G20? I thought this was an arts and crafts convention?

- I really can't stand Old Navy commercials.






- As much as I enjoyed the book Where the Wild Things Are as a kid, I find the movie previews to be a bit creepy. Probably because the Wild Things remind me of gremlins - I had to post a pic of Gizmo, not of a scary gremlin, I can't bring myself to do it. They still give me the heeby-geebies.

-For the past two seasons I lost touch with Grey's Anatomy. I caught an episode here and there, enough to at least know the basics of what was going on - Izzy with cancer, Torres swinging her door the other way, McSteamy and Little Grey bow-chica-wow wowww... yada yada. Anyhow I ended up watching the season finale, almost on accident.


Wow. Amazing. I cried, I am not a crier, but I cried...by myself. What a finale. We all gushed over it all summer so I won't ramble on about it too much. But, I was wondering last night while watching the season premiere, how will they top it? How will they be able to come up with a better story line than that? I hate seeing characters killed off of shows and sometimes it ends up killing the show - R.I.P Marissa and the O.C.



I thought the premiere was pretty solid. It touched on a lot of emotions which reminded me that sometimes TV shows can be therapeutic. They can be more than just a brainless stimulant to pass the time. Some people think that television is what is decaying our minds into a pile of mush where we have no opinions of our own but rather are simply repeating what we hear.



Eh. Yes, I think television amongst the other mediums carry that potential but sometimes it is in the eye of the beholder. Is it not our responsibility to feel on our own? To watch, listen, learn on our own and form our own thoughts and opinions based on what we hear and see? Is it not our own fault if we decided to remain intelectually numb and decide to take the easy route of plagarizing somebody elses thoughts and opinions rather than forming our own? Huh....



Nonetheless, during the entire 2 hour premiere, I am pretty sure that by about the fourth time it went to commercial break I was more than ready to throw my Grandpa's very new, very nice TV out his very large bay window. Could they be any more repetitive? So, is it the shows or the commercials making us so thoughtless? I cringed everytime I saw those stupid Old Navy manicans chatting by the baggage claim. To top it off, once the one found her legs, they were wearing Uggs. Ugghhhhh. Not a fan. Not a fan one bit.


- I thought the G20 was 50 cents way of proclaiming a G-unit upgrade and he was coming to Pittsburgh to tell us about it.



Go, Go, Go Pittsburgh, it's your birthday. We gonna party like it's your birthday.

Or, maybe the G20 is an arts and crafts convention? Sign painting 1-0-1.

You decide.

It's been awhile. . .

It's been a few months since the last post so bear with me while I gather myself and get back to feeling the flow of the keyboard through my fingertips...

- I mean no disrespect when I say this but clearly Michael Jackson has decided to moonwalk his way to the grave. Or at least people have decided that for him. The news reported this morning that they are finally burying him today. Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me they have not buried that (man) yet? You mean to tell me that Ted Kennedy died two month after him and was buried almost a week before him? He died almost three, yes THREE, months ago (June 25). Is that even relatively humane to hold a body from its burial for that amount of time? It sounds a bit ignorant but I am pretty tired of hearing about the "King of Pop." He had a bit of a controversial and questionable life, but let the man Rest In Peace before California decides to tax its residents for his above ground presence. I mean, they did tax them $3.5 million for his dag-on funeral. What kind of bill will the state smack them with for his burial? I guess Cali decided to say W.S.U. (We'll Show You) by changing their I.O.U.'s to U.O.U.'s (You Owe Us).

Speaking of being tired of hearing about someone...actually I'm not even going to waste yours or my time saying anything about Brett Favre, so never mind.

I'll at least do him the favor of posting a pic of #4 during his prime.


- OK, I want to know who decided to deem swear-words as inappropriate? I understand the purpose of them - it's a strong oath. If you swear, it means you feel very strongly about what you are talking about. But, whoever said that that was a bad thing? That by tagging that curse word in a sentence, you are speaking foully? That if, at the age of five, you chant an explicative aloud during recess for every other five year old to hear, you get sent home for the day only to have a bar of soap stuck in your mouth? Isn't it just freedom of speech? Of expressing oneself and how we feel about something? I bet the same person that decided we needed two forks for dinner and have to use the small one for your salad is the same person that decided to proclaim curse words big fat no-no's.

