Pittsburgh Dish

Status update

Horrible things to say on Facebook

Both Mr. and Mrs. Dish have Facebook accounts. This is the case because we like sharing amusing photographs with friends. We also enjoy leaving insulting messages on our friends' walls. Furthermore, that bowling game is cool.

Nevertheless, we Facebook with some shame. We thought we were cooler that that (we are not). We also thought we were too old (we are).

So, that Status Update thing at the top of the Facebook profile page. That can be kind of annoying, right?

* Larry is in his nightclothes, petting his cat.

* Sue is sad.

* Jerry enjoys muffins.

Not particularly interesting, especially when broadcast around the internet to 428 "friends," many of whom are only known to you (and you to them) tangentially at best.

So Dish got to thinking: Why don't we offer some suggestions you can use to jazz up your Status Update and set your circle of internet chums abuzz?

We came up with no adequate reason not to.

So, here you go:

* (insert name) is King of the Hill People.

* (insert name) is wearing a miner's helmet and reading about baseball.

* (insert name) is probably hiding in your basement.

* (insert name) is wrapped in foil and microwaving (him/her) self to heaven.

* (insert name) is circumventing your sewer system.

* (insert name) didn't think your daughter could run that fast.

* (insert name) invested in Amway.

* (insert name) questions your mother's honesty.

* (insert name) mouths the words to the National Anthem.

* (insert name) thinks the statute of limitations has expired.

* (insert name) hopes his robe is adequate for church.

* (insert name)'s van has no windows.

* (insert name) has no living friends.

* (insert name) is dewormed.

* (insert name) hopes that was a dwarf.

Drawn Out

Meet three of Pittsburgh's unsung heroes. They want to meet you.

"Big Nick" is burly, brawny and beefy. In his rolled-up sleeves, jaunty cap and Billy club-shaped boots, Big Nick is possibly the best casually dressed 11th letter of the alphabet. And the most visible. He is the overalled Charles Atlas of Parkway West.

The mighty man known as Nick signed a modeling contract for the Knickerbocker Russell construction company about 50 years ago. Just after WWII, Big Nick was the spokesman for the long-gone  Knickerbocker Company, which manufactured portable construction site heaters. According to Knickerbocker Russell service manager Mike Montani, owner Russell Keith, 83, drove around McKee's Rocks in an old station wagon selling the portable heaters. After Knickerbocker folded, Keith opened Knickerbocker Russell and saved Big Nick from extinction.

(Big Nick is not known to have an affiliation with the Village People, and if you find yourself singing "The Gay K K Took My Baby Away" you are not alone.)

"A. Ward" is a happy fellow. Being a loving cup, you'll have that.

Mr. Ward welcomes customers to the Pittsburgh Trophy Company on Penn. Avenue in the Strip. Joe Cioffe drew him in the summer of 1993 when he worked part-time at the store. Cioffe went on to become an illustrator for Disney. PTC was founded in 1974 by Bob and Mary Agnes Nellis and remains family-owned.

A. Ward is no relation to H. Ward.

Like Big Nick, "Thriftee" also fancies the letter K. The man fashioned out of pipes represents Keystone Plumbing on Brighton Road on the North Side as well as other locations. His headwear might have been the inspiration for the DEVO energy dome. A web search found Thriftee on a 1954 Keystone ad.

Thriftee models sweater vests in his spare time. It's cold being a pipe.

-With Halloween approaching, Mrs. Dish is vexed about a costume and thought of Big Nick as an option. So she decided to reprint this story first published in 2005.

Woman against paper in paper

Dish irony meter explodes

Mary Beth Karchella-MacCumbee belongs to what she calls "the cloth community" and tries, as much as possible, to live a paperless life.

She sews baby slings out of cotton and silk and even makes cloth menstrual pads, which she has shipped to customers as far away as Australia as part of her home business making "alternative cloth family products."

But surely there's got to be toilet paper, right? Not for this family. There's no paper towels, facial tissues or toilet paper. Instead, she sews cloth personal wipes out of hemp velour, cotton flannel, cotton velour or bamboo fleece.

"Bamboo is soft. There's nothing wrong with your bottom being treated to bamboo," she says.

And so begins the lengthy tale of a Wilkins mother so passionate about poo-pooing paper that this eco-friendly mom living in a material world agreed to have her story printed in all 212,714 copies of the P-G yesterday.

"By using cloth diapers, I saved a little over $3,000, which paid for a year of private education at Christ Lutheran Church and School in Forest Hills," she says.

Dish asks: How many trees in the forest did it take to produce her yarn?

