That's Church

When PennDot announced last week that the electronic message boards above the parkways that say things like “Consol Center, use Blvd. of Allies exit” or “Congestion, next FIVE HUNDRED MILES, YOU SUCKER. WHERE’S YOUR GOD NOW?” would now be telling us our estimated travel time to reach various destinations dependent upon traffic conditions, my first thought was, “Ugh.”

Ugh.

Because when those signs were first installed back in the pioneer days my pa and I were stuck in extra special traffic only to find the reason for it wasn’t an accident or rubberneckers, but rather a whole mess of cars slowing down to read the newfangled signs.

We would also notice that when the sign was broken and spitting out heiroglyphics, drivers would slow down and then immediately speed up once they passed the sign — maybe trying to decipher if Jesus was leaving them a personal message about the rapture or building a baseball field.

As a collective lot, Burghers are brakers. There is no way around this. Burghers brake for birds and geese and tunnels and three drops of precipitation and accidents on the other side of the highway.  We brake for rainbows.  Hell, I’ve seen traffic jams created just because a tow truck was parked on the side of the road not doing anything but sitting there all by its lonesome.

BRAKE! Look! A tow truck. Let’s slow down in case a dozen children jump out of the truck and run into the road. It could happen.

So when I read about the forthcoming “time to destination” messages, I figured it would just make Burghers slow down to read and do math.

Oooooooh. 75 minutes to downtown from Monroeville. Carry the 1. That makes me 23 minutes late for work. There’s a good chance I’ll need my Pistol of Traffic Justice by the time I hit Edgewood.

I don’t drive downtown during morning rush anymore, so I don’t know yet if people are slowing down to read, thus creating worse traffic, but when I finally encountered the signs on my way downtown for a lunchtime meeting and I passed under one near Edgewood that said, “Time to Downtown: 8 minutes,” I said, “Challenge. Accepted.”

Six minutes, baby.

It’s my new game.

Thanks, PennDot!

Today while walking down Forbes on my way back from taking video and pictures of a flash mob dance at the City County Building, I spotted this shirt in the window of a store and had to share it with you:

I like the Chippendale Steeler look they gave him.

Also note that Len is giving the most pissed-off-looking gun-to-the-head perfect ten ever:

Also, I must point out, no self-respecting Steeler or Steelers fan twirls a towel with this kind of hold on it.

Come on, now. That’s just Yinzer 101.

1. [insert weather whine here.]

2. Jamie Dixon, coach of the Pitt men’s basketball team, made almost $1.7 million last fiscal year, up over $300,000 from the previous year.

I’m sure there are good reasons that a good basketball coach is imperative to the health of a school’s athletic program and that somehow that athletic program turns into a lure for students or something something something. But right now my brain is rejecting all of that on account of ONE POINT SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS. BLLLLLLLLL.

It should be noted that he made a million bucks more than Chancellor Nordenberg.

BLLLLLLLLLLL.

3. PNC Bank is apparently the mystery buyer of almost a complete block of real estate along Wood Street/Fifth/Forbes corridor, likely planning a new skyscraper for that plot, rumored to become their new headquarters.

And here I was betting it was Point Park University buying up the plots.

4. Yesterday was the primary elections and a few important things happened:

• Bob O’Connor’s son Corey, he of the desperate need of a spot of Dippity-Do, is likely to take over his father’s old council seat in November after his primary win yesterday. I’m dying to see what his relationship with Lukey will be like. As for Corey’s big issues:  “He said his first priority … will be ensuring the delivery of basic services to residents of the district. Asked to elaborate on where services need to be improved, he replied: ‘Obviously, potholes. Everyone complains about potholes.’” Ah, the War on Potholes. I thought we surrendered on the battlefield and gave our cars up to sinkhole graves.
• Doug Shields lost his his bid to become a district judge, which he gave up his city council seat to run for, leaving his political future in Pittsburgh quite uncertain. Somewhere, Lukey is celebrating all, “DIET PEPSI AND PROCLAMATIONS FOR ALL!”
• County Executive’s race is down to the Democrat County Council president Rich Fitzgerald, and the Republican Raja, who as far as I can tell, goes by one name. Raja. Madonna. Cher. Snoopy.  Raja is already advertising the cah-rap out of himself on the front page of the P-G.com.  As Randy Jackson would say, “He’s in it to win it, dawg.”

