Random Ramblings: April 2024 Edition

I'm in several different soccer referee groups and receive countless emails per week from assigners looking for referees to work games. Instead of countless, I decided to see how many I actualy receive per week. From Monday, April 8 at 12:01 AM through Sunday, April 14 at 11:59 PM, I received 63 emails about working games. 63!!

We're now at the halfway point of Passover where I question the amount of food I have for the remainder of the holiday. Sure, I probably eat more fruits, vegetables, and eggs during Passover than the rest of the year and that's easy to get, but I'm never sure if I have enough matzo, macaroons, or Molly's Passover cakes, which is what my kids eat for breakfast during the holiday. We're also at the point where there is limited or no Kosher for Passover foods at most local grocery stores. By the way, the Molly's cakes aren't going to make it to Tuesday!

I miss the days when you could transfer your balance on one credit card to a brand new credit card with no transfer fees and at 0% APR for a certain period of time. It seems like every credit card company now charges a 4% transfer fee on the amount of funds transferred. 

I've mentioned multiple times that I have been in the same fantasy/rotisserie baseball league since 1992. I have won the league just twice during this time in 2014 and 2016. My team is off to an amazing start where I'm in first place in 8 of the 10 categories and have a huge lead in overall points. Since it is only April, I figure there's no way that my team can keep up this pace. My apologies in advance to Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatis Jr., Elly De La Cruz, Zac Gallen, Tyler Glasnow, and William Contreras who I expect will all get injured in the next few months.

I don't think it's an overstatement that Woodland Hills High School has one of the best public high school theater programs in the country. This year's show is "Wonderland," and WHHS is one of only two high schools in the country to perform this pilot musical based on Peter Pan. Check out the story/video about the show by WTAE.

Passover On A Boat

We took a family cruise with 4,500 of our closest friends for Spring Break. Royal Caribbean has enormous boats that include multiple dining rooms, pools, water slides, a casino, a miniature golf course, a basketball court, theaters, an ice skating rink (because why wouldn’t you put an ice skating rink on a boat?) and much more. While I could write about how I made a cruise activities staff member think I was a professional golfer, lost playing bingo and trivia, share that The Moose (now 12!) won a free throw competition against teenagers and adults, or other highlights from the trip, I'm going to write about the Passover Seder, which is the ritual dinner to start the holiday. Wow, that was a really long sentence!

Passover, one of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar, commemorates the Israelites becoming free after being slaves in Egypt. Think The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. Too old of a reference? Go with the animated The Prince of Egypt. Anyway, some cruises have a rabbi and/or a formal Passover Seder. Our cruise did not. Instead, the cruise provided a portion of a dining hall for a self-led Seder. While we thought the cruise was going to provide prayer books, they did not. Fortunately, another family brought a Seder plate and Haggadahs, which are the Passover prayer books. Unfortunately, the Haggadahs were completely in Hebrew with no English at all.

I guess now would be a good time to mention that there was just my family and another family in attendance. The other extended family consisted of a couple, their three elementary school aged kids, and the father's parents. The family was from Israel and moved to the United States several years ago. The grandparents still live there and only speak Hebrew, so the other family led a fast Seder all in Hebrew. We participated in a few prayers here and there, but any readings were recited quickly by the dad or grandfather.

It ended up being a nice and unique Seder. The cruise provided a good meal of brisket, chicken, matzah ball soup, and more including Manischewitz wine, which one of the other family's kids quickly discovered was not grape juice. We had a nice conversation, and there was a huge area to hide the afikomen (it's a piece of matzah that kids try to find). And again, did I mention that this was on a boat?

The next day, we took a tour of Nassau in The Bahamas and stopped in the Atlantis hotel. I noticed a few men walking around wearing kippahs, a traditional head covering, and realized that people were celebrating Passover at the hotel. My aunt used to go to "Passover resorts," where you spend the entire holiday away and have all of your meals prepared, but I'd imagine that Passover at the Atlantis is at a completely different level. Sure enough, celebrating the entire holiday for a family of 4 is probably going to cost five figures and that doesn't include airfare.

Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Canadians can bring back so much more than Americans!

