Peace out, Troy.
Wednesday night was the final night of sweeps, and sadly, the last day for our News Director, Troy McGuire.



Tears were shed and at the end of the night. And, everyone was giving him hugs, handshakes, and their business cards. When he first came to the station, it was a rough start - mainly because we merged two competing news stations, and he had to fire a lot of folks. But, over the last few years he whipped our asses into shape, and it'll be hard to imagine the place without him. He really believed in me, and I will miss him terribly. Best of luck, boss.

And, of course the last night of sweeps involved Kelley and I having a stinger live shot, which turned out to be broken. I had to fasten it to the tripod with bungee cords and duct tape - which isn't as easy as it sounds, since it weighs a ton.




Best Buy. Worst bunch of dumbasses.
Okay, time for a rant. I go into Best Buy to get my Lord of the Rings DVD on Tuesday. There's a gigantic display for LOTR, and there's flyers all over the place titled, "Lord of the Rings One Day Sale!" Well, I was buying a bunch of DVD's and noticed that the flyer said, "10% off if you buy three Sci-fi, Horror, or Anime DVD's." I thought to myself, "Awesome. I have three DVD's here, I get the discount."
Not a fucking chance. I get up to the counter with the following items: LOTR3, Buffy Season 6, and Bubba Hotep - clearly, all titles that would probably qualify. Well, here's my exchange with the chick at the counter:

CASHIER: "Yeah...Um...I don't think you qualify for the discount because Lord of the Rings is fantasy, not sci-fi."
LL: "What?"
CASHIER: "Lord of the Rings doesn't count."
LL: "How can it not count? It's the Lord of the Rings sale."
CASHIER: "I don't know about that."
LL: (pointing over her shoulder) "Look at the flyer. Look at it."

She looks over the flyer for a moment and then talks to her supervisor. They both determine that LOTR possibly counts.

CASHIER: "Yeah..um..I can't give you the discount because I'm not sure if the other movies you have qualify."
LL: "What? Of course they do."
CASHIER: (sighs, as if I'm putting her out) "I'm gonna have to call someone about this. Thank you for your patience."

When she thanked me for my patience, it was if she pressed a button and a pre-programmed emotionless statement was played from a speaker in the back of her mouth. Very sincere. Anyway, she gets on the phone at the register and calls some manager upstairs.

CASHIER: (on the phone) "Um...uh..okay. Well, I don't think Buffy or..um....Bubba Hotep count. Bubba Hotep? No...I don't know..."
LL: (not caring that she's on the phone, and now somewhat angry) "It's about Elvis coming out of retirement to fight the forces of evil. If that doesn't qualify then you people are retarded."

She covers the phone, and turns away from me and starts speaking in a hushed tone for another minute and then hangs up.

CASHIER: "Yeah...um...Buffy doesn't count as sci-fi or horror, so you don't get the discount."
LL: "Hmmm. So you think that it should qualify as a drama series despite the vampires and various demons they battle?"
CASHIER: "It's a TV show, so it can't be called Sci-Fi."
LL: "Even though it's a genre TV show?"
CAHSIER: "It's a tv show, not sci-fi or horror."
LL: "Whatever. Fine."

She stops talking and making eye contact with me as I make my purchase. And, as the receipt was getting printed, the machine paused. The cashier closer her eyes for a moment, in a look of defeat. Did I get the discount? Nope. But, I was randomly selected as part of the customer feedback program. How rad is that?


Speaking of rad...
I bought a new backpack. It's got all kinds of crazy pockets, and an AMPLIFIER AND SPEAKERS built into it.




Photo Jihad.
Hasser has declared a photo jihad on me. His opening move was a shot of me sunburned, shirtless, and passed out two years ago in Vegas. I'm gonna start a little slower, and use this one:



I'll save my big guns, in case this thing gets nasty.

Sweeps has been keeping me busy, but there's only two days left. And, I've spent all my would-be blogging time getting the video section of this site up-and-running. Anyway, let's get on with the blogging...

This is distrubing.



I saw this freakish thing in WalMart and had to get it. Of all the bizarre Elvis memorabilia I have, this thing is by far, one of the most creepy.


