FANS START THEIR OWN #BirdBoxChallenge.

Fans inspired by “Bird Box,” Sandra Bullock’s Netflix horror hit, have started attempting something called the #BirdBoxChallenge.

The task requires participants to attempt to do things blindfolded like Bullock’s character in the film.
There is a slight difference: In “Bird Box,” characters wear the blindfolds as protection against an unseen force that seemingly takes over people’s vision by manifesting their greatest fears.

In the #BirdBoxChallenge, people wear the blindfolds in hopes of going viral.

The hopes of going viral are the hopes of BIRD BOX makers and NETFLIX, who are seeking newfound ways to keep the social media virility alive for the movie.. 

45 million people watched, we are told...
....Got to keep up those numbers at NETFLIX..

Midsummer nights dream! STRANGER THINGS confirmed for July 4

Don’t want to tell you I told you so .. but I told you so! * Or maybe just friends privately. Can't prove I told anyone so * ... Summer time stranger things on the way. Freedom on the Fourth of July!

Netflix has released the first key art and a video for the third season of “Stranger Things,” with the latter announcing the new season’s launch on July 4th 2019.

 The streaming giant made the announcement via a clip designed to look like a local Hawkins, Indiana television affiliate.

The new season’s tagline is: “One summer can change everything.” And with the news comes beautiful and mesmerizing nostalgic image to coincide with the July 4 theme.. The teaser is appropriately New Year’s-themed, featuring archival footage of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve from 1984: As the ball drops in Times Square and 1985 dawns, things take a turn toward the Upside-Down just as the clock is about to strike midnight..

 The program has been brought to you by the STARCOURT MALL..

 

 The screen also serves up the following “scene,” which appears to show someone accessing an entity called “Lynx Corp.” and running the program “SilverCatFeeds.exe”..

 

 And now the wait to summer begins.. Born on the Fourth of July in 1985!

2 0 1 9

1919 was then. 2019 is now. 100 years later and the same fears and human emotions persist

New years 1919.. 100 years back.. The temperature went down to 25 degrees and remained below 31 all day. 

Sleet fell sporadically, mixed with rain. A blizzard loomed on the Panhandle and threatened Central Texas..

Also in the war’s aftermath, labor unions began a series of strikes for higher pay and better benefits. Unions had stalled negotiations because of the war; now times were different, but management refused to bargain. 

The Santa Fe Railway’s telegraphers went on strike just before New Year’s. Other unions joined in solidarity.

“The fire department was called out twice Tuesday night (New Year’s Eve) to answer false alarms, presumably turned in by New Year’s celebrants,” the Telegram reported. 

“The New Year was otherwise ushered in very quietly. At midnight, many guns were fired, but the whistles and bells joined in the noise very weakly.”

Victories in Europe allowed the United States, once considered a backward uncouth nation, to emerge victorious as a 20th century superpower…

That was then.

2019 is now.

BIRDBOX with 45 mil?

NO...
Maybe?

Netflix doesn't give ratings.. but BIRD BOX is so popular it decided to come out of the ratings closet and tell some potentially tall tales...

The streaming service on Friday said more than 45 million "accounts" have watched the Sandra Bullock-led film in its first week of release, the "best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film," the company boasted in a Tweet....
Rebecca Keegan of The Hollywood Reporter questioned the value of Netflix's data in the absence of further context.
"Does Susanne Bier's agent use this data as leverage on her next film? How does a traditional studio considering her for a project view it?" Keegan asked on Twitter.

Bier directed "Bird Box."

Exactly how Netflix qualifies what counts as a viewing is another question. Does the figure account for those who accidentally play the film from an auto-play option? Does it log "viewers" who only watch a few seconds or the entire film?

NETFLIX has taken away their ratings grid.. people cannot bully some shows anymore into non-existence.. 

And social media--word of mouth that is either true and original or contrived by intelligent brokers of Twitterverse behind the scenes--is better for the streaming service than any ad they could buy.

But 45 million? ...

Bird Box?

Those are some big numbers.

And if true, it proves they know what we are watching.. streaming.. but does it know what you're turning off midway through while you chill?

THE BEST OF TIMES AND THE WORST OF TIMES! PREDICTIONS FOR 2019!

Every year I attempt to give me thoughts about the upcoming year and events that will occur..

