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it’s a twestival.

When the local Twitter peeps use their powers for good, some pretty cool stuff can happen.

I saw that firsthand last month, when we visited the Harris Grill bearing piles of winter clothing. The first-ever Pittsburgh HeatUp TweetUp meant a mountain of stuf was delivered to the shelter run by the First Presbyterian Church of East Liberty.

We also found out I have the largest head in the Tri-State Area, but that’s a bit beside the point.

There’s another cool thing going on Thursday night, something that I cannot attend but you should definitely check out: our local version of Twestival, an international Tweetup to raise money for charity : water, a group that helps to provide safe and clean drinking water around the globe. Our version will be held at Downey’s House in Robinson Township, and, according to organizer Holly Maust (@hmaust for those who speak Twitter), live music, food, drink and a boatload of raffle prizes.

As I said, I won’t be able to attend, because I’ll be thoroughly enjoying the school board meeting I’ll be attending instead. But given that Must-See TV night isn’t what it used to be, you should definitely attend. Drinks, friends, prizes and a good cause — how many more reasons do you need?

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promotion.

Since the inception of Uncle Crappy, I’ve insisted on calling my lovely wife The Wife. There’s more detail here, but the basic reason was that I knew she would loathe the name and find it immensely amusing all at once.

While we’ve gotten a lot of lot of mileage from the name over the years — and by “we,” I mean mostly me — it’s occurred to me that it might be time for a change.

The Wife has her own online presence, albeit one she doesn’t take advantage of very often. She has a Twitter account that she uses infrequently, and a Plurk account that she’s never seen, to my knowledge. Still, to many of the people we share our online lives with, she is known as Mrs. Crappy — or @mrscrappy, in Twitterspeak.

And in the interst of consistancy, that shall be her name in these pages from this point forward.

Congratulations, Mrs. Crappy. Whaddaya think?

kelly

That’s perfect, honey. Thanks.

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the other football.

Three years ago, I developed a strange affliction — I got hooked on soccer.

I approached the start of the 2006 World Cup with a determination — which came out of nowhere — that I was going to make an effort to follow the tournament. I enlisted the help of Fred — who loves the other football so much that he recently switched cable providers after his carrier dropped Fox Soccer Channel — and he came through with flying colors, emailing me a six-page guide to the groups, the players, the coaches and all the other intriguing crap that makes the tournament so interesting.

We were on board, completely. I listened to matches in my car. We drive to Columbus to watch the USA-Italy match inside a steamy tent next to Crew Stadium. And best of all, we found ourselves spending a couple days watching matches at Piper’s Pub. If you haven’t had a chance to watch the other football at Piper’s, you owe it to yourself to go.

The color scheme will be a little different on Wednesday.
The color scheme will be a little different on Wednesday.

That’s what we’ll be doing Wednesday night, when our men’s national team plays Mexico in a world cup qualifier. I would love to see the match in person — it’ll be held in front of 23,000 stone-crazy soccer fans in Crew Stadium — but the game sold out quicker than Phish’s summer tour. So while that would be the first choice, watching at Piper’s — with Scottsweep, a certified, or perhaps certifiable, fanatic — is a very close second.

firkin

Piper’s will have WC qualifiers on all day, and I’m guessing the bar will be jammed by the time 7 p.m. rolls around. Doesn’t matter to me — a couple glasses of Smokestack Heritage Porter from Piper’s new cask system — and I’ll be ready to roll.

Not doing anything on Wednesday night? Join us at Piper’s for beer and that other football.

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twenty five.

I’ve been tagged for this over and over and over, so it’s a little hard to ignore. I am, however, ignoring most of the rules:

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

Just about everyone I know has been tagged already, so I’m skipping that part. If you haven’t yet been tagged, consider this as your big chance.

1. I saw the Grateful Dead 39 times between 1984 and 1995. Eight different states. By far the most shows at the old Richfield Coliseum south of Cleveland.

2. The best show? Could be Atlanta or Hampton ’88, could be one of a couple shows at Deer Creek, could be night one of the run at Chapel Hill. The worst? A clunker at the Palace of Auburn Hills in 1992. I should have known better than go to Detroit for spring break.

3. I wasted a lot of time mourning Garcia’s death in 1995 when I could have been seeing some kickass Phish shows.

4. My Pittsburgh friends assume I know much more about technology than I actually do.

5. I never had a craft beer epiphany — no one single moment when I realized I had been wasting my life drinking Budweiser and Old Milwaukee.

6. My favorite beer? Way too difficult. My favorite brewery? Also difficult; let’s go with East End for now.

7. I realized that writing might be the way to go for me when I researched and wrote my first-ever term paper — for a composition class during my junior year of high school — the night before it was due. I got an A minus, after being docked a few points for typos.

8. If I had to give up every single other sport I watch in favor of just one, the one I would pick would be college football. And it’s not even close.

9. I still think journalism is important. I’m not yet sure where I’ll be doing my thing in the near future, though.

10. I went through a vodka phase when I was younger. That’s over now, for the most part. I’ll have bourbon or Irish whiskey, please.

11. I am proud to carry on my father’s fondness for Manhattans.

12. I love cooking. I don’t do it enough.

13. I’m pretty good with Italian food, too, although I have absolutely no Italian in me whatsoever. I make better spaghetti and meatballs than you do.

14. Sometime during the mid-1990s, I stopped skiing. For no reason. There was still snow, and I still had skis; I just didn’t go. That changed a few years ago, when I did a story about the little tiny ski hill at Boyce Park, a county park east of Pittsburgh. I haven’t stopped since. I don’t think I could stop ever again.

15. I used to be a pretty good water skiier too, good enough that I made OU’s team the first time I tried out. I know why I stopped that, though — I got fat and it hurt my back.

16. I think Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are both abysmal as solo artists. If there was ever a musical couple who needed each other, it’s those two.

17. I recently became a homeowner. After three months, I still wonder how that happened. And I’m still thrilled that it did.

18. I’m a cat person. Always have been.

19. I hope I always have some kind of homemade jewelry hanging on my wrists.

20. I hate spiders. And I’m afraid of heights.

21. I declared myself an NFL free agent fan in 1996, after the Browns left for Baltimore. It’s possible I could do that again, if I am forced to endure another few seasons like the one that just finished.

22. If Athens, Ohio, had a newspaper worth a shit, I might still be there. I loved that town that much.

23. I love jazz in all its flavors. if you ask me to choose a genre, I’m going to pick Dixieland. Every time.

24. I don’t think I’ll ever learn to dress like a grownup.

25. I’m lucky. I married the person I was supposed to spend my life with.