The Masked Binging ER Singer

The Masked Singer Logo

Some weekends ago (mid February) I binge watched a show about 2 weeks before their season finale. Then for the final two weeks since the show aired on a night I wasn't able to watch I on demanded those episodes, but had to wait a few days (like 5 days) for Crumcrust to list the episode. The show was on Fox. One of those music competition shows, that I normally don't watch or like, but this one I did. I was pleasantly surprised. The show was The Masked Singer hosted by Nick Cannon. It is a singing competition with a twist. The "contestants" are celebrities of every kind except their identities are hidden behind fancy costumes with full head masks. On The Voice the contestants identities are hidden because the judges have their chairs facing away from them while they are singing and they turn their chair around if they are interested in who is behind the voice. This one the judges are face forward but the contestants are hiding behind full head masks. When they speak in their "normal" voice their voice is electronically altered so it is only when they are singing that the judges hear their real voices.

A Celeb contestant being escorted by security.

Interesting I noticed that this show seems to be based on a Korean show called "King of Mask Singer" looks to be from 2017. UGH. Oh of course if I had bothered to do more research before getting hooked on the show I would have known it was based on a popular South Korean TV show.

Celeb Contestants: Rabbit, Alien, Lion, Bee, Peacock and Monster

The competition started with 12 Cosplaying Celebrities who were only identified by their costumes: Peacock, Bee, Monster, Poodle, Alien, Deer, Hippo, Raven, Pineapple (yeah a sort of SpongeBob SquarePants vibe), Lion, Unicorn and Rabbit. Some of them took on the persona of their costume. The panel of Judges: Robin Thicke, Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy and Nicole Scherzinger (with guest judges for 1 or 2 episodes each: Joel McHale, J.B. Smoove and Keenan Thompson) had to try to guess who was behind the mask.

The Regular Judges: Robin Thicke, Jenny McCarthy, Ken Jeong and Nicole Scherzinger

 Each week the celeb who got the least amount of votes from the panel of judges and from the audience were unmasked. When the characters were introduced before each performance some clues were given about the identity of the celeb. For most of the celebs the panel was way off but there were a few one or two of the judges got right. I only got one completely right (I had an alternate idea, but I was right and the judges were also on that one), and a couple were among the celebs that I had thought were that character but either didn't know or was going for someone else. For the most part I think I had at least heard of each celeb (a couple just barely), many I already was aware of. I was disappointed with who actually won. The way celebs are now days I almost thought there would be a few times when I had no idea who the hell they were, a couple were close. It would be pretty funny yet also sad if a celeb was unmasked and then they had to explain to everyone who they really were. I thought there were one or two that almost needed that.

Celeb Contestants: Poodle, Deer and Pineapple

I won't match up which character was which celeb you can find that out for yourself if you are interested. I will list the competing celebs below somewhere. Before I decided to watch the show I had heard about who one of the characters was and wanted to hear what they sounded like singing since they were not known for their singing. Then after I had watched a few episodes I went to IMDb to check off that I had seen the show for my watch list and I accidentally saw the identities of two of the characters that I hadn't seen unmasked yet. One of them was unmasked the next episode I watched. The cast list there also lists the security guards, who escorted the masked celebs around during the filming process, and the non-celeb supporting performers: the backup singers and dancers during each performance.

Celeb Contestant Raven

As with any singing competition, there were the two extremes of voices, the pleasant sounding angelic type voices and the blackboard screeching "stop that damn noise" type. I was surprised by a few of the non-singer/musician celebs who had nice voices.

Celeb Contestant Hippo

Here in no particular order are the competing  celebs: Ricki Lake, Margaret Cho, Rumer Willis, Gladys Knight, Terry Bradshaw, T-Pain, Tori Spelling, Donny Osmond, Joey Fatone, Antonio Brown, La Toya Jackson and Tommy Chong.

Celeb Contestant Unicorn

All in all I'd give The Masked Singer 3 or 4 stars out of 5. It was enjoyable but I am not a huge fan of voice contest shows. Oh I just recalled a show from a few years back (early 2000s maybe? Possibly Pre-American Idol) that I had liked where contestants dressed up like their music idol and performed their song. I forget what it was called. Some of the contestants nailed the look, but sounded nothing like who they were performing as, and of course there were a few the other way around sounded like them but even with heavy makeup looked nothing like the idol. I think I found it Your Big Break (1999-2001) Hmm it was syndicated.

My favorite performers based solely on their performances were Peacock, Bee and Alien. Rabbit was an overall good performer and was one of the characters that really got into his masked persona. He had a crazy head twitch thing going on.

UPS Access Point Locker

Well that was a new experience. On Friday 03 Nov or maybe Saturday 04 Nov I received a letter from Comcast telling me that my current modem would be obsolete in Jan 2018 and they would be sending me an upgraded modem complete with wi-fi router built in. They said "they" would be sending an email soon giving me the shipping and tracking info. Well they didn't send an email but UPS sent me an email on Sunday 05 Nov stating that my package was scheduled for delivery on Monday and that a signature was required. Monday came and went and I had one of those handy "We Missed You while trying to deliver your package to you" notices. The notice was marked with the address of a UPS Access Point Locker for the pickup location. I wasn't quite sure what the deal was. I was thinking it was the same as the pickup/distribution station about 2 or 3 miles from me that I had been to once or twice. I guessed fairly close but not exactly. It was some kind of holding/storage area to pick up my package along the lines of their distribution centers. It is a storage/holding area like a bus station locker. It is all self serve and open 24/7. The photo above is a generic UPS Locker photo looks similar to one I used. Same sort of situation up against a wall with parking nearby.

