Getting hot outside, huh? Well perhaps you aren't staying cool enough because you don't have the new Apple iFan!



I came across a wall of these cheap-ass things when I was reluctantly strolling through a Wal-Mart the other day. Part of me wanted to have one, just so I could run around and show people how dumb it was. But, I decided that I could probably do that just was well with a crappy cell phone photo.

This is the first I've ever seen of the Apple iFan, so I decided to do the marketing folks a favor and come up with an ad slogan:

"The iFan. Get it now...before it goes to the landfill."

Today my assignment had me interviewing some chaps at a shipping crate yard. At one point the owner said, "Wanna get a shot of me breaking this lock off?" I was all, "Sure," thinking he was just going to just knock it off with a hammer or something.



Instead, he pulled out this electric saw and went at it. As I photographed him, enveloped in a fury of sparks, all I could think about was this video I saw just fifteen minutes before...



Funny coincidence - without all the drama, of course.

Today's news assignment sent me back in time a few hundred years to battle supernatural forces, and also help aid colonial soldiers in their fight against the British. Afterwards, the dudes kindly let me snap a photo that I could take back into the futuretimes with me and put in my holographic scrapbook. Anyway, I accidently left my tripod behind - I have no idea what effect it's had on our timeline, but I'm sure there'll be a ripple. There always is.

You call it saving the timestream.
I call it Thursday.

/LLR
(circa 1776)

I'm back in the Upstate after a nice long weekend of drinking and wedding festivities. My brother and my newly-inducted sister-in-law had a swell wedding, despite the record temperatures.

The event went perfectly, but I can't exactly say the last days of "Tater Freedom" were without incident...

Sadly, due to the "bachelor party code" I can't publish any of the goings-on at Tater's bachelor party (especially since I may be having one of my own soon), but I will tell you this one secret: It ended with Tater having a disagreement with the window of his truck - which he won. Unless you somehow consider going to the ER for stitches in the middle of the night losing - in which case the window won.

Today I got a cool souvenir in the mail from my pal, Deirdre at KCRA in Sacramento. She talked to some NASA guys during the recent shuttle mission, one of them a robot arm designer. She sent a mechanical-looking object along with a nice note.

She writes:

"This is a small model of the JR3 load sensor that's on the space shuttle Discovery. I think you might enjoy its other use: paperweight."

Someday I dream of having a desk job somewhere - not so much for the work, but rather so I can just have photos and random toys and junk lying all over it. That way someone will walk up while I'm surfing working and ask, "Hey, what's that thing you have there as a paper weight?"

To which I'd wave my arm nonchalantly, saying, "Oh that? It's just part of the space shuttle. Anything else?"

As the number of my weekly "Click on JL" video blog/TV segents now climbs into the double digits, I've already added another 'personality' to the team. His name (for lack of imagination) is Mini JL.



He started off as the living embodiment of my iPod [video], but now he's just there to steal the scene and say something "whack" - kinda like when one of the Olsen twins would poop her pants and then say some adorable line on every episode of Full House.

Anyway, in this week's show there's a weird little scene where he hits on a digital thermometer [video]. It's kinda creepy, but you gotta love him.

My brother Tater is getting married this weekend, if you can beleive it. I'll be back in Oregon to join in the celebration (which seems to be a three day event at this point). I hope it's going to be a full on redneck jamboree, ending with Tater nearly lighting someone (or himself) on fire.



In order to get a preview of this weekend's fun, I decided to call him up and do a phone interview (as I've done many times in the past):

(Tater answers his phone, but I get the first word in.)

Word.

What up?
So…I talked to Mom today…

Yeah…and?

She said I was the best man in your wedding.

Yeah.

Well, aren’t you supposed to tell me?

Uh. I did, dumbass. We talked about it a month ago and I told you I was going to ask you to be my best man. Remember on the phone that time?

Kinda. But you didn’t ask me officially. So why don’t you ask me now?

Fine. Will you be my best man?

I‘ll think about it.

(he sighs, possibly swears)

So…it’s the last days of Tater freedom…

Oh yeah.

How’s that going?

It’s going -

"Tater Freedom", that sounds like a wicked awesome band name, by the way.

Yeah, well I don’t have any musical talent. I can’t even blow on a horn.

