Congratulations to this year’s #PGH shorty awards, including second place Linsday of I heart Pittsburgh! Also up there, Sally Wiggin’s Hair and Ginny from That’s Church.
Congratulations to everyone, and thanks to Lindsay and I heart Pittsburgh for spearheading the push for a Pittsburgh category!
Mario has made a statement in response to the Islanders game shitshow. Here is a small portion:
“Hockey is a tough, physical game, and it always should be. But what happened Friday night on Long Island wasn’t hockey. It was a travesty. It was painful to watch the game I love turn into a sideshow like that.
“The NHL had a chance to send a clear and strong message that those kinds of actions are unacceptable and embarrassing to the sport. It failed.
From what I just saw, “Mario Lemieux” is trending worldwide on twitter, which is pretty awesome, so this is getting lots of coverage.
Bylsma will not be suspended, although, with enough of the team gone, this graphic by The Pensblog is still fitting (and awesome):
There will be a rally on Tuesday, beginning at 4 p.m. at the County Courthouse (Grant and Forbes, downtown). The evening will continue with the 5 p.m. county council meeting. Everyone is welcome to attend.
There should be an e-mail list going up over at the Transit Union’s website, but right now, it’s a bit of a mess, I’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, and additionally, everyone is encouraged to contact their elected official:
State Rep. Frank Dermody (724) 274-4770
State Rep. Joe Markosek (412) 856-8284
State Senator Jay Costa (412) 241-6690
State Senator James Brewster (412) 380-2242
County Council Member Rich Fitzgerald (412) 350-6575
Governor Corbett (717) 787-2500
Please remember these cuts will affect all of us: roadways will be much more congested (drivers on the Parkway East and Route 28, good luck), parking will be harder to find downtown and jobs will be lost with the closing of the Harmar Garage, which Port Authority has mentioned once and kept silent about.
I wrote a few weeks ago about the awesome Pittsburgh app creator that made iBurgh, which has helped make my commute safer. Today, I’d like to highlight an app creator that has added a cool fun way for businesses to interact with customers.
Levlr is based in East Liberty and crated the Levlr platform, which allows brands to interact with their customers and fans. Their highlight application is Beerby (rhymes with Near by), and allows users to track and find beer.
Bars and restaurants are able to put their beers lists in the system (or patrons can add drinks and tag their locations as they drink), and players log their drinks and earn achievements, known as Badgers.
I’ve linked up with a couple friends, and it’s an easy way to discover new craft and micro brews by seeing what they’ve recently drank. I”m not going to lie, it’s always a fun rush to see your name at the top of the list of a beer. I don’t have an xBox, so these are the only Achievements I can really work on!
The folks at Levlr are also really awesome, always adding special new Badgers, setting up meet ups around Pittsburgh and being amazing advocates for breweries large and small.
Beerby is available for both iPhone and Android, and the Levlr platform is in testing, but if you’d like your company to get involved with it, make sure to check it out!
After this week’s tornado that ripped through Hempfield Township, a lot of local media has been running donation drives to support the Red Cross.
Not to nit-pick (but I will): you’re mispronouncing it.
The Red Cross chapter is the Westmoreland-Chestnut Ridge Chapter. Not Chester. Chestnut Ridge. I cringe every time I hear it said wrong.
I know Westmoreland County isn’t as glamorous as Allegheny, or as “interesting” as Fayette, but here’s a short history lesson. The Chestnut Ridge is an area of the Laurel Highlands, named after the American Chestnut trees that once grew there. When the Saint Vincent Basilica was built, the wood used was American Chestnut. After the building of the Basilica, a blight hit the tree species, and very few remain today in mature form, and the species is still in danger of extinction. This makes the Saint Vincent Basilica pretty much priceless, which is crazy to think about.
Anyway, click below to donate to the Red Cross and help the families in Westmoreland County affected by the tornado.
Wednesday brings a big decision for me (well, not really, I already RSVP’d to the one event, but I’m pretty bummed anyway). While I am heading to the North Shore to a special reception for Squonk Opera, one of my favorite columnists of all time will be at Pitt’s campus: Dan Savage. Basically, if you have ever thought about sex, you should go. Hell, even if you’ve never thought about sex, you really need to go.
Dan Savage is the internationally-syndicated sex-advice columnist from Seattle, you can read “Savage Love” every week in City Paper. He also has a weekly podcast and, along with his husband, founded the It Gets Better Project. I’m a huge fan of his work and activism (google Santorum, or don’t, if you have a weak stomach or are at work), and I usually quote him to my friends, endlessly. However, if you read nothing else by him, please read “The Commitment,” a book where he examines marriage, and every iteration of relationships by looking at his family. It’s such a good book that I pulled quote from it and wrote a toast for a wedding around it.
Anyway, enough of me gushing. Savage will be at Pitt on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, but preference is given to Pitt students (fair is fair). Hopefully, we’ll see some of the question and answer session go up to Savage’s youtube channel, if so, I’ll post a few in the future.
Have fun, I’ll be jealous from across town! Click here for the Facebook event and more information.
I don’t know how long this will be up, hopefully I can pop in with some more info later, but anyone looking for a blogger, I feel as though I’m going to be free very soon and looking for a new home online…
OMGPittsburgh is a possibility, or maybe I’ll start something myself, but how would people find me. Sigh. I love blogging here, who knows, maybe we’ll get another miracle!
A friend of mine put together this video (hopefully it will embed correctly) about the film tax credit. It comes down to the fact that if the tax credit is not in the budget, Pennsylvania, and Pittsburgh specifically, is going to lose out on a lot of jobs and revenue. Christopher Nolan has already been spotted downtown scouting out locations for the third Batman movie, but he’s gone on record saying that he won’t be able to film in Pittsburgh without the tax credit.
Please call the Governor and let him know that you support the tax credit. Pittsburgh needs a hero.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcXZa41UysE[/youtube]
You smell like a wet dog.
Not that that really matters, you’ll be covered in a blanket of snow tomorrow morning.
Still working on getting mobile uploading working, I’ve been posting a lot, but nothing is showing up, more soon.
With the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations kicking off this weekend (I have to pull out my big hat), a few items that I’ve recently learned about Pittsburgh drinkers.
First, when you go to a bar and practically empty your pockets/purse onto the bar, that’s a Pittsburgh thing. And I”m very guilty of this, I almost always have my wallet and cell phone on the bar in front of me, and typically leave them there (even if I go to the bathroom).
Also another dead giveaway that you’re from Pittsburgh: leaving a $20 bill (or some other denomination) on the bar and expecting the bartender to make change from it (and you’ll presumably pull out tips as well) as you order more rounds.
Both of the above items have tipped off bartenders in other cities that the people telling me these stories (bartenders themselves) were from Pittsburgh. Thankfully, some people are kind enough that if they see you drop dow na $20 bill for a bottle of [insert your favorite beer here], they’ll make some comment about you being a Yinzer and then make change accordingly. Asshats will take the entire $20 as payment and tip.
Be safe out there this weekend, enjoy the drinking!