Random Ramblings: March 2021

* While I'm happy that more and more people are getting vaccines, I'll admit that I'm getting a little jealous of seeing people my age and younger getting vaccinated. I realize that I'm in decent health without any underlying medical conditions, and I don't work in a medical profession or any other job that would qualify as an essential worker, but I'd still like to get vaccinated sooner rather than later. I'm hoping for May or June.

* With Passover coming up, a catering company offered all types of meals and side dishes. When I saw that they have a Kosher for Passover brisket meal serving 6 for $40, I jumped at it thinking it was an incredible deal. About a week after submitting the order, the catering company contacted me after noticing that I only ordered 1 meal when the minimum order was 6. That $40 was actually $40 per person, which makes complete sense now. After learning that I would need to spend $240 for this meal, with little chance that my kids would eat much of this (and the fact that it's $240!), I revised the order and went off the a la carte menu.

* Although I have not worked as a soccer referee since November 2019, I continue to receive constant emails looking for refs to work games. I'm planning on taking the spring season off (see the not vaccinated thing above), so it might be nearly two years between working games. I think that I'm a pretty good ref, but I'm definitely going to need to brush up on the laws of the game when I return. Starting with some lower-level kids games might be a good way to start too rather than working adult games. 

* My 4th grader and 1st grader recently returned to school two days a week. With only my 3 year old at home on these days, I thought that I might be able to get a lot more work done. That has not happened. Apparently, he likes the one-on-one attention that he's rarely had over the last year.

* Once again, I'm happy that I didn't put any money on the NCAA Tournament. I fill out brackets for fun, but learned years ago that I'm just throwing away money in any pay polls. While I completed several brackets, I had Illinois getting to the championship or winning in most of them and also had Ohio State going far. I chose poorly.

* Finally, thanks to my family and friends for nominating me for Pittsburgh Magazine's 2021 Best of The 'Burgh in the local writer category. I'm a finalist up against these accomplished individuals: 

Damon Young, author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker (which is a finalist for the Thurber House for American Humor) and co-founder and editor in chief of VerySmartBrothas.

Gene Collier - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist who I read growing up. He's also received a few Pulitzer Prize nominations.

Merecedes J. Williams - She's the owner and operator of Movie Scene Queen and writes for the New Pittsburgh Courier 

Natalie Bencivenga - Syndicated advice columnist who is also a Public Relations Strategist for Savvy Pittsburgh

Tony Norman - Award-winning columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

You're certainly welcome to vote for me, but this is truly a case where it's an honor being nominated. While I enjoy writing this blog, I'm clearly a distant sixth in this group.

Notes From Home

Even before we've been staying at home, but especially since we're here 24/7, I've played a fun game around the house called "Turning Off Lights in Rooms Where There Are No People." I have the high score!

With a free preview of Starz, I recorded several movies. Being the wonderful parent that I am, I let the kids (ages now 9, almost 6, and 2 & 1/2) watch "Spaceballs." There are a few more swear words than I remembered, so I just hope they don’t use them in the coming days. Anyway, my oldest who seemed to be paying attention the most kept asking me if this is the funny part. It probably didn’t help that I tried showing them "Star Wars" twice in the past, but they only made it about 30-45 minutes through and didn’t want to continue. Although my oldest said that he liked the movie and was proud of himself for predicting that Lone Star and Princess Vespa would end up together, he (and they) definitely didn’t get it.

I also recorded Quentin Tarantino’s "Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood." I will not be watching this one with my kids!

I've been on Zoom quite a bit lately. The reason I mention this is because when I look in the mirror, I see some hair on the top of my head. Based on my laptop camera angle, I look pretty bald on the webcam. (Of course, most people probably already think of me as bald/balding.)

Ziggy is going to have plenty of dry food for the next few weeks months years. This is a 16-pound bag!

I miss Wegmans. I generally go there at least once or twice a week, but I haven’t visited since March 17th. We did a pretty good job on stocking up on what we need and have also had groceries delivered. However, we’re going to need Passover food and some prescription refills, so I expect to be back soon.

Speaking of Passover, I don’t know how this is going to work this year. I probably go to grocery stores every day or two during Passover to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Wegmans usually has a good selection of premade meals too. Frequent trips are not going to happen this year. Without pasta, pizza, chicken nuggets, and our usual breakfast foods (cereal, muffins, bagels, etc.), I also have no idea what the kids will eat. Any Passover food suggestions are greatly appreciated. Complicated recipes with an extensive list of ingredients are not.

