The Pittsburgh Mayoral election is over now, so we can all go back to looking for 50% off Halloween candy at Wally World.

Luke was elected, so nothing has changed, right??

Wrong!

Much has changed with Dok Harris and Kevin Acklin having run.  They captured enough of a percentage for Pittsburghers to say “we notice and want people working out of the box” loud and clear.

Now we get to see:

1. If the Mayor can gain enough respect to stop people from calling him names like Opie (SWB) and Lukey (thatschurch.com) …. along with a few others I cant print here due to WordPress’s Terms Of Service.  That will take actually associating with the common folk and not just Snoop Dogg (we actually have nothing against Snoop …. but I couldn’t think of anyone else).  I’ve actually my O’Conner and even Murphy – they both have given me the time of day at some point in my life.  I’ve never really seen Luke around except for a photo op.
2. If the Mayor can really up his game and prove to everyone that he will be good overall for Pittsburgh (don’t blow off what he has done well, but don’t forget the mistakes either).  This means following through on all of the current projects in a way that is at least acceptable and profitable for Pittsburghers.
3. If Luke can land us all free tickets to Snoop’s next Pittsburgh concert (and not lawn seats either) ….. then we’ll really know he DOES have connections.

Is this just a concern for those living in the city proper … no.

The mayor should be a concern of all that use the city services for work, shopping, dining, or play or we all end up paying for

-SWB

We are actually glad Luke is back …… we need material for the blog.

Capture from That’s Church … click it to go there.

Well, we’re a bit late on giving a shout out to Pitt Girl’s (Virginia Montanez) new site. Hopefully you’ve already found it, but if you have not, or are new to Pittsburgh – click on the picture above.

It’s great that Pitt Girl is “out” …. not in the way you think, but the fact that she no longer has the need to hide behind an identity. This gives both men and women the inspiration to do what they love – without fear (heavy kudos to Pitt Girl for this). That is what this country and city are supposed to be about.

Although SWB has created an identity, it was never to “hide” but to facilitate the possibility of multiple authors at some point. If you look around enough, you can easily identify me by looking at that other sites on my blog.

We’ve been a little slow lately (we’ll get back at some point) due to job searching, being buried under the wires of a sound systems we maintain for a church (yep, we go to church … scared now?), and of course being at Tusca every Friday night (we’re your friendly neighborhood DJ … and, no, I don’t DJ contemporary Christian music at Tusca).

So please keep on checking out thatschurch.com and us and keep giving people reasons to do what they love … not just what generates $$$$$.

-SWB

PS – Do what you love … even if it’s just venting.

That’s Church is the first recommended Pittsburgh read to be listed under SWB Recommends!

Capture from City Paper’s “Street Wise” article. Click it to go to the City Paper article.

SWB just wanted to highlight another one of the excellent articles that The Pittsburgh City Paper has been putting out lately. It’s about Dok Harris and Kevin Acklin going back to the basics of appealing to the actual voters personally for their votes.

Hmmmm … amazing how going back to the simple things actually works.

Now, since neither of these guys is a typical political running dude … they may actually give Luke Ravenstahl some competition – so ya might want to watch closely getting near the voting date.

-SWB

PS – What these guys are doing to get votes makes sense … which I though was made illegal about a 100 years ago in Pittsburgh.

This article was also added into Pgh Mayoral Race 2009 section of SWB.

… if you read the article from Yahoo, you’ll get where the post title came from.

Now, there seems to be a whole new wave of extortionists showing up. The latest training camps must have let out.

Along with glorifying crimes and adultery, etc …. the more and more these things happen, the more they become accepted and “normal”. Everyone will say the economy is the main basis for it, but SWB disagrees.

I think we as humans, are just losing complete respect for each other, and our relationships. We no longer seem to see value in them, unless there is the convenience of financial growth.

Have we forgot how to act towards each other as humans?

-SWB

PS – the attitude of “it’s all good” doesn’t work here.

… who?

The terminator?

The Back Street Boys?

Kanye West’s career?

Nope …. none of the above.

The leaves … those wonderful leaves we all so treasure when the seasons change?

Yep, that’s it.

Unfortunately, this year they also brought the G-20, protesters, and construction debris.

So what do we have to rake up this season?

As far as SWB can tell:

• Opie’s popcorn in the media room at Snoop Dogg’s house
• Shards of glass within the normal level of street litter in Oakland
• and rubber from the wrecks caused by PennDot construction this fall.

