Kate Gosselin

That's right. Kate Gosselin's coming to town.

At this point, I, like I'm sure much of America, have a love/hate relationship with her. I think she had a cute show that she ran into the ground by being cranky, annoying, and eventually exploitative. But hey! Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it'll be different when she tells her story to Penn State.

First of all, everyone knows her story. Come on now, Kate. Second, there's a meet and greet. If only I could justify adjusting my work schedule that day! But I did so last weekend, and I'd probably hate myself for screwing with an entire day for her, especially because she'll inevitably say something that would make me angry. Best of all, she and Fayette County probably can't handle each other. We're too much of a hot mess for her, and she's too much of a hot mess for us. This also adds to the campus' record of famous people coming to chill. By that, I mean Hillary Clinton and countless Clarks performances.

It's free and open to the public, but due to her popularity -- if you want to call it that -- interested people are recommended to call 724-430-4248 to make reservations.

And if any of you guys go, I want my inbox to be flooded with real-time photos, video, everything.

Emails from Zimmerlink

Somehow, I started getting emails from Angela Zimmerlink that look like they're mailing list-type things, except for the lack of any kind of "unsubscribe" feature and the fact that I never signed up for any Zimmerlink updates. There are two explanations as to how I got them:

1.  My dad signed me up for them as a joke, but he likes Lohr, so why he'd sign me up for Zimmerlink updates is beyond me.
2. She's onto me.

I lean towards the latter because: 

1. My old Zimmerlink post from the primaries is the most popular post of the week.
2. The first email includes the line, "Fed up with those blogs that post without knowing the facts?"

Wait, what? Obviously, not all people potentially receiving this email are bloggers, but that's not going to make us like you. Which brings up another point: what blogs are spewing loads of mistruths? As far as I can tell, there are like three people blogging about Fayette County on a regular basis (not counting silly crime stories that pop up everywhere, because really, why shouldn't they?), and while the Fayette Patch Hunky is admittedly full of angst (sometimes rightfully so), my Zimmerlink content is mostly along the lines of, "She's suing two other commissioners, it's stupid, this one time I went to a commissioner meeting and she yelled the whole time and was generally annoying and cranky, and Ambrosini has pretty signs." Also, none of us has made her Correcting the Spin page, so we're obviously not stirring up legitimate trouble.

Maybe she'll like my Facebook page?

Bridal Brawl

Always classy.

Police had to break up a brawl between wedding parties that apparently started when members of one wedding party mingled with the other's guests and the bride threw them out.

Weddings are at least supposed to be beautiful celebrations, so why not enjoy the fact that someone else shares your wedding day? The bigger the party, the better.

And look, just because you're a bride doesn't mean you get to be a huge bitch to everyone on your wedding day. The day isn't solely yours, you know. I mean, there's this dude sharing it with you called your husband.

But the bride wasn't the only cranky one -- rival bridesmaids started arguing and then it got physical and a 14-year-old got punched.

Seriously? Way to just eff up TWO weddings, folks.

The usual ridiculous, petty drama we're know for.

P.S. The Facebook page is slowly but surely growing. "Like" that shit.

Penn State Pink Out

I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of breast cancer at this point, but power to good causes!

Penn State's nursing students have been selling shirts all month, and they've sold over 500 shirts and will be donating over $1000. They'll be having a campus pink out on Friday.

Rock on, good causes!

On the Commissioner Race

It's been a while since we heard from the commissioner candidates, but I could tell the race was getting underway when all the signs started popping up all over the county. A little bit after the signs for Haunted Hills Estate started popping up.

I stand by my previous statements that Ambrosini's are the prettiest. New observation: Whoever put up Lohr's signs is obnoxious. Do you really need a full army of them in fields and lining roads? I get that it gets the name out and the 20 Lohr signs overpower the single signs from other candidates, but still. Come on, now.

The candidates all insist they're campaigning alone. No secret alliances here. Meanwhile, Zimmerlink is still sung Vicites and Zapotosky, and I still think it's stupid.

The candidates all also sat down with HeraldStandard.com to talk about issues. We'll break that down later.

More from Local Writers

Well, sort of local. You see, Rob Hensley ditched us for Los Angeles. Twice. After I let him cut and dye my hair in experimental ways and hung out backstage at Ballet Lafayette. You may remember him from a column he did for HeraldStandard.com on fashion and all that jazz. He pretty much works as a make-up artist, runs a blog related to that, includes me every Friday on Twitter in his #FollowFriday, and generally does cool stuff. He even has an IMDB page, ya'll!

His latest cool endeavor: a young-adult novella that's part sci-fi and part LGBT with aliens and homosexual love stories. I'll post more details when I get around to buying and reading it, but I'm sure it's well-done and awesome. It's called Leo's Love Story. Check it out now!

