Pittsburgh, PA

I was looking through the paper today and I found an article about a 48 Hour Movie competition. The idea behind the contest is that you have 48 hours to make a movie with a set genre, prop, and character. This sounds like a lot of fun and I wish I could have been apart of it.

The article was written about two local Pittsburghers, Mike Hough and Doug Werner that were in the contest. It’s a pretty entertaining story about them trying to think of a good idea and getting it done in time. I guess they had some trouble along the way, but that is to be expected when you’re trying to rush a movie as fast as you can.

I am going to have to keep my eye open for the next time this contest starts up again. I have a few friends with cameras, that I know can’t wait to use them on a movie project.

48 Hour Movie competition, Pittsburgh, Post Gazette, making movies, competition, movie, independent film

Pennsylvania has been facing some highs in temperatures recently that have been breaking weather records. We’ve all complained how hot it’s been getting and for those of us who like to ski, how winter just isn’t the same as it used to be.

A recent article in the City Paper tries to give some answers:

…according to data compiled by the National Climatic Data Center…Pennsylvania emits approximately one percent of the entire world’s greenhouse gases. If it continues, scientists say, Pennsylvania could look more like Georgia or Alabama by the end of the century.

Now I know there are still skeptics out there, who believe global warming is just a natural occurrence and perhaps it is, but there are also a lot of scientists and studies to back up that it’s not entirely a natural process and that with a little intervention we can ease its effects.

“I still wonder why global warming is such a contentious debate,” Wesser says. “There are very powerful research organizations with a plethora of data obtained by scientific methods without bias. Yet somehow there are still skeptics.” -field organizer for PennEnvironment

Local scientists feel Pennsylvania is so high on the list, because of the our large coal consumption. Coal is considered to be one of the worst fossil fuels, because it contains high levels of carbon dioxide, which is very harmful to the environment in large doses.

Penn Environment are asking Gov. Ed Rendell to use scientific methods to cut down on greenhouse gases in Pennsylvania. Rendell is expected to release a statewide global-warming plan in the near future.

They hope to decrease greenhouse gases by 15-20 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050.

The 80-percent change of greenhouse gases is a “very ambitious” goal, according to Stan Kabala, research professor of Duquesne University’s Center for Environmental Research and Education, but it is attainable.

Now I know I’m probably going to get a lot of backlash from this post, but I could care less. I welcome debate, although I won’t be participating in it myself. I’m not sure whether I believe global warming can be helped that much by cutting greenhouse gases, but I do know that it is beneficial for us all to stop polluting the environment so much.

Pittsburgh has come a long way since it was known for its smog, smoke and bad breathing conditions. Since we changed our economy to one based on healthcare, education and financial services we have seen a lot of changes. One being of course, the layoff and closures of so many of our steel plants. We saw the result of this during the 1980’s continuing into almost the present with the unemployment rate and the decreasing population. But ever since 2000, Pittsburgh has seen a huge growth as our economy has settled in and we are starting to see the benefits of the switch from an industrial economy to a health-care/service based one. I can honestly say, as well as a lot of other Pittsburgh born natives, that Pittsburgh was awful for a long time. So awful, that after graduating from high school, I decided to move to NYC and only now, after having been back for 5 years am I starting to see what I’m going to be missing when I move back there again.

I know a lot of people are concerned with the effects of government legislations on the industrial arena, but honestly I think those days are just about over anyways.

environment, global warming, heat, greenhouse gases, pollution, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, weather

There’s a new literary/art magazine in town that just so happens to be run by yours truly.

Debris Magazine is online only for now and publishes quarterly, but will feature an artist and a photographer monthly, so check back often for updates. Despite having its origins in Pittsburgh, the talent featured in this first issue reaches as far as England and Russia.

The first issue also features a local photographer by the name of Jeff Zoet who does amazing work and also a local artist, Matt Gondek. I would love to see more local artists featured monthly. I know there are a bunch of you out there, so don’t be shy. The issue also features a Russian illustrator, poets and writers from around the country and world, a travel article on Chile-which sounds like a wonderful place to visit, a review on a local glass art exhibit and more!

The second issue will be published in October and will be the fall/Halloween issue. So if you’re disappointed with the first issue, make sure you give me another chance by checking out the next one when it comes out.

Or you could always make it better by contributing something yourself!