But first a breeze back in time. HOW DID I DO!?

FROM 2017, WHAT I SAID WOULD BE THE STORIES OF 2018. My comments afterwards in bold. 

1. Donald Trump is going to have a much more difficult time than expected. At least initially.  He will be besieged by protests and also by people within his own party. By the middle of the year, he will realize that by going directly to people above party leaders can motivate the electorate to accept some if his policies. I expect rallies by the end of the year to be a normal course of White House business.  There were rallies and yes, indeed, a lot of them.. Politics were business as usual as opposed to business as usual. I will give myself credit on this. 
2. The stock market will hit 20,000 and stay within that range. By August we will be speculating when the market will hit 25,000. YES! Right .. .but the market dropped after. I would chalk this up as yet another victory in my predictions. 
3. Vladimir Putin will either visit the United States or Donald Trump will visit Russia. Either way a more united front will emerge. They met. But not the visits I expected. HALF RIGHT.
4. The weather in 2017 will be hot. As hot as 2016.. there may be slick spots of winter that emerge from time to time sporadically throughout the world, but the majority of the months to come will feature hotter than normal temperatures. Yep. As so it goes... Another point. 
5. The British Royal family will have to decide how to move forward after a tragic scenario.. there may be a new queen before 2018. I will try again next year. No point.
6. Stephen Colbert may be facing cancellation in 2017. There is going to be a dramatic realignment of late night TV. People are tired of an obsessive amount of politics during the daytime hours. The nighttime should be sacred for comedy. People may turn on political version of such by rebelling against the Colbert program on CBS. Wow how wrong could I be!! Trump helped him. No chance of this ...
7. BREXIT. Trump. I think France and Germany will have upheaval in 2017. The world is shaking like a post-earthquake atmosphere from the changes in 2016. Transitions something are sloppy. And we have somehow transitioned into something very different than we were in 16.. Yes.. but not being specific, I will not give myself a point.
8. Major hacking will reveal something in 2017. Either from Wikileaks, or a source not yet to be named. Secrets will become revealed in 2017 to make us question what type of reality we live in. Nope..
9. Though everyone seems to predict it, Donald Trump will be aggressive in NOT declaring war or bombing other nations. (This is a prediction, but also a prayer) Right.
10. Virtual reality! All the rage in 2016! …..but just wait. I predict the opposite for 2017. Nope.

And now without further ado some predictions for 2019.......

1. Economic uncertainly! Will we collapse!? Will we fail?! All of this is on the table as markets go up and down with high momentum.. Big changes and shifts. We will end the year mostly strong, but 2020 remains the enigma.. Election year recession? It's possible by the end of '19
2. Donald Trump investigations galore! But what to see!? Everyone around him will be in trouble trouble.. him> .... he will make it to 2020 ...
3. Democrats in Congress MAY impeach Trump but the Senate will not convict...
4. Most high ranking officials around Trump will continue to resign or go to jail. It's mayhem at the highest levels!
5. Weather!? Yep. Another big story. Few snow events but much more in the rain and flooding and tsunamis category... it's going to be a brutal year.
6. Robots will begin to take over parts of many industries.. people will start seeing the end of their careers thanks to tech.
7. SEARS will be gone, as will many other major retailers that have been around for 200 years. I guess that's called progress.....
8. Big big celestial events will cause chaos and fright as blood moons and eclipses reign supreme..  These space events will coincide with strange anomalies on this planet. We live in strange times. 
9. TECH OVERLOAD!!! We will start doing yoga.. seeking out peace.. and anything NOT associated with computers and smartphones...
10. Ruth Bader Ginsberg will .. well... there will be a new nomination for the Supreme Court.. and the rest of the year of politics will be hell......................

911 outages across the United States

U.S. officials and at least one state said Friday that they have started investigations into a nationwide CenturyLink internet outage that has disrupted 911 service.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai called the outage that began Thursday “completely unacceptable” because people who need help couldn’t use the emergency number.

“Its breadth and duration are particularly troubling,” he said.

The commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau will investigate the cause and effect of the outage, he said.

CenturyLink spokeswoman Debra Peterson said the outage “is not related to hacking,” but she declined further comment.

The company said on Twitter that it’s working to restore service and appears to be making progress. It hasn’t provided a cause for the problems.

