Here is a video from someone that was stuck on I-80 due to the weather near Pittsburgh:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0YEpYgHsU&feature=player_embedded

Now the last real restaurant in Pittsburgh, the Milky way is your basic Pizza shop and a little more. They have your regular pizza shop food but they also have items on the menu that are designed for the vegan or those allergic to dairy products. The food is very fresh and well made.

The pricing is decent.

The décor of the restaurant is very common and well lit and the seats are comfortable. The tables however always seem to be a little wobbly.

It’s the only restaurant to eat at in Pittsburgh but don’t let that fool you. You will get good food and have a good time at The Milky Way.

Pittsburgh, currently home to two and a half Kosher restaurants, will soon be down to one and a half.

Aaron & Ari’s, the city’s only Kosher meat restaurant, will be closing two days after Passover ends.

Would anyone like to open up another Kosher restaurant in this city? Because as much as I love Milky Way, taking my observant friends there for three meals a day gets old right quick.

There aren’t that many Kosher places to eat in my home town, Pittsburgh. The “fancy” sit down place (Pinati’s) closed down last year and that left two places that are more “fast food” types of places (well, two and a half if you count the Dunkin’ Donuts).

Aaron & Ari’s is one of the two places that are left. Since they had a flood last summer they redid the décor of the place, and that is for the better. The menu is pretty extensive with most of the Chinese dishes having a beef, chicken or just vegetables. They also have egg rolls with vegetables or pastrami. There is no waiter service so you place the order at the front and then wait for the food.

I ordered the General Tso’s chicken and they asked me how spicy I wanted it. I asked for it to be very spicy and they delivered in spades. The vegetables were tasty and crispy and the sauce was quite good, although there was a bit more than there should have been. Having said that, they put a lot into a serving.

Over all it’s a good place and not too expensive. A steady place to eat while you are in Pittsburgh.

I’m in Pittsburgh this week for a partner training and for some meetings with other resellers. As you may have heard Pittsburgh got a metric ton of snow this month and as a result parking spots are at a premium. When I went to rent my car yesterday I decided to be clever and get a smaller car. The only thing that they had was a Mini Cooper. I had never been in one before let alone driving one so I was interested in giving it a try. Boy was I in for a surprise. The dashboard is something that looks like Fisher Price designed it. Look at the size of the speedometer:

This doesn’t even begin to tell you about how bad the interface for the audio system is in the car. I think that the best thing about the car is that it has built in seat warmers. That can make a big difference on a cold day like today.

Here are a few more pictures of the interior of the car:

Here is a amusing cartoon that was in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when the G-20 was in Pittsburgh last summer.

It’s Sunday, I’m back from San Jose and spring training starts about in a little more than a month. That means it’s time for me to take up defense of the Pirates that can do no research and complain about them. This time it’s the New York Daily News and their grupmy columnist, Bill Madden. Madden hasn’t liked the Pirates since Mazeroski got elected into the hall of fame by the veteran’s committee many years ago. This is mainly because he is a good friend of Yogi Berra and Maz caused the Yankees not to win a world series.

But back to the present. Madden seems to be of the opinion that MLB will be cracking down on the Pirates to spend more money on the major league roster. His logic is that since the Marlins were told to spend more money the Pirates will be forced to do the same.

That’s all well and good but if he had bothered to read any of the excellent work that Post Gazette Pirates’ beat writer Dejan Kovacevic. This past week he reported from sources outside of the Pirates organization that they were not going to be a target. This is something that he was also told by the commissioner of Major League Baseball. (Dejan also has a nice take down of Madden’s article, citing the real 2009 salary of the Pirates).

Yeah, we’ve sucked for 17 years and are a laughing stock for most of the league and press. But having fools like Madden not even bothering doing any research into the situation is just lazy journalism.

It’s bad enough that there are fans who feel that if we just spend more money we’d have won a world series by now. That is just not the case.

Reason #10,183 why I love Steelers’ coach Mike Tomlin

We created this situation. What we are going to do is control what we can control, and that’s our preparation of play for the game. We’re not going to cry over spilled milk. If there’s any level of disappointment in terms of how this thing unfolds, it’s going to be on us.

Wow. The Steelers sure don’t make it easy on their us do they? They played another game that went down to the wire and unlike the ones in the past, they were able to pull this one out. They have now won 2 games in a row and are still in the playoff hunt although they need some help. They first need to win their game and then help can happen (the Jets or Ravens lose).

I have said several times that it’s amazing how different the defense plays with Troy Polamalu out of the line up. I know that is not the most profound commentary but it’s true. What I think gets overlooked is that the Steelers also lost a major cog in the defensive machine who is overlooked. That is Defensive End Aaron Smith.

Smith is someone that made a major impact along the defensive line and because of the 3-4 scheme the Steelers play the linemen usually go unnoticed. I think that his injury, along with losing Troy really put the defense on its heels. Not only that but the replacements for Smith didn’t really seem to step up all that much.

Hopefully the Steelers will win in Miami on Sunday and make it into the playoffs. If they make it in then it’s a whole new season.

It’s well known that the Pittsburgh Pirates set a new record for inepitude last season with 17 seasons in a row with a losing record. While I believe that this will turn around shortly, what I didn’t learn until recently is that the Pirates have another streak that is a Major League Baseball record which may seem more unreal to most people. They have kept their ticket prices the same for the past 8 years. This is the take away from Frank Coonley, the Pirate’s President

“We haven’t performed over the last eight years, but we can’t keep it there forever,” he said in a phone interview from Indianapolis, where the league’s winter meetings are being held. “While fans appreciate the tremendous value they get now, I’m sure they’d love us to be in a position for us to raise prices because that would mean we’re improving.”

I’m glad to see that the Pirates are doing this. It doesn’t seem that they would be winning over more fans by raising their prices during this streak of ignominy.