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.

Express Fail: Wheaties Edition

Leah Still, the inspirational four-year old cancer survivor and daughter of Devon Still of the Cincinnati Bengals, is getting her own Wheaties box. This is very cool.

So cool that the Washington Post Express included a note about this in Thursday's Blog Log.

One problem...Leah Still's name is Leah Still not Leah Strong. Her dad is Devon Still, not Devon Strong. Express noted that this was from a Mashable article though I checked and Mashable definitely referred to Leah and Devon with their correct last name. So close.

Click here for more Express Fail posts.

Dumb Post

Dale Lolley is the Pittsburgh Steelers beat reporter for the Observer-Reporter of Washington (PA) and has been in this role since 1993. According to his bio, Lolley previously worked at WJAC-TV and the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown and The Derrick in Oil City. In addition, Lolley earned a degree in journalism from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. He also serves as the administrative adviser for Washington & Jefferson College's student newspaper. Based on his approximately 25-30 years of writing professionally, you would think that Lolley would have an amazing grasp of grammar. Or not.

Join @BenzTribLive970 and I on @970espn right now from 7-9 pm #Steelers

— Dale Lolley (@dlolleyor) August 18, 2015

Join Benz and I? Take out the Benz part and see how that sounds. Join I on 970ESPN right now from 7-9. Yeah, that doesn't quite work.

Now I realize that Twitter is not the place to go for proper English grammar, but this seems rather amateur for someone that writes for a living.

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

Weekend Review

- Virginia had no sales tax on clothes this weekend, so I ventured to Kohl's with dozens, if not hundreds, of my closest friends. After trying on probably eight pairs of pants, I settled on exactly one pair along with a few shirts. Then, I ventured upstairs to buy some kids' clothing. I happily found 3 pair of size 4 boys pants. They seemed a little big, but I figured that my older son would grow into them. Apparently, the growing into them could take a long time. I needed to buy size 4T pants not size 4. Who knew there was a difference between the two? I later returned them to Kohl's but did not stay to search for 4T pants. I had my fill of shopping for the week month day.

- I own two suits but wear them only a few times per year. However, between a conference, a wedding and Rosh Hashanah, there's a period in September when I'll need to wear a coat and tie nearly every day for a week. I tried on both of my suit coats recently and noticed that they are huge. They were slightly big when I first purchased the suits, and then I lost about 30 pounds over the years. So I went to Men's Wearhouse over the weekend to see if they could help me. They refused. I had the same result at the place where I take my dry cleaning. In both cases, there would be too much to do, and the arms and shoulders would still look awkward. So now I'm stuck looking like this:

Of course, the Men's Wearhouse guy offered to sell me two suits for $500. I declined.

- Another weekend highlight was my driver's side car window going off track. I was able to close the window but now it won't open. You can hear the power window mechanism trying to work, but the window doesn't move. I called the dealership to get an estimate, and they believe that they need to replace the regulator. (Who knew there is a car part named after the legendary Warren G song?) The estimated repair cost is $491 or the cost of two suits. I guess I'll just open my car door if I go to a fast-food drive-thru or ATM or when exiting the Metro parking garage.

- My 4 year-old could be a photographer one day judging on how much he likes taking pictures with my phone. This picture of Ziggy came out rather well.

Of course, then there are dozens of pictures of the TV and floor like this one of the remote, so he still has some work to do before becoming the next Ansel Adams.

(Though perhaps there's some meaning behind this picture. Maybe it's a post-modern reflection of society's need to have the remote control and how lonely things can be with the remote on the floor. Or something.)

- If you're a fan of all Pittsburgh sports, I hope that you watched the Pirates regular season game on Sunday evening rather than the Steelers pre-season game. The Steelers didn't even play Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Le'Veon Bell, Maurkice Pouncey, James Harrison, and Martavis Bryant. Meanwhile, the Pirates scored 9 runs in the 7th inning to defeat the Dodgers 13-6. Naturally, I fell asleep with the Dodgers leading 5-1, so when I later woke up to see the Pirates leading 12-5, I was shocked. Let's Go Bucs!

