10 Years of LearnedLeague

I was invited to join LearnedLeague in 2015, and it's become a significant part of my life. Before I get too far, LearnedLeague is the trivia league of all trivia leagues and features countless Jeopardy! contestants and champions. There are six divisions or rundles: A, B, C, D, E, and R for rookies. It's invitation-only, and you're obviously in R for the first season. R is the most difficult season. You face players of all skill levels, and without knowing their question history, you're somewhat guessing how to play defense. Plus, you're still trying to understand how all of this works.

My rookie season was LL66. Due to my terrible performance that year, I was naturally placed in an E rundle where I have pretty much stayed for the next 40 seasons. Every once in a while, I earned promotion to D only to get relegated back to E the following season. I've actually been very successful (for me) recently as I got promoted to D for LL season 104 and stayed up for 105, 106, and now the upcoming 107 season. Yes, we're now up to season #107. 

I know that I'm not explaining LearnedLeague very well and skipping a lot. You can get basic information as a non-member on the LearnedLeague website. There's also an LL Wikipedia page and articles about LL by places like The Ringer, The New Yorker, and Milwaukee Magazine.

In my now 41 seasons of playing, I've learned a lot about my knowledge base. My best categories are pop music, television, games/sports, current events, and American history in that order. Meanwhile, my five worst categories are language, art, science, classical music, and math. I've only got 5 of 133 math questions correct, which is like 0.004%. (Math joke. It's actually significantly better at.038%!) I really should try to find a way to improve these scores. Anyway, it's really easy to play defense against me. If there's a question about one of my best categories, assign me the lowest possible points. Conversely, assign me lots of points for the latter categories since there's an excellent chance I'm going to get it wrong.

The primary mantra of LearnedLeague is don't forfeit, don't cheat. I'm proud that I have never forfeited in 1025 matches. What's funny is that I should have forfeited my 5th ever match. I drove to Pittsburgh that day and stayed at a hotel with my two young kids at the time. I was busy and exhausted and didn't answer the questions. However, the LL website ended up being down for part of that day, so they extended the deadline by a day. Over the next ten years, there have been plenty of times when I fell asleep on the couch, woke up right around the 1:00 AM Eastern time deadline and got credit for completing the answers.

One of my favorite parts of LL is the offseason mini leagues. While there are plenty of mini leagues that aren't for me, there are others particularly focused on sports and music which are perfect. In mini leagues, you are placed in completely random groups. It's fun defeating A-rundle players who would crush me in general knowledge but not in genre-specific games. I actually had a close loss in a mini-league several years ago against Jeopardy! champion Brad Rutter!

LearnedLeague is not for everyone, but I do have referrals available if you want to check it out. Just let me know The first season is free, and then there's an annual fee. It's fun and you might learn something. Not trying to sell anyone on this. Just sharing my experience.

Trivia Tuesday: 80s Baseball & The US-Canada Border

We haven't had Trivia Tuesday in a while, but I thought I would try it again. Today's questions are a mix of 1980s baseball trivia and items about the United States-Canada border. Good luck!

1. MLB personnel testifying at the famed 1985 drug trial of Curtis Strong included Dale Berra, Keith Hernandez, Vida Blue, and Kevin Koch. While not a player, Koch provided prominent professional players in Pennsylvania with cocaine while serving as what alliterative avian mascot?

2. The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is unusual in that the Canada-U.S. Border goes through the middle of the building. Name EITHER the Canadian province or the U.S. state that is home to this building. (Sean's Note: I just learned that this place existed and really want to go now.)

3. It is used for veterinary purposes as a hoof antiseptic and livestrong.com suggests that it can be used to treat eczema, psoriasis, and dandruff. But perhaps its most striking application was, in the words of author Mike McKenzie, briefly giving one future Hall of Famer "the ignominious distinction of hitting a game-losing home run" and another future Hall of Famer "a save by giving up a hit into the seats." Name this substance, now addressed in a comment to MLB Rule 3.02(c).

4. If you drive north over the entire length of Interstate 29 beginning in Kansas City, Missouri, you will enter Canada at the Emerson Port of Entry, which is located in what Canadian province?

5. He led the leader in batting average (1980), doubles (1981, 1983), and at bats (1982), but his name rarely evokes those things. Name this longtime left fielder/first baseman who is also not best remembered for being traded from the Chicago Cubs for Mike Brumley and Dennis Eckersley in 1984.

6. The border community of Warroad, Minnesota is perhaps best known for being the hometown of what American hockey player who scored four shootout goals, including the game winning goal, in a game against Russia at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics? This player played his first NHL game in 2008 for the St. Louis Blues, and currently plays for the Washington Capitals.

7. When completed, the Gordie Howe International Bridge will compete with what existing bridge between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario?

8. He was the NL's DH for the first-ever AAA All-Star Game and reportedly the first minor leaguer to be kissed by the famed Morganna the Kissing Bandit. His brief MLB career with the Pirates and Astros was unmemorable, except that he remains, nearly 30 years later, the last left-handed thrower to play an MLB game at catcher. Name this player. (Sean's Note: This player has also been mentioned on this blog several times over the years. Actually, more than one person found my blog because they searched for "[Player Name] married" and discovered Sean's Ramblings.)

