And the award goes to....
I'm not one for talking politics, religion, or world views on my blog - not because I don't care about them, but mainly because my blog isn't really about all that. But, I will gladly share with you my views on the Academy Awards and if you're in the same room with me when the ceremony is on..get ready to hear some shouting and trash talk.

Posted below are a sampling of the categories and winners that I THINK should win, but many of them I will not choose in the ultra-competitive office pool tonight, since I want to win.

<Best Actress: This will probably go to Charlize Theron for Monster, and it should. But, I really want Keisha Castle-Hughes from The Whale Rider to win. Some say she's too young, but maybe she should...after doing a film in which people said a girl couldn't be the future chief of her tribe. It'd be nice to carry that theme forward.

Best Actor: It'll probably be Sean Penn (or maybe Bill Murray), but I want to see Captain Jack Sparrow up at the podium.

Best Original Song: It nearly-mostly-always goes to the animated films, since they're market tested in middle-America and drilled into everyone's heads all year by talking donkeys and dancing furniture. But, I really want it to go to "Kiss At the End of the Rainbow" from A Mighty Wind. Every song from that movie should be up for the award. I couldn't watch the movie without saying "E at Oe's!" or doing Christpher Guest's "Well...." between every verse.

<Best Picture/Director: It probably will be Peter Jackson for Best Director, but I want to go on the record and saying that I really want him to win. I want the guy to directed Dead Alive and The Frightners to be in the Academy. It'll give at least one more voice in nominating films that often get overlooked because there's a hobbit or a serial killer in them. My girlfriend said that LOTR won't win 'because there are.....monsters in it" so now I want it to win so that I can force her to watch it, since it won the highest award in all the land. And who knows, maybe she'll cry when Frodo takes the boat at the end - just like Hasser did.

And I also predict that several of the nominated films will go on to have their titles twisted around and made into porn films.

Here are a few of my predictions/suggestions:

Girl with the Pearl Necklace
Master and Servant: Hard side of the Paddle
Fondling Nemo

Feel free to use the comment board below to share some of your own thoughts on either topic.

I'm too much of a geek NOT to post this.
I was skimming through all the weird little things in my favorites folder and came across one of my sorta-favorite sites in dismay. The guys over at Battlefield GI Joe (a developing mod for the online FPS Battlefield 1942) have been slapped with a cease-and-desist order from Hasbro, the makers of GI Joe stuff. It's kinda sad. I've been watching the development of this thing for a long time now, and they were really doing an amazing job. It was a labor of love from some die-hard fans, but squashed by some corporate lawyers. I was hit with a similar copyright infringement thing a few years ago, and for the most part I noticed that it's a knee jerk reaction when they perceive that someone might be making money off their product instead of them. Who knows? Maybe Hasbro is going to be licensing GI Joe to a game developer and didn't want this to muck things up. I can't see how it would be any good, since they market GI Joe to 8 year-olds (whereas this mod appeals to the adult enthusiasts, who wouldn't mind seeing GI Joe actually get to kill an enemy soldier).



Why do I even care? Well, because from a very young age I wanted to drive in Cobra vehicles and take shots at pussy Joes like Quick Kick and Leather Neck. And I think even part of me wanted to even be Cobra Commander. So when someone with enough devotion and attention to detail came along that could make an online mod - I took notice. And now, my daydreams, along with theirs will have to wait until this mess gets sorted out. Until then, I wish them my luck and support.

Links for your listening enjoyment: electroclash 50 Cent [from Dsico] or ragtime eminem.

You got served. Again.

My scehdule is finally getting back to normal, which means more time to play Star Wars Galaxies get my website updated. I've spent the the last two weeks doing nothing but putting those hidden face mosiac effects over people's faces.



Last night was the last part of the "bust house" sting by KPTV and Perverted Justice. It featured all kinds of running and cursing, and a little cameo by LL Robot as a TV photojournalist chasing down a 31 year-old guy who brought beer to his date with a thirteen year-old.



