Oh, and the A's also picked up Rajai Davis off wavers from the Giants. He was considered a bright light for the G-men for a minute or three late last season.
He'd been traded to the G's by the Pirates for Matt Morris, who's now allowing a run per inning in Pittsburgh and really should quit now.
I saw Smart People last nite -- not great, but filmed in P'burgh (the lead character is a prof at Carnegie Mellon), and someone refers to the city as "the Paris of Western Pennsylvania".
Pittsburgh's in a sorry state. The town of my birth, McKeesport, hosted Obama recently, and the WaPo's coverage of it upheld every Yinzer stereotype, right down to the person in the Steelers shirt who thinks Obama isn't American. The racism is if anything overmatched by the anti-intellectualism (imagine how much shit I caught while growing up there just for using big words). I'd move this to the Right-Wing thread except that many of them still identify as Democrats (though I bet they'll largely go for McCain here, never mind that his idea of not condescending to the working class is sending their children to die in the Middle East).
Pittsburgh does have a gorgeous skyline and some great bridges, though.
