That's Church

1. Yesterday I found four stink bugs in my car and also, my car smells like hot feet now.

I need to go check my Geico info to see if stink bug infestation is covered, particularly if they will cover it if I light the car on fire or “accidentally” push it down a cliff.

2. Reader @gaitladyPGH tweeted me this link showing a Steelers tattoo coupled with dermal implants.

First, it seems a bit … much, yes? And second, I had never heard of dermal implants so I Google-image-searched it.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON’T GOOGLE-IMAGE-SEARCH IT.

3. The awesome Tim Ruff of Walking in Pittsburgh fame, who I have met and watched in a live show and bought all his songs on iTunes, has a Kickstarter campaign to fund his first full-length album.

Here’s his Kickstarter pitch!

He is at $2,500 of his $7,000 goal. Let’s do this, Pittsburgh!

4. Jim Shearer of Yinz Luv fame and VH1 fame has announced via his new podcast that due to professional and personal commitments, he’ll be unable to produce a new Yinz Luv episode after each Steelers game, but rather will produce them when time permits.

He makes the point that if anyone in Pittsburgh would hire him to do sports-related stuff, this would not be happening.

Dear Pirates, Penguins, Steelers, local news channels, radio channels, etc., WHY HAVEN’T YOU HIRED HIM YET?

The first podcast is awesome, so I’m looking forward to hearing more!

5. Vivian Lee Croft who helped us so much in planning Ti Kanaval last year, left for Haiti this morning to spend some time there with Jamie and Ali McMutrie to begin documenting some of their work over the past year. You can follow her trip on her blog My Trip to Haiti.

6. Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History has what was the first complete T-Rex skeleton, which was purchased for $7,000 from the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1941. It is now really the COMPLETE skeleton thanks to one forgotten bone being handed over to my self-united husband Matt Lamanna.

Also, I thought the line about the Paleontologist Barbie was a joke, but shut up, IT’S REAL!

I hope Ken is her waterboy.

(h/t DJ)

7. Lani Lazzari, pictured on the top of this post, is a Burgher who is the CEO of her own company Simple Sugars that sells all-natural skin care products.

Lani Lazzari started the company in 2005.

She is now 17-years-old.

WHAT THE WHAT?!

When I was 17-years-old, I was recording secretary of Students Against Driving Drunk. So I can relate to being very successful at a very young age.

What?

Lanni is out on the Smoothest Road Trip Ever, driving cross country to 25 cities from Pittsburgh to LA.

Check out the site and her trip blog.

8. Save the date of October 19 for the second annual Crazy Scary event at the ScareHouse with proceeds benefiting Make Room for Kids and Burgh Baby’s Christmas Crazy.

Last year I had to sprint at the speed of light through the entire ScareHouse by myself and Michelle donned a princess gown and hooker makeup.

This year, I’m told there will be something even worse to experience.

IF IT INVOLVES PIGEONS, I AM GOING TO BE VERY PISSED OFF.

Bob Pompeani is KDKA’s sports god.

Bob Pompeani is a nice guy with a lovely family.

Thanks to Randy Baumann, who recorded this video, we now know that Bob Pompeani can GET HIS FREAK ON.

Pretty sure he busted out The Carlton at :09.

And I don’t know what he’s doing at :20, but I love it and I name it The Pomp.

That right there, Internet, is what it looks like when you “dance like no one’s watching.”

It appears the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s controversial wine kiosk program is coming to a close now that the State and Simple Brands, the manufacturer of the machines, couldn’t come to an agreement on money the State alleges Simple Brands owes.

As you are aware, these kiosks are, first of all, HUGE. Like, I think the Wizard might live in them.

I have never used the kiosk in my local Giant Eagle because at first I was intimidated by the sheer size of the machine, then it was out of order for several months, and then I was not chancing the machine eating my driver’s license for lunch, which was one of the reported malfunctions.

