If you attended Podcamp Pittsburgh Four, you’ll probably recall these two (Not Sorg. I’m sure you already know him.)

They’ll be in town this weekend. And they want to have a drink with you on Saturday night.

HP and DD will magically appear at Piper’s sometime ar0und 7 p.m. Saturday; I imagine we’ll be there for a while. So come by whenever you have a minute, have a beer and say hello.

Because if you don’t, you might get a look like this.

I found a bunch of cool stuff last night, but that got me thinking about a song that I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find since the early 1990s. I had always been taken by one particular clip that appeared on MTV’s excellent Liquid Television series — the animated clip itself is a little dark, but the music, an old Hawaiian song with acoustic steel guitar playing underneath falsetto vocals, always blew me away.

I’d tried to find it before, but without knowledge of the name of the song or the  clip, my searches never went far. Last night, though, I was determined, going through a list of random Liquid Television clips on YouTube.

On the third page of the search results — there. Black Hula. That had to be it.

Whoever posted it also helpfully named the song: “Mauna Kea,” by King Bennie Nawahi. I quickly found the song on emusic and as a bonus, I downloaded the entire record, which will be fabulous addition to this weekend’s soundtrack.

And I have solved a mystery that’s been bugging me for nearly 20 years.

Groundhogs should take a look over here. Already makin’ plans for 2011…

I’m not sure what it is with me and exposing my naked flesh to the winter, but there you go…

And I get six more weeks of skiing. Thanks, buddy.

Happy Groundhog Day, y’all.

I’m actually not permitted to say, but I thought I’d offer yinz guys this glimpse.

Remember meeting @drunkdude69 at Podcamp? He’s the one responsible for this gem, which is only the greatest song ever written about Punxsutawney:

Need a little — just a little — more backstory? You’ll find it here.

(Hi, Uncle Crappy.)

In and of itself, six days isn’t a big deal for me — in fact, I used to take longer breaks, intentional or not, pretty regularly. But I did just promise a couple weeks ago that I was shooting for 20 posts a month in 2010, and at this pace, I’m not going to be close for January.

But that’s not the real issue. For the last week or so, I’ve felt a little out of sorts, and I’m not sure why. Some stuff is different, some stuff is the same; I don’t really have anything to be seriously bothered over.

Still. Something ain’t right.

• Work is something of a challenge at the moment. We switched beats around at the start of the year, and that’s always a little tough while you figure out who’s who and what’s going on with the new stuff. This one is a little tougher, because it’s the only beat we have that regularly competes with the Pittsburgh papers. I don’t mind a little extra pressure, and I’m OK with the knowledge that I’m going to get my ass kicked for a few weeks. For now, it’s hard. Once I get settled, the pressure will still be there, but I’ll get to do the ass-kicking once in a while.
• We had a trip to Holiday Valley planned for next week. We decided to call it off, as we let our bank accounts recover from Christmas a little bit. That’s definitely a bummer, but I’ve had two good skiing days so far — one Western-style day, just up the road at Seven Springs, and one very good Eastern-style day at the same place a week later — so that’s not what I’m missing. The time on the hill would have been great, but what I’ll miss most is the time Mrs. Crappy and I would have had, alone and away. I mean, I love you guys and everything, but she’s the one I married…
• We’re resurrecting the annual Groundhog thing after a year off, on the first weekend in February. We’re going to have a good group, a great time, at a great spot. But I’m a little disappointed in the response we got — or, rather, the lack thereof. This was a big deal to a lot of people for a long time. I’ll be OK once we’re set up at Mohican, but I’m still struck by a little doubt — is this worth continuing after this year?

Wow. That’s a lot of bitching. Sorry about that. Clearly, I have some stuff to figure out, and I don’t need to do it all here while you guys patiently (?) wait on me to get my shit together. I have a few exercises in mind to get me going here again; in the meantime, I’ll be over here working on the rest of it.

And: Anyone know where I can get a cheap ukulele?

If you are of the Groundhog persuasion, you’ll want to go here for a tantalizing taste of what’s to come the weekend of February 5, 6 and 7.

Or you could just check your email. We’ll have some details there too.

UPDATE, Tuesday afternoon: The email is out and the FogHogBlog has been updated. Wooo!

@ I’ve seen Santonio do that before. Over and over and over.

@ Thanks to the Steelers’ meager 3-0 lead at the end of the first quarter, I was a winner in the office pool. I may or may not be spending my winnings on hookers and blow.

@ Actually, I didn’t win enough to even think about hookers and blow. But a case of nice beer isn’t out of the question.

@ Unless The Wife asks about the money. In that case: savings account. (Honest, honey!)

@ I’m having some kind of mild-but-sudden allergy problem. And I just ran out of Kleenex. Help.

@ In Punxsutawney, a chunkier-looking Phil was blinded by all the Terrible Towels in the audience on Gobbler’s Knob and thought he saw his shadow. That, of course, means I’ll be skiing for another six weeks. At least.

@ We’re having a low-key Groundhog Day. No FOG party this year. And other than dragging myself out of bed to watch the Punxy broadcast on PCN after working my normal late shift on Sunday, we weren’t planning on any official observations.

@ We had a kick-ass time with HP on Saturday, starting with about two hours in the Strip. It reminded me of Christmas, but with different colors:

@ The original impetus for HP’s visit didn’t turn out to be much of a Groundhog celebration either. We were ready to stop at the Harris, until we drove by and noticed that there was no one standing outside along the beautiful ice bar they had set up on the patio. I’d guess that party got going later, but we didn’t feel like waiting; we headed instead to AA’s Living Room and waited for the rest of the YinzTeamers to show up. And they did. And it was good.

@ A word about AA’s Living Room. That’s a great little bar, and I’d say that even if I didn’t have a good friend who is unofficially in charge of the place.

@ One Groundhog thing we may do tonight: re-create the cheeseburgers from Nick’s Corner Lunch in Punxy. Mmmm.

@ Seriously: Congrats, Pittsburgh folks. That was a great game and a great season, and yinz should enjoy it.

@ Now. Nobody talk to me about pro football until September. Thanks.