What does this do?

Well, it brings new people to the city (either those that experienced the city for the first time during the G-20, or just like to see it during the seasonal changes), it adds safety to our streets (less the over-turned cars trying to avoid the road workers), and gets voices heard (even if you don’t agree with them).

This brings both good and bad points. The more we become an international city, the more we have to learn. The more of a variety of people that populate Pittsburgh, the more of a chance of both the good and bad things from other countries taking root here (anything from fresh baklava to terrorism). In some way, America and Pittsburgh has always found a way to find the good in things – at least the American people do (native and adopted).

Another thing that is back and can only bring pure happiness to the masses:

You guessed it …. Zombie movies.

Zombieland starts this week (Oct 2) ….. totally brainless, and fictional zombie fun almost pulled straight from the first Dawn of The Dead eras.

See … just when you thought everything was turning negative – a Zombie movie comes out to save the day.

Two things to remember about Pittsburgh:

1. This city was pretty much international from the beginning (so deal with it)
2. Romero really introduced zombie movies to the masses from this city (so deal with that too)

-SWB

PS – Did anyone see my mascara?? I need it for the movie opening tomorrow night …. crap.

Yep, you guessed it by the pic … fall is quite quickly on it’s way. (BTW – isn’t it interesting how simple words like “quite quickly” when put together make you sound like you have some command of the English language??).
It’s time to get the leaf rake out, pull the fish and frogs out of the pond (if you do that), find your kid that fall / winter coat, and go back to supporting your local Starbucks (personally I support local companies like Crazy Mocha in Pittsburgh, but SWB realizes most are weak towards simple advertising tactics and don’t have the strength to support local biz …. but that’s another posting). It’s also time to attempt to locate and sift through years of Christmas decorations (because you probably dumped those decorations on top of your fall decorations and don’t remember which box(s) they are in).

Why to do many look towards the season change?

Simple.

We have something new to complain about …. hence:

^$%&^& heat

$^%#$^ leaves

@#%#$% snow

@#%$@ rain

… see – simple.

People think they look forward to the fall season (or spring, etc) because of things like the beauty of it, cuddles with a loved one, bringing back of childhood memories …. but no – it really is just so we can have something new to complain about, nothing more.

You know those wonderful kids that were playing outside all summer? … they will now be inside all day going “mommy Mommy MOMMYYYYYYY!!!” … or just yelling all the new obscenities they just learned at school, so we can probably at the following to our list of complaints:

%^$%^% kids

And the pets that can’t wait to get outside to do their “thing”,will now want to stay inside where it’s warm and of course, do their thing there – so we can add:

$%^%$^ dogs

#$$##$ cats

#$^%%$ fish

honey, the @%%#^ cat ate that #$%##%$ frog and two of the #$%#% fish, and my Scrooge figurine off of the train set.

So, really, why the picture of the cozy looking bench during fall in the city park?

The reality is … after you’ve made your first batch of Limoncello because you read my last article and all of the inhabitants of your household slowly move back in from the summer months ….. that’s probably where you will end up (with your bottle of Limoncello).

Well, good luck and enjoy the fall season …

… and remember to buy a house with a den that has a lockable door on it next time

-SWB

PS – That thing with the cat, the frog, and the fish …. yep …. that actually happens in my house.

Well, some good news today:

With a slight bit of issue, my Limoncello project worked out well. Unfortunately I used too much water for the simple syrup, so it freezes … but you learn for the next time.

What does this have to do with the G-20?

Absolutely nothing, except I wanted to see if the combination would get me a few international hits … or maybe a few of the visiting leaders that like Limoncello will find my blog and contract me to make it for them.

Anyway, back to some type of blog posting …

Why the cloud pic?

Two reasons:

1. If are dumb enough to quickly drink Limoncello, that’s pretty much where your head ends up for a few hours.
2. If people think the G-20 is going to yield any immediate results, that’s where their heads are too.

Am I against the G-20? No – but I am worried about how our city will be perceived by the important visitors coming to it. Will they see the city as a “war zone” due to all of the barricades, or will they start throwing treats to the residents on the other side of the fence, because the eight foot fencing makes the whole city look like the Pittsburgh Zoo?

My biggest peeve about the G-20?

The protesters, the boarded up buildings, the loss of business to the city during a time of recovery? …. Nope, none of those.

