Fast: chip the foam back slighly below flush with the wall. Skim coat with spackle. Paint.

More: if you want to pull it apart, put a collar on it, kind of an escutcheon to cover the seam between wall and pipe.

Most: box it in. Build a frame, drywall that, and then never, ever see it again.

I've found a huuuuge chicken of the woods in Homewood Cemetery up by Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze. That cemetery is also an arboretum, and this was fully covering a tree stump that was maybe 3' across. Towards the center of the place, two years ago, and I can't remember the exact spot or I'd just link it.

For fully furnished, new construction, there's not a ton of either here, and finding both in the same spot is going to cost top-of-market. Lawrenceville is also our most expensive neighborhood for rentals if you're looking at rentals in the top 75% of quality.

I just moved back after five years SF/Seattle, and would suggest just getting an airbnb for a month - or four airbnb for a week each - when you get here, and use the first month to find a longer-term rental.

Example: a buddy lives in the Cork Factory in the Strip, which is next to Lawrenceville. The Strip has very few rentals, although some very high end stuff. Kinda immaculate large factory lofts, but $3500 for a 2BR and like $4500 for a 3BR, but all unfurnished.

But you can live fairly luxe for like half that; that's just heart-of-sun pricing, feels like.

Leo Greta in Carnegie or Di'anoia's in the Strip are amazing. Leo Greta's a narrow brick room, while Di'anoia's is an open space with two walls of windows, so Leo Greta is more what you want, probably.

For a bit fancier, Dish Osteria in Southside or Bar Marco in the Strip, both of which are small, cozy joints.

I think those are about as good as it gets for Italian, and yeah, they're real real good.

You too can pay $5/hour less than Target, and need evenings and overnights.

This city could print money by just ticketing "you were on your cellphone, in the car, and stopped in the middle of the crosswalk". We'd not need a police budget anymore; that'd likely cover it.

May I ask where in Pittsburgh? The buses actually are pretty good here, and supplementing that with Uber or Lyft works well.

Or, catching a Lyft from Highland Park all the way across to Greenfield to see friends is like $30 roundtrip for me... which I could do every day all month on an $800 car budget.

https://www.lyft.com/rider/fare-estimate

If you live in the suburbs, all bets are off, but the city is actually pretty good at this.

I am city people. Any place outta the city is a hike for me.

That said, Los Bajitos in Southpointe and Leo Greta in Carnegie. I'm happy any time I've gotta go down 79, because damn, those two restaurants are winners.

Calling it out; you need to order off the authentic menu.

The menu with the general tso's ain't that much different than any other Chinese place with general tso's.

I mean, most of the western US was built after 1960. It's not everywhere, and it's pretty bad in our pocket of Appalachia.

Or repair debt on the houses.

If you need a new roof, repointing, a furnace, have knob and tube electrical, and the sewage line is coming up on it's 100 year lifespan, that's a loooot different than a house that didn't rely on boomers to keep it up to date.

They had one with a green label that was better, but it was only around for like two months, once.

Other than that, it all tastes like corn.

I would go to Phipps.

Panther Hollow Run from Squirrel Hill heading to Panther Hollow Lake. A+++.

The one that terrifies me about the economy is we're doing better than most of the rest of the world this year, but not giving Biden any credit for that.

We're also seeing relatively low inflation, but record-corporate-profits rebranded as "inflation".

The combo of those two perceptions is gonna hurt.

You're not going to convince GOP members in most cases.

You *do* need to convince your own team to come out and vote 100% of the time, and then you need action - between elections - to grow your team.

It's been interesting to see Fetterman lean into dunking on Oz with memes for awhile... and then go to do "here's the plan/here's my policy".

It also doesn't hurt that Fetterman was leaning on Biden to legalize marijuana two weeks before Biden put through the executive order on weed.

Anyone hear this in Eddie Vedder's voice on the second readthrough?