9. The only stadium to debut (and open) in the 1980s that remains an active MLB stadium is almost certainly the only stadium in the world that is 1,500 feet shorter than a building adjacent to it. Give either name for this stadium that, between 2008-13, experienced higher fan turnout for the NFL games it hosted than for its resident baseball club.


Please do not use the internet for assistance, and leave your answers in the comments section below.

These questions are from two recent LearnedLeague one-day specials. If you're interested in joining LearnedLeague, I have a referral for next season, so please contact me.

Trivia Tuesday: 21st Century Pop Music Edition

I'm going to vent here, so if you want to go straight to the questions, please feel free to skip this paragraph. I've been part of LearnedLeague, the trivia league of all trivia leagues, for just over a year now. As I've probably mentioned before, I learned that there's a lot that I don't know, particularly in the science, world history, and literature. Therefore, I'm likely to stay in the E rundle (the lowest tier) for as long as I continue in LearnedLeague. However, I've done quite well in current events, sports, and pop music, so I was extremely excited to play in 21st Century pop music mini-league. For mini-leagues, everyone is placed in 12-person groups where you play an 11-match "regular season" with the top two advancing to the finals. Based on my pop music knowledge, I thought I had a decent chance of advancing. I thought wrong. Despite getting 45 correct answers out of the 54 questions in the first 9 matches, I'm in 8th place out of 12 in my group. The 45 correct answers are third best in my group and would be good for first or second in most groups. However, I'm in an extremely difficult group, I've done a poor job playing defense, and my "correct answers against" is the worst in the group. Basically, I'm Duke basketball with everyone playing their "A" game against me, but my record is more like NC State in the ACC. So frustrating.

Anyway, your challenge today is to answer the 9 21st Century pop music questions that I missed. As always, please don't use the internet for assistance.

1. In August 2001, shortly after completing filming on her "Rock the Boat" video, Aaliyah was killed in a plane crash in what country's Abaco Islands?

2. In March 2016, what band released their 4th self-titled album, known colloquially as "The White Album", riffing off a previously set precedent to identify these same-named albums by colors?

3. What 19th century artist painted the work used as the cover art on this Coldplay album?

4. The name of what Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard duo is equivalent to a border of demarcation approximately equal to 31 degrees north latitude?

5. n 2007, wht bnd drppd th vwls frm tp 20 ht frm thr albm "nfnty n Hgh" s jk whn thr rcrd cmpny rqstd shrtr sng ttls?

6. What 2010 song's title question is asked of Drake by Rihanna a total of 24 times over the track's 4:24 duration?

7. What American singer's studio album Mr. A–Z was a commercial success, peaking at number five on the Billboard 200 and spawning the singles "Did You Get My Message?," "Geek in the Pink," and the (quite fitting) Billboard Hot 100 hit "Wordplay"?

8. What singer has twice hit the Billboard Top 40 with songs titled along the template "I'm" followed by a four-letter descriptive word (with 2001's "I'm Real" and 2003's "I'm Glad")?

9. What is the first name of the harpist/songwriter whose discography includes the albums Ys (2006) and Divers (2015)? She is the second cousin once-removed of California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.

Please leave your answers in the comments section below. Good luck!

These questions are courtesy of LearnedLeague.

My First Season In The LearnedLeague

I finished my first season in LearnedLeague and it went as I expected...sort of. I expected to be overmatched and ended up finishing 25th out of 30 in my division, but I did not plan on losing 11 straight matches to end the season. I feel like I deserved a slightly better fate though. I talked myself out of several correct answers (see below), but overall, I got a little unlucky. Of the 30 members of my division, I was 19th in total correct answers. Not great, but not terrible either. My big problem was that I had the hardest strength of schedule in terms of Correct Answered Allowed. My opponents answered more questions correctly against me than anyone else in my division. It also didn't help that I had the 4th "Most Common Wrong Answers" in the division, meaning that I was in the right ballpark (though still wrong) with many of my answers.

Before I proceed, a quick explanation of LearnedLeague. This is the trivia league of trivia leagues. Ken Jennings is in this league (naturally in an A division), but finished 20th of 26 in that division. LearnedLeague is played in 25-match seasons, where players compete against one another head-to-head. Each match consists of 6 questions. Besides trying to answer them correctly, you also assign a point value to each question: 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0. That is the number of points your opponent gets for correctly answering the questions. The winner of the match is the player who scores the most points. I actually did a good job defensively. Not quite the Steel Curtain defense of the 70s but perhaps at a Greg Lloyd-Kevin Greene level.

Back to me, I've found that I definitely have my strong and weak categories. I was 5 out of 5 in business/economics questions (I guess my International Business minor is finally paying off), 8 of 10 in pop music, 3 of 4 in current events and 4 of 6 in American history. Conversely, I did terribly in literature (3 of 13), geography (3 of 13), science (3 of 16; why are there so many freaking science questions!?!?), 1 of 8 in art (I dominated the Andy Warhol question), 1 of 11 in food/drink and 1 of 12 in world history. That's a lot of bad there. Basically, if there's a question about pop culture, including sports (though I don't understand how I got a 4 of 10 in television), I'm in decent shape. Anything else (especially science), my opponents should feel comfortable assigning me 2 or 3 points.

