All posts by crankenfuss

A Simple Spanish Vocabulary Test! Yeah, right!!

May 5, 2015 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Post #158 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

So here’a a challenge you should be able to meet. I take Spanish and let me tell you, it can get HARD!! I mean, I don’t know how Mexicans and Spanish people (and all the people in all those Latino countries) even learn it. They must be geniuses! There are all these rules and stuff and they usually don’t say anything the way we do.

BUT, there are a bunch of Spanish words that DO sound almost like they do in English. Those are the ones our teacher — Señorita Mills — taught us first. I think she was trying to get us all confident like Spanish was going to be cinchy, ya’ know. Then she wiped us out with the other 100,00 words or so. (Well, not all at once. We still about 99,800 to go.)

Here’s what I’m talking about:
In Spanish they have a word superior. It’s pronounced (kind of) soo-peh-ree-OR. And it means — get ready for this — superior in English.
Hey, how easy is that??
So here’s a few more. (I’ll always give the Spanish word first.)
absurdo means absurd.
barbero means barber.
cámera means camera.
fabuloso means fabulous.
famoso means famous.

So, are all you dudes out there ready for a simple Spanish vocabulary test? I’ll give you the Spanish word and you pick the right answer. But I’ve put in a few tricky ones so don’t go thinking all of these are pieces of cake, okay? (And when you’re through, go to the bottom of the post to see how you did? I DON’T think most of you will get a 100. But some of you might. If you do, you’re way smarter than I was.)

A SIMPLE SPANISH VOCABULARY TEST
Directions: Look at the Spanish word AT THE LEFT. Pick the word you think it means in English — A, B, C, or D. If you’re really honest, you might write down your answers, so you can’t pretend you never gave that answer. (You know what I’m talking about!) The real answers are at the very bottom. If you feel like it, write me and tell me how you did.)

1. natural a) nasty b) needy c) natural d) knot

2. secreto a) secret b) sexy c) scrub d) see

3. desnudo a) decent b) dangerous c) nuthead d) naked

4. gracioso a) thank you b) gracious c) funny d) grody

5. embarazada a) pregnant b) embarrassed c) barricade d) foolish

6. arena a) sand b) stadium c)rain d) elephant

7. bombero a) bony b) a terrorist c) a fireman d) a swimmer

8. éxito a) exist b) exit c) a beanbag d) success

9. correcto a) corny b) correct c) corridor d) technical

10. la ropa a) to rap b) clothing c) the rope d) the champion

Now do you want to see how you did? To see how much talent you really have in Spanish? Well, click here to go to the Answer Page.

Then you can come back and see why you did so wonderfully (or not).

And thanks for taking my Spanish Quiz. It’s a lot easier giving them than taking them!

See you soon,
but not in my Spanish class
’cause I’m always hiding in the last row,
Your Dude con la actitud,
El Doctor Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Hey, you thought 6th grade Math was hard? Try these problems (if you dare).

April 10, 2015 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Post #157 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

Okay, all you brilliant people out there. And I KNOW there are at least some of you! Here’s your chance to prove how awesome you are. End-of-Grade tests (EOGs) are getting close so I found some tricky math problems that I want you to try. Warning: Even I didn’t get all of them right (and I’m pretty good at Math), so if you do, that’s AMAZING!! After you’re done, click on the link at the bottom to take you to the answers and see how you did. Write back and post how you did. Be honest now!

Then try these out on your friends or even your parents. Imagine how proud they’ll be of you if you can get them right and they can’t. Or actually, imagine how much they’ll hate you if that’s true. Anyway, here they are.

1. How many rectangles are there in all in this figure?

Multiple triangles — Obviously there are at least 4. But how many in all?

a) 6 b) 7 c) 8 d) 9 e) 10 f) 11

2. This one seems really hard, but if you get the trick, it’s EASY! You’ll hardly need any math at all. Here it is: In the NCAA basketball tournament that just ended, the tournament started with 68 teams. How many games did it take in all to determine the final winner? (I’ll give you a big hint: In the FINAL FOUR, there were of course four teams and it took three games to get the champion — the two semifinal games on Saturday night and the final Championship Game on Monday night. So that’s 3 in all. In case you didn’t know, Duke won. And I live in Durham! And my mom went to Duke! So that means… absolutely nothing! They won; I didn’t. But it still made me happy!)

If you think about it, that is a great hint above. So anyway, how many games were played in all for a champion to be crowned when there were 68 teams at the start?

a) 32 b) 34 c) 45 d) 67 e) 68 f) over 70

3. There are five people who meet for dinner at a restaurant. If everybody shakes hands with each other once, how many handshakes will take place in all? (This isn’t a trick question.)

a) 4 b) 5 c) 9 d) 10 e) over 12

4. What’s the greatest amount of change you can have and STILL NOT BE ABLE TO GIVE EXACT CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR? (You can figure this out if you get out some coins and experiment. I’ll give you a hint: If you have three quarters and three dimes, you can’t give exact change for a dollar, can you? But you have $1.05. Well, the real answer is higher than that.)

a) $1.13 b) $1.19 c) $1.23 d) $1.27 e) over $1.27

5) Fill in the next number in this sequence: 0, 1, 4, 11, 26, _____

a) 37 b) 49 c) 57 d) 81 e) more than 81

Confession: I missed two of these the first time I tried them — #2 and #5. But as soon as the teacher explained #2, that kind of question is now the easiest Math problem in the world. Really! #5 was super tricky though.

So now that you’ve done these, CLICK HERE to go to the answers. I’ve added some explanation to show how you get them.

And hey, if you think any of these answers are wrong, write and explain how I messed up. I’ll fix them right away and give you credit.

Talk to you soon.
From your Dude with the ‘Tude (and a super-tired brain from doing these problems),
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Speliing Duzn’t Mattr

March 18, 2015 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Post #156 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

All of you know about the National Spelling Bee. You know, where dorky kids who are way up there in the brains department spell words you’ve never even heard of, much less know how to spell. Over and over. Kind of scary smart, but it still makes you sick. Well, Dr. Crankenfuss is here to tell you that being a great speller ain’t so great after all. Take this challenge and you’ll see why “Speliing Duzn’t Mattr.”

So here’s the test. And it’s one that will make you feel good about yourself. Get out a stopwatch or some timing device and see how fast you can read the next paragraph — which I’ve put in CAPITAL BLUE LETTERS — as fast as you can. When you first see it, you’ll think it’s really hard. BUT IT WON’T BE. After you’re done, post your time. You’ll see how right I am in my title.

IH YAM HIER TWO TEL U AH TROOTH YU PRBELBY HAF KNOT THUOGT UV BEEFOR. SPELING IZ NUT TAHT INPERTANT. YESC, EVRIBUDY TELZ U ET IZ — YUR TEECHARS, YUR PERANTS, EVIN U PRALBLY BELEEV ET. BT YU KAN REED THEZ PRTTY FST EVUN THO EVRY WURD IZ RONG. OW EZ THEZ POSBL? BEKUZ YUR BRANE WURKS BETR THN U THOGHT.

So how long did it take you? An hour?? Dude, that is NOT GOOD! Now c’mon, be honest, you had to do better than that. Anyway, next time someone gets after you for your bad spelling (like I do with people sometimes), tell those people like me, “Lay off, Bobo. You can understand this just fine.” It might just shut us up.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Who thinks kids should never fail
Just because they can’t spell,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Scientists agree — the Crank is #1. The Mars One Mission is dead and done.

March 4, 2015 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Post #155 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

Oh, Dr. Crankenfuss may only be in middle school, but when he speaks, scientists listen. You don’t believe me? Well, check out my blog post from February 20. In there I carefully and wisely analyzed the chances for people to get to Mars by 2024 on the Mars One mission that 200,000 people signed up for. (But only 24 will go in the end. THEIR END!) Near the end of the post I said, “But I don’t really think this thing will ever take off. It just kind of sounds too crazy to be real. Or even if it IS real, it still sounds too crazy.”

So yesterday (March 3) I find this article where Neil deGrasse Tyson, a super-famous astronomer, who used to be on Cosmos and now does StarTalkTV for National Geographic (which sounds good though I haven’t seen it yet) and other scientists tell how wacky the plans for Mars One are. Now most of their arguments are about the scientific part of the mission, but they definitely used one or two of my ideas. (They didn’t, however, bring up the “Attack of the Alien Zombies” danger I was brilliant enough to ~~invent~~ realize.)

What matters though is that I wrote my post around two weeks ago and NOW the scientific community is coming around to my side. There’s little doubt that at least some of them got a whiff of a certain cranky curmudgeon’s blog that always speaks the truth, whether people want to hear it or not. So say what you will, THE DOCTOR IS VALIDATED. I bet some of those scientists might end up being big fans of my site. And the next thing you know, I’ll have my own show on the National Geographic Channel. Maybe something like “Crankenfuss Gets Creative.” That would give me lots of room to maneuver, you see.

Ah, it feels good to be right. Of course that’s not a new feeling for me. It still feels good though.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

To all Sports Fans: What works better — Prayer or Superstition?

February 25, 2015 crankenfuss Leave a comment

Post #154 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

I can picture the response to the question in the title. All sorts of trolls and haters are going to accuse me of going against God or something like that. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Hey, I pray too. I’m just trying to figure this out and nobody can really tell me what’s what so maybe you can.

Here’s the scene: The big game is coming up. Your team is playing. You want them to win real, real bad and so do your friends. What will help your team more: praying for them, or putting on a certain sweater or sitting in a certain seat or turning off the TV when your team gets behind because you think you have a jinx on them?

Now I know a bunch of you are going, “You idiot! Of course, prayer is better! God’s stronger than any superstition!”

Fine! But if that’s true, why do so many of you — and I put the emphasis on MANY — go through all those superstitious things. Like lucky numbers for winning the lottery? How often does that work? (Then again, how often does prayer work when it comes to winning the lottery?)

I mean I know why people pray. And I know who they’re praying to and who might grant their wish. BUT WHO’S THE TARGET OF SUPERSTITION? When you don’t walk under a ladder or you worry when a full moon’s coming up or you don’t step on a crack so your grandmother’s back stays healthy or you wear those unwashed-for-three-weeks-cause-your-team-is-still-winning socks, WHO’S THE “GUY (OR GAL) IN CHARGE” IN THOSE SITUATIONS? If your lucky underwear helps your team win, WHY DID THAT WORK? And if that didn’t work, how do people figure out which superstition WILL work?

Think about it. If you know how luck really works, you are going to be very rich… or happy… or successful… or at peace… or at least something you want to be. And if you don’t think it really works, then why do you do it?

Hey, I’m no genius — and I’m sure you all would agree with that — but don’t people see how superstition seems kind of silly? So why is it so strongly followed in so many things?

Yeah, I know I’m repeating myself, but I really would like some answers.

Good ones, okay?

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
a guy looking for answers
where other people don’t even see a question,
Dr. Crankenfuss