That's Church

1. This is the concert poster for the Dave Matthews Band’s recent concert at PNC Park.

LOVE the beautiful Burghiness of it, but man, way to give the pigeons ideas.

Remind me to stay away from the inclines, because being dropped into the Mon by a flock of pissed off pigeons would be a horrible way to die.

(h/t Andy)

2. This is a link to Mace Ballard’s video which was produced by the P-G for their Pittsburgh Rocks contest, which Mace Ballard won.

Do you need a two o’clock smile? Even if you don’t like this type of rock music, you’ll love the Pittsburgh-centric, lighthearted video produced by Steve Mellon and Matt Freed. Here’s the video embedded from Vimeo!

Gold star if you find Pensblog Charlie.

Were you like me when you were little and did you also look like Pocahontas because you always had your hair in braids?

That’s not what I meant to ask. Were you like me and thought the Strip District was a place for strippers?

My family was never big Strip District goers during my childhood, at least that I can recall. So it wasn’t until I was a preteen probably that I learned the Strip District was an awesome place for food and gifts and yinzer tchotchkes while Liberty Avenue was the place where all the strippers were.

Liberty Avenue has been cleaned up, but the Strip District remains a fantastic place to spend a Saturday morning/afternoon, which is what we did this weekend, showing my niece from Mexico our little slice of Pittsburgh heaven on Penn.

We took her to Buon Giorno cafe for pizza (delish!), marveled at the line at Primanti’s (I seriously considered yelling out, “PEOPLE, THERE’S ANOTHER ONE IN MARKET SQUARE!”), and then shopped the Strip.

First, I’m going to turn around so that you can pat me on the back that I walked past the tables near Penn Mac, with all the delicious Italian bakery items, and I did not purchase one fattening, ass-cottage-cheese depositing morsel.

In addition to fresh produce that I will use tonight to make Mexican Flatbread Pizza (I’m going to start my own cooking show in which a terrible cook like me attempts to bake/cook all manner of involved recipes. The show will wrap up each episode with me grabbing either the phone to call 911, or the fire extinguisher to put my hair out.), I found a few Steelers/Pirates items I just had to share with you in case they were new to you too:

Also, you can’t find a single negative Penguins item in the Strip.  What could they possibly say anyway? “My name Evgeni. I make terrible English.”

Actually, I’d totally buy that shirt.

A few weeks ago, BurghBaby, which, I never know if I should call her BurghBaby, BurghBaby’s Mom, or Michelle, let’s go with Michelle.

God, first sentence and I’m already off on some side trail chasing a bunny rabbit. Back on path.

Michelle contacted me asking me if I wanted to participate in American Eagle’s 77 Kids Do Good Day, which meant showing up on the North Shore, hanging out with some super awesome bloggers, and giving stuff, including cash, away. General do-gooding hijinks, shenanigans, and tomfoolery on American Eagle’s dime?

Um, YES!

So this past Wednesday, my son and I showed up in front of the Carnegie Science Center where Command Central for Do Good Day Pittsburgh would be. Most of the others were already there, as well as Mike Pound who was covering the story for the Beaver County Times. He got sunburned. Badly. Surrounded by moms and not a one of us looked at him and said, “Young man. You are burning! March inside right now and put some sunscreen on.” Bad moms.

Now, before I continue, I need to chase this little green froggy down this little side trail and tell you that I did not bring a camera to Do Good Day, because I don’t own a giant awesome zoomy camera that can be slung around my neck like all the other bloggers seemed to have. No, I have a piece of technological crap known as the Six Megapixel Digital Camera That Really Hates It When You Try to Zoom In On Something and Will Just Give You Blurry Pictures of Blurry Blobs. I think that’s the name. Google it.

Someday, I will have a better camera, but unless I wanted to shove my current crap camera into the pocket of my jean skirt and awkwardly pull it out to take pictures of awesome things that would be rendered into blurry blobs, I was going camera-less. Which I did. So this is me, stealing pictures from the other ladies who participated in said shenanigans. Clicking pictures will take you to their original source and I’ll also link you over to their kickass blogs. Let the poaching begin!

Back on track.

