Contest Winner - "What if....? The G20 Summit"

One of my last real entries to this page was a brief one, a contest for someone out there to come up with a blog idea for my next post. It would look to the Multiply observer that no one had anything for me. Shame to, I thought the prize, a free month of gaming at Pogo, might be something worth winning. Thank goodness for RSS feeds however, because shortly after I posted here, the same entry came up on my Facebook page and I did get a suggestion, actually a few from the same person, Aaron, who I met through the radio show. Needless to say, Aaron therfore won the prize, but his suggestions were tough one's to blog about. That is when the comic book side of my brain kicked into gear. Marvel Comics used to do a series called "What if...?" and would take a significant event that played out within the Marvel Universe and tackled the notion of what might have happened if things were slightly different.

So what does that have to do with this entry you may ask. Well, one of the things that Aaron suggested was a blog about the upcoming G20 summit I have been reluctant to get into a lot of political blogging recently, and have very little interest in the G20, but with the yearly dismantling of the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise that happens right around the trading deadline, I thought I might be able to incorporate the two and ask the following Marvelous question.....

"What If the G20 Summit Was Run By Pittsburgh Pirates Management?"

Well first off, the top 12 nations would be lopped off, traded away to NATO or some other multinational organization for future prospects. 11 of open slots would then be filled with third world countries that show potential to someday maybe be able to crack the top 20, and the last member would be the winner of the reality show "America's Next Top Ally".

Next, the David L Lawrence Convention Center will have to be torn down, and a newer convention center will have to be built in order to host the summit. While the newer convention center will smaller than it's predecessor, it will be replete with more luxury boxes, so that Pittsburgh may someday be more competitive with other cities that host summits.

The Port Authority will pitch in by building a tunnel to the new convention center under the guise that eventually it will be a connector between the East and West Busways and therefore has to be built. The new tunnel will go down in the annals of Pittsburgh transportation, much like the Wasbash Tunnel, the Parkway North HOV lane and the Bridge to Nowhere.

In order to generate more revenue, Pirates management will of course sell the naming rights to the convention. Something along the lines of The UPMC G20 Summit sounds just about right.

To maintain interest in the summit, management will offer a variety of gimmicks to the visiting nations, such as an All You Can Eat section in the newly constructed convention center, world leader bobblehead dolls, and Pittsburgh's favorite, a fireworks night.

Entertainment for the convention will consist of concerts by The Clarks and Donny Iris and movies in which Pittsburgh was the film locale, such as Striking Distance and The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

Protestors at the summit will be brandished as nayasayers and as to not having the vision of seeing what it is management is trying to accomplish.

While he is merely a catcher for the Pirates and therefore will have no role in the summit whatsoever, nonetheless Ryan Doumit will still find a way to injure himself and end up on the disabled list.

The summit is to last three days, so expect at least the first two days to be losses, but never fear, management will be there to tell you that 5 years from now it will be worth it, unless of course Pittsburgh is again chosen to host the G20, in which case the above steps will be repeated.

Needless to say, regardless of what does or doesn't happen at the G20 here in Pittsburgh, rest assured that it can't be as bad as if Pirates management ran it.