'The Martin Van Buren of days': Ranking days of the week

There is no restaurant named "TGI Mondays." Elton John didn't sing "Tuesday night's all right for fighting."

There's a reason. We don't really like Monday and Tuesday. We like the weekend. Or at least it seems like it.

But how do the days rank? Nobody ever takes the time to scientifically rank the days of the week, from worst to best. Until now.

Following are my power rankings for the days of the week, starting with the obvious No. 7:

7. Monday. The start of the traditional work and school week, we lament this day. It's instructive that nearly all songs about Monday are sad: "Rainy Days and Mondays," "Blue Monday," "Manic Monday, "Monday, Monday." Monday is the worst day. It is to the days of the week what Sneezy is to the Seven Dwarfs. Last.

6. Tuesday. The forgotten child of the days. We don't even have an opinion about Tuesday – people talk about the weekend and Monday and Friday. People even talk about Wednesday. Tuesday? A humble day. If I didn't know I needed to rank seven days, I might have left out Tuesday. Tuesday is to days of the week what Martin Van Buren is to presidents: Forgotten.

5. Sunday. This is the day I go to church, where most of my important relationships exist. This is also a weekend day and when most NFL games are played. Those are all positives. Negatives? Sunday night is often the saddest night of the week for those of us who work or attend school Monday through Friday. Also, Sunday is the recipient of all the undone chores that were ignored Saturday. Sunday is to days what Alice was to the Brady Bunch: Fun, but a reminder that work needs to be done.

4. Wednesday. The day in the middle of the week is the day in the middle of the rankings. That it outranks the three days that precede it is partly because of the amusing Geico commercial for "hump day." Wednesday is the start of a downhill roll to the weekend. Wednesday is . . . the Wednesday of days of the week, which is the most Wednesday thing possible.

3. Friday. This was considered the favorite day of the week since the advent of the five-day work week, but I suspect the rise of flexible work schedules has diminished its popularity. Survey 100 people and they might say Friday is their favorite day. But force them to think about it and they might change their mind, because Friday is overrated. You still work or go to school. It's not the weekend yet. Friday is the Steve Jobs of days: Overrated.

2. Thursday. Thursday's ranking comes from its symbolic meaning. When it's Thursday, it's almost the weekend (and for people who work four-day weeks, it often is the weekend). If Thursday were a month, it would be April, which  heralds the coming of summer. While I haven't watched network TV for a while, I presume Thursday still has a killer prime-time schedule, with NBC showing "The Cosby Show," "Cheers" and "Night Court." And maybe "L.A. Law?" Thursday is the Draymond Green of days. People think it's good, don't realize it's great.

1. Saturday. The perfect mix of relaxation and promise. When Saturday arrives, the regular work-week people have flexibility to do what we want, whether it's housework, recreation or anything else. You can sleep in. You can also postpone difficult weekend chores and tell yourself it will be done Sunday (See above). "Saturday Night Live," is on TV and "Saturday in the Park," is the greatest song with a day of the week in the title (FYI, No. 2 is "Monday, Monday," No. 3 is "Sunday Morning Coming Down"). If Saturday was an actress, it would be Meryl Streep.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

The color of the year brings questions, celebration

We don't know what will happen in the final 10½ months of 2019.

We don't know what will happen in politics, we don't know who will win the World Series, we don't know if the stock market will go up or down.

But we know one thing for sure: Living Coral is the color of the year.

LIVING CORAL IS THE COLOR OF THE YEAR!!

I don't know about you, but that's all I need to know. Well, that and what "Living Coral" is.

And why it's capitalized.

As you probably know, the color of the year is chosen by the Pantone Color Institute, which analyzes each year's color trends. Pantone Color Institute has the word "Institute" in it, so I presume that it publishes white papers and has a bunch of smart people walking around, thinking lofty thoughts about colors. (Sample: Should it be blue-green or green-blue? Are white and black colors? Why does Dodger blue make everyone nauseous?).