You can’t…(I’m trying quickly to come up with some sort of smart-ass retort about blowing on other stuff, but I took to long and just gave up. At this point, I think he realized I was typing the conversation)...nevermind.

So, what’s the plan for the bachelor party?

I have no clue.

Really? You answered that really fast.

They’re doing all that. No clue. Junior is putting it together, so you know.

Do you care to speculate? This is all on the record, by the way. It’s goin' in my blog.

(he sighs, possibly swears)
Drinking and shit, I don’t know. There’ll probably be somebody there.

Somebody? What do you mean by somebody?

(uncomfortable pause)
A stripper. There! You made me say it. I didn’t want to have to say that out loud in front of the "missus", but you made me.

Ohh...sorry. Anything else?

No shots, dammit. I’m not drinking any shots. Anyone that buys be a shot is getting kicked in the nuts.

Fair enough.

Earlier today, I was sent to check out some curious activity at a nearby creek. When I arrived I saw what had to be a sign of an impending apocalypse.

The river looked like creamy, delicious 2% milk (or possibly soy milk).



Apparently there was a chemical plant leak or something (natch), but I heard it was "completely safe". Although I imagine some fish were pretty freaked out.

Also, it sorta reminded me of those old commercials for Dairy Queen and Honeycomb, where people raft down a flowing river of milk through the chunky chocolate canyons.

Tonight was a special occasion at work! It was time for the annual "photographer meeting!" Not only were all us hired guns assembled in the same room to joke (or cry on each other's shoulders, should the occasion arise), but we were got a chance to take a look at our new Sony XDCAM!



Which was a little bit weird, since we all devoured greasy pizza right before putting our hands all over the prototype camera.



I say prototype because we only have one right now. All of the gear for our new conversion has arrived. Avids. Microphones. Batteries. Everything except for the camera lenses - which I'm told is a necessity for taking photos.

That situation led to the scene you see below.



As you can see, it got ugly. I didn't win the battle royale for the camera, but I did get an extra slice of pizza!

Here's a few fun items I found in my inbox lately:

1. "Thought of you when I saw this..."
Jason from the DPP sent me a link to a kick-ass robot keychain, which I forget to buy with each passing day.



2. "You make movies about zombies. This is right up your alley."
Mike from Homemade Fireworks sent me a quasi-invitation to the world premier screening of Night Feeders, up in Charlotte, NC. He starred in this low budget piece of ass-kickery a while ago, and now it's ready to be seen. If you're up in the area on July 29th, then go check it out! [more details here]. But, he does have two rules for attending the premier: "1.) Get good and drunk before you go, and 2.) Go absolutely batshit when my name comes up on the credits."


3. "Here they are... some of them need that thing called "focus".
Elise from work sent me this semi-rad shot of us at the HeroesCon comic book convention last week. Look at me put these dorks to work finding me old issues of Dazzler.



4. "I'm going to blow the shit out of San Francisco, so this may be the last you ever hear from me except in FEMA reports."
Seanbaby from Seanbaby sent me (and the gang) this nice little drawing he did of him and Mr. T. I just now realized that he photoshopped the actual photo of himself and Mr. T into T's necklace.



Anyway, Seanbaby's Fourth of July mayhem is always the stuff of legend, and I hope he sufficiently fucked up the Bay area.

There are some days when you surf the internet and come across something completely rad and it makes your day. That was the case for me this afternoon when I came across this image:



Quite possibly the most awesome painting ever. (In your face Mona Lisa!)

I have no idea whether this guy made the painting, or he simply incorporated it into his art project. Doesn't really matter. It's still awesome. I mean, just look at C3PO is working the keyboards.

There are so many random parodies of the Mac vs PC ads on YouTube. Most are lame, but there's a few pretty funny ones. My favorite one is from Best Week Ever, of course!

Dear Oliver Platt,

Congratulations on your second Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for the Showtime original series, Huff.

Not only are you - once again - the most deserving actor in this category, but I hope you win just because your show was recently cancelled and I hope it sends a message to the "suits" at Showtime that they probably shouldn't have cancelled such a provocative, and well written show.

Keep in mind: I don't dish out these compliments lightly. My personal hero, William Shatner has also been nominated (again) in this category, and I feel a certain wave of guilt wash over me for even thinking of writing you this message. But, I have a responsibility to speak the truth, and I feel that your portrayal of the less-that-ethical-lawyer, