Blogging In Spurts And Drips

For me blogging has always come in spurts and drips mostly drips. Sometimes I have so much inspiration to get stuff recorded on pen and paper, er typed out into the Either nets. I make several posts and line them up in the scheduling queue. Other times it just slowly drips and I have to scramble at the end of the month to come up with some sort of post for my self appointed and regulated monthly posting quota minimum. Which is 20 posts short of my yearly quota.

At the end of April this year I had one of those posting spurts, at least on over at my regular trading card blog. That blog will have 2 posts for April and so far at least 3 posts for May. Here on this regular blog I once again only posted my minimum one post for the month drip. That post I started drafting in the early part of the month and was ready to post about 4 or 5 days before its posting date on 30 April 2018 which is today as I start to draft this post.

I have noticed that it is easier for me to post about my trading card hobby (or maybe it is an obsession) than it is to post general stuff here on this my regular blog. Part of it is I am more interested in writing about my hobby than I am random mundane things of life.

Of my three blogs my regular trading card blog "CaptKirk42's Trading Card blog" is the easiest to make posts for then my Washington Baseball "Curly W Cards" blog then this one the most difficult.

Doing regular features on a specific subject does help build the quota. I have had a few regular features on this blog: Fryday Fourtoon, Myka Monday, Year in Review (State of the Blog recaps), Warehouse 13 Wednesday, Book Review (was "Recent Read") I have also frequently mentioned times my name has been misspelled but it isn't a regular feature just a reoccurring subject.

Well now that I have that written down time to post this puppy. That is schedule this post for publishing Tomorrow to get in early for the May Posting.

Misheard Lyrics: Voices Carry

I have done a post like this before about misheard lyrics. Well I have another misheard lyrics memory. I should have mentioned it in the other post but didn't think about it at the time. This gives me a post for the month if I can't think of anything else.

The song for this post is Voices Carry from the album of the same name recorded by 'Til Tuesday. The lead singer Aimee Mann has a soft and very pleasant voice.

The real lyrics are:
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry

What I thought was being sung:
Hush hush, even downtown, voices carry

Those words might sound logical, but later at the end of the song the line "He said shut up, he said shut up" talking about downtown makes no sense whatsoever.

On a totally different note, I didn't realize til  I searched and then downloaded the image how Aimee Mann on the album cover looks a lot like Kate McKinnon from Saturday Night Live, or rather how Kate looks like Aimee did. It isn't exact but close enough that when I Googled to try to find some comparison pictures I came across a reddit discussion from about a year ago that makes makes the comparison of Kate to Aimee (from 30 years ago). Upon further exploring there are times when Kate looks more like Jenny McCarthy Now wonder when I first saw Kate she looked familiar.

Misheard Lyrics: Bangles Walk Like An Egyptian

We have all done it, mankind has done it since he started putting vocals to music. I am talking the musical version of "the telephone game". You know where something is said but you hear something completely different and believe what you heard is the right line. A mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase or song lyrics is called a Mondegreen. There are at least two websites devoted to this sort of thing as it applies to song lyrics: Am I Right? and KissThisGuy Can you believe all the people who used to think (and some still do) that Jimi Hendrix sang the line "Excuse me while I kiss this guy"?

One of the songs that it took me a while to get the right words for was Elton John's "Bennie & The Jets". NO I didn't think that "electric boots" were "electric boobs" like so many did. I was too young to know what a mohair suit was but understood that line.  For me it was the line "Oh Bennie she's really keen" at first I couldn't figure out the "really keen" part and thought it was "Oh Bennie she's a rent-a-Queen" or "Bennie she's a real queen.". Which is a little closer. Oh maybe I should be a writer for "Don't Forget The Lyrics!"

Now as for the song I intended this thread to be about. For as long as the song has been around there were some lyrics that I never quite heard correctly. Even seeing the real lyrics and trying to listen for them it is hard for me to hear the real lyrics. The song I am talking about as recorded by The Bangles from their Album Different Light is Walk Like An Egyptian.

The Bangles: Different Light copyright The Bangles and Columbia Records.

To start things off the opening line:
I used to think the second line was "They do the SAME dance don't you know"

The real line is:
"All the old paintings on the tombs,
They do the sand dance don't you know"

Screen capture from official "Walk Like an Egyptian" video.

Here is the more difficult verse/lines:
Most of the line was unintelligible to me something like "slight bit a street and your back, shift then you call a cop (also sounds like call a cock), Let the Sargent know (oh whey oh), they strike a pose on a Cadillac".

Now the real verse is:
"Slide your feet up the street bend your back,
Shift your arm then you pull it back,
Life is hard you know (oh whey oh),
So strike a pose on a Cadillac.

If you want to find all the cops,
They're hanging out in the donut shop."