That's Not My Seat

I attended The Pirates-Nationals game back in June where Max Scherzer threw a no-hitter. After the game, I received an e-mail from the Nationals offering a special commemorative ticket with a $5 donation to the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation. Since I did not have a formal ticket stub for this game, only a print out on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper (I hate the trend of there being fewer and fewer actual tickets now), I bought two tickets to commemorate my son's first baseball game. Here's the ticket that I received on Wednesday:

Pretty cool. There's just one big problem. There is no section 31 at Nationals Park. There is no Row MS at Nationals Park either.

Plus, why are both of my tickets seat #1? We can't both be in the same seat. If we were, I'd hope the Nats would only charge me for the price of one ticket (especially since my 4 year-old sat on my lap for probably 7 of the 9 innings).

Trivia Tuesday (Yes, Really)

I'm sure that you're thinking, wait, am I in the right place? I used to visit Sean's Ramblings often, and I remember that he posted Trivia Tuesday posts regularly.

While I'm not promising that we'll see Trivia Tuesday as a weekly feature again, at least for today, Trivia Tuesday is back. Your challenge is to answer the ten questions based on the pictures (and questions) below.

For those of you new to Trivia Tuesday or even those that are not, please do not use the internet for assistance. Leave your answers in the comments section below. Good luck!

This quiz is courtesy of the fine folks at Pub Stumpers.

Hogan's Such A Yo-Yo

I watched a lot of wrestling when I was in middle school/junior high. Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, The Junkyard Dog, The Ultimate Warrior, The British Bulldogs, King Kong Bundy, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and so many others including Rowdy Roddy Piper who passed away on Friday at the age of 61. Despite attending several WWF matches at Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, watching some early Wrestlemanias via my friend's parents getting them on Pay Per View and even watching the Saturday morning WWF cartoon, for no apparent reason, the thing I remember most about Rowdy Roddy Piper is this one line (at around the :40 second mark below) from Land of 1000 Dances performed by WWF wrestlers.



I always thought this was a silly line. Is calling someone a yo-yo really an insult? I also had in my mind the perfect comeback for Hogan. He could have said that Piper's Such a Diaper. Of course, that makes just as much sense as calling someone a yo-yo.

RIP Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Am I An Angry Person?

During a recent conversation, I noticed that I vented about three different topics consecutively. In a moment of self-awareness, I think I apologized and jokingly said that I hoped I wasn't always like this. Fortunately, the response was understanding.

So this got me thinking. Am I always angry or ranting about something? Sure, I haven't been happy with Metro delays, and my kids have a wonderful habit of not listening. I also notice that I've been swearing a lot more to myself (either out loud when no one is around or in my head) lately. Granted, I think I have some good reasons to vent that of course I want to share.

1. We're currently looking into bundling cable, internet and the home phone together, so I decided to call Verizon to get pricing information (and after receiving dozens of offers in the mail from them over the years). After an awkward (and painful) beginning of the call, where the Verizon representative had significant difficulties spelling my name and address correctly, he finally gave me the basic information. However, when I asked about the equipment costs and installation fees, he informed me that I would need to give him my social security number to run a credit check to proceed. I refused. I wanted to know the complete costs to help me make an informed decision about whether or not I would choose Verizon. I called them, so it's obvious I'm serious about pursing a deal. Why do they need my social in order to tell me this? At a standstill, we agreed to end the call.

2. Our homeowners association cited us for damage outside our front window. We are trying to replace the entire area with a material that basically would not cause us to deal with this again. While the material comes in many different colors, it is not an exact match to the paint color we have, and we can't paint on this material. It's really close though. So now we're awaiting the board's ruling on whether or not we can proceed based entirely on the possible color difference. They may say that we're good but we would have to paint the rest of the house with the new color. That's not going to work. They may say we're not good which would bring us back to square one. Basically, we're now waiting for the board to give us a ruling as to how to spend out money on something I would never have considered spending money on until we got the notice.

