That's Church

UPDATE: Random.org chose comment #30. The winner has been notified via email.

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The thing with writing about David Conrad for almost six years (woah) is that you get a reputation.

“That pigeon-kicker who loves David Conrad.”

There are worse reputations to be had. “That Steely McBeam” comes to mind.

I’ve been picking on Steely McBeam a lot lately, haven’t I? Let’s check in with Steely to see how he feels about that.

Cool.

Or is that his angry face?

Anyway, because I worship the steel bridge David Conrad walks on, I have been provided by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with two tickets to give away to my readers to attend his upcoming show!

As his self-united wife, I respectfully request that you do not bring extra panties or bras to throw at him. IT’S THE SYMPHONY, PEOPLE. Have some class, n’at.

The details!

What: “Twisted Storybook Favorites” featuring Alice in Wonderland-themed Final Alice, and Peter and the Wolf. Final Alice focuses on the end of the story, and Peter and the Wolf is rewritten to have a Pittsburgh spin and will be narrated by David Conrad. The Alice portion of the show is for mature audiences, so don’t bring your kid as your date unless your kid is thirty.  There’s lots of other stuff happening including a concert prelude, a pre-concert artist chat, Final Alice artwork display and silent auction, and more!

When: These tickets are for the Friday, May 6 showing at 8:00 p.m.

Where: Heinz Hall in downtown Pittsburgh.

Value: The current price for two best available seats for this showing is $143. So let’s go with that. $143.

For more info: Click here to watch an awesome little intro video and then click through to learn more about the performance and all the other fun stuff going on that night in relation to it.

How to enter: Leave a comment and tell me about how awesome David Conrad is. I KID!

Seriously though, when I was younger Alice in Wonderland scared me. I don’t know what it was but something about the cats and the hole and the queen and before you know it, I’ve got the bogglejiggities. As you can see, I still haven’t nailed down a definition for my new word. So tell me in the comments what was the show or movie that irrationally scared you when you were little. Was it Alice in Wonderland? Was it Flash Gordon? MacGyver? Barney?

If I’m being honest, the one that MOST scared me when I was little was … ready? The Ten Commandments.

I never admitted this to my father or sisters, but that movie would mess me up for weeks. Frogs and locusts and giant beards and snakes and THE ANGEL OF DEATH KILLING ALL THE FIRSTBORN? That’s some PG-13 rated stuff and I remember being little and going to bed all, “Thank God I’m not the firstborn. Sucks to be Ta-Ta.”

Tell me yours. One comment per valid email address. You have until Friday at 5:00 p.m. to comment at which time Random.org will select the winning comment number. If your comment goes to spam, freak out. No. Don’t freak out. Just sit tight because I’ll occasionally go in and pull them out.

Good luck!

Fine print that’s the same size as all the other print: I have not been provided with anything in exchange for this post other than the two tickets that are being given away.

1. If you haven’t yet, please scroll down to read about install day at Make Room for Kids and then scroll even further down to the post below that in which I introduce you to the stupidest people on the planet.

In my house, “stupid” is a bad word. As are dork, retard, pigeon, and Steely McBeam. However, in this case, I’d have no problem telling my children that these bridge-driving Burghers are Stupid with a capital S.

2. While we’re talking about Make Room for Kids, please check out this article that Bill Zlatos of the Trib wrote in which he interviewed some of the patients about their new Xboxes.

As I mentioned in my post below, Dan Potash was at the hospital covering install day for Root Sports (formerly FSN Pittsburgh or Fox Sports Pittsburgh or SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS! or something. I can’t keep track.)

I insisted on getting my picture taken with him.

Then I returned to what I was doing before I saw him walking by. Testing out the new Kinect with Microsoft employee David via a round of boxing.

That’s my Eye of the Tiger.  Rowr!

3. According to some important international London-based finance magazine that isn’t Hello!, Pittsburgh is the top city of the future for its population size!

I’d tell you more about what fDi Magazine said about our fair city, but they put it behind a pay wall.

I point and laugh at pay walls.

4. Do you go to conferences or expos and have now amassed so many tote bags that you start trying to find uses for them outside of their intended purpose?

“But mawwwm, none of the other kids take their lunch to school in a tote bag!”

Problem solved! The Pittsburgh Tote Bag Project will take those gently used tote bags off of your hands and give them to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank!

