Sean's Best and Worst of 2020

I should preface this post by mentioning that this is primarily about pop culture items. I mean 2020 has been a pretty lousy year overall, so this is more of a fun look at the last 12 months.

Best Television Show: Better Call Saul

I watched a good amount of TV this year. I finally got caught up on This Is Us, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Watchman. The Good Place concluded in 2020, and I enjoyed The Queen's Gambit and Fargo as well as The Last Dance documentary. (Schitt's Creek and The Boys are still on my list of shows that I want to see.) Even with all of these great shows that I just mentioned, Better Call Saul tops my list. The writing and the acting are just so good. I mean, two of the storylines from the show's fifth season were about a guy not wanting to sell his land/home and another about a construction project by a German engineer and his team. While I know that I'm understating this, on paper, this doesn't seem very exciting. It really is captivating and thrilling though.

Best Movie: Knives Out

I didn't see many "grown up" movies, but I enjoyed two 2020 movies geared for kids in Onward and Soul. Even though the film came out late in 2019, my favorite movie of the year was Knives Out. What a fun and funny film. It's a murder mystery with a family of dislikable characters but it really is fun watching Daniel Craig try to figure things out as the lead detective. 

Worst Movie: Tully

This is another movie from a few years ago that I just saw in 2020. It's not a bad movie, and there are certainly parts that I liked, but it falls into the worst movie category only because I didn't see very many films in 2020. Like Charlize Theron and her family in the film, we also have three kids so part of this film really hits close to home. What bothered me the most is how useless the father (played by Ron Livingston) is, especially when there's a major reveal that I won't spoil here. 

Best Song: Blinding Lights by The Weeknd

My rule is that the best song must be featured in a blog post at some point during the year. While I really like Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus (who once had the worst song of the year) and strongly considered it, Blinding Lights by The Weeknd is a banger. It's the jam. It's the cat's meow. Am I using these words correctly? We'll just go with this. It's a really good and catchy song. By the way, congrats to The Weeknd for getting best song of the year twice now even though Starboy doesn't seem quite as good as it was four years ago.

Worst Song: ily by Surf Mesa featuring Emilee

You know the chorus to Frankie Valli's 1967 hit "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You." It's a fantastic song with a memorable chorus. Well, how about playing just the chorus over and over and over again with some type of layering? I can listen and like the first 20-30 seconds of the song, but after that, I'm switching the channel. 

Best Book: The first three books of the Harry Potter series

I do pretty much all of my reading during my commute to work. Since I've been working from home since the pandemic started, I've read exactly zero books for myself. While I read some books in January and February, I can't remember what they were. Because of this, the best books I read in 2020 were the first three Harry Potter books to The Moose (my 9 year old son). It's been a nice bonding experience reading them to him.

I'll add that I just bought two books that I'm really excited to read: The Big Door Prize by M.O. Walsh and The Cold Millions by Jess Walter. I wouldn't be surprised if one of these books is on the 2021 best of blog post.

Best Sports Moment of 2020: Manuel Margot Catch

This was a tough call. As a Pittsburgh sports fan, the Penguins exited the hockey playoffs much earlier than expected (more on that below) and the Pirates were lousy. The Steelers started the season 11-0 but lost three consecutive games and looked terrible in the process before rebounding after being down by 17 points on Sunday. So while there were championships with fans and then championships without fans in 2020, this catch by Manuel Margot of the Tampa Bay Rays in game one of the American League Championship Series is the play of the year to me. So cool, and seeing this live, I really thought he might have fallen into an abyss. 

Worst Sports Moment: The Pittsburgh Penguins

While I didn't expect the Penguins to win the Stanley Cup, I did expect them to defeat the 12th-seeded Montreal Canadians in the first round playoff series. The playoffs generally only have 8 teams per conference. Montreal wouldn't have even been close to reaching the playoffs in a typical year. Such a terrible series. 

