Football season is right around the corner. AMEN! The Steelers schedule (if you're interested, and you SHOULD be) is posted below. My prediction is that in the regular season, the boys in black and gold go 11-5. You heard it here first.
Show us the best thing about your home town.
Submitted by 怒涛の鮫.
You know, this doesn't exactly fit the question, but I had been wanting to post this, so here it is:
Pittsburgh Girls
A Pittsburgh girl knows just about as much about football as her guy friends, in some cases, even more. She drinks beer because it tastes good but knows when to be classy and drink something more sophisticated. She owns a Steeler jersey (and NOT a PINK one!) not just because it's cute, but because she supports her team and understands the game. She loves Kennywood and isn't afraid to order cheese fries from the Potato Patch because, let's face it, Pittsburgh girls wear winter coats and scarves more often than bikinis and flip flops.
A Pittsburgh girl loves St. Patrick's Day, even if she's not Irish because green beer is good for the soul.
Pittsburgh girls don't have a funny accent. They just speak a different language. The word yinz is dear to her heart, even if she would never say it herself.
A Pittsburgh girl bleeds black and gold and knows how to have a great time. She's stylish and sweet. She has a great education and loves her friends and family.
A Pittsburgh girl goes to church on Sunday hung over, only to be let out early by the priest because the Steelers kick off at one.
A Pittsburgh girl might not live by the beach, but the Three Rivers are just as good! She has seen all four seasons and has a reason to love and hate each one of them. She's the type of girl you can call late at night and spill your heart out to. She's the type you can take home to Mom and Dad without worrying they won't like her because everyone loves a Pittsburgh girl. If you need a girl to take to the game, she'll be there. If you need a friend to help you out, she's there. If you need a drinking buddy, she'll be there with her IC Light in hand.
So, let your Pittsburgh girl know you love her!
You can take the girl out of Pittsburgh, but you can never take the Pittsburgh out of the girl!
When your world really revolves around football season, like it does in the city of Pittsburgh. Evidence by this article that I have reprinted without the permission of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and its staff writer, Anya Sostek.
They say time waits for no man, but Ben Roethlisberger might be an exception.
Look no further than the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh, where employees juggled a frenzy of phone calls and e-mails Tuesday afternoon, rushing to lock in a prime date for the group's annual home and garden Design Fair in September.
Why the hurry now when the event is still five months away?
The release of the Steelers' schedule, of course.
"We've all had [NFL.com] on our browser for at least a month, waiting every day and checking," said Tara Merenda, a program director at the Community Design Center. "When it did come out, in a matter of minutes, I had a staff person yelling out the dates and I had two e-mails in my inbox. A half-hour after the schedule was out we had our event planned, and we could start really asking people to participate in earnest."
Scientists may argue whether a flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas, but there's no doubt that the release of the Steelers' schedule in April can determine not just the date of a design fair in Deutschtown, but also influence church concerts, high school alumni dinners, hotel rates and even weddings.
"I'm very aware that it comes out in April and I need to pay attention to that," said Deb Waterkotte, who has planned weddings in the Pittsburgh area for nearly 20 years. "I carry that schedule around with me."
This year, Ms. Waterkotte was rushing Tuesday morning to finalize a block of rooms at the Hilton Pittsburgh for an Oct. 4 wedding at Heinz Field. Booking the rooms before the Steelers schedule was announced was essential, she said, because if the Steelers were playing at home that weekend, the rooms would likely fill with Steelers fans instead of wedding guests.
At the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel, employees were also on high alert for the release of the Steelers schedule. The hotel sells out every Saturday night for Steelers home games, and raises prices to capitalize on that demand (rooms start at $199 per night for Steeler weekends, compared with $179 on a non-Steeler weekend).
The trick is to get the new prices set before the flood of phone calls for reservations comes in — as they did like clockwork just after 2 p.m. Tuesday.
"The phone calls started as soon as the schedule was released," said Melanie Koscelnak, the hotel's director of sales and marketing. "They're all Steelers fans making multiple reservations for different games."
Ms. Koscelnak is thrilled with the Steelers' unusual schedule this year: because so many of the home games start at night or in the late afternoon, there's a good chance of selling out Sunday night as well as Saturday. And the Nov. 20 Thursday night game against Cincinnati guarantees a sellout on what's "typically a checkout day," she said.