Introducing: Professor Murder.
Injured during a freak electricial accident in a secret government lab, the professor has become a raving psychotic, bent frying anyone who gets in his way of his morality-impaired agenda (provided that they are under level 5).



Yeah, I bought City of Heroes. I needed a new game for a while, and thought I'd give it a spin. Mainly because Seanbaby never plays MMORPGS, but he's on this one - and keeps telling me to join him. I like super heroes, and I think that this'll be fun, but the game interface is way too basic, and clunky. I reminds me of the PS2 version of EQ for some reason. Visually, it pales in comparison to SWG and even some of the newer Everquest expansions even. I don't like the crappy font above other characters, and I hate the user interface. But, I'm gonna poke around the game for a little while and see what happens.


Beta Testers wanted.
I'm launching my mirror site - with TONS of streaming video, but I'm having trouble getting all the video/aucio codecs to work correctly. Of course, they work fine on my PC because I have all kinds of video software and stuff, but I need to see how it works on a wider range of machines. So far, I've been able to make great real-video stuff, but quicktime - not so much.

So, here's some temporary links to two of the things I'll be streaming, or putting online for download. These'll only be up for a few days, but I'll have BETTER versions all ready in around a week.

Last Girlfriend [15mb] - my zombie short. Somehow this got squished to a box, rather than staying letterboxed, but other than that, it should be okay. I had to drop the quality since it's around 10 minutes long. As crappy as it might look, Seanbaby as a bitten zombie victim is well worth it.

Represent [6.7mb]- our 2004 Longbaugh contest entry. This mostly looks the way it should. I think.

Let me know how it works. Sorry if you hate Real Media, I'll be trying QT and AVI next. Send me an email, or just throw your thoughts up on the comment board.

Random stuff (as if the rest of this blog post hasn't been completely random):

Low carb Coke. I wonder how this will mix with my current fountain drink combination: 1/2 cherry coke, 1/4 coke, 1/4 sprite.

I want to see the new Donnie Darko cut so bad.

William Hung gets a make-over. He still can't sing.

We knew an attack was coming. Kelley had been getting harassing phone calls for the last half hour telling us not to report the story, so I made sure to have our escape plan ready. And, as soon as our live shot was over - they came.

A shadowy car tore into the parking lot as I finished packing up. I jumped in the live van, as Kelley yelled, "Go! Go! Go!" Out of habit, I reached around for my seatbelt. "Forget it! Just go!" she screamed as the car screeched to a halt nearby and several passengers jumped out and ran towards us. I drove off. Eggs started flying all around us, as the guys chased after us.

Out of the parking lot our truck slammed to a halt in the intersection, just under the red light. They guys kept coming - throwing egg after egg, and hitting everything around us. The light turned green, and I slammed on the gas. In the mirror, I saw them running back to their car to follow, but there was no way they'd catch up. Free journalism prevails.

The best part about it: not one egg hit the van.


Best Tuesday. Ever.
My vampire story finally aired. At the last minute, I got rid of some old archive footage and taped our writer, Dave in the studio pretending to be a vampire - watch for the 'drinking blood' shot. The best thing I've put in a news piece all year. [video link]



And then there was the car stripping story - which was live. I was wired with a camera and ran from the election studio to shoot Kelley, and then run back to the other studio to shoot the SUV getting stripped. These three (from what I'm told) former car thieves - now working for an insurance company - demonstrate how your car can be stolen, and then completely stripped for parts in under 10 minutes. It was amazing. I had to stay out of their way, since they were tearing this car apart and throwing parts everywhere. It was even more amazing when the put the entire thing back together in just under 20 minutes.

Here's the video links:

Right before the car was stripped. [video link]
(I also made the quick open segment at the beginning).

Eight minutes later [video link]



Random geek stuff:
So which one will it be for QT? Bond, or
Hell Ride?

One of the best comics in recent years, Global Frequency, was optioned by the WB to be a TV show (when it should've been HBO, or at least Showtime). But, now it's being postponed. Not sure where my feelings are with this. I WANT it to be a show, but not on the WB. However, I want it to be a show so soon, that I wish the WB would hurry up.

Oh man! Grand theft Auto: San Andreas. I guess I won't throw out my crappy PS2 just yet.

