Aww yeah! I'm excited that this year's holiday tree finally has enough robots to finally make the theme work. We just got some new additions and there's still plenty of time to probably add a few more before Christmakah.



It always feels like an excuse when I say this...but, "I've just been so busy with sweeps lately". Thankfully, today is the last day of ratings and we'll get about ten minutes to catch-up before all the holiday madness really ramps up.

I did have the chance to shoot/edit a few decent sweeps stories - the most recent one aired Friday. We interviewed this really cool guy, Josh McCaa, who only has six fingers and is a really bad-ass guitar player. If you're interested, here's a video link to the story (it'll probably only be up for a few more days).

It's been almost a week and the engagement is going well. My friend Angelo occasionally teases me by calling me, "Frank the Tank" [played by Wil Ferrel in Old School] because I've become a little more tame (and much less drunk) than I used to be back in the day. But, the moment became real for me the other day when my photog pal, Cooper and I were talking about our plans for the weekend. He was asking if I was gonna go to a party and I was all, "Well no, I think we're going to Ikea to find some a few items around the house and then I think I've got some chores to get done..." And, he's looking at me with this vacant stare - just like those frat party guys in the movie.

Hmmm....I think I'm gonna go listen to Whitesnake now.

[She said, "Yes."]


[ring stats: +5wis, +5cha, +120 vs mental, +120 vs. cold]

Beth and I went a shot a story on "how to turn your holiday leftovers into gourmet leftovers." Tough assignment, I know.



But, keeping up with the manic chefs while they whisked their ingredients around wasn't the hard part - it was prying ourselves away from the samples. My favorite was a little recipe called "Turkey Cakes" from Larkins.



And, here it is:

TURKEY CAKES
Two pounds of chopped or shredded turkey
1/2 Red Bell Pepper
1 1/2 stalks of celery
2 Tablespoons of Mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon of Whole Grain or Regular Mustard
2 Tsp Cayenne Pepper
2 Tablespoons of mixed herbs- rosemary, sage, parsley
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in large mixing bowl. Stir until thoroughly incorporated. Gently form Cakes into Patties. Heat oil (olive or vegetable) in sautee pan Add patties and saute about 3 to 5 minutes on each side until golden brown and heated throughout. Serve as a sandwich or by itself!

Word.

Not much going on in Robot's world, but I felt compelled to at least do some kind of update until something noteworthy happens. I've been busy working on my comic book, and chopping together some timely sweeps stories (example: Trapped!).



Oh! I thought of something to talk about. On Friday I shot a video (not for broadcast) with our sports anchor beating up our minor league's hockey team mascot Gruff. [see above] It was almost as fun as getting to beat up a mascot myself.

What else? According to one of those online quizzes, the sci-fi character I most resemble is James T. Kirk. That's rad - and it makes sense in a weird way.

That's about it.
Have a swell Monday!

Went to a Jesse Jackson press conference today. I'm not even gonna attempt writing about it - too much semi-crazy stuff happened for me to make a short, coherent post. I'm just gonna post this shot of him sitting in a recliner on someone's lawn.

[Oh man. I totally forgot to upload this Friday night.]

Football season is big here, so on Friday night most of the photographers are assigned football games to shoot. Somehow I've become the unofficial photographer for all the Broome High School games, and I'm cool with that - because it's fun.

Why is Broome so exciting? It could be the fact they they are nearly undefeated and their science is tight. It could be the yummy booster club hamburgers I always get. Or it could be that all the folks at Broome are so darn friendly.

But for me, I think the real reason is: the CENTURION.



Broome's mascot is the Centurion (pictured above), and it's the weirdest-coolest-creepiest thing I've ever seen. This screen shot doesn't do it justice. It's basically a horribly hideous, freaky head mounted on the body of a small, energetic teen girl. Before the weather got cold, its legs were exposed and I'd be looking at this disgusting thing and think, "nice stems" (and then feel horribly ashamed).

