So while not as vaunted as the Big Quiz Thing that Boggie keeps mentioning, I have been playing in a pub trivia game at the Elephant & Castle with the wife, some former Babsonians, and assorted others. Last night was my third time playing, and we collected our second third-place finish (sandwiching our one win, which qualified us for a Tournament of Champions come October).

In the spirit of having something to write that calls for your comments, and in the way of telling the story of the night, here are some selected questions from the evening. Take your best guess in the comments, with plaudits going to the first one to get it right. Looking up the answers, of course, isn't really in the spirit of things. I'll never know, but you run the risk of whatever post-mortal punishment you think might exist (unless you think it's none, in which case we'll all talk at your wake about how we thought you cheated at trivia).

As questions get answered I'll share in how they were significant for the evening.

Anyway, the questions:

* The Star of India is the largest example of what kind of gemstone? Sapphire (OTC) - This was the first question of the night, which we missed. The wife, we discovered later, knew this. Had she attended, we'd have finished second. So we're blaming everything on her for not being there.

* In 1918, 97 people died in the deadliest rapid transit accident in history. In what US city did this occur? New York City (OTC) - We had a very short list for this question including NYC, Boston, Philly, and Chicago. We discounted Boston as I'd have known about it if it were here, and Philly for no real reason. I then engaged in some song clue analysis (the song played after the question is often a clue), and theorized that the line "Well the Illinois Central/ and the Southern Central Freight" from the Doobie Brothers "Long Train Running" suggested Chicago. We went with it, and were wrong, losing 5 points.

I generally over-analyze one song per game. Too bad this time it was on a round-ending bonus question.

* Name the four US Presidents from the Whig party. William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore (Paul) - This question ended the first round, and we only got Taylor and Fillmore. We said Martin Van Buren (which in retrospect I should have caught as wrong) and Franklin Pierce, forgetting about Tippicanoe and Tyler Too.

The interesting wrinkle here is that Tyler got booted from the Whigs not long after taking office, so he spent most of his Presidency as a Democrat (which I guess doesn't even make the question technically wrong; from what I first read I thought he was a Democrat elected on a Whig ticket). Paul's conviction that John Quincy Adams was a Whig does have some merit - he was elected to the US House as a Whig after his run as a Democrat-Republican President.

* In the movie The Shining, what baseball player's signature is on the Louisville Slugger Wendy Torrance uses on her husband Jack? Carl Yazstremski (Paul) - We got halfway there, figuring it for a Red Sox player given King's fandom. Rather than go contemporary, we went classic and said Ted Williams. Had we thought about it for another 30 seconds... we'd probably have still said Teddy Ballgame.

The wife knew this one, too. More room to blame her, then.

* What is the only state without a national park? Delaware (Shawn) - Apparently, Caesar Romney's house doesn't qualify.

This was the final question of the night, where you could bet up to 20 points (and risk losing half if you're wrong). I knew this (from writing a question and from being a national parks geek), so we bet the max. But so did the team we were tied with at the time, requiring a tie-breaker question!

* How long is a regulation bowling alley? 62 feet - Our tiebreaker question, which we were a little stunned to get given that we didn't expect all that many correct answers to the final question (there were at least two others, as the team we tied and the winner both got the question right).

We started off with 60 feet, based on a TV commentator saying something about "60 feet to victory." I thought my teammate said baseball at one point, so I thought there was some confusion. This led to us thinking if I could lie down 10 times on a bowling alley (being 6' 3"), and I didn't think so.

If nothing else, this confirms that I can't judge distances worth a damn.

So we went with 40, which in retrospect is clearly too short. The other team in the tiebreak went with 75 feet. So instead of getting a $25 gift certificate that'd have covered a large chunk of our tab, we got free Sam Adams Black Lager beer (we could have also gotten hats, but passed as we'd gotten hats a couple of weeks before). I wound up drinking two of them, and to be honest I'm not a huge fan. It's OK, better than the typical mass-brewed lager but nothing that would turn me away from ales... which now makes me wish the trivia game was sponsored by Harpoon.

I suppose that's what we get for ignoring the first rule of trivia games - trust your first answer. Then again, we did that a couple of other times in the game and got burned. So maybe the first rule is that there are no rules. Except that seems a little anarchic for something as geektacular as bar trivia. So maybe we just have to learn how to use The Force.

I've been having kind of a running battle with headaches, most notably a couple of weeks ago when they were of the pulsing, head-in-a-vice variety. After getting checked out today, it looks like a double whammy of sinus problems and glasses which are too strong. The former I'd suspected; the latter I hardly expected. The headaches were worse when I wore my glasses, but I'd worn them steadily for some time without real problems.