- Our judicial system is a mess. There is absolutely no means of justifying the fact that convicted kidnapper, rapist and registered sex offender Phillip Garrido was released from prison after serving 11 of his 50 year sentence, only to kidnap and rape again, father two children, and hide it for 18 years. I have no desire to go into further discussion on this topic. It's disgusting.

- On a much happier note, tonight is the Steelers last preseason game! It's also the least week of final cuts. The roster will be trimmed from 75 to a healthy 53. Despite a handful of promising rookies, let's hope Tomlin and Co. don't pull a Leyland '92 theory of 'out with the old and in with the new'. We all see how far that got our Bucco's. Ha.

- And in local news, somebody set fire to a jungle gym at the Cliffside park in the Hill District. Really? Do people not have anything else better to do with their time? Awesome, way to go buddy.

- One last thought: the air is getting a bit cooler, especially at night. Which means (as the chipper barista at Starbucks pointed out to my excitement) scarves will become appropriate to wear again, hot apple cider will become a popular drink of choice, and amongst other things, the leaves will begin to change. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the fact that football season will be in full swing. Despite the fact that I much more prefer the warmth, I still really enjoy the changing of the seasons, especially the transition from summer to fall and then winter to spring.

I'm excited.

Cowher Power has gone Sour

When Detroit and Pittsburgh faced off in the battle for Lord Stanley last season, Jerome Bettis remained neutral on which team he would cheer for. A native of Detroit, Michigan, but a legend in Pittsburgh, he made the right choice not to pick a side.


Bill Cowher was born in Crafton, Pennsylvania. He coached the Pittsburgh Steelers for 15 consecutive seasons with an overall win-loss record of 161-99-1. He led the Steelers to two AFC Championships ('95, '05), and brought home that one for the thumb in 2005 with the Super Bowl XL victory. With a pretty solid reputation established in the city of Pittsburgh, Cowher retired from coaching after the Super Bowl win. He then decided to reside in Raleigh, North Carolina where he has been living since - a whopping four years.


Fine.


But when he was shown on national television sounding the "hurricane horn" with Carolina's mascot by his side cheering him on before the start of Game 4 in the Eastern conference finals, it hit a big nerve. Despite the fact that the hoaky horn was silenced for the season quickly when the Penguins swept the Hurricanes, Cowher disgraced himself. Decked out in red - literally head to toe when his face turned the color of a tomato as he began cranking the arm to sound the horn, with his chin still sticking out farther than his nose and a grin stretched across his face, watching him actually, publicly, cheer for his "hometown" , or more like "current residence" was more annoying than Subway's Five Dollar Foot Long commercial, or Detroit's octopus tossing antics.





Now, living in Raleigh, if he wants to be a stickler for fitting in with the crowd and cheer for the sports team of the city he is living in, fine. Especially because being a Pittsburgh sports fan is very much a love-hate, hit-or-miss situation for the most part when dappling in other sports markets. If Cowher felt the need to embrace the pride of the only professional sports team of his residency, whatever. But I would prefer he do it in the comfort of his home. Not to the tune of some 19,000 hockey fans. Not to mention the millions of people watching the game on television.
Get your priorities straight Cowher.

April showers bring May...showers?