At first, I wanted to see what the girl looked like under the mask. Maybe she was an ugly ducking cheerleader and they made her wear the mask. Maybe there was no mask at all, and that was the creature's actual head. I just didn't know.

One time I tried to find out. I went up to the cheerleaders bus as they were coming out, and I said, "Which one of you is the freaky mascot?" But she wasn't there that time - which led me to believe that maybe she actually was a hideous monster they had locked in the basement like that guy Sloth from The Goonies. (or maybe she just had a lot of homework that night)

Anyway, every time I edited together my Broome highlights I would make sure to get the Centurion spazzing out. The sports guys would always kinda half-laugh-half-sigh and say, "Hmm..You got the mascot in there again."

Well, I finally got over all that. I would go to Broome to shoot football, and I've learned to accept (possibly love) that freakish monster dancing at the 50 yard line.

But, Friday night I hang around just a moment too long...and I saw the mask come off!



Of course, this wasn't like Disneyland - where if Goofy's head came off a dozen kids would start crying or pee thier pants while on a murderous rampage. When the Broome Centurion's head came off, everyone kinda smiled and let out a pleasant sigh, "Awww."

And, now... I just don't know what to think anymore about this whole thing.

Yesterday I was surfing through my favorite sites, and had a funny little moment. I was reading Pink is the New Blog and there was a little thing about "My Humps" in the daily links section. He wrote: "Addicted to the BEP song My Humps like I am? You're gonna love THIS."

So I was all, "I love that video!" and clicked on the link...and then my page came up. I was kinda confused for a minute and thought that I accidentally went to LLR by accident or something. A moment later I was all, "That's rad!" after I realized that Trent gave a shout-out to my Robot Humps video. Sweet!

That video has been getting a bijillion hits in the last week. Luckily, (back in the day) I made sure my online hosting plan has a TON of bandwidth - mainly because I figured that when the zombies come I'd turn this site into the internet's most valuable resource on "how to survive the zombie apocalypse" [note: in case zombies start to take over the world, be sure to visit: littlelostrobot.com howtosurvivethezombieapocalypse.com]. That's provided the internet is working, in which case I'll probably steal the office copier and make a crappy zine.

But, I digress...

Thanks to everyone for the links and stuff!

WARNING: The following post is about Everquest 2. It may contain several geeky references that you don't understand. There also may be mention of a unicorn or hobbit.

"My name is Noteworthy, and I'm a gambling addict."



I'm pretty level-headed when it comes to the gambling. I'll occasionally play too much keno or craps in Vegas. Every week I play the Lost numbers in Powerball. But, I found that when I'm hanging out in Norrath, I'm completely addicted to the goblin lottery.





Let me put this in perspective: In Everquest 2 (the video game that I am hopelessly addicted to), I am completely addicted to playing goblin powerball. How pathetic is that? [rhetorical question, no answer necessary]

Of course, things started off fine. I bought a few tickets, but as the lottery jackpot grew...Noteworthy started getting out of control. Eventually, I hung out in the tavern buying ticket after ticket - ignoring friendly invitations to raid dungeons or slay hobbits.

There were warning signs. My (real life) girlfriend came into the room and said, "What the hell are you doing in here? It sounds like a slot machine or something." I replied with, "Um...it's the Gibblegibber Goblin Lottery, thank you very much." And then she was all, "Yeah, it sounded stupid. I figured it was something like that." [touche!]

Eventually I ended up spending the 37 gold pieces I had saved, so I that could someday buy a flaming sword to murder unicorns. To the uninitiated that doesn't sound like a lot of money, but in the world of EQ, it's a few thousand bucks. I had to sell off some trinkets and armor pieces, just to scrape by.

After checking around online, I found out that the chances of winning the goblin lottery is right between winning the actual powerball lottery and training a oil drilling crew to pilot space shuttles onto to a giant planet destroying asteroid 36 hours away from blowing up Earth.