So after a quick course of medication and new lenses, I should be OK. Keep your fingers crossed.

If anyone out there has an ESPN.com Fantasy Football draft coming up, be prepared for a very problematic Java draft applet. Of course, it could just be us freeloaders who get it. I suppose they'd figure it's what we get for not padding Disney's coffers.

While I've not read the whole thing, there is an article in today's Boston Globe that posits that it would have been better for the Sox to lose the World Series last year. The thesis seems to be that any team can win a World Series (Cubs notwithstanding), but losing them, especially in dramatic fashion, is much harder.

Clearly the author is missing the point that you play the games in the hopes of winning the championship. If you want heart-wrenching endings, go to the opera.

As a cycling fan (probably more a Tour de France fan - I follow some of the other major races, but nowhere near as closely), the latest allegations regarding Lance Armstrong and doping give me room to pause.

But only a little.

In case you've missed it, here's the skinny - the French sports newspaper L'Equipe ran an article earlier this week claiming that urine samples belonging to Armstrong - backup samples taken in 1999 - tested positive for EPO, a banned substance. They did not test positive back then because there was no test for EPO, and they only tested positive now because the lab that had them was using these old samples to perfect current tests.

These samples are anonymous, but the paper managed to link them to Armstrong through some paperwork that connected him with the sample numbers. It's not enough to sanction Armstrong - he'd need positive results from tests on primary samples, which are long gone - but it was proof enough for the paper.

These are probably the most serious allegations of the many levelled at Armstrong regarding doping. Lance, of course, continues to deny that he ever doped and thinks that there's some sort of conspiracy out to get him.

As much as this sounds like he's asking to get fitted for a tinfoil hat, he may have a point.

Consider that the parent company for the newspaper also owns the company that runs the Tour. Which means that when the tour director accepted the story as proving Armstrong's doping, he wasn't just stating opinion. He was toeing the company line.

Consider also that Armstrong has admitted using EPO - not while competing, but while fighting cancer. He's more or less said that EPO kept him alive during treatment. The more cynical might figure that Lance, seeing the benefits of EPO, didn't quite abandon it once he was all better.

Perhaps the biggest thing to consider is that a Frenchman hasn't won the Tour since 1985. Americans have won fully half of the Tours in that span. Riders from Denmark and Ireland (!) have won the Tour in the time since Bernard Hinault took the top step of the podium in 1985.

(Speaking of the podium, a Frenchman hasn't been present on one since 1997.)

This year was an even bigger famine for the French, as they won only one stage - the one on Bastille Day, when the French riders ride a little harder and the other riders let them (as long as it doesn't upset the leaders). If Bastille Day was in, say, October, the French may not have even taken a stage win.

(And, just in case you were wondering, the French were also shut out in the sprint, climbing, and young rider competitions, which were won by guys from Norway, Denmark, and the Ukraine.)

A generation of building futility in a race you pretty much invented will make people mad. They'll look for someone to take it out on.

Enter Lance Armstrong.

I suppose it all boils down to what you think deserves more consideration - the piles of circumstantial evidence tying Armstrong to doping, or the rabid machinations of the press (French and others) who have been gunning for Armstrong since his first Tour win. I can't say I fully trust Armstrong, but I have very little faith in the restraint and ethics of Europe's sports journalists. So I'm sticking with Armstrong - for now.

I've learned something important today. According to Pat Robertson, "take him out" does not mean assassination. It can also include many less lethal options. I assume a trip for ice cream would be included if taken literally, but probably wasn't where Robertson was going with this.

Had I the skill level, an alt history novel about President Robertson's term in office could be very entertaining.

Some good news coming out of the BARC meetings today, at least if you're from New England and have a stake in such things: the New London sub base and the Portsmouth Naval Yard aren't going to close. There is at least one reader who's worked at both and can perhaps provide some personal observations. All I can say is that Maine can use all the jobs it can get, and keeping Portsmouth open will help.

***

A technology-related question: would I be better off getting Tivo or going with the DVR offered by Comcast?

Now that I'm back among the fully employed, we've decided to put some of our new gains into some sort of DVR system. I mess up the VCR thing enough between missed endings and tape-overs that it seems like a good thing to do.

Tivo would cost $13 a month and whatever we pay to buy the box. Comcast's DVR is $10 a month and is combined with our cable box. I've been comparing the services and can't come up with too many differences, though I think the ability to skip commercials is one of them. Not sure if that's a big deal or not; I'm used to fast forwarding through ads when using the VCR.