Best Blog Post: Songs of 2000 & 2020s Predictions

This was an odd year for Sean's Ramblings. As I looked through my posts from this year, I was a lot more "serious" than usual. Lots of "heavy" posts about the pandemic, the state of the country, and my family including a post about my dad passing away. So while I don't know if these were the "best" posts, my posts about the songs of 2000 and predictions for the 20s decade were the most fun and more in line with my "typical" blog posts. Don't mind me as I continue to put words in quotes!

Worst Blog Post: Kangaroos Wanted

I wrote an entire blog post about someone looking for kangaroos for a kids' birthday party.

Best Musical: Hamilton

Have you heard about this show? It's about the guy on the $10 bill and was created by Lin-Manuel Miranda who was in one Brooklyn Nine Nine episode and one How I Met Your Mother episode. I never saw this live and for the most part avoided the music because I first wanted to hear and see it on stage. Well, I still haven't seen the show live, but I watched the film version of the show which was actually three performances of the show from June 2016. It lived up to the hype!

Best Podcast: Ya Jagoff!, Owls Americast, The Tony Kornheiser Show, and The Poscast

I don't listen to podcasts as much as I did when I was commuting to work, but I rarely miss episodes of these podcasts. I like listening to John and Rachael to hear about all the cool things going on in Pittsburgh on Ya Jagoff! Owls Americast is my connection with Sheffield Wednesday. The Tony Kornheiser Show gives me a sense of big sports stories (with some really good guests) along with various rants of Tony's life. And The Poscast is based around baseball but always makes me laugh. All of these podcasts gave me some normalcy in definitely abnormal times.

Best Blog: Josh's World

This might be the third or fourth time Josh's World has won this. I like Josh's take on things. Nothing against Josh, but I also need to expand the number of blogs I read. I tend to read the same sites, and there are fewer and fewer individual blogs each year.  

Please feel free to share some of your own best of and worst of 2020 in the comments section below.

If you're curious, you can see how some of my best of and worst of picks from the past few years hold up, please click here.

Found In My Basement: Harry Potter

I tried reading Harry Potter to The Moose (now 9) several times over the last few years, but he was never really interested. I don't think we made it past the first chapter or two. Since we're stuck at home during the pandemic, I tried again a few weeks ago and now we're only two chapters away from finishing the first book, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." He still doesn't have the patience to read more than a chapter or so a day, but he seems to be enjoying it. (Of course, he does have the patience to sit and watch hours worth of Dude Perfect videos. Those guys seem to yell A LOT!)

Anyway, now that we're almost done with the first book, I thought it would make sense to find the other books so that we can continue reading the series. Many people have bookshelves filled with books easily accessible. Not in my house! While we have bookshelves in the kids' rooms, those generally contain books appropriate for preschool and early elementary school kids. Any other free space in our home has been overtaken by toys and games and now learning areas as we prepare for The Moose (4th grade) and Pedro Tulo (1st grade) to begin the school year at home. Books are generally in boxes in various parts of the house, mostly in the basement storage closet. So I spent Sunday trying to find the Harry Potter books.

As you can see from the picture, I was successful. Not pictured is the amount of time it took to find the books and to move things around the basement closet. I also found this Pittsburgh Steelers commemorative bag of potato chips with a coupon for $10 the purchase of $50 at Dick's Sporting Goods. Unfortunately, the coupon expired in January 2003. I'm throwing these chips out with the garbage tonight.

You might be wondering why there are only five books pictured of the seven-book series. The first book is on the couch, but I'm missing the fourth book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." When I went to England in 2000, I bought this book at a London bookstore not long after it came out as a gift for my mom. She got me into the Harry Potter series, and I read the first three books during my time in England, particularly traveling to and from Lancaster on the weekends. I finished the fourth book on the flight back to Pittsburgh, and my mom still has it today. What's neat about this edition is that it's in British English rather than American English. Oh, here's a picture of Ziggy wanting to see what I was doing.

By the way, this blog is so old that I can still read posts from when the sixth and seventh books came out. I wrote two posts of my eagerly awaiting the sixth book to arrive via UPS that would basically be tweets today. I also shared predictions for the final book, and briefly how I dressed up as Dean Thomas when this book was released at midnight at a Harry Potter party.

