The Waffle Shop is expanding!  What started as an art project/reality show/class project, is now expanding to stay open, not only for brunch, but on a more permanent basis.  Details are still being worked out, and a couple different options are on the table, but it looks like Waffle Shop may be a more permanent fixture in East Liberty.

The new waffleshop.org

On top of that, they’ve started a new venture: live news feeds.  Instead of a host for the talk show set, one of the workers is used as a relayer, passing on the news being fed to them through their earbuds.

The news feeds sounds really awesome, and I’d love to go check it out when I get home.  New videos popped up on youtube, but I have no speakers up here at camp, so I’ll have to wait.  Also, their new website is taking shape, including spaces for live streaming video of the news feeds, although it’s all just a placeholder for now.

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Image courtesy of wikipedia (CC license).

Many people will talk about this, and I’m sure they will describe it much more eloquently, but I am very excited to have such a good definition of the term.

Literally, I work across the street from Mellon Arena.  However, I am elsewhere for the summer, so I will be missing all the festivities.  Enjoy it, I wish I could be there!

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Just in time for lunch (well, lunch over the weekend), Waffle Shop Show has returned with episode 6.  I’m not sure if this is the season finale or not, there are credits for (I think) the first time, and the semester is over, so this might be it!

In this episode:

• Good hosting props
• Talking to boring people
• Bonus maps!
• Willing a hard drive to your child
• College regrets
• Watery food
• Musical interludes
• From Alaska to Pittsburgh
• Moose burgers
• Vampire fetish
• $100 waffles
• Fantastic dancing

Part one below, part two after the jump:

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Just a quick note for everyone, work is once again taking me away from reliable internet access (although it does look like it will be better this year than last) and any amount of free time to write.  I’m going to do my very best to keep updating as much as I can, hopefully even more than last year.  Once more I will find myself deep in Fayette County (actually, very close to the WV border, but further away from downtown, hence, deep), so I’ll throw in a mix of posts from down that way as well. 

It really is beautiful down there (along Route 40), stop down and visit, I’ll even buy you a round at National Pike.  But in the meantime, I already have plans for a series which I’m dubbing “The July Project,” so watch for that in…July, as well as a big blogging event when VGL comes to town, and I’ll be back in June for a Pirates game, so I’ll cover that too.

Also, if anyone is interested in writing for Pittsburgh Metblogs, let me know in the comments.  There is a lot coming up: the Arts Festival (read: week of rain), the G20 summit, the Pirates striving for mediocrity, Rivers Casino opening and so much more: I’d love to have other people covering these events and just writing about the city we all love (or at least tolerate).  I’m not the city captain, but I promise I will pull as many strings as I can to get you added on as a writer!

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Work has kept me very, very busy, and I’ve been doing a lot of driving (thank goodness for the invention of Easy Pass!), and with all the driving, I”ve burned through a lot of CDs, so I’ve even occasionally turned on the radio.

PAT is running ads about the north shore connector.  Which is all well and good; that combined with the news that they were able to cut some of the costs really is welcomed news. 

However, having studied advertising- actually, no,  having ears and living in Pittsburgh is what allows me to ask the question, “wait, really?”

And I don’t have the official transcript of the ad, so I’m going of my memory here, but it goes something like this:

Pittsburghers hate crossing rivers

This is where my brain starts to hurt a  little bit and I question the ad shop that put this together.  The only Pittsburghers I know who are afraid of crossing rivers are the ones I make fun of because they can’t go anywhere.  Same with going through tunnels, although it is a little easier to get around without using a tunnel.

But really?  Pittsburgh.  City of bridges.  Really?  And I’ve been asking for a long time why PAT felt we needed an underwater T tunnel, when we’re really good at bridges.  I mean really good, it’s kind of what we do here.  But hey, apparently I’ve always hated crossing rivers and never knew it.

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Although to be fair, this is extra special since it’s on Thursday!  The Port Authority released the findings of the Transit Development Plan online on Tuesday, one day after the Post Gazette reported on it.

Currently, PAT operates 187 routes with over 16,000 stops.  The goal of the TDP is to make the system more efficient, easier to use and faster for everyone.

Right now, there are three general options in place: Better Radial, Better Radial Plus and Grid.  None of the three are completely fleshed out, in fact, the closest Park-n-Ride lot to me isn’t even connected by any bus route in any of the new options.  But specifics aren’t there yet, the Port Authority knows this.

At the moment, I don’t have the time to be pouring over all these documents like I want to.  I’ve perused them quickly, but I really want to spend a lot of time reading and understanding the thinking behind each of the three options, as well as some of the other changes, including three different options for new bus loops in the Golden Triangle.  So I’ll take a little more time and get back to you, I promise (granted, it will probably be over a couple different posts, with so much to cover, I don’t want to try to cram it all into just one).

I’ll be revisiting this very soon, but in the meantime, check it out here.  Open houses (I’m guessing forum-like discussions) are planned for June in Oakland and Downtown, and changes are going to start by the end of the year and continue into 2010.

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See what I did with the title there?  Funny, huh?  Ok, probably not.  And as much as I wanted to talk about the upcoming service changes (I’ll probably do a special edition PATransit Thursday, ohhhhhhh), I was looking over the latest Rider Report and found this gem that I felt needed to be shared:

If you are a social service agency professional and would like more information about participating in an upcoming curse, please contact ACTA at 412-809-3505.

