JANUARY SPAWNED A MONSTER

Putting aside my obsession for Everquest and Xbox Live, I decided to throw GTA back in the console for a while. First of all, these games took way too long to get to Xbox, but this is where they belong - if only for one reason: custom player soundtracks.



I hop into (or often carjack) an automobile, 'put in my mix tape,' and tear through Vice City with wreckless abandon. My sountrack of choice? Linkin Park? Rob Zombie? No. It's The Smiths. That's right. I pumped a ridiculously large Morrissey/Smiths playlist into my Xbox and accidently mow down innocent pedestrians to This Charming Man. And, when the lights go down on the city there's nothing quite like being chased by 1,500 police cars while listening to There Is a Light That Will Never Go Out or Shoplifters of the World Unite. Ahhh....sweet relief.

I moved into a new apartment this fall, and it's been great, with one exception: the "Sudden Death Elevator." It's one of those century-old contraptions that looks (and often seems) like a medevil torture chamber. It seems mostly safe, but has one charming little quirk. Sometimes it gets stuck in a loop. The building superintendent told me, "But, don't worry, it only really happens if you live on the top floor and are going to the bottom." Well that'd be great, but I live on the top floor. So, when I make the descent to the bottom sometimes it will randomly choose to BOUNCE BACK UP TO THE TOP FLOOR - and that that point it randomly chooses whether or not to let me out before going back down again. I've tried ripping the security cage open at one of the floors, but it doesn't work. You just have to 'bounce' until it decides to stop, or you can break out. And let me tell you, the robot has got some motion sickness issues. Below, is a photo montage of me about to be served.



ON GETTING SERVED:
Oh, and I've begun using the already-tired 'street' phrase "you got served!" at work, or home. I think it really livens things up. Give it a try...don't be a hater.

ROBOT CAPTION CONTEST!

I finally installed HaloScan feedback on my page, so I decided to have a little contest to kick things off. Enter the contest by clicking on the 'comment' field at the bottom of the post and leave your caption. Not sure what the winner gets yet, but I'm sure it has something to do with robots, or the like.
Contest ends Saturday, January 30th.

It's been about a month-and-half since I said, "I'm gonna cancel my Star Wars Galaxies account." And, you know what? I didn't. Mainly because I forgot I'm lazy, but also because I'm still clinging onto hope that somehow I'll get into the game and be some kind of popular space pirate or something. It hasn't happened yet - I'm still playing the Everquest.

But, tonight I decided to make a new character (on the Corbantis server) and give it another shot. My character is modeled after fellow Portland blogger, Hasser. My character's name: Hasser.



I only really played for an hour, and most of that time was spent running around acting like Hasser (hooting wildly and sitting in the bar - the space bar). I gotta admit, it was much more fun roleplaying as "The Hass Attack", rather than as a space lizard/bounty hunter or something. I'm hoping Hasser will make a Seanbaby or Anthony character, and we'll tear up the galaxy together.

I hesitate to write about work too much - it's too easy to get in trouble. But, today I want to tell you about David Wilson, my 'partner in crime.' First of all, I never call him Dave or David - it's always "Wilson," and he's a reporter I get 'sent out' with a lot. Our day usually starts out with us getting our assignment and then hitting the road before traffic gets bad. Now, unless it's a total breaking news story, Wilson is never ready to leave right away, so I end up waiting around for him. Then right when I'm sending an email or in the middle of doing something semi-important, he jumps up and (loudly) says, "Are you ready to go yet?!" as if he's been waiting around for me for the last 30 minutes.

Anyway, we get in the van and take off. I switch the radio to KGON classic rock, since Wilson is way a little older than me. That, and I like to see him rock out to all kinds of weird-ass Cheap Trick songs. Eventually we arrive at our destiantion, and get to work on the story. Tonight we covered a string of beauty salon burglaries, which was easy. Sometimes we have a hard story (usually involving sex abuse or death), and we work our tails off trying to round up interviews. Wilson is a friendly guy, so we usually have enough luck. If you ever had to be interviewed unexpectedly by a news crew, then we're the guys you'd want to have jump in your face with a microphone and big bright light.

Then comes the most important part of the evening: dinner. Although, sometimes we have dinner before we work. Wilson is on-and-off-and-on that Atkins nonsense, so usually we can go any where that's unhealthy, but most of the time he makes me go to Baja Fresh. We take our dinner with us, find a place to park our news van, and get back to work.

The rest of the night is spent waiting for Wilson to write the story, so I can edit it. And, then he waits for me to edit it, so he can do some other stuff. Then I wait for him to do that stuff, so I can shoot our live shot. We do the live shot, and then he waits for me to clean everything up. Then we head back to the station. And that's a typical evening with Wilson - just add in about five twelve bathroom breaks, and that's about right.