Please click here to read more of the Found in My Basement posts.

Summer of Sean: Paris Edition

After my summer program at Lancaster University ended, I had the opportunity to travel for another week before I returned home, so several friends and I decided to go to Paris. Sure I saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Versailles and the McDonalds around the corner from Versailles, but today, I'm writing about visiting (or not visiting) some of the greatest art museums in the world.

The Louvre

The Louvre is perhaps the best known museum in the world, built specifically for the movie The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks. There was a huge line to enter, but of bigger concern for me was the giant backpack I was carrying. I couldn't enter The Louvre with it and there was no place in or around the museum to store it. So instead of going inside to see Mona Lisa, I found a park bench near the museum and read the recently released fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Musee d'Orsay

While probably not as well known as The Louvre, Musee d'Orsay may be the best art museum in the world featuring the Impressionists Gallery and much more. According to Trip Advisor, visiting this museum ranks #1 of 1,170 things to do in Paris. Unfortunately, I don't think Trip Advisor was around in 2000. Fun fact: Did you know that Musee d'Orsay is closed on Mondays? I didn't either when I tried to visit on a Monday and left Paris on Tuesday morning.

Musee Rodin (The Rodin Museum)

A museum that I actually entered! Go me! Plus, I'm the only person in history to "think" of taking a picture like this.

Fun fact #2: I just bought this exact same orange shirt at Kohl's over the weekend.

Click here to see more Summer of Sean posts

Truck Art

While cleaning out my e-mail, I found the following pictures of artistic ads on trucks that were sent to me over two years ago. Yes, I have way too many messages. I think the next e-mail was an invitation to get 25% off the seventh Harry Potter book followed by a sneak peak to see this new movie called The Departed. On to the pictures:










Can you find the picture that's slightly out of place?

In case you were wondering why there hasn’t been something more substantial here this week, I’m again working on something fairly big.

Seeking Book Suggestions

Every few months, I ask for new book suggestions since I tend to go through books rather quickly during my bus and Metro commute. Today is one of those days. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment or e-mail me at seanramblings at yahoo [dot] com.

Of course, asking for book suggestions can be vague since you probably have no idea what I like to read. Therefore, here is a list of books I have read over the past few months, which I hope will help:

- The Harry Potter series
- “Can I Keep My Jersey? 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond” by Paul Shirley
- "Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas" by Chuck Klosterman

Actually, I can't remember what I read before I started to re-read the Harry Potter series. I'm also a big fan of David Halberstam, Kurt Vonnegut and Nick Hornby. Thanks for your help!

Random Stuff

* Harry Potter is still on my mind, and while there are no spoilers here at Sean’s Ramblings, I like being able to read people’s thoughts about the book. Gobo has some good thoughts and links to a terrific post on Brooklyn Arden, plus, The Washington Post held a live HP discussion.

* My next book after reading HP7 and re-reading the other Harry Potter books over the past month or so: Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas.

* I’ve had Lou Bega’s Mambo #5 in my head all day. What a great song! (I am completely serious about this statement.)

* I received Madden 2007 for my birthday and played it for the first time last night. I’m still learning the controls, but in the easy mode, I led the Browns 40-0 as the Steelers when I turned off the game at halftime. Fast Willie Parker had only 200 yards rushing. Playing in the regular mode as the Steelers tonight, I squeaked by the Washington Redskins 9-6. I need to learn how to consistently run and pass the ball, and hope by defense and special teams can continue to carry me until then.

* Big day for live discussions on The Washington Post. Poison singer Bret Michaels was online, although I was personally hoping for more details about VH1’s “Rock of Love” show. However, this was my favorite question and answer:

Germantown, Md.: Here we go Steelers, here we go!

Bret Michaels: You said it, my brother!

In addition, this was in Dave Sheinin’s baseball chat:

Arlington, Va.: As a Pirates fan, how bad are they going to be next year? I think the Nats will give them a run for their money.

