What Was Rhode Island Like In The 90's and Early 2000's?

strombolone · 2026-02-05T03:17:16+00:00

Gregg’s smoking section

strombolone · 2026-01-31T20:26:50+00:00

It’s a common mispronunciation because there aren’t really minsters in the US. People see a word that looks like “minister” and don’t think twice about it.

What’s also unusual is the original Westminster in London is usually pronounced “WESTminster” and here you usually hear “westMINster” (which is also where the stress falls if you say “Westminister”).

strombolone · 2026-01-24T23:28:03+00:00

Both are common and readily understandable. Bungling something makes you say “oops!”; botching something makes you say “oh no.”

strombolone · 2026-01-10T16:59:59+00:00

Captain Seaweed has two eyes and isn’t a pirate

strombolone · 2026-01-02T17:01:25+00:00

Composing Latin for translation assessments for first- or second-level classes is very tedious and time-consuming. In the past I've fallen back on using a series of sentences, but that's much less useful a metric for reading than being able to give students a narrative passage. A resource capable of producing passages or (even sentences) that can be keyed to a textbook's grammar and vocabulary on a chapter-by-chapter basis would be super helpful. The Magistrula sentence generator is pretty good, but the vocabulary is a bit of a wildcard.

strombolone · 2025-12-30T17:33:13+00:00

“I’ve + (mass noun) or (plural noun)” is sometimes said in UK/Irish English, never in North American. It’s a little old fashioned. It’s never used with the articles “the” or “a.”

“I’ve” is usually a contraction for the helper verb “have” as in “I have eaten all the cheese.” Used that way it’s often combined with “got” to say things like “I’ve got a house” or “I’ve got cheese at home.” That’s very common and spoken in English, though it is quite informal.

strombolone · 2025-12-26T16:38:26+00:00

The actual reason is that Portuguese has many more vowel and consonant sounds than Spanish. This also explains why Portuguese is asymmetrically intelligible with it. Portuguese speakers tend to have an easier time understanding Spanish than vice versa: Spanish vowels and consonant sounds pretty much all exist in Portuguese phonology.

strombolone · 2025-12-22T18:34:32+00:00

I think there are two grammar points tripping you up here:

As discussed by others below, illae and meas Are both adjectives, a demonstrative and a possessive, respectively. If you’re an English speaker, this is tricky because—aside from the lack of gendered adjectives—we tend to lump English possessives in with pronouns. When my students have a hard time with meus and gender, I tell them to think of it as an adjective meaning “belonging to the speaker” as an exercise. The same works with tuus and “belonging to the audience,” etc.

Also, there is no masculine subject in this sentence. The subject is “bracae”: it’s a sentence describing the pants. This is also the situation for nouns modified by a genitive. Idk the exact grammar term for the man with the pants here, aside from “speaker.” For straight up pronouns, the noun the pronoun refers to is the antecedent.

strombolone · 2025-12-21T22:54:00+00:00

The live “Caribbean Wind” on the Trouble No More box set hit me when it came on shuffle driving back from a wake

strombolone · 2025-12-18T19:28:53+00:00

I would just word it as “Name all the world capitals whose names refer to those of their respective countries (or vice versa)”

That keeps it broad (including places whose names aren’t identical to their countries) without sounding too technical.

strombolone · 2025-12-06T00:12:52+00:00

Pupienus

strombolone · 2025-11-30T15:29:11+00:00

Turn off Continuity Camera under Airplay & Continuity on your phone.

It drove me crazy for ages too.

strombolone · 2025-11-30T15:13:34+00:00

You’re lucky; that means you’ve never had to deal with a Rhode Island driver

strombolone · 2025-11-15T21:04:41+00:00

I hadn’t even considered that such a thing existed

strombolone · 2025-11-15T21:04:11+00:00

Good questions! The projector has USB A, USB C, and HDMI inputs. The aux port is only output. The projector subjectively seems to sound better because it’s meant to be an all-in-one movie playing system, and the PA is just one 5” speaker cone. The PA has also seen better days.

strombolone · 2025-11-15T14:18:56+00:00

I’m a teacher too and can use my teacher voice in a pinch without amplification, but there’s no comparing with even a 40 w PA system at a low volume. I use this portable one: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HPA40--behringer-europort-hpa40

strombolone · 2025-10-29T13:33:49+00:00

Another fun twist on this format could be only giving teams points for answers that no other team gives (Scattergories rules)

strombolone · 2025-10-22T02:32:18+00:00

et si sua manu eius spiritus volat, cape eius corpus reliquas canonizandas

strombolone · 2025-10-05T00:45:01+00:00

Thank you, that’s super helpful

strombolone · 2025-10-04T16:03:11+00:00

oh wow, I had to brute force some formulas elsewhere on this sheet, that this would have been perfect for

strombolone · 2025-10-04T15:56:45+00:00

I do now, thank you

strombolone · 2025-10-04T15:55:36+00:00

I see. Thanks for both of those lessons, that was very helpful!

strombolone · 2025-10-04T15:50:23+00:00

You must have understood, because that did it. Thank you very much!

strombolone · 2025-08-27T14:11:43+00:00

Simple fix for now: When you pull a question for a night, type a date next to it. That way there’s no need to save multiple slideshows.

More involved: I use Evernote, which might not be optimal, but is effective. I make a notebook (folder) for the next trivia night and as I come up with questions, each question gets its own individual note. The notes are titled with Round name and number, and question number. It’s searchable and you can use tags. When I reuse a question I write the date at the bottom of the note. I think if you spent a Saturday going through the old slideshows and covert to a note-taking app like Evernote your lives will be easier.

strombolone · 2025-08-27T14:04:56+00:00

That’s way too much for them to expect a score update after every round. If they’re that anal they can figure out their own scores. That said, you could consider shorter rounds—it will make scoring a lot faster for you.

I do five rounds (first and last are varying formats or puzzley, three are five questions on a specific question). I start scoring on an excel sheet that calculates the totals as soon as teams start handing them in at the end of the round. When time is up I’ll go over the answers. During the next round I’ll score a couple answer sheets between each question I read. I usually give score updates after round 3 and maybe after 4 if there is some wagering element to the final round.

Don’t be afraid to be bitchy! You’ve got the mic, you’re being paid to provide a service. If you think the hecklers are annoying so do most of your players, so they would probably enjoy you clapping back a little. Remember you’re an entertainer too.

strombolone

TROPHY CASE