My arm hurts November 24, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Software , 2 commentsMy brother purchased a Wii system this past week and it is a blast. So far, he has only two games: the standard Wii sports game and Zelda. It’s an impressive system. I just learned too that you can buy previous Nintendo, Super Nintendo, N64 games as well as Sega Genesis and Turbo Grafix 16 (do you remember that?) games.
Talking to my brother, I’m amazed at the current game console market. Do you know that a PS3 sold on eBay a week ago for $9000? Who has that kind of money for a game system? Out of 174 PS3’s, the average price for a PS3 on ebay is just over $2600. That’s ridiculous.
Anyway, my arm hurts from playing a bunch of tennis and bowling. I’m actually kind of worried that there will be scores of hard-core gamers out there who will injure themselves with Wii. I almost punched a hole through my parents’ dropped ceiling earlier today.
Okay, this post is a little embarassing. Happy Black Friday. My sister and I plan to see The Departed tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it is.
Pittsburgh pools open today June 16, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Pittsburgh , 3 commentsPittsburgh outdoor fun turned up a notch today when the eighteen outdoor pools opened their waters for the summer. I never knew how much of a deal these pools are. I bought a pass this week for $30. It gives access to any of the eighteen pools during the summer and access to the Oliver Bath House (not like the Roman baths) through the other three seasons. Such a deal!
My new interest in swimming has come about because my roommate convinced me to train for the Pittsburgh Triathlon, which is on August 6th. It’s an olympic one, which means a 1.5 km (1 mi) swim, 40 km (25 mi) bike and a 10 km (6.2 mi) run. Swimming will be the most difficult for me. So, I want to get out to the pool at least three or four times a week before then. The actual swimming for the triathlon is in the Allegheny river, which should prove to be quite an experience.
A logo February 9, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Friends , 2 comments
We needed a logo because we’re making T-shirts this season. My teammate Lauren’s coworker irons these puppies on somehow. It’s not nearly as good of a job as my brother could do, but I think it turned out alright. GIMP’s a quality program.
The south side does not disappoint February 6, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Pittsburgh , 2 commentsWow. The Steelers won it. And as others have commented, it was not the most interesting of super bowls (at least for neutral viewers). But it was great to watch the Steelers pull out a victory. If you’d like to read some highlights of the game, read Adrian’s post.
Watching the game in the south side was the best decision, hands down. Unfortunately, most of my friends opted to see it at some house parties in the area. And I was tempted to go, but something told me the south side would erupt with frenzy after a win (or even a loss).
Since I couldn’t find any wingmen, I flew solo. I got to the south side around 3:30, which allowed me a couple hours to walk up and down Carson street to take some photos. Hopefully, I’ll post them on my flickr site soon. I’ll let everyone know.
And I ended up watching the game at Mario’s. People crammed in. I somehow managed a pretty decent viewing spot despite arriving right before kickoff. Plus, it offered me some good angles to snap some photos.
The game brought out things in me that I didn’t know existed. It was an incredible good time to continually be embracing the people next to you in black and gold joy. The number of high fives exchanged in that twenty block stretch of carson must have broken some record last night.
After our victory, the bars spilled out to the streets where the fans just went nuts. Thankfully, the entire street was shut down to traffic. There weren’t even parked cars. All the side streets were closed too. There was a host of sights. Some were making snow angels on the asphalt. Others were tearing their shirts off. Still others hung out of windows while people on the ground waved their terrible towels and Steelers flags. At another point, these two guys ran an extension cord that stretched for about three quarters of a block from their apartment. They plugged in an amp and a bass on the corner of 20th and Carson, set up a drumset, and played some Steelers fight songs for the crowd. There were literally hundreds (maybe a few thousand) on the entire stretch of East Carson last night.
And it seriously reminded me of heaven. Because you saw all these social groups unified in the strangest of ways. Punks were hugging yuppies. Jocks were high-fivin’ goths. Everyone was unified under the black and gold.
After nearly two hours of celebrating, the cops came out in all flavours - k-9s, horse-mounted, motorcycles, riot gear, undercover, etc. - and started to disperse the crowd. A PAT bus doubled as a makeshift holding cell that slowly drove behind the police brigade. Any agressive resistors were handcuffed and detained there. But by this time, it was around midnight and cold. So I headed home. But just before that, a few stranded guys from Scranton offered me $20 for me to drive them back to their hotel in Crafton. I did and more than recouped my bar tab from earlier.
It was a blast.
