That's Church

The very idea of ghosts gives me heebie jeebies that would freak out an actual ghost.

That was a weird sentence.

Maybe I should say, “The very idea of ghosts gives my heebie jeebies the heebie jeebies.”

The very idea of ghosts gives me heebie jeebies that would give a penguin the chills.

You get the picture and that picture is this: [shudder]

The worst part is that I’m very good at scaring myself. I’ll walk into my basement and say to myself, “What if the Blair Witch is down here?”

Or I’ll be sitting in my living room alone and say to myself, “What if a little girl ghost walks in here all, ‘ MIIIIIIILK?’”

Or I’ll see an old paintbrush on a shelf in the basement and I’ll say to myself, “Wouldn’t it be weird if I came down here tomorrow and that paintbrush was on the ground?”

If I ever find that old paintbrush on the ground, I will run screaming all the way to Ireland.

There’s a big old house for sale in my neighborhood and the rumored reason that it is for sale so often is because it is haunted. When I told my husband this, he asked, “Ooooh. How much do they want for it?” And I said, “One hundred billion dollars. We can’t afford it. Bummer.”

If you love being scared and you love the idea of ghosts or just plan to visit the ScareHouse this year, this is the giveaway for you!

What: Two tickets to the ScareHouse’s Meet the Ghost Hunters event.

Meet the stars from two of the county’s top-rated paranormal TV shows: Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International.  Steve Gonsalves, Dave Tango, Kris Williams and Amy Bruni will be meeting fans, signing autographs, and posing for photos during two VIP events.   Only a limited number of tickets will be sold for each 2-hour, private event at Olive Or Twist.

Your ticket includes:

• Socializing with Steve, Tango, Kris, and Amy
• Two hours of hot hors d’oeuvres and delicious desserts
• Free soft drinks (cash bar available)
• One RIP admission to The ScareHouse good for any night of operation on or before 10/30/11. This is a $30 value!

This is video from last year’s event:

When: Saturday, October 1st. The winner will choose between the 1-3 p.m. event or the 4-6 p.m. event.

Value: The tickets sell for $80 each and the RIP ticket is worth $30, therefore this giveaway is valued at $220!

If you don’t win: You can buy tickets here! $80 gets you the meet and greet, food, and an RIP admission to the ScareHouse. The event sells out every year.

To Enter: Leave a comment! One comment per valid email address. You have until Thursday at noon to enter at which time Random.org will select the winning comment number. If your comment goes to spam, scream your head off and run all the way to Ireland.

Don’t do that. Relax. I’ll periodically pull them from spam.

So you have something to say, tell me what the most fun you ever had being scared was.

For me, it was probably the time I was 13 or so and I watched Tremors for the first time with my best friend in her dark bedroom late one night. We screamed our guts out.

Graboids are scary shit.

P.S. I hope Tango’s real name is Tango and I hope he has a brother named Bravo and a sister named Delta.

Fareal sounds like the first name of the guy in India who calls himself John and who helps you fix your computer issue.

1. If you want to know what fareal really is, just click here to be buzzed over to my latest post at Pittsburgh Magazine where I pick apart the twitter accounts of ten current Steelers from Hines Ward to William Gay.

Yes, William Gay is still a Steeler and still, this is honestly the only word that I think of when I see his profile picture, poppin’.

Did I use that right?

Man, I need more street cred. Where can I get some of that? Wexford?

A snippet:

Where else can 9 million people read that Kim Kardashian has psoriasis in the shape of a heart? Or that she is going to the spa or the gym or the spa and the gym?

Or how about this nugget of wisdom from Kim? “Have u ever thought someone was kinda cool, liked their vibe then saw their tweets and realized they are so lame? LOL.”

[blink]

No, Kim, I have no idea what that’s like. [unfollow]

2. I was asked to write the back page for the latest Pittsburgh Magazine City Guide and you can read that here. It’s about how I might not actually know everything I think I do about our fair city. A snippet:

Priding myself as the Supreme Knower of All Things Pittsburgh (ooh, I like that better. That’s what my business card should say), I said that she must mean the “Vatican Splendors” exhibit, which ended long ago. I assured her there was no bible museum in Pittsburgh—or my name wasn’t PittGirl, Most Royal High Supreme Knower of All Things Pittsburgh (even better!).

[runs to check the current business card promotions at Zazzle.com]

I know we’ve had our problems in the past.

Snowmageddon-gate.

New Orleans-gate.

Seven Springs-gate.

Toby Keith-gate.

Tiger Woods-gate.

Steelers parade-gate.

Trashcan-gate.

Pat Ford-gate.

Snoop-gate.

Tuition-tax-gate.

Ron Burkle-gate.