I was previously aware that in order to receive a bottle of wine from a kiosk, you had to swipe a valid ID to prove you were of age. I was also aware of the added Big Brotheresque step of breathing into a breathalyzer to ensure that the customer is not drunk.

Fine.

I was, however, unaware of this step:

The customer must … look into a surveillance camera that is remotely monitored by a state employee in Harrisburg who approves the sale after verifying the buyer isn’t drunk and matches the photo ID.

You realize what this means don’t you? That at some point, in some meeting in Harrisburg, the great minds of our state sat around a table and essentially said this:

“Okay, we want to put wines into the hands of our consumers more easily. We can do that two ways. We can spend a couple million dollars to have customized kiosks the size of actual Kias. The customers will have to swipe their ID card. When they swipe the ID card, that will trigger a search in our database to pull up that person’s driver’s license while the customer is asked to blow into a breathalyzer and then stand very still and look into a camera. We will then hire staff, we’ll call them wizards, to man computers in Harrisburg who will have remote access to every single transaction that takes place at the kiosks all over the state, and they will be charged with matching up the face to the license, confirming the breathalyzer readout, and then if nothing went wrong with all that technology — the scanner, the breathalyzer, the camera, the database, the delivery mechanism, the doohickeys, and the whatsits — the technician will then approve the sale at which time, hopefully, the machine will recognize the command coming from Harrisburg and allow the customer to purchase a bottle of wine.  OR, option two, we could let the grocery stores sell wine.”

AND THEY CHOSE THE FIRST TORTUROUS OPTION.

God save us from the Commonwealth, the Mommy Dearest of Big Brothers.

Tony Siragusa makes me want to punch a hot meatball sub.

I can’t explain why any more than I could explain why Tom Brady makes me want to punch a car.

In fact, the announcers in general from yesterday’s game gave me several punchy moments.

When Ben was hit in the knee by a Seahawk, which, first, let’s all imagine an actual seahawk divebombing Ben’s knee.

[blink]

And we’re back.

When Ben was hit, the announcers began a commentary after that penalty that I shall now paraphrase:

“That wasn’t intentional. Clearly that wasn’t intentional. I think when we see the replay in a second here we are going to see that the Seahawk was tripped by a Steeler and the forward force of the fall was what brought him into Ben’s knee. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt because again, we are sure that wasn’t intentional. Just an accident. Accidents happen.”

Later in the game, Legursky, I think it was, was called for an illegal block in the back or something like that and I shall now paraphrase the commentary that went with the penalty:

“OH MY DEAR GOD. IS THE SEAHAWK OKAY?! SHALL WE BEGIN CPR?! A PRAYER VIGIL?! A GENTLE WEEPING OVER A SINGLE DYING CANDLE?! That is how you hurt people for life. That is how career-ending injuries happen. We have talked about this. There are rules in place for JUST THIS REASON. TO PREVENT THIS KIND OF GROSS, HORRIFYING, MOTHER OF GOD TRAGEDY. Clearly this was a Steeler hell bent on hurting someone. God have mercy on our souls.”

And I’m really only SLIGHTLY paraphrasing.

Let’s talk football?

1. Bur first, let’s worship at the altar of Troysus, in recognition of the fact that he actually showed up for this game.

Can I get an AMEN?

LOVED that show.

2.  As we just discussed, The Duke of Fug and the Earl of Gross was taken down at the knee by a totally well-meaning Seahawk who accidentally aimed low, but Benny managed to get back into the game after just a few snaps taken by Charlie Batch, who as you recall is seven thousand years old.

Note to self: Self, this means you, Ginny, do not Google Charlie’s age because there is a good chance you are older than Charlie Batch. You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? Sigh.

SON OF A BITCH! I am older than Charlie Batch by seven months.

[gulps wine] [checks mirror for crows feet and gray hairs] [sobs] [gulps more wine]

2. After the Duke re-entered the game, there were several times I saw him standing in a collapsing pocket with an imminent sack nearing him and he still managed to remain patient, calm, and throw to his man. This is in contrast to last week when he sucked hard enough to drink an ocean through a straw.