And, last night my friend, Angelo donated his body to science, or at least good television [fox 12] - letting himself take a taser by Portland Police. He spent the rest of the night with a raging headache, and the resounding feeling that he got his ass served. Video isn't up yet, but I'll get you a link ASAP - until then, feel free to just to taser Angelo if you really need to see what he'd look like getting zapped.

Happy Valentines Day!

After a good eleven day stretch, I finally have a day off. But, I don't mind all the work because it's been a blast. The best TV news station in town teamed-up with the so-called "vigilante" website, Perverted Justice to net guys interested in hooking-up with thirteen year-old girls.



Basically, they hit up a girl in a Yahoo! or AOL chat room and started with all the kissy-talk. Of course, in our case they weren't 13 year-olds, but PJ volunteers - and they made sure to let the guys know right away that they were jailbait. For the most part, the guys didn't seem to mind and thought it'd be a good idea to come over in person. That's where I came in.

For my part, I wired a house with survellience cameras, monitors, and laptop computers, and then waited behind the front door for the gentlemen to show [video link]. When they rang the bell, our reporter and a PJ staffer answered the door - with my bright camera light, and started asking them the hard questions [video link]. One of them turned out to be a reserve deputy, who later apologized - his wife, citing the internet (and films like Titanic) as a tool of the devil.



On a personal note:
I can't even tell you how surreal it was to see all these different guys show up, and then watching them just make up excuses like "I'm lost, and am just knocked on this door to get directions." or "I must be at the wrong house." But, they never knew what they were looking for or who they were going to meet. I kinda respected the guys who just turned and ran, at least they knew that they were in hot water, and got the hell out of there. One guy abandoned his car and took off, and three hours later (after hiding in the bushes or something) he finally came back for it. We even had one guy who saw the pizza delivery guy come to our place, was questioned by the cops, and heard that "a channel 12 news crew was in the area doing some kind of sting", but still came to the door anyway - and later said that he thought "she was 15 or 16!" - like that was any better, or more legal.

If you live in Portland, or like to watch news story over the internet check out the rest of our coverage on FOX 12 next week. And stay out of the chat rooms, will ya?

Going crazy staring into surveillance monitors.
Not much blogging from me these last few days. I've been really busy my new sweeps project. One word for you: stakeout. Can't talk about it: I'll tell you all about it, real soon - that is, if I don't die of a Krispy Kreme overdose by then.
Until then, Happy Valentines Day.

[POSTED 10/10/04]

So, I just heard that a bunch of (in my personal opinion) idiots somehow don't know how to read a blog, and thought that the post below this (about seeing porn and weird stuff in different people's houses) and the posts above it (about the PJ bust house) were related.

They're not.

If you don't know how to read dates, or have a bad attention to detail then I could see where this could be confusing. Or, if you didn't actually read the post correctly - like maybe if you read out loud and have to carefully put the syllables together like a child learning to read, then I could see how this could happen.

Or, perhaps if you were a possible child molester from the Netherlands with trouble understanding American English, then this could be confusing.

Anyway, to reiterate: the posts are in no way connected. Do you really think that a bust by a credible website, and a legitimate media source would have a bunch of porn lying around in between busts? C'mon. That's ridiculous. My boss was there. His boss was there. There were tons of people there. And, honestly...we didn't have time to sit around and look at internet porn. Nice try. Oh, and the computers in the bust house belonged to the TV station - not Perverted Justice people.

And, when you're reading a blog it's best to keep in mind that the different dates between posts, help to indicate that the topics are unrelated. If they were all related, then my website would be about all of these things taking place all at the same time, in the same place. Robots, porn, skiing, breakdancing, robots, zombies, video games, Mount St. Helens exploding, and everything else happening at the same time! As rad as that would be, it'd be utter madness - nothing I could even fit into a blog post, let alone comprehend.

Learn to read English, or maybe even have an English speaking friend help you, if you don't understand it.

I think if you could understand what you're reading, you'd notice that the story in the post below took place at someone's house that we were doing a story on a few days earlier. And, the story about the perverted justice bust house took place at a seperate house where were were "busting" would-be pedophiles, not people who simply read porn.