It is … the Pittsburgh Pirates … yup, the Pirates. Why?

Well, when your team basically sucks beyond belief … you don’t take up thousands of desperately needed parking spaces during a major international event for people that REALLY need them. They could have graciously just forfeited the game (because it wouldn’t have hurt their rating anyway – and they have already achieved the embarrassing milestone of the most losing seasons in professional sports history).

This could have easily helped the parking problem, and more importantly freed up necessary space for protesters, maybe easing tensions and avoiding possible issues. Oh, well … as with most decisions concerning the Pittsburgh Pirates – it was a bad one.

-SWB

PS – I noticed so many useless rants about the G-20 that I felt left out and obligated to make up one of my own. Enjoy.

For all those on the negative side of our city (the ones that whine about the big companies being gone, the steel industry being gone, etc.) you need to read the blog entry on Pittsburgh’s Future by Harold D. Miller at the following link.

The Steel City Transformed

The info in the post is also excellent for those that would like to highlight our city to the folks that are here for the G20.

-SWB

Kudos to Harold for the enlightening article!

Just a quick note for readers and people we haver referring links to … we discovered our link list widget and some other widgets were no it was longer active on our website.  We didn’t take them off, that was courtesy of WordPress.  They are now restored.

Thanks

-SWB

Q. How do you put a scar on the music industry (and probably young inner-city artists trying to make it)?

A. You let Kanye West within 5 miles of any music awards show.

If you missed his latest self – P.R. effort, Click Here for the Yahoo! article.

At this point, if Kanye says he doesn’t need some serious professional help, that’s about equivalent to a mom driver her child to daycare while sucking down a bottle of grain alcohol.

The dumbest person on earth could easily figure out that an outburst like the one Kaney did at the MTV awards against someone perceived as Taylor Swift is (the innocent, sweet country girl) is pretty much a music career killer. When you look at it, he even tainted Beyonce with dropping her name during his rant.

Beyonce, being the professional person she is, invited Taylor back on stage to complete her acceptance speech.

So, in the end …..

Clueless Award to Kanye and Kudos to Beyonce.

Now, I’m sure many of us watched all of the action during last night’s Presidential speech. If you are clueless, or if you just happened to miss it Click Here for the Yahoo!/Politico rundown.

Now, health care is a huge issue – especially government getting involved, because we’ve seen it done elsewhere with bad results. The good thing is that we’ve seen all the screw ups and can avoid those, possibly creating something viable and substantial for the American people. The biggest obstacle … idiots.

Now, I don’t 100% agree with Obama’s plan, but you have to start with something and tweak. NOTHING works perfect the first time … ever. Are there issues to overcome with this issue, yes. The biggest one being pride … the second one – fear of venting (of course the Republicans may have taken a first step in overcoming that during Obama’s speech last night).

What needs done … a flat-out b**** session between the Democrats and Republicans. Let everyone have have their say (nice or not, respectful or not), get it off their chests and move on from dealing with issues the way grade school kids do. That way all of the politicians can have their pride flattened at the same time allowing them to actually work on something for the American people and not their egos.

Holding in what you feel just feeds pride, getting it off your chest clears your mind to do better things.

But then again, who am I kidding … right?

-SWB

… a politician without pride is like non-alcoholic moonshine.

Capture from Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh’s site – click to go there.

Now … to the truly important stuff!

Yep – it’s nearing that time of the year for Oktoberfest, and according to HB’s latest ad and events listing – it’s going to be a two weekend thing. Check the link for the event details.

To help you out … here are a few tidbits of advice from someone that has grown up with brew and the cuisine:

• First, and most important – German beer is WAY more potent that American beer (no matter what the menu says) … even when brewed here. Think of a pint as equaling half a case. Chugging German brewed beer usually ends up in you meeting an ambulance that doesn’t have a tap installed in it.
• Second – Don’t lecture a true German on the finer points of Iron City beer (even though it is our hometown brew and loved by many) as they tend to consider it **** water – and may openly tell you that.
• Third – Pretzels and bier cheese, pretzels and bier cheese, pretzels and bier cheese ……
• Fourth – If you are taking the wife and kids and are planning on getting drunk enough to stare at the staff in the traditional dresses, making lewd comments in front of your family … wear a helmet and make sure your lawyer’s retainer is paid up.
• Fifth – Pretzels and bier cheese, pretzels and bier cheese, pretzels and bier cheese ……
• Sixth – You don’t hold the pint mug by the handle … you put your hand through the handle, grab the pint, and the back of your hand rests on the handle.
• Seventh – Even though HB was nice enough to produce a “light” beer for the American consumers, please refrain from talking about it – light beer is not real beer.
• Eighth – If this is the first time you are drinking German beer and usually drink light beers, your friends will get a kick out of the three shades of green you will probably turn after the first gulp. This is not a bad thing … it’s just the German beer getting the American beer toxins out of your blood stream and only lasts a few minutes.
• Nineth – Burping five times during each 16 ounces is an American tradition … try to avoid doing it in a German bier hall.
• Tenth – That number for a cab is your key to not killing someone or spending time in jail. Don’t drive if you were dumb enough to chug Dunkel.

Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh is found in SWB Recommends!

-SWB

PS – No … all of that beer in her arms is not just for you!

Quickie post here to highlight a City Paper article on modern day river and water pollution.

Click Here to read the article Something’s Fishy by Bill O’Driscoll.

The article details research work and findings from the University of Pittsburgh researcher Dan Volz on the current pollution and dangers found (endocrine disruptors) in the waters of out rivers.

This is a very informative and not all political article – so check it out.

-SWB

BTW … you’ll understand the post title once you read  the article.

The anarchists are here!!!

The anarchists are here!!!

Well, it’s actually just a band from Europe that decided to get a better view of the city from an old abandoned school building on Polish Hill. Granted, the decision was after a party held in their honor, so I’m sure the decision making process of the band members was slightly under full capacity.

Even taking that into consideration …

Andrew Stocky of the famed WTAE news, decided they were G-20 anarchists scouting out training sites.  Albeit untrue and fictional, as any professional would do – Andrew held to his story.

Thankfully the City Paper had enough sense to shed a little light on the truth as seen here.  It’s amazing that the free magazine initially seen as a Pittsburgh smut rag, is the one sporting legitimate news, and the professionals are … well … selling out.

Well, keep with the smut rags, and occasionally us bloggers (we may do things to get hits, but we at least hold on to one or two sentences of truth in a posting) … and you may find actual news.

-SWB

PS – Yup, mainstream news makes shows like TMZ seem legit.

Kudos to The City Paper for keeping up good reporting.

Our of respect for the families, we’re not going to go into too much detail nor finger pointing in this post, since the issues is too fresh. We’ll let the professional news media do that, since they really have no ethics or morals anyway …

If you are not familiar, there was a shooting at a fitness center in Collier Township last night. A distraught man that had just been dumped by his girlfriend (and probably rightly so), shot of 50 rounds, killed 4 people, and injured about 9. You can read the details from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the link above.

The man that did that was in the industry I just got out of (not by my choice – but thankfully I’m out of it) – Information Technology. It’s ironic that right after I do post on “Office Space” being a documentary about the Information Technology life, a slightly “crazy” (lot’s of sarcasm there) decides to show the other extreme result of my industry. I’ve spent years watching coworkers health deteriorate to the point of having heart attacks and strokes, observed their marriages and families be destroyed, and on a daily basis have seen the evolution of a wonderful person turn into someone that could possibly kill without remorse.

All because we want to make sure that internet or web service can return our info faster than we can possibly read or comprehend it.

Beside the fact that the I.T. industry is full of college grads with no actual experience managing everything cluelessly (stressing out everyone below them with actual working knowledge) – everyone in that industry is expected to push themselves was farther mentally than most military special forces personnel can even endure. They are expected to blow off their families and become one with the machine – or else. The else is usually the export of your job to someone tat does it for 75% less n a developing country.

Yup – I’m thinking (although the guy that did the shooting was probably allot “off” in the first place), the industry I just spent the last 25 years in probably had 70% influence in his decision to hate and kill women. The breakup from his girlfriends was just the pin that let out te pent up frustrations.

I thank God every day I’m not doing that for my career anymore, and I feel sorry for the people that have too.

Maybe if we would be willing to wait that extra day for the latest Britney Spears CD to arrive in the mail, instead of pushing workers past their breaking points by working then 24 hours a day … we would have slightly better society?

-SWB

PS – Welcome to the “new world” – simply because nobody wants to lift a finger to change it. Maybe Apple can create a “change world” app for the iPhone.