Restaurants: Pittsburgh

Still on the summer road trip kick, we recently stopped in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.  We only had two days, but we managed to squeeze in a trip to the Carnegie Museum, see the new Harry Potter movie, and hit two restaurants seen on the Food Network.

Inspiration came from the Pittsburgh visit of the Man V. Food show on the network.  I’ve known of Primanti Brothers on the Strip, but I’d never been there before.  I’ve been to Quaker Steak and Lube, so I decided to up the ante.

Primanti Brothers

As we arrived at this location on the strip to find a small line, someone leaving said “Good thing we arrived when we did!”.  We said the same thing when we left, because the line had grown out the door!

You enter into a room that has tables on the right, and the grill and prep area on the left.  To the left of the grill wall is a door to the room next door, which I assume has a lot of seating area.  I didn’t make it in there.  One of our party told the waitperson dealing with the seating that we needed a table for six, and eventually, he pointed us to a table at the back of the room with the grill.  So I never made it in the other room, but I did get to watch them prep the crazy sandwiches they make.

You’ve got all kinds of meat to choose from – pastrami, corned beef, ham, sardines, etc.  It all gets thrown on the grill, and when nicely crisped, gets put on a huge slice of bread.  Then, they put the french fries and coleslaw on top, and top it with another slice.  It’s supposed to make it easy for truckers who stop in after deliveries to drive and eat, but it really does make a mess.

Anyways, we sat at our table and wondered if we were supposed to order at the bar, or if someone would serve us.  Eventually a woman asked us from behind the bar what we wanted to drink.  She put the drinks on the bar, and we couldn’t figure out if we should grab them or what.  After doing something else, she came around and gave them to us.  She took our order by memory, and it came out 99% right.  There was cheese on a sandwich that wasn’t supposed to be there.  But I was happy to see that mountain placed before me.

Wow!  Is my mouth that big?

The corned beef was great in the sandwich, as was the coleslaw, which had a light, vinagery coating.  The bread was very fresh.  However, it was all overwhelmed by the fries.  The heavy potato-ness of the sandwich was what you got in each bite.  We ended up pulling out most of the fries and eating them on the side, and this helped immensely.   You could then get the flavors of the meat and slaw.  The bread ended up being very filling as well, so I just ate the fillings on the second half, which allowed me to finish the important parts.

We didn’t get a bill, so I just went to the register.  Upon entering everything, I discovered that: A. they only take cash and B. I didn’t have enough cash.  So I had to get some from another in our party.  Seriously, they only take cash – what’s with that?

Well, it was a good sandwich.  I don’t see the need to go again, though.  If I did get the urge, I’d probably go to the stand alone restaurant in Cranberry, closer to my house there.

Quaker Steak and Lube

Quaker Steak and Lube is basically a wings and beer kind of place.  I’d been there before, and it was pretty good, although this time, we went to the location in Cranberry, instead of the one in Robinson Township.

One little vice, they had fried pickles on the menu.  These are spears, with a crispy breading, and were pretty good.  I tend to like “chip” style better, like at Hooters, or Fitz’s in St. Louis.

Previously, I’d had wings with one of the many sauces they offer.  This time, I thought I’d join Man vs. Food’s Adam, and go for the Atomic wings.  I ordered the sampler, which brought five wings to the table.  My kids were all excited I was going to eat these.  You take a smell, and the mouth starts to water.  I didn’t get an overwhelming heat from them, just sitting on the table.

So I started in.  Initially, it wasn’t overwhelming, like I expected.  The heat did show up a few seconds later, but it wasn’t really too bad on the tongue.  I was very careful to try and keep it off the lips.  I had a beer by my side, but that didn’t help shut down the heat.  Like I said, though, it wasn’t too hot to not eat.  By the third, I was starting to sweat a bit and my eyes were watering.  It was kind of fun though, and not too terrible.  I traded the fourth to my dad so he could try one.  I had one of his BuckeyeBBQ wings, and after the heat from the Atomics, the spicy bbq sauce actually had a nice tang.  A few minutes later, I finished my last Atomic wing.

