Monthly Archives: August 2007

To do: Open House at City Theatre

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City Theatre logoNext Friday will be a busy one in Pittsburgh. In addition to the Gist Street Readings and the Pirates playing Chicago Cubs at home (Vintage Cap Night!), there’s this very fun event at City Theatre on the South Side:

Fun-Festive-FREE-Fifth Annual
Open House at City Theatre
Friday, September 7 from 5 to 10 pm

Behind-the-Scenes Tours – Go back stage, see the costume and paint shops, visit the rehearsal room, hear a set design presentation, meet the artistic staff, and learn how City Theatre’s original plays are made.

Sneak Peek of the Upcoming Season – 2007/08 includes the startling drama Mother Teresa Is Dead, Jeffrey Hatcher’s kooky comedy Murderers, a world premiere of The 13th of Paris, the magical play with music Flight, and much more.

Taste of the South Side – Sample complimentary food from some of our exciting neighborhood restaurants including 17th Street Café, Café Allegro, Gypsy, Folino’s Ristorante, and Mantini’s Woodfired. A cash bar will also be available.

*City at Your Service: Bring a donation of canned food for the Brashear Association and have a beer or soda on us!

Box Office Bonanza – Discover new season packages like the Sipping Sundays Wine Tasting series and Girls Nights Out. Buy tickets for Sister’s Christmas Catechism. Learn about special savings for seniors, students and groups. Make a Date for 07/08!

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
1300 Bingham Street on the South Side

For more details about any of City Theatre’s programming call 412.431.CITY (2489) or visit CityTheatreCompany.org

City Theatre invited me to cover their 2006-2007 season, which included the American Trio series of new plays along with other innovative fare. What I like most about them is that they take seriously their mission to develop and produce contemporary plays for a diverse audience. They don’t shirk from a challenge — consider the risks of producing a comic-tragic mystery about sea creatures off the coast of Newfoundland (The Muckleman) — and they cover a range of styles from broad comedy (The Underpants) to modern drama (Intimate Apparel). They encourage and support new playwrights and contribute to the richness of Pittsburgh’s theater scene. And everyone I’ve met there has been friendly, open to ideas, and just downright nice.

I most enjoy their comedies, so I’m particularly looking forward to the upcoming production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Murderes in November. In the meantime though, this open house will be a fine opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of a terrific regional theater. I hope you’ll stop in.

Are you drinking the correct cocktail for your element?

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The things one can learn on the Internet are amazing.

For example, the delightful and charming Gwen of Intoxicated Zodiac provides a helpful list of cocktails matched to feng shui elements. Choose drinks suited to your element, and they will support you.

This is fabulous. My element turns out to be Earth, so my correct drink “is brown, tan orange or yellow in color, and tastes rich in flavour.”

Bourbon? Rye? Cognac? Yes, yes, yes! Bring on the Old Fashioneds and Sidecars, please.

What drives me to you is what drives me insane

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Nine eights (click for original)Weeks (months?) ago, Caroline of Pinky’s Paperhaus tagged me for a list-meme thing, and it’s well past time I responded.

Here are the rules:

  1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
  2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
  4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
  5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are eight random things about me:

1. I avoid buying clothes that require dry cleaning. This is not the result of personal environmentalism. Rather, I have discovered over the years that I’m too disorganized to get dirty clothes to the dry cleaners and pick them up.

2. Although I’ve dyed my hair a rainbow of colors over the years, I have always been happy to have been born a redhead. When I was a child, Pippi Longstocking was my hero.

3. The talent I most wish I had: singing. Both my parents sing well, my sister Katy has a beautiful voice, and everyone else in my family sounds at least fine. I’m a croaking toad.

4. If I were ever to go back to school, I would study law.

5. My family’s nickname for me as a kid was "The Encyclopedia." I was also infamous for correcting anyone’s grammar. In retrospect, I can’t understand why anyone was my friend.

6. In 1997, a friend of mine read my palm and told me that my lifeline indicates I’ll live only to age 55. Perhaps this should upset me. Instead, I find it kind of a relief, because I’m clearly not saving enough for retirement.

7. Try as I may, I can’t get myself to enjoy the music of Sonic Youth.

8. My current favorite Bob Dylan song is "Isis." This link points to lyrics that don’t match what’s on the album "Desire." I much prefer the recorded version:

She said, "Where ya been?" I said, "No place special."
She said, "You look different." I said, "Well, I guess."
She said, "You been gone." I said, "That’s only natural."
She said, "You gonna stay?" I said, "If you want me to, yes."

I shall hereby tag these people, whom I believe haven’t been tagged with this memey-thing before and who I think will not hate me too much for passing it to them:

Bonus random fact about me: Note that I balanced the boys with the girls. That’s ’cause I’m a Libra.

PodCamp Pittsburgh 2!

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podcamp Pittsburgh

I want to tell you (or remind you yet again) of a noteworthy event, one that I’m proud to be involved with and that I hope you’ll enjoy.

A blockbuster summer sequel: PodCamp Pittsburgh 2

It was a hit last November, so we’ve brought it back. PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 happens this weekend, on Saturday, August 18 and Sunday, August 19 from 9am to 4pm, with a networking happy hour on Saturday evening. Plus a meet-n-greet tonight!

PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 is a FREE community conference for people who create, enjoy, or are interested in blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks, and new media. The event offers basic and advanced sessions, panel discussions, lectures, and hands-on demonstrations.

Whether you’re a Web 2.0 novice, a plugged-in ‘net guru, or anyone between, there are sessions to fit your interests and experience. And it’s completely FREE.