5. Kate and Peter’s Treehouse is coming along nicely now that a new location within Frick Park has been identified. In order to ensure that the resulting play space and structure is truly a community-supported effort, a series of meetings is being held to allow the public to give feedback. The first meeting already took place and included neighborhood children. Amy said it was wonderful. She’s asking for community attendance at the next meeting:

Thursday, June 2, 5:30 – 7:30pm
Frick Environmental Center, 2005 Beechwood Boulevard

Everyone is welcome at this outdoor session, where we’ll be visiting the location of the treehouse and asking everyone for their ideas. Following this activity, the project team will begin to develop design concepts.

This will lead up to a June 28 meeting when the preliminary design will be unveiled for input. All this working towards a final goal of allowing Amy to memorialize her children, something she has known she wanted to do since they died two Aprils ago.

6.  Another memorial event will be taking place this summer, as mentioned before on this site, the Lisa Clay Styles Memorial Race taking place June 25. On the site, her husband calls her, “The best damn woman I’ve ever seen.” I love that. So raw.

Lisa is the young mother who was killed by an under-the-influence driver while running with her child in a stroller in Mt. Lebanon. The race is looking for support in the form of sponsors and volunteers. Go help them!

7. The latest video in RiverLife’s “Living in a River City” animated video series is just adorable, this one a young girl named Louise’s story.

The animated flotilla is awesomesauce.

Love it!

8. This damn rain is making me use words like awesomesauce.

If I say bombdiggity, someone just bitchslap it out of me.

9. Pittsburgh’s Spanish immersion preschool La Escuelita Arcoiris is holding what sounds like a ridiculously fun event this weekend called Salsita! at the Opera featuring “tapas, sangria, y baile,” which my incredible Spanish skills translate for you to “tapas, sangria, and DANCE YOUR PANTALONES OFF.”

If I had known about this school before my kids were too old for it, it wouldn’t have taken my son until he was eight to learn how to roll his Rs.

Unfortunately now that he’s learned how to do it, he doesn’t just say, “Arrrrrrrrrrriba!” he says, “Carrrrrrrrrrrrrrots,” and “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrandma!” and to his sister, “Dorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk!”

Then I get to say, “You’re grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrounded! Arrrrrrrrrrrrriba!”

10. Sidney Crosby and Jordan Staal are living the high-life in Cannes, France for the film festival, taking in screenings and enjoying after-parties on yachts.

I’d like to live the high-life one day, but knowing what a giant dork I am, I’d probably just fall off and belly-flop so hard my nose and ears would bleed.

I’m the bombdiggity like that.

[throws signs]

… and a succubus hits Satan in the face with a snowball.

The Stroll In bar in Kennedy Township that was discounting their beer each time the Pirates lost became the subject of a boycott by two Pirates employees and their friends and/or families.

The sign said, “When the Pirates lose, you win,” and that didn’t sit right with a Pirate employee Angela Criscella who made the poor decision along with another employee to use her Pirates.com email addy to write an email to suggest a boycott of the place because it wasn’t supporting the home team. Reportedly they sent it to “family and friends.”

The Pirates issued a statement saying they weren’t aware of the employee boycott, but that they couldn’t fault their employees for choosing to not patronize an establishment that they viewed was rooting against the team.

The bar owner says she didn’t mean it as rooting against the team, but more as a consolation prize.

The bar owner contacted the Pirates after hearing about the boycott and asked them to explain their stance on the issue.

Pirates spokesman Brian Warecki said the team was unaware the employees were urging a boycott, but he said they are “free to share with their friends their feelings about an establishment that would root against its home team.”

Frank Coonelly himself called the bar owner and, according to Deadspin, “Of course, the Pirates being the secretly rich pricks that they are, team president Frank Coonelly called the bar’s owner to say he wasn’t calling off the boycott.”

So you’ve got Deadspin frothing at the mouth and that makes fans who only read Deadspin’s take on this frothing at the mouth.  There’s lots of blog posts and twitter posts out there basically all, “FRANK COONELLY ORGANIZED A BOYCOTT!” You’ve got the bar owner initially believing the Pirates are behind the boycott, rather than it just being two employees who took it upon themselves.

