The Cruk of The Name

So just when I think I've seen and heard them all... Yep another misspelling of my name pops up when I place an order at a food place that asks for your name for your order (early March of this year). Well this time I get to the crux of the problem of the Crock of... OK so this time my name was spelled:

C-R-U-K

Now what does that have to do with me?
Hey I'm a cancer research center in the UK.

Cancer Reserach UK

Cool cruk your hands together, well now we have reached a real cruk of s...

For these name posts I don't mention where I went to, or scan the receipt. I don't think that really matters. Plus some of the places I go others might not like and may think there food is worse than a cruk of crap. Sometimes I even think their food is worse than that.

Misheard Lyrics: Diana Ross Edition

On April Fools day I heard part of a song that I hadn't heard in a long time and thought the title and words were something else.

The Song: Diana Ross "I'm Coming Out"

from the album "Diana"

For years and years I thought this song was titled "I'm Coming UP". I Never really thought about it I Used to avoid the song for 15 years or more. Not because I don't like Diana Ross, but because I didn't like the song during that time.

As I said I never spent too much time actually thinking about the song. When I don't like a song I rarely think about it. (so why do many atheists spend so much time talking about God?) The song has apparently been used by many in the LGBQT Community as an anthem. What with the "coming out" and all. Again never really thought that much about. Nor do I care too much about it.

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.

End The Month

It is the end of the month again. This month of February went by very quickly. Well "Duh" it is the shortest month of the year and this year is not a leap year so it only had 28 days. As usual I have procrastinated in my blogging and making a post for the month. I have had a bit of writer's block or rather blogger's block I guess.

I was originally going to try to finish out a draft that I started who knows when about some childhood writing of mine. That project is still on the back burners for now. As the month grew closer to the end I determined I didn't have enough time left for some of the prep work for that post. That draft will grow some more dust. A day or two ago I thought that since it was the end of a month that maybe I would tackle the topic of the end of life aka: Death. I was going to discuss the most common theories of what it is and what we will experience on the other side (if we do experience things in that state of being). Sadly though I think that will take more time to prepare than I have given myself in these last few hours of the month of February.

Another topic I could discuss could be some of the Television shows I enjoy or have watched. I am a bit surprised that I have not mentioned The Blacklist or The Orville on this blog. Shame on me I love both those shows. James Spader as Raymond "Red" Reddington the lead role of Blacklist is fantastic. The writing is superb and his delivery is exquisite. The ensemble for the most part is excellent. I am a bit disappointed with Megan Boone who plays Elizabeth Keen. I should devote some blog posts to that show. Ditto with The Orville which many say is more Star Trek like than the recent Star Trek Series Discovery. It definitely has a Next Generation vibe to it. The main thing keeping me from "discovering" Discovery is it being only available from the CBS All Access pay-per-stream or pay yearly service or whatever the heck it is. I did see the pilot episode that was on regular broadcast CBS. It is the only Star Trek show I couldn't get much into. Maybe it was they only showed the first hour of the series and it takes time to get into.

There are some shows that I occasionally watch or will binge watch some. Those have included: TNT's Wrecked, Fox's The Masked Singer, as well as bizarre type comedies BrainDead and Ghosted.

I also have some book reviews in my drafts queue. Most need either a cover scan or I need to come up with a quote from them or both.

State Of The Blog: 2018 Recap

STATE O THE BLOG

2018 Edition

2018 maintains the failing Red years in my annual State of The Blog tally. 

Here are the monthlies from 2018:

January: 1
February: 1
March: 1
April: 1
May: 3
June: 2
July: 1
August: 1
September: 2
October: 1
November: 1
December: 3

TOTAL: 18
Monthly Average: 1.5

No real surprise I FAILED my yearly goal of 32 posts per year. That is three four years in a row now.
Now lets look at how the 2018 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
Yearly Average: 35.23

Yet again I am barely keeping up with my bare bones minimum of one post per month. My first year of blogging 2006 met and set my self-appointed blogging quota of 32 posts per year. My all-time high was in 2013 with 93 posts. That was in part due to some semi-regular post series FryDay Fourtoon and Myka Monday. I somehow managed to keep up with posting and had more motivation to blog that year. I need to recapture that motivation. At one point I felt that I was going to reach 100 posts that year. Some year maybe. This year was almost my all-time low, but that was last year 2017 with a lowly 16 posts. This year is tied with 2010 at 18. The fourth year in a row for underachieving and tied at second worst out of six failing years. The yearly average is slowly getting worse and worse.