But one woman's schedule satisfaction can be another's schedule sadness. At least that was the case for Tina Tuminella and her fiance, David DeLong, who are getting married at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 21.
"We were hoping that we would either have a week off or a Monday night game or it would start earlier," said Mr. DeLong, of Highland Park.
But an immaculate (wedding) reception was not meant to be: The Steelers kick off at Philadelphia at 4:15, just 15 minutes before the wedding.
"Most people who are going to come to our wedding are going to come to our wedding, but I could definitely see some people giving it a second thought," said Mr. DeLong. "At least it's an away game."
Wednesday night, Ms. Tuminella did her part to try to restore order to her wedding day. When she ran into NFL commissioner Roger Goodell at an awards dinner at the Omni William Penn, she told him her predicament and asked him if he might be able to nudge the schedule around a bit.
His response: "I guess that means you'll have to find a TV for your reception."
Events in every corner of the region are affected by the Steelers' schedule, from a Christmas concert at the Orchard Hill Church in Franklin Park to an annual distinguished alumni dinner for the Elizabeth Forward High School Hall of Fame.
"This year, there's only two home 1 p.m. games, so that's a nice thing with a local church with a lot of season ticket holders," said Kurt Bjorklund, senior pastor at Orchard Hill Church. "We try to be wise about things that we put up against it."
Ms. Merenda, at the Community Design Center, has seen firsthand the pitfalls of holding an event during a Steelers game. Last year, the Pittsburgh Design Fair for House and Garden ran from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the Sunday when the Steelers kicked off at 4:15 in Phoenix.
Right at kickoff, the event at the Great Hall at the Priory "thinned out immediately, significantly," she said. "One exhibitor had a little TV, but you had to step out of the venue to see it. Everybody abandoned their stations. It totally ended."
Thanks to Monday Night Football, this year that problem will be solved: Ms. Merenda was able to book the event for Sunday, Sept. 28 — the Steelers play the Ravens the following night.
"You wouldn't think it would be so important for a design show, but it just shows you the level of support and dedication that the city has for its team," she said.
House tours on the North Side in Deutschtown and the Mexican War Streets also waited until Tuesday to set a date for their fall events.
In Deutschtown, where Steeler fans descend on game days for both parking and tailgating, it would be simply impossible to hold a house tour during a home game.
"The number one reason to have a house tour in our neighborhood is to promote the positive changes," said tour organizer (and Steeler fan) Jen Saffron. "It's really hard to do that when Steeler fans are drunk, screaming vulgarities and urinating in our neighborhood. That's not our best foot forward."
The all-encompassing devotion to the Steelers also causes problems for Sal Richetti, owner of Big Day Entertainment One Stop Wedding and Event Center in the Strip District, which books entertainment and other services for weddings.
On Steelers game days, business dries up. "You can't compete with the Steelers," he said. "I'm a Steeler fan but there can't be any weddings, parties, events, bridal shows, nothing scheduled at the same time as a Steeler game. It does hurt the business."
Bonnie Walker Chirigos, owner of the event planning company Creative Affairs Inc., sees the situation differently. For one thing, she's often able to plan both private parties and corporate events with Steelers themes that coincide with the games. Also, Pittsburgh wouldn't be the city it is without a semi-maniacal Steelers obsession.
"We are fortunate to live in Pittsburgh because of the excitement — everybody in this city is a cheerleader," said Ms. Chirigos. "I think there are multiple other cities that are jealous of what we have."
Cuz that's how we roll in STEELTOWN, baby.
Let it be known that I grew up loving football and bleeding black and gold.
So let's see. In about 1996, my girl and I absolutely loved to be out and about in the Burgh. We were regulars at The O, hung out in Oakland, and went to places that we had no business being. Without fail, we'd head out to ladies night every week, only to get lost (going to the same place) and miss free cover by 10 minutes. The door guy got used to us and asked why we couldn't ever get there on time. We were those girls. We dressed like sluts and our mothers told us that we were gonna catch a cold in our coochies for wearing such short skirts out in the cold.