Screen capture from official "Walk Like an Egyptian" video.

OK so excuse me NO I will not kiss this guy, I don't play for that side of the field.
Now my favorite misheard song lyrics- "Don't hold on tonight, It's bound to take your life, There's a bathroom on the right."

Update: Ebay Oops Sort Of

EBAY Oops Sort Of: An Update

Well I got a bit of a surprise on this almost mistake. A while back try late April last year (2017) I made a bid on Ebay for an autographed Wes Unseld Basketball trading card that was coming from China! I originally had missed that part. When I did notice it upon seeing the "item has been shipped" notice I started to get concerned. What with all the counterfeit cards that come out of Asia, and the various shipping problems people have had with stuff coming from overseas yadda, yadda, yadda I thought I would have to chalk this one off as a loss.

Just as sometime between late September to late December of 2016 when I had two packages that I suspect were snatched from my apartment's front door step. I thought that this would never arrive. Of the two missing packages from 2016 one I know for a fact was actually delivered because I was given a tracking number and after a few days I checked on a Thursday to check on the status of the package and it said the package had been delivered to the unit on that Monday. That one stinks because it was a full Score 1989 Baseball set. The other package was supposed to be 600 Nationals cards from a trade never got a tracking number but it sounded like it was shipped around the time I had shipped out my end of other teams for them. But I digress.

I started the tale of these cards back in April on this my regular blog because I needed to post something that month here for my minimal personal posting quota of one post per month. It so happened that this drama that ended up being non-drama and nothing to worry about was what was going on in my life at that particular moment.

Anyway since this is a card related story it is posted Here on: CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog. OK so the story was explained mostly here on my regular blog, but the bigger pictures of the card is on the card blog.

State Of The Blog: 2017 Recap

STATE OF THE BLOG

2017 Edition

2017 Joins last year and the year before in the growing number of Republican Red years in my annual State of The Blog tally. 

Here are the monthlies from 2017:

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

TOTAL: 16
Monthly Average: 1.33

Yet again this past year I FAILED my yearly goal of 32 posts per year. That is three years in a row.
Now lets look at how the 2017 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
Yearly Average: 36.66

Sigh - The LOWEST year to date. I am barely keeping up with my bare bones minimum of one post per month. If the current trend keeps though even that will get more and more difficult to achieve. 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.

Happy New Year 2017 to 2018

GOODBYE 2017 HELLO 2018

Over the years I have tried to be consistent with making a New Year's post. Preferably getting it tacked onto the blog in the late hours of 31 Dec not the wee new ones of 01 Jan. I seem to have been inconsistent with the post time. Sometimes not anywhere near the witching hour.

In a few days in Jan 2018 I will make my annual "State of the Blog" post. 2017 continues the barely getting a post per month trend I have had in the last few years. I think it is an all time low like the approval ratings for the President. My overall average is getting worse and worse.

While many people this year have been moaning and groaning about POTUS Trump I have been trying to keep a level head about things. Like with previous administrations I have tried to not let Donald Trump's stress me out. Way too many people are letting his words and actions get to them in upsetting ways. Yes some are deserved and warranted, but not everything is bad. Many are blinded by their hate for him. I am not a hater. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at first. It was difficult and eventually became virtually impossible. I won't go any further down this political slippery slope.

So how about them Rams?

11-4

Just one more game to play, which will have been played by the time this post is published. This post was drafted a few days ago. The Redskins on the other hand. are currently just 7-8 a loss to the Giants would really stink I'm hoping a win so they will finish out the season even 8-8.

Name Game: We Need A Real Earthy Sounding Name This Time

Well I thought I had seen, heard, and otherwise all the different ways to mess up my name. Never say Never and Never think you have heard the last butchering of your name. The usual suspect a cashier at a food place where they ask for your name to identify your order. This time early in November I must have listpth or sthumthing because the name sounded like Mork & Mindy's Offspring Mearth as played by Jonathan Winters.

The name this time was Kurth for what it was worth. Hmm sounds like a Klingon actually.

Captian K'rth

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.

Book Update: Biography Read Starting Rare Doctor Who

UPDATE: 31 OCT 2017

OK so after a few months, the first few not cracking open the book at all paused at the end of the first chapter, I finished reading The Ted Williams biography Ted Williams, My Father: A Memoir by Claudia Williams. For baseball fans, and Ted Williams fans it is a wonderful read. It clarifies the media hyped misinformation about Ted's death and emphasizes the loving relationship he had with his son John-Henry and his youngest daughter Claudia (the author). From a previous marriage Ted had daughter Barbara "Bobby Jo" Joyce, who was a bit estranged from the rest of the family in part due to her husband. It is nice to read a biography from someone who was close to the person who is the subject of the biography. There is no speculation and very little if any is exaggerated. I could relate to many of the family memories as I come from a loving family and being about six years older than the author I can relate to some of the time/era specific stories. I haven't written a review of it yet. Hopefully I will soon and post it here. I want to get back to doing semi-regular book reviews on this blog. It helps with my personal posting quota.