OK so on Tuesday (07 Nov 2017) during the day I looked up the address and it looked close to where the regular UPS shipping center near me was, but not exactly. Since I had a vague idea where the thing was I planned on picking up my box that night after work. It was a dark very rainy Tuesday night here in Suburban Silver Spring, MD. Technically the UPS Locker is in the Burtonsville area of Silver Spring (very North Silver Spring) near where I live, and the UPS center I had been to is technically in Laurel.

So I go to the UPS center, but of course it is a little farther than what the directions had said, and the center isn't on the street mentioned. So in a nearby parking lot I breakout my portable GPS, Yes my GPS is separate from my 2002 Ford Focus but that is beside the point (and another indication of how often I do upgrades. Its mostly due to the costs of upgrading and the "if it ain't broke" mentality). I enter the address and I'm about a mile maybe less from where I should be. So I do my turn around since I had overshot the thing and while returning I overshoot the other way. It is dark hard to see and I'm not sure where this UPS thing is. I suspect it is near the building with a self storage center. Turns out it is the same address but sort of next door. Anyway I go into a shopping complex area parking lot do some more turnings around. My misdirections included getting a little turned around and being on the wrong side of a street with an island divider in the middle. I am ticked at myself for doing that, again dark night hard to see and I thought the middle island was the side of the street with a side service area. Oops a few honking cars and then wait for traffic to go by to make a safe Ubie (U-turn that is).  Don't know why I started going in that direction anyway. I wait for a long time at a traffic light to turn left, behind a big tractor-trailer truck in the right most left turn lane, which can also go straight.

I then got on the proper road and GPS told me I was at my destination so I made the next available right turn into the parking where some Self Storage unit center that was part of some industrial park thing was, the one I thought was near my destination. It had the proper address but I didn't see the UPS thing. I make my way to the other side of the storage area building and get to an area where there is a gate for storage sheds and on the other side of a small fence I see the UPS Locker. I drive around the other side of the building and get to the UPS Locker and park.

Since it is about 7:30 PM on a dark rainy November evening the Locker is pretty dark. The website said it was open 24/7 didn't look like it. The building it is up against but not associated with was obviously closed and very dark, the only real lighting was the UPS Locker's User interface screen. No employees required total self service with a computer terminal.

The thing was actually very easy to figure out, a bit hard to see in the light of the terminal screen. So first step is to scan the bar-code on your pick-up notice, or enter in the tracking number or some source code on the dang thing, with no light scanning was the only way to do it. It took a few tries to get it to scan. Then you have to insert your valid Government or other valid form of ID (driver's license) into the card slot like a credit card and hope it doesn't eat your card like ATMs sometimes do. After it verified my ID to make sure I was me, it indicated and unlocked the locker my box was in. It asked for signature using finger on the touch screen. My onscreen signature is NEVER the same as my real "pen in hand" signature. It often looks like stick figure drawings. I think it asked for the signature before unlocking the specific unit my box was in. The graphic display shows which locker is "yours" in a diagram of the setup when it unlocks it. Then you open your locker, grab your package and make sure to close the locker. After signing and closing the locker, which I left open and it ordered me to close the locker, it indicates that the transaction is concluded.

I have since hooked up the modem and am using it in normal "wired" mode which due to my ancient Windows XP computer still seems slower than molasses most of the time. I haven't gotten the wi-fi service to start up correctly yet.

Cable Television Rant and On-Demand

I just want to put in my .2¢ worth about Cable TV and in particular the "On-Demand" feature. I'm not talking about using Tivo or recording/viewing with a DVR. Nor am I talking about any Pay-Per-View stuff. Just the basic cable services and the On-Demand. I'm tempted to make this rant just a list of my complaints about the whole thing. So:

•  First you are paying a heck of a lot of money, for the privilege of getting specialized programing from satellite TV stations/Networks. You even have to pay for the regular broadcast stations that were at one time FREE, but now with everything being broadcast digitally and mostly in High-Definition or from satellites anyway there is no such thing FREE broadcast TV anymore.
• Even though there are hundreds or thousands of movies and television shows available with the On-Demand feature, there isn't much in the way of "on demand". Sure you can view them anytime you want (but within a 24 hour period before you have to look for that program again if you didn't watch it within that small window of time), HOWEVER, the selection isn't always great, and many programs are only available for a couple of months before they are removed from the listings. Then you have to wait who knows how many months before they bring them back. Some programs never make it to the On-Demand lists sometimes even very popular shows. Sometimes shows that used to be available On-Demand are no longer available. I'm talking shows that are still currently running not shows that were cancelled by their network. There does seem to be a limited amount of movies available for selection.
• Many of the networks now are disabling some of the playback features in order to force you to watch the commercials, you are already paying for the programing and now they are forcing the commercials on you. More and more of these networks have the fast-forward feature disabled. It is very annoying and one of the things that annoys me the most about cable. Plus most of the time the programing is just a straight copy of whatever was originally broadcast commercials and all including those "coming up next" promos. I could get the same thing with my old VHS recorder, but at least with that I can fast forward through the promos and commercials. It used to be the On-Demand programing was just the program itself with no commercials in between. If that isn't bad enough sometimes the commercials they do have are from just one or two sponsors and every break they show the same two commercials (like Hulu and some of those TV online services do every FIVE minutes) which since they disabled the fast-forward you have to sit through again, at least the mute button usually works.
• Oh and sometimes the playback for movies on demand and some of the broadcast shows for some reason block the closed captioning. So you have to rewind sometimes to catch dialogue you might not have heard or heard weird.

OK I think that is all for now. Just wanted to get some of that out.