Oh! One of my favorite parts in this forum post I saw was where the guy pointed out one of my Vegas stories. It was about how we got all obnoxious and put porn all over our room - and took a photo of a twenty year-old lying on it. He called me a hypocrite because I wrote, "Not quite 21". Okay, so she's 20, then. So what? That's legal - two years past legal. And, it isn't like we were even doing anything bad, just taking photos of our friends passed out - that's what we do in Vegas. So ridiculous.

That story has nothing to do with anything Perverted Justice is doing anyway. My friends and I got drunk 3 years ago and trashed a Las Vegas hotel room by plastering it with porn-advertisements as a prank. The people from Perverted Justice work to prevent horny guys from trying to hook up with adolescents WAY under the age of 18. There really isn't much crossever between those two, very disparate concepts.

Anyway. I'm not to worried about any of this. My bosses read my website, and know what's posted here. I have nothing to hide. I just want to urge you to learn how to read, and be nicer in chat rooms.

That's all.

You really have no idea.
This morning I'm going to rant about the part of the job that sometimes scares me the most: going inside people's houses. It's just weird sometimes to show up on random people's doorsteps everyday and be let into their houses to talk to them and take photos. One day it could be a nice elderly lady, or the next it could be an accused child pornographer - which happened once, and it was the most sterile and jesus-friendly place I've ever seen. For the most part, I don't judge. Everyone has a different lifestyles or incomes, and my family had a rough time once, so I keep an open mind. But....every so often (and I'm talking once a week, at least) I'll go into a place that just blows my mind. I was at a house once where they let the baby crawl around on the living room floor, which had huge holes in the carpeted flooring and nails popping up out of boards (as if they decided to shovel for buried treasure right there in the room). One of these days I'm waiting for that scene from "Silence of the Lambs" to happen, where I'm in the kitchen, see the rare asian moth fluttering around, and realize I'm talking to the serial killer.

I waited a few weeks to put this photo up [see above]. My reporter and I were invited into the house. The guy (around 40) pretty much lives out of his bedroom and it is an unbelievable mess. So bad, that if it were me, I would say something like, "Hold on. I'll go in the room and get the paperwork. It's kind've messy in there." Hell no. He led us into the bedroom, and didn't care at all. At one point, while seaching for a photo on his computer he scrolled through several dozen HARDCORE PORN photos and said, "Heh. Don't mind my porn." I took this photo as I was snapping test shots to get the right color balance - later, I showed it to my reporter and she made a retching sound.

The one that got away.
I've become quite the little eBay addict, but I really only like the paypal option. I hate the whole auctioning process. This week I was totally fucked outbid on a robot I wanted. Usually, I see the robot the day it's posted and just buy it. But, this week I fought a long battle against a faceless foe who kept knifing me in the ribs with his (or her?) incessant counter-bids. I thought I was clever and posted a higher bid in the last hour, but he got me. I lost the purple robot.
On a positive note: my competitor's feedback rating is like 70% 'failure to pay', so maybe all is not lost. Until the day the purple robot is on my shelf (where it belongs), haiku is my only solace:

My purple robot.
Oh, why did you hurt me so?
You know I need you.

Feel free to leave your own comforting purple robot haiku's for me in the comment section below.

Bring on the pain.
I spent the second half of this weekend feeling the after-effects of my intermediate-yet-badass ski moves. My friends told me, "You're really gonna feel the effects around 24 hours later." And guess what? I sure as heck did. I was sitting at the martini bar - exactly 24 hours later - and suddenly felt as if an Acme safe crash landed on me. My legs and back stiffened up, as I checked for rigormortis or zombie bites. Within a few hours...I crashed (as in sleeping...not, as in vehicular manslaughter).

And on the topic of martini bars: Bartini is on my shit list. What started out as a "quaint little neighborhood bar that served delicious drinks" has now become the "trendy little neighborhood bar that makes overpriced drinks". No more "all drinks are made as doubles," or "we can get your order right the first time you order it."

I had the opportunity to go to the Blazer game today. They played hard. I ate some hotdogs. We both won, I guess.

"Hasser, throw me my skis!."