Uptown Passover Vs. Passover Funk

Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, what have you done? I mean sure you created an incredibly catchy and successful song Uptown Funk, but now you've inspired dueling Passover songs.

In this corner, we have Six13 with Uptown Passover featuring the line, "Don't be slavin', just nosh."



And in this corner, there's Aish with Passover Funk and the line, "Fill it up, the Four cups."



Meanwhile, The Maccabeats went old school with Dayenu.



So who is going to settle the Uptown Passover-Passover Funk debate? Let's ask The Kosher Coupon Lady.



I'm so confused. How can you use a store coupon to get free matzo if you spend $75 at an entirely different grocery store? You lost me here, Miriam.


If you celebrate, have a very Happy Passover! It hasn't even started yet, but I'm already sick of matzo.

I'm Still Here

I hope to publish a major blog post later this week, but in the meantime, here are a few videos for your Monday.

Plunder the lox! [Pirates Prospects]



Teemu Selanne at his final regular season home game in Anaheim. Very cool that he included former teammate Jean-Sebastien Giguere for a victory lap. [h/t Deadspin]



Finally, Happy Passover! (Some of this may be offensive. Funny, but possibly offensive to some.)

Seven Days Or Eight Days of Passover

Passover is over for another year, and I’m happy eating pizza, cereal and pretzels again. While Passover ended for me after 8 days on Tuesday night, many people finished Passover on Monday night after only 7 days. Why the difference? The St. Louis Jewish Light has the answer.

The differing practices go back more than 2,000 years to Jerusalem, when the dates for Jewish festivals in the coming month were declared by the rabbis of the Sanhedrin, the community's legal body, according to when they sighted the new moon.

As it took time for messengers to reach Diaspora communities with that report, a "yom tov sheni, " or "second festival day," was added to biblical festivals outside Israel to ensure that Jews there observed at least part of each festival on the correct day.

The extra Diaspora day was preserved even after the institution of a fixed calendar, with the Talmud declaring that Sukkot and Passover be observed for eight days, Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah for two.

Yom Kippur was not extended because of the burden of fasting, and Rosh Hashanah is celebrated for two days even within Israel because it falls on the new moon instead of mid-month like the other festivals.

I get it. 2,000 years ago, not everyone had their Outlook calendars set to coordinate the dates for Jewish holidays including the beginning of Passover. However, it is now 2013. People inside and outside of Israel know when holidays begin. Why do we still have the extra day of Passover and eating awful food simply for not living in Israel? Is this some type of conspiracy led by the Manischewitz company?

Here’s my idea. If we need to have an extra day of Passover for living in the US (and really, can't we just stick with seven days everywhere?), why can’t we have an extra day for the more fun holidays like Purim and Hanukkah outside of Israel? I look forward to hearing from the Rabbinical community on this.

Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?

Passover begins this evening, so it's time for eight days of matzo. Hooray!

Since Passover is here, enjoy these ethical questions from a non-Jew regarding purchasing Kosher for Passover Coca-Cola. [A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago]

The answer to the title of this post is that Robert Morris is playing a post-season basketball game during the first night Seder. In case you missed it, Robert Morris defeated Kentucky. Even though the game occurred last week, this is still awesome. [ESPN, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dan Shanoff, Yahoo]

Ranking the 68 NCAA tournament schools by the coolest person who went there. How does DJ Qualls rank above Robert Guillaume? [Sports Illustrated]

The guide to wearing ties includes the following statement: Finally, a tie that looks like a fish or is adorned with cartoon characters should be avoided at all costs...unless the wearer’s goal is to maintain celibacy. Not that I wore ties much during college, but when I did, they usually had Peanuts or Simpsons characters on them. In a related note, I didn't have a girlfriend for most of college. [Everybody Loves You]

Jerusalem's FC Beitar signed its first two Muslim players. Some fans weren't happy. Fascinating read about this. [Grantland & Sports on Earth]

The Reston band RDGLDGRN made their national television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live. [Restonian]

Mr. Brame is about to live longer than Mozart. [Mr. Brame's Blog]

Make sure that you have a cup of wine ready for Elijah!