Do you need to have an iPod or an iPhone or anything else ‘i’ or ‘pod’?

Nope. This is really all about the web in all its fun formats. It’s as non-geeky as you want it to be … or as radically geeky as you want.

Internet superstars, local pros, and more

New media experts will include:

Plus! I’ll present several sessions on blogging, including a how-to on starting a blog and a "best practices" panel. Come and cheer me on!

Get more details and register right now!

It all happens THIS WEEKEND, August 18 and 19, at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in downtown Pittsburgh. The full scoop is online at the PodCamp Pittsburgh website. That’s also the place to register online (for FREE).

The conference will be a prime opportunity to explore what the web has to offer for you, and/or for your business or organization. I hope you can join us!

Mixology Monday: Orange

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Recently I clued in to the fact that I’m not the only person on the web who writes about cocktails. There are many, many others with tons more experience, more recipes in their libraries and in their heads, and many more bottles in their cabinets with which to mix.

For a few moments I was bummed — I’m not original! — but I quickly came to my senses. These are my people! Future friends and mentors all. I’m humbled to be among them.

But not so humble that I won’t jump in the pool with all the rest.

Mixology Monday is a once-a-month series, hosted by a rotating crew, in which everyone blogs about some cocktail or other centered on a common theme. Our hostess this month is the intriguing Gwen of Intoxicated Zodiac. Our theme is: orange.

It’s a big theme, which makes it more challenging. Color, flavor, name, vibe … it’s all in play. The only thing it resists is rhyming. Nothing rhymes with orange.

And but so, I decided to use the opportunity to wander from my beaten path. What would I not ordinarily order ? The easy answer is a Screwdriver. Hmm. That was clearly too simple a drink for this event, but a Tequila Sunrise is very like a Screwdriver and maybe interesting enough, plus I haven’t had one since perhaps 1988.

In fact, it’s more than likely I had one that year, because the movie Tequila Sunrise hit screens then, with Mel Gibson in younger, long-haired glory, and Michelle Pfeiffer so pretty, and Kurt "the Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" Russell, for whom I held a lingering crush. Plus Raul Julia! In retrospect not a great flick, but I liked it then.

Any Tequila Sunrise I drank in 1988 would have used very inexpensive ingredients, so today I decided to live a little with fresh juice and not-so-cheap liqueurs.

Tequila Sunrise

Fresh-squeezed orange juice
1.5 oz Herradura Silver tequila
.5 oz Cointreau
Splash Grenadine

Fill a highball glass 2/3 with ice. Add ingredients, stir. Pour Grenadine slowly, let settle, do not stir.

This was tasty, and surely several steps up from others I’d had. But it didn’t seem to capture the spirit of Orange.

Margarita SunriseBack to the bar. I decided to cross the Tequila Sunrise with a Margarita. Orange instead of lime, adjust proportions to suit, keep the Cointreau for the orangeness, substitute Campari for Grenadine to balance for the extra sweetness. (Bonus: Campari is not as heavy as Grenadine, so instead of dropping straight to the bottom of the glass and forming a strong line between colors, it mingles and mixes. Looks more like the colors of a sunset. Nice.)

Margarita Sunrise

2 oz Herradura Silver
.5 oz Cointreau
Juice of 1/4 orange
Splash Campari

Put tequila, Cointreau, and juice in a shaker with ice. Shake to combine. Pour into chilled cocktail glass (strain if you dislike pulp). Pour Campari over the back of a spoon, let settle.

This variation was very nice. The first half of the drink is sweet from the juice and Cointreau, and spicy from the tequila. As you drink, you slip into the tangy/bitter half, and finish wanting another.

UPDATE: See a charming summary of all the Mixology Monday participants at Intoxicated Zodiac — complete with links. Cheers!

It’s drafty in here

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Tonight the Pittsburgh Celebrity Fantasy Football League holds its draft, which means I’m heading to meet up with fellow team owners, lists of favored players in hand.

I didn’t field a team in any league last year, and because I had no special incentive to follow any team but the Steelers, I paid zero attention to the NFL. It was like the 2006 season never happened.

So I feel a little wrong-footed going into this draft. Our scoring is also different from what I’ve played in the past, and we have ‘way more players than I’m used to fielding. Three WRs? Plus a TE and a flex player? I expect to be picking many, many players whose names I’ve never seen — let alone whom I’ve seen play.

Still and all, I’m not too worried. In years past, my key skill as a fantasy football team manager has been making clever free agent pickups. It’s OK with me to lose the first week, and even the second, if it means I can grab an unknown running back or wide receiver who has a stunning game early in the season. Ahoy, “Breakout Player of 2007″: You will be mine.

Tomorrow, tomorrow! I love you, tomorrow!

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Beer me!Tomorrow evening, please come to Pittsburgh BlogFest 11. We’ll all talk, eat, drink, and generally get down with our bad selves.

WHAT: Pittsburgh Blogfest 11
WHEN: Thursday, August 9, 2007, 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM and beyond
WHERE: Finnegan’s Wake (near PNC Park, 20 General Robinson St., North Shore, 412-325-2601), in the Pub Room
WHO: All local bloggers, vloggers, podcasters (and their friends!) and Pittsburgh Bloggers
AND: Inner Bitch, My Brilliant Mistakes (me!), and Have a Good Sandwich

Although fun will begin promptly at 5:30, I will be a bit late. I am in mad demand these days, and my presence is required elsewhere until about 7.

(If you would rather be where I am throughout the evening, you can come to that event too. It’s not free, but it will be worth every penny. Details are here.)

See you at BlogFest!