Happy New Year: 2018 to 2019

GOODBYE 2018 HELLO 2019

Yes it is the very end of the year post. If this post looks familiar it is because for the last several years I have tried to crank out an End of the Year New Years Eve post. The more recent ones I have cut and pasted the previous year's end of the year post, edited it for change of year, deleted a few things, added a few others and BAM you have the end of the year post. Just check out the last post of December or the first post of January for each year in the blog's archives to see how consistent I have or haven't been. These are not quite the same thing as my "year in review" posts. Those are more like the chintzy letters you get from estranged acquaintances and extended family each year. I haven't done one of those for ages.

In a few days in Jan 2019 I will make my annual "State of the Blog" post. 2018 is again one of those bare minimum one post maybe two per month. I have been nothing but consistent with this these last few years.

Feliz Navidad = Merry Christmas

Image from RateYourMusic.com

For many years one of my favorite Christmas time songs was recorded by Puerto Rican folk singer Jose Feliciano Feliz Navidad. It is a catchy tune and I have always loved foreign language songs. This song is a mix of English and Spanish so it could be called Spanglish I guess. I prefer to call it Amerikan Music.

Feliz Navidad was a song recorded in 1970 and for many years was played on the radio just about every year. For me it wasn't Christmas until I heard Feliz Navidad on the radio. In the mid 1980s it wasn't played as often and when I looked for a copy of the song around Christmas Time I could never find it. I eventually did get a copy from Tower Records (I think).

The lyrics are simple a few lines of Spanish a few lines of English (the translation?), repeat and rinse a few times. Basically the lyrics are:

Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Prospero Año y Felicidad

I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas
From the bottom of my heart

One would think it was a straight and simple translation, but wait. "Feliz Navidad" is just "Merry Christmas" not "I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas" and "Prospero Año y Felicidad" does not translate to "From the bottom of my heart".

Lets see: "Feliz Navidad" does indeed translate to "Merry Christmas" and "Prospero Año y Felicidad" translates to "Happy New Year and happiness", "I want to wish you a Merry Christmas" translates to "Quiero desearte una feliz navidad" and "From the bottom of my heart" translates to "Desde el fondo de mi corazón".

So a strict English Translation is:

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Happy New Year and happiness

I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas
From the bottom of my heart

With a strict Spanish Translation:

Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Prospero Año y Felicidad

Quiero desearte una feliz navidad
Quiero desearte una feliz navidad
Quiero desearte una feliz navidad
Desde el fondo de mi corazón


*Thank you Google Translate. Saves me from digging out my old Spanish/English Dictionary and translating word for word for an hour or two.

The Mandela Effect: Not Always A Mandela Effect

THE MANDELA EFFECT: Not Always A Mandela Effect

While not specifically looking for something on the Mandela Effect a YouTube video on the subject popped up on my recommended list, because I checkout a lot of Mandela Effect videos: This video attempts to explain the phenomenon with the psychological answers. I guess it is up to viewers to decide if does or doesn't explain things.

Many Mandela Effect videos are just about slightly different words or pronunciations of the words, or part of the word dropped off at the end, or the not as popular spelling variant of a name. Hmm was the Toys R Us giraffe mascot named Jeffrey or Geoffrey? I'm pretty sure it was the not as common Geoffrey not Jeffrey. Many people might "remember" it as Jeffrey because it is the more common spelling.

Misheard lyrics: For lyrics often improper grammar is used either to make a rhyme or to keep the timing and tempo of a song consistent. Or an entire new word will be created (see Steve Miller Band: The Joker and the line "'Cause I speak of the pompitous of love"). In transposing lyrics to the written word mistakes can be made. Also how a word is enunciated or spoken, well sung rather, can be misinterpreted. For instance do you know what Manfred Mann's Earth Band is singing in "Blinded By The Light"? It isn't the crude version that people think it is. Misheard lyrics are simply that misheard lyrics. They haven't been changed by the Mandela Effect. They are just commonly misheard and the "new" version of what they say is mistakenly passed along. There is a similar thing with misquotes from movies. I won't get into those here, but many people remember a quote in a specific way that was never actually said. In many ways it is like that kids game of Telephone. Where you sit in a circle (or organized line) and someone whispers something in the ear of the person siting next to them. That person then whispers what they "heard" to the next person, That person repeats the process and on and on til the saying gets to the last person. That person then says out loud what they heard and then the original person reveals what they started things with.

There is even a Mandela Effect for the opening title speech from the Original Star Trek series. The real line is and ALWAYS has been "Space THE Final Frontier..." The Mandela Effect has changed it to "Space A Final Frontier..." It is simply a matter of pronunciation. In the Speech William Shatner pronounces the word "T-H-E' as "Thuh" not "Thee" so it sounds like he is saying "A". There are similar misunderstandings exactly like this that people have labeled as a Mandela Effect.

