It’s Monday, and there’s no mourning.

They won …. which makes for a happy Monday.  Pic by Matt Freed/Post-Gazette.

Click Here for the PG Article.

The Steelers are off to a good start, which makes SWB happy.  When they lose, we have to suffer through the Monday morning mourning. You know, after a Steeler’s loss the traffic is slower, the coffee shop patrons take longer to pay for their drinks, road-rage is times ten, etc.

Everything changes when the Steelers win in Pittsburgh.

Now, if the the Steelers could rub off on the Pirates just a tad more.

Anyway … thanks Steelers … your win means less headaches for this weasel one this beautiful Monday mourning-less morning.

-SWB

Kudos to Mike Tomlin

Some of the qualities of sophistication are class, elegance, and how a person carries them self.  These qualities are sometimes best seen in their true form when a person is in a position where they don’t get the best of what they were expecting.

That’s where Coach Tomlin was at the end of Super Bowl XLV.

From the point where Coach Tomlin greeted Coach McCarthy at the beginning of the game, throughout the play of the game, and even greeting his players individually after losing (and not chewing them out on national TV) he showed us what truly sophisticated person is like. [click here for remaining portion of article]

Christina Aguilera the national bumble (Super Bowl XLV)

Our new controller, slave driver, and oppressor (www.sophisticatedpittsburgh.com) is allowing The Rant Files to make a few cameos.  After watching the Super Bowl, they felt the need was justified (and not because the Steelers lost).  BTW – there will be an article honoring Coach Mike Tomlin on there later today.  Make sure you check it out.

OK … on to the subject of the actual post.  In regards to that, one quick question:

WTF????????????????????????????????????

No, not WTF? but …

WTF????????????????????????????????????

You have heard many times SWB praising Christina for her natural talent that has been extremely well trained over the years.  We have heard her sing a greatly diverse genre of songs, and are trying to comprehend how at this point she allowed herself to completely embarrass her country – not to mention Pittsburgh, and Wexford.

Wait, we think we’ve figured it out ……

Miss Aguilera was replaced with Little Miss “I’m The S**t” Diva.

Christina Aguilera is effectively gone … her abilities totally overshadowed by the embarrassment she brought to her country by letting her ego take over and totally trash our national tune.

There just isn’t a screen big enough to fit a picture of the clueless award we would like to present to Christina, and honestly even if we hit the lottery we wouldn’t have enough money to ship a trophy that big to her.

Christina, honey (we are using that word in a demeaning fashion for effect), you might want to consider taking some of the millions you’ve made from sales to Americans and run a nation prime time TV ad apologizing to your country.

One the bright side … she did do a great job of making her friend Britney Spears look like a professionally trained classical vocalist.

Click Here for the Reuters article via Yahoo!

-SWB

PS – We really don’t know what was more embarrassing – the blunder that was Christina during the Super Bowl, or the fact that the local media praised her with exception to singing and incorrect line.  Geez.

Karyon Nightly

Hello SWB readers, I’d like to introduce myself.  My name is Karyon Nightly, one of the writers for the website http://www.sophisticatedpittsburgh.com.  Since we are taking control of SWB, I wanted to let you in on what we are planning on doing to move the site into something that can accompany S.P. as a blog.  SWB has a strong sarcastic and cynical side to it as most of the rant blogs did that started out around the mid 2000’s.  SWB will be that part of S.P. for those little sarcastic articles that we want to have fun with, but may not want to publish on the main site.  Here is what we are planning so far (there are many minds at work, so this may change from time to time):

• We will be deleting any blog entries from SWB that may have too strong of an opinion, or quite frankly don’t any longer apply to issues in the city.
• We will be toning down the sarcasm and strong opinions – we are not censoring, but challenging our writers to be as effective as SWB was, but with more creativity and good writing.
• Although sarcastic, cynical, and a little ranty … we want to try to make our articles readable by all Pittsburghers and outsiders.

Keep in mind, just because we are making SWB a little nicer to fit in with Sophisticated Pittsburgh, that doesn’t mean if you deserve a slap to the face we won’t give it anymore.

We’ll still cover things like Pittsburgh politics, The Steelers, The penguins, enjoyable moments from the council, the Strip District, the wonderful roads, etc, etc.

more later ….

Thanks

-Karyon

 

The Day After and the Road To Super Bowl 45

Yinzers getting ready the morning after AFC championship

Yep, we won again.  Being the courteous people that Pittsburghers are, we gave them a link of Parma Sausage and a cheese sampler from Penn Mac as a consolation prize.  We believe them a worth opponent, but not good enough to get that cool metal trophy we’ll put on out shelves.