Odds of Winning
6 match = 36/6 * 35/5 * 34/4 * 33/3 * 32/2 * 31/1 = 6*7 *8.5*11*16*31 = 1,947,792 to 1
5 match = 36/6 * 35/5 * 34/4 * 33/3 * 32/2 = 62,832 to 1
4 match = 36/6 * 35/5 * 34/4 * 33/3 = 3,927 to 1
3 match = 36/6 * 35/5 * 34/4 = 357 to 1
2 match = 36/6 * 35/5 = 42 to 1
1 match = 36/6 = 6 to 1

Who knew? [also a rhetorical question, no answer necessary]

Not much new to report. I'm staying busy with sweeps features and the like. Tonight, my assignment was to be the live photographer for our Geoff on the Road segments. For about 90 minutes, we inadvertently made ourselves the targets of hockey pucks traveling at 200 mph.



It was funny because we would always yell these insanely loud, "cease fire!" announcements as we'd maneuver around the hockey arena, but there were always a few guys that didn't hear it and would shell us with pucks.



Being that I was a major dork in middle school, I began to have some flashbacks of brutal dodge ball matches in which my vast knowledge of Star Fleet regulations and hobbit lore were useless in defending my face and crotch from a series of repeated attacks.

Eventually I got behind the glass and the hockey players were allowed to fire away in my direction. Two things went through my mind: 1) "This'll be the one time the protective screen doesn't work", 2) "Maybe they'll get this out of their system."

They didn't. A few moments later, as I entered the arena, a rogue puck flew between Geoff and my lens - inches in either direction and our live shot would've ended a bit sooner than expected.

While watching the (time shifted) Apprentice, something crazy caught my eye while I Tivo'd through the commercials.

Did I just see a robot doctor? Wait. Was that an ER promo. No way!

Yes way.



Of course, I'm not saying that I had anything to do with this. But, a few months back I wrote a long-winded rant about how the only way I would ever watch ER is if they added a robot doctor machine. And they did!

Here's the part of the episode description I liked the best: "...Dubenko (Leland Orser) tortures the staff via a robotic television camera from home." Which is funny to me, considering Leland Orser been in a number of movies involving torture.

Way to go ER! It's the first day of ratings and you're already winning new viewers. At least one at a time.

Okay, so I found the "My Humps" video online, and was mesmerized...just as I am every morning when the video comes on MTV while I'm getting ready for work.

I also watched every weird-ass home video remake on Google- ranging from little Cassidy jumping on the couch to a bunch of teenage girls acting like retards.

After all that, I felt compelled to make my very own "My Humps" video. So I rounded up a bunch of robots, purchased a f-load of "D" batteries, and turned-up the funk. I tried to match the original video shot-for-shot, but only get it about 90% accurate, since robots don't really have a whole lot of actual "humps" action going on.

Here's the video in a variety of formats:

"My Robot Humps" [quicktime 5.4mb]

"My Robot Humps" [quicktime (small) 2.7mb]

"My Robot Humps" [windows media 7.1mb]**

[**(11/3@2:45pm - I think the WMV clip might have a glitch near the end. Not sure. I'm on it.]

Be sure to watch for the breakdance scene...it's my favorite part!

[The small quicktime file is just small enough to email. As an alternative, you can just grab the permalink off this post, or use the handy email-to-friend button. Enjoy!]

Some folks like the Google, while other people's homepages are firmly set to MSN or AOL. Me? I'm a Yahoo guy. Instant messenger, webhostin', search engines - Yahoo has it all. But, I was greatly disapointed the other day when I made a simple video search for the "My Humps" video by Black Eyed Peas.

Google Video came up with at least a dozen weird "My Humps" homemade videos, but not the actual video itself. Yahoo Video came up with only the official "My Humps" video (provided your porn filter is on), but it was hosted by AOL. Yahoo's search didn't even point to the video that they have hosted in thier Yahoo music/Launch website.

I guess they're still in beta testing, so maybe they're working out all the bugs.

[Jeez, look at all the hyperlinks. This post look like wikipedia or what?]