Anyway, Living Coral (again, it's capitalized, although I wouldn't capitalize "blue" or "red") was described by the folks at PCI as "an animated, life-affirming shade of orange, with golden undertones." No wonder it's the color of 2019!

(Confession: When I saw it, I thought, "it's kind of orangish." Then I thought, "maybe it's the color of those candy orange slices." Then I thought ,"those candy orange slices tasted better than they seemed like they should." Then I thought, "I wonder if you can buy those on Amazon?")

Anyway, PCI, says its "global team of color experts" search the world for what it calls "new color influences" and pick the color of the year. While their criteria sometimes includes how colors are used in entertainment and fashion, Living Coral (which my typing fingers want to call  "Living Color") was largely boosted by its use in advertising by Airbnb and Apple.

Yes, in advertising. Did you think it was something else?

No surprise, the color of the year is often a contentious choice.

PCI has picked the color of the year since 2000, starting with Cerulean and going through last year's winner, Ultra Violet.

Ultra Violet seems so 2018, doesn't it? And is it different from ultraviolet, the part of sunlight that burns us? I'm taking no chances, putting on some SPF 30 sunscreen if I go somewhere near Ultra Violet.

The fact that the colors have been chosen only the past 19 years is kind of sad. Had PCI been making the picks during my childhood, we could have gotten winners such as harvest gold, beige, brown, plaid and mustard yellow. That's a loss.

Back to this year's selection, though.

PCI described Living Coral "a color of carefree happiness," and said Living Coral "symbolizes our innate need for optimism and joyful pursuits."

PCI will now combine with other organizations to bring Living Coral to creatives and designers. (In other words: Hey, this is the color of the year! Now, you can purchase it from us to be trendy! As an aside, stop calling yourself "a creative." That's silly.)

Embrace the uncertainty of 2019. You don't know what will happen, you don't even know what movie will win the Academy Award for best picture nor who will win the NBA championship. (Hint: Golden State Warriors will win one of those.)

But embrace Living Coral, this year's version of mustard yellow. It's so life-affirming!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Hand-tossing pizza wasn't even best part of job

Some people can walk into a room, sit down and play the piano. Impressive.

Others can dunk a basketball or yodel or know the names of U.S. presidents in order. Some people can talk about exotic travels or how they can sew.

I have exactly one skill that impresses people: I can hand toss a pizza.

Really.

In a life that includes a 33-year (and counting) marriage, raising two really good sons, a steady affection for Air Supply and the ability to remember baseball lineups from 1976, the single thing that people are fascinated by is that I can toss a pizza, something I learned as an 18-year-old in my hometown.

It's not hard. And that skill isn't even the best thing about that job, at Red Baron Pizza.

It's how I earned money throughout college, while I dated Mrs. Brad. It taught me how not only toss a pizza, but how to pour a soda with minimal bubbles and how to mop. I earned barely more than minimum wage, but tips from delivering pizzas put gas in my car and random leftover pizzas fed me during those years.

Like many pizza parlors, Red Baron was filled with college-age employees. Unlike most, it was privately owned, so we knew the guy who signed our paychecks. Jim seemed a lot older, but he was about 30. And he liked us.

There weren't many employees and when someone quit, Jim would ask us if we knew anyone who wanted to work there. I got a job without knowing anyone there, but during the time I worked there, many of my friends ended up with Red Baron Pizza – either I recommended them or someone I recommended recommended them.

We hand-tossed pizzas. We delivered them. We got to know the regulars.

For instance, when Bob ordered a pizza – he was a troubled man who ordered pizzas, paid for them and then stormed out angrily before picking them up – we always put on extra ingredients, since we knew we'd be eating it.

I have a variety of Red Baron memories:

• The night three employees squared off in a parking lot brawl with three other guys (while I cowered).
• The time Jim bought an expensive copy machine so he print 100 copies of our menu every three months.
• The big-screen TV, where we showed local softball games videotaped by another of my friends.
• The rubber mat from the kitchen that was cleaned in the driveway. My friend Chuck, coming back from a delivery, would spin his rear wheels on it, shooting it into the street.