~ I decided this morning as I stepped out my front door into a dismal and gloom-filled rainy day, that I hate umbrellas. I have to walk a solid 6 steps, 5 if I stride, to get to my car. Now, despite the torrential downpour of water that was bucketing itself onto my head for that quick jaunt, I had absolutely no desire to get out my handy-dandy, fit-in-your-purse-when-dry, umbrella. What's the point? I thought to myself. There is so much effort taking it out - as if my hands are not already full, leaning awkwardly out the door to try and open it properly... (because heaven forbid I bestow upon myself bad luck for doing it the easy way and just opening it up inside the house) ...so that I can swoop out the door without even feeling as much as a mist on me. Then, when I get to the car, I have to manuever my armful of items and jockey them into one arm in order to open the car door. Followed by yet another very awkward lean and plump into the drivers seat like I am some sort of beached whale. but wait, the saga isn't over yet. I still have to close the drabby thing, shake it off a little bit, bring it inside the car, close the door and put it somewhere approriate without getting myself and all my things wet either. Did I mention I have to try and find a home for my coffee, purse, planner, lunch and jacket as well?

Now, my simple solution was to simply not bring an umbrella with me today. I grabbed a jacket with a hood, plopped it on my head so that I did not have to worry about carrying it, giving me more handsfree opportunities, and also giving my protection from good ol' Mother Nature. So there you have it - my anti-umbrella, simply solutions rant. Or maybe I am casting my annoyance onto the wrong item. Maybe it's not the umbrella that I hate more so is the rain in the morning when I am trying to get to work still looking have kempt. It's a difficult task for me to do on a sunny day, let alone.

~ While we are on the subject of nuisances, I am not a fan of automatic toilet flushers. I won't go into details because frankly talking about toilets in any capacity seems inappropriate and gross to me and doubt that you want to read much about it. But I think they are the laziest, most ineffecient "invention" of our time - next to those dorky handsfree bluetooth things for your phone that make people look like they are walking around talking to themselves. ...Or even worse, you think they are saying something to you and you go to respond and it turns out they are talking on the phone via a little plastic thing hooked onto their ear. Cell phone techies have a sense of humor.

If you're happy and you know it...

1. I like Easter. I enjoy all holidays in general. But, this Easter was a little more special. The entire forty days and forty nights of Lent were accompanied by a theme song. One that rings true every morning when my alarm on my phone starts singing. McDonalds birthed to the world the "filet-o-fish-on-the-wall-song," and I swear since the first time I heard it my days have been a little happier. I am disappointed that the Lenten season has now officially come to an end - Orthodox Easter included, because that commercial will be forever put on hold, hopefully replayed again next year. Thank goodness for YouTube so that I can watch it anytime I want.

2. John Madden's last broadcast was of the Steelers' winning their record sixth Super Bowl championship. And so after 30 years of bantering and somehow sneaking in snippets of inappropriate and rigidy biases about what Pittsburgh was doing wrong, Madden is calling it quits. THANK GOD. Listening to him talk was like fingernails on a chalkboard - downright irritating, so irritating you cringe. We can't help it he is bitter that we beat him out of an AFC Championship back in his coaching days with the Oakland Raiders, not once but twice in the 1970's - one of which was the game with the play heard 'round the world - or better known as the "Immaculate Reception."





3. The way I see it, I am 22 years old according to society; however, in my mind it makes more sense to believe that I am 23. Why? Glad you asked. Because when you are born you have entered your first year of life. Once it is complete you celebrate your first birthday for the conclusion of one full year of life and the anticipation of what's to come in the second. So technically after your first birthday you are done with being one, you've lived that one year of life already. So, you are now in your second year of life, thus you are two. So, all you 15 year olds out there, in my mind you're eligible for that drivers permit, and you 17teeners, go cast your vote, or at least register to be able to, and dare I say you 20-year-old mongrels, go test your luck at a bar and try and enjoy your first brewski, because you're really 21.

4. Will Ferrell really is the songbird of our generation. I always thought of him as a decent singer when he sang his ode to Blue (and Kansas at that) in Old School. But he followed up his debut performance a few years later when he tested the waters a bit more in Step Brothers. He attested that his voice trully is "like a combination of Fergie and Jesus."


6. I do not think I will ever fully understand the Geico commercials with the stack of money and the eyeballs. But I do really like the song in it. In case you're wondering - and I know you are - it's called "somebodies watching me" by Mysto and Pizzi.

Alright so there's just a few things to ponder, listen, sing, watch, enjoy for the time being. Until then...