I’m looking for poetry/prose, short stories, essays, reviews, travel writing, artwork, photography and more! I would seriously love for more local reviews and travel writing. I love reading about places I may or may never visit! And I know plenty of people besides myself that travel a lot. Don’t make me write my own articles!! And as I mentioned in the submission guidelines on the website, don’t hesitate because you feel that what you do is not creative or does not necessarily fit into a certain category of what is art or literature. Boundaries are meant to be broken.

I also feel that Pittsburgh has a lot of great talent. Help me let the world see that! I will try and highlight local talent as much as possible, so start sending in your best work asap!

For further details on how to submit work or if you want to check out the first issue, click on the banner below.

Debris has a Myspace here.
I’m also looking for advertisers to earn revenue for a print version and it’s cheap, so ask me if you’re interested!

Debris Magazine, Pittsburgh, literary, art, Jeff Zoet, Matt Gondek, Chile, Looking Glass exhibit, local talent, magazine, submissions

In the past few weeks there has been a lot of buzz about wi-fi in Pittsburgh. The first mention was about local businesses in Shadyside offering free wireless to anyone close enough to get it. Then today there was an article in the Post that talked how Pittsburgh wants to get a contractor to offer free wireless to the whole city.

Right now you can get 2 hours of free access a day Downtown. I have used it before and it’s not that bad. It’s fast enough to check you email but I wouldn’t try downloading large files with it. Even with its limitations it would be great to have wireless access widely available. It might even help keep young people in Pittsburgh; since that seems to be the new goal of this town.

After reading the article you realize that you shouldn’t hold you breathe for this to happen. A lot of wireless companies are finding that it would not be cost effective to offer the service for free.

The best idea so far is from Jonathan Plesset, owner of the Shadyside Inn. He turned on free wireless for all of Walnut Street, in Shadyside not that long go.

“There’s no reason we couldn’t do this in Squirrel Hill or South Side,” he said. His plan is to have business owners in those areas chip in to cover the costs of the system, so their clientele could use it for free.
He’d like to talk with the city about its plans, but said he believes it makes most sense to “just do it neighborhood by neighborhood.”

This something that would benefit the city but finding the best solution is going to take a long time. So I can’t see the city wide wi-fi happening anytime soon, but I guarantee in the near future the “Plesset Style” wi-fi system will be popping up all over.

city wide wi-fi, pittsburgh, downtown, free wi-fi, Shadyside, Jonathan Plesset, Walnut Street

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is sponsoring a series of Neighborhood Forums, the first of which will be held in the North Side tonight. There will be information about the initiative, Neighborhoods First Agenda and there will be input from the Mayor on the current conditions and future of the community. There will be a series of ten community conversations throughout Pittsburgh neighborhoods in the coming months.

For any readers who live in the city of Pittsburgh, you might want to participate in one of the following forums:

July 19 – North Side
August 1 – Downtown, North Shore & Strip
August 29 – Southside Flats, Slopes, Hilltop, Mt. Washington & Duquesne Heights
September 5 – Upper East End (Lawrenceville, Morningside, Garfield, Friendship, Bloomfield, Highland Park)
September 19 – 31st Ward, Hazelwood, Glen Hazel
September 24 – West Pittsburgh
October 24 – East End (East Liberty, Larimer, Lincoln Lemington, Homewood, Brushton and East Hills)
November 7 – Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Greenfield, Swisshelm Park, Point Breeze, Regent Square
December 5 - South Hills (Brookline, Beechview, Banksville, Overbrook, Carrick)
December TBD – Oakland, Hill and Uptown

These forums will be listed in the “community events” calendars of the Post-Gazette and Tribune Review ahead of time.

Thursday, July 19th
6:30 -7:30 pm
Pittsburgh’s Grand Hall at The Priory
614 Pressley Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15212

For more information contact:
Jennifer Watson
Neighborhood Initiatives Coordinator
Office of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl
412-255-4765
Jennifer.Watson@city.pittsburgh.pa.us

The following information was taken from the websites of the Post-Gazette and Progress Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh, neighborhood forum, Luke Ravenstahl, mayor, North Side, downtown, North Shore, South Side, South Hills, Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Oakland, Point Breeze, Strip District, Mt. Washington, Duquesne, Upper East End, East End, Hill district, Hazelwood

Pittsburgh Council today unanimously, approved legislation to limit bars on South Side’s East Carson Street. This is good news to people who live on the historic street and are tired of the all the bars popping up.

Here is an except form the article in the Post Gazette:

“The legislation allows only one liquor license per 50,000 square feet of any local neighborhood commercial district larger than 2 million square feet. That would apply only to East Carson Street on the South Side, Butler Street in Lawrenceville and Penn Avenue in Bloomfield and Garfield.”