In addition to hundreds of backpacks for kids, that Michelle used American Eagle’s money to put together, in which they would find various ways they could use the contents to Do Good (letters to Veterans, Silly Bandz to give to their friends, etc.), we were each given a box of stuff and charged with one mission: Give it all away.

And there was a lot of stuff in these boxes! Candy, pinwheels, funny glasses, post-it notes, thank you notes … CASH.

Once the backpacks were given away, much to the delight of the children, I turned to my box and started clipping one dollar bills to a little sheet explaining what the receiver could do with their one dollar bill (pay the toll of the car behind them, patronize a lemonade stand, etc.), as well as a thank you card for them to use to thank someone in their life, and finally, all that I clipped to a coupon for 77 Kids, because hey, it’s their money.

All was well until the coupons started having sex.

For serious.

My coupon stack was growing right before my eyes and like Grape Nuts, no matter how many I got rid of, I couldn’t get to the bottom. Coupon sex everywhere. Mating like rabbits. Having coupon babies by the litter and those new coupons were having unprotected premarital sex and were making grandbaby coupons. Michelle found it hysterical. I thought they should make coupon birth control.

Having exhausted a good portion of our giveaway items, we saved a whole bunch of dollars and Silly Bandz and headed for a walk from the Science Center, along the North Shore, all the way to Hyde Park.

Can I just say, giving people money is not always easy. Granted it’s just a dollar (no, American Eagle, I did NOT purposely put two or three dollars in a few of my bundles. Wink.), but some people look at you like you’re trying to hand them a screaming poopy baby. One man: “I don’t take money from women.”

HAH!

But for the most part, Burghers loved the idea and I really hope most of them used their dollar(s WINK!) to do some good in some way.

Let’s look at pictures of my really atrocious humid-day hair!

Here are me and Cooper Monroe of The Motherhood watching illicit coupon sex.

Bow chicka bow.

Here are my cohorts in crime at Command Central, and there’s me giving disapproving looks to all the coupons for having so much sex.

This is Laura, another one of the Do Gooders who shall foreverhereafter be known as the Most High Priestess of Stickers.

We were given tons of Do Good stickers, (sticker sex is an entire other post), and I was all, “How am I going to get rid of hundreds of promiscuous stickers?!” Well, Laura is apparently so awesome and hot that getting a sticker from her is a big deal. Kids FLOCKED to her for stickers, but the rest of us trying to give a kid a sticker? REJECTED. So we gave them to Laura and she managed to get rid of EVERY sticker without throwing them in the trash. Long live the Most High Priestess of Stickers!

Here we are, in a photo taken by Jenna Hatfield, walking like a posse. We walked in slow motion and western music played in the background and it was high noon, pardner. As you can see, I’m still very much disapproving of the coupon sex.

Here I am, in a photo taken by Michelle, trying not to fall into the river while handing some kayakers (not a word) some money.

The word you’re looking for is “sexy.” “Bow chicka bow” would also work here.

By the time we reached the water area at Hyde Park, we were all sticky, sweaty, smelly messes, and the water was just what we needed. Here’s my son hanging out with the actual Burgh Baby and the adorable daughter of Gina from My Very Last Nerve.

By the way, Burgh Baby? Hates my guts. I could look at her and say, “You are the most beautiful princess in all the land and I would like to buy you a pony and a castle to live in,” and she would be all, “DIE.”

However, she loved my son for the simple fact that the boy can burp. I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP.

We were quickly the hit of the water area once word spread that those ladies down there have bags of Silly Bandz, because in case you didn’t know, Silly Bandz are kid crack. Boys, girls, four-years-old, twelve-years-old. It didn’t matter. They’d walk up to us all, “Psst. Yeah. [shifty eyes] I heard you have Silly Bandz.”

I had so much fun and if there is a job out there somewhere were I can just spend all day walking around Pittsburgh giving other people’s money away while preaching safe coupon sex, sign me up.

I am told I need to tell you that while I was engaged by 77 Kids and The Motherhood to take part in Do Good Day, this post was not sponsored by them, which I think you’ve figured out by now because somehow I don’t think they’d sponsor a post featuring kid crack and coupon sex.

