Hannah Rae's Blog, page 15

Trivia Recap: 8/18 (Summer's End Edition)

Hello, Hannah’s Readers! It’s me, Mary, taking my turn writing this week’s trivia blog.

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Ben (not a garbage collector), Darren (math professor), Brock (multimedia designer*), Landon (English teacher), and Marc (social studies teacher).

*We once again asked Brock to explain his job for us. After some explanation that wasn’t really answering the question, I finally asked him what he puts down as his occupation for his taxes and he said, “multimedia designer.” We finally have the answer, folks!

Honorary Cheerleader: Alex (coffee shop owner)

Hint of the Day: Cosmo

Opening Category: 21st Century Halftime Shows

Round One:

We started off strong in the winner’s choice category. Right away Landon and I knew that Katy Perry opened her halftime performance with a lion as part of her act. Landon also knew the year, the teams playing, and the stadium for this Super Bowl which once again impressed us. The second question asked us about films that Robert De Niro starred in since yesterday was his birthday. We aced the three-part question. We all knew the name of the game for the third question. Ben and Landon knew about the public transportation system Bay Area Rapid Transit to earn us our points for question four. Then, Landon, Darren, and I all knew Olivia Rodrigo was the singer of the song “Vampire” and knew her other number one songs which gave us a perfect round.

Round Two:

For the first time in Educated Friends history, we did not choose the audio question as our bonus category. The question involved naming the shows that contained different fictional products. We would have been fine to keep it as our bonus though, since we knew the shows were SNL, Futurama, and 30 Rock. We knew the Branches of Chemistry question as well. Even though the name of the next category was Remove a Letter, we talked a lot about numbers for this question. We knew the word was “pious,” however, we kept debating about the number of popes who utilized this word in their title. Hannah wanted us to say 8 since it is her favorite number, Brock said to go with 12, but we split the difference with 10. Fun fact, 10 also used to be Hannah’s favorite number before the number 8. Darren, being the math professor that he is, then explained to Hannah how 8 comes before 10 and should have been her favorite number first. It didn’t matter that both of these numbers were Hannah’s favorites. They were wrong and Brock was right. The answer was 12. The team knew the Advertising Character, Spuds Mackenzie, for the next question and Ben drew a map of Asia and got us our answer of Indonesia for the final question of the round.

Halftime:

I forgot to take the Halftime Sheet with me so I’m relying on memory for this. I believe the top half of the sheet asked us to name George Clooney movies. We missed two. One of them I should have known because it was the movie The Perfect Storm and I really like this movie.

The bottom half had us name European Union countries based on several letters that occur in order within the country’s name. We managed to get all of those questions right.

Round Three:

The round opened with Three Events/One Decade which we got with the 1920s. Landon knew the 20th Century Author for the next question which was James Baldwin. Surprisingly, as a person who does not usually like comedy movies, I knew the comedy film for the next question was Strays and included Jamie Fox as part of the cast. It was a team effort to name the kitchen appliance brand, Cuisinart for the I’m in Your Kitchen category. Ben knew the Hip Hop Artist Big Daddy Kane to earn us our points for the final question. Danielle also confirmed that Ben was correct.

6-4-2:

The 6-4-2 question this week had us naming a state. Unfortunately, we did not know the state whose largest public university was in a specific town that I can’t remember now. (Next time I write the blog, I’m going to need advanced notice so I can take better notes since my memory is letting me down.) The next clue sparked some ideas when it discussed that this state was part of the Missouri Compromise. Immediately, Ben and Marc both shouted out states. Marc said Maine and Ben said California. After a questioning look from Marc, Ben said, “I’m thinking of another compromise” and had us go with Maine as the answer which was correct.

Round Four:

The round opened by asking us which current CW shows were airing their series finales this week. Darren knew Riverdale which got us the points. We were apprehensive about the Ceremonial Traditions category but luckily I knew that Queen Victoria started the white wedding dress trend. There was much debate for the Animal Kingdom category. We were to name the largest mammal with the closest average lifespan to humans. We knew that the animal was an elephant but we could not decide on the record age of the Asian elephant. Ben wanted to go high with 130. I said that was way too high. Hannah wanted to go with 88 because, like I mentioned before, Hannah loves the number 8. We compromised (are you noticing a theme here?) by putting 110 as our answer. However, the correct answer was 89, so Hannah was the closest. Earlier in the game, Brock predicted that the clue of the day would come into play with the Name That Magazine category, saying that the magazine would be Cosmopolitan. He was right. Brock has been on a streak lately with correctly knowing where the hint of the day will be used. The last question was about athletes whose last name starts with the letters “Mc.” Ben thought that Adam said “NC” at first and then I used my last name as an example to clarify. The team knew the first two athletes were McIlroy and McGuire but we missed the third.