I asked the server what the actual challenge consisted of, and he told me it was 10 Atomic wings, up from six previously, because too many were able to do it.  There is a “Wall of Flame” by the bathroom, with lots of names on printed sheets for each month, so I guess he’s right.  I did get a couple of “I had the Atomic Wings” bumper stickers though.  Next time I’m there, I’ll try the full challenge.

Anyone want to join me?

iStockphoto Now Running SXC

There’s an announcement on the front page of iStockphoto.com this morning:

We’re happy to welcome a new member into the Getty Images family. Starting today, the iStock team will start running Stock.xchng. That’s right: the world’s busiest free stock site is now part of our family.

So welcome to all you SXC customers and contributors. If you need any help getting around, you can give us a call toll-free at 1-866-478-6251 (international toll-free: 00-800-6664-6664).

I’ve not used stock.xchng before, but checking it out, there is now iStock branding all over the place, to easily get you from the free stuff, to the really good stock content.

There’s even a discount coupon for 10% off credit packages of 50 credits or more to get you into the iStockphoto buying mood: http://www.istockphoto.com/SXCoffer

It seems to be good news for iStockphoto contributors – a “competitor” driving business to iStockphoto.com .

Recent Portfolio Additions

Last week, I was family road tripping through my hometown of Pittsburgh (food reviews coming this week) to Hershey, PA, and back.  However I did manage to notice that my iStockphoto.com download total has now passed 500,000 licensed pieces of content.  That’s an exciting milestone, not for any practical reason, but just to be able to mention “a half million”.

In addition, I had my first image featured in the bi-weekly promotional iStock/Getty “Hot Shots” newsletter:

While this doesn’t particularly seem to have boosted sales, views are way up, which may or may not be a good thing.

Anyways, that image is part of this weeks portfolio update.  The theme for this shoot was “Doctors”, which is always useful, but here, I was aiming for production value and model variety.  Let’s see the model line up:

• Caucasian male – 70s
• Caucasian male – 20s
• Asian American female – 20s
• African American female – 30s
• African American male – 30s
• Caucasian female – 20s
• Hispanic male – 20s

Also in the mix, were requests for doctors to not always be wearing scrubs or lab coats (casual or business wear), as well as using professional equipment like stethoscopes, pdas and computers.  We’ve got physicians training, teaching, both in an environment, and isolated group poses.  It’s all there!

Also, new in the mix is a new theme for me: “Hospital”.  This royalty free stock image series features a mid-adult male, child, and models in the 20-30s age range, in a hospital setting, which in this series, means a patient in a hospital bed.  I made sure to include lots of useful copyspace on many of these, as well as some more candid type images.

This series can be found within this search: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&userID=351711&text=hospital&order=4

… and a big thank you to all the buyers for helping over that “half a million mark”.  Feel free to contact me with any stock image ideas you have or can’t find out there.  Cheers!

Don’t Pay For Plain Pixels!

“Don’t Pay For Plain Pixels”, otherwise known as “Buying smart”.   I’m talking about trying to keep your spending smart by not buying more image than you need, in particular when it comes to a white background.

Very popular on microstock sites, including iStockphoto, is the “isolated”, “isolated on white” or “cut out” image, such as the one below:

I’ve put a 2 pixel border around the image so you can appreciate the white area.  This image was originally shot on a Canon 5D, at the full pixel resolution of 2912 x 4368.  This is a smaller version, but the same aspect ratio.  By the way, you can find this image on iStockphoto here.  As you can see, I’ve filled the frame pretty fully with the model.  I’ve not added any more area than the camera originally captured, nor have I cropped any pixels from it.  I think this image provides plenty of “subject” real estate for use – ie. there are a lot of useful pixels in the image.

Imagine, however, I decided to shoot this horizontally, putting the model on frame left.  This might appear useful to a designer, with lots of room for copy or text on the right, but that is something easily added (I’ll show you how, below).

