Trivia Tuesday

~ Trivia would probably go alot more smoothly for our team if we were awarded 10 extra points every week simply for dressing up. The costumes may get old after a while, but 10 points could be helpful in our current slump.

~ Samhain - which is apparently the festival that Halloween is derived from - can be pronounced 3 different ways (2 of which don't even use any of the sounds the letters actually make) - and I've been mispronouncing it for a very long time. Also, my defense is that they totally said it the way I say it in an episode of Supernatural.

~ In a half time question on serial killers, we were able to name 4 of the 5 correctly.  I'm not sure that says anything good about our team.

~ You'd think in an evening that started with the question "Which are the 2 colors that are most closely associated with Halloween? we'd be on fire, but of course 4th place slump hit again.  Way too many people know stuff...

~ I learned this evening that if you look in a mirror at your reflection at midnight on Halloween, you'll see your future spouse in the mirror.  I'm equal parts curious and terrified to do this.

~ Before pumpkins, people would carve jack o lanterns out of turnips.  Just how impressive could a jack o lantern made out of a turnip be?  That's a pretty puny little carving.  On the other hand, I'll bet it's harder to carve a turnip than a big pumpkin so maybe it would be slightly impressive...

~ In things I've never ever heard of, and most likely will never need to know again - the singer of Monster Mash (the song everyone hears on Halloween) is Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crypt Keepers.

~ And from the weird laws department, silly string is banned in Hollywood on Halloween.  Why you may ask?  Because it's a pain in the neck to clean up.  Though it's a pain in the neck to clean the other 364 days of the year as well, so I'm not exactly sure what sets apart its annoyingness on Halloween.

Happy Monday!

As Mondays go, today wasn't nearly as bad as other Mondays have been.  Other than the fact that it's finally chilly - though that does mean I can wear my new winter coat which is fun - tiny little good things happened to turn this Monday around.  Hopefully this means that the rest of the week will be lovely as well.

First up, a review I wrote made someone actually go see a show.  Last week, I saw Poe and all the Others at Annapolis Shakespeare Company and wrote about just how wonderful it was for BroadwayWorld.  And this evening, a friend that loves Poe thanked me for my review after she had seen the fabulous show.  Yay!

Then it was the continuation of the Black and White Challenge, which my friend Jennifer won by leaps and bounds.  I assumed she wouldn't do the challenge because it's just not her thing.  She in fact did choose not to by sending the Cat shaking his head No GIF, and then took a picture of her Cruella Deville leggings, with the tag "These in black and white times 7" Ha!  She won the challenge by far!

Lastly, even though I promised not to get all political anymore, it must be said that the best thing that happened today was Paul Manafort being arrested.  One can only hope they'll be more arrests imminently and we'll finally get a Presidential President.

Happy Halloween Eve!

Book of Mormon at the Kennedy Center

After years of avoiding The Book of Mormon, I finally saw it in all of its glory today.  You see, the show was written by the writers of South Park, which I hate.  I also don't appreciate crude humor.  So you know, this show had everything I hate.  However, after seeing it, I was pleasantly surprised by just how funny it was. 

Oh, it's crude and rude, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell for laughing at most of it.  But it's also super creative, and super hilarious.  And the acting and choreography were amazing!  I'm always shocked by the people that enjoy this particular show.  There were so many different people there - old and young, democrats and republicans (seeing as we were in DC, I'm making that assumption...) And every last one of them was laughing their heads off at the ridiculousness of the story.

This right here, is why I just love theatre!  Also, why I totally loved Book of Mormon - and why I'll have a terribly offensive song stuck in my head for the foreseeable future.

A Tale of Three Pictures

For the last few weeks on Facebook, there's been this photo challenge.  The challenge entails posting 7 black and white pictures of your everyday life - with no people in them - and then tagging a new friend each day to do the same.  Of course I assumed I'd eventually get tagged and because I'm a sucker, I knew I'd have to go for it.  Today, I'm 3 days in.  Now, the other part of the challenge is that you're not supposed to comment on the photos at all on Facebook.  But I love the stories behind pictures just as much as I love photos, so I'm going to tell you the tales of the first 3, even if they're not entirely exciting...