Final Category:

As usual we discussed whether or not we should wager the full twelve points for the final category, which was Oscar Winning Films. Also as usual, we decided to just go all in. We had to name which Best Picture recipient that used the word “love” in its title. The team narrowed it down to To Sir, With Love and Shakespeare In Love. We went with the latter option and earned our twelve points.

We were then tied with another team so we had to compete in a tie-breaker. For the tie-breaker, we had to come up with how many weeks Queen Victoria ruled. Mark and Darren worked together on this and came up with 2700. Unfortunately, the answer was 3300 and we ended up in third place.

Opening Category for Next Week: The Muppets and it is an audio clue.

The Voice Behind the Book

A cool thing happened this past weekend: Cassandra Alling came to town! And if this name doesn't mean anything to you (yet), allow me to explain: Cassandra is the voice actor who read my novel Like A Flip Turn. It was so fun to meet her and talk about literature with her!

Cassandra had told me that she'd like to experience some of the places in Gettysburg that inspire my writing. We met up at Garryowen, which is not in Like A Flip Turn (or anything that's yet been published), but does make an appearance as Rory O'Sullivan's in Time Jumps (which should be ready to go this winter; you'll like it a lot). As is the correct thing to do, both Cassandra and her boyfriend got the fish 'n' chips and seemed to thoroughly enjoy them! Since I'd had that dish before, I decided to branch out and try something new: a fried oyster sandwich. It too was good.

Matt was our waiter and this was fun because 1) it's always fun to have Matt as a waiter, and 2) because when I entered the dining room, Cassandra's boyfriend told me that he was there to meet a famous author and Matt had predicted it was me. Isn't that funny? It made me feel special.

Cassandra and I talked about what makes us write/voice things and she demonstrated some accents. She can do so many different dialects--I find it quite impressive! And she can just switch up her accent on a dime!

After Garryowen, we walked down the street to the Ragged Edge and this was my favorite part of the visit because as I entered the coffee shop with Cassandra, I tried to imagine what it would be like to enter it as a reader who's experienced Bottomless Joe's on the page but not in real life. And do you know what? I nailed the description of Bottomless Joe's, if I do say so myself. Sure, the front door is a different color than the Ragged Edge's... but the chalkboard menu is there, and the cozy feel of a home-turned-coffee shop, and the back garden is magnificent! Plus, my Marketing Manager Mary joined us!

All in all, it was just a really cool experience to meet the person who brought my characters to life. Here's hoping that we might get to do it again someday with another book!

Uptempo, Down: Round Two

I've got this group of friends and readers whom I like to refer to as my Bonus Book Club. In the past, I've had my Regular Readers go through my stuff and offer feedback. The Regular Readers have read just about everything I've written, but the Bonus Book Club hasn't. Because of this, it's especially interesting to learn their thoughts regarding my books.

In the spring (I think it was in the spring...), my Regular Readers met to discuss Uptempo, Down. Overwhelmingly, they weren't in love with it. Who knows the reason for this? It could be any number of things.

Because I was pretty confident that Uptempo, Down actually WAS a good novel, I developed a second book club comprised of newer readers (my Bonus Book Club) to offer feedback... and they really enjoyed Uptempo, Down! I walked away from last Wednesday's meeting with so much good feedback! In fact, I was so excited to dive back into the manuscript that I made edits the day after.

For those who are interested, Uptempo, Down is another novel starring the band Flannel Lobster. Instead of a setting of Lake Caywood, however, this one takes place in Moonglow, North Carolina (where Jonny Rockford is from in The Way Back). The boys are down there to perform at the Moonglow Music Festival, but something happens in the first chapter that throws a major wrench into their plans.

Phil and Lindsay planned their outfits. See? Flannel Lobster!

