Yesterday, Video Games Live announced 45 new shows, including two in July to be held at Heinz Hall.  Video Games Live puts on a show will a full symphony orchestra, including pieces from Tetris, Mario, Halo, Myst, Zelda, Rainbow Six and many more.  The show features stage performers, video of the games , an interactive video game experience for a few lucky fans and a pre-show festival.

The show was supposed to come to Pittsburgh in 2006, but a good portion of the tour had to be cancelled, and they haven’t been here yet.

More information about VGL can be found here.

Garmin’s new G5 is a GPS type device for golf courses.  It shows you each hole and all kinds of other stuff.  I really don’t understand much about golf, I’ll go mini golfing, and I’ve enjoyed the two times I’ve been to a driving range, but otherwise it’s just not my cup of tea.

Anyway, the new G5 comes with a whole bunch of courses pre-loaded, including PGA-famous Oakmont Country Club and Mystic Rock at  Woodlands, host of the 84-Lumber Classic (when it still existed).

For all you golf fans, here’s a list of Pennsylvania courses that come preloaded.

First bigoot and UFOs, now ghosts!  I’ve mentioned before (at least I think), that I”m a graduate of St. Vincent, one of the most haunted colleges in the country.  We have ghosts in the gristmill, the cemetery, the basilica, ones that roam campus and the nearby roads, even one in the freshman dorm.  Every year at Halloween in the stories resurface, articles are written and even the sociology and religious studies departments have gotten in on the conversation in years past.

Now, WTAE is reporting that a team of paranormal investigators are heading to Slippery Rock University to check out their theater.  I’ve never been to Slippery Rock, but I can’t really comment on their own hauntings, but I would like to suggest they head down to Latrobe, if they’ll be in the area anyway, it wouldn’t be bad to check out a local hotspot of paranormal activity!

Over at Chris Cooley’s Blog, his brother (at least I think TC is his brother) posted an article comparing Alex Ovechkin to Crosby.  Of course, for whatever reason, TC, as well as the other contributors to the site have an irrational hatred of everything Pittsburgh (take a look at FWC’s blog post on the sidebar).

Well, a good old fashioned flame war is starting in the comment section, and Pittsburgh fans have been chiming in, defending Sid and the city.  While I can’t condone any sort of mean spirited discussion, and like every other online argument no one wins, head on over if you want to join the fray, or at least raise your blood pressure a little bit.

Update: Now it appears that comments have been disabled.  Pittsburgh seemed to have the majority of the recent comments the last time that I checked, but really it had just fallen apart into name calling and rude comments (from all sides invovled mind you).  But hey, we can chalk it up for a win if we want.  Oh you crazy interwebs and your drama.

Last week you may remember that I decided to give RouteShout a spin, the public beta test of a new program for PAT.  Well, it didn’t work and I sent an e-mail to Deep Local.  I got an auto-response back saying it would be at least two weeks until I heard anything.

Well, either the out of office assistant lied or someone found my e-mail and fished it out of limbo and got back to me in a few days.  Last week and today, Deep Local’s customer service has been exceptional, tracking down my text messages and sending test messages to my phone.  I stepped out and lunch and retried sending the code for the bus stop and it worked!  Within seconds I had a response back with all the info I needed.  Granted, I wasn’t standing at the bus stop, but that’s fine, I’m happy to help out with the beta.

More thoughts about the service later in the week, but in the meantime, if you see the orange signs, give it a shot, it’s a great service, with fantastic people working behind the scenes making it work, I just hope it catches on!

Every couple of years, Jeanette plays host to the Bigfoot Convention, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society.  I haven’t been able to find a date for the next convention, but the last one was held in September.

Now, popular mechanics is reporting on the highest concentrations on UFO sightings, and of the ‘less populated countys’ (non-metro areas), Westmoreland County leads the pack!

I’m not entirelly sure why the map is broken up by Air Traffic Control boundaries, but it’s still pretty cool.

Check out the story and the comments, at io9.

Pens won tonight, exciting stuff.  Also, I just found out that CMU has created a service inside the Mellon Arena called Yinz Cam.  If you have a WiFi phone, you can get a signal that shows different cams, including one of the bench, penalty box or overhead.  The service is in beta testing, so only 200 people can be watching at once, and they warn that the signal is aimed primarily at the club level seats, but should reach everywhere inside.

I’m hoping to see a game next month, and I’ll certainly try it out.  At that game I’m planning on wearing the Monroeville Zombies jersey which arrived at my door today.  Of course I wouldn’t have a normal jersey.  And besides, it’s still Pittsburgh, just in an obscure and undead way!

Monday I had to work late, so before my evening meeting I walked down the hill to grab some dinner downtown.  On the way down, I figured I’d test out RouteShout, which I wrote about in an earlier post.  So I headed to Fifth and Ross and found the sign (a bit high in my opinion, but then again, I’m kinda short), nabbed the code and send off a text.

And I got nothing.

I figured I did something wrong, or that the powers that be were just taking a bit longer than normal.  So I walked down to Brueggers on Grant (which, by the way, I will be not going to again.  Your chicken salad might be delicious, but I don’t appreciate the snarky attitude when I used a coupon, so I’ll eat at Subway from now on thank you very much).  I still hadn’t received anything, so I tried it again, this time using all caps, just in case.

I tried a couple times while I sat and ate my dinner, adding spaces, playing with capitalization.  I found out that my phone was putting a dash after the first three numbers (of the five digit code), so I switched it over to “word” mode to get rid of the dash, tried it on that setting with different combinations, and still no luck.

Resigned, I walked back up the hill and when I got back to my desk, sent an e-mail to Deep Local’s support division.  I Just got a reply, stating that my e-mail won’t be answered until at least March 1.

I still really want RouteShout to work, it’s such a cool idea.  However, even more than it working well, I want to be able to use it in any capacity.  It may be my phone (but it’s a new phone, so it shouldn’t really be an issue), it may be my lack of texting skills, but either way, not working and then a two week wait for support is a pretty pathetic beginning.

This post is not about Heinz, ketchup, the field or even the proposed removal of the pickle from the bottle.  This post is about the 57th city to join Metblogs: San Diego.

The crew over there has been working overtime to fill the site up and get it ready for today’s launch, so head on over and check it out.  Want to see the entire network?  Check it out here, or click on the appropriate continent on the map here at the main map.

San Diego Metblogs

It was announced about half an hour ago that Michel Therrien has been “relieved of his duties” and Bylsma, head coach of the baby penguins will take over as interim head coach.

Bylsma’s first game will be tomorrow in New York.  This comes after the 6-2 loss to the maple leafs.

Read the official announcement here, and look for more news to come in very soon!