I added the emphasis.  And yes, it’s just missing an ‘o,’ and yes, I have been guilty of the same thing time and time again (many times right here on Metblogs, I do have a tendency to hit ‘publish’ before spellcheck, I’m trying to reverse that order), but I couldn’t resist posting this before it was caught and then corrected.

And in a related note, this edition of the Rider Report (and with this article) shows a bus with a tribute sign from the funeral last month.  The back signs on the buses were flashing “Zone 5,” also in tribute.  I tried to take a picture, but my cell phone camera was not up to the task.  I’m still trying to extract it somehow that is still viewable (without a zoom, it’s really small), if I have any luck, I’ll post it here for you.

I thought the signs were very, very nice and once I made the connection with the back signs (took me a second, I was trying to figure the schedule out for the EBS), I was taken aback by how such a small gesture could really mean so much.

And this week in wild, unsubstantiated ideas about the service changes: Base price will remain at $2, but for $3, you can get a pass good for unlimited rides for up to twelve hours.  And buses that run on the hopes and dreams of the citizens of Pittsburgh.

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Ok, everybody, all at once, get ready to cheer for this one:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled today that Allegheny County must reassess its property values.

And by cheer, I mean quietly sob yourself to sleep.

The Post-Gazette reports this story, and while I was not a homeowner during the last reassessment, I seem to remember the lawsuits, the protests, the never-ending news stories (which I realize I’m not helping with) and the seemingly endless process.  Aren’t we all excited!

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Dan Bylsma has been named the head coach of the Penguins.  KDKA has the story here.

We’ll know tonight who we play in the next round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, hopefully we’ll know dates and times as well.

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This week’s column is more of a tangent, but since the mayoral race is heating up and politics are seemingly coming from all sides, I figured this would be a good time to bring some attention to this article.

The mayor of Berekely, 71-year-old Tom Bates, has recently given up his car in favor of a transit pass.

“I figure, if I really want to go someplace I can just rent a car.”

How awesome is that?  Wouldn’t it be cool to see Luke and other prominent members of city government to give this a shot.  Seems like the mayor and city council are very concerned, and rightly so, about transit during contract negotiations.  But what if they actually used it?

I don’t follow the city politics that much since I’m not a resident of the city, so there may be some higher-ups that do use transit as their primary mode of transportation.  But I do have to wonder what their reaction would be if this was asked of them, maybe at the next debate?

And as promised, here’s today’s unsubstantiated, unsolicited, wild speculation about the upcoming changes to PAT: The call center will reduce its hours and the system will finally change over to the text messaging service.  And free Twinkies with ever transfer.

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Troy Polamalu, as well as Larry Fitzgerald, will be on the cover of Madden NFL 10.

This marks the first time that two athletes have been on the cover of Madden.  Kaotaku reports on it here.

Hopefully, the Madden Curse will be exercised by the addition of a second player on the cover.

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For your viewing pleasure, Waffle Shop Show Episode 5.  Once again, I swear I’ve seen some of these clips before, but who knows, maybe I’m making it all up in my head.  In this episode:

• God and sex
• The props
• Ruining the show
• Hendrix confusion
• Cooties geometry
• Chairs
• Snickers Bars and the male anatomy
• Sex talk with Shawtay
• Maximum security bakery
• A Marie Antoinette moment
  

Part one is below, part two is after the break (mature content in part two):

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Bus Stop Opera is slated to perform again this weekend (I’m guessing here, but possibly the last performance, unless the cast and crew are sticking around after the semester ends).  However, no route is posted.  So if you’re on the bus or at a bus stop around Oakland and the East Busway between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. tomorrow and see people spontaneously breaking out into song and dance, don’t worry, it was supposed to happen.

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Two topics for today’s column: Earth Day and the possibility of service changes.

First off: Earth Day!  Tomorrow, Wednesday the 22, is Earth Day.  Everyone should go out and hug a tree.  Barring that, the Port Authority will have a presence at Pitt’s Earth Day festival, showcasing how to utilize the bike racks on the buses (need some info but can’t make it to the festival, check out Bike Pittsburgh’s page here, including video and information for buses, the T and the inclines).  PAT will also be downtown from 11 to 2 at Fifth Avenue Place, as part of Highmark’s festival.  Want more info about their Earth Day presence and their hybrid buses (six on the road now, more coming in the fall - I wish I knew what they looked like so I could comment on them), check out their press release.

The second, and more interesting issue of the day, is the possible service changes coming to the T in the south hills (and mentioned complete overhaul of the entire transit system).  Now, generally, I don’t worry about the T that much, seeing as it does me no good.  I know that I’ve mentioned this before, and it is kind of bothersome.  But I do realize that once the North Shore Connector (another rant for another day) is finished, it will be moderately more useful to me.  But anyway, it looks like some stops will be eliminated and the routes will be changed from numbers to colors.

Lots more after the break, check it out.

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Waffle Shop has just released episode four of Waffle Show.  In this episode:

• Spice Girls
• Moxie
• Farkles
• New host
• Giraffes getting into knife fights
• The musician’s life
• State rivalries

A couple observations: Didn’t we already see the Farkle video, as part of a preview maybe?  Also, I’ve never heard the term before.  I’ve heard other words used in place of it, but never that one.  Also, I keep hoping that in one of the episodes someone will do a full-on Wash impression from Serenity, but nothing yet, although the scene with the giraffe was quite amusing.

Part one is below, the rest (parts two and three and the interlude) are after the break.

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