OMG. Dude, you have so many gates you could build a fence around the moon. Stop that.

Despite our past issues, I want you to know that on this day, I would write a sonnet about you. An ode on an urn. I’d haiku you. I’d hug you. I’d paint your portrait and hang it over my mantle. I’d blingee you.

Wait. I’m going to blingee you.

Here:

Too much?

As a downtown restaurant owner, I don’t need to tell you, Hizzoner, that it’s already hard enough to fill a restaurant for dinner when the city essentially becomes a ghost town after six. One saving grace was that after 6:00, our patrons could find a free meter and therefore eating downtown didn’t have to mean shelling out additional money for parking.

With the new 10:00 p.m. enforcement, you have taken that ghost town and turned it into a zombie town. You’ve made it even harder to convince people that downtown is a viable option for dinner. You’ve put up a “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE” sign with a sign underneath that says, “TRY THE SUBURBS. THEY HAVE FREE PARKING THERE.”

On my bitchy days, I’d say you have put up a sign that says, “Trespassers after 6:00 p.m. will be shot on sight.”

That’s a bit much.

But the blingee is not too much because of this:

In a move likely to score points with motorists, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl on Thursday suggested dropping the expanded parking enforcement hours that took effect June 1 as an indirect part of city council’s pension bailout.

I’m going to hug you. Wait. No, I’ll blingee you again.

The dancing cats might be a bit much.  Plus, they’re not in sync. I’d buzz them if this was America’s Got Talent.

Look, if downtown was already vibrant after 6:00 p.m., I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at the meter enforcement extension. But you’ve got to FIRST get Burghers used to downtown after 6:00 p.m. before you start punishing them for being downtown after 6:00 p.m.  And you can’t make the comparison to other cities who enforce meters that late into the night. Those cities aren’t zombie-towns as soon as night falls.

I am just so damned tired of hearing city council and you go on about WE NEED MORE REVENUE. WE NEED MORE TAXES. WE NEED MORE REVENUE. MONEY MONEY MONEY. NOM NOM NOM. And rarely, oh, so rarely, do I ever hear, “WE NEED TO CUT EXPENSES. WE NEED TO TRIM THE FAT. WE NEED TO GO DEPARTMENT BY DEPARTMENT AND SEE WHERE WE CAN SAVE.”

I once temped in a city office for a few weeks and I can tell you for a fact that there was GROSS WASTE. Despite being a college student with plenty of skills and smarts that could have been put to use, I was only hired to sit at a desk and read my books every day from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. because the department needed to spend some money at the end of the fiscal year so their budget didn’t get cut. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the skills to do anything for them, they just didn’t have anything for me to do. Other Burghers have told me similar stories. That’s ridiculous. That’s like spending a quarter of a million dollars for 250 trashcans with your name on them.

Oh. Wait.

Anyway.

Lukey, if you somehow manage to get the downtown 10:00 p.m. meter enforcement rescinded, you are going to gain lots of points with lots of Burghers. As for me, I may not become your number one fan, but I sure as hell will blingee the shit out of you.

Yours,

Me.

Update: I forgot I wanted to include in this post that if you’re interested in joining the Race/Walk, you can register at the event on Saturday morning. Following the race/walk, there is family fun to be had at Irwin Park with tons of booths set up with games, auctions, live music, activities, concessions, prizes and more! My kids had a blast last year.

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As I mentioned earlier today before my site went down on account of me not renewing my domain name on account of WHY DOES MY BUTLER TRUST ME WITH STUFF LIKE THAT?

Gawd.

I should finish my thought. As I mentioned earlier today, we reached our goal of $2,000 raised for Genre’s Kids with Cancer Fund, surpassing it to reach $2,140.

First, thank you for donating! Thank you so much for finding it a worthy cause.

I bet you thought there was no reward. Well there is a reward. A reward to the tune of FIVE, yes FIVE pictures of the Dork That Was.

The first two are a series, so when I sell these someday to the Smithsonian, I will charge double for this peek into my late 80s years.

Click all photos for embiggens. Because Dork is better embiggened. That’s what I’ll have put on my gravestone.

This is me, my sister Tina Fey, and her friend playing beauty shop one night during a sleepover in my parents’ basement.  I THINK we are playing beauty shop.

Who has called me? Why am I shocked? Why has Tina Fey fallen asleep? Why is she wearing sunglasses at night? What are those things in her hair? Is Jen sporting a faux hawk? Does she know the rat tail doesn’t go on the side of your face but at the nape of your neck? That’s just basic Trailer 101 right there. Does she know you’re supposed to put mousse on wet hair? Do they even make those mini hairdryers anymore? Do they even make hair spray that just has the words HAIR SPRAY printed in giant ass letters anymore? Instead you have to hunt around the bottle to find out if you’re buying hairspray, spray hair gel, curl volumenizer, frizz minimizer, color booster, or pee of goat.

