a week after it was marked as shipped I get a message from the seller that the item was returned with address "no such number". That is very odd since Ebay has my proper address as well as Paypal (which I paid for it through). So I replay "that is odd" and send my mailing address in all caps so that any "i" s or "L" s or other similar letters can be identified and I spelled out Maryland so that the state abbreviation of "MD" is not mistaken for an "MO" (Missouri). 3 or 4 days later I got another message that the package was returned again and the seller asked if I had another address. I restate my bewilderment and say "unfortunately that is my only address". I don't want to go through the problems one could get by sending to my work address which is in SE DC on a letter street which could be misdirected to SW or NW or NE DC. So I said I guess you will have to refund me since it is "undeliverable". Poor seller must be handwriting everything and has bad penmanship? I would love to see a picture of the bad address to see how it was messed up. Latest is the seller is attempting to send for the charmed third time. I hope it gets here. And it arrived. The item for those curious was a back issue of a Sports Illustrated Suimsuit issue to replace a water damaged copy I had. The package had one of the previous labels that had been marked with the "NSN" No Such Number with return to sender sticker under the good mailing label. Turns out that they had replaced a 3 in my street address with an 8 everything else was right except my name on the original label was "Kris" and my last name of course was misspelled with the more common "son" ending. Another interesting thing, the seller according to the listing is in Illinois, the original label was sent from Michigan and the final label was from Texas. So the seller either has a couple of locations or they sent from a drop shipper.

Tues 24 January got a message that I sold an Ebay item. 2 promo buttons for the movie "Passion of The Christ" for $2.99 plus $4 shipping. Looks like one of those I'll loose a buck or two transactions. Just glad they sold to someone who wants them. My Ebay store is now down to 70 items. I am working on some draft listings of a few books.

State O' The Blog: 2022 Recap

STATE O' THE BLOG

2022 Edition

This year my "State O' The Blog" year in review post is pretty much on time. It was a typical bare bones posting year.

Here are the monthlies from 2022:

January: 1
February: 1
March: 1
April: 1
May: 1
June: 1
July: 2
August: 1
September: 1
October: 1
November: 1
December: 2

TOTAL: 14
Monthly Average: 1.17

Now lets look at how the 2022 blogging matches up with past years:

2006 - 32
2007 - 43
2008 - 36
2009 - 34
2010 - 18
2011 - 20
2012 - 38
2013 - 93
2014 - 57
2015 - 24
2016 - 29
2017 - 16
2018 - 18
2019 - 12

2020 - 17

2021 - 33

2022 - 14
Yearly Average: 29.12 

Another RED year yippie.

As for my trading card blogs CaptKirk42's Trading Card Blog I managed to go 15 posts and Curly W Cards I only did the bare bones 12 posts for the year. For those blogs my posting quota is to make at least the bare minimum of 1 post per month, 12 posts per year. For this blog my posting goal is a lofty 32 posts in the year with the minimum of 1 post per month, 12 for the year.