A quiz.

Who sent an email to Pittsburgh City Controller Michael Lamb saying:

“Are you fiiiiiing kidding me! Put him squarely on the list.”

A.  The Dread Lord Yarone Zober, clearly out to destroy someone, and therefore, had someone put on “the list” for destruction.

B.  Luke Ravenstahl, with an internal squee, that Ben Roethlisberger wants an invite to Lukey’s next off the hook frat-boy party.

C.  Joanna Doven, because it totally sounds like something she would say.

D.  The Devil, because it totally sounds like something he would say.

E. None of the above.

If you guessed E, you are a winner.

Holy crap.  What is “The List”?  Am I on it?  What happens to people on the list?  Do they get extra attention from the pigeons or something because that would explain a lot of things about why I’m always the one that gets pooped on, if I am in fact on The List.  Is it a Hit List?  A Shit List?

Mr. Zappalla claims: “There’s no list. It’s a metaphor for the notion” of negativity.

Yeah, right.  If you believe that Mr. Zappalla was essentially saying, “Put that guy on the list of people who I think are negative,” then I’ve got an autographed copy of Jeff Reed’s Doctorate in Theology certificate to sell you.

(h/t Bram on twitter)

Category: Annoying Burghers, Eye rolls, Mayor Ravenstahl, Yarone Zober | tags: Ben Roethsliberger, Luke Ravenstahl, Yarone Zober | March 12, 2010 | 10 Comments »

That hottie, that’s right, I called him a hottie, is the late Gene Kelly, a born and raised Burgher.

You might know him better from this:

Gene Kelly once said:

“I didn’t want to wear rich people’s clothes.  I wanted to dance like the man in the street, like the ones I met while working my way through college, pumping gas in Pittsburgh.”

For 11 years now, there have been talks and plans to bring this to a downtown corner, as illustrated by Daniel Marsula:

Isn’t that breathtaking?

You can read for yourself all the issues and speedbumps and road blocks that have been encountered as the city tries to make it happen.

I get it, ISSUES! Eek!  But this needs to happen.

We have eyeball sculptures and baseball sculptures and football sculptures and mayoral sculptures and Mr. Rogers’ sculpture and heck, we even have a sculpture of George Washington gazing lovingly into the eyes of Guyasuta.

What we don’t have is a sculpture of Gene Kelly frozen in time in an iconic moment in movie history, singing and dancing his heart out in the pouring rain, standing in the city he was born in and raised in and of which his widow said, “I have always contended that much of who Gene was and much of what he was to become here in Hollywood was rooted right there in Pittsburgh.”

Now, you whippersnappers out there, says this 35[sob]-year-old lady, and all you who haven’t watched it in a while, I want you to click play on this, fast forward to about a minute in if you’re impatient, and watch Gene Kelly do his thing.

[sigh] Awesome, huh?

And with the amount of rain we get here in Pittsburgh, we Burghers would get to see many many many … many many many days of Gene Kelly singing in the rain if this statue ever comes to fruition.

Also, I found this quote of his:

I never wanted to be a dancer. It’s true! I wanted to be a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Somewhere up there, Gene Kelly is dancing, waiting to see how his sculpture turns out, and I bet he is TOTALLY on my side of Make Room for Crazy.

Category: Awesome Burghers, Downtown happenings | March 12, 2010 | 21 Comments »

For instance, thanks to my subscription to ESPN Magazine, I learned that Tyler Kennedy once licked his hockey stick and became a YouTube sensation because of it.

While hunting the video down, I expected to see Tyler perhaps surreptitiously giving his stick a small flick of the tongue (yes, I’m aware of how dirty this is all sounding. Duty.), what I was not expecting was to see Tyler Kennedy licking his stick like he’s a stripper bathing down her pole in the hopes of securing some bonus singles.

I bet this is one of the posts my mother and father were referring to when they were all, “Well, we just shake our heads and say, ‘That’s our Ginny.’”

Category: Penguins | tags: Pittsburgh Penguins | March 11, 2010 | 13 Comments »

While the situation isn’t amusing at all, I must admit I’m finding it a bit amusing how, particularly in light of the latest news that Ben told investigators he did have sexual contact with the accuser, but not intercourse, and that she fell and hit her head and that’s why she has a head injury, media outlets appear to be on the hunt to pair any story about Ben Roethlisberger with the fuggest grossest pictures they can find.

