Keisel’s beard shaving event benefits Children’s Hospital cancer patients

Pittsburgh Steeler Brett Keisel’s beard donated itself to charity today with the first snip coming at the hands of team president Art Rooney II.  Keisel introduced Rooney by saying “I hope this is the only time he cuts me.”  400 fans paid $25 each to view the event, raising over $30,000 for the hospital.

Steelers fans hoping for “Magnificent Seven”

AFC Championship Night at Heinz Field

Photography by Lucinda Wiebe, January 23, 2011

Pittsburgh PA, www.weebeedesigns.com  all rights reserved

Steelers will be leavin on the Jets’ Plane

Steelers will soon be taking the (US) Airways to Seven (rings)!

Our bags are packed, we’re ready to go

We beat the Jets, in the cold and snow,

They bet us their team airplane, thats no lie!

Now the paint is dry, we’re on our way

Our fans are wavin, we’re glad they came

To send us off to Super Bowl Forty Five…

So we’re leavin’ on The Jets’ Plane

Don’t think that they’ll be back again

Praise Tomlin and LeBeau!

And we’re leavin’ on The Jets’ Plane

Gonna play in Cowboys Stadium!

Green Bay?

           OKay!

                   Here we go!

(With apologies to the late John Deutschendorf!)

Linguists choose “app” 2010 Word of the Year

Condolences to our friends over at Cute Overload for their loss.  One of their favorite words, “nom,” has come in second place to “app” in this year’s competition for the WOTY — Word of the Year.

Article excerpted below.   Full article here.  Really cool song and video “I’ve Got an App for That” here!

Saturday, January 08, 2011
By Sean D. Hamill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The word above all others in 2010? App.

That’s according to the American Dialect Society, which is holding its annual meeting at the Wyndham Grand in Pittsburgh this week and Friday night chose “app” over the word “nom” as its Word of the Year for 2010.

App, which means “an application program for a phone or computer or other electronic device,” was proposed not because it is particularly new or groundbreaking, but because it came into its own and crossed into the wider culture in 2010.

The word was chosen Friday night by about 150 linguists after two days of debate that began with a list of 33 words. Some who argued in favor of “nom” said it was “a vote for happiness,” and that “app” was simply too old a word.

But in the argument that carried the day, Ed Cormany, a doctoral student in linguistics at Cornell University, stopped tweeting on his laptop long enough to rise from his seat to argue that, yes, it may seem that “app” has been around for a long time, but “this year people realized they needed an app for any technology.”

It always gets a little heated,” Mr. Cormany said. “We love our words here.”

Amateur Photographers and Writers Call for Submissions

 

Amateur photographers and writers local to Pittsburgh and those whose hearts are still in da ‘burgh are welcome to submit their work for publication in future issues of pittsburgh alfresco magazine.   Go to the mag’s page on this blog for more details.  Autumn issue is now online.  Winter issue is scheduled for January 1, 2010 with a tentative deadline of December 15 for submissions.

Ben Roethlisberger’s Home Movies

What the heck does Ben do with those fan videos he’s been taking?

 

When he and Troy and Santonio and Hines and James and Willie and Ike and Jeff get together do they actually watch these videos?   If they do, I imagine it might go something like this:

 

Ben:  “Oh man, this is awesome!  Guys!  Watch this!  This one is from the Pittsburgh parade.  It’s the part where the fans are cheering and waving Terrible Towels and shouting ’Go Steelers!’”

 

Willie:  “Yah, but wait until you see MY video from Tampa!  THOSE fans were cheering and waving Terrible Towels and shouting ‘Go Steelers!’ AND chanting “SIX-burgh, SIX-burgh, SIX-burgh!”

 

Ben (elbowing Santonio who is asleep in the recliner):  “Santonio!  Wake up man!  You’re missing this!”

 

Santonio:  “Huh?  Oh, uh ‘I just want to be the guy that makes the big plays.’”

 

Ike:  “You two chumps don’t know nuthin ‘bout makin’ movies.  Ben can’t hold the bleepin’ camera still and half of Willie’s footage is out of focus!”

 

Hines:  “C’mon guys, let’s not fight.  Nobody’s video is better than the other guy’s.  We don’t have to trash talk.”

 

James:  “Aw somebody go get a Kleenex, Hines is cryin’ again!”

 

Troy:  “When we get to my video pay attention! I need you guys to help me ID the fan who had his hand in my pocket when I dove into the crowd.  My wallet’s been missing ever since.”

 

Jeff:  “Guys, I’ve been thinking.  Maybe I need more black roots and less blonde tips.  Whaddya think?”

 

But seriously, what could be the point of taking those videos? 

 

My bet is it’s all about the babes!  Cuz I’m guessing he doesn’t have that camera trained on the hairy blitzed-out guys. 

 

I’m just sayin’.

 

 

 

 

 

What Now Sixburgh?

What are we going to do for the next six months now that the Super Bowl has been won and da ‘burgh has held its congratulatory parade/350,000 person group hug/semi-annual mosh pit for Troy Polamalu?

 

Any suggestions?