In addition to Bas, Bert, and Lucy, Finn Gregory (Flannel Lobster's bass guitarist) and Edna McCloud (a "cupcake witch" who owns a bakery in downtown Moonglow) are major characters. The storylines intersect in an interesting plot line that my Bonus Book Clubbers like to call "Uptempo, Down." I was in the bathroom when this conversation happened, but Mary drew a picture of the plot line and explained it to me. It's very clever; I think Nicole was the one who came up with it.

All in all, I really like this fresh group of readers because they view the literature through a viewpoint of each band-related book being a standalone. Huge thanks to Mary, Darren, Kathy, Lindsay, Brecia, Nicole, and Phil for joining me on Wednesday to discuss the novel they spent the past couple weeks reading.

Want to know the menu? It was bangin'! I served shrimp salad wraps (because that's what Flip's is known for), crab-avocado dip, some little Greek kabobs that I made up at the last minute, veggies and hummus, and... CUPCAKES! I intentionally kept the dinner portion of the meal a bit lighter than usual so folks would save room for dessert.

See my lobster napkins? Those were intentional.

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Chocolate with peanut butter frosting, lemon with lemon-cream cheese frosting, vanilla-blackberry with chamomile-cream cheese frosting, and my personal favorite... espresso-chocolate with espresso-cream cheese frosting.

As usual, we played the label game -- which is when participants bring a bottle of wine or some beer that has a label relating to the novel. This can relate via theme, character, a motif, setting, a specific scene, etc. Nicole won, even though Lindsay was a very close second. The winner took away an original piece of Hannah Rae art that I forgot to take a picture of, but it's similar to what the novel's cover will be: a sunset on the beach.

Here's Phil giving you a sneak peek of what Uptempo, Down will probably look like when it's released in the spring.

Trivia Recap: 8/10

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Mary (English teacher), Landon (English teacher), Siri (English teacher), Darren (math professor), Victoria (veterinarian), and Brock (artsy marketer of many things)

Opening Category: Triple 50/50: Andor Character or Simpsons Character

Hint of the Day: Sunset

Round One:

Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly, depending upon who you ask), we did very well with the opening category and even earned a bonus! U.S. Cities, however, was a different story. I forget what the question was -- something about the distance from one place to another -- and Darren and Landon had it narrowed down to Minneapolis and Chicago. I told them to go with Minneapolis because Minnesota continues to come up in my life. ALL THE TIME. I want to go there next summer. I'm actually already in the process of making this happen, so we'll see if it really works out the way I'm hoping it will. But anyway... the answer of Minneapolis was wrong, as was the answer of Chicago. I'm pretty sure the right answer was Kansas City, but I still couldn't tell you what the question was. The best part of this experience, however, was that we learned Landon has a superpower and that superpower is knowing pretty much every stadium (previous and current names, along with dates) in every city in America. This comes into play later in Round Three, so read on, but he may be the greatest asset to The Educated Friends since Darren.

Back to the game!

I've never been to a CiCi's, but that was the answer to Pizza Places, we secured points (sans a 2-point bonus) in Science Lingo, and even I knew the TV Hosts question! All in all, Round One was alright.

Round Two:

As we always opt for the audio clue in Round Two as our bonus, we did that last night. This week the category was called A Musical Tribute and we had to identify the artists who paid tribute to Tom Petty by covering one of his songs. Johnny Cash did "I Won't Back Down" and it was good and all -- I like Johnny Cash as much as the next person -- but my personal favorite cover of that song is the one done by Reel Big Fish. Surprise, surprise! John Mayer covered something, as did Natalie Maines, and so we got 14 points for that question. Actually, our luck continued through that entire round as we knew a thing or two about Dr. Seuss Books, what's Currently in Theatres (it wasn't spelled this way on the Pour House Paper, but I prefer the British spelling so that's what I went with just now), How About A Cocktail? (although Brock was like a step behind all night and said after we discussed how the answer to this one was bellini, "Oh... I missed the cocktail question!" -- but he was sitting right there), and Name That Politician. Sonny Bono! Thanks, Mom, for having me grow up listening to Sonny, Cher, and the other greats from the 50s and 60s!