Anywho, this was the time when Rod Woodson still played for the Steelers, as did Yancey Thigpen. I figure, if you've gotten this far and you know football, you probably know what Rod Woodson looks like, espcially since he's still on TV as an analyst. Below is Mr. Thigpen.
As successful athletes often do, Rod Woodson opened a restaurant in Pittsburgh and called it Woodson's. Yes. Original. Despite being overpriced for a steelworking town, the restaurant did well. The food was just okay. The atmosphere is what kept it going. On this particular Sunday afternoon, the place was busy, but not packed and the game was on their 85 TVs placed side by side to make a huge screen.
So there we sat, enjoying a late lunch, people watching and talking shit. That's what we did. We were also stranger magnets. (Probably because of the way we dressed, but that's neither here nor there.) As we sat watching the game, a gentleman came over to our table and asked if he could sit down. It was obvious to us that he worked there since he was adorned in kitchen garb. Never ones to pass up an opportunity to possibly get a free, if not at least discounted meal, we welcomed his company.
He sat with us and chatted a while and subjected himself to the torture of listening to the running commentary of two smartasses. At one point, there was a close-up of Yancey. (Please notice the space between Yancey's eyes and above his nose that is occupied by eyebrows.) This is where our story gets, ahem, hairy.
Being the sticklers for the anti-unibrow movement that we were, we immediately started with the giggles regarding the unibrow. This probably went on for about 5 to 10 minutes where we were on a roll about his eyebrow and how he made enough money to get it cleaned up. Our new gentleman friend had a good laugh about it as well. A little more time passed before he decided that he really should get back to work. We bid him farewell and continued watching the game.
Five minutes couldn't have passed before we had another visitor. Again, an employee, I think he may have been the host. His visit was short and sweet and went a little something like this:
Host: So, do you guys know who that was that sat down with you?
Us: Uh, no. One of the cooks?
Host: Well, yes, but he's also Yancey Thigpen's brother.
Us: Outbursts of laughter.
The host didn't understand why we thought that was so funny and we didn't bother to tell him. He hung out for a couple minutes then went back to his duties. We stuck around until the end of the game to see if the other Thigpen would come back out, but he didn't and we paid our bill and took off for more troublemaking.
We didn't think about that lunch until the next week when the Steelers were playing and we got another close-up of Yancey, sans unibrow. HYSTERICAL! I guess that little bro told him that the ladies were having a good laugh at his expense and so he remedied the situation. We felt better that we could watch football without breaking into fits of laughter and we felt the best because a public service had been done. Yay us!
UPDATE:
I sent a link to this post to aforementioned friend who replied with more memories:
Yes I do remember, we actually got dude’s number if you remember we ended up going to a Steeler party later per his invite (another week or so) and he and a couple of his boyz tried to get us to go to Yancy’s apt, we declined the offer cuz we had other (nice looking) hook ups waiting for us. We were a trip. Thanks for the memory……..LOL
Ahh, good times.
Aren't weekends supposed to be a relaxing time? I mean, no work, or at least none of the Monday through Friday nine to five variety, sleeping in, staying up late, drinking and nookie all the time? No? Damn.
I think that we've got it pretty well planned out. Saturday, we'll get up and work out, make breakfast, eat, shower and then the fun begins. Kiddo's going to the beach, but since she turned 14, she's too cool to go with Lovey and me so she's going with her friends. All in all, that's ok. It's nice that she's made so many friends in her time here. And Lovey and I can drink and swear in excess and not worry about it.
So while she's off playing with friends, we'll be going to Publix, where shopping is a pleasure (or Pooblee, donde comprar es un placer), to get water, beer and snacks and then off to the beach for a few hours of working on my tan. I've gotta be sun-kissed for next weekend, don't ya know! After we're good and baked, we'll head back home to shower and probably sleep it off. At some point, we've gotta get back to Publix to do the week's grocery shopping so we don't starve. Saturday night's a great party night, but I think we might skip that.
I've just realized that I now have a huge dilemma. The DVR is not yet connected and the STILLERS!! are on at 1. Normally not a problem, but I promised Kiddo that we'd go do mani/pedis for her b-day and Moonfaire is also on Sunday. So who gets me on Sunday? My boys for whom I bleed black and gold or my inner witch that is dying to get out? Tough tough call.