Dave Sheinin: Wow, the Pirates. What a terrible franchise. I know GM David Littlefield quite well, having covered the Marlins when he was the assistant GM. But I can't for the life of me figure out how he has kept his job in Pittsburgh.

* Finally, I received an e-mail from Baskin-Robbins for a free 8 oz. Fruit Blast Smoothie on Wednesday, July 25th from 3PM to 10PM at participating Baskin-Robbins®! Although I cannot find any information about this on the Baskin-Robbins website, the only asterisk on the e-mail is a limit of one per customer.

Finished (No Spoilers Here)

I just finished the seventh and final Harry Potter book. While I really want to talk or write about it, I realize that many folks have not yet finished, so I won’t do either. Therefore, as I am typing this, I am listening to a Podcast from MuggleNet.com with five people discussing the book. It’s helping a little, but I have my own questions and observations.

One story from Barnes & Noble on Friday night that Harry Potter fans may appreciate. There were some people dressed as Harry Potter or wearing wizard hats or robes. I decided to dress like a character that I knew would not be duplicated, Dean Thomas. To do this, I took a small piece of paper, wrote Dean Thomas on it, and taped it on my shirt like a name tag. I thought it was funny even if it probably wasn’t.

If you want to leave any Harry Potter comments, please feel free to do so. For those who have not finished the book, you may not want to read the comments in case there are spoilers there.

More Than Harry Potter

Although this may be hard to believe, there is more going on in the world than Harry Potter. For example, I’m going to work today and have an ultimate frisbee game tonight. Here are some other things going on:

I watched Victoria Beckham Coming to America last night. With Coming to America in the show’s title and Posh’s close relationship with fellow Spice Girl Mel B., I was waiting for Eddie Murphy to appear. It never happened. Actually, when Posh met with Perez Hilton (more on this momentarily), he asked her if there is a celebrity who she disliked. Eddie was the answer.

The show itself wasn’t terrible. Considering all the garbage on TV this summer, this is actually a compliment. Victoria was surprisingly likable. She confronted Perez Hilton for what he put on his website about her, but appeared to have an enjoyable conversation with him. Her trip to the DMV was also funny. The show ended with Posh throwing out the first pitch at a Dodgers game. Mike Lieberthal came across as a nice enough guy; Tommy Lasorda, however, seemed completely disinterested.
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The Emmy nominations are out featuring 15 nominations for The Sopranos. The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes has a recap, but here are my own observations:

* The toughest category may be Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series. Neil Patrick Harris receives a well-deserved nomination for his portrayal of Barney Stinson. The other nominees are Kevin Dillon and Jeremy Piven from Entourage, Rainn Wilson (better known as Dwight Schrute) from The Office and Jon Cryer for 2.5 Men.

* How I Met Your Mother received a nomination for the Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing For A Series category for the fabulous Robin Sparkles episode.


* Has there always been a category for “Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series?” In case you were wondering, the nominees are Dancing with the Stars, Deadwood, Desperate Housewives, Rome and Ugly Betty.

* Scrubs received two nominations for the Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics category. The show is up against Family Guy, SNL and MADtv.

* How did George (T.R. Knight) from Grey’s Anatomy receive a supporting actor in a drama series nomination?
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OK, I do have a few Harry Potter links:

A couple is getting married tonight and then going directly to Barnes & Noble. I’m guessing that there will be some upset 13 year-olds when the couple gets to cut to the front of the line.

Northern Virginia appears to have ordered more copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from Amazon.com per capita than any other area in America. Falls Church finished #1, Fairfax #3 and Vienna #4. Herndon (#28) and Alexandria (#78) also made the list as did Ithaca, NY (#80).

Harry Potter Preview

Several months ago, I set a goal to re-read the first six Harry Potter books before the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” this Friday night/Saturday morning. I finished reading book 6 today! In full disclosure, I did not completely accomplish my goal as I completely re-read books 1, 4 & 6, read most of book 5 and rented the movies for 2 & 3. As promised, here are my predictions (some serious, some not-so-serious) for Book 7. Please note that there are some spoilers here if you have not read books 1-6.

- We learned in book one that Harry’s father, James, saved Snape’s life, even though they were not exactly the best of friends. I have no idea why, but I think Draco Malfoy may help save Harry’s life. Wormtail will also help Harry in some way.

- One of the big questions is the identity of RAB. The answer is clearly Reginald Alfred Bush II. You may know him better as Heisman trophy winner and New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush. He can do almost anything on the football field, so it seems appropriate that he would be able to get a Horcrux.

- I think J.K. Rowling will try to show a softer side of Lord Voldemort. It's been a rough 14 years or so for him and maybe he's just lonely. Read chapter 6 to see Voldermort's experiences on the British version of Match.com. Hilarity ensues!

- The biggest question for book seven is who’s going to die? My guess is Hagrid and one of the Order of Phoenix members, maybe Mad-Eye Moody. Oh, Voldemort won’t make it either.

- I have a gut feeling that Hiro Nakamura could be involved near the end.

- With Dumbledore gone, I wonder if the curriculum at Hogwarts will change. I’m surprised that the students are not required to speak a language. During the Triwizard Tournament, Krum and Fleur from schools in other countries both spoke English. Why aren’t the students at Hogwarts learning French or Chinese?

- As for Dumbledore, he’ll still be able to talk to Harry through his portrait in his old office.

- Ron and Hermione will become a couple. While this is not an exact quote, I have read articles in which J.K. Rowling writes that the books will become more adult as the characters get older. Therefore, it should not be too much of a surprise that Ron gets Hermione pregnant. (This part of the story has been edited out, but look for it in the unedited version that is released in five years.)

- There has to be a major shake-up in the wizarding community. It seems like Voldemort can get the giants and werewolves on his side pretty easily. The Ministry of Magic must grant the giants and werewolves equal rights. I’m not sure where they stand on house-elves.

- Is Snape a good guy or bad guy? Why not both? I think he’s on his own side and will somehow escape from everyone.

A few final Harry Potter notes:

According to this article, nearly 20% of Harry Potter fans will skip to the last page of the book to find out how it ends. I am not one of the 20%, and I do not want to know how it ends until I read it myself. The other 80% feel the same way. Therefore, except for possibly writing about my experiences at Barnes & Noble on Friday night, I am done writing about Harry Potter, and I do not want any comments about how the story ends.

If you are interested in checking out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from the Fairfax County Public Library, your position in the holds queue would be #1537. That has to be a record.

Working for the Weekend

I just wanted to share a few thoughts and articles before the end of the week.

- I love VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture. I could watch this all day. JQ, if you’re reading this, did you enter this year and/or do you know of anyone in the event?

- I’m now half-way through re-reading Harry Potter 6. As soon as I finish, I’ll share my predictions for book seven (some serious, some not so much).

- The man responsible for bringing Harry Potter to America is featured in a Washington Post article, and then, participates in a Q&A. The Q&A is quite entertaining with many people asking about answers from the seventh book and wondering if an eighth book is in the future. Lots of smiley faces too, which seems odd for an editor/publisher.

- Psych on the USA Network is back for a second season starting tonight. I recommend watching it if for no other reason to see Charlie (Dule Hill) from The West Wing.

- I laugh every time I see Homer sing, “Spider-Pig, spider-Pig; does whatever a spider-pig does.”

- Did you hear that David Beckham is coming to America?

Links of the Day

As you can see below, my blog is rated G. When I tried this last week, I was rated PG because the rating system didn’t like the fact that I used “Dick” when writing about Dick’s Sporting Goods and Steelers defensive coordinator, Dick LeBeau. This site could become PG-13 if I write about former Pittsburgh Pirates coach Rusty Kuntz. What’s Your Blog Rated?



(“Borrowed” from Arjewtino.)

This Friday, July 13 is Chick-fil-A’s Cow Appreciation Day. For some reason, I think this has nothing to do with South Park. Anyway, if you visit Chick-fil-A on Friday fully dressed as a cow, you will receive a free combo meal. Anyone in a partial cow costume will be offered a free entrée.

Finally, Yahoo has a story about Harry Potter fans hoping to avoid spoilers. Please note that the article contains a spoiler about the 6th book, which I think everyone should know by now. I will write my own Harry Potter preview with predictions sometime soon, but then there will be no further discussion about the book here.

Updates

In response to my list of the greatest Icelandic bands, I received an e-mail from Wim Van Hooste, who seems to be an aficionado of Icelandic music. According to Wim, Dr. Gunni (everyone knows Dr. Gunni, right?) wrote a book & made a list of the 100 best Icelandic albums. Here is the top 5:

1. Sigur Ros
2. Björk
3. Megas & Spilverk Thjodanna
4. Studmenn
5. Trubrot

I correctly chose one of the top five!

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I also received an e-mail from Brian Shactman of CNBC, who is interested in doing a story on slug commuting, and specifically, to find out if it exists outside of the Washington DC area. Brian wrote that he has seen references to it in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, but is looking for more information. If anyone has any suggestions of how he can find out more, please leave a comment.

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I have finished re-reading the first Harry Potter book (Sorcerer's Stone) and watching the second Harry Potter movie (Chamber of Secrets). My plan is to rent the third movie (Prisoner of Azkaban) and then re-read the next three books before the seventh book is released next month. I promise to share my Harry Potter theories in the next few weeks.

Impossible Undertaking

Inspired by something that Dan wrote several months ago, I decided that I would read all six Harry Potter books before the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, arrives on July 21. I started today. After going through my morning routine that is the Express, I completed a total of 54 pages on the bus and Metro. At this pace, I think it is unlikely that I’ll finish the first six books. Books four (Goblet of Fire) and six (Half-Blood Prince) are my favorite, so I’d like to re-read those. I think I have to read the fifth book (Order of the Phoenix) if I’m reading four and six. Plus, I should read the third book (Prisoner of Azkaban) since that seems to be the favorite book of many people I know. Is there anyway to cut corners here? I guess I could watch a couple of the movies to help get through things a little quicker, but I'd feel like I'm cheating.

Harry Potter and the Puppy Bowl

No, this is not the title of J.K. Rowling’s seventh book, just two of the items I want to write about. First, Harry Potter 7 (aka “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows”) will be released on July 21. There is a good chance that I will be one of those people at a Barnes & Noble or Borders at midnight since I don’t want to wait like I did for Harry Potter 6. I was rather impatient and was practically begging for the book to arrive.

Happy (belated) Groundhog Day to everyone! Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow, so we can expect an early spring. You heard it here first: I AM GOING TO PUNXSUTAWNEY FOR GROUNDHOG DAY 2008. I know that I have said this for years, but it really is going to happen next year. Groundhog Day is on a Saturday, so I won’t have to miss work. My brother already said that he will go with me (of course, he could be humoring me), so we just have to iron out the details.

So there’s this football game tomorrow, and I’m not that excited about it. It probably has something to do with the fact that the Steelers aren’t in it this year. Anyway, is it possible to root for the Colts to win so that Tony Dungy gets a Super Bowl victory as a coach but that Peyton Manning somehow doesn't win? Does this make sense? Maybe Manning will go 2-20 with 3 interceptions, but the Colts manage to win thanks to Erie’s own Bob Sanders. I just don’t want to see even more Peyton Manning commercials.

Finally, if you do not want to watch 6 hours of pre-game coverage, turn to Animal Planet for Puppy Bowl III, starting at 3:00pm Eastern on Sunday. The Washington Post had a Q&A with the Puppy Bowl producer. My favorite question is “Should we be expecting any wardrobe malfunctions in this year's Puppy Bowl?” (In case you’re wondering, the answer is “Thankfully no puppy wardrobe, so no fear of wardrobe malfunctions! We do call "fouls" when we have to clean up puppy messes though - and our referee has by far the dirtiest job in professional sports.” Yes, I'll probably watch a few some of it.