As you can see, if I uploaded the original, uncropped, straight from the camera version of this image to iStockphoto, while it may look nicely composed in the search thumbnail, over half of the image is nothing but white pixels, something easily added by a designer.  Essentially, you are paying for pixels that have no value to you.

Now, I’m not saying that subjects should be cropped within 3 pixels of the edge, but I think we can see where some cropping is necessary to ensure buyer value.  In fact, iStockphoto does reject some images with too much white space.  However, some do make it into the collection with too much white space in frame (IMO).

However, your design may call for white space in a certain area, relative to the subject.  It’s easy to add white space to your image using Photoshop (or any other program – the idea is the same).  For example, you could use the free online graphic tool “Phoenix” by Aviary.  It has the canvas function mentioned below, although the process is slightly different.

1. First step, open your image.
2. Under “Image”, go to “Canvas Size”.
3. “Canvas Size” will show you the current dimensions of your image.  For the clearest (to me, anyways) way to increase space, change the second pulldown for width and height to “pixels”.  You can now tell Photoshop the new image width in pixels.  Let’s say “400″.  But before we hit “OK”, we need to click on the leftmost, middle box in the bottom graphic.  This tells Photoshop, in the new, larger canvas, where to stick the old image.  We want it smack to the left, so we click the left middle box.  Any of the left boxes would work, since we aren’t changing the height.  Lastly, change the “Canvas Extension Color” to white, so the added pixels will be white.
4. Hooray!  We now have our new canvas, with plenty of copy space to the right of the model.

The point of this post is that you should make sure that you get the best value for the credits you are spending.  Given the choice between two similar images, see which one gives you the most useful pixels to work with.

Where to Look?

Just a few keyword terms (from the controlled vocabulary) for iStockphoto.com buyers who are trying to find photos with people looking in a certain direction.  The terms are pretty self explanatory, although some need some disambiguation choice to get the right option.  For example, “looking up” can apply to what the camera is doing, as well as what the person is doing.

• looking at camera
• sideways glance
• looking up (looking)
• looking down (looking)
• looking away
• looking over
• over the shoulder (looking over the shoulder)
• face to face

I’ll use the simple term “looking” as a synonym for “examining”, like if someone is checking out a sign, or looking through binoculars.

Have a good weekend!

Food: Al’s Beef

As I’ve mentioned before, my thing to do when we are on a trip out of town, is to try and have a meal at a restaurant I’ve seen on a Food Network or Travel Channel show.  One of my favorite shows is Man Vs. Food, which starts its second season in a couple of weeks.

So, I was going to Chicago.  Host Adam had been to Chicago.  My path was clear.  Well, actually it wasn’t, since most of my Chicago meals were spoken for, for one reason or another.  I did manage to walk by Gino’s East, while we were shopping on Michigan Avenue.  Pizza wasn’t really my goal though.  What I wanted was one of those crazy Italian beef sandwiches that they dunk, roll and all, into an au jus solution before serving it to you.  To be found at Al’s Beef.

I was not able to make it to the original location, or even one of the downtown franchise locations, but we did manage to stop at the one in Shorewood, IL, on the way out of town.  This location is a dual restaurant of sorts, hosting Al’s Beef and Nancy’s Pizza.  The pizza side wasn’t actually open – a sign said to order from Al’s side.

It was easy to order, since we knew what we wanted, although if you didn’t, the menu has all kinds of wraps, sandwiches and burgers, as well as the beef sandwich.

I ordered the six inch “Regular Al”, with provolone cheese, hot peppers and I wanted it dipped, for sure.  We also got an order of the Buffalo Bleu Fries.  The order included another sandwich and a couple of chicken strip kid’s meals.

Prep was quick.  The order was ready in about 5 minutes for pick up at the far end of the counter.

