The Latest Hollywood Squares

From time to time I do like TV game shows. I like the current incarnation of Hollywood Squares with Drew Barrymore as the center square (as well as being one of the producers). For those who don't know Hollywood Squares is basically Tic-Tac-Toe fitted into a game show format. Two contestants compete against each other for a small sum of cash by playing tic-tac-toe with 9  Hollywood celebrities who are sitting at desks on a three level set. There is a host, in this incarnation Nate Burleson (most notably an ex NFL player?) who asks the celebrities questions. The celebrities usually give a joke answer to lighten the mood and then give their real answer to the question, the contestant then either agrees or disagrees with the celeb's answer if they are correct then their shape (X or O) gets the square. They usually have two rounds (games) and the contestant with the most accumulated cash wins and goes to a bonus round. In the bonus round the host makes a statement about each celeb to which the contestant either agrees that the statement is true or false, they have 60 seconds to answer this round robin of "fact" questions. Each celeb has an envelope with a card inside it, 8 of the celebs have a blank card and just 1 had a card that has $25,000 written on it. For each celeb the contestant matches with (gets the fact question correct) the celeb opens the envelope to reveal their card. If the celeb has the card with $25,000 on it the contestant wins the $25,000.

As a kid I enjoyed the original version that had Paul Lynde as the center square. I don't think any other version over the years has really compared to the charm of the original. A few years back (1990s? early 2000s?) there was an incarnation with Whoopi Goldberg as the center square that wasn't as good or as witty. At least this new incarnation has some of the old wit of the original somewhat.

As to Drew I have always liked her since she appeared in ET. As a child actor she was a cutie, then she became a troubled teen, a bit precocious and almost ruined her life with the alcohol and drugs. Still she has been a celebrity crush of mine for ages and still is.

Happy 20th Blogiversary To Me!

 

WOW 20 YEARS? Since I started this dang thing? The amount of content I actually have here is less than half that time. Anyway. I thought I would look to see what my very first post was and it was called The Beginning or The End?  I mentioned that I had been "blogging" for a little while on my personal website that I had back then. I simulated a blog there by writing a diary type page on the site. It was a pain in the butt maintaining it. 

As I mentioned in that first post, I would do CD and DVD reviews, mention new purchases of that media, track updates I made to the website, and probably a few other things. Sadly my old website is long gone. Maintaining the registration for a website was the biggest reason I let it go. I still barely have some of the files from that site on whatever floppy discs survived my late 2023 apartment inspection purge. Among the various things I decluttered was about 90% - 95% of all the computer floppy discs I had.  The biggest thing I got rid of during that purge for my apartment inspection was the very large dinning room table that was too big for my apartment's dinning room and 6 chairs with it.

State O' The Blog: 2025 Recap

STATE O' THE BLOG

2025 Edition

2025 was a year of very very low blog activity. Practically none at all. 

Here are the monthlies from 2025:

January: 1
February: 0
March: 0
April: 0
May: 0
June: 0
July: 0
August: 0
September: 0
October: 0
November: 1
December: 1

TOTAL: 3
Monthly Average: 0.25

Now lets look at how the 2025 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

2023 - 14

2024 - 8

2025 - 3
Yearly Average: 28.25

Another RED year yippie.

So yeah very little blogging this past year just the bare bones. I think this is the last year that I will do the average totals. I might do a "State O' The Blog" at the end of 2026 but I don't think I'll do the average posts totals as that ties in with the keeping up with my quota counting.

Happy New Year: Hello 2026 Goodbye 2025

GOODBYE 2025 HELLO 2026

2025 was an OK year. New car back in January. Nothing too spectacular that I can recall.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm NOT Dead Yet!

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. It's been ages many months since I have blogged here, or even on either of my two card blogs. Mostly because the desire to blog isn't as demanding as it was a few years ago. I don't feel that I "have" to meet the one post a month quota that I used to implement upon myself. I also have never had a huge following so most of the time I am basically just writing for myself.  The task of coming up with something to write about can be a little stressful when you are "forcing" yourself to do it.

One of the things I do want to do is get back into album reviewing and maybe some book reviewing. Right now I'm trying to locate a notepad that I had begun composing one of my CD reviews on a year or two ago. I recall that I had started the general overall reaction I had to that particular album, but I was going to go into detail with the tracks. Some of the tracks remind me of other artists and one of the tracks is a cover of a very popular song from 17 years previous. I have a few partial draft posts for some other album reviews, most are just the bare bones information about the album that is being reviewed - the title, artist, picture of album cover and that is pretty much it, if anything.

I also have a partial post from several years back that closes out a section I used to have on this blog. I will leave that a mystery in case I don't ever get around to it. Just as for my Curly W Cards blog I have a post that reviews the Nationals 2019 World Series that I never got around to finishing. I wonder if I'll ever get around to finishing either of those posts. I want to it is just that for some reason I have procrastinated on them. For both there are some specific details that I want to include that I haven't gotten around to putting into the draft post.

So yeah I still WANT to blog I just don't force myself to go through the motions of blogging and the routines that you go through and the practice that you do.

State O' The Blog: 2024 Recap

STATE O' THE BLOG

2024 Edition

2024 was a year of very low blog activity which the numbers reflect and at the bottom I will mention the major causes.