The phenomenon that is called the Mandela Effect could just as easily be called the "Barenstain Bears Effect".

There is at least one ME video poster who has blocked all comments on his videos, you can't even vote thumbs up or thumbs down on them. He says he is tired of people commenting on his videos. I think maybe he was getting too many negative comments and didn't like people complaining about them or the Mandela Effect. I first noticed him from a video where he has compiled about 20 minutes worth of reports of John Lennon's death and points out some of the inconsistencies of the reporting. Many of the reports were the first "breaking news" reports that were broadcast within an hour or two of his being killed. Some details of those early reports were in error. As often happens with news reporting the first initial reports have inaccurate information. Unfortunately it is the first reports that people often remember. They will remember a celebrity being arrested for something, but not that they were found innocent a few months later, or that the charges were dropped and there was never a trial.

On some other Mandela Effect video I commented on how the first initial reports often contain inaccuracies and someone tried to correct me by mentioning some details of an event I wasn't even commenting on but apparently was mentioned in the video I was commenting on. I have also been "corrected" at times with comments that basically say the same thing I had just commented, or they think I am complaining about what I commented on. This sort of thing happens to me sometimes on Facebook also. I often think I should stop commenting on social media especially videos some of which are a couple of years old.

There are some Mandela Effect believers that say if you don't believe in the Mandela Effect and mock it. You have not been effected by it yet and are from this reality. Huh? Yes most people believe that part of the Mandela Effect is that we are currently in a moment of time where multiple realities are combining together as one reality and that is why many are experiencing the Mandela Effect. They refuse to believe that they might be wrong about one difference and they defend the entire phenomenon. They also say if you don't believe in the phenomenon you don't get it and don't understand it. The one thing to understand is people are finding proof of different spellings of things or of slogans or logos that are different than what they had remembered.

World Peace: Some Thoughts And Ideas

For many years I have had an idea for a world peace plan. Unfortunately due to mankind's violent nature this world may never have true worldwide "peace". The plan is very simple in concept but the actual execution of it is the part that would probably never be possible to accomplish.

In a nutshell the idea is for all of the countries in the world (195?) to hold a peace conference, select a group of globetrotting ambassadors that would travel the world and meet with each and every country's political and religious leaders over a year or two year period. After the traveling ambassadors complete their trip a second peace conference would be held discussing the information the ambassadors obtained on their travels and to formulate some kind of plan to get it done.

Unfortunately with the thousands of religions in the world and some of those in direct conflict with each other on many issues there is no clear cut solution.

There is also a small faction of isolated tribes that don't want to have anything to do with the outside world. These isolated tribes in the short term would be a non-factor I guess. These primitive tribes are usually very hostile to outsiders. In many cases those unfortunate enough to encounter these tribes end up dead. In recent weeks (about a week before Thanksgiving?) a young American Missionary was killed in his attempt to "Introduce The Lord" to the Sentinelese from the isolated island North Sentinel in the Bay of Bengal off of India. The Indian government has strict laws against any contact with the tribe. These laws are intended to not only leave the tribe alone to keep their culture intact, but also to protect them from modern diseases which could kill them and to protect outsiders from the tribe. This young man ignored those laws and warnings he was given.

Would total world peace require a worldwide government, or could just a central "mother" government that oversaw the group of individual countries work? Many think it would require the full one world order/government yet several religions primarily Christianity are dead set against an overall one world government. There are also conspiracy theories about secret societies like the Illuminati planning on creating an evil One World Dictated Government by force.

THE PLAN or IDEA:
OK so here are more details on the idea. All the countries in the world would agree to hold a peace summit. Every country would participate, no exceptions. Each country sends a small delegation of 2 or 3 people to this summit, conference. The delegates do not have to be government leaders or high ranking officials. From this assembled group of delegates a small group of special ambassadors will be assembled. My original thought was to have a symbolic 12 people. The number could be as few as 5 or 6. There will also be a small group of alternates designated to fill in for the main group should there be some sort of need to do that.

This group of 12 will have the task of visiting with the political and religious leaders of each and every country within a one or two year period. Spending a few days to maybe a week in their world peace discussions. The number of special ambassadors might have to be increased and they might have to be split into smaller teams to meet the suggested 2 year time limit. I don't know how long visiting each and every country will actually take. They will discuss with the leaders (and their translators) what world peace means to those people and what they think it would take for that to be achieved.

