It’s Friday, and it’s beautiful outside which makes it a perfect time for some Housemartins!

(The following video very accurately depicts what Tunesmith and I will be doing in roughly 3 hours from now, sans the Claymation™ unfortunately.)

Andrea Bocelli appeared as the celebrity coach on American Idol last night. Little known fact: Andrea Bocelli’s real name is Andrea Pizza Outlet.

On Monday, Governor Antwan Ed Rendell called on President Bush to slap a windfall profits tax on oil companies as a way to offset skyrocketing gasoline prices for consumers, suggesting that the new tax revenue be segregated into a special account and redistributed to American drivers next year based on how many miles they can prove they’ve driven. Yeah, that’ll work. After the government spends millions on IT systems and additional employees to administer the new tax, educates tax professionals and the general public on the new tax, oil companies increase prices to absorb their related costs and I waste my valuable time “proving” how many miles I drove, my actual cost of the $3 per gallon I’m paying now will end up being $5 per gallon. I just love election years.

Kevin Costner has been revealed as the celebrity accused of performing a sex act while having a massage at a prestigious hotel in Scotland while on honeymoon with his new wife. “It was disgusting and, even though he was a Hollywood superstar, I couldn’t believe he thought he could get away with something like that,” said the 34-year-old spa worker who gave the massage to Costner and accused him of “dancing with his wolf.” Oddly enough, I have similar feelings every time I start to watch one of his pathetic movies.

David Lee Roth is the Wil Shriner of radio.

If you enjoyed my post from yesterday and/or if you weren’t a reader of T&A back in December of 2004, you might enjoy reading about other tours I proposed back then. You can click here to revisit that post.

Today’s PG has a story about a new web site, Pittsburgh Neighborhood Tours, “launched to boost seven city neighborhoods…to lure tourists to their communities.” The other and hotter PG, Tunesmith and Anthony’s favorite dime-piece shorty, PittGirl, also wrote about this new website though her post is a bit more David Conrad-centric.

Since I grew up on the mean streets of Bloomfield, I was mostly interested in the Bloomfield section of the site and it’s pretty nifty. However, the site is missing a lot of cool information that may be of interest to tourists and Pittsburgh residents alike. Therefore, as yet another public service to you, the vast T&A readership, I’m going to get all Rick Sebak on your ass as I present:

(Unlike a traditional tour, I’m not going to tell you where any of these locations are ummm…located. You’re going to have to aimlessly wander around Bloomfield to find them which really is half the fun.)

Under “Fast Facts” for Bloomfield, the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Tours site states that “Bloomfield was the home of visionary Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence.” But the father of Pittsburgh machine politics didn’t live in one of those aluminum siding clad party-wall houses off of Liberty Avenue. He lived on the very edge of Bloomfield in this not-too-shabby abode:

Up the street from the former Lawrence residence is this house:

What makes this house significant is that its roof is made entirely of aluminum. Legend has it that an Alcoa executive lived in this house in the 1940’s or 1950’s. Supposedly at that time, Alcoa had developed an aluminum product designed to replace the traditional asphalt shingle, and this particular executive had it put on his home. Although it’s hard to see, the roof looks pretty cool and it will probably last forever. I wonder if everything is aluminum inside of the house, like in the old Alcoa Building Regional Enterprise Tower.

Not too far away is this large property that, not unlike many houses in that section of Bloomfield, was chopped up into a bazillion apartment units:

The significance of this structure is that Franco Harris lived in one of its apartments during his first year or two as a young Pittsburgh Steeler. Legend has it that Franco once accidentally knocked a can of soup off the kitchen counter here, and Franco maintains to this day that he caught the can of soup before it ever hit the floor.

The market below is located on a corner of Friendship Avenue:

It is no longer a 7-11. I believe it is now called “Brian and Cooper’s” but it is still a convenience store. The significance of this store is that it was the only 7-11 in Pennsylvania that sold beer. That’s right, you could legally purchase a 6-pack to go with your can of Skoal and Slim Jims. They also sold the 32 ounce bottle of Rolling Rock. If there’s anything more magical than buying Rolling Rock in bulk, I have yet to find it. I haven’t been in there in a while, but I believe beer can still be purchased at Brian and Cooper’s.

The final stop on Anthony’s Bloomfield Tour is this eatery.

Allegedly, Henry Hill of “Goodfellas” fame ate breakfast here once. That allegedly occurred before that fateful day in which a helicopter followed him around while his brother watched the meatballs on the stove.

And that concludes Anthony’s Bloomfield Tour. I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time…

If you have to cough during a job interview, be sure to cover your mouth with your left hand. Don’t pause in mid-sentence to cough and cover your mouth with your right hand knowing damn well that you’re going to shake the interviewer’s hand with your contaminated right hand at the conclusion of the interview.

That happened to me today. I was on the receiving end of a cough-tainted hand shake after interviewing someone. Needless to say, it’s highly unlikely that I will call this individual back for a second interview, and I definitely won’t call this individual back should I develop some sort of flesh eating disease or those mumps that are going around.