I watched someone scrambling around to pick up cabbage after the bag broke twice.  While someone assisted him, I tossed my thought out into the twitterverse … why not donate our extra tote bags to the food bank so people could have a bit more dignity and transport their items more efficiently.

DO IT. Here’s more info!

5. As you know, the Penguins begin the first round of playoffs tonight and I’m already tingling with anticipation.

Here’s something mind-boggling to boggle your mind with the bogglejiggities (My word. Send me ten cents if you plan to use it.)

Sidney Crosby sat out the final 41 games of the 2010-11 season because of a concussion.

… It also didn’t prevent him from leading the team in a number of statistical categories. Crosby recorded a team-high 32 goals, 66 points and 10 power-play goals.

He missed FORTY-ONE GAMES and he’s our scoring leader and we are still somehow in the playoffs.

That, my friends, shows the true grit of the entire team. They find a way to win.

6. I just saw an article in my Google Reader entitled “Alcohol helps the brain remember, says new study.”

I’m not going to click it though, in case there’s a disclaimer I don’t want to read.

ARRIBA!

7. Terry Bradshaw tells the AP that concussions have finally caught up with him and that he’s experiencing short-term memory loss and poor eye-hand coordination.

Maybe some alcohol will help his brain remember?

I’m here to help!

8. Ladies. SEXHAIR WALLPAPER via the Pens! Click to embiggen and then don’t cut your tongue when you lick his whiskers.

What?

(h/t CrashJK)

9. If you’re on Twitter, you might be interested to know that you can change your Trending Topics section to Pittsburgh!

Here’s what’s trending internationally:

Here’s what’s trending in Pittsburgh:

TOM BRADY?!

Vomit.

10. The Bogglejiggities would make a great Wiggles-like band name.

(Luke Sossi of Microsoft is prepped to enter the room of a patient in isolation)

Today was install day at Children’s Hospital as a team of local Microsoft employees, the Mario Lemieux Foundation, and me, Mike and Chachi arrived armed with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of goodies for the Adolescent Medicine unit, and let me tell you, these kids wasted no time in grabbing a controller and a game and getting to work on the business of forgetting for a bit about their aches and pains and worries.

(This little girl was just, oh, she has my heart.)

But I’m ahead. Let’s back up so that you can experience install day from the beginning.

Arrival! Like Santa Claus, only better. And, you know, real. (Don’t tell my kid.)

Luke Sossi, commander in chief, gathers the team in the conference room and briefs them on how it’s all going to work.  I resist the urge to try for a closer close-up shot.

(photo courtesy of Luke Sossi)

Then, grab an Xbox and get to work. [snap of the whip]!

While they’re busy installing, let me show you what your donated dollars bought for the kids on this floor.

First up, TWELVE iPAD 2s. TWELVE. TWELVE!!!!! iPAD2s!!!!!!!!

Oh, heck. Let’s throw a bit more punctuation on that. Twelve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We increased the number of iPads for this floor because they’re sort of an all-in-one console that can be used for gaming, email, music, movies, art, e-reading, etc. as well as something that Mike thought of when he encouraged us to go with the latest version of the device: the ability of the kids to use the iPad2 camera to Skype or use Facetime to talk with their friends and family who are far away or who they haven’t seen in a while.

Virtual contact with their lives and loved ones outside of the hospital walls.

[fist bump]

Otterbox has once again generously agreed to donate covers for these iPads and we’ll get those to the hospital as soon as they’re available.

We also gave the hospital about $200 in iTunes cards for use with these.

[gameshow host voice] And that’s not all! We also provided the hospital with 10 headphones to be used with the iPads or even the Xboxs. You can see some of them there on the left as well as all the games we dropped off today.

Did I mention games?

LOTS OF GAMES that you guys purchased via the Amazon wishlist!

Big thanks to IKEA Pittsburgh for once again donating these rolling, locking carts to us:

Hi, Nancy!

(That’s Dan Potash’s back. SQUEEE!)

You might think that’s it. What else could there possibly be? What more could we give other than an Xbox in every room, 12 iPad 2s, headphones, and all these games?

I’m going to tell you!

We also upgraded the TV in the lounge where the kids can play the new donated Kinect. The old TV was like 32 inches and when we saw it last month we said, “NOT. BIG. ENOUGH.”

So we bought them one with more cowbell.

