That's Church

1. The blogroll. It has been updated with those blogs that I’ve been reading via my Bloglines feeds for six months now. Welcome, The Comet, The Burgh Report, and My Brilliant Mistakes.

2. I have been meaning for ages to link you all to this hilarious bit Julie Gong wrote about kites. It was one of those tiny blurbs inside of a larger post that really stuck out and made me go damn, I wish I wrote that. Check it out (tm Wendy Bell).

3.  Rendell claims he had nothing to do with that penny per gallon tax:

But Rendell said in a statement Wednesday that he had only just learned about the proposed fee increase from news accounts, and called the price of gas high enough right now.

So either Eddie is lying about not knowing or Eddie has no idea what’s going on in his administration.  I’m not cool with either of those options.

4.   PittGirl’s Christmas 2007 e-card.  (h/t Megan)  This one I’m saving for next year’s Thanksgiving.

5.  Kris Letang?  I feel your pain, yo.

Then there are those days, a handful of times a year, when he has to stop what he is doing, lie down in a dark room and try to sleep through the vision loss in his left eye, intense nausea and a severe headache.

Letang knows when he starts having impaired vision that he is at the onset of a migraine, but it is unnerving each time.

Do what I do.  Avoid alcohol and chocolate during your time of the month.

6.  Some readers are all up in arms because I have stated that come Sunday, a part of me will be cheering for Carson Palmer and TJ Housh! because they’re leading my fantasy team, while my opponent has Benny playing quarterback.

Let me clarify lest all of Steeler Nation join up with The Minions in hating PittGirl’s heart blacker than sin.

I absolutely want the Steelers to win on Sunday, no doubt about it.

I’m just hoping that win comes along with maybe three Carson Palmer/TJ touchdowns and like just one or two Benny interceptions.  That’s all I’m asking for, football gods.

There’s $25 at stake here.

I could buy a new VCR with that!

A North Versailles woman suffered a serious stab wound during a scuffle last night with a neighbor over a broken VCR, police said.

The chief said Mr. Simpson had sold a VCR to Ms. White for $40. The machine did not work and she went to his apartment for a refund.

The two argued and scuffled, during which time Mr. Simpson retrieved a knife and stabbed her, police said.

Thoughts:

1.  You can buy a brand spanking new in the box VCR for 40 dollars and you don’t have to fight the Black Friday crowds or your crazy violent neighbor to get it.

2. I sure hope this VCR was stuffed with some drugs or Starbucks gift cards or something because THAT is the only way I can see it being worth going to jail over.

3.  This is not an iPhone, a Tivo, or even a DVD player were talking about here.  It’s a VIDEO CASSETTE RECORDER!

Is cassette even still a WORD?

My good virtual friend Dom at ineedtwo.com is hooking me up with some tickets for this Sunday’s Steelers game (It is about high time this blog started being useful to me, don’t you think?).

He asked me to let you know that he’s got lots of tickets still available for this game and they’re starting at 58 bucks a pop.

So if you are looking for some tailgating and Steelers/Bengals action, he’s your man.

This Sunday’s game is VERY important to PittGirl because my fantasy team is led by Carson Palmer and TJ Housh!, while my opponent has The Duke of Fug and the Earl of Gross.

That means I’ll have a very hard time not flipping the hell out in screaming joy when Carson hits TJ in the end zone, or when say, the Duke is intercepted.

I might get killed by a drunken Steelers fan.  Pray for me.

1. Kelly Bow-Chicka-Bow Frey is at it again, this time doing the sexy belly dance grind in the middle of a bunch of stripper poles. Not to be confused with the last video, in which she actually used the stripper pole. I fully expect the next video to be Kelly Frey belly dancing AND using a stripper pole. Or, hell, just plain stripping. (h/t Kevin)

2. Celizic compares the shooting death/underlying psychology of Sean Taylor to Benny.

And is really that much different that Ben Roethlisberger? Big Ben also felt the need to show what a tough guy he was, except he did it by riding a motorcycle without a helmet. That doesn’t have the same air of danger about it that waving guns around and acting like a thug does, but it almost killed him. It seems that the underlying psychology is the same, it’s just the cultural backdrop and mode of expression that’s different.

It is NEVER going to end. Benny is going to be 90-years-old and attending the hundred-somethingeth anniversary of the Steelers and the media are going to be all, “Now that you’re on your deathbed, do you regret not wearing a helmet that fateful day?”

I hope Benny musters up enough strength to kick them in the nuts and tell them to go to hell, because old people are pretty much allowed to do whatever the hell old people want. Also? I bet Jeff Reed will be there with a slut at each wheel.

3. The New Yorker went and profiled my hero, New York City Councilman Simcha Felder.

Best parts:

Felder said recently, sitting in his office on Broadway, where he had decorated one of the walls with a blown-up photograph of some guano-encrusted pipes at the Lorimer Street stop on the J/M trains.

I think I’ll get a blown-up photograph of a pigeon corpse for my office.

He is also calling for all the city’s garbage cans to be capped, so that a little more ingenuity would be required of hungry pigeons. “If they want to eat, they have to get inside the hole,” he said. “They can’t just pick at the side. Now it’s, like, Mr. Pigeon says to Mrs. Pigeon, ‘Do you want to go out to dinner tonight? We don’t have to go to Radio City Music Hall. We can go down to Broadway and Forty-fourth. The can there is easy.’ ”

HAH!

The anticipation seemed to be making him paranoid. “Yesterday, I was having lunch in City Hall Park with a colleague, and this squirrel comes over, literally up to my feet, and he stands up,” Felder said. “I’m eating a bar of chocolate. I said, ‘What, are you kidding? You’re with them?’ It ran away, but five minutes later dozens of pigeons, like something out of some spook movie, show up, and they’re all over the place. I said, ‘Get a camera!’ ”

Dude. I have been there.

Be wary. The pigeons. They are smart.

(h/t bluetail)

4. Lukey is having a PART-AY!!!!

5. Are you kidding me, Rendell?! Add ANOTHER cent to what is already just about the most taxed fuel in the country?! I’d tell you to “bite me” but I’ve seen the way you devour sandwiches.

King Kong violently ripped the heads off of a bunch of villagers and called it physical therapy. 

The program he was leaving, known as CROMISA, or Community Re-integration of Offenders with Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorder, is described in Allegheny County literature as a place for men with mental illness and substance abuse problems who are on probation or parole.

But when the owner, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, filed papers with the city in September, it characterized the 7,000-square-foot building as “assisted living,” making no mention of the criminal backgrounds of those being assisted.

Misleading much?

“This is an assisted living facility for the accommodation of the chronically ill,” wrote Frank Raczkiewicz, acting director of media relations.

Frank, Frank, Frank.  You forgot to insert the words “mentally ill, drug-addicted criminals” in there somewhere.  Silly you, Frank.  Silly you.

(h/t David)