Cases in point:

Sporting News:

Huffington Post:

New York Post goes the Chunk from Goonies press conference pic route:

This one is a favorite of several different outlets:

TMZ goes the greasy gangster route:

CBS reports:

Amber Hanley, a 21-year-old college student who met NFL star Ben Roethlisberger in a Georgia bar, says the Steeelers quarterback wanted more than a just a cute photo with the young co-ed, but she just rolled her eyes and moved on, earning a tongue lashing from Big Ben.  Later, she says, Roethlisberger was hitting hard on another girl.

And pairs it with this oldie but goodie:

Or my personal favorite coming from Off the Record:

“It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”

Category: Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers | tags: Ben Roethsliberger | March 11, 2010 | 32 Comments »

Your eyes are not deceiving you.  Me, the blogger who once wrote, “Vista causes cancer,” is vowing to never, ever speak badly of Vista again.  I don’t care if Vista shoots my eye out with a BB gun.  I will get a sexy eye patch.  I don’t care if Vista deletes every picture I’ve ever taken in my life.  I will make new memories.  I don’t care if Vista begins breeding pigeons.  I will simply up my pigeon-murder rate accordingly.

Why you ask?  Why this virtual hugging of that which I previously wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole slathered in anti-bacterial fungicide?

Because a day after I announced that we would be targeting the transplant floor at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for Make Room for Kids, I got an email from an employee at Pittsburgh’s Microsoft office, basically saying, “We’d like to help.”

And I said, “Accepted! Also, I’m sorry about all the crap I spew about Vista.”

So, we’ve spent the last few weeks, my butler Mike and I, going back and forth with Luke Sossi of Microsoft (his wife is a reader. HI, LUKE’S WIFE!), Nancy Angus at the Mario Lemieux Foundation, and each other in which we would send texts and emails that basically would say, “HOLY CRAP!  ISN’T THIS AWESOME?!  PINCH ME!!  NO DON’T!  I DON’T WANT TO WAKE UP!!”

What has resulted is this official offer from the local Microsoft EMPLOYEES with an assist from corporate.  That’s right.  People.  Burghers.  Wanting to help Make Room for Kids.

XBOX Consoles

o   Donated by Employees – Microsoft employees based in Pittsburgh donated (7) XBOX Consoles.  This equated to roughly $1,700 in personal donations which they are going to submit to Microsoft through their Employee Matching Program.  In other words, these personal contributions provided (7) consoles directly plus the funds for (7) more consoles.  This means that this effort alone provided (14) consoles against the goal of (24).

o   XBOX Consoles Donated by Gaming Group – They were also able to secure (2) additional consoles from the Gaming Group taking the total to (9).

XBOX Controllers – In order for each room to have an additional controller (one controller comes with the console), Microsoft is going to donate (24) controllers.  They are also working on securing another 6-12 controllers which can be checked out along with the games.  This will allow for family members to play games when they are visiting.  The value of the controllers is around $1,000.

XBOX Hospital Kiosks – Microsoft will donate (2) Hospital Kiosks that can be used in a public portion of the transplant ward.  They will be on a wheeled platform so the foundation can determine where in the ward it makes sense.  The consoles are more than $2k/device.

XBOX 360 Games – Microsoft will donate at least (40) games which will include the following titles; Lips, Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing, Fuzion Frenzy 2, Blue Dragon, Project Gotham Racing 4, You’re in the Movies, Viva Piñata and Scene It! The number and variety of games will increase as we get closer to delivery date.

Employee Purchase Program for Additional Consoles – With the (9) donated consoles, the foundation would only need to acquire (15) so that each room would have their own console.  In order to get the most mileage out of the money raised, Microsoft is going to work with the foundation so that it can use the Microsoft Employee discount which will result in a $50 discount/console, which will save $750.

Employee Donations – Several employees asked to participate through a cash contribution.

ARE YOU FREAKING OUT LIKE ME?!

I pretty much burst into tears when I received that final offer email from Luke last night, in which he was sure to bring attention to employee David Severino who was instrumental in making it all happen as well.

Do you realize how much of your money this saved us?  How much easier it will be to do everything we want to for that floor with additional hand-held game consoles and ToughBook laptops and whatnot?

And do you see why I am Vista’s new BFF forever and we’re going to get matching heart necklaces and I’ll wear one half and Vista will wear the other and never the twain shall meet?

Microsoft and its local employees are a PERFECT example of why I adore Pittsburgh and the people that do or have called it home.  It’s this generosity; this attitude of “we’ll take care of our own.”

I’ll keep you updated as we near delivery date, but for now, GROUP HUG!

And I should point out that I no longer even need to USE Vista because Windows 7 is available and it rocks!

Category: Awesome Burghers | tags: Make Room for Kids | March 10, 2010 | 46 Comments »