Mike and Chachi were charged with installing the new, improved, cowbellalicious, more bang for your donated buck TV.

I did my part by standing next to Chachi, snapping his picture and saying helpful things like, “DON’T DROP IT.”

(Ah, that’s much better.)

Puny TV no more.

Is that all, you ask? Surely that’s all, you say.

That’s not all!

This floor does a lot of scrapbooking, perhaps as a way to document their frequent hospital visits or to just pass time in a creative way. So we purchased for them a top-of-the-line Cricut machine, various tools and cartridges for the machine, as well as three digital cameras with cases, and a new printer along with a stash of photo paper and extra memory cards.

WE’RE CRAZY LIKE THAT!

Now, I THINK that is all.

The “frequent fliers” of the Adolescent Medicine unit went from sharing one Xbox to having one Xbox to each bed as well as 12 iPads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and lots and lots more, thanks to generous Microsoft employees and thanks to YOU.

You know, we walked out of that hospital with a sense of satisfaction, but also a sense of gratitude that we were given the opportunity to help, and as for me personally, a sense of sadness that we were leaving behind all of those sick children who want nothing more than to walk out of there too.

At least for the frequent fliers in there, they’ve got a lot of new toys to keep their brains busy while their bodies fight on.

I should have a video to share with you soon and then we’ll look ahead to Make Room for Kids 3.0 because there’s still a whole hospital of sick kids we haven’t met yet.

Thanks again, so much, to you, and you, and you there, and to Luke and Microsoft, and Chachi and Mike and the Mario Lemieux Foundation for taking on this project and nurturing it into something lasting.

Group hug!

PennDot on April 7 closed a 104-year-old bridge in Bridgeville because it is structurally deficient. Unsafe. Keep out. Do not cross. Hazard. Here be dragons.

You think that’s going to stop some Burghers? A puny “BRIDGE CLOSED” sign?

The Bridgeville police department cited seven motorists last week for moving signs that warned the McLaughlin Run Road Bridge is closed.

Borough manager Lori Collins said one driver moved the sign, walked across the bridge to make sure it was safe then drove across the bridge.

Thoughts:

1. [runs to Google to confirm that Bridgeville is not in Fayette County]

2. I pray that the man got to the middle of the bridge and then took a few jumps up and down to test its tensile strength. And I pray someone got it on video because that would go viral faster than you can say “survival of the fittest.”

3. People who drive on closed, decrepit bridges should wear clean underwear. That’s an old Chinese proverb.

4. Standing on a bridge to test its ability to hold the weight of your car is like blowing your snots into a Kleenex to test its ability to hold Casey Hampton.

5. These people are why our hair dryers have warning labels that say, “Do not use in the shower.”

If there’s ever a movie role in which an actor must portray a man who believes he is the first person in the history of baseball to catch a foul ball, my brother-in-law is going to win the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, the Oscar, and possibly the Medal of Freedom.

That’s Muchacho, as my husband calls him. He is the husband of Pens Fan and he’s catching a foul ball at the home opener.

Seated to his left, wearing a Chivas Mexico cap, is his nine-year-old son (the same son that raised over $1,200 for Jamie and Ali by asking his classmates to donate change). Seated to his right is a congratulatory blond woman who is not Pens Fan.

No, Pens Fan is pregnant (as is Princess Aurora. Yes. The twins in my family are expecting their respective third children within five days of each other in August. If God loves me, they’ll go into labor at the same time so I can be royally entertained by their tag-team histrionics of begging for epidurals.) and was home napping on the couch when this happened.

After catching the ball, Muchacho turns around, his arms raised in triumphant victory [music swell]. He’s looking ten rows back to me, my husband, my other brother-in-law, and Princess Aurora, who are freaking out because he’s the first person in history to catch a foul ball. We have our fists in the air in victory [crashing cymbals]. We are shredding our programs to make confetti with which to shower him.

Princess Aurora then texted Pens Fan and told her to rewind the game to check to see if Muchacho was on TV.

We waited a few minutes. The game continued.

Then … [soft dramatic staccato] … a text came in from Pens Fan [climactic overture with heavy drums].

[I don't really know what "overture" means]

Text: “WHO’S THE BLOND?!?@?@”

[Psycho shower stabbing music]

Watch your bunny, hot blond chick sitting next to Muchacho.

Watch. Your. Bunny.