Verdict on the beef sandwich, an A- .  The best part was actually everything but the beef.  The soggy roll was saturated with the beef juice mixture they dunk it into.  It wasn’t as messy as on the show, where you need to eat standing up leaning over the counter so stuff can fall on the floor, but it was severely juicy.  The dipped bun was great with the melted provolone – melted to just the right consistency.  I do like a bit of a kick, and the fresh homemade hot giardiniera was great.  It’s a mixture of hot peppers, flakes, celery, and other goodness that contrasted well with the mild cheese.  I thought it was a little heavy on the celery, but as a first timer, what do I know?  You can also get cheddar cheese, or sweet peppers (regular green).  The downer ( just a bit ), was the beef.  I thought it was a little on the dry side.  You would have thought being dipped it would have picked up some moisture, but the swim was so quick, maybe it didn’t soak through.

What gets an A+ was the Buffalo Bleu Fries.  Fresh cut, skin on fries, nice and crispy, covered with wing sauce and blue cheese.  Nothing fancy, but really delicious.  I don’t normally order loaded fries anywhere because of the heart attack risk (!), but these just sounded like they’d hit the spot, and they surely did.

Thumbs up for Al’s Beef – locations around Chicago.

The Harry Potter Exhibition

It’s summer, and that means, for us USA types, road trip vacations.  This week, we took a quick 3 night trip to Chicago, from St. Louis.  Today’s post, and the next few, fall under the “Miscellaneous” category on my blog, but I felt the need to throw out some exposition in case people are out there Googling for reviews…

Non-fans of famous boy wizards would be wise to go read another blog posting at this point.

My favorite book series has to be “Harry Potter”, and I think the films are very enjoyable as well, serving up enough of the magic to make it worthwhile.  So, when I found the Harry Potter Exhibition was showing at the Museum of Science and Industry, I had to get us tickets for it.

Note that there is a service charge of $3 or so per ticket when purchasing tickets online, but you get to pick your entry time ahead of your visit, which beats standing in line there for whatever time they have.  Tickets are $26.  There is no videotaping or picture taking, at all.  However, there is the Ford Angelina ( note: Anglia ) from “Chamber of Secrets” in the museum lobby you can photo.  Note that some of the pieces in the exhibit (I think) were not in the movies, and just created for the exhibit, otherwise I can’t think of uses for a highly detailed Kreacher or Buckbeak model.

Our ticket time was 9:45, the first of the day.  I thought that was smart, since we wouldn’t have to deal with lingering crowds in the exhibit, and we didn’t.  It was just our small group of 20 or so.  While waiting in the museum foyer before going out to the exhibit (it’s displayed outside in huge tents, but you wouldn’t know you’re outside), we were entertained by a young man with a knowledge of trivia.  I don’t know if they are faking or authentic, but all the exhibit guides had a British accent.  The funniest part of the “pre-show” was when the man pointed out we were very special, because we were the 9:45 show … 9 and 3/4s.  Just like the Hogwart’s Express platform at King’s Cross.  Very funny.

On time, we entered the exhibit, into a small room with the famous sorting hat on a stool next to a set of doors.  The guide in this room pulled several kids from the group and the hat (well, a voice from above) sorted them into their houses.  This reminded me of something I had seen at the Warner Bros. tour Harry Potter exhibit in California.  They had the same sort of thing where you’d sit on a stool and put the hat on, and it would sort you.  I wonder how much of this exhibit might have come from that one?

We moved through the doors into a dark room with seven monitors on the wall.  These played a sort of Potter montage, quickly moving through the characters and emotions from the movies (nothing from Half-Blood Prince).  The movie was about four minutes long, and the doors opened into the main part of the exhibit.

First, we saw “moving paintings” on a wall.  Actually, only a few of the painting were moving, but it was still effective.  There was then the fat lady’s door to walk through, with the fat lady on the open door (projected from behind).

The first area of the exhibit was “Hogwarts”, if you will.  There were displays separated into different teachers or areas.  On the right was Ron and Harry’s beds along with nightstand and various props.  Glass cases held wands and school books.  Costumes tagged with what movie they were from were alongside each bed.  There was a display for Lupin, with the Boggart armoire, another for Gilderoy Lockhart, with some very humorous props – lots of photos of himself and the big painting of him painting himself.  The potions area had costumes and wands from Slughorn (Book 6) and Snape as well as jars of ingredients and other bits and pieces.  There was a costume from Quirrel and then, the desk and hanging kitten plates of Professor Umbridge, along with her very pink costume.