Photo 1 - Day 4 of a 4 day Adobe InDesign Class.  It was a long week, but it was also pretty great.  I learned a lot about the product, which I'm hoping will mean lots of opportunities in print and print production around the corner.  And of course, the banana is there because I love bananas and that was half of my breakfast.  : )

Photo 2 - The front page of my December Daily album this year. Yes I realize it's only October, but the only way I can stay on top of December Daily is by pre-doing a lot of the inserts.  Also, I LOVE the way it turned out.  This has been the cutest year so far for this scrapbook - even without any photos added.

Photo 3 - St. Mary's church in Annapolis MD.  Such a beautiful church inside and out.  I just couldn't resist a fun uppy shot of the steeple!

Learning Things

Today was the first day of 2 classes that I'm taking.  And after 8 hours of learning things in 2 different classrooms - for the first time in about 10 years - I have to say I'm exhausted.  However, I loved both of the classes and I loved learning new things.  I'm one of those nerds that gets excited about taking classes.  I'm usually all for taking classes in things that have no bearing on what I'm doing right now. Though that gets a bit pricey, so I only actually take classes for my job or a future job.

In today's instance, the first class was on InDesign.  This program may help with my job, but the best part is that it will help with a possible new job in Publishing which is something I'd love to get into.

The second class is on Interior Design which is the first in a group of classes I'm taking in Theatre Design.  Hopefully this will help in writing about theatre and may possibly take off into a future in the theatre.  

The problem is that both classes are super interesting, but neither actually work together in regards to a new job.  For now, I'm loving just learning all the stuff.  Though, I'm still not sure I'm good at either of the subjects...Fingers crossed, aside from any future jobs, I'll at least do well.  

A Night of Harry

A few weeks ago, it was announced that the trivia people that run our weekly trivia games would be holding a Harry Potter Trivia night.  Being big nerds we were very excited about the prospect - as was the rest of Baltimore.  It turns out everyone in Baltimore seems to be over the moon for Harry Potter because so many people signed up, that they had to draw names from a hat.  4 bars turned into 7 bars, and still teams were turned away.  Luckily for us, Team Buy me a Butterbeer First (a fabulous, if I do say so myself, take on our usual name of Team Buy me a Drink First).

Anyway, I learned a few things during this experience.  For one, I'm so not a big a Harry Potter fan as I thought I was.  In one entire evening, I knew the answer to exactly 2 questions.  Well, I'm not even sure you can call it 2 questions - it was more like 2/6 of a single question since it was half time and the question was 6 parts.  

Other people, like 2 of my team mates and seemingly the rest of the bar, are HUGE fans.  Like, fans to the N'th degree.  They were naming patronuses, and lines that people spoke, and spells, and a million other things that I read about and then immediately forgot. Like I said, it was embarassing - for me.  I had the nerve to call myself a fan, and yet here was about 100 other people that were blowing me out of the water.

There I was in my Harry Potter gear - a borrowed Gryffindor sweater and Hogwarts scarf (though that was not perfect, since I'm undoubtedly a Hufflepuff), and a custom made wand (thanks to one of the super fans in the group) and I didn't even know the answer to the very first question!  Abysmal!

However, even with all of my unknowing, we managed to have a blast.  And as it turns out, it was perfectly ok that I didn't know anything because the 2 super fans in the group knew enough for the rest of us and we managed to win.  Not even just win.  We won with more points than we've ever gotten at regular trivia.  It was pretty impressive.  Though, for all of our hard work we were gifted with a gift card for the bar we were playing in, and a one piece pair of pjs (just one - even though there were 5 people on the team...)  But I suppose the bragging rights were more important.  Now if I could just get them to hold a Doctor Who trivia, I may do just a tad bit better! : )

Mad About Will & Grace

When I was in high school and college, I would come home every Thursday evening and watch the Thursday night line up on NBC with my mom.  We loved Friends and Frasier and Will & Grace.  In the last season Will & Grace got a little melodramatic so I stopped watching it.  However, those first 6 seasons were hilarious.  