County Crime Round-Up

• A woman has been convicted in a shooting. A jury took a whopping 25 minutes to reach this decision. The woman shot her mother and pistol-whipped the owner of a mobile-home park, who came to ee what the ruckus was when she heard the shot.
• Police are looking for a robbery suspect. What else is new? Based on the description, they very well may be looking for Leatherface. Despite being called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I'm pretty sure Fayette County is the real setting.
• A man was acquitted in a theft case after a dude in Vegas was charged with theft by deception. Apparently, a couple sent said dude some money for a car they never got, and Vegas dude said he was getting the money on behalf of some Romanians and gave it to them...wait, what?
• Police have filed charges in two drug fraud cases. Two people apparently altered prescription slips. Shocking. Shouldn't we maybe, I don't know, help these people get off drugs? Easier said than done, I know, but I doubt throwing them in jail is going to help them kick an addiction to pain pills. Just a thought.
• A woman and 10-year-old boy were both charged with assaulting a woman outside of Uniontown Hopsital. First of all, this is why this county sucks--we have adults setting a horrible example for kids, so these cycles of violence and crime just repeat. Second, I hope the assaulted woman didn't need to go to the hospital, and if she did, I hope she trucked it down to Morgantown rather than stick around at the Deathshop. Malpractice Central. How Did These People Get Jobs in a Hospital General.
• A kidnapping trial continued despite the lack of the defendant, who failed to show up for court. The show must go on.
• California University is adding security, thanks to a recent increase in crime. No Cal students were involved, but still--constant vigilance.
• A Colorado man was convicted of stealing from a cheesecake bakery in 2009.  Is this bakery still there? Why didn't my boyfriend, a Republic resident, take me there (even though he's made me cheesecake. Twice. Take that, ladies!)? Why didn't this guy just steal the cheesecake? Who cares about stealing electrical wiring!?
• And finally, a teenager was charged with assaulting a child. Again, examples. Teaching. Cycles. And the teen tried to stop an adult from taking the five-year-old to the hospital by hitting her, too, and standing in front of her car when she went to leave.

Stay classy, Fayettenam.

I will never be able to move out of this place fast enough.

Halloween in the Nam

While I wait on information on that damn ghost tour, here's what else is going down so far for Halloween:

• Haunted Hills Estate is back up and running. I went there once in high school the year it opened. It was a good time. Seemed a little pricey for me at the time, but that's probably because I had to ask my mom for money and I had probably asked her for money the weekend before. That said, it was really neat and interactive, with little challenges you had to complete and awesome-looking zombies wandering the massive grounds. And at the end, you got chased by a dude with a chainsaw. Who doesn't love that? Oh, yeah. My friend with a huge chainsaw phobia who ran away in pure terror, accidentally right into thorn bushes.
• Paranormal Research at Carnegie Free Library. October 27 from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. Prizes and a search for the library ghost. I think I remember hearing a story about the library being haunted in my youth, but that might be wishful paranormal thinking. Regardless, I'm all in if this has anything to do with Ghostbusters. Seriously, if that doesn't immediately come to mind when you hear "library ghost," you need to get out. You do have to be 18, though. Are they carding at the door? Is the library ghost that scary, or is putting in chances to win a spooky basket considered gambling? If that's the case, I know many Chinese auction participants in big trouble.
• Praying Bigfoot decides to come through again soon. Actually, I want this to happen at all times, it's just that Halloween is and appropriate time for me to come up with excuses to bring it up.
• If you come to trick-or-treat for my neighbor's designated trick-or-treat and you're not from my neighborhood, you're in trouble. Seriously, I'm on to you hoodlums. Last year, we totally gave out way more candy than there are children in here. Who spilled the beans on the upper-middle class trick-or-treat that's so suburban it hurts and we make our own trick-or-treat and mow our lawns in polo shirts? ...How do we even exist in this county?
• If you come to trick-or-treat for my neighborhood's designated trick-or-treat and you're dressed as any Wizard of Oz character, I'll give you my best candy. To the little girl who came through as Dorothy last year: you're welcome.

Ghost Tours

As if Fayette County isn't spooky enough, someone had the grand idea to do ghost tours for Halloween. And I don't mean that sarcastically--I seriously think this is an awesome thing. I'm a total nerd for the supernatural. The X-Files has been my favorite show since I was too young to be watching The X-Files. I think I want "I WANT TO BELIEVE" on my headstone when I die.

The problem is, information is hard to come by. Despite being featured in a HeraldStandard.com article, I can't find anything online, which sucks A) for the purposes of this blog and B) because I want to go, and how am I supposed to harass my loved ones to go if I know nothing about it?

Come on, Fayette County. Get your shit together. It's Halloween. Let's do this.

Pseudo Signs

Some things just don't make sense to me. Take, for example, those signs that people like to put at the start of their driveways that look like street signs. Don't get it. I don't see them as cute or clever. I see them and file them away in the part of my brain that is "Stuff to Never Do or Get When I'm Married with Children" (also included there: those little stick figure windows things of the families or Kidz Bop or anything that spells "kids" with a "z").

I can't decide if the one I saw tonight makes me hate them more or suddenly love them.

Snyder Mobilhome.

Now, I'm not saying people shouldn't be proud of their mobile homes. Pride in your residence is an important thing. They may not be glamorous, but they're still home to some. The thing is, I'm not really sure why this needs stated, or if it was done out of pride or clarification or if the Snyders thought that this was the best way to rock the faux street signs: state your last name, then the structure you live in. I thought that was only acceptable with castles.

Note: this is unrelated to the clever naming of places on Foursquare. I fully accept that. I have friends whose homes are compounds or palaces. The only exception is someone putting in their place of employment or in-laws' house as "Hell." Because that's original.