 

*  We could dedicate each month to a different winning Super Bowl and watch them on DVD.  This would give us another excuse to have the guys over for beer and bbq.  Like we need another excuse for THAT!   Maybe we could get Lowe’s Theater at the Waterfront to show them every Sunday from here until the first exhibition game.  Kind of like a double Lord of the Rings trilogy marathon.  They don’t call the guys the Lords of the Rings for nothing! Who wants to make that call to the management?

 

*  We could have a contest to see who has the most Steelers merchandise.  The winner would get MORE merch!  The natives here still have all of their memorabilia from those five previous wins.  Someone at work wore their Super Bowl XIII button this week.  Parents are getting to enjoy a second childhood by passing along their souvenirs to the kids. We handed down the Lynn Swann 88 jersey to our 12 year old son to wear on Black and Gold day at school.  But some souvenirs can’t be handed down:  I heard about a woman with Jack Lambert’s number 58 tattooed on her backside!

 

*  Turn our attention to the Penguins or Pirates?  The Pens more likely, but the Pirates?  Not if you want to watch a team win.  In our family during the seventh inning stretch when everyone joins in to sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game we change the words to “if they don’t win it’s THE SAME.”  Still, lots of people go to Pirate’s games because they are affordable, the ball park is great, the food is pretty good and you can enjoy a nice long chat with your friends because not much of anything exciting happens during a Pirate’s game except for the Perogie Race. 

 

What are YOUR post-Super Bowl survival plans?

Steelers Nation-Building

I was not born in Pittsburgh, but I became a Pittsburgher by marriage in 1983 even though we were living in Los Angeles at the time.  My husband is from Pittsburgh and his parents and brother are die-hard Steelers fans.

 

We got officially engaged during football season while visiting his family in da ‘Burgh.  One fine Sunday afternoon we all gathered back at my brother-in-law’s house to watch The Game. 

 

When I say “we” I am not including myself as a game-viewer, because I do not “watch” football.  I do not come from a family where rooting for any team is mandatory.  The biggest sporting event in my life was on the day I graduated from college, which was when the Portland Trailblazers won the national championship DURING our commencement ceremony.  I truly could have cared less, but it is a fun part of the memory of that day because a cheer went up from the crowd.  Everyone had been listening on the highest tech device available in that day – a transistor radio!

 

Sheesh that dates me!  Does it make it better that I now own a BlackBerry?

 

My father is the only male in our family and he is so laid back that if he had a game on the TV we could still carry on a conversation in the living room and he didn’t complain.  He just sat in his chair and “watched.”

 

So back in Pixburgh as the new kid in the family I stretch out on the floor (the guys have already claimed all of the chairs) and my future father-in-law asks “You a football fan?” 

 

“No, not really.”

 

“I feel sorry for you!”

 

NOT a good omen!  I had NO idea what I was getting into with the whole Black and Gold Pride thing.  I didn’t have to deal with it much living in LA for the next decade.  It helped that the team never made it to the Super Bowl during those years. But when we moved back here, that was a different story.  Now my husband and family could get together EVERY Sunday.

 

But they do not “watch” games.  Not like my dad, anyway.  They infuse themselves into the game by virtual mind-meld.  They anticipate the commentator’s next words and say them before he has a chance.  They scream out instructions to the QB.  Right now the most commonly heard chorus from the men when the offense is on the field is “THROW IT BEN!!!!!!!”  Then “Aaarrrrgggghhhh!”  because Ben’s been sacked so many times this year.

 

 

I honestly do sit down and enjoy the game for a few minutes at a time.  But I cannot just sit and watch, for I AM WOMAN and there is work to be done around the house.  So I dance around the edges of the game as a kind of spectral image.  Every now and then I interject something to let them know I’m around. 

 

And every now and then they come out of their trance and realize they are hungry again.  I have stopped trying to fuss over them about the food long ago.  They don’t eat during games.  It might be better described as “graze and guzzle.”  So I put out the grub and tell them to come and get it.  Then I leave them alone.  Kind of like a zoo keeper slipping food to the lions under the door.

 

Please don’t misunderstand me here.  I AM A STEELERS FAN.  But I have a moral dilemma in that I like to participate in the celebrations but I don’t fully understand the game.  I like the community of it all, I like the Steelers Dress Down Days at work, and I like the way the mood of the whole city is elevated when we simply win a game on a given week.  Does that qualify?

 

When we’re in the playoffs the mood here is not just elevated, it’s off the euphoria meter.  This is a town where the mayor changed his name for a few days because it contained the name of the opposing team in the championship game that week! 

 

After living here for more than a dozen years I have become a part of Steelers Nation.  It grows on you.  The players are great, they do a lot of charitable work in the community, they love the fans.  It doesn’t hurt that they win a lot.  And now we’re in the Super Bowl for the second time in my personal experience as a new-native of Pittsburgh.  

 

This time seemed kind of anti-climactic.  Like, yes, this is the way it is supposed to be.  Of COURSE we won the division.  That’s what the Steelers do.  And I will be there sitting on the sofa and watching the big game like everyone else here.

 

But if you’re not into the game, go shopping – the clerks get lonely on game days.