After just one day into the February sweeps period, Hasser, Angelo, and K.Day and I decided that we needed a little adventure. So, after nearly a decade in retirement I got back on the amateur ski circut. It didn't do so bad. I'm one of those people that 'needs all the right gear' before I do something, so after getting a bunch of new ski stuff, and some GIANT bug-eyed goggles, I was ready. The mountain was nearly empty and we had enough room to make plenty of wide crashes turns. If I were to make a tally of our wipe-outs, I think that I'd be somewhere in the middle, since I'm not counting the times I purposely fell in order to live. And in between our ski runs, we had some yummy drinks from my flask, and some crazy drinks called "mogul mashers" in the lodge. Maybe if I get time in the next week, I'll make a photo gallery of our adventure.

Not much new to report. I've been really busy since SWEEPS HAS ARRIVED!!! For those of you not in the TV: it's the time every few months where we go crazy and throw all kinds of EXPLOSIVE episodes of reality shows, and HARD HITTING in-depth news reports at you - in hopes of winning your love (via ratings).

Damn! I think I'm gonna miss another meeting of Portland Bloggers. And, although I'm a member, I've never made it to a 'meet-up' - which is unfortunate because there's a lot of nice bloggers that I wanted to meet.

And I'm missing it because...

Today is the big ski trip! I haven't been on ski slope for a long time, and today is the day to prove I can't can still do it. Watch out for all the awesome shots of Hasser and I falling on our asses.

Wish me luck.
Fingers crossed.
Break a leg.

Say hello to my little friend.
First of all, I don't wanna hear how I should've got an iPod. I wanted some mp3 music, but not bad enough to pay $400 for it. Intead, the creepy-friendly guy at Circut City introduced me to the RCA Lyra. "What would it take for me to get get you into the seat of a brand new Mp3 player today?" he asked like a used car salesman. "Umm. Not expensive." I replied, and within minutes I was the owner of a brand new mp3 player.
I like that I'm able to play Styx, "Mr Roboto" anytime I want, especially when racing to a breaking news story. I try to get the reporter to do the chanting part: domo arigato Mr. Roboto...domo arigato Mr. Roboto... While I sing the other part: Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto for doing the jobs that nobody wants to....Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto for helping me escape from where I needed to!...Thank you!...
I do have one major problem with it, though. It can't take a shock of any kind. If I set it down to fast, or get too overzealous and somehow knock it off the dashboard - it shuts off. But, if I'm careful then it's just a small price to pay, for...er..for a small price to pay.

The rip heard around the world internet.



Somehow, I always miss these live 'celebrity scandals'. I was half-watching the Superbowl tonight, and even the halftime show, but I turned away at preciesly the wrong moment. Luckily I had part-time news producer/full-time pervert, Hasser on IM while I was working. "Dude, did you see Janet Jackson's breast?!" he wrote, and then I rushed to get our stations air-check. It took me about 30 seconds to load the video from our server, and by then it was all over the internet. And, we're talking minutes here. This is just like that Britney/Madonna kiss too. I totally missed it because I got up, or turned away, but - thanks to my tv news job - I have to get to watch & edit it over and over again (zoomed in and in slow motion).

"You get the batteries. I'll fill the tub with ice!"
Congratualtions, Dinah! That was my favorite caption from this weeks little contest. There were a bunch of funny entries on the board (and some sent, strangely via email), but I had to pick just one. And, I picked the one that resonated the most with me, since it was an allusion to my favorite urban legend: "The Stolen Kidneys." For those of you not familiar with the 'hoax': There was a chain email going around the internet a few years ago about a college student who had too much to drink in New Orleans, went to a hotel with a mysterious vixen, and woke up in an ice-filled bathtub, missing a kidney.

I love that story, but the New Orleans tourism bureau sure didn't. Soon after, the rumors were dubunked and labeled an 'internet hoax'. I think if the chain email said "Tijuana" instead of New Orleans, then no one would've debunked it so fast. And, while people say it isn't true - similar incidents do actually occur. So there. And it makes for a good movie premise, as seen in the 1993 thriller, "The Harvest" starring Miguel Ferrer (and a pre-ER George Clooney in a cameo as a transvestite dancer).