Sean's Ramblings 2019 Year In Review

Welcome to my 15th (yes, you read that right) annual year in review, where I take the first few lines of the first entry of each month in order to produce a random and (hopefully) interesting summary of 2019. Please note that these are not my picks for best of and worst of 2019. That will be a separate blog post coming soon. This is simply a summary (sort of) of Sean's Ramblings in 2019.

January: The biggest story in Pittsburgh sports clearly involves the son of now former Riverhounds assistant coach Mark Pulisic. If you haven’t heard, Chelsea signed his son Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund for approximately $73 million. Not too shabby.

February: It's been a busy month so far due to forming an exploratory committee to run for President. Apparently, donors aren't all that interested in contributing to a campaign of someone with no political experience or name recognition.

March: Actor Luke Perry passed away earlier this week at the way-to-young age of 52. Perry is best known for his role as Dylan McKay on Beverly Hills 90210.

April: I'm so glad that I'm on my community's email list. I mean, usually the posts have no relevance to me, but every once in a while, something entertaining comes out. Enter Rob (not his real name).

May: In November 2018, Ariana Grande released the song Thank U, Next. The song was Grande’s first number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 and topped the charts in 12 countries. Basically, this was a massive hit. The reason I bring up this up today is because of the song’s first line:

Thought I'd end up with Sean / But he wasn't a match.

June: The 38th annual Celebrate Fairfax took place over the weekend and this was my 18th festival. Based on the time I’ve spent at the festival, I can now vote (which I’m actually going to do today).

July: One of my favorite topics to write about on Sean’s Ramblings has been attending live sports events and concerts. From Max Scherzer’s no-hitter (and nearly perfect game) to Fleetwood Mac and Paul McCartney shows to my hockey road trips, it’s fun to look back at events I’ve attended over the years.

August: A good friend of my in-laws is a huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan. He even got to be the Pirates alumni manager for a day at a Spring Training game about a decade ago where Terry Francona (the Phillies manager at the time) ribbed him since they were from neighboring towns in Butler County.

September: Over the years, I've had various posts about "Celebrities in Pittsburgh Gear" (like these) and "Pittsburgh Athletes with World-Renowned Athletes" or PAWRA (like these). This post, based on the following picture, doesn't fit either of these categories though.

October: I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Sports was definitely a big part of my life growing up and continues to be today. I’ve been fortunate to see both the Penguins and Steelers become champions. I’ve also lived in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington DC, for over 18 years.

November: If you follow sports or the internet, you’re probably already aware of the situation that occurred last week at the website Deadspin.

December: Before I begin this post, I want to share some alternate titles. I Barely Survived Frozen 2. Or How Seeing Frozen 2 Almost Ended My Life.

That's my year of writing Sean's Ramblings. You can click on previous year in review posts here.


Photo of Luke Perry in 2001 by Leslie Hassler/AP
Photo of Jerome Bettis and the Jonas Brothers from Colin Dunlap

My Luke Perry Story

Actor Luke Perry passed away earlier this week at the way-to-young age of 52. Perry is best known for his role as Dylan McKay on Beverly Hills 90210. The show debuted in October 1990 when I was in high school. I don't remember watching Beverly Hills 90210 very much, but the show was unavoidable, and the cast were seemingly everywhere.

While the show had high ratings, there was definitely some 90210 fatigue by the mid to late-90s. Sometime during the end of my college career, I saw the move The Fifth Element starring Bruce Willis in the theater. I believe that these were the opening credits.



At the sight of "and Luke Perry," there was a collective groan throughout the theater, followed by some laughter at the fact that so many people groaned. (This was at a time before IMDB where you didn't know the entire cast before the movie came out.) I think there was definitely some relief among much of the audience that Perry wasn't in the movie after the opening sequence.

R.I.P.

Photo of Luke Perry in 2001 by Leslie Hassler/AP


(Of course since this blog is old, and apparently I have few blog ideas, I already wrote about this in 2010.)

Share Your Random Movie Theater Moment

It’s interactive day here at Sean’s Ramblings. I’m looking for you to share a time where you experienced something unusual in the movie theater. Since it’s my blog, I’ll start.

I saw The Fifth Element at the Pyramid Mall movie theater in Ithaca, New York. There weren’t many movie theaters in Ithaca (actually this may have been the only movie theater in Ithaca), so this was a pretty popular place often made up of college students. For some reason, I went to see The Fifth Element on opening night. It was a packed theater to see Bruce Willis in the future. Anyway, the opened credits concluded with “and Luke Perry.” At this moment, there was a collective groan throughout the packed movie theatre which then led to audience-wide laugh. I guess no one realized that Perry was going to be in the movie and no one wanted to see Perry in a movie.



Your turn. Go!