Stupid Passover Videos

Here's the deal people. Just because you can film your own videos, doesn't mean that you need to post them online. Anyway, enjoy (I guess) the following three Passover related videos.



Is this person supposed to be Lady Gaga? What song is this anyway? Way too many questions. Besides, no one is in love with Passover except possibly Manischewitz.



Was it really necessary to take off the top shirt five seconds into the video? Couldn't she have done that before or after the song?



This one actually isn't terrible, but why a Kansas jersey? I feel like Danny Manning should have made a cameo appearance.

Have a Happy Passover!

Express Hates Passover

This is a different type of Washington Post Express Fail than other posts I've had in the past. In Tuesday's paper on the first day of Passover, Express dedicated an entire page in its Fit Section to bread and cupcakes.



Bread and cupcakes are two items that are certainly not Kosher for Passover. Express couldn't have printed these articles prior to or after Passover?

If you're wondering, yes, I am tired of matzah already.

Completely unrelated to Passover, now through tomorrow (Friday), Celebrate Fairfax is offering an early bird special on tickets for the June 10-12 festival. Adult tickets are only $7 and youth tickets are only $4. Please let me know if you can buy tickets to see Third Eye Blind, The Bangles or The Legwarmers for only $7. Didn't think so.

Trivia Tuesday

These may be the most random Trivia Tuesday questions ever posted here.

1. Better movie title: Snakes on a Plane or Hot Tub Time Machine?

2. FD 50, RT 90, FD 50, RT 90, PU. Do you know what this is from?

3. Trying to date myself even more, when are the visitors on the new version of V going to start eating mice like they did in the original version?

4. Last week, AMC aired the “premiere” of Spaceballs, a movie at least 20 years old and has been on video, DVD and television for years. Does AMC understand the word premiere?

5. Why does the NCAA Tournament start after 9:30pm Eastern time? I’m too old to stay up that late on a work night.

6. There are dozens languages spoken by humans. Are there also multiple languages “spoken” by birds? For example, can crows and cardinals understand each other? Do birds in Australia and Mexico speak the same language?

7. The New York Yankees have had more 100-win seasons than any other major league baseball team. What team/organization has the 2nd most 100-win seasons? (This is a bit of a trick question.)

8. Let’s say you are flying from the East Coast to the West Coast landing on the West Coast in the evening. Assuming you spent the entire Passover on the East Coast, does Passover end when the sun sets in the East or the West?

I think for this week, it's safe to use the internet for answers. As always, please leave your answers in the comments section below.

The End of Passover

I am extremely excited that Passover ends at sundown tonight, so that I can go back to my normal routine of eating pizza, sandwiches and Lucky Charms. This picture is the only positive I can find from eating matzo the past 7+ days:



Unfortunately, I’m not done eating matzo yet.



Maybe this is just Ziggy’s way to celebrate a Pittsburgh Penguins’ playoff victory!

Missing Matzo

One of the joys of Passover is the opportunity to eat lots of matzo over the eight-day holiday. Therefore, when faced with the opportunity to buy matzo by the individual box or the 5-pack, I always buy the larger quantity. (Please note that there's a bit of sarcasm in these sentences.) Actually, the cost of buying the 5-pack is less than purchasing two individual boxes. However, when Passover ends, we always seem to have an extra box or two and don’t know what to do with them. Matzo is technically food, so I feel uncomfortable just throwing an unopened box away. In the past, I have had non-Jewish colleagues take a box or two (they enjoy the taste; my response is what taste), but I don’t think that’s going to be an option this year.

However, Streit’s, one of the companies that make Kosher for Passover food, seems to have created a solution. We purchased Streit’s five-pack of matzo this year and discovered a few days ago, well after we opened the first two boxes, that one box was lighter than the others. One box is packaged and sealed exactly like the other four boxes, but this box is completely empty. That’s right; we ended up buying four boxes of matzo and one box of an empty box. I feel like I should complain but I don’t want an extra box of matzo in exchange as we’re not going to eat a fifth box. If I called Streit’s would they even take me seriously? I'm not upset about the missing matzo, but I feel like this is something that I should share.

Only 84 hours until non-matzo pizza!