I give him a hard time, but Wilson is a great guy to work with. He always talks about "getting out of television" but I know that we'll still be driving around the van together ten years from now, rocking out to Styx.

Is it Monday already? I can't believe how fast this month is flying by. Nothing new to report in LLR town. I've just been playing Everquest trying to get a ton of little things done. A few days ago I decided that I wasn't going to enter the Emmy's this year (mainly because it costs so much), but at the last minute - and I'm talking LAST minute - I got a wild notion that I needed to enter, so after running all over the station and $200+ later...my tapes are in the mail.

Oh man, yesterday I forgot that I parked my car with an empty gas tank. So, when I went to go to work at the last minute I was screwed. Somehow, I got it to started and floored it up hills and coasted back dowm until I BARELY made it to the station. So now I have a new rule: "when the gauge is in red, the car needs to be fed."

I've been making more robot cartoons [see above] when I should probably be doing something more productive like getting an oil change, or writing my uncle in prison. But, no. I decide to watch Terminator 3 instead, or just do nothing. OK, this post is going nowhere, so I'm done. I'm gonna go read other people's blogs for a while.

Robot over. I mean out. Robot out.

I was sitting around this weekend going through old childhood toys and comics, and I remembered a funny day in grade school. It got me in a little bit of trouble, but probably made for better character development in the end. I wrote more than I expected, so I made a feature page dedicated to one of my childhood heroes: Cobra Commander. The page is a work-in-progress, since I didn't have time to scan some stuff, but you'll get the picture.

Last night the LXD went out drinking and had a swell time. At the end of the night we went to get burritos at La Casita - Portland's premier 24 hour Mexican food resturant. It's a great place to go (especially after a few drinks), but one thing has been perplexking me for a while now.
The resturant used to be on on the corner of Burnside in a building that has been about 300 different resturants over the last 50 years, starting with a diner back in the early fifties. When you used to go to the location there had always been a giant black-n-white photo on the wall of the resturant back when it first opened - no matter what the resturant was at the time, this picture would be there. Anyone that would come in for the first time would say, "Check that out! This must've been this place like 50 years ago. You can totally see how the place has changed over the years."

Well, La Casita - realizing that their location was doomed - moved to another place about ten blocks away. Guess what? They took the picture with them! They took the historical photo that has been in the other building for 50 years and hung it up on the wall in the new place. If you go there for the first time now, you'll say, "That's an odd photo to have hanging on the wall here." Totally out-of-context.
So, last night I finally asked the waitress why they have the photo, and she kinda understood me.


Robot: Why do you have this photo on the wall here?
Waitress: It used to be old La Casita. The old building, yes?
Robot: Yeah, but why do you have it here? In this building?
Waitress: Because this in the new La Casita. That was picture of old La Casita.
Robot: That pictures been there for years...shouldn't you have left it there for the next people?
Waitress: (realizing what I'm getting at) Oh!.....nah.


Oh well. I guess some threads of history end and become mystery. I look forward to going back to La Casita's building 20 years from now, when it's a different business and see if the photo from the other building is still there, and the new owners think that it used to be the building they're in now. But, somewhow I know that if La Casita moves again they'll just take it with them.

Like always, I've been taking a zillion photos of my robots, and every so-often I like to turn some into little cartoons. Mostly I've been doing it for fun, but after some requests I started a photo gallery of some of the cartoons. Enjoy!

Tonight at work, Kelley and I did this story about dogs with nasty open sores on their backs. [see video] It was gross. These people went to the clinic to get their animals spayed/neutered and then get back a NASTY pus-oozing disgusting dog. And the doctors can't explain how two seperate dogs got the (did I already say NASTY?) same sores.

Um, so that was fun. And then we went and ate at Baja Fresh - not the best idea after seeing all that gore. Not at all.

Oh. And Hasser posted the gayest photo of me on his website today. Don't go look.

Last night was the first night - for months - that the work gang finally went out. We went to the Ambassador, our regular karaoke hang-out. It was a total blast. I just got my voice back (thank in part to Captain Morgan, I think) and was ready to sing. And sing we did. Hopefully, I'll be able to post some clips for you (but mostly, for my) enjoyment. The highlight of the evening went to Hasser when he decided to improv sing during the 52 measure break in Styx's "Come Sail Away." [above: Melinda and I fucking shit up old-school.] [below: the LXD getting drunk in extraordinary style.]

I have nothing new to share at this moment. Just wanted to let you all know that you should head over to Hasservision right away and see the picture of him dressed as Benjamin Franklin. Can you say, "rad?" (and by rad I mean, 'fucked up').

There's no escaping gravity.

Last night the ice finally began to melt off of the buildings and cars in my neighborhood. Normally that would be a good thing, but not when the ice begins to fall. I live on the fourth floor of an old apartment complex in NW Portland, and for the last few days there were GIGANTIC chunks of ice forming along the top of the 'overhangs' and balconies.