Back to the title of this post, I realize that many of you don't know me and others probably haven't talked with me regularly for a long time. Based on these two examples though , am I unreasonably angry or are these rationale reasons to vent?

Pizza Security Fee

I'm back from Florida (more on that later) but wanted to share this receipt from the Sbarro at Jacksonville International Airport.

Yes, pizza at Sbarro costs more than the Monroeville Mall location when I was growing up though that's not the point. This post is about the $0.02 JAA Security Fee. Several questions:

1. What does the JAA in JAA Security Fee stand for? The Jacksonville airport code is JAX, so is JAA some sort of secret security alliance?

2. How is this fee used? Is this to ensure the safety of the cheese, sauce and dough?

3. Why $0.02? Does this cost differ based on how much I spend or is this a flat fee?

I'm really tempted to call the number on the receipt to find out these answers but what fun would that be when I can speculate in a blog post!

This Should Be A Tweet

I know that I haven't posted much here lately, so I thought I would share this:

How do we live in a world where MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This has over 161,000,000 views on YouTube while Arrested Development's Tennessee video has less than 2.5 million views?

I was (okay am) a big fan of the MC Hammer song and a bigger fan of the Myron Cope parody, but Tennessee is just as good a song if not better.

Found In My Basement: Steel City 2009

Years ago, Nicholas of PSAMP had a series about unlicensed Pittsburgh sports merchandise. While he no longer writes much on his blog (though he may be the most active person in the world on Twitter), this post would have fit perfectly in his series. Based on the Steelers and Penguins success at the end of the last decade, here is a shirt to honor these teams and two of its stars.

I'm pretty sure that this shirt was a gift from my parents. Amazingly, with the amount of turnover on sports teams, both Harrison and Fleury still play for the Steelers and Pens respectively.

Click here to see more in the Found in My Basement Series.

Friday Video: Uma Thurman

We've had some fun with Fall Out Boy over the years, but the band continues to produce hits and stay relevant. Their latest song is titled "Uma Thurman" and is quite catchy. I feel like much of this is due to the sample from The Munsters' theme song. Enjoy!

Summer of Sean: St. Andrews

The golf and sports world is focused on St. Andrews, Scotland today for The Open just like it was 15 years ago during the Summer of Sean (as I'm calling it now). In 2000, some friends and I spent the weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland, a very cool city that I may write about in a future post, but on Sunday morning, I left the group to visit St. Andrews on the North Sea. To describe St. Andrews as a small town is unfair to small towns. I'm not exactly sure what I mean by this, but for some perspective, St. Andrews' population of 16,680 (according to Wikipedia) is only a few hundred more than Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Anyway, while I'm not a huge golf fan, I understood that St. Andrews was the birthplace of golf and the home of arguably the most famous golf course in the world. Since I was only an hour and a half bus ride away, I figured that I should make the pilgrimage. With The Open taking place less than two weeks after my visit, the course was closed for play, but you could walk all around. This actually worked out fantastically.

My first reaction on seeing the course was that there were a ton of bunkers.

Very deep bunkers which would be difficult even for the best players to hit out cleanly. It was also windy with the course being right on the water. Amazingly, Tiger Woods managed to avoid the bunkers completely (I believe) during his 2000 title.

So to celebrate the Summer of Sean, here are some pictures from St. Andrews and the St. Andrews scorecard.

You know how I mentioned the deep bunkers? I'm 7 feet tall, and look how high that wall is!

Click here for all of you Summer of Sean posts.