After years of working there –as I prepared to get married –I landed a full-time newspaper job. I left Red Baron, but stayed friends with Jim and my co-workers.

I've worked at two newspapers (including the Daily Republic for most of my adult life), a church, an online auto auctioneer and my current gig. I've loved them all, but something about Red Baron Pizza sticks with me through the years.

It's not the pay, although it was OK.

It's not the pizza, although it was excellent.

It's not the fact that Jim got tickets and we all traveled to watch the Joe Montana-to-Dwight Clark NFC Championship Game in January 1982.

It's not the fact that Jim was the videographer when Mrs. Brad and I married.

It's not even that I can hand-toss pizzas.

It's that I was lucky enough to have a really fun job with people I liked during an important time in my life.

Although being able to hand-toss a pizza is still pretty cool, isn't it?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Using data to determine who will win today's Super Bowl

Today is the biggest day of the sports year, Super Bowl Sunday.

That statement is proven by statistics: The eight most-watched programs in U.S. history are Super Bowls. Seventeen of the top 21 programs are Super Bowls.

It's a big show, statistically. So why not use statistics to determine whether the New England Patriots or Los Angeles Rams will win?

You can have your oddsmakers (who establish the Patriots as a favorite), but I believe the winner today will be determined by data. Because it's 2019 and that's what we believe.

Following is a long-time test that I just made up to determine who will win a major sporting event. The idea? Compare facts about the cities and teams, with point values assigned.

Eight Super Bowl questions, each worth points:

1. Which town is better? I'm no fan of Los Angeles, but this is a simple choice. New England isn't a town. It's not even a state. The Rams get one point.

2. How have the teams been portrayed in movies? I'm unaware of any movies with significant roles played by the Patriots, while "Heaven Can Wait" was a decent late-1970s flick starring Warren Beatty as a Rams quarterback who dies and comes back. Rams get one point because Warren Beatty was pretty good in that movie.

3. Franchise movement. We like long-term commitment to an area. The Patriots began as the Boston Patriots and became a regional team, playing 30 miles southwest of Boston. The Rams? They were in Cleveland, then Los Angeles, then St. Louis, now back in Los Angeles. They move around like an Air Force family. Patriots get one point.

4. Musical mentions. These are plentiful, topped by "Weekend in New England" by Barry Manilow and "I Love LA," by Randy Newman. According to Wikipedia (my source for all facts), there have been 45 songs titled "Los Angeles" and zero titled "New England." Maybe the Patriots should have kept "Boston" (12 songs) in their name. But they didn't. Two points to Rams.

5. My visits. I went to Boston once in high school–visiting one sister and seeing another get married. I've been to Los Angeles a lot more, and I suspect most readers of this column echo that. It's West Coast bias. Rams get one point.

6. Natural rivalry. San Francisco 49ers fans don't want Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to win another Super Bowl, so there's an inclination to root against New England. And the Patriots launched their dynasty by stealing a win from the Raiders through the idiocy of the "Tuck Rule." Los Angeles is the natural rival of the Bay Area, but history overcomes heritage. Somehow, we tolerate the Rams more than the Patriots. One point to Los Angeles.

7. Solano County connection. Rams backup running back C.J. Anderson is from Vallejo, where he attended Bethel High School. One point for Rams.

8. Who would win in a fight: A Patriot or a Ram? This seems fairly obvious, despite the fact that Revolutionary War-era soldiers (the inspiration for New England's mascot) used muskets. The Patriots get one point.

Final tally: Rams will win by five points.

You could say only one Super Bowl had a five-point margin (49ers 26, Bengals 21 in Super Bowl XVI) and the Patriots are favored.

I would simply say Super Bowl XVI was the greatest day in NFL history.

And that you shouldn't argue with data.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.