While the special ambassadors are traveling from country to country their health and safety will be insured. If any individual country or group of countries attempt to kill or kidnap the special ambassadors, they would be met with worldwide sanctions against them. Trade with that country would cease immediately. Diplomatic relations with those countries ended. That country would be socially isolated from the rest of the world. If they then declare war on any individual country they will be met with the military force of the entire world against them.

OK so maybe a delegation of traveling ambassadors might not be needed, maybe a huge peace summit over a month or two might do the same sort of thing. The main idea is to have every country's input as well as the input from every religion. I thought that a small group meeting with the leaders would be more effective at actually getting the talks done and insuring the input from each and every nation and religion than one massive meeting. A huge summit would could also have too many potential arguments that would delay discussions.

The cooperation of every country would be needed for this idea or a similar idea to even be attempted or have a chance at being successful. As I said a big problem is religious beliefs. Some religions would have to reconsider their "traditions" as they relate to how they treat others and if they even give them the courtesy of respect or of recognition of being an equal human being.

Maybe just an overwhelming majority of countries would be needed for this to happen, and then hopefully the reluctant countries would eventually join in.

These a just my ideas on how world peace could be achieved. Maybe this sort of idea could work, but it probably wouldn't. Just as I said near the beginning of this post total world peace might never be possible on this world.

I welcome comments on this idea, but any hate filled comments or nonsense comments that just say it is a stupid idea will be deleted.

*World Peace Button Image from https://www.zazzle.com

The Mandela Effect: What The Heck Is It?

If you have been watching YouTube for a few years or searching for weird things on the Internet you have probably heard of The Mandela Effect. It is a strange phenomenon that many have taken to heart to explain some things that are unexplainable or to finally pin something on the strangeness of CERN. There are some Vloggers (Video Bloggers) who specialize in discovering "new" Mandela Effects. There are just as many explanations and theories posted about this bizarre concept as there are things that have been effected by it. The whole subject is a gigantic can of worms.

At the end of this post I have a few related links that go into further detail about the ME and the theories about what it is and the origins. I think the concept has been around for as long as there have been people.

The basic beginning and the naming of the effect goes something like this. When Nelson Mandela died in 2013 many people got a major case of deja vu as they had a vivid memory of him dying some 30 years previously while he was in jail. Maybe they thought he had died during his major surgery mid to late 1980s. That coupled with a special musical tribute for Mandela in 1988 for his 70th Birthday. The fact that some years later in the mid to late 1990s he would become the president of South Africa, must also have slipped many people's collective minds. Another theory about why people thought Mandela had died was perhaps they were confusing him with another South African anti-apartheid activist Bantu Steve Biko and the 1980s movie based on his life "Cry Freedom". More recently I read a comment from a video I think that mentioned some conspiracy theory that the South African government had spread rumors about Mandela's death for some political reason and had staged a fake funeral even though he was alive and well.

Another major popular confusion that has been attributed to the Mandela Effect and one of the early effects from the newly coined phenomenon is a popular children's book series The Berenstain Bears by Stan and Jan Berenstain. With this book series the confusion is that many people could swear on a planet full of Bibles that the name was spelled differently and the Bears names were Berenstein. Either one of which are common misspellings.

There are many many misspellings that are remembered that many falsely attribute to the Mandela Effect. Simple memories of a misspelling of a name or remembering an alternate spelling is not a Mandela Effect but simply a mass misremembering. There are many Vloggers on YouTube that specialize in the misspelled effects. Some of them I have commented (in the video's comment section) stating that the specific misspelling of the subject name is NOT the Mandela Effect but just a very common false memory.

Most Mandela Effects fall under the "Wait a minute I thought that it was this way, not that" heading. There are many scenes from movies that are in this area of the effect. Like remembering a certain line of dialogue that ends up being totally different. It is the movie line version of Misheard Lyrics. Oh and misheard lyrics apparently are also a Mandela Effect. There is also the subject of product labels and product names and logos. Plus many other things that in some way now appear to many to be totally wrong. Some people claim they remember there being 51 or 52 states, and they weren't DC or Puerto Rico. One was supposedly "Columbia" but they couldn't remember where it was exactly. Some say the other state was North California or some area in North California. Say What?

My original intention for this particular post was to be a potential starting off point for a series of posts about the Mandela Effect. Concentrating on just one or two effects per post. There are a few that have me stumped (like the Moonraker braces thing) but most of what I have seen can often be attributed to remembering something that is actually a common misspelling. Thinking a celebrity named John Smith spelled their name "Jon Smyth", when they spelled it the most common way of "John Smith" all along. Or someone named Jeff who has always spelled his name Geoff.


Related Links:
Mandela Effect: Official Site
The Conversation: The Mandela Effect
Snopes: The Mandela Effect
Wikipedia: False Memory