The actual statement from the Pirates:

The bar owner Estelle Aversa asked through our customer service email that someone contact her to explain our position on the issue. As the President of the club, Frank wanted to reach out directly to her to make clear to her that the Pirates were in no way, shape or form behind any boycott of her establishment. He explained that your media inquiry was the first the organization heard of the promotional idea or that two of our employees sent personal emails to their friends and family on the topic. While the use of a company email account was regrettable in this case, he also discussed the fact that our employees, like everyone else, are free to decide the establishments to which they wish to give their business and free to share those feelings with their personal contacts.

Again, the most important thing to make clear is that Pirates organization was in no way, shape or form actively behind or supporting the email push to boycott the establishment.

Yuengling is a valued partner with the Pirates and we are well aware that they were not behind the idea of the promotion that would be perceived by some as rooting against the home town team.  I think it is important to also point out that the employees involved were reminded of our policy that the use of company email for personal matters such as this is against company policy. That is in place for situations like this when the actions of an employee can be misrepresented as representing the Pirates organization as whole.

My opinion:

1. I agree the promotion was harmless and all in good fun; I can also see how sensitive Pirates employees could view it as rooting for the team to lose.

2. Those screaming about it being “executives,” please take a look at the Pirates front office staff listing and without using your search function, find Angela on the list. Yeah, she’s a group sales account executive.  One of ten. One of thirty in the entire organization with that title. She’s not an executive meaning CAPITAL E executive. She’s an account executive. Not even a senior one at that.

3. It wasn’t the brightest thing to do and yeah, definitely a bit oversensitive, but this being America the two Pirates’ employees had a right to ask their family and friends to boycott the place, but they never should have done it using their Pirates email addresses because that gets the Pirates organization involved.

The same way that Rashard tweeting very questionable opinions from a verified account ended up getting the Steelers involved. Just because you have the RIGHT to say something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD. I have knowledge of this; I was fired for blogging, remember? I had a right to do it; I lived with the repercussions. I still am living with them, but that’s another blog post.

4. What would Deadspin and those of you who are freaking out at the Pirates like Frank Coonelly to do? Call the owner and say, “I apologize. I will tell my employees and their friends and families that they are not permitted to NOT eat at your establishment?” He can’t do that. All he can say is, “This isn’t coming from the Pirates organization. This is employees doing what they have the right to do and there’s not a whole lot I can do about it except fire them and then get the free speech people all over my ass and I’ll just have to hire them back like I did that pierogie dude who insulted us on his private facebook page. The most I can do is reprimand them for using their professional email account to conduct private matters.”

5. All fault for this becoming news lies with the two employees who apparently are very sensitive to the Pirates being the butt of jokes, not the Pirates organization.

Now, I’m very curious to hear your thoughts because I can’t seem to find anyone who has taken my view on this. I’m asking you to show me the error of my thinking here, because I feel like I’m missing something. Like maybe I should instead be writing a frothing-at-the-mouth rant to Frank Coonelly all “BALLS ON A STICK.”

Discuss.

Either way, [high-five] to the Stroll Inn for all this free publicity!

This is a loaded screencap right here.

This wetter-than-normal weather is going to “stay wet.”

Not only is it going to stay wet, it is going to “get worse.”

It has been raining since February, so I assume “get worse” means I should start writing some awesome ark jokes like “OMG, I LOST ONE OF THE DINGOES!”, but I’m not clicking on the link because what if I do and “get worse” means “summer is hereby canceled?”

And why do they have the May precipitation chart going all the way back to 18freaking37. Is this “get worse” weather going to be so historically bad that they need to go that far back to find the last time that much rain fell in May in Pittsburgh?

Yeah, I’m whining. But I can’t help it. One sunny day out of the week is three sunny days too few for May.

I mean, sure there’s a bright side. My grass is super freaking green. My sidewalks are super freaking clean. No sense in washing my car when I have nature’s car wash showering it down five freaking times a week. It’s not snow. Any weak spots in the roof become super freaking evident. I haven’t had to scoop poop. I … I …

Ah, hell. I’m going to click the link.

[click]

It’s raining, it’s pouring, and it’s never going to end.

At least not until July.

[blink]

[blink]

[blinkblinkblink]

[BLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL]

OMG, YOU GUYS, I LOST ONE OF THE DINGOES! WATCH YOUR BABIES!