In the article it says that Carson St. is past the saturation point, which is clearly true. That’s about the only business on that street. In the past few months I have seen a lot of the shops down there close up. The pet store and the guitar store are just some of the places that have left.

As much as I hate government regulation I can definitely see where this is coming from. If the town I lived in was getting overrun with bars, I would be upset too.

Pittsburgh Council, Pittsburgh, Southside, Carson St, bars, goverment regulation, Lawrenceville, Penn Avenue, Bloomfield, Garfield

This past Monday, Pittsburgh’s graffiti task force set up a panel discussion on what to do about the increasing annoyance of graffiti in the South Side area. The task force is getting more attention after they arrested MFONE a couple of months ago, whom because of their arrest, is facing up to $500,000 worth of damages. They, as well as other Pittsburghers, feel that his arrest will set a precedent for graffiti artists that are caught and will help to deter the crime in the first place.

Yeah right.

I don’t really want to get into why I used to wish these kinds of arrests happened more often, but I will say that my opinion has changed. As soon as I stopped being the girlfriend of one, I started to see it as less of a problem; at least in my life. I didn’t have to worry about him getting arrested or hurt anymore and no one was personally tagging my property, so no worries for me.

Now, I can see how it effects other people…mostly residents who are sick of having their property destroyed. However, my problem isn’t with all of the graffiti artists, it’s just with the really crappy ones. The good ones add something to a building or a sign or whatever; the bad ones make everything look worse than it already is. Yuck.

Now I’m not advocating doing this at all, because of course I like to stay out of jail, but I thought this was a good idea for some:

Go to Design Crack’s website for more details on what to do with the report card.

If you want to check out the original article that inspired this post, go to the Trib’s website here.

graffiti, South Side, Pittsburgh, report card, art, street art

Carnegie Mellon builds a robot car that drives better then most 16 year olds. They even made it go through a drive course and it passed. Here is a quote from the article:

“Boss — the robotic car that Carnegie Mellon University’s Tartan Racing has developed — cruised a test course like a 16-year-old with a driving permit, avoiding traffic, stopping at stop signs and swinging around cars parked in its lane.” –read more…

Just think, maybe in a few years we will not have to drive anymore. It would be nice on a long road trip, to be able to take a nap or eat a Baconator without having to try to drive at the same time. They already have a car that parks itself; I guess this would be the next step. I wonder how long it’s going to be until Carnegie Mellon makes “Transformers” a reality.

I know Roethlisberger would like everyone to stop talking about this, but I don’t think this could be a Pittsburgh blog without mentioning it. Yesterday, June 12th, was one year after the big motorcycle accident.

I remember the day it happened; time in Pittsburgh stopped and everyone was preparing for the bad news. Then, to everyone’s surprise there was nothing majorly wrong with him. Which was a relief to Steelers fans everywhere; our super bowl dreams were not crushed. The city was alive again with excitement for the coming season.

I guess Roethlisberger had an interview with the media yesterday; here is a link to the Post-Gazette story.

“Everyone’s forgotten about it except the media,” Roethlisberger said. “So, hopefully, now that the year is over with, everyone will forget about it.” – PPG

Maybe if he played for the Penguins, more people would forget about it. Ben needs to understand Pittsburgh loves football and will never forget. Just look at how many past Steelers players we still talk about and the books about them. I bet if they offered a class at CCAC about Steelers history, there would be a waiting list to take it.

Penguins, CCAC, Steelers, Roethlisberger, motorcycle accident, Pittsburgh, football

In Pittsburgh’s weekly City Paper there was an article about the Casino and Traffic problems. It seems that a lot of the local companies on the North Side, including the Steelers and the Pirates are not happy with the added traffic the Casino will bring. Here is a snippet from the article.

“Most of those who testified were lawyers for the various parties involved and traffic planners hired by the sports teams. But the Steelers and Pirates have already voiced disappointment with the process so far. Hired lawyers and traffic planners argued that the casino had yet to submit a full traffic-impact plan, which they contended was essential. And they groused that speakers were given only three minutes to speak — not enough time, they complained, to express the full scope of their concerns.” –PCP

I do not support the Casino coming to Pittsburgh. I think it’s a bad move and will just make things worse. But this argument about traffic pattern is a little off base. If you get to the end of the article, there is a comment by a reader that makes a pretty good point. Here is a portion of the comment.