I'm tending towards the Comcast box just so I don't have to worry about having to buy new boxes in the future, but if you've got something to say here, please do.

***

Not sure why I'm separating things with the asterisks. Do you like it?

***

Still plenty of time to vote about what state I should dislike. Knowing some of you as I do and your love of hatin', I can't imagine why the vote totals are so low. Unless you're hatin' on the poll, which I can respect.

An update from the wife: she does not hate football. She hates the volume of football she's subjected to, which I'd alluded to yesterday.

Which is kind of funny, given that the "volume" of football I watch has actually gone down in the last 10 years. It's just that there's more football now at times you'd not expect it (like Arena games in April and college games on Tuesday nights).

So I guess it's kind of a break-even thing.

***

The Bruce's recent swipe at three states gets my support, at least in two cases. Well, one and a half, really.

I can't talk full smack about New Hampshire, as I do have family there (though in a place where a surveyor's hiccup could have landed them in Massachusetts). And I do like most of the state from an aesthetic standpoint. I'll agree with the Bruce about the Hampton tolls (even worse, the state is getting rid of the toll tokens that you used to be able to get by the roll for half-price), and that their libertarian ethos may be undermined somewhat by having state liquor stores.

Though I suppose if it's a choice between getting people drunk or payroll taxes, New Hampshireites will take the former.

I do, of course, have complete and utter disdain for the UNH men's hockey program (and the women, too, I suppose, now that BU's made the jump to varsity).

Florida gets my full-on approval as a state to dislike. And if you idiots send Scarborough to the Senate, I will personally come down there and start kicking ass. I suppose winding up with Senator-elect Katherine Harris might motivate the same reaction, but it'd be less surprising given that you rewarded her performance in 2000 by making her a US Representative.

The only thing that primary race needs is for David Duke to file papers.

It doesn't help the state that they have weather that I can tolerate for about two months of the year.

Homer Simpson called Florida "America's wang" for a reason, folks.

I've never been to Oregon, so no comment there. I know at least one reader lived there for a while and perhaps will comment on it. After mulling things a bit, my short list of a third state to hate includes:

* Delaware, for supporting its tax-free status by making you pay $39.50 to drive their 4 miles of I-95.

* New York, just because. Though that might be a little on the nose (or perhaps redundant) for a Red Sox fan.

* Indiana, for being the Alabama of the midwest.

* North Dakota, for its idiotic quest to rename itself because north=cold. People were fooled by the name Greenland - in the 12th century. You can call yourself what you like, and it won't change the fact that you probably have the greatest temperature extremes of any state in the continental US. Though I'm sure there's nothing that takes the edge off of a 98 degree day like the thought of the coming -25 degree days.

So, with all this in mind, go vote.

Sticking with today's sports theme (but leaving football), Chris Bourque signed with the Washington Capitals yesterday. Some of you will know him as the son of Bruins great Ray Bourque and burgeoning star of the Boston University hockey team, who left school after this past season to play in the major juniors, only to wind up with the AHL's Portland Pirates.

I know hitting the books wasn't his thing, but he may wish he'd sucked it up a bit more given the prospects for the Caps this year. Heck, a season in Hershey would be an improvement; at least they've got all that chocolate.

Sticking with football, I've set up a couple of ESPN.com groups for the college game:

College Pick 'Em
Group: Pickin' and Grinnin'
Password: touchdown

Thursday Night College Football Challenge
Group: Touchdown Touchback
Password: touchdown

An important fact about tonight's Pats-Saints exhibition: the wife will be attending.

I will not.

A guy at her office had tickets he couldn't use, and offered them up to the first takers. So, she and some of her work buddies got together and claimed them. Leaving none for spouses, friends, or other such people.

Thanks.

I know, it's pre-season, why should I care, except for three reasons:

1. The wife doesn't like football. Although she's now amended her stance to disliking my habit of watching football. So it's not the Pats, but the other NFL, NCAA, AFL, and CFL games.

I don't buy that for a minute.

2. The only Pats game I've been to was a dismal affair which I think I've mentioned here before: a loss to the Seahawks in a cold drizzle in the upholstered toilet that was (at the time) Sullivan Stadium.

3. I've not been to Gillette Stadium. That's really what I'm most irritated about. Though perhaps I can talk the wife into going to the US-Panama World Cup qualifier on October 12. It may wind up being irrelevant (a win against Mexico next month gets us in), but if not it could be the clincher, which would be cool.

So I just got around to changing my voice mail, and I ran into an unusual problem with the internal greeting, which is just my name.

It was too short.

The messaging system, disapproving of the economy of my name, subbed in my regular greeting, which is much longer. I finally got my name in, but had to say it very slowly. It sounds like I'm talking to a three year old.

Looking at this week, I will have made dinner at home exactly once.

Sunday: Subway
Monday: The Continental
Tuesday: The Elephant & Castle, a mock-British pub in the Financial District. They serve what I'd call "modern English" cuisine (minus the New Wave hair). I had a dish where roast beef and onions were stuffed in a Yorkshire pudding. Yum. I was there for pub trivia, where my team finished third. We got Sam Adams hats. Woo.
Wednesday: I had to cook. Boo. Turned out fine, considering.
Thursday: Picco on Tremont in the South End. The name is short for Pizza and Ice Cream Company, which sums up their menu pretty well. There are a few non-pizza items, but just a few. No appetizers, either, which was odd. Got their "Alsacian Variation" pizza, a combo of sour cream, bacon, caramelized onions, and gruyere cheese. It was quite tasty. Dessert was gingerbread with whipped cream and fruit topped with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream, which was fantastic.
Friday: The Barking Crab, down on the waterfront. You may remember this as the place that got shut down a few years ago when they managed to have some of their sewer pipes drain into their shellfish tanks. They seem to have corrected the problem and persevered, but just the same I'm glad the fish is already filleted. Had the fish and chips, which was fine.
Saturday: Had plans to go out with family to celebrate a run of birthdays, but they fell through. But we're still fired up to eat out, so we're going on our own. We may continue to eat our way around Route 1 (another reason for our stop at The Continental), but perhaps we'll stay closer to home. Good thing we ate at the Barking Crab yesterday; too damn hot today to eat somewhere that's not air conditioned.

Along these lines, I got free lunch all week as a welcome to Wentworth and as an opportunity to get together with folks from my office and the admissions office, which is in the same division. This was four days of the limited menu at the dining hall (they're renovating) and Friday at Qdoba. Now how did I get suckered into making my own breakfasts?

Seeing Craig's football look-ahead (and Greg's non-football one), I thought of something:

Wentworth: no football
Babson: no football
BU: no football (now)
New England School of Law : no football (or any varsity athletics, it being a grad/professional school)

I have to go all the way back to high school (or the last academic year, depending on how you want to look at it) to find an institution whose football season I could handicap.

Considering the Hornets of Manchester-Essex went 0-11 last year, looking ahead may not be that compelling.

Going back to a couple of days ago, I managed to walk into the wrong cubicle again today. Thankfully, its occupant wasn't there. This time.

Following up the last post (where I should note that my disdain comes from the lame attempt to come up with a sequel to buying the world a Coke, not from any problem with Coca-Cola Zero, which I've never had - unless it's just repackaged C2), I find it entertaining that one of the ads clearly show the Philadelphia skyline. When I think of cities with people who've learned how to chill, Philly's not exactly in my top 10.

I mean, they had a mayor bomb his own consitutents once. Not that any of them were exactly beacons of civic involvement, but still.

It may explain why the people in the ad are on some random rooftop. Were they loose in the streets, loyal citizens would be compelled to bind and gag them and throw them in the Schuykill.

I would like to state for the record that if anyone hands me a Coca-Cola Zero and tries to teach me to chill, I will commit some unspecified act upon their person. Probably not a welcome one, either.

Had my first entertainingly embarrasing moment today, when I walked into another person's cubicle thinking it was mine. To be fair, they're in the same part of the office and are similarly situated in their respective cluster of cubicles. But I still felt like a dope.

Now if that's the biggest problem I have this week...

So busy!

Before the weekend was tying up loose ends before starting the new job. This was domianted by a media rating project involving foreign-language articles which took a lot of time, given that (a) most of the special characters were stripped, requiring some work to replace with the letter minus its accent, and (b) we used a translator program that gave "gisted" translations, meaning more literal and less idiomatic. So it was a lot of the European equivalent of Engrish.

The weekend brought us up to Maine, which was pretty restful until Sunday morning, when I went with the wife and the sister in law for a hike in the Camden Hills State Park. We did something between 3 and 4 miles on rocky, tree root-infested trails. I also got to give a quick course in reading terrain maps which boiled down to "close lines=steep climbing."

Even with the leg-shattering climbs, we weren't all that sore afterwards. Perhaps more hiking in the future, though perhaps on gentler, clearer trails.