Halftime:

The top half of this week's halftime sheet required us to identify the film from which a famous actor/actress made a cameo. So there was a picture of the actor/actress and a wordbank of the movies and we got 8 of them right. For the record, I thought the picture of the woman wearing a HAZMAT suit was Hot Fuzz, which is a movie I know absolutely nothing about, but I was one of a handful of book club members who read Kendall's pick of The Hot Zone last summer and I was one of maybe two people who liked it a lot. That being said, no one believed my logic of that film being Hot Fuzz because they told me Hot Fuzz is a comedy. But... whatever.

There was also a question that asked us to identify the woman in the HAZMAT suit, but we got that wrong.

On the bottom, we did great! We had to identify the authors of specific works and all of the authors had two initials: A.A. Milnes, S.E. Hinton, J.M. Barrie, E.B. White, etc.

Round Three:

As a whole, we weren't especially eager to jump into this round, but we did incredibly well! Darren, Siri, and I all thought that Schrodinger was likely the answer to Name That Scientist, and we were all correct, but then Siri and I second-guessed ourselves by wondering if it might in fact be Rorschach... which it wasn't. Darren knew it wasn't Rorschach, but he didn't tell us that until later. We only missed a 2-point bonus, though, so not a big deal. Watery Geography was gotten by Victoria (Baltic) and then we moved into NFL History. This is where Landon donned a cape and amazed us all (especially Mary and me because he is our new coworker) with his brilliance. Let's do a special paragraph just for this portion of the evening, shall we?

The question had something to do with three teams relocating from one city to another in the 1980s and we needed to name the teams. Landon had an air of confidence about him as soon as Adam started reading the question, and then his posture became very rigid and he said with a brief wave of his hand, "I've got this. Cardinals, Raiders, and Colts." I wrote it down immediately. Darren wasn't quite as confident as I was and proceeded to ask some clarifying questions. Mary and I stared at each other in awe as Landon rattled of dates, players, and other random sports-related trivia in response to each of his queries. It. Was. Amazing.

Snack Food Box Art was the next category and Mary apparently knew the answer before the question was asked. I think I was in the bathroom when that conversation happened, though, so I missed it. That was our bonus category and we got the extra points, which was a good thing, and then we went into We Share a First Name. The answer was Charlie and we could earn a 2-point bonus if we knew the last names of all the Charlies referenced. The second was Parker and the third was Watts, but we weren't certain about the first one. Mary suggested Puth because she knows there is an artist named Charlie Puth who has a popular song, and Darren wanted to know if she had anything substantial to back up this suggestion, and I said, "She's trusting her gut," and Mary's gut was right.

6-4-2:

The answer was Kim Basinger and we got it for two points.

Round 4:

We were thrown with One for the Plant Lovers. We got it right because we knew one of the two potential answers (Columbia), but we didn't realize that an orchid and vanilla go together. Presidential Potpourri was about the FFA and the answer was Jimmy Carter, Classic Hollywood had to be Sunset Boulevard and I wrote it down even before the question was asked, there's apparently a 20th Century Play called J.B. that is based on the story of Job and we got that right because Darren suggested Job, and Three Clues / One Animal was easy enough because it referenced Watership Down and we had four English teachers on the team.

Going into the final question, we were in third place.

Final:

Musical Theatre was the category and at first we thought the answer might be Jersey Boys because this was apparently the only "jukebox musical" to never win a Tony... but then Siri suggested Mama Mia and that was right and so we ended up in second place! Yay!

I forget next week's opening category.

Reel Big Freakin' Deal

There will eventually be a post about how amazing last night's book club was (probably at some point on Saturday), but what we need to focus on at the moment is this picture:

Who is that, you ask? Well... let me tell you. That's Aaron Barrett (my favorite rockstar ever) holding MY book and standing in front of MY art that is currently hanging on HIS wall.

Let's take a moment to just process this, shall we?

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Okay. I can talk about it now. I just get so excited, you know? Life is sometimes very, very cool.

So yesterday at 5:36PM, I received a message via Instagram from Crysta. That's Aaron Barrett's wife and she is ABSOLUTELY LOVELY. She has a pet lizard and takes care of monarch butterflies and eats good food and is just a beautiful person -- both inside and out. I've never met her, but I'd like to someday meet her because she seems like a genuinely kind human.

Anyway, Crysta sent me a message at 5:36PM yesterday to let me know that she and Aaron finally made it downtown to the PO Box and retrieved the package I sent. Here's my favorite quote from our correspondence: "Aaron liked the art so much that it made its way on our wall under his gold record!" Neat, right? I know.