ALL Steeler games and ALL Pirate games create huge problems, not only on the North Side but also in Downtown Pittsburgh. Bridges are closed, traffic is re-routed and delays are constant. Where are the sports teams’ concern for traffic congestion here? – poropatichb

That’s a good question. To my fellow haters of the Casino, you’re going to have to find a better argument then traffic to stop this thing, but thanks for trying.

Steelers, Pirates, traffic, casino, North Side, Downtown, Pittsburgh

I know everyone already knows that Pittsburgh was voted most liveable city. But not everyone knows the reasons why. So I decided to write a list of the top five things that make Pittsburgh so great.

1.) Steelers – Most cities just have a bar or two that is Steelers themed, so fans can watch the games and feel at home. But we have the actual stadium the team plays in, so try and top that.

2.) Bars – Speaking of bars, Pittsburgh as plenty of them. If you want to bar hop all night just go to the Southside. If you want good Belgium beer, just to go to The Sharp Edge in Crafton. If you’re hungry for some bar food, just go to Rocky’s in McKees Rocks and you want leave hungry. What ever it is you want from a bar, Pittsburgh has it.

3.) Art & Shows – If you pick up a City Paper you will find a large list of Gallery Openings, Local Bands, and National Acts. So finding something to do on a Friday and Saturday night that doesn’t include a bar is not that difficult.

4.) Housing – If you’re looking for a place to live even if you don’t have a lot of money you can find it here. Pittsburgh has both suburban living (South Hills) and urban living (North Side).

5.) People – We all know how nice we are to tourists. I even help a few out from time to time. I been to other cities and the locals just ignore me, but when I first moved to Pittsburgh the locals here welcomed me.

That’s my list of why I think Pittsburgh is a great city. If you would like to add to the list feel free to comment.

Pittsburgh, top five, Steelers, Belgium beer, City Paper, suburban living, urban living, tourists, locals

Allegheny County finally throws in the towel on the smoking ban issue. This is great news for freedom. And when I say freedom I don’t mean for smokers, I mean for the business owners. If they want to allow smoking they should have the freedom to do so. Here is the important part of the Post Gazette story.

In a closed meeting before the regular meeting of council last night, members, after consulting with their attorney, decided not to appeal the Commonwealth Court ruling to the state Supreme Court. — Read the full story here.

I have been expressing my view on this issue for a long time, but this is not the blog for them. So, I will just give you a links to the stories I have written in the past on my other blogs. No Need for a Smoking Ban (MrBaconpants.com) and On Again Off Again Smoking Ban (talkObjectivism.com)

If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine. I feel that this was an important issue we all should be talking about.

Allegheny County, smoking, Post Gazette, Commonwealth Court, Supreme Court, important issue

Raise your hand if you hate road construction. Ok, you can put them down now; I can’t really see them anyway. Has anyone noticed how many road projects are going on this year? It seems like on every major roadway you see orange cones popping up.

What would make things a lot better is if they would have spaced it out a little. Since more major roads have the orange cone plague it’s hard to find fast alternate routes. What’s even worse is when you do find one, the next week, you guessed it, orange cones.

I checked out the PENNdot website looking for a map that showed the roadwork. To my surprise they really do have a map. You can check it out here. Since it is run by the state I can’t imagine it being updated regularly, but at least it’s something.

I am done ranting about roadwork for now. Maybe with this new found information (the map), the alternate routes I do find will stay cone free. Also, this winter you can look forward to a rant on potholes. They claimed the life of my tires twice last year.

construction, orange cones, plague, alternate routes, ranting, cone free

The new shared artist space called “Creative Treehouse” is now accepting members. This is great news for local artists that are looking for a creative space where they can work and network with fellow artists and creative professionals. This will be a place where traditional and new media artists can work side by side.

The Creative Treehouse is located in Bellevue, PA, about 7 minutes from Downtown Pittsburgh. It’s a small community with a lot of independent businesses like, Vivo, Affogato, 517521, just to name a few. You will also find that it has easy access to main routes, public transportation and public parking, so getting there is not a problem.

They will be hosting a kick off party at the end of June. You can find more details about it on their website as details become available. You don’t have to wait until then to become a member; just fill out an online application and they will contact you. If you wondering how much something like this will cost, you will be happy to know that it’s only a $25 monthly fee for 24 hour access to the space. There is also a growing list of member benefits listed on their website. So if you’re still not convinced this a great opportunity, that might change your mind. Plus, Bellevue is a great place to visit and live. Hope to see you there!

local artists, creative space, new media, Creative Treehouse, independent businesses, 24 hour access, Bellevue