“Where CenturyLink is the 911 service provider 911 calls are completing,” the company said in a tweet.

DEVELOPING..

Not just Blue York City... but Louisiana too!

Incredible video captures several electrical explosions in Louisiana Thursday morning..

Upcoming fear porn for 2019 being revealed: Eclipses, and blood moons abound

2019 is featuring five eclipses, a rare planet transit, one of the best meteor showers and a super blood wolf moon..

The new year will also bring three supermoons, a blue moon, multiple meteor showers, close approach by the moon and Jupiter and several rocket launches..

MORE..

For the first time in three years on January 21, the United States will be able to experience a total lunar eclipse. According to NASA, it will be one of the sky's "most dazzling shows," as the moon will be at its closest point to Earth, making the moon appear slightly bigger and a lot brighter, an event that is often referred to as a "supermoon."

In the late afternoon of July 2, a total solar eclipse will occur over southern parts of Chile and Argentina, and parts of the South Pacific. The entire event will take place from 12:55 to 5:50 p.m. ET, with the maximum eclipse occurring at 3:23 p.m.

The year will also end with a dark bang:

December 26: The annular eclipse occurs when the circumference of the sun shines brightly from behind the moon. This year, the eclipse will begin right at dawn and pass over the Arabian Peninsula and arc over areas of South Asia.

All this, and undoubtedly some more potentially hazardous asteroid fly-bys from rocks we didn't see yet will create the ambiance necessary for another year of total fear porn. 

Enjoy the remaining moments of 18 .. as 19 creeps in and we wonder where the past 20 years have gone since the 20th century..

Amazing new Jordan Peele 'US' trailer

FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE.
THIS IS MUCH LESS SOCIAL COMMENTARY WE ARE TOLD, AND MORE HORROR.. THOUGH ANOTHER 'GET OUT' WOULD NEVER BE AN ISSUE, THIS FILM LOOKS FRIGHTENING AND WELL MADE..

BLUE YORK CITY!

A faulty piece of equipment charged with 138,000 volts of electricity erupted into an “electrical arc flash” that cast an eerie blue glow over the skies of New York, Con Edison officials said Friday morning.





The rare phenomenon blew up at the Astoria East Substation on 20th Avenue and 32nd Street around 9:10 p.m. and could be seen across Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn.


Immediately the internet erupted in a string of Tweets and Facebook messages of 'aliens landing' and 'the end of the world is here!'


Video from the event looked frightening.. it started people on highways, bridges, and public transit.. some people had a tinge of fear in their voice as to why their dark city nights suddenly erupted in to day-time-like blue auras..




“It’s like a thunder-and-lightning event,” explained Con Ed spokesman Bob McGee. “The loud bangs people heard were likely related to the arc striking the ground grid on the substation from a piece equipment that’s 20 feet up in the air and carrying 138,000 volts.”








Many residents who were home at the time experienced flickering lights.


Despite earlier reports, McGee said there was no actual fire at the substation.


“The illumination was caused just by the arc flash. Once the electrical source removed, the arc flash subsided,” he said.

Con Ed officials are now investigating the incident and whether the flash of light was extinguished because the machinery automatically switched off or because it was burned through.

X X X

The SINBAD effect

December 19, 2018 Bryan
The SINBAD effect


This news today: Entertainment Weekly has unveiled a first look at Will Smith in costume as the Genie in Disney’s live-action “Aladdin” movie, and not everyone is thrilled with it. Why would they be!? We live in the Twitterverse of judgement world….

Smith stars in director Guy Ritchie’s update of the animated classic, alongside Mena Massoud as Aladdin and Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine. People have lampooned the imagery in EW since the release..

TWITTER has issued its typical backlash.. no surprise there at all….

Except one thing.. one little thing that caught my eye on a Facebook page I follow. The comment was made by so many Twitter commentators today: “Sinbad never looked better.”



Now… that Sinbad comment sure is strange, considering that interesting “Mandela Effect” that I have written about previously here.

A few years ago, we talked extensively about the Sinbad movie that never existed.. I wrote then:


This is the latest ‘glitch in the matrix’ that even got me.
I recall this myself. I remember him in the outfit. I don’t quite remember the name of the film as some others do, but I am very clear on my memory of him being in an awful un-funny movie when I was younger.