Clearly in this photo, I have taken the reins of the camera to document … weirdness.

Tina Fey has awoken from her slumber to find her hair in a mullet and her sunglasses stolen by my friend who needed MOAR HAIRSPRAY. Why is Jen playing the violin? She must be high. Also, that magazine? That ad on the back is for a cassette tape company. You just pick like ten cassettes of awesome music, mail them a check, and they would SEND THE CASSETTES TO YOU IN THE MAIL, WHIPPERSNAPPERS.

The freaking mail.

Anyway, worst beauty shop ever. I think they use roofies there.

Again, my sister Tina Fey who is going to PANTS ME TO HELL for sharing this picture, but whatever, I like to think of this as the first photobomb. Like the first step on the moon, only dorkier.

Once again, I look 55-years-old. Give me a B-I-N-G-O!

Next up, since I’m such a trendsetter, I thought you’d want to see my hair in a banana clip.

Let me know if you need any pointers on how to get your mullet to look as awesome as mine does in a banana clip!

Finally, this isn’t me, but is again Tina Fey, who after pantsing me to hell is going to freeze my bra and hit me so hard with a pillow I’ll poop feathers for a week. Worth it to show you this:

I’m sharing this picture because she is standing in the bedroom we shared, in front of my closet door. This is 1989. I was 15. Space and flight obsessed. Look at all that stuff!

Do you see to the left of Tina’s head that amazing artwork I made by myself? The stunning images. The poignant words.

REACH FOR THE SKY, you guys.

Reach. For the sky.

[tear]

They’re going to make a Lifetime movie about me someday. Moments in Dork: The Virginia Montanez Story.

Thanks for donating!

Notes:

1. WE REACHED OUR GOAL! Post on that coming up later!

2. The site is experiencing some “wonkiness” according to my butler. He’s keeping an eye on it. [swishes cape and runs off in dramatic fashion]

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If I publish this post and the gods of Fate hear the click of the mouse, shriek their undead shriek while prehistoric creatures fly out of their mouths, and then curse the Pirates so hard that not only do the Buccos lose every remaining game this season, but somehow the commissioner finds a way to negate previous wins resulting in the Pirates finishing 2011 with a 2-160 record, I apologize.

But last night’s game was too awesome not to talk about.

(Just as I wrote that, my site went down, as if the gods of Fate are warning me. I spit in the face of that omen.)

First, this from MLB’s Jenifer Langosch:

BAM.

Of note last night was of course Cutch’s 3-run homer, Walker tying it up in the bottom of the ninth with a solo homer, this sweet sliding catch by Xavier Paul, this saved bobble by Brandon Wood, and the most amazing catch by Andrew McCutchen.

You seriously need to watch McCutchen’s clip. I would embed that video but the MLB is a giant tight-butted content-hoarder that does not allow embedding of recent highlight videos.

You see whoever that is in left field, I’m guessing Tabata, making a valiant effort to run down the ball wherein “valiant” means “elderly turtle-like.”

You see McCutchen running at a normal speed at first, and then, like, he just clicks some switch all, ‘I guess I will now exert the full athletic ability at my disposal” and suddenly he’s running like a thoroughbred that’s been kicked in the ass with a fire poker. And then you watch them running. Tabata is all “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” while McCutchen is all [six million dollar man sounds].

“I think I can. I think I can!”

“BrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR”

“I think I can. I … just … can’t.”

“BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR [GRABS IT OUT OF THIN AIR]”

And then Pujols is PISSED and I am running around my living room high-fiving random shit and my twitter feed is blowing up:

And then there’s LaMarr Woodley right in the thick of it:

When I read that tweet, I paused in my high-fiving of my couch and I was all, “STFU, LAMARR.”

But then I calmed down and tweeted him quite nicely. I even put a smiley face on it! But that smile didn’t reach my eyes because inside I was still all STFU.

Moments later, GFJ puts an end to the game with a walk-off one-bounce-into-the-river homer.

(AP photos)

Buccos win!

So what did we learn today, Internet?

1. The gods of Fate dine on prehistoric animals and vomit them up whole when they are angry.
2. LaMarr Woodley has poor timing.
3. Andrew McCutchen might be bionic and he’s doing a terrible job of hiding it.
4. I will probably never shush a Steeler again except maybe my self-united husband Daniel Sepulveda. “Shhhh. Just sit there and let me look at you.”
5. I have never in my whole life wanted so badly to run my fingers through Garrett Jones’ hair.

Amen.