The reason I sent a copy of the book is because Aaron Barrett is actually IN Kick It One More Time. Like me, Magnolia Fitzpatrick loves Reel Big Fish more than any other band, and also like me, she gets to meet them after the show:

I was so glad that my book clubbers showed up 24 minutes after receiving that message from Crysta because I was legitimately in need of sharing the news with someone and they were the exact right people with whom to celebrate. I mean, Phil was there and he's my concert husband! We opened champagne.

Alright. You should continue to be thrilled that this has happened for me because I can think of very few things that would be cooler, and I will continue to be thrilled for me as well... but I'll do it while playing trivia, which is where I'm off to now.

A Brief Tribute to Phillip

Many of you already know that my friend Phil and I are married in the church of Rock 'n' Roll. He is my concert husband and in the time that we've been together, we have gotten divorced once (as you'll remember, he did refuse to staand for Caamp when we saw them open for the Lumineers), but we wasted little time in rekindling our musical union and even birthed a fictional child one Sunday evening while experiencing Guster at Merriweather Post Pavilion. (Her name is Birdie and plays the bassoon, I believe.) So Phil is obviously an important person in my life. But let me tell you some other reasons why Phil is so great:

He reads my books! Phil is someone who typically reads INSTRUCTION MANUALS... but he reads my books! And gives feedback on them! And that means more to me than just about anything! He always answers the phone. If I have a question and need to talk to Phil, he'll answer the phone and answer my question. If I've had a bad day and need to describe it to Phil, he'll answer the phone and listen to me vent. He has a clever and off-the-wall sense of humor. Sometimes I feel very short when I'm with Phil because he'll say funny things and I'll know that they're funny, but they go right over my head. He enjoys dressing the same. Phil and I, when going to concerts and shows, nearly always plan our outfits together. We try to wear similar colors, the same style of shoes, and either shorts/skirt or jeans. He likes terriers. Phil is one of only a few people with whom I can have really phenomenal conversations regarding various dog breeds. It's just one of those things we have in common, and we both have an affinity for terriers.

I could go on, but I did title this entry A BRIEF Tribute to Phillip... so I'm giving you what I promised.

Everything happens for a reason, right?

Do you happen to remember that time I brought a band home with me? I do! When I told my principal about it, she was like, "Hannah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. You should be more careful about taking strange men home with you."

As it turns out, that decision was one of my better ones! Let me tell you why:

When Like A Flip Turn was released as an audiobook, I sent the clip to my friend Chris who used to be a member of Bella's Bartok (the band I brought home with me). He listened to the sample right away and wrote back to say that he thought it sounded great and would definitely listen.

I responded to this by saying something like, "Chris. You have a great voice, you love to read, and you know everything there is to know about recording. Have you ever thought about narrating an audiobook?"

To which Chris responded, "I mean, that was my first thought, but I didn't want to make this a me thing."

From there, things moved quickly. Within four days, Chris had created a profile on the site I used to produce Like A Flip Turn, we negotiated a fee, and then signed a contract. The Way Back should be available for listening at some point this fall and I am very excited about it! (You should be too because Chris's voice is perfection -- you're going to love it!)

Trivia Recap: 8/3

The Players: Brock, Ben, Mary, Darren, Alex, Hannah, Mark. You know what we all do for a living by now or you can look back to previous entries.

So this week it was finally Hannah’s turn to write the trivia recap since this is, after all, her blog designed to promote her writing. And she was planning to. But because of the way we were sitting she felt a little out of the conversation and also she has been busy writing and planning for her book signing that is tomorrow night (Friday August 4th at the Ragged Edge! If you are reading this in time then you should come and you will also get to meet some members of our trivia team, but given how late I am at writing this blog it is probably too late) So instead you get me, Darren, writing the blog this week.

Today was National IPA Day and so the friendly folks at Fourscore had all IPAs on sale and almost all of us were drinking Ohhh Jeees to commemorate the day. Mary stuck with her fruity alcoholic seltzer, despite the fact that our group photo makes it look like she was drinking a stout.