All of this is fodder for crowds of people who have a new-found appreciation of the Mandela Effect. Every day.

For those yet unaware, or those who do not quite know the label to call their strange memory lapses or sudden shocks to learn that reality is different from what they thought, it is called the Mandela Effect. There are people–and lots of them including Stafire Tor on an old Art Bell show that somewhat started all of this–that believed Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s. They recall his funeral. They remember the news headlines and nightly news reporting. And they were shocked that he rose to the presidency of South Africa in the 90s. Because, to them, he was long dead.

Thanks to the new Will Smith movie, this glitch is back in full force, making a joke that Smith looks just like Sinbad looked in the Shazaam movie…

As a matter of fact, people are actually sharing a FAKE photo of Sinbad as “SHAZAAM” in their mockery of the Will Smith movie, not even realizing that SHAZAAM never even existed!!


Jeff D Lowe
✔@JeffDLowe
· Dec 19, 2018



This is approaching on cursed image territory. I’m floored by this photo.


Bacon House@Bacon_House


should have been Sinbad he plays a great genie pic.twitter.com/yA0qO7vwAs
664
8:02 AM - Dec 19, 2018
Twitter Ads info and privacy


128 people are talking about this



It’s the glitch that won’t end!

View image on Twitter



Beyonce has an uncle named Larry Beyince. Bruh....@DragonflyJonez



They could've got Sinbad for all this and saved on a makeup budget
2,608
9:58 AM - Dec 19, 2018
1,140 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy



And one person? ….they are glued in on the current version of reality, questioning another user as to whether it REALLY was Sinbad or Shaq..

Tennessee shaking: 4.4 quake

The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck eastern Tennessee and could be felt in Atlanta.

The light earthquake occurred Wednesday around 4:14 a.m. about 7 miles (11 kilometers) northeast of Decatur. About 13 minutes later, a 3.3 magnitude aftershock then struck.

There are no reports of injuries. But lots of rattled nerves.

Maybe MORE nerves will be rattled when contemplating this: The quake appeared to occur along the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone, a southwest-to-northeast belt extending from Alabama to far southwest Virginia that is the second-most active quake zone in the central and eastern U.S. behind the more notorious New Madrid zone. 

LOOKING FORWARD TO FINDING OUT MORE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED AT THE STARCOURT MALL IN 1985

WE LOVE THE NEWEST NAMES OF SEASON 3 EPISODES OF STRANGER THINGS...

Excitement builds for the battle of Starcourt Mall in 1985...

The Krampus Carol by Anthony Bourdain

The HORROR REPORT has always loved Krampus. But not enough to wish to see him instead of Santa..

In this quick holiday story, written by Anthony Bourdain before his untimely death earlier this year, North America is given a brief, dark, humorous peek into the mythos surrounding Krampus, a goat-demon who comes during the Christmas holidays to punish children who misbehaved over the last year. A good pal of Santa Claus, Krampus, and the dread he has instilled in rotten kids for generations, most likely pre-dates Christianity.

This short story is to the point on the Krampus story, more so than American adaptations.. 

From my 7-year-old who watched: "Great, thanks for the nightmares Dad."

STRANGER BARKS: The CIA made remote controlled dogs during MKUltra

This information being reported by NEWSWEEK after John Greenewald of the BLACK VAULT got secret documents after a FOIA request was answered..

https://www.newsweek.com/cia-mkultra-documents-files-remote-control-dogs-1250519

From the article: 

Newly released files from “behavior modification,” or mind control, projects conducted as part of the infamous Project MKUltra reveal the CIA experimented in more than controlling humans with psychotropic drugs, electrical shocks and radio waves—they also created field operational, remote-controlled dogs.
The documents were provided under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by John Greenewald, founder of The Black Vault, a site specializing in declassified government records. In one declassified letter (released as file C00021825) a redacted individual writes to a doctor (whose name has also been redacted) with advice about launching a laboratory for experiments in animal mind control. The writer of the letter is already an expert in the field, whose earlier work had culminated with the creation of six remote control dogs, which could be made to run, turn and stop.

Wind breaks on Mars! And we can hear it

It may be best heard with headphones..

The video was shared by NASA and, according to the space agency, captures the sound of a northwest Martian wind blowing at 10 to 15 mph..