Harper Lee's Go Set A Walkman: A Review

Before I begin, I want to assure you that there are no spoilers in this post. Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite books, and I find that I still re-read this classic every few years. So when I heard that Harper Lee was going to publish a new novel, I had mixed emotions. Could it possibly live up to the expectations? Is she going to tarnish the legacy of legendary figures like Atticus Fitch and Scout? Yet, most people wanted to know if Lee was more than a one-hit (though monster hit) wonder.

In full disclosure, I have not read Harper Lee's new book yet. That's why I can promise you that there are no spoilers. With that written, I'm intrigued by the subject. As a teenager, I spent many summer nights at an overnight camp trying to find out the final score of Pittsburgh Pirates games. There was no internet in those days (well, there was internet but there were no computers at camp), and we did not have access to a television. Therefore, before bed, I would use my Walkman to find Lanny Frattare on the radio dial. It was often difficult finding the exact spot on the dial to get the signal. I feel like weather was often a factor in getting the signal too. Harper Lee is a visionary in knowing that Walkmans and cassette tapes were the future. Have you ever had a cassette tape become unraveled in a Walkman and then have to wind the tape back in? Well, building a novel about an individual (Scout? Boo Radley?) who can set and possibly repair a Walkman is truly amazing. Now, I can't wait to read it.

Play A Doctor On The Internet

When I went to my doctor for a routine physical about a decade ago, my doctor noticed that I had high cholesterol. He suggested that I start taking fish pills twice a day. I have done so nearly everyday since, and my cholesterol levels have been down for years.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post published an article titled "Fish oil pills: A $1.2 billion industry built, so far, on empty promises" questioning the value of taking fish pills. The article focuses on fish pills and heart disease, though heart disease has never been a concern for me.

So this got me thinking. Should I continue taking the fish pills? It may not be helping me but I don't think they are hurting me. Is cutting back to just taking one per day an option?

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Ariana Grande's Redemption Tour

Perhaps you heard that singer Ariana Grande is in the news. From AFP via Yahoo news:

A video at a California doughnut shop showed Grande and one of her back-up dancers playfully licking the sugary pastries while they were still on the counter.

The gossip site TMZ released the video and outrage erupted on social media over the comments by Grande who, upon seeing a new tray of doughnuts, is heard saying a profanity and then, "I hate America."

First, mmmmm....donuts.

Naturally, people are upset by Grande's comments and actions. I heard one DC radio DJ question if Grande's career is over. Um, no. Chris Brown beat the crap out of Rihanna and still puts out albums. Plus, Justin Bieber keeps doing Justin Bieber things, and he still has a career.

So now Grande is apologizing by saying she is "EXTREMELY proud to be an American and I’ve always made it clear that I love my country." There's more about out of context, but I have yet to here her apologize for licking donuts.

To clear her name and to get back into people's good graces, I suggest this two-step plan. First, Grande should get in touch with the Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kreme people and appear, for free, in one of their ads. I'm sure some creative advertising people can come up with material that would be self-deprecating and show her love of donuts.

The second step is to have Grande appear at this weekend's Anthrocon convention in Pittsburgh. She already does the cat ear thing, so this seems like a natural step.

She could be queen of the Furries! Meow. And just like that, Grande will be fine. And hopefully she'll thank me for these suggestions.

Summer of Sean: Wimbledon

Yes, it's the Summer of Sean. Oh, I don't mean the summer of 2015. This summer has consisted of my 4 year old getting his tonsils out and my one year old crawling everywhere and wanting to roam free even though he can't walk yet meaning that we can't let him crawl through the grocery store. Oh, I also have to work during this summer. No, the Summer of Sean occurred in 2000.



Fifteen years ago this summer, I served essentially as a chaperone on a trip to Israel (free trip!). Then, I spent six weeks in a study abroad program in Lancaster, England (relatively inexpensive trip!) with weekend trips to London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris and more. When I returned to the U.S., I visited Vegas, Charlotte, Montreal and Rhode Island. Yes, it truly was the summer of Sean.

