Not me.
Does retweeting count?
I once did a bunch of short videos for this Pittsburgh focused magazine. It was a fun time in everyone’s life. Here’s my favorite one.
I am writing to you from my bedroom. James Foreman and Dan are currently recording an episode of Games Are For Idiots. It’s a video game podcast that typically runs for over an hour, but only about 1/4 of that time is spent discussing video games. The rest is used to discuss things too inappropriate even for my ears.
If you are reading this, that means there is still time to save me. You can be the one to save me from this bedroom equipped only with a computer, an iPad, an iPhone, a clean bed, big windows, and a lamp. It’s a miracle that I am even able to communicate with you.
You can be the one to bring me a #17 from Tram’s (with tofu, please) because I only ate dinner 30 minutes ago and who knows how long it will be before my body starts to eat itself because I am so malnourished? Any minute now, I fear.
You, reader, can be the one to bust through our minty front door and bring me hydration. I ran two miles today and am severely parched. I prefer my martinis a little dirty.
Don’t hesitate. Don’t even bother to make me a pizza from scratch or to stop at J. Crew and pick up those shorts I want so desperately so that I might look extra cute during my rescue.
Please, dear reader, be a pal and rescue me from this fate worse than death.
Andrea Disaster once suggested that I post some recipes on this site. While we are far from a food blog (because who would eat pine trees?), I will indulge Miss Disaster and share a few favorites.
- Spiced Black Bean Burger - If you can mash things, you have every skill required to make this recipe. I encourage you to add any ingredients or flavors you like, but would not encourage you to cook these on the grill. Save the grilling for those pizzas.
- BBQ Tofu – The sauce is the boss. To make this, I pressed some extra firm tofu for 30 minutes before cubing it. On medium heat, I cooked the tofu for about 10 minutes in a cast iron skillet, tossing to cook all sides. Meanwhile, I whisked together ½ C. BBQ Sauce (we used Sweet Baby Rays, but then found out it contains all preservatives and other bad things, so we switched to a Trader Joe’s brand) and about 1/8 C. water. Once the tofu is browned, add the BBQ mixture to the skillet, stir, and cook for about 5 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. Eat as a sandwich, or serve in a salad.
- Salmon Tacos - Seriously? Yes. I found this recipe at the Big Girls Small Kitchen site after Dan had begged me to add salmon to tacos for months. This fantastically salmony recipe incorporates black beans seasoned with barbeque sauce (‘tis the season!), a red cabbage slaw, chipotle crema (I mixed sour cream and taco seasoning) and of course, SLAMON! It’s beyond yummy. For realz.
- #17 - This one’s a little tricky. You have to walk up Penn Avenue towards the hospital, stop at Tram’s Kitchen, sit down, and when you are ordered to place your order, say ”#17 WITH TOFU.” It’s a little tricky, so if you need me to come and help you, just let me know.
Ok, Disaster. Get to work on trying these for yourself.
Listen up, gang. The Mattress Factory‘s Urban Garden Partyis only 9 days away. I’m sure you remember last year when Dan was double fisting maraschino cherry cocktails and downing cappuccinos. I would have joined him, but I was too busy dancing on stage.
This event is awesome and fun and you should be upset that you aren’t already attending. Not to fear! Our good and philanthropic friend James Foreman has 2 tickets to give away to a deserving duo. All you have to do is send ina video explaining why you should win and who you want to take with you. This is a perfect opportunity to woo someone you’ve been stalking.
Send videos or links to videos to winadate@jamesforeman.com. The winner will be announced this Sunday June 12, so get to work! For more information, click on this.
Remember, if you win, you get to hang out with these lovely people:
Photo: John Altdorfer
Our friend Andrea Disaster is globally famous for her blog segment called Mining Monday. Ms. Disaster travels all over the area to shop garage sales and thrift stores to see what treasures she can find.
We went mining this past weekend, sans Andrea, so we were a little lost, but in her absence, we found some great things. This here is the Pine’s humble Mining Monday post:
In the wee hours of Saturday morning June 4, 2011, Commuter Joe, Dan, and Christa set off for the North Hills of Pittsburgh equipped only with donuts, coffee, and large amounts of cash burning holes in their pockets. The North Hills Estates Garage Sale awaited these three miners.
The first stop was a successful one and Christa purchased a pretty mirror for $7. This mirror has magical capabilities, which is quite obvious when you look at it:
Have you ever wanted to participate in a Thumb War, but only had your own thumbs to work with? Not to fear! Joe found a Thumb Wrestling machine that will wrestle your thumbs for you any time, day or night.
The most coveted purchase was made by Dan, who selflessly bought Star Wars lunch box for his friend James Foreman. Nerds all over the neighborhood gawked at Dan as he walked around with his sci-fi purchase.
Things got a little zany when Joe found a gun. It was a BB-gun, but were all petrified that he would shoot our eyes out. I, on the other hand, found some records in a nice man’s garage. He cut me a deal on the Judy Garland albums – BOGO on Judy!
Overall, it was a pretty successful mining experience. I think Andrea would be proud of us for waking up with the sun and going out to sort through other peoples’ stuff. She would have been even prouder if Joe had manned up and made this a part of his life:
And if you were in need of any bubble tape, you really missed out.
May is coming to an end and we have barely kept up with you all. How terrible is that? I told you we were going to the symphony and then abandoned you. How rude. To make up for it, here is a recap of this month:
Good James Foreman turned 29 years old again.