We’re on the way to Super Bowl 45, Ben could bring in the Steeler’s 7th ring in his 7th season, by number 7.  Think of the lottery possibilities here folks.  This is an important win for the city – it will bring even more international recognition of our city, the sport of American football, and people.  The more people come to our city, the more jobs come with them.  Considering that, even if you aren’t a sports fan, you might want to start rooting for The Steelers to get ring 7.

-SWB

It’s the first day of Spring (training)

… and a few Steeler vets forgot to show up. Isn’t that kind of like a teacher not showing up for the first day of school after summer break?

Hopefully this isn’t a sign of the Steeler’s discipline breaking apart of the showing up of big heads that they don’t need to show up. I remember where that attitude got the Steelers previously. Anyway, it’s probably not that … super star sports figures *never* get big heads.

Supposedly a few flights got canceled, Willie Parker’s dog ate his plane ticket, Troy’s hair got stuck in the Taxi door, etc. 🙂 Honestly we don’t know if Willie has dog or not … but it sounded good, and we just couldn’t resist picking on Troy because he’s an all-around good guy.

For those Steelers fans … Click Here for the latest article by Ed Bouchette of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

-SWB

PS – Good luck this year from SWB … and if yinz have an overabundance of tickets you know where to send ’em.

Harrison Is On!!

Linebacker James Harrison is signed!!

A little pricey, since he was previously cut by the Steelers at times, but signed at that.

If he can pull off close to what he did last year (the longest play in Super Bowl history that won us the game) and the fact that he is the 2008 defensive player of the year … I think we can lose complaining about the price tag for a bit (unless he doesn’t perform … then he’s fair game). If the announcement hasn’t been made official yet, that will happen soon.

Well, anyway he’s back to stay for at least six years.

Click Here for the article in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Ed Bouchette and Colin Dunlap … and Click Here for the Tribune-Review’s article by Scott Brown.

And, of course …. the Pittsburgh Steelers Website.

-SWB

PS – He’s getting a $20 million bonus … do you think he’d buy me new tires for my car?

John Stallworth approved to buy into the Steelers

Two time Steelers MVP John Stallworth has been approved to buy into the team that made him famous (or that he helped make famous, which ever way you look at it). SWB was wondering who the “nationally known” person was going to be that would be one of the possible three additional investors into the team – and Mr. Stallworth would definitely be a welcomed addition to the owners list of the six time Superbowl Champs, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Click Here to check out the article by Ed Bouchette and Sadie Gurman of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

-SWB

PS – He’s been as successful in business as he was in football. I’d pick him.

Rumors about Steelers adding investors true

According to this article at the Tribune-Review by Scott Brown the Steelers have three possible new investors lined up to buy into the team. This all has to be approved and completed by March 31st, which is the dealine for restructuring ownership. Although the names are not being released, they are being said to be ones that would be easily recognized.

Considering the Steelers are loved greatly by Pittsburghers and beyond – this would be interesting reading to all … and maybe more money going into our already great football team.

Update: Additional article from the PG

-SWB

PS – Go Steelers!!!

It’s Spring (in Pittsburgh) … I think, maybe

A few days ago it was nice, sunny, and happy. The buds on my fig tree have opened bringing it out of dormancy ….. so it needs to go outside now. The dogs are staring out the window waiting to dig up all of the spring flowers. It’s going down to 29 tonight. Huh?

Well, there are signs of spring … I’ve seen them:

• The emerging craters known as potholes.
• The Pittsburgh Police officers almost getting knocked off their bikes by the Downtown drivers.
• The homeless residents appearing in various corners of The SouthSide and the river shores.
• The spring beer pong competitions and dollar draft specials.
• The entertainment promoters advertising they are trying to get Metallica to do one last Pittsburgh concert.
• The Pittsburgh Penquins are actually winning.
• The Pittsburgh Steelers are starting to come out of hibernation.
• There is still no sign of The Pittsburgh Pirates doing anything useful.
• The lines of students at the airport flying home to their parents (or somewhere they haven’t told their parents they are going).
• The motorcyclists going through road barriers and flying over ledges on tight turns.
• Predictions of spring storms strong enough to blow the rest of your shingles off your roof are coming from the weather channel.
• New fake Steelers garb shows up in The Strip District along with the roadside cell phone dealers.
• You smell the Mancini’s bread stand from five blocks away and realize you can’t even get near it once you get to the store.
• Sounds of accordions playing everywhere!!
• Rain soaked club advertisement cards all over the sidewalks.
• Your winter tires are bald.
• Your prized spring flowers that just bloomed are now in your dogs mouth.