Bow chicka bow.

I can’t decide which is my favorite local news story this morning.

Maybe you can help me decide.

Is it this story in which Channel 11 took a bunch of those ridiculous Shake Weights to a local gym and had the ladies try them out?

You’ve seen the Shake Weight, right? The exercise doohickey that makes it look like you’re, you know. YOU KNOW.

Right.

Well, well WPXI’s Robin Taylor, who I have never heard of before in my life, managed to create LOCAL NEWS COMEDY GOLD when the women testing the product said things like:

“The more you do, the more you feel it.”

“It doesn’t hit the spot.”

” You start breathing a little heavier. You sweat a little bit.”

I have to give major major kudos to Robin Taylor for keeping a straight face while shaking the Shake Weight and giving her news report. I know I’m like twelve-years-old because I’d have been all [giggle] [giggle] [ROTFLMAO].

And queuing up in the number two spot of hilarious local news stories, we have this gem out of Apollo.

A serial burglar wasn’t fooled by one couple’s security system – an inflatable doll they say had protected their home for years. The Eckmans in Apollo put the doll which has Raquel Welch’s face on it and a wig on the couch next to a window when they leave home.

They used a blow-up doll. With Raquel Welch’s face on it. I have searched the Internet and I and I cannot find a place selling a Raquel Welch Blowup Doll. So did they buy a regular blowup doll and put her face on it and if so, WHY? If this was for security reasons, maybe they want a slightly more threatening face? Like Steely McBeam’s?

You have to watch the video because Ken Rice somehow manages to keep the Eyebrows of Genuine Concern in place while introducing the story.

It gets better:

“It looks like she’s reading and she sits here as long as we’re gone and then when we come back we say, ‘Hello Alice, we’re back,’” Jane explained.

ALICE?! What’s wrong with Raquel?

The story itself is really sad. I mean, the couple lost some really treasured things, but I just can’t get past THE BLOWUP DOLL.

I guess I’m going to choose the Shake Weight story as my favorite for the day, because in that case, no one lost anything.

Except their dignity.

Also, six million dollars is the sum I would pay to see KDKA’s consumer reporter Jim Lokay profile the Shake Weight in a “Does it Really Do That?” segment.

The other day, I read some headline or news crawl or something that said basically, “Pirates something something at mid-season point.”

“Something something” was probably “continue to suck” or “suck” or “smell” or “can’t pull out of death spiral” or “are mired in consecutive losses” or “try to commit suicide” or something like that. I don’t recall.

Anyway, my thought when I read that headline or crawl was, “WE ARE ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THE SEASON?! SON OF A MOTHER.”

This has been the longest season of baseball ever, because losing makes baseball boring and long, as if baseball wasn’t boring and long enough.

And the Pirates know all about losing:

They are currently … God … 28 wins away from .500 ball.

18 games behind first place.

They’ve lost their last 6 games and 7 of their last 10.

They continue to have the next to the worst record in MLB, thanks to the generous Orioles who must wake up every morning and say, “We suck, but we’re doing a great thing for those Pirates.”

But there is hope! Because while the rest of all baseball is tinkering their squads to make a run at meaningful Fall ball, the brizzilliant Buccos management have snagged the future of the MLB and signed him up!

Club officials announced that they indeed have signed the first Belarusian to a major-league contract, 16-year-old, right-handed pitcher Aleksey Lukashevich of Brest Zubrs’ baseball and softball club.

Dude just turned 16 on June 1.

Sigh.

First we had the two Indians who won the reality contest. Rajesh and Dingbat or something? Whatever happened to them? Let me find out. Hang on.

This week past i pitching good.

Breaking ball getting better now.  i pitching 1 & 1/3 inning yankees and i getting 2 strikeout and two fly out.  i giving no runs so this is good.

I hoping that i pitching good continue for Pirates.  Dinesh and me hoping we going forward this season, but we just trying our best all times.  All we can doing for this is trying best.

And now we’ve signed a Belarusian toddler. Fan-freaking-tastic.

Also, I have it on good authority that the Pirates have their eye on this guy, too: