not with the sound of music, but with the sound of cyclists and Rick Sebak brought some video cameras along.  Tonight (Wednesday, January 26) and I am sure many other times because these things do get repeated – Rick Sebak’s show Its Pittsburgh takes a look at The Dirty Dozen.  The Dirty Dozen is an “unofficial” bicycle race that goes something like 58 miles up and down 13 of the steepest streets in Pittsburgh, including Canton Avenue, arguably the steepest public street in the world).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Make sure you check out the The Dirty Dozen website here for a complete history of the race, winners and temperature on race day – amazing that it has only snowed during the race in 1983.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you would like to watch this with other cyclists – there is a screening party tonight at OTB Bicycle Cafe with drink specials too, screening is at 7:30 but the party starts at 6:30.  More info at BikePGH and OTB Facebook Page.

(h/t to @PatrickK for the heads up on this screening)

I have also been upgrading the search here at IheartPGH – thanks to a nifty tool called Lijit – you can now get more info from the searches and I can learn more about what the searches are about (and the folks at Lijit are super nice too – they even fixed some formatting errors on my site).

But today’s post on HyperLocal Blogger (a great blog about local blogs) points out the Google Zeitgeist page and the top searches by city. Here are the top searches for Pittsburgh from the past year:

Pittsburgh, PA

1. carnegie library oakland
2. hofbrauhaus
3. rivers casino
4. cmu directory
5. ccac blackboard
6. kdka news pittsburgh
7. cmu blackboard
8. cmu hub
9. parkvale online banking
10. port authority pittsburgh

Some more reading about Google Zeitgeist….

• Facebook Remains Among Fastest Growing Search Terms For Second Year (allfacebook.com)
• Google Publishes Zeitgeist 2009 – Michael Jackson Crowned King Again (techcrunch.com)
• The Fastest Rising Google Queries in 2009 (googlesystem.blogspot.com)
• What Did the Internet Search for in 2009? (readwriteweb.com)
• Year-End Search Lists: Data Porn Based on Flimsy Science (gigaom.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Over the summer I wrote about the Pittsburgh Quilt which had been lost in the storage archives for the past 19 years. While I was writing about the quilt, which I had also forgotten about I couldn’t find one picture of it on the internet. So I headed out to the show to see for myself and to take some pictures so that it would have a home on the internet. The quilt was more impressive than I had imagined and I posted a few pictures from the Quilt Show here.

I have finally uploaded the rest of my pictures from the day to Flickr. Click here to see the pictures on Flickr or watch the slide show below.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Warhol on MTV

Image via Wikipedia

Last year I learned that just before he died Andy Warhol had his own series on MTV – Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes. When I wrote the post back in February of 2007 – I couldn’t find any clips of his show.

Lucky for me – The Warhol Museum will be showing the pilot and the first episode of the series on Saturday @ 3pm. Sadly the Warhol Museum website provide no other info about the film. Click here for the IMDB page – which doesn’t have much info either.

Here are some other blogs that wrote about Warhol’s 80th Birthday – it is really interesting to see how other people reflect on Andy Warhol:

• Born August 6: Andy Warhol @ Band of Thebes
• An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have. @ 2008 Artist Quote of the Day
• What to bring to Warhol’s Birthday Party @ slowlearning
  • Playthink Learning Studio in Dayton, Oh is having a birthday party for Andy Warhol and they have listed 80 reasons to celebrate.
• Happy Birthday, Andy @ Lip Smacking Wit
  • This blogger reflects on her visit to the warhol museum and asks if a blog is art. Coincidentally she is also reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Pittsburgh author Annie Dillard.
• Happy Birthday Andy Warhol @ Dog Art Today
  • has a nice picture of Andy and his dog and some links to more Andy warhol animals
• Andy Warhol’s 80th Birthday @ Just a Modern Guy
  • nice reflection on Andy Warhol and pop art.
• Happy Birthday, Andy! @ Atomic Librarian
  • This blogger is based in AZ and has a nice mention of the book Andy’s nephew wrote A Visit With Uncle Andy
• Happy 80th Birthday Andy Warhol @ GuestofaGuest

Where is this located? 

I would love to learn about other trivia nights. Rumor has it that there is Trivia at the Claddagh Irish Pub on Tuesday night but I have yet to confirm that.

• Turn Around, Look at Me
• Five O’clock Word – which was included in the soundtrack for the movie Good Morning, Vietnam

got their start right here in Pittburgh.  The Vogues was founded by four friends who met in high school.  In 2001 The Vogues were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
The Vogues, who continue to perform all over the US will be performing this Saturday in Gibsonia.

The Vogues
Saturday, August 11, 8pm
Keen Theater, 5847 Meridian Road, Gibsonia

Chris Ivey, a film maker who travels the world making documentary films, but lives right here in Pittsburgh has just released some clips for his latest and greatest project – ZombieTown, USA. ZombieTown USA is a documentary film about Zombie movie fans here in Pittsburgh. The documentary features some clips with major film industry people who have visited Pittsburgh to visit the original ZombieTown.

Pittsburgh is considered the birthplace of horror films. In 1968, George Romero, who attended Carneige Mellon University shot his first Zombie film Night of the Living Dead, which has become a cult classic here in Pittsburgh and has continued to film horror films here since then.

Pittsburgh Fun Fact – One of the first film projects that Romero worked on was Mr. Rodger Neighborhood.

Are You A Zombie Fan? Want To Be In ZombieTown USA?
Chris is looking to interview some Zombie fans for the documentary – if you are interested just drop me an email info – at – iheartpgh.com and will put you in touch with Chris.

More clips from the film: www.myspace.com/zombietownusamovie

A visit to Wikipedia’s entry on Andy Warhol and I learned that Warhol had a show, Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, on MTV.   Cool and kind of unexpected.  I couldn’t find anything else about the show online. Does anyone remember seeing the show? Are there any clips on the show online?