That's Church

USA!  USA!  USA!

Crosby sucks!

Right now, about a mile from my house, my sister just read those last two words and is bundling up her baby to put her in the car so that she can come over here and beat the snots out of me for talking smack about her self-united husband.

This is the same sister, Pens Fan, who sent me this email last week, and I’m not making this up.  Cut and pasted:

I will give you anything in the world if you can arrange for me to meet Sidney Crosby. K thanks. You rock Me and H are watching a tv show comparing sid the kid and Alex the great. I am in LOVE!!!!!

So you see, she is not just in love with him, she is in love with him to the tune of all caps and five exclamation points.  That’s love.

Of course, I’m just kidding with the “Crosby sucks!” chant.  I still love Sid.  But yeah, last night I was rooting against his big-toothed grin.  It kind of felt like I was booing at the baby Jesus, I gotta tell you.  It goes against everything in my soul to want Sidney Crosby to lose but there I was yesterday, freaking the hell out over the USA/Canada Olympic hockey game and getting real scared each time Sidney approached the net.

Now I know how the the other teams’ fans feel when they play the Penguins. They keep one eye on Sidney Crosby at all times because they know if he gets the puck and he gets near the net with it, you have to hold your breath and send bad juju his way or he will score on your ass.

He’s fast, he plays hard, and he skates like his butt is on fire.

And boy, he sure can take a dive.

Okay, NOW I’m scared for my life.

I’m JUST KIDDING, Sister!

I cannot put my head down on my pillow tonight without first telling you that as I watch WPXI news, two things made me all [headdesk].

1.  The top story of the local evening news here in Pittsburgh is that a professional athlete publicly apologized for having extramarital affairs.  WPXI sent Timyka Artist not only to the local bar to find out how Pittsburghers felt about his apology, but also to the home of a body language expert right here in Pittsburgh so that the body language expert could ascertain from the gestures, the posture, the tics, the blinking, the eyebrows, the amount of mucous on the corners of his lips, whether or not that professional golfer was sincere when he apologized for having extramarital affairs.  The body language expert then used her knowledge to ascertain for WPXI and all of us lucky viewers what that professional golfer’s mother’s body language meant as the camera flashed to her and she … oh, God … the horror … had her arms crossed over her chest.

Timyka closed the story out with the inside scoop that … oh, God … TIGER’S MOUTH WAS DRY.

Too bad there wasn’t a more pressing story in all of Pittsburgh, you know?  Something like two Pittsburgh women trying to save the lives of Haitian orphans living in tents.

[headdesk]

2.  Shortly thereafter, in the first 5 minutes of that newscast, WPXI then was kind enough to let us know that because of today’s break in the weather, Pittsburgh drivers … oh, God … went to the car wash to WASH THEIR CARS. And they proved it with video of cars entering and leaving the local car wash.

Take note, the post-storm car wash news story is the new pre-storm grocery store news story.

[headdesk] [headdesk] [headdesk] [headdeszzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you The Awesome?

A few things here.

Whoever these guys are, they are my new fake YouTube boyfriends, joining my fake Twitter boyfriend @sween, my fake TV boyfriend James Roday, and my fake gay TV boyfriend Neil Patrick Harris.

My fake boyfriends are not to be confused with my very real self-united husbands.

The reason these guys are my new loves?  They saw the snow storm and instead of doing what I did, which was WAH! [moan] [bitch!] I’m dying alive! (tm Jaromir Jagr) [moan] [shiver] [whine], they went out, saw the beauty of the storm and they made a lasting memory.

I got the same feeling watching this video as I did when I first saw the Point Park students dancing.  Inherently, they were doing the same thing — interpreting an event in a way that made me love my city more.

They’re the next Awesome Burghers and their crowns are in the mail and by crowns I mean a letter in which I invite myself to go with them next time so I can show them how much I rock at sucking at skiing, n’at.

(h/t my butler who found it via Christina Schulman)

1.  I’m knocking on wood and throwing salt over my shoulder and stabbing this here Marian Hossa voodoo doll right in the crotch as hard as I can, so I can tell you that I’m one of the few lucky homeowners in Pittsburgh whose home has not yet sprung a leak from all of this snow.

Twitter is full of Burghers posting pictures of leaks and wall bubbles.  If my house does spring a leak, I’m going to take it out on Marian Hossa.

2.  I’ve been watching the Olympics and I gotta say a few things.  First, it is nice to see Ryan Malone on my TV again.  And second, I’m pretty sure I would be a kickass curl skip.  Third, I may take up snowboarding just so I have an excuse to buy and wear the USA Olympic Snowboarding team’s uniform.  I bet I could really make those jeans look awesome as I’m rushed into the emergency room with blood shooting out of my ears.

3.  Jeff Verszyla is on twitter telling us that the snow storm rumored to hit Sunday and Monday possibly dumping up to a foot of new snow on us is actually going to be more rain than snow.  If he is wrong and we get hit with more snow, this Marian Hossa doll can be turned into a Jeff Verszyla doll with a few strokes of a Sharpie.

4.  Today Mike Woycheck and I visited Children’s Hospital for a meeting and that means I’ll have an update on Make Room for Kids for you later tonight. It is so exciting what we’re going to do over there with the $14,000 you donated. I think you’ll love it, and if you don’t, I can glue some curly hair and some do me boots on this doll and you can just go nuts on it.

5.  Reader Charles sent me this from Overhead Everywhere:

I’m not saying it was me that said that.  I’m saying I might have to try to take a pigeon down by swinging a cheese wheel because that sounds pretty freaking awesome.

