Tonight I was assigned some undercover work - which is fun. I'm really good to be with on stake-outs (I bring lots of snacks).

Coari and I were given the task of: going into convenience stores and markets, and taking undercover video to see if they violate the new "over the counter drug law" thing.

[Basically, Oregon has the distinction of being the Meth Capitol of the World. So, our legislature lobbied to get pharmacies and stores to put Sudafed and other cold medicines that could be used to make meth, behind the counter - and make people show ID to get it. Sounds a little fascist, but if it helps derail meth production, then it's fine by me.]

Anyway, for this task, I used: The Pager Cam.



The pager cam requires you to get all wired up, and then run the 'hidden' cord to a recording device (mini DV cam), since it's too small to actually record anything itself.

I'm all for hidden cameras, but a pager is a bit outdated. Who even has one, really? I know some folks do, but it just looks weird. So, last night I kinda messed up my hair, and wore a tech vest (which I cut holes in to run the cables around). I was sorta going for the 'cable installer who just got off work' look.

I would stroll into the store and go check out the cold medicines. Occasionally, I'd strike up a conversation with the clerk, and wonder if they're wondering, "why does this dork have a pager? And, why is it hanging from his front pocket towards me?"



It all sounds cool (or not), but the hard part is having to go back into the store and confront the clerk/manager about their violation. For the most part, people don't really see me behind the camera, they just see a HUGE news camera aimed at them, as the reporter lobs question-after-question at them.

But, if you hang around long enough, there's a moment where the clerk would look at me, and get this look like, "that's the friendly guy from earlier who was asking about cold medicine" and right at that moment they would also realize, "hey! He's with the reporter guy..wait a minute...he tricked me!"

Uncomfortable, yet kinda priceless. Can you tell it's sweeps?

[update: the station just put up a video link to some of the footage.]

It's been a while since I posted! Last week Everquest 2 AND Halo 2 came out on the same day. It blew my mind! How am I supposed to keep a blog, maintain a dark-elf cleric, stop the Covenant invasion, and..oh yeah...go to work?

It's not easy.

I think I officially realized I have a problem was a few nights ago, when Hasser (who actually has pictures of his gnome character on his site) and I were doing an EQ2 quest on some stupid island. We were running around trying to collect feathers. At one point, I looked up at the clock and said to myself, "What the fuck is wrong with me? It's 4am, and I'm running around a little island looking for a duck feather, so I can give it to a lady for a magical bracelet!"

That's right, an imaginary duck feather.

Oh! And, I'm being punished for playing too many video games. My TV is broken, right when I get Halo 2, it stops working. There's just a thin line across the screen.

Okay, so I'm on my way to shoot a sweeps story yesterday, and I get a phone call from my mother:

LL: hello?
MOM: hey. I was watching Oprah, and Max is one of the guests?
LL: What?
MOM: Cousin Max, he's on the Oprah show. I was just watching and...it's him. It's totally him. It says he's a radio DJ and his name is Max.
LL: really? I'm not near a TV right now. That's funny.
MOM: Well, it's not all that funny. I guess he's a wife beater or something.
LL: no way!
MOM: Yes way. It's him, it's totally him.
LL: Umm..okay...I'm gonna find a TV...bye.
MOM: it's totally him! bye.

Right away I called my girlfriend and had her throw a tape in her VCR at work. Then, I hauled ass to my interview and watched the last five minutes of the segment. And, it was TOTALLY MY COUSIN MAX. How weird is that? I haven't really talked to him in like seven years or something, but my mom reads us xmas cards from hi every year or so.



Anyway, I only caught like two minutes of the show and they kept talking about his "RAGE." My mind was totally blown when I found out that it was a follow-up show, and somehow I missed that whole thing the first time around. Here's the episode posting on Oprah's website.

I've always had fond memories of Cousin Max. He's actually my mom's cousin, and I was always follwing him around when I was 15. He was in his late twenties, and really cool. He was the DJ at my school dances, and would let me hang out with him at his radio station while he did his late-night show. It was so cool having a cousin that was a big town radio DJ - although it didn't really make me cool by default, since I still wore retarded Star trek t-shirts and pretended to talk in Klingon a lot.

But, I got to thinking back if there were any RAGE issues whith him at the time. The only thing that comes to mind was one time where he broke up with a woman in his apartment complex and she wouldn't return his calls. So, he wrote her a 24 page letter and plastered it all over her door. A bit extreme, but it didn't quite register at the time - I guess we just thought he was having a bad break-up or something - I don't know.

From what I saw on the show, it was all about his RAGE, and probably not-so-much physical abuse. I'm gonna go watch the tape now, and check the whole thing out.

So weird.

Election night is always kinda insane, and last night was no exception. I spent the whole time as one of our live crews at the democratic party - or the "Democratic Victory Party," as they named it.

Here's how my day unfolded.



I got to work, and everyone met in the big soundstage room to go over our election coverage plan. As soon as the meeting was over, we all grabbed our boxed lunches and headed off to our assignments.



Wilson and I arrived at the Democratic Victory Party (six hours before the party began) and got to schmoozing with the candidates.

We had two crews at the event: one team to cover the podium and do most of the live shots, the other team is the "roving team" - that was us. We basically went everywhere around the place doing interviews and live shots.



I made use of our station's most cherished little gadget: The Digital Stinger. I call it the jetpack (since it makes me feel like Boba Fett). With this thing, we can go live from anywhere and not worry about cables. It's really handy, since we can grab live interviews and pictures with anyone, anywhere in the area at a moment's notice.

And, did I mention it looks like a jetpack-thing?



Here's a shot of me saying, "I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!" - as radiation slowly seeps into the back of my head from the giant antenna.



The night was pretty tame for a while. I ran around doing live shots, and when I had any spare time I would run over to my wifi laptop and check out CNN and Lost Remote for the latest updates.

Eventually things started to get a little out-of-hand, for a dorky election night convention. Here's a sequence of events:



People were drinking (a lot). And, there was a house DJ.
Seriously.
He would mostly keep playing the theme to "Rocky" or Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" whenever a candidate marched onto stage. But, as the night went on, he started mixing all kinds of weird music (as all kinds of weird people had more mixed drinks).



I kept close eye on the ceremonial balloons hanging all over the ceiling. They looked like trouble.



Even before the balloons came down, there were tons of little kids running around all crazy, and dancing in people's live shots.



And, when the balloons finally came down...people went apeshit.



It was as if no one had ever seen a fucking balloon before. "Gahh! Balloon! I Like Balloon!" Some people were stomping on them. Some people were rolling around and dancing in them. And, other people terrorized the TV news crews.



Here's a close-up of KATU's reporter getting repeatedly bonked in the back of the head by balloons on live TV.

I could've watched that all night long (but instead I'll be watching CNN).