When they decided to bring it back this year, I was cautiously optimistic.  I thought that it might be just a little too crazy to be good.  It would have the sentimental aspect of a well-loved show, but the chemistry and the storylines would no longer be there.

I'm so so so happy to say I was wrong.  This show makes me just so darn happy every Thursday.  These 4 actors have talent and chemistry in spades, and magic happens when they're together.  The show isn't attempting to recreate them at all.  They're the same people they were, but they have the benefit of experience and age, which gives them a whole new world to play in.  

They can tackle new story lines and new issues in politics and government.  In the last 3 weeks, this once-groundbreaking show proved that it can still be current, and still address issues that are important and should be talked about.  Tonight's episode was all about the horrendous practice of conversion camps - trying to turn children from gay to straight.  It's a disgusting practice, but it was covered in a way that was sweet and funny, and it starred 2 lovely actors who just happen to be gay.  It was a tough subject to tackle, but they managed to knock it out of the park.

Each and every Thursday I watch this show, it just makes me smile.  It gives me a chance to chat with my bestie afterwards because she's as equally obsessed as I am.  It's a tremendous cast of characters, and I'm so happy it's back on my television - for what I'm hoping is a long, long time!

Confused By The Whole Thing

A few months ago, Ticketmaster rolled out the Verified Fan process.  In an attempt to outwit the bots and scalpers that are driving up ticket prices, Ticketmaster wanted to create a new process that would make it easier for real fans to buy tickets.  For big events, they have ticket buyers sign up weeks in advance for a chance to buy a ticket.  Then on the day tickets go on sale, you find out if you've been given that chance.  If you're a lucky few that gets a code, you have the chance to go purchase a ticket.  Though you're not actually guaranteed a code or a ticket.  Even after you go through the whole process, you may not actually get a ticket in the end.

After 3 attempts at this process, I still haven't managed to get past the first step.  I signed up twice for Springsteen (2 different blocks of tickets) and once for Harry Potter.  All 3 times I was put on stand-by.  More over, 2 of my friends also managed to get on stand by.  I understand their desire to make ticket buying more fair.  But when tickets would sell out in a few minutes, and I wouldn't get any, I at least had the satisfaction of doing something.  I had tried but it didn't work out.

Now I can't even try.  It feels like I haven't made it into a special club.  It's a pain.  And the fact that some people have won the code each time, and managed to get tickets each time is even more atrocious.  This is only making it harder for regular people to get tickets, instead of easier.  

And to top it all off, if this process is supposed to completely eradicate scalpers and bots buying up tickets, why is there a pair of tickets to Harry Potter tickets listed online for $10,000?  Do better Ticketmaster! I managed to see Hamilton without a great deal of work.  We don't mind waiting months to see the shows, just give us a chance to try. 

Trivia Tuesday

Since I last wrote about Trivia, we switched again to a new place which means we get our usual evening back again. Of course, this particular bar seems a bit smarter than we are, so we tend to spend a great deal of time in last place or as close to last place as you can get without actually being in last place.  However, this evening for the first time since we began going, we actually placed.  Yay second place!  

So without further ado, here are the things we learned this evening at Trivia...

~ When I attempt to take a non-logical leap on a question regarding sternutation (sterno is hot so maybe sternutation means to sweat...), the answer will be a big fat Ster-NO!  (For the record, sternutation is sneezing in case you may have thought my reasoning was at all false.)  Also, the stuff that ignites gun powder in old guns, is also not sterno...

~ Maybe a question on the top 8 fashion trends that men found sexy on women was not the best question to ask on a week where so many women were sharing stories of sexual harassment.  Just a thought...

~ The USA Men's Soccer team was eliminated from World cup contention by Trinidad and Tobago - a match that was shown during last week's trivia evening, which is the only reason any of us knew the "sportsball" question.  Also, the rumor that President Trump thought it was unfair that the US needed to play 2 teams (i.e. the countries Trinidad AND Tobago) may have been a rumor or it may have been true.  The fact that we can't decide is really the sad part.

~ In Taco Bell hot sauce packets, the hotter the sauce is the more sodium it has.  I'm fairly certain this defies all rules of cooking.