On to the questions: the opening category was “Princess Anna of Arendelle”, which I believe was chosen to make the point that Anna is indeed a Princess and the fact that she becomes a queen in the last two minutes of the sequel movie is not enough to cross her off the official list and make Ariel the first alphabetical Disney Princess, and yes I am still bitter about that question from last week. We did get this question right, and we also did very well on some questions about whether the number of seats in the largest ACC stadium, the number of miles to Mars, and the biggest Jeopardy! winnings were greater or less than 100,000. We correctly surmised that the brined cheese made from sheepsmilk whose name comes from the Greek word for ‘sliced’ is feta even though it is hard to slice feta, and Ben was the first to say that the Colorado River runs through the Grand Canyon. (Note that Brock wants to make sure we recognize that he also knew the name of the river, and it's just that Ben said it first) Also, while we all knew that Paul Reubens (rest in peace) is the actor who played Pee Wee Herman, only I remembered that the movie where he voiced a character named Lock was A Nightmare Before Christmas.

In Memoriam

The second round started, as always, with the audio clue and, as always, we chose it as our bonus question. Luckily we recognized all three songs whose lyrics reference NYC (Walk on the Wild Side, Jenny on the Block, and Harlem Shake). We actually had a perfect round, due to our knowledge of Woody Guthrie’s guitar, Constitutional Amendments, NFL divisions, and chemistry. In fact, while Hannah was wearing her periodic table tank top, we didn’t even need it, prompting Ben to exclaim “Stop flashing your elements, Hannah!” when she took her sweater off.

We powered through the halftime sheet in no time at all, with the bottom half asking us to identify TV shows that were nominated for an Emmy this year from three of the actors on the show and the top half asking us to name a brand of food whose logo features a real life person. Or at least that’s what the instructions said. It turns out that the Quaker Oats logo is not based on a real person . One thing that amused me was that on Wednesday night I went to see The Sting as part of the classic movie series at the Majestic Theater here in Gettysburg and there were members of at least three other trivia teams at the movie as well. Before tonight’s game started I said to one of them “boy it would be funny if there was a question about The Sting tonight!” And then there sort of was as Newman’s Own was one of the brands! By the way, I had never seen The Sting and it is definitely fun to watch and worth seeing, even if it is 50 years old.

I promise that my handwriting is only this bad because we were moving quickly

and I was standing and maybe because it was National IPA Day

Anyways, after halftime we were in first place by a narrow margin. There were sixteen teams playing tonight, which Adam says is a Fourscore record, but to be candid with you, dear readers, the new teams weren’t all that great and at this point the top three teams were the standbys: Railsplitters, Street Sharks, and us. As it always is, the third round was a weak spot for us, and while it turns out that we know more about baseball, streaking, and Pacific islands than I might have guessed, we bombed the two pop culture questions. Modern hip hop is one of our blind spots so we had no idea that Nikki Minaj and Ice Spice are the ones who redid “Barbie Girl” for the movie and half our team didn’t even know that Ice Spice was a person (and, to be honest, I only do because my 15 year old son has been unsuccessfully trying to get me to listen to modern hip hop). We also had never heard of the Denzel movie Two Guns, which I am just now realizing is the second time there has been a Denzel movie that we had never heard of on the night I wrote the trivia blog . This was particularly painful because we had chosen “Films of the 2010”s as our bonus category so we lost a lot of points. Luckily, we got the 6-4-2 after the first hint on a gut feeling that Madonna had written a children’s book , so we only slipped to second place at that point although the Railsplitters were way ahead in first.

We kicked butt on the final round, knowing about the tv show King of the Hill, figuring out the puzzle that was ‘Jonathan Taylor Thomas The Tank Engine’ and recognizing that the hint of the day must mean that bourbon is made out of corn. Most impressively there was a question asking us to name certain stages of the lifecycles of amphibians and we were worried since Skoogmasta Flex wasn’t with us tonight, but Alex thought one would be a tadpole and Hannah knew that Pollywog was a word that might be relevant. With great skepticism I wrote those down and it turns out that they were completely right! In fact, the only points we lost this round were a two point bonus on the “Three Clues/One Novel” because we didn’t come up with Animal Farm quickly enough, which Mary is kicking herself about as I think she teaches the novel. So we had a great round but Street Sharks had a better one because they snuck into a tie with us going into the final question.