6.  Pitt footballer Elijah Wood Fields (IT’S BEEN A LONG DAY!) was kicked off the team for posting a video on Twitter of him partying with girls and drinking alcohol, because NO ONE in college parties with girls and drinks alcohol.

Here’s a picture he posted on his twitter account, which has since been taken down, but his twitpic account is still up and public:

What is that?  Like $50,000?

When I was a senior in college, the most mad money I ever had on my person at any one time was maybe ten dollars and some ramen noodles.

(h/t Mondesi’s House)

7.  If you haven’t yet read my “Respect the Parking Chair” post over at the Pittsburgh Magazine blog, check it out here.  I’m one of those people that believes in the winter-time parking chair.  Monday, a new post will be up about how scared I am when I have to drive in snow and ice. But I have a good reason for being that way!  And that reason is that I’m a wuss.  My March column is also up and it gives credit to Pittsburgh for helping to save the children of BRESMA.

8.  I have a massive headache and the reason that I have a massive headache is because I drove from my house to the hospital in Lawrenceville to Oakland and then back to the hospital to return Mike to his car after our lunch.  Driving doesn’t give me a headache, but Burghers, playing DON’T GET EATEN BY THE POTHOLES will.

You know how like in a disaster movie there will be a scene where two people are in a car fleeing, perhaps from a meteor storm or perhaps from lava bombs raining down from a nearby erupting volcano or perhaps from cows being flung from an approaching tornado, and the driver of the car will be turning the steering wheel hard left then right then left trying to avoid certain death and the passenger is screaming things like, “LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, COW!, LEFT?”

Yeah, that was pretty much how it was driving the streets of Pittsburgh today.

But it’s okay.  When I got home I took it out on my Marian Hossa doll.

If you haven’t yet let the politicians hear your voice in support of Jamie and Ali and the remaining children of BRESMA, please do so.  It just take a few minutes of your time. Click here to read that post. I’ll be sure to update as I hear any developments.  I do know the children are very sick, some much more so than others.  For some, time really is of the essence because if they don’t get help soon, they will die.

…………………………

(Luke Ravenstahl, yelling at the media for asking where he was for 22 hours)

Let’s talk about life and death some more because it’s winter, it’s cold, it’s gray and it’s dreary. It fits.

During that which we now respectfully call Snowmageddon, after 10 calls in 30 hours to 911, each more frantic than the last, a 50-year-old Hazelwood man,  Curtis Mitchell, died in his home because the paramedics could not reach him due to untreated, snow- and ice-covered streets.

Ambulances were dispatched three times on Saturday, Feb. 6, to the couple’s home in the 5100 block of narrow Chaplain Way, but couldn’t get there because of the snow. Paramedics twice asked whether Mr. Mitchell could walk to an intersection, even after he told them that he could not because he was in too much pain.

Emergency vehicles were within blocks of his home three times — once so close Ms. Edge could see the ambulance lights from her porch — but did not make contact with him. They finally reached the home on Sunday morning, Feb. 7, but Mr. Mitchell was already dead.

“If he wants a ride to the hospital, he is just going to have to come down to the truck,” a medic told the dispatcher. Mr. Mitchell said he would try to walk to the truck, but later told them he couldn’t make it across the bridge.

When it comes to emergency personnel, whether they be police officers, firemen and women, or paramedics, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when their actions are called into question.  I don’t know the kind of pressure they’re under, the fear they have, the mortality they stare in the face every day and how that affects their on-the-job decisions.

However, in this case, I simply asked myself a question.  If Curtis was any of these paramedic’s father, would he have died?

If they got a few blocks from the home of their father who was in need of medical care in order to save his life, would they have left? Would they have called their father and said, “Dad, you need to come to me. I’m not coming to you?”

I know if it was my father, I’d have found a way.  I wouldn’t have asked him to walk to me.  I’d have reached him, put him on a sled and dragged him through the snow for a few blocks back to that ambulance. I’d never, ever, ever have driven away from him to let him die.

Some might say, “Well, how was the paramedic to know just how severe and life-threatening his illness was?”  I don’t believe that’s for the paramedics to decide in this instance.  They’re emergency responders.  They have to approach each case as a valid emergency because if they don’t, things like this happen.  I know if my thinking on this is erroneous, that those of you in this field of work can correct me, and believe me, I’m open to that.  I’m trying to be fair.

So, while we’re pointing fingers here, we can point fingers at the paramedics, but we must also point a few other fingers where they absolutely should go.

Finger pointed at the Mayor for not doing what he said he would do, which was overhaul the snow-removal system two years ago and would overhaul the 911 system, as well.

Finger pointed at whoever the Mayor delegated that task.

Finger pointed at whoever is the boss-man in charge of snow removal.

Finger pointed at the call center for the way they handled each of the ten calls.  As separate instances of pleas for help, instead of as one man begging for help ten times. Perhaps if that wasn’t the case, the paramedics would have tried harder.

You know what? I hate to do this because I have such a reputation for picking on the mayor, but I’m sorry.  If you don’t want me to pick your nits, don’t paint a glow-in-the-dark fluorescent target on your bum, Luke. An additional finger is pointed at the Mayor for saying this very awesome, I’m on my horse and I’m in charge, WE GOT THIS kind of soundbite he gave to the media on Feb. 8, the day after Curtis died:

“No matter where you’re at in the city, no matter what your street may look like, if you have an emergency, we will be able to get to it,” he said.

Oh, look!  BULLS EYE!

Hey, you guys, if I should meet an untimely end, you know where to start, right? I don’t want to name names, but it rhymes with LEAD ZORD DROBER.