drunk again « Uncle Crappy

Dec 29 2010

Food and Drink, Pittsburgh, Social Media, Sports

plunge party.

I have no idea how many people to expect at the Polar Bear Plunge on Saturday morning, but I do know the details:

The Time: Expect to arrive around 8:45 a.m. and swim — if you’re swimming — around 9:30.

The Place: The Mon Wharf, otherwise known as the parking area underneath the Parkway East that floods anytime someone sneezes. The entrance — a ramp down to the lot — is at Wood Street and Fort Pitt Boulevard:

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(Follow that yellow sign to the right, boys and girls…)

The specific place: The Crappy Entourage will try to arrive around 8:30. We’ll tweet our location as soon as we get set up, but I suspect we’ll be close to where we were a year ago (the side of the lot closer to the Point).

The event: As I said before, if you’re swimming, everyone starts jumping in around 9:30. If you’re a newbie, here’s what to expect: Cold. Really cold. Colder than anything you’ve ever experienced. But that lasts just a few minutes once you get out of the water and into warm towels, blankets and clothes. If you’re not swimming, be prepared to help people out of the water, take pictures or shoot video and and yell for the nutjobs who are.

The after part: I am pleased to say that after the plunge, we’ll be returning to our original post-plunge celebration location: Ruggers Pub, on the South Side:

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Our after party will be hosted by AAA, generally known here at Uncle Crappy as The World’s Greatest Bartender, and I’m told we’ll also have the kitchen fired up and ready for us by 10 a.m. After we eat and drink, I imagine no one would mind if you stay at Ruggers for the Winter Classic — if they get the game in — or for all 83 bowl games televised on New Year’s Day.

I can’t think of a better way to start 2011 that a dip in 40-degree water, followed by beer and cheeseburgers with some of my best friends anywhere. I hope to see you there.

Tagged beeeeer, drunk again, even more sports, holiday fun, i'm an idiot, pixburke, yinzteam, yum

May 10 2010

4 Comments

Food and Drink, Pittsburgh, Social Media, Sports

at one time, this was a big deal.

This will perhaps be the most anti-climatic post in the history of Uncle Crappy, but here we go: The Jim Lokay-Tall Cathy Mariachi Night Tequila Dance.

Background: That morning, Jim — whom you may or may not know is the greatest television traffic guy of all time — and I and a crew of the usual suspects played in the second-annual YinzTeam Flackle Turkey Bowl, which turned out to be an awful lot of tackle and not quite as much flag. That’s OK, but it meant a bunch of us — by which I mostly mean me, far and away the oldest guy on the field — were pretty gimpy for the rest of the day weekend following week.

Which made it all that much more impressive when Lokay and Kiss-FM’s Tall Cathy busted out into a long, improvised dance during mariachi night at Las Velas. Ginny and David were hosting a Make Room for Kids benefit, so a bunch of us showed up in hopes that the margaritas would help ease our pain. But while the rest of us limped around the restaurant, Jim found the strength and energy to do this:

You’ve seen this picture before. That night, I told him I shot video that I wouldn’t post without his permission; I don’t think I asked him about the pic. And since then, I’ve asked. I’ve begged. I’ve pushed and prodded. I even sent him a copy of the clip several months ago, but I never got the word that it was OK to post.

Until last week, when he did a dancing segment on the air. In reaction, I tweeted something about how there was no reason for me to not post the Las Velas clip if he was going to be dancing on television anyway. About 24 hours later, I received a response via Twitter: “Go.”

And so without further ado … here’s the clip:

Yeah. I’m pretty much speechless too.

Tagged drunk again, even more sports, history, internet fun, media fetish, woo-hoo, yinzteam

Nov 15 2009

6 Comments

Ohio, Sports

17. as good as it gets.

The day was perfect.

The tailgate party was perfect.

The band was perfect.

And while the game wasn’t quite perfect, it’s tough to top an overtime win that clinches a Rose Bowl appearance.

There will be plenty of football discussion this week — after all, it’s what we call around here the Best Week Of The Year — but for now, we’re going to let the pictures — still and moving — tell the story.

honey

Tagged beeeeer, college football, drunk again, family, friends, nablopomo, team up north, woo-hoo

Oct 09 2009

2 Comments

Food and Drink, Pittsburgh, Social Media

don’t forget.

Where’s it gonna be this year, guys?

Tagged drunk again, pcpgh3, pcpgh4, pixburke, podcamp pittsburgh, yinzteam

Aug 30 2009

9 Comments

Food and Drink, Home, Pittsburgh, Social Media, Sports

did it again.

Another weekend, another successful food tweetup:

Kim's pizza, as shot by Abby.

* I don’t have any idea about how many different kinds of pizza we were able to sample on Saturday, but I know there were a bunch of good ones. I got a couple pieces of my Donatos, and had a bunch of others, my favorite of which was a bacon pizza from Pizza Sola. I didn’t get to try Kim’s homemade goat cheese and yellow squash pizza — it went too quickly — and everyone seemed to like Mrs. Crappy’s spinach-and-garlic pie — she won the first prize — the coveted pig-a-polt — and the aforementioned bacon pizza, contributed by Rob, was the runner up.

* Theme Number Two: Gwen and Shadow did a great job organizing our beer tasting, and we got to try some fabulous stuff. My personal favorite was Hutch’s wee heavy, made even better by the addition of oak chips soaked in Bushmill; the winner was a new one for me, Troegs’ just-released JavaHead Stout, brought to us directly from Harrisburg by DahCheet.

* Another happy beer note: Kim brought along a growler of East End’s Blackstrap Stout, my payoff for winning the crabcake battle at her place last winter. And as a bonus, she also brought a growler of their Big Hop with a nice surprise inside — the addition of three or four hop flowers. Scott just got a bunch in to get ready for his Big Hop Harvest; the cones are his way of teasing us just a bit while we wait. Thanks to Kim for bringing those along.

* Theme Number Three: Birthdays, for Rob, Jennie and Dave. There was cake. And cupcakes. And singing.

* Theme Number Four: Abby’s surprise game was our own version of the Family Feud, with, uh, me serving as your host. I lost my voice, and a few of the contestants — apparently sticklers for odd things like accuracy and a host who might actually know what he was doing — seemed to be a little bit grumpy about the answers. Team Jen(n) came out on top.

* Theme Number Five: It was a luau. I dressed appropriately.

* And then: We drank a bunch more, watched the Stillers dismantle the Bills, had a bump-fest in the kitchen (that’s not nearly as dirty as it sounds), climbed on the roof, tried to find a suitable replacement for Southern Tier’s Mokah (which is well past the end of its seasonal run) and, finally, introduced Miles to the group, a task that involves some Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom-like machinations on the part of Mrs. Crappy and me. Miles was not pleased by this.

* While cleaning up this morning, I noticed we had several bottles of some kind of Seagram’s Escape cooler things, with flavors like Jamaica Me Happy. Our beer fridge is a little embarrassed right now.

* Mrs. Crappy and I, however, were very pleased with how everything went. We think Abby did a great of job organizing the whole deal. And we hope y’all had a good time as well.

Tagged beeeeer, drunk again, pixburke, pro football, woo-hoo, yet another dreaded bullet update, yinzteam, yum

May 25 2009

7 Comments

Home, Pittsburgh