The final question was something like “Science has determined that these two British actors have the best voices, so it is fitting that they played evil brothers in different installments of the same film series.” It took us a little bit, but we did figure out that it was Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons. Yippie-ki-yay, Mother Effers! Of course, the other two top teams also got it right so we had to have a tiebreaker with Street Sharks which was “How many IMDB credits did Alan Rickman have when he died?” Ben said 70. Hannah said 135. Brock and I agreed to split the difference and say 93, but we should have listened to Ben because it was 70. I don’t know what the Street Sharks put but it was closer so we ended the night in third place.

Afterwards we all went out for post-trivia drinks at a different local watering hole, because that is now a tradition that we do every week except when we don’t. I had to do a quick bit of parenting so I missed what the opening question will be next week and I was also a few minutes late to the afterparty so I missed the end of a musician playing but she did something that very much excited Hannah but I expect she might want to write her own blogpost about it and I didn’t really understand the excitement anyways. All in all it was another fun and moderately successful night for the Educated Friends.

The exciting thing that happened at ABC

by Hannah

After trivia, as you know if you've just read Darren's blog, the team walked down the street to ABC for a final round of drinks. On Thursdays during the warmer months, there's often a musician providing tunes, and so we were enjoying this woman named Mandy who used to be an art teacher and now works for corporate America (which she hates, but it pays well). The Educated Friends arrived at the tailend of her performance, so we only got to hear a few songs, but then Marc called out, "Encore!" and proceeded to list some bands that she should play. For reasons that may have something to do with IPA Day (but probably just as much with enthusiasm and good cheer), Marc shouted, "They Might Be Giants! That's her favorite!"

I responded, "No it's not! My favorite's Reel Big Fish!"

And then Mandy put her guitar back on and said, "Okay, so I was done but now there is going to be an encore because these guys over here requested Reel Big Fish." And then, even though she was worried she didn't know all the words (she did), she played "Beer" and it was wonderful!

But wait. There's more.

So I filmed Mandy performing "Beer" because I wanted to share it with Crysta Barrett, who is married to Aaron Barrett. If you've read my previous blogs about Reel Big Fish and good things happening in my life, you'll know that Crysta and I are now Instagram friends. So I posted the video in my story and tagged both her and Scott Klopfenstein (because I'm still trying for an Instagram friendship with him). A few hours later, Crysta responded and said "So awesome!" and then she reposted my post on her story. Kind of neat, huh?

Stay tuned because I'm pretty sure my life's gonna keep getting neater...

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/58cc22_c18613b7e8214ed6b8663a3ceb8828dd/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Book-Signing Tomorrow!

Here's a very short blog about tomorrow:

I'm going to be outside at The Ragged Edge in Gettysburg from 6:00-9:00 for First Friday, selling and signing my books.

In addition to this, I've got some 4x4" canvases that are doing little more than taking up space in my studio/office, so I'm going to have them there as well... and I'm going to be selling them for cheap! Dog-lovers, especially, will be interested in the selection, and while I know it's way early to be thinking about Christmas... they would make cute Christmas presents.

If you're not up for a coffee that late in the day, The Ragged Edge has delicious smoothies and Pilger-Ruh has beer, so come on out and say hey, buy a book or some art (or both), and hang out for a little while!

Fun with the Parents

Very much like Lorelai Gilmore, I tend to frequent my parents' house on Friday nights. The difference is that Friday dinners aren't an obligation. I mean, I don't have a child who requires money for private school; I actually choose to spend time with my folks.

This past Friday, I was once again at my parents' house, and this time we played a great musical game that I made up. You see, I have a new phone that now holds a charge for a very long time (this is another story entirely; it involves poking fun at my dad) and so I am able to once again play music for more than, like, twenty minutes. I was playing music for my parents that night. I found a list of 100 songs from the 1960s and would play the beginnings of the songs (just the ones I knew, which is an impressive amount really) to see who could recognize each artist faster: my mom or my dad. Overwhelmingly, my mom knew her shit... which was actually a bit surprising since my dad used to be a disc jockey. But whatever. I just expected him to know/remember more than he did, I guess.

Eventually, my dad grew bored with the game and disappeared to the back room so he could watch NCIS and eat ice cream. My mom and I kept playing, but I switched up the game a smidge since we'd lost her "competition." Instead of the '60s, we ventured into the '90s, and what I learned is this: the '90s is not a decade with which my mom is very familiar. She recognized very few artists. She was able to identify some songs... but usually not the artists. I think we may continue to work on this in the weeks to come.

Anyway, that was my Friday night and it was fun.