Yep – although it’s not in full bloom yet, it’s definitely the beginning of spring in Pittsburgh.

-SWB

PS – For the clueless, Beer Pong is not a game where you volley a can of beer between two racquets.

Rooneys In The White House

On the more positive note, it’s looking more and more like Mr. Rooney (Steelers owner – just in case you are reading this blog from a cave in some far removed mountains and don’t know who Dan Rooney is) will become envoy to Ireland.

Personally I think he deserves it, as he has already worked hard via the American Ireland Fund in a way to promote peace in Ireland.

Click Here for a good reference article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Dan.

*UPDATE* – Confirmation about Dan Rooney’s nomination here in this KDKA article.

-SWB

PS – Go Dan Go! We can’t even make fun of Mr. Rooney … he’s too good of a guy.

The New Pittsburgh Penquins

Bylsma has one win …… wooohooo, and already people are proclaiming the Pittsburgh Penquins will make it to the play-offs due to the new coach.

Hmmmm ….. I see a trend forming here: You can’t win the Stanley Cup the first year you coach, we’ll just drop ya and get a new guy … then drop him … and get a new guys … then put let Ben Roethlisberger coach the team and hope the Steelers influence rubs off.

Did everyone forget the team was actually not-so-great for a while and it may take a coach a little time to get the team to win a cup again?? It took the Steelers twenty years, didn’t it?

….. have a little patience, people.

My Dog The Steelers Fan

**not**

No, Really …. It’s sad.

After working at the church I attend (I do some technical work there), I went home to feed the dogs and take them for a walk. My family was going to go back to the one auditorium our church has to watch the game (they have two ten foot screens). We relaxed a bit before going back. Once we were ready I ran up to our bedroom to change from one of my typical work shirts into a Steelers appropriate garment. When I went back down the stairs, my first dog paid no real attention to me (other than to make sure I didn’t have a treat in my hand), but my other dog (the boxer mix) upon seeing my Steelers shirt, raised all hair and started howling at me.

So I figure one of two things:

1. She’s a Cardinals fan – even though she gets her food, water, and shelter in Steeler’s Country.

2. Or, since she was originally a shelter dog, she was abused by a Steeler’s fan.

Now, I know how kind and caring Steeler’s fans are to animals (The Cardinals), so I have a bad feeling it’s actually number 1. **Groan** Maybe she’ll change over time.

-SWB

Pittsburgh Light Up Night 2008 and Jeff Reed

Made light up night … although since there was parking the kid missed out on the Smithfield Street bridge thing ….. but the blowhardedness of the CEOs speaking at Light Up Night more than made up for it.

It was actually a nice scene. This year they had the sense to use a big screen so the kiddies could see the action even from far back without the parents having to hold them on their shoulders while getting kicked in the face. Unfortunately they forgot a sound system that you could actually hear (which is about the only thing that made the CEO speeches tolerable).

Note to Duquesne Light: Don’t let the new guy in the mailroom run the soundboard during a major event that your company is sponsoring …. it makes you look like idiots. Oh, wait, sorry folks – I forgot we were talking about Duquesne Light, looking like idiots just can’t be helped. No loss here, I guess.

There were some cool things:

• For the kiddies (tons of flashing lights to play with in the car on the ride home causing parents to wreck because the stupid wands are so **** bright you can’t see out the back window)
• Santa singing like Bing Crosby (or trying to) …. pictured above. Never give a fat guy in a red suite a microphone, unless it’s fake.
• Lots of holiday dance performances – all family oriented which didn’t make SW happy at all.

And for the adults:

• The seduction of Steeler Jeff Reed (pictured below):

(even if I tried I couldn’t setup a goofier scene than this)

And of course, the memories created during the night:

• Frozen tears due to frozen feet on the kiddies (thanks from the parents for scheduling the night later)
• Showing your kid (that could care less) around the Block House and museum.
• Explaining that Santa will get there in due ******* time.
• Watching other parents lose it ….. and the cute couples making you want to vomit.
• Thawing your kid in the microwave after you get home.

Oh, on a side note … where was Mayor Luke?? Did he sense a deep disturbance in the force and had to go help out? Did Yoda appear in his dreams last night and tell him his real father would be at the event? Were the powers that be scared Opie would take one of the lights from a kid again??? Maybe he just forgot it was Light Up Night ….. you never know with Opie ….. use your imagination, he’s young … there’s much to go with here.