So, today our assignment was to go do a follow-up about a construction worker that was a victim of a hit-run accident this morning. When I saw the story on the news this morning, I said to myself, "I'm gonna be working on that today." How did I know? Because I did the last two stories exactly like it. But, today was different...we brought the radar gun.



Kelley was going for a "Charlie's Angels" look in this pic. I, however was straight up gangsta thuggin'.



I know what you're thinking: "If it's such a problem, then why don't I even see cars driving by in the photos." My answer: You couldn't see them - they were going that fast, and the speed limit is only 45mph.

We were using the gun to illustrate how most people still speed through the construction zone. And they did. When it was my turn to play with the radar gun I would look at the cars as they drove past me - as they looked nervously in our direction to see if we were cops - and then give them disapproving looks and gestures, as if to say, "C'mon man, that's way too fast." We didn't stay out there near the freeway for too long, since we figured our chances for survival were slowly going down, and there had been enough carnage out there already today.

Tomorrow, I'm shooting a team of ex-criminals as they strip a SUV live in our studio during the news. And my vampire story airs. All of this fun, and it's only Monday. At this rate, I'll be interviewing lizard-space-ninjas by Thursday.

In other news:
New Morrissey comes out today! Looks like I'm gonna be playing Grand Theft Auto:Vice City to Morrissey tonight after work.

Smile! Flash cartoon for people who likes things that make themselves cry. Like Morrissey albums, for example.

This guy wants you to spam his Gmail.

Rock the vote!
Today is election day, so at LLR I've decided to have my own independent election. Well, okay...it's more like a web poll. Here goes:

Monster in a Wheelchair video. Brilliant or fucking retarded? Place you vote in the comments section below.

Found this photo while digging through the LLR archives for important documents. Seventeen years ago this month.



This was back when Michael Jackson was still cool, and people thought Laser Tag would someday become an Olympic sport. I was a master sharpshooter. Anything that had a laser tag sensor on it (a door, my brother, a moving dog) I could nail it. Those were the days.

Not down with the sickness.
This week the world witnessed the beheading of American, Nick Berg in retaliation for the humiliating photos of Iraqi captives. Being in the media, I have easy access to such video. But, there is no chance in hell that I could even bring myself to watch it (or even listen to it). My mom did, however. She called me up and said, "I downloaded it off the internet. I just had to see it. I don't know why...I just needed to". That's hardcore, mom.

And, in related news: Local radio schlock-jock Marconi (and his sidekick, Tiny) were fired from Portland's KNRK for playing the audio portion of the Berg beheading, while screaming and making lewd jokes. After hearing years of Marconi nonsense on the air, my first reaction was: "What took so long?" I've heard so much nasty crap on his show while flipping between stations that I knew his days were numbered. I feel kinda sorry for him, though. His career is totally wrecked. And I heard a rumor he's getting married soon...

Zombies.
As many of you know. I love zombies. Love 'em. Even made my own kick-ass zombie movie, and co-organized a zombie film festival in Portland. So, I gotta tell you when I saw the zombie screen shots for Everquest 2 - it blew my mind. As matter of fact, EVERYTHING on the EQ2 website blew my mind. I am so going to be a hot dark-elf chick cleric (again).

Here's a zombie from the current now-lame, Everquest:



And, here are zombies from Everquest 2:



Look at her! She can't even walk! That's rad.



Links:
If you like comic books and zombies - check out "The Walking Dead." The first TBP came out this week.

"I'm Rick James, bitch" I said it for the last time, so don't get mad.

"The Shining" in thirty seconds with animated bunnies.

According to 50's pulp sci-fi, we were all supposed to be wearing jet packs and getting served dinner by robot butlers by now. At least skycars still seem feasible now.

Sweeps has really kept me 'out of the loop' this week. And, then going right to SWG doesn't help either. Also, for some reason, I've been watching Donnie Darko over and over.

I've been trying to "pack a lunch" and take it to work, so that I eat better and save money. Well, now I'm eating my lunch, and then buying another lunch later anyway. That'll show....me.