We went to Casbah where we ate and drank to his youth.
He insisted that we didn’t sing to him,
And when we all talked about him while he was out of the room agreed that move was rather couth.
Dan and I traveled Washington DC
Where we watched my little sister receive her college degree.
The MegaBus is how we got by,
But I would not recommend taking the red eye.
At the City of Asylum we watched a great writer read
While Dan, Amy, and I were the only ones to contribute to the event’s Twitter feed.
We looked like grade A nerds while Gary Shteyngart read aloud,
And that sort of made us stick out in the crowd.
We had brunch with two moms and I had pizza with a dad.
We drank margaritas and sangria and other crazy drinks to make us not sad.
Throughout all of this eating and drinking, Dan even wrote a TV show.
“Husband Husband” is sure to win the next Golden Globe.
Hobo Digest was revived
And the Rapture we survived
Literazzi invaded Fleeting Pages and read nice things to us
Now we have to say goodbye to May, Gus.
Oh, and the symphony was fun. We started to watch Amadeus, but drank too much champagne to finish it. See you in June!
Dan said there was a surprise waiting for me on Friday night. He said he would be wearing his blazer to the surprise, so I thought maybe Steve Buscemi or James Foreman died and we had to go to one (or both?) of their funerals, but he just didn’t want to break the bad news to me until the end of the week.
Fortunately, Dan is terrible at keeping secrets and on Tuesday, he broke down and told me that we were going to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra – Honeck, Grimaud & Mozart at Heinz Hall. Hooza!
Dan has never seen the symphony before and it’s been a long time for me. Here are some things I think will happen:
- Dan will think that being at Heinz Hall is like being at the movie theater and will try to make out with me as soon as the show starts.
- One of us will drink too many martinis and cry.
- Dan will ask if Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is still alive.
- After learning of his death, he will immediately put Amadeus at the top of our Netflix queue.
- I will try to spend an astronomical sum of money on PSO merch – hoodie, mug, or postcard. Dan will restrain me and remind me that there are more important things to spend money on, like wine.
- We will be asked to leave when the ushers notice our wine-stained teeth through our drunken cackles.
If you have any predictions of your own, except for ones like “the world will end on May 21” (because that is true), please let us know.
There’s a time and a place when the world will end, but there are too many variables to lasso up and capture that getting all your numbers right and correctly guessing when the sun is going to explode, robots will turn against us, dogs will combust, cats will shred us apart, our organs rebel, or guessing when the earth’s mantle will turn to chocolate and melt away is near impossible. Unless you’re God himself/herself/itself, there’s no way of knowing–no matter how many bibles you’ve eaten or how many girls you made out with during your confirmation ceremony.
Which brings me to Christa’s latest infatuation–Rapture! Much like I hop onto any sports bandwagon that passes me at a slow enough speed, Christa does the same with doomsday prophecies. I can’t blame her since the promises of being whisked away to heaven with a handful of other chosen mortals, presumably to a place in the sky with an amazing buffet, sounds too good to be true.
Ever since she’s read this NPR story on the folks who think the world are going to end on May 21, 2011, she’s been researching the history of this prophecy. The one thing my brain has trouble comprehending is the world coming to an abrupt end. The first time the idea of rapture was presented to me was while I was on a family vacation back in 1999. I was allowed to bring one friend with me so I chose Tim. Tim and I had a lot in common, and leading up to the vacation I had visions of us flirting with girls on the beach, playing video games, digging holes, and just general rabble-rousing. Little did I know that as he and I waited in the parking lot of a liquor store for my parents to pick out their evening booze, he would bring up that the world was going to end in the year 2000 and there was a good chance that I might not be saved and a large dragon was going to eat me without thinking twice if a 13 year old boy gave him indigestion. Tim described how the world would be thrown into chaos because all the good folks were gone and all that remained were the sinful. The sinful and anyone in Hollywood. What a nightmare scenario! I began to bawl my eyes out in the parking lot. He apologized, but there was nothing he could do to change the fact that I was going to die in less than a year.
As it turns out I’m a-okay and the year 2000 was one of the best years of my life.
Now, I’m faced with possibly facing another rapture scenario. Do I say good-bye to my loved ones and plan on disappearing in twelve days? Do I put my two weeks in at work? Should I donate all my money to charity and resign to watching repeats of Arrested Development until the end of days? Well, no.
As wild and, to me, unbelievable, that the world is going to end in an instant is, it is an outstanding reminder that life is shorter than we think and instead of dilly-dallying worrying about what we should wear to work today, or who to invite over to play Battling Tops, we should just be taking chances and appreciating every instance of life, no matter how insignificant it might seem. There’s no time for qualms or indecision when the carpet of life could be ripped out from our feet any moment. In the mean time, I’m throwing a huge party on May 20th, you know, just in case.
What a great question, anonymous asker. Dan and I met in high school. More specifically, we met in pottery class in high school. We bonded over the fact that we were both terrible potters. Dan would glaze his grades onto his pots before they went into the kiln in hopes of tricking the teacher into giving him a higher mark than he deserved. I’m not sure if he ever passed that class. He was all into some other girl in high school and I was all into myself in high school, so I never bothered to ask.
After graduation, I moved south to Kentucky and Dan went East to Bloomsburg. Four fateful years later, we ran into each other at the most embarrassing of all embarrassing bars – the Fox and the Hound. We’ve been embarrassing ourselves together ever since.