And, yesterday they began coming down. [see above photo]

It was a little surreal at first, to see huge sheets of ice sliding past my windows and then hearing the impact on the pavement or cars below, but afterwhile I got used to it. All throughout the night I would hear chunks of ice break free - soon followed by car alarms going off, or the horrified screams of pedestrians below. Other than that, it seems like things are starting to get back to (mosty) normal around town.

Not much time to write, but I have one three quick things:

1. I have been too busy to even get on the internet (which is, for me is pretty bad - because I practically live on the internet). I've been out in the "soul shattering" ice storm here in Portland for the last few days. I've been sitting in my TV news van trying to thaw out between storm coverage cut-ins, and then staying in the hotel next to our station so that I am 'right there' if needed. As of this moment, we've been on for 37 hours straight.

2. I have no voice whatsoever. That's not a metaphor about feeling helpless or anything. Literally, I open my mouth and barely anything comes out (with the exception of a crackly low pitched noise). I lost the last part of my voice yelling at a guy who was urinating on the front tire of my news van. I was up on top of the big frozen hill in my van (Skyline, as it's called by the people of Portland. "Dead Baby Hill", as it's called by my friends). Some jackasses came driving up in an SUV and were driving around me in circles, slipping and sliding everywhere. Then they finally pulled over and one of them started to urinate on the tire. I scared him away when I lit up his crotch with the MEGA SPOTLIGHT. Then, the driver was all, "Dude, we were trying to entertain you." I lost the rest of my voice after that, yelling at him about his reckless driving, stupidity, and such.

3. I've seen way too many local TV commercials recently where people pretend to be newscasters. The commercials are all the same: It starts off with really bad fake news graphics and a lame voice-over, "We have breaking news to tell you about at...(insert name of marginally-ethical car dealer)." Then they go to a fake press conference or used car lot where a semi-attractive lady pretends to be a reporter, but apparently has never actually seen an actual news report, so that maybe her little preformance would seem less ridiculous (which is funny in itself, since people that act in local TV ads think that they're actually have a serious career as an actor, and will appear in just about anything so long as they end up on TV.). I wonder if there'll be a point where some advertising guy goes "You know, maybe we should lay off the fake news ads, since they're the oldest and lamest car dealership ad cliche." I can only hope.

Ok, gotta go. Stay warm.

Several people have emailed me when I was going to have larger robot photos, or wallpapers on my site. So, in light of our recent snow storms in Portland - here's the first LLR wallpaper. Expect many more soon, especially as my gallery show project nears completion.
Click on 800x600 or 1024x768 for the wallpapers, and then right click and save, or set as backround. Enjoy!

*COUGH*

This weekend was fun and exciting - unless you were me, and had the plague flu. I did manage to have some fun at Seanbaby's MTV premier. The show was pretty cool, but the real highlight was listening to his running commentary as the show ran (Seanbaby: "At one point they told me, 'Do it again, but this time don't openly mock the show.'). It airs again, like ten more times, watch for it.

*COUGH*

Also, I've been spending WAY TOO MUCH time trying to make a superhero that looks like me. Check it the hero generator on UGO.

Gotta go now, back to getting some rest playing Everquest.

Oh yeah! Tonight Seanbaby's special airs on MTV. We're all going down to the Jolly Roger to watch (and drink). It's called Ultimate Video Game Countdown and airs 8pmEST - or check your local listings. I'll post many exciting photos this weekend.

I've taken this exact same photo like three times now. Each time, I'm sitting at home and then I exclaim, "Woo hoo! It's snowing!" Then I get out my little camera, head over to the balcony, and snap a photo of the street. Probably because I felt like I had no control over what's going on, and by snapping a photo I feel like maybe I'm doing something useful - like documenting it or whatever. Nelsen say's it's going to snow again this weekend, so I'm sure I'll be taking it again.

Like the rest of Portland, I spent the day covered in snow and trying to get away from people with little toyota's and subaru's that though it would be okay to drive, but instead became dangeroulsy close to getting into accidents. I also spent the entire day watching Fox12 news - not because I work for it (and was working), but because it was the only station in town covering the snow from start to finish.

Oh man, all this snow talk is making me want some hot chocolate...bye.

I can't believe that it's 2004 already! I know I'm supposed to be a blogger now, and write all about all the minutia that goes on in my life (other than my toy robots), but I don't think I'm going to write the 'self-affirming new year's resolution' post. Mainly because I'm lazy, and becuase if I did write it, then I'd have to write about how I need to be less lazy. So, I'm not going to write about that stuff.

Last night's party was fun, with the Rifles playing/hosting the event. Kitty gave us all lovely, custom-made t-shirts. Hasser's shirt being this year's new catch-phrase, "Hasserific!" Which is good becuase last year's, "Anthonytastic!", is all played out.