Today is Wednesday. Comic books and karaoke mayhem. Tonight's the "All Station Karaoke Battle" - in which tv folks from competing stations drink, sing, drink, make-out, occasionaly get car-jacked, and also sing and drink. I'm also hearing rumors of an after party at the Castle of Chaos. I'll have photos and a complete report tomorrow, or when the hangover goes away.

Digital Exterminators. Get it?
I recently got a chance to check out one of McAfee's offices here in Portland, and go behind-the-scenes of their AVERT (Anti-virus Vulnerabilities Emergency Response Team). Just seeing the room with hundreds (thousands?) of networked drives was pretty impressive. And, hanging out with my friend Lysa is always a treat - she's one of the AVERT team members - and not everyone has a friend that saves the world from total chaos. I'm pretty sure they are all super geniuses at the internet stuff, but they're also perfect 'soundbite machines'.



I was heart broken when WW ran their story two weeks before my piece aired. But, did they have 50 Cent's In Da Club in their story? Don't think so. And, we called it "Digital Exterminators", which I think was much nicer than Willamette Week's"Geek Force".

Anyway, here's the temporary video link, if you want to check it out.

Cy Toliver gets medieval on their asses.
And also, I'm still awe struck at this week's episode of Deadwood. I swear, HBO has perfected television crack in the last few years. I remember when Baywatch was on , there was stories about how people in remote villages around the globe would huddle around and watch it together. We need to do that in Iraq. Hook up the HBO. I guarantee you no one will be leaving their houses, on Sunday night at least. Ahh. The healing power of TV. Just look at how much Buffy has caught the imaginations of Mormons everywhere.

Links:
I just want a kid so I can dress him up in this. Click around. There's more.

In case you missed it: Mormons love Buffy.

Geek meter. How do you rank? After doing this thing for two minutes I pretty much realized that I probably don't need to take the test any further to figure out the result.

I need to post my nightmare live shots online. That'd be entertainment. Just like the now-infamous "Grape Stomping Lady." If you haven't seen it: Get it (while it's still online). Turn up the volume.

Orange vs. Olsen Twins. Insane.

Another David Cross CD so soon? Brilliant.

Blogger announced all their big changes today, and I was so excited that I decided to reinvent the look for my site, and clean up a few things. First of all: my page is going to (possibly) format all weird for a few days, and there'll be some things that I'll need to tweak.

Blogger's got all these wild new features, including a 'profile' thing - which may accidently appear on my page and screw everything up. There's another feature I'm excited about: spell checking. [Now, some blogger users will tell me that there has always been a spell checking feature in Blogger, but I'm gonna start using right now, as if it's new.]

Long week with no updates. Let me fill you in on what's been going on at LLR headquarters. Well, first of all, in case you haven't notcied (with all the ridiculous TV hype) we're in sweeps, so I've been keeping busy. And, it's official: no Emmy award for me this year.
Still working on the new site look. And, I'm really close to gettting tons of really awesome video online for you all. Just can't get the audio codec right. - and I suck as CSS.

One year ago (this week).

Last time I had a really long lapse in updating my website was (oddly enough) a year ago. And this image [see image below] was on the screen for a few months. I got a few hundred emails basically telling me "Call your f**king Mom already!"

Rad.
Saw this gift card in Target today.

And in Olsen Twins news:



Not like it's a surprise, but the reviews are viscous. Here's one of my favorites: "New York Minute is nothing more than Ferris Bueller’s Day Off re-enacted by over-sensualized, underage spider-monkeys."

Of course, all of this only strengthens the fact that I'm gonna go see it at the Kennedy School this summer. I'm gonna get way more drunk than I did at Spy Kids 2. Mark your calendars.

Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Chop.
Reaves sent me this link. It one of the most morbid TV commercials I've ever seen - as if Edward Gorey directed it.. I forgot to mention that it's a British Car ad in which a cat "gets beheaded". (Like how I put "gets beheaded" in quotes? That's so we all know that it isn't real. No, I don't think cats should be beheaded, but I like that ad agency thought outside the box - WAY outside the box].

That ad is nowhere as creepy as this though: My Virtual Model Inc.

Everquest announced a new expansion this week. I don't know why Sony doesn't just call it "We'll do whatever you want. Just don't quit!"