I believe that I wrote a journal during part of the trip, so I hope to share some stories and pictures from my adventures over the next few weeks. Of course, I actually need to find this supposed journal. Wait, why are you questioning that this is summer filler? Trust me that this is more exciting than anything currently happening in my life especially now that my year of free paninis is over. I mean, do you really want to hear how terrible my Metro commute was yesterday?

For my first time trip down memory lane, I'm taking you to Wimbledon. A friend and I waited (queued) in line for more than two hours to purchase general admission into The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. The cost of admission into the grounds with the exception of the two main courts: 4 pounds or $6. What a cool event with live matches taking place on multiple courts. We decided to go to Court 3 since Venus & Serena Williams were scheduled to play a doubles match later in the day. Instead, Swedes Thomas Johansson and Magnus Gustafsson played a long 5-set match forcing the Williams match to relocate to another court. I saw Martina Hingis play doubles, and the ultimate highlight was getting into Centre Court to see Martina Navratilova. Since it seems like I already wrote about most of this story a few years ago, here are some pictures from Wimbledon 2000.

Frustrated Martina Hingis:

Martina Navratilova serving:

Martina Navratilova with Leander Paes:

Thomas Johansson and Magnus Gustafsson shake hands:

Food tent:

Some guy:

I Don't Understand How Shipping Works (Part II)

Meow Mix isn't saying anything, but I can see what's happening. They are discontinuing the wet cat food that Ziggy eats. I used to purchase Ziggy's wet food at Target, but they stopped carrying his specific food a few months ago. While I typically dread going there, I started going to Wal-Mart to buy his food since the price was similar to what Target charged. Now, Wal-Mart is not stocking this brand. Wegmans still carries the Meow mix but at 50 cents more per pack than Wal-Mart. Safeway and Harris Teeter change more than $2 more than Wal-Mart, so I don't even look there. The last thing I want to do is change the cat food since who knows what will happen if I change Ziggy's diet. Therefore, to keep giving Ziggy the food he has known nearly his entire life, I recently ordered Ziggy's food online. And to get free shipping, I bought 9 (yes 9!) boxes of Meow Mix.

A few years ago, I wrote a post about how I don't understand the shipping process. In that case, something I ordered went from Maryland to Oregon and then back to me in Virginia. Maryland and Virginia border each other; Oregon does not. Anyway, for the cat food purchase, apparently, the shipment is being divided up where 4 boxes are being shipped from one location and 5 boxes from a completely different area.

Order #1 - Shipment information sent to FedEx on Sunday, 6/28/2015 at 9:44 am.

Monday, 6/29/2015

5:17 pm - Picked up from Saline, Michigan
8:37 pm Left FedEx origin facility

Tuesday, 6/30/2015

4:51 am Arrived at FedEx location - Perrysburg, Ohio
7:19 am Departed FedEx location
4:02 pm Arrived at FedEx location - Hagerstown, Maryland
7:05 pm Departed FedEx location
9:19 pm Arrived at FedEx location - Martinsburg, West Virginia

Wednesday, 7/1/2015

1:41 am Departed FedEx location
2:00 am Shipment information sent to U.S. Postal Service

Estimated delivery - Monday, 7/6/2015


Order #2 - Shipment information sent to FedEx - Saturday, 6/27/2015 at 2:34 pm

Monday, 6/29/2015

5:15 pm Arrived at FedEx location - Rensselaer, New York
12:00 am Picked up

Tuesday, 6/30/2015

6:58 am Left FedEx facility
3:36 pm Arrived at FedEx location - Lewisberry, Pennsylvania

Wednesday, 7/1/2015
8:55 am Departed FedEx location

Estimated delivery - Tuesday, 7/7/2015

So why does the same exact cat food need to be sent from Saline, Michigan and also from Rensselaer, New York? Why couldn't all 9 boxes been sent together? This makes no sense to me.