So now, I'm going to participate in some mini-leagues about college football and 80s pop music until the next season begins in November. I expect to do better in these specific leagues than the next regular season where I'll be in an E division. I feel like I could become an E division regular, particularly since there's not an "F" division, with some potential to get promotion into a D division with some luck. I'm never getting to the A or B divisions, but I've found the competition and the trivia a nice way to start the day. Plus, I think I could break a record for most consecutive losses!


Here are examples of when I out-smarted myself.

What is the common medical term for the mass of lymphoid tissue, considered vestigial in adults, that is sometimes referred to as pharyngeal tonsils?

My son had his adenoids out last year, so my thought was that it couldn't be adenoids since some of these terms would be familiar. I went with goiter since I thought that was in the tonsils ballpark. The answer was adenoids.

While it sometimes includes all modernist painters between the two World Wars, the "School of" this city is a term typically applied by art historians to a certain group known as les maudits, including Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, and Jules Pascin. Name the city.

I thought Chagall spent time in Paris and figured "les maudits" was French, but Paris seemed to be too easy of an answer. I went with Marseille. The answer was Paris.


Don't forget that you can always like Sean's Ramblings on Facebook. You know you want to!

Trivia Tuesday

I mentioned last week that I'm now part of The Learned League, so for today's Trivia Tuesday, I thought I would share some questions from my first week plus in the league.

1. 2001 Odyssey, located at 802 64th Street in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, was the setting for pivotal scenes in what iconic film?

2. JSE Limited, a major stock exchange which is its country's (and its continent's) largest as measured by market capitalization, is located in what city?

3. What is the only national capital city in the world which borders two other sovereign nations? Its border with one of them, for ~46 years, also formed part of the Iron Curtain.

4. In 2007, the newly refurbished Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England, was renamed for what man, honoring an event 53 years prior?

5. The first human spaceflight program managed by NASA had what name? It ran from 1959 until 1963, with an express goal of sending a solo human into Earth orbit and returning him safely before the Soviet Union.

6. 72% of the liquid natural gas (LNG) imported into the U.S. comes from what Caribbean twin-island nation which, due largely to its petrochemical and industrial economy, is, by per capita GDP, the third-richest country in the Americas after the U.S. and Canada?

7. What was the name of the original British television series, running from 2001 to 2003, which was first adapted in Poland as Idol, and later in the U.S. as American Idol, in France as Nouvelle Star, in Australia as Australian Idol, and many others?

8. What is the traditional English translation of the name of the Tuscan port city of Livorno? The term is used for the breed of chicken which originated there and was introduced to North America in the early 19th c. (and, by extension, the name for a famous fictional fowl).

9. What is the essential ingredient in any dish described as florentine?

10. Among the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is one which purports to be "the most comprehensive single-artist museum in the world." For what American artist is this museum exclusively dedicated?

Of these questions, I got 5 of 10 correct. Can you do better? Please leave your answers in the comments section below and don't use the internet for assistance. Good luck!

My Busy Life

This is a very busy time of year. There is much to do to prepare for the start of the school year with my family and deadlines at work. There are other things that rank just as high in importance though.

1. Preparing for Fantasy Football

I think I'm in 4 or 5 leagues again this year, but I don't even know. I do know that I can't find a draft time that works for everyone in the league where I'm the Commissioner. This is a problem. Oh, my current draft plan consists of getting Willie Parker as a sleeper pick.

2. The Ted Marshall Open Television Death Pool

I've had a really good run in this contest to select 10 TV shows that won't make it to the next TV season. I won in 2011 and 2013 and finished near the top in 2012 and 2014. This may be my calling. Unfortunately, I really don't have a feel yet for the new shows or what shows are ending after this season like Parks & Rec, Glee and Two and a Half Men last season. While I'll probably have another blog post about the 2015-2016 Ted Marshall Open, you can enter now until Labor Day.

3. The LearnedLeague

This is supposedly the trivia league of all trivia leagues. It's an invitation-only league that was even featured in The Washington Post. After seeing the difficulty of the sample questions, I predicted that I would finish last. I mean, there's lots of useless knowledge in my head, but less useless knowledge than the people I expect to be in this league.

After three days, my prediction isn't that far off as I'm in 28th place out of 30 teams in my rookie division. However, I rank first in Correct Answers Allowed, meaning the total number of questions answered correctly by opponents in all matches. Basically, I've played the hardest schedule of the 30 teams. I'm also tied for first in the Most Common Wrong Answers category, so although I'm answering a lot of questions incorrectly, I'm at least providing some very good educated guesses!

4. My DVR

We're probably switching our TV provider meaning that we're going to get a new DVR. Now, I have about two weeks to go through as much on my DVR as possible. I should be able to watch the entire first season of Fargo, but I don't think I'm going to get to Silver Linings Playbook, The LEGO Movie, Captain Phillips, 42 and so many other movies.

Yes, this entire post could be part of The Steel Trap's next First World Problems post.