Here are the monthlies from 2024:

January: 2
February: 2
March: 0
April: 0
May: 1
June: 0
July: 0
August: 0
September: 0
October: 2
November: 0
December: 1

TOTAL: 8
Monthly Average: 0.67

Now lets look at how the 2024 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

2023 - 14

2024 - 8
Yearly Average: 29.26

Another RED year yippie.

This year had some lows. The kind of lows I don't like to talk about when they are happening and I don't want those "Sorry to hear that" pity replies from everybody while I'm experiencing them. Stuff happens and you roll with it. Some stuff you accept other stuff you try to fight but in the end stuff happens.

Late March I had some excruciating back pain, so much that I went to the hospital to get my back checked out. I do have Scoliosis (curvature of the spine). I think it was being irritated by adjusting to a months old toe wound on my right big toe that thanks to my diabetes was not healing. The toe wound was infected down to the bone and the first tendon of the big toe. So bye bye right big toe. Hospital stay was 2 weeks then I went on to rehab for what would be a total of 6 months at two separate facilities, a regular retirement home and then an assisted living center before getting to go home. It is at a time like that where being single without a live-in partner to be a health care provider sucks. Family is either too far away or in the case of family that was close by they were in the process of getting ready for a move, which oddly wouldn't get done until closer to end of this year.

The other bad setback for this year was early December I got into a car accident, fortunately I wasn't injured but my car was totaled. I am in process of getting a newused car estimated arrival 02 January. When I had gotten out of rehab I had to have my car in the shop because it hadn't been running for 6 months, the battery was drained and some rats had gotten into some of the engine wiring. So yeah didn't have much time with the car this year.

As for my Ebay I only sold 1 item early Dec a sports card. I thought I had sold a couple of other things, but those were sold near the end of last year. Meanwhile over at COMC (Check Out My Cards) I had a record number of yearly sales there. I will put the details for those on my card blog sometime soon hopefully.

Happy New Year: Hello 2025 Goodbye 2024

GOODBYE 2024 HELLO 2025

2024 was a so-so year, there were a few bad things that I will mention in my State of The Blog post in January. Had record year for trading card sales over at COMC most sales in one year for me there. Also for 2025 I'm getting a newused car.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

When To Blog Or Post

 From time to time on social media and in various internet forums, and those rare occasions in real life, I sometimes find myself saying (typing, writing) something that is taken in a way I didn't expect or is challenged and I feel uncomfortable with what I originally said. This is why I try to stay away from talking politics. Sometimes this misspeaking leads to very awkward backtracking that I usually have to just eventually give up on. Often it makes me want to not interact on any social media anymore, especially on whatever platform I made the gaffe on. If it was on a forum I will sometimes just avoid that forum for an extended period of time, if I can. 

Upon later examination, if I do take the time to do that, I often find part of the problem or what I think is a problem, came from being emotional about my reaction and quickly reacting without taking enough time to process what was said. This coupled with the replier taking things at face value or trying to read something else into what I said that isn't in whatever it is that I said.

It is also caused by me having reached an age where for many things I just don't care about them anymore. Other possibilities could be that I stink at being social and am becoming a horrible unsocial person.

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

 ...And I am back to the Blogiverse from my mostly medical absence. Few if any may have noticed but they don't care, I don't care either I just blog for the fun of it now days, if others see it they see it. Long story short I had some health issues, a toe/foot operation that was diabetes related with back issues that had me in the hospital for 2 weeks then 2 months in rehab with PT (Physical Therapy) and OT (Occupational Therapy) until my insurance quit and I had to relocate for 4 more months of rehab at an assisted living complex out-of-pocket. The back pain was what kept me down for so long. 6 months away from your home is a very long time. Being single, living alone and not in a relationship sucks in this situation, that is why I was in rehab for so damn long. No live-in caregiver. Your life gets disoriented and super off track. It is difficult to keep track of finances and lots of other everyday life things that you don't notice until you don't have access to them anymore. There was a period of almost a week when I was in the first rehab center (a regular retirement home) where my old cell phone gave out (it was very old and I kept dropping the damn thing) and even though I had my work computer, another story but I won't tell that one too long and complicated, with recent updates to the network and my lack of being on the network resulted in me being off the grid for 4 or 5 days? No internet and no phone, another long story I don't want to tell the details of (I sort of blogged about it here). Fortunately my sister (who is normally in CA but had come east to help me out some and see if I was getting good care) was able to get my Chromebook from my apartment so I could get back online and was able to get me a new Android cellphone that upgraded me in that department. So I was able to manage most of my finances OK. Work was another story and I did get back eventually.

Without going into detail there are a few permanent life changes. I'd rather not discuss the medical stuff.

I slowly got caught up with some of the TV that I had missed. I had access to TV but in the 2nd rehab the TVs were in common areas so I didn't always have control of what was being shown. A few of my shows I had watched and missed some episodes of I will have to get the DVDs of their last season(s) to checkout what my Xfinity Cable is now charging for On-Demand. Yeah I was away from some of those shows for that long.

I also now have access to my CDs so I can listen to stuff the way I prefer to listen to them and on my own schedule and not just watch some obscure fan made video on YouTube for the song.

NOT Connected

I have recently been offline from the internet for a few days. Plus my cellphone seems to have died. So I can't text people about the outage. I managed to get internet access, but anything with my cellphone is not accessible. I have said many times in many places to many people that modern Technology is GREAT when it is working properly, but when you lose access to all of your devices that either link to the internet or has a texting network it SUCKS big time.