Today was my first day at the new job, which went pretty well. The commute was pretty smooth, though if we are going to stay in our current weather pattern I may risk taking the Green Line given that I'd spend less time walking through humidity. As for actual job stuff, it was the usual first day experience where you get a ton of information and hope a quarter of it sticks. We're about two week away from the biggest graduation ceremony (due to co-op requirements, though there is a smaller May ceremony), so I'm getting in at just the right time to see how things work in practice. Even better, my first graduation is in February, which is the smallest of the three (it doesn't even get its own ceremony).

Everything else is good so far - like the work environment, and the people are great.

After work, the wife and I had a birthday dinner at The Continental on Route 1. For those of you planning your SNL joke for the comments, don't, because this place is pretty much what you'd get if you transmogrified Christopher Walken in an ascot into a restaurant. The whole place feels like it's from 1973, from the decor to the very traditional menu. That being said, we both enjoyed our meals and the prices extremely reasonable. We've paid more for less at chain restaurants. I don't know if we'd go there regularly, but I could see it being in the rotation. Especially if we're with the in-laws.

Not too much else to report. Sad to see Peter Jennings go (we were an ABC household), but perhaps not unexpected with the lung cancer and all. Think happy thoughts for the Discovery crew, and hope that that thermal blanket thing isn't too serious. Really, it may be time we either build some new, less problematic Shuttles or bring back more traditional rocket-based systems. It doesn't do you much good to have a re-useable space plane if you have to keep grounding them or spend half the mission making repairs.

Time for a variation on the "fun with iTunes" meme that was kicking around for a while. For the following 20 musical artists, you must name the one song I have of theirs in my iTunes. Some of these should be pretty easy, others less so. Put your guesses in the comments, and I'll make notations as the songs are correctly identified.

Time's up, here's the lineup:

1. 10CC - "The Things We Do For Love" (Greg). Heard it at lunch one day at Babson and it got stuck in my head until I got my own copy.

2. Aaron Neville - "These Arms of Mine," which I seem to have gotten from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. No worries; I do not have a copy of "She's Like the Wind."

3. America - "Sister Golden Hair" (Matt).

4. Annie Lennox - "Why" (Greg). It's an unplugged version, not sure if it's "official" MTV Unplugged or not.

5. Badfinger - "No Matter What" (JQ). I also got mine thanks to the Outside Providence soundtrack.

6. Bill Withers - "Lean On Me" (Greg).

7. Buckner & Garcia - "Pac Man Fever" (Scott). Though I was more of an Asteroids fan, really.

8. Carbon Leaf - "Life Less Ordinary" (Craig).

9. The Cure - "Close to You," from Craig's tournament.

10. The Dave Brubeck Quartet - "Take Five" (Scott).

11. Dixie Chicks - "I Can Love You Better." Like I said, the wife put this one on.

12. Englebert Humperdink - "Lesbian Seagull" (JQ).

13. Frank Sinatra - "Somewhere Beyond the Sea."

14. General Public - "Tenderness" (Greg).

15. Jewel - "You Were Meant For Me" (James). Off of the Live on Letterman CD, credited as Jewel with Flea. With that pairing, I had to keep it.

16. Living Colour - "Cult of Personality" (Matt).

17. Michael Jackson - "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (Greg). Ironic, don't you think?

18. Rufus Wainwright - "April Fools" (Greg).

19. The Scorpions - "Rock You Like a Hurricane" (JQ). Ja!

20. Strawberry Alarm Clock - "Incence and Peppermint" (Matt). Not sure why I have this or where it came from. I suppose it's my music for freaking out squares, given that I have no Billy Joel.

Enjoy!

Our long national nightmare - OK, my long personal nightmare - is finally over.

I am once again employed in a full-time capacity.

Starting Monday, I'll be an assistant registrar at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, a tech/engineering/design school in Boston next door to Northeastern. The main focus of the job is all things graduation, though I'll have other duties as well, of course.

It was a long wait - a very long wait - but I think it'll be worth it. Though I may sing a different tune once I've gotten into commuting again. Thankfully, it's a pretty easy trip on public transportation, with options of taking the Green or Orange lines on the T, which is better than being beholden to the Green line.

I should give special thanks here to the wife, whose patience and support during the non-working bordered on the superhuman at times.

Interesting note: I'll be starting at Wentworth on the same day as I did at Babson: August 8. That's also my birthday, which makes this all the more... interesting? Unusual? Notable only to me? Do with it what you will.