Try the veal!

3. We interrupt this WTRT to say, “If Braveheart was a Steelers fan.”

I think those are the Lost numbers on his hat. Or maybe he ran out of paper during a hard addition problem?

Also … *let’s.

Apostrophes are our friends!

4. We further interrupt this WTRT to say, “If Lucha Libre was a Steelers fan.” Who is that masked man!?

I am one thousand percento sure that’s Lukey-o.

Hey! He showed up for something!

5. Hines Ward, who is also seven thousand years old [runs to Google. Sobs. Drinks moar wine.] made an awesome catch during a gadget play, one thrown by Emmanuel Sanders, who is not the quarterback — in case you’re unfamiliar with what a gadget play is.

He also made a stunning, toes-barely-inbounds catch after which one of the stupid commenters said, “You know, people think Hines Ward can dance because he won Dancing with the Stars, but in reality, he can really catch a football.”

Now everything Hines does on the field has to somehow be connected to his stint on Dancing With the Stars?

Lovely.

Actually, Hines, I think that’s the Catcho el Paso.

Let’s ask Ben. He knows all the plays.

Oh. I didn’t know that.

Man, ballroom is hard.

6. Emmanuel Sanders had a hell of a game, not only catching two nice balls as a wide receiver, but also the aforementioned gadget play to Hines Ward.

I have a question though: What is the thing some players do when they make a good catch or they play good pass-defense and they put a hand up in an open bitchslap kind of way and then wave that hand back and forth real fast mere inches from their eyes like a blind man just confirming that YEP! STILL BLIND. AIN’T SEEIN’ THOSE FINGERS TODAY.

What does that mean?! Windshield wipers? I’m toasty warm but also dumb as spit so this is how I try to cool myself off?  Jedi mind trick in hyper-speed? Super fast HAPPY SAD HAPPY SAD HAPPY SAD trick?

WHAT?!

It has been bugging me for years. I’ve even seen Coach Tomlin do it, and before I break it out in a church group, someone educate this oldster and bring me some damn fiber while you’re at it.

6. Daniel Sepulveda. MONSTER PUNTER.

That is all.

7. Mike Wallace has become a huge talent who doesn’t just outrun his pursuers in a straight path anymore. He runs routes and stuff and important sounding football terms and the wine has kicked in and wow, my crows feet look better already!

Wine. The new Oil of Olay.

Anyway, one of Mike’s catches was a beauty in which he caught the ball with his fingertips while running full speed ahead.

Clearly, the ball loves Mike Wallace as much as we ladies do, and it performed amazing acrobatics just to find itself in Mike’s strong embrace.

Well, this has turned uncomfortable. Let’s look away.

8. While we’re looking away, let’s not talk about a couple of things. Let’s not talk about Shaun Suisham missing a 41-yarder and let’s not talk about that goal line stand the Seahawks had against us.

Let’s just go ahead and mindwipe those now.

IS THAT WHAT IT IS?!

Last week’s debacle against the hated Ravens is a distant memory now and next week we take on the Indianapolis Colts who haven’t won yet this season. They’ll be in it to win it, but I’m not worried.

We’ve got the Paso el Catcho, the Catcho el Paso, the Pointo en Dos and the Mindwipe on our side.

Oh, and God too.

What? I would know. I’m seven thousand years old. God and I go way back.

A man, not from Fayette County surprisingly, was charged with drunk lawn mower driving as he scooted down the middle of a road in Beaver County with a coffee mug full of beer.

First, now I don’t feel so bad about those times I’ve sipped wine from a coffee cup. Shut up.

Second:

“I’m drunk. Just take me home.”

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!

It’s like he’s never seen the shirts.

If you’re not going to support the stereotypes, then why have stereotypes at all?!

Next thing, we’ll find out he’s not even taser-resistant. THEN WHERE’S OUR GOD?!