~ The tiny (in comparison) country of Norway has more gold medals in the Winter Olympics than the giant country of Russia.  Talk about the little guy taking on the big guys!  Go Norway!

~ Thanks to Jensen Ackles singing this song - a song I hated until he sang - we knew that in The Weight, they pulled into Nazareth.  Cute boys always help me remember things more clearly - well everything except what I should say to them and how I should act...

~ There's currently a book on James Beard on my bookshelf that is unread.  This is to blame for us not knowing that the Beard Awards started in 1991.  In my defense the cover is really brown and boring so, it doesn't exactly look inviting.

A Social Five

I spend a lot of time on social media - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.  The problem these days with social media is that with everything happening in the world, it's become a bit of a downer.  I get it, people need to vent.  However, what was once a place for silly cat videos and fun jokes, has become a place for hard core news.  Good for civilization, bad for a happy few minutes of wasted time.  However, there are a few accounts sill out there that never fail to make me smile.  And these are it.  So if you need a smile, I'd suggest checking these lovely, creative, fun people out.

1. Daniela Ruah (@danielaruah) on Instagram - By day she's kick-butt NCIS agent Kensi Bly on NCIS: Los Angeles, and by night she's a mom who does fun things like yoga with her kids or create dalmatian costumes for her little ones.  She seems fun, and seems like someone I'd love to have lunch with.

2. David Lebovitz (@davidlebovitz) on Instagram - David is an American pastry chef who moved to Paris to work in food journalism and writing.  He has a blog and his books on sweets and Paris are fabulous.  His Instagram account is pretty much chock full of pictures of mouth watering food, and funny things that could only happen in Paris.

3. Lin Manuel Miranda on every form of social media - Honestly, he has got to be the most positive and lovely person in the entire world.  He's creative, and funny.  He's also a humanitarian who is constantly helping.  The entire world loves Lin right now, and I pretty much agree with them.  He's definitely a light in dark times, and his musings never fail to make me smile.

4. Any Supernatural based account on Twitter - including everyone who's been on the show, specific bloggers that write about the show, and charities that the show supports.  - For such a dark and scary show, everyone in this show is positive and kind and lovely.  Lots has been written about the fandom, so it's very public that these people are amazing.  I'm just reiterating this fact.  All you need to do is search for videos on YouTube of any of the Supernatural Conventions to see exactly how much these people care about each other and their fans.  They take so much of their own time to give back, and that love is felt throughout the fandom.  They are just a group of truly amazing people - that's pretty much all there is to say.

5. Travel sites on Instagram on places that I've been (Cornwall, Edinburgh, London, Austin, New York, Savannah) or places I want to go (New Mexico, Canada, Italy) - These sites are like a virtual vacation.  They make me remember my fabulous vacations there, or add lovely sites and restaurants to the list of places I want to go.  What's a better way to get away than dreaming of warming climates and trips to far off lands? 

A Weekend of Jennifers

In August I stopped writing because I was so angry and disheartened about the state of the world.  At that time, I realized I was constantly writing about all of the bad in the world, because that was really all there was to talk about.  In the last 8 weeks or so, things haven't gotten much better however I've realized there is still good things to talk about and there's still fun to be had.  That's what I'm going to try to focus on going forward, and try not to let the current administration bog me down too much.

So without further ado, I'm celebrating my weekend of Jennifers.  In 3 days I did fun things with 3 friends named Jennifer, and I enjoyed my time immensely  On Friday, there was a Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert which was as usual for them, awesome.  That show was shared with 2 friends named Jen.

Then last night, there was an amazing concert by Leslie Odom Jr.  This show marked the first for me at the Kennedy Center - which is a gorgeous venue, and was spent with yet another Jennifer.  We ate Mexican food and fell in love with Leslie's new version of The Room Where it Happened.  Honestly, he's so darn good!

Then today, with that same Jennifer we saw an interesting performance of Sondheim's Company which was new for us since we've never seen that show.  But at the moment, we still aren't sure exactly what happened because the sound was so bad.  So I'm going to go on record as saying I still haven't technically seen Company.  

All in all a pretty perfect weekend was spent.  These are the things that make me happy, and these are what I'm going to do my best to write about!

Bring on the happy!