At the end of this area is Professor Sprout’s costume and props, along with a table of mandrakes that you can pull out of the pot and make scream.  Cute.

We then move into the Quidditch area, and there are lots of brooms, and props like the omnoculars, Quidditch magazines and books, all in cases.  There are 7 various Quidditch costumes from a variety of the films, and if I remember correctly, there were even some more after that, including Cedric Diggory’s robes.  Although I may be thinking of their costumes from the Tri-Wizard tournament.  In the Quidditch area, there is a section (like the basketball toss at an arcade), where you can toss an honest-to-gosh quaffle through one of three hoops, about 3 feet away.  Fun for the kids.

On the other side of the area, is a display of costumes from “Prisoner of Azkaban”, in the pumpkin patch, with a large Buckbeak model.  This is next to Hagrid’s hut.  Inside is a chair you can sit in, as well as a costume.  I never realized how big Hagrid is supposed to be.  That costume is huge!  There is also a dragon egg on the table that wiggles and moves a bit.

Outside the hut is the head of a Dragon from the “Goblet” movie.  Maybe the Triwizard costumes were here.  It’s hard to keep it all straight.   All these small “collections” are nicely themed and really detailed.

We then move into dark territory, which included a model of the Angel grave that held Harry in “Goblet”, as well as Malfoy and other Death Eater costumes.  There was a dementor model hanging from the ceiling and Azkaban outfits from “Phoenix”.  There was also the Harry Potter red sweater costume from them end of “Stone”, which led me to realize how small he actually was in that film.

Lastly, was the Great Hall.  Outside of the hall were numerous “Educational Decrees” on the wall.  Take time to read the fine print on them.  Inside the Hall, which had candles floating from the ceiling, were numerous costumes from the Yule Ball in “Goblet”, including Ron’s ratty, moldy robes, which aren’t any nicer close up.  Especially in contrast to Harry’s Tux.  In the center cases are fake food – a selection of entrees and desserts.  On the far side of the room are cases holding a variety of sweets, from the Skiving Snackboxes to Every Flavor Beans, and also a Wizard board game.  There are costumes from Dumbledore and Sirius and the end of the room and a model of Dobby hiding behind.

You exit to some applauding moving paintings, and enter the store area.  There were some exhibition specific items mixed in with the more generic type things, and a lot of collector items, like plaques with film frames, $50 wand replicas and a $50 Marauder’s Map.  Something for every fan, although you could probably find it cheaper in the real world.

Altogether, it took us an hour to go through, with the kids.  I could have spent much more time in there.  The thing I liked was the detail on the school books and notebooks and quizzes.  You never get to appreciate that stuff in the films because it goes by so quickly.

Up next time, the new American Girl Store and the Legoland Discover Center.

This Week’s Portfolio Update

The heat in St. Louis has finally broken.  We were up near 100 degrees last week!   I spent a few days with my son at summer camp, and boy, was that ever tropical.  Even the pool was warm.

In the meantime, two new occupational/everyday series are mostly online at iStockphoto.com .

The first is a revisiting of a topic from a few years ago: The Delivery Person.  Last time, we just did packages, but this time, I added flowers and balloons as well.  To really set the mood, I rented a delivery van and created some signage for the side of it.  I hope it adds some authenticity.

For more of the shipping series, see: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&userID=351711&text=delivery&order=4

The next series is also a revisit.  “At the Veterinarian”.  However, my earlier set was all isolated.  These are in a more realistic setting, with a variety of housepets: a rabbit, cat and two dogs – golden retriever and a peke-a-poo .

More new stuff appearing in the upcoming days and weeks, so please stop by and check out my portfolio if you have a chance.  As always, feel free to contact me if you have any stock subjects you need covered.