Crystal Anniversary!

According to WordPress, today marks 15 years that I have been a blogger!  It was never intended to be dedicated to the Jumble and the Cryptoquote, but it just kind of turned out that way.  I’ve made many friends along the way, and a few who probably see me more as an enemy – for whatever reason – as I continue to do my own thing.  Thanks to all who either enjoy, or simply tolerate, all my observations, rants and diatribes.  I always try to be a straight shooter, and you can always rely on me to be my genuine – unautomated – self!  As always, be well and do good, friends!   —   YUR

Image courtesy of Google

A *Dedicated* Imitation!

As Charles Caleb Colton once famously said:  “Imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery”.  So, I guess I should be flattered that someone has created a blog, powered by WordPress no less, with the web address of:  JumbleAnswers .com.  

It’s a little hard to determine how long it has been around, but the posts do bear a striking resemblance to my Jumble Spoilers.  Maybe, it is written by someone who once frequented unclerave.wordpress.com, but objected to my politics, or sense of humor, or something.  The commentary portion, especially, reads very much like mine.  She – because it looks like it might be written by someone named Angela – even makes references to Hoyt and Knurek.  I’m not sure if they endorse the blog, or not.  In the few posts that I read I did not see them commenting . . . but who knows.

The – quasi-official looking – blog states that it has 800 something “Followers”, but each one of its posts has either zero, or 1 or 2 – at most, that I could see – “Likes”.  I can understand this, as a good number of the “Followers” may not be on WordPress themselves, but each post seems to have a surprising number of comments.  After reading a number of the comments though, I got the strange feeling that the blog’s creator is just having a conversation with them self!  It looks a little too much like a controlled call and response, to me.  Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m just jealous???  LOL!

Anyway, it is out there, friends.  So, give it a look, and give me your impression of it.  If nothing else, let it be noted that Yer Uncle doesn’t mind a little competition!  Although, I’m a little surprised that they are getting away with the name!  Hmm.

Be well and do good, friends.  Have a safe and happy 4th of July!

---

  YUR

 

Apologies to Al Hoffman and Murthy

. . . and, to almost anyone else who suddenly comments on a non-current post.  You may very well be someone with the best intentions, and are just a little late to the show.  But, the cautious and suspicious side of me views your comments as possible spam, that is smart enough to get around the WordPress spam guard software. 

I certainly do not want to discourage those who are new to this blog, but if you want to introduce yourself to our little community I would much prefer that you comment on a post that is recent, and not one that is months old.  I will always make allowances for known/regular posters.  But generally speaking, even our regular posters like to keep things relatively current.

No disrespect to the honest latecomers, but I do need to consider the safety of the blog, as a primary concern.

Regards,

Your Uncle Rave 

Challenge 46

English: 030216-N-6967M-003 Brightly colored Purafill pellets filter out odors in the chambers. The deeper the chamber, goes the more intense odors become. (All Hands, June 2004, pg. 25) Photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class (AW) Shane T. McCoy. (RELEASED) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My stink made me think

Is there something I can drink

For fresh breath and wink

—   YUR

https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-46-think-fresh/

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2014 in review

Here’s a little self-patting-on-the-back weekend filler, for those of you who just can’t get enough of yer UncleRave!  LOL!  Stay warm, friends.   —   YUR

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 540,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 23 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Spam Message of the Year!

. . . Well, so far, at least!

Every single day I receive varying amounts of spam, which WordPress is very good about filtering out, from the legitimate comments.  Usually, the spam is full of complimentary praise, designed to get you to accept it.  But, it’s always so non-specific to the post that it’s allegedly commenting on, and the English is generally very suspect..  Other times the spam is just a mish-mosh of letters, numbers and symbols, mixed in with the occasional words and phrases.  However, every so often you get a spam message that doesn’t fit the mold.  I received this one the other day, and for some reason, I feel compelled to share it with all of you!

“if the buffalo in my head could speak german i would not know a god damm thing. What i do know is that the language of art is out of this world. 977229”   —   Wollin@aol.com

How wonderfully quirky!  It’s both strangely cryptic, and semi-poetic.  Again, the English – and the spelling – is very suspect, in parts, but it has a whimsical quality to it.  I have no idea whose email address this is, and very likely it has been cloned/hacked, but if someone wants to write to this person . . . feel free!  No, I’m just kidding!  You’d either be just adding to this person’s misery, or you might even open yourself up to being hacked/cloned.  Just enjoy this for the random nonsense that it is.  Be well, do good . . . and search for hidden beauty, friends.   —   YUR

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Big Jumble News!

Image via Wikipedia

For some of you – who CAN be bothered reading the Comments section – this may already be *old* news.  But, for the rest of you, dig what one of the Jumble creators, and current Uncle Rave visitor/fan, Jeff Knurek, has imparted upon us:

Dear Uncle Rave and Jumblers…
We have some BIG news for all of you. We are sad to announce that long time Jumble co-creator, Mike Argirion, will be retiring. His last Daily Jumble will be February 26th. We wish Mike LAL HET SEBT!
With that announcement, we welcome Master Puzzle creator, David L. Hoyt, who will take the torch and along with puzzle partner, Jeff Knurek (me),and will be creating the Jumble puzzles that you all play and love. David and Jeff’s first Daily puzzle will run Feb. 28th. Please take a good look at it, for it stars Jeff, David and some other puzzle guy that some of you may recognize.
David and I have been puzzle partners for 8 years now and together are the two most syndicated puzzle creators in the world. (Sounds impressive!) The Jumble will only change for the better. We hope to remove archaic words from the word list. We also hope to challenge and entertain you with fresh new puns and fun cartoons filled with clues, special guests (David, myself and more) and things that make David and I giggle. We promise to try to use quotation marks when and where they are necessary, but will still look here to see when we goofed. I certainly have appreciated Uncle Rave’s descriptions and discussions on the Jumble (for the past three years of lurking) and look forward to the future. Keep up the great work and thank you so much for Jumbling. It’s going to get real fun!
LAL ET SEBT,
LUJBEM FEJF

Soave!

YUR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPs9WMWlbaU

Warning to Fellow Bloggers

Image via Wikipedia

justbazaar.com writes very convincing looking comments.  Fortunately, the wordpress spam filters catch them, and for good reason.  I’m not sure what their game is, but their record raises numerous alarms. (see below)  For safety’s sake, I’m not allowing the writers from this domain access to UncleRave’s Wordy Weblog.  Use your own judgment.

From DomainTools.com:

Here’s what we know about justbazaar.com:

• “mj” owns about 260 other domains View these domains >
• is a contact on the whois record of 1,473,581 domains
  is a contact on the whois record of 17 domains
• 5 registrars have maintained records for this domain since 2003-10-11 with 5 drops.
• This domain has changed name servers 26 times over 3 years.
• Hosted on 20 IP addresses over 6 years.
• View 24 ownership records archived since 2007-11-02 .
• Wiki article on Justbazaar.com
• 294 other web sites are hosted on this server.

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