Not wanting to sit too long without a "currently reading" book in my hands. I began reading:

The New Doctor Who Adventures: Human Nature by Paul Cornell. For some reason this particular Doctor Who book is difficult to find and is often super expensive. I managed to get a copy from Ebay for a little over $10 it has ugly corner damage on the bottom corner for 30 pages or so. Did a dog try to bite it? Fortunately the damage doesn't effect the reading of any of the pages. I think it did help the starting bid of only $5.50 or something. My wining bid was the 2nd bid.

Human Nature comes from the Non-Televised years of Doctor Who when the show was a thing of the past with no indications of any sort of revival. This title has increased popularity since there was a David Tennant episode that uses the title and the main plot. Doctor Who producer Steven Moffat gave the author some ideas that also drifted to the latest television incarnation of the show. Still I don't see any reason why copies of this title (or the title Lungbarrow) should be so dang expensive. As part of the 50th Anniversary of the show there was a recent reprint of Human Nature with a completely different cover and format. I think the reprint was available as an E-Book before being physically published.

Spaced Out Badges

I don't normally like to mention work things on-line. I definitely don't like to get into specifics since I work for a company that contracts to the US Government with the Department of Defense and US Navy.

Part of my job is boring receptionist work which in part means being at one of the reception desks to greet visitors and to get them to sign in the visitor's log and get a visitor's badge. Also from time to time I have to sit out in front of a meeting room checking visitor badges and having the meeting attendees sign in for the meeting. I call it meeting babysitting. If it is a classified meeting then they have to check all their electronic devices and leave them outside the meeting room and someone MUST be monitoring the area at all times during the meeting. To insure that only those people who are supposed to be in the meeting are in the meeting, no walk-ins. During the classified meetings the table or desk outside the meeting room or hall looks like some sort of flea market with boxes of cell phones and a bunch of backpacks, purses, laptop bags and other stuff strewn about or lined up against a nearby wall.

In general the generic badges for the meetings are the same as the general visitor badges. Sometimes they have a specific badge number sometimes not. Sometimes the specific group or department that is holding the meeting has their own special badges that are meeting specific.

The badge numbers usually are in some kind of logical sequence. At one time each floor had a specific series of badge numbers. The First floor would have numbers 100 - 199, Second Floor the 200-299 series etc.

Microsoft Word has a general badge template to match up with the card stock from Avery labels. Our badges are usually just simple card stock with the company logo on top or bottom. Marked "VISITOR: Escort Required" and maybe a badge number.  Possibly with the building address. Regular visitor badges are usually a little more permanent, plastic, laminated and more specially made than generic meeting badges.

After one meeting about a month ago, maybe longer, whoever had supplied the meeting badges left them on the regular reception desk. One day I was sorting through some badges separating specifically numbered ones from ones with no badge number. It was at this time I ran across a badge with the following number "THX 1138". I thought "Wow that's from the Lucas film" I double checked the film title because I often forget if it is 1138, 1139 or some other similar number. Digging a little further I noticed the entire batch of badges were numbers or letter sequences were mostly from the World of Popular Science Fiction. There were a few real navy ship numbers mixed in either to appear normal or they were from a different batch of badges. I'm thinking the latter.

Obviously someone was having fun when they made up the badges. They also are widely knowledgeable with the science fiction genre. Actually I'm a little surprised there wasn't a "TARDIS"  badge. I guess that one got time-locked.

Any way here are the fun numbers I found on these badges.

Battlestar Galactica:
BSG 75

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
42

History:
War of 1812 or 1812 Overture

James Bond Franchise:
007

Marvel Comics:
X23

Misc:
2001
A47 could be for AK-47 gun or AC-47 plane
P2501-  Not sure what they were referencing here

R237 - Not sure what they were referencing here

Pop Culture or Alternate SubCulture:
Leet 1337

Robocop Franchise:
ED-209

Robotech Franchise:
VF-1S

Sherlock Holmes:
221B

Star Trek Franchise:
NCC-1701
7 of 9

Star Wars Franchise:
BB-8
C-3PO
K-2SO
R2-D2
T-65

Technology:
ACR-1 or ACR-1 More likely the latter since it is Navy related.
Ti-81
TR-808

Terminator Franchise:
T-1000
T-800

*Updated 05 Oct 2017. I noticed a new one the Battlestar Galactica one. Hmm it should be 78. Maybe I saw the number wrong.