More news of steelers fandom February 2, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports , 2 commentsIf the heart attack weren’t enough, here’s another one. In fear of delivering her baby on super bowl sunday, a Pittsburgh woman asked the doctor to induce labor early. They were slated to give birth early Wednesday morning, but as things will have it, she started to give birth two hours prior to the scheduled time. The baby’s name is Joella. Jo for Joey Porter, Ell for Randel El and A for Allan Faneca. God help our city.
I think I’ll watch the super bowl in the south side January 31, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports , 2 comments
Watching this video makes me want to watch the super bowl in the south side.
No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away (Ezra 3:13).
Am I reading too much into it? Maybe this was one of the dangers of lectio divina that my friend Peter was talking about.
In search of a fight song… January 29, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Music , 2 commentsThe last couple days, I’ve been enjoying the east side of the state. My company sent me to Philadelphia for a one day conference on data formats for polysomnography. And like most company trips, I try to stretch out the time as long as I can. So I’ll be returning to the burgh on Sunday night.
I’m currently staying with my good friends Tim & Brianne. It’s been good seeing them more. A year ago, Tim (pre-marriage) was living in Burlington, Vermont which caused us to see each other only a couple times a year. But now being in Philly, we’ve had the opportunity to see each other more often. Saturday was spent exploring the different neighborhoods of Philly with our cameras. Tomorrow, it looks like we’ll tackle the Philadelphia Arts Museum. It’s free on Sundays!
One ritual that we usually have when we get together is to share music that we’ve been listening to lately. Unfortunately, most of my recent stuff has been on vinyl. He introduced me to some Innocence Mission and Denison Witmer. The latter I had seen open for Sufjan Stevens. And the Innocence Mission is a band that has been growing on me more and more. I brought Closing Time, one of Tom Waits’ earlier CDs. Some of his early stuff is really beautiful.
But with the Super Bowl looming on the horizon, this music paled in comparison to the Steelers fight songs that we both desperately longed for. So we abandoned our stereos and mp3s and scoured the internet, looking for anything to whet our appetite. We found that one circulating around Pittsburgh radio stations about Troy Polamalu. Supposedly, a sports announcer mispronounced Polomalu’s last name as puhlahmahlu. So Mr. Devious, a Pittsburgh band, cranked out a pretty funny ditty sung to the tune of that somewhat famous muppets song.
One that I wanted to find, but couldn’t, was a song that I heard on the X this past week. It sounded like a bad Cake (the band) on an answering machine. The song was probably called Get it Done, or something like that. Anyone know anything about it? We couldn’t find it.
I can’t believe it’s not gutter January 18, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports , 3 commentsWell, the bowling season officially kicked off tonight. Our team is back for a second season and after a relaxed holiday break, we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves. One of our team members even bought his own ball and shoes. Uniforms are slated for the end of the season. We don’t mess around.
Tonight, we probably bowled against the livliest crew in the league which made it extra fun. With bowling names like bowlomite, you know they’re serious. Unfortunately our team, I Can’t Believe it’s not Gutter, went 0-3 tonight. We’re convinced that it’s a minor setback and it’s all uphill from here. Hopefully I’ll get some photos posted in the weeks to come.
Steelers Bars January 16, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Pittsburgh , 4 commentsAdrian links to a pretty neat site that lists most (or all of) the Steelers bars in the world. I can’t believe how many there are. Five in Alaska. Three in North Dakota. And then even some random places outside the US like Portugal, Hong Kong, Qatar, and even Iraq. There’s an idea for a coffee table book or something. Get some photos and stories of the patrons and owners of these places. Unfortunately, you could really only see these bars in action sixteen days out of the year. It’d have to be a team effort. You’d need people scattered throughout the US (or world!). Who wants to do it?
Boom! January 15, 2006
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Pittsburgh , add a commentIn the words of my friend Jonathan’s Dad who thought he coined the phrase: “That’s what I’m talking about!!” Man, I cannot believe how fast my heart can pump after watching a football game like that earlier today. I think the hospitals in Pittsburgh will be overrun by heartattacks. After one or two bad calls and a fumble in the last minute of play, the city with the most elderly people next to Ft. Lauderdale might bump down to third after tonight’s win.
Ben Roethlisberger played a great game. His passing and game winning tackle - believe or not - were incredible. And my respect for Polamalu continues to grow. The guy has so much class. After the ref held a gun to his head and robbed him of the interception, he went out on the field without causing a ruckus and played his heart out. They deserved to win.