July 16, 2008 in Observations | Permalink | Comments (7)

June 02, 2008

Riverfront Roundup

Oddities on the North Shore

On Saturday, Mr. and Mrs. Dish decided to take Shirley, Dish Puplisher, down by the riverside. After perambulating behind PNC Park, the Dish clan paused in the shade under the Fort Duquesne Bridge. There, we encountered chicks in bikinis.

We didn’t ask the photographers or models what the deal was. It seemed untoward. So, instead, we surreptitiously photographed the ladies being photographed by the dudes. Seemed so much more straightforward at the time.

So, for your enjoyment, Dish presents Monday Morning Cheesecake.

Enjoy.

Also this weekend, Dish heard this harrowing tale.

A member of the Just Ducky Tours fleet was rolling along the North Shore walkway, not far from where Mr. and Mrs. Dish and Shirley sat earlier. A jogger, distracted by the rockin’ tunes pouring forth from his headphones, propelled himself into the Duck’s path. After some honking and quacking, the man looked up. Realizing his peril, he removed himself from the path of the oncoming Quackmobile.

The next night, a Just Ducky Tours narrator happened to be at the Dave Matthews concert. Mr. Mathews related a story: He had nearly been mowed down by a Just Ducky Tours boat in Pittsburgh. Yes, Dishers, Just Ducky Tours nearly killed Dave Mathews. Though he has polluted the earth with his horrid hippie nonsense music, even he didn’t deserve that fate, Dish thinks.

Dish likes to believe that the Duckboat itself had vengeance in mind for this incident. Boats, they stick together.

June 2, 2008 in Observations | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 12, 2008

Central Northside Neighborhood Council election tonight

The end of the contentiousness?

Tonight, the members of the CNNC cast their ballots to fill seven seats on the group's Board of Directors. Democracy in action, and such. Nice.

But the path leading up to the election has been anything but nice. The ChatNorthside message board has been as friendly as a nest of vipers, with one person (just an example of the tone) cheering the demise of the Western Avenue restaurant, Muriel's. Some friendships seem to be disintegrating.

The CNNC-supported slate has been called naïve, soft, obstructionist and unfit to lead an organization. These accusations don't ring true to Dish, though there appears to have been some foot-dragging in response to requests from the opposition slate. The opposition have been tarred as fascists, which is a little over the top. In fact -- though Dish has seen a member or two wear a brown shirt -- they seem to have more than a few good ideas, despite having used words like "takeover" and "coup d’état" instead of "join."

From an outside (not being CNNC members) yet inside (as neighborhood residents) perspective, so much of the discourse surrounding the election has been far too personal. Everyone involved can do better.

What comforts Dish is a belief that whoever gets elected tonight wants to serve the Central North Side to the best of his or her ability. Let this be so, because, if it is, a mix of tried-and-true ideas and new energy could be
a catalyst to moving the neighborhood forward.

A little mutual respect in the wake of this evening's balloting, regardless of the result, will make our fine neighborhood better. That cooperation, Dish believes, is of equal importance to any ideas each slate of candidates have to offer.

So, here are the pertinent details: 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School Gymnasium.

Only members in good standing (those who have paid their dues and have attended at least one regular meeting during the last calendar year) may vote.

May 12, 2008 in Mexican War Streets, North Side, Observations, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 19, 2007

Cannon fodder sought

The Army invades the Mexican War Streets

Mr. and Mrs. Dish were out Wednesday evening taking Shirley the Dog for her daily constitutional when they came across handmade flyers attached to a handful of utility poles.

The text reads:

"Do you have what it takes to earn the green beret"

“Absolutely effing not,” Mr. Dish thought to himself. “I’d start weeping 30 seconds into training, for I am a pansy.”

Then there was this one:

"Are you looking for a new career, job satisfaction, job security,
a real future that is going somewhere, a place to make a difference. "

“Not really,” Mr. Dish thought. “But what’s the gig? Oh, crap, the Army. You can get hurt doing that. No thanks.”

Leaving alone the fact that the recruiter who designed these “viral” flyers (and what the hell ever happened to the charming “Uncle Sam Wants You” poster?), neglected to employ the handy question mark, Dish takes offense that the military is scouring our neighborhood for future body bag occupants.

Dish isn’t anti-military (oddly, all of Dish’s military pals are Navy pansies), but Dish hopes that the young people of the North Side wait until the Bush administration has decamped to Paraguay (or some other nation that will protect its members from extradition) before they opt to serve.

The only rational time to join the military is when the military is led by a rational Commander-in-Chief.

Oh, recruiters, why don’t you head over to Shadyside to see if any of those kids want to take you up on your offers.

Click images for larger views

July 19, 2007 in Mexican War Streets, North Side, Observations | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 20, 2006

A decision? You bet!

The Gaming Control Board's about to make the call. What are the odds?

UPDATE: We were totally wrong. It's PITG. Still, read our predictions. They are marginally amusing.

We'll tell you. At this late date, within an hour of the GCB's announcement, Dish has obtained the odds, freshly posted in Vegas, for each of the three contenders hoping to make serious bank off the citizens of Pittsburgh and its environs.

Pull that lever and hope for three bars.

Forest City Enterprises (the Station Square proposal):
About that of a one-legged man winning an ass kicking contest.

PITG Gaming (the North Shore folk):
Equivalent to a snowball maintaining its frosty integrity within the less-than-chummy confines of the sulfurous pit known as Clairton. Just kidding, Hell.

Isle of Capri (Mario Lemieux's last hope to become a multi-multi-multi-millionaire rather than just a run-of-the-mill multimillionaire):
Nick Perryesque. In the neighborhood of the Pennsylvania Lottery coming up 666 on April 24, 1980.

December 20, 2006 in "News", News , News, kinda, Observations, Opinion, Politics, Real Estate | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 21, 2006

Whole lotta racism goin' on

Holidays bring out the best in people. 

Let's tally up the hate, shall we?

"Whites Suck" is painted on a fence in East Liberty; a sticker warning of the impending invasion by SUV-driving Klansmen is affixed to a Dumpster in the Mexican War Streets on the North Side; racist flyers were posted in South Oakland; and now a warm and fuzzy tale about Nazi gingerbread men. Dish will reserve comment on the North Side sticker, save for this: "Every body" is one word. And, seriously, what the hell is that apostrophe doing in "SUV's"? If you're going to trouble yourself with hating the yuppie hordes via sticker, at least have the decency to use proper English. And if you're going to stereotype all whiteys as Klansmen, at least have the decency to refer to the properly stereotypical Klan vehicle: The pickup.

(Note: WPXI posted the Hitlerrific cookie story under "Food News." Hey kids: Racism tastes great with milk!)

November 21, 2006 in Current Affairs, Mexican War Streets, News , North Side, Observations | Permalink | Comments (8)

September 28, 2006

Meat-seeking missles

Big Ben's errant bombs bust up Bar B-Q

This is Wilson's Bar B-Q, which stands on North Taylor street in the Mexican War Streets, less than a mile as the crow—or horribly overthrown pass—flies from Heinz Field. Witnesses who were wandering the North Side neighborhood's streets as the cruelly-uniformed Bengals took advantage of no fewer than 3,254 Steelers mistakes last Sunday afternoon report that oblong, brown, leathery objects were seen flying over the Community College of Allegheny County and violently thwacking into this poor, defenseless (kind of like the Bengals, now that Dish thinks about it) sign.

The "N"which should occupy the space between the "O" and the apostrophe was taken down midway through the second quarter. The "B" in "Bar" suffered a similar fate when Roethlisberger chucked a stinker in the third quarter. Wilson's management asks that Roethlisberger either improve his passing accuracy to more resemble his performances in his first two years as a Steeler or stop by and grab a couple of racks of ribs to make up for his transgressions. Wilson's recommends the hot sauce with a side of greens and cole slaw.

September 28, 2006 in Mexican War Streets, North Side, Observations, Steelers | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 27, 2006

Pittsburgh pink lung law passes

Mike Gillis says don't stop there.

Good morning, and smoke 'em if you got 'em Pittsburgh.  I can't figure a way to defend smoking or subjecting others to second-hand smoke without sounding like an idiot.  I'm in favor of helmet and seat belt laws, so I guess I'm a hypocrite if I say it's a personal choice to smoke so get out of my business.

This is just the beginning, so buckle up your chin straps-here it comes. New York City officials want to tell chefs what they can and can't use in their recipes. My favorite part is this "...trans fats can easily be replaced with substitute oils that taste the same or better..." Now a government is deciding what tastes good? Let's flesh this out a bit. Since we are incapable of making the right choices, let's come up with a list for our governments:

Mandatory stress tests before entering Morton's or Ruth's Chris.

Proof of healthy cholesterol counts to be kept on file at pizza joints, to be updated annually.

A nation-wide ban on all-you-can-eat buffets.

A two-drink maximum at all bars, restaurants, and private clubs.

No hot dogs at ball games.

National standards of portion control.

Grocery stores will be forced to provide information on our purchases, tracked through those discount cards, and customers will be prohibited from buying unhealthy items once their "limit" has been reached.

I wish I owned a bar in Cranberry or Peters.

September 27, 2006 in Health, Mike Gillis, More Opinion, Observations, Opinion, Smoking Ban | Permalink | Comments (4)