"Capturing this audio was an unplanned treat," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in a statement. "But one of the things our mission is dedicated to is measuring motion on Mars, and naturally that includes motion caused by sound waves."

NASA explained that the audio is wind vibrations picked up by two sensors on the lander and not an actual recording from a microphone. However, the Mars rover that will be launched in 2020 will have microphones aboard.

FORTNITE CONDITION! KIDS GOING TO REHAB OVER VIDEO GAME!

This is a cautionary note to parents prior to Christmas.. Video game platforms have a game called FORTNITE. It's free! Yours to have! But it may cost a childhood, according to some alarmists that are portraying the game as something more addictive than even heroin!

MORE from Bloomberg's Jef Feeley and Christopher Palmeri

Debbie Vitany is fighting a losing battle against Fortnite.
Her 17-year-old son, Carson, has been logging 12 hours a day on the video game, searching for weapons and resources in a post-apocalyptic world where the goal is being the last person standing. Teachers complain he falls asleep in class and his grades have plummeted.
“We’d made some progress in getting him to cut down his Fortnite hours and get better sleep, but he’s slipped back into his old habits,” Vitany, who lives near Saginaw, Michigan, said in an interview. “I’ve never seen a game that has such control over kids’ minds.
Vitany’s anguish is echoed by an army of other parents, teachers and bosses around the world grappling with a game that sucks up hours of players’ time -- sometimes to the detriment of other activities. More than 200 million people have registered to play Fortnite, which has become a billion-dollar business for its creator, Epic Games Inc. Some desperate parents have sent their kids to rehab.
“This game is like heroin,” said Lorrine Marer, a British behavioral specialist who works with kids battling game addiction. “Once you are hooked, it’s hard to get unhooked.”

Luckily for the HORROR REPORT, the little HORROR REPORTER is just addicted to the FORTNITE dances. He doesn't like the game much.. and when he plays gets more annoyed than involved.
SO FAR..
But addiction can creep up on you.. I know firsthand. I still sneak in very late night battles in the original PLANTS VS ZOMBIES GARDEN WARFARE from 2014 .... old addictions never die.

Verizon owned TUMBLR bans porn! And its user base leaves in droves

Tumblr announced this week it will ban content featuring nudity from its platform, starting December 17.

The decision was met with lots of backlash from users who view the site as a safe space to explore their identity and sexuality through not safe for work (NSFW) content.

Many Tumblr users have said they plan to abandon the platform for alternative blogging websites that allow explicit content..

Tumblr says it's banning "adult content" from its platform in order to make "a better, more positive" place, but the policy change has some users abandoning the site.

The new policy goes into effect December 17, and will result in the deletion of any content portraying "real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples," Tumblr, a Verizon-owned company, said in its announcement.

Reaction to Tumblr's announcement has been swift and critical across social media. More than 423,000 people have already signed a Change.org petition to "make Tumblr rescind their adult content ban."

This move comes after years of debate of whether Tumblr porn was free  expression and art, or porn. Creator David Karp didn't touch the subject.. When the company sold to Yahoo, people began to get worried..

Corporate drama weighed heavily into this event..

Only days ago, the Tumblr app was BANNED on the iTunes store over porn! This from the VERGE two weeks ago:

Tumblr says that child pornography was the reason for its app’s sudden disappearance from the iOS App Store. The app has been missing from the store since November 16th, but until now the reason for its absence was unclear — initially Tumblr simply said it was “working to resolve the issue with the iOS app.” However, after Download.com approached Tumblr with sources claiming that the reason was related to the discovery of child pornography on the service, the Yahoo-owned social media network issued a new statement confirming the matter.

And now, with Tumblr acting like the Porn Stealing Grinch before Christmas for users, some are wondering if the website--around more than ten years--is going to be hit with the same fate as another former amazing site for creativity: LIVE JOURNAL.

But if TUMBLR goes, users are going to take it down in the same fashion they used it in: With perceptive and incredible memes with social commentary:

Man coughs blood in the shape of his bronchial tree

This is not for the faint of heart..

Doctors at UC San Francisco Medical Center see a lot of things, but even they were stunned by this.

They were treating a 36-year-old man with end-stage heart failure when he began coughing so violently, that he coughed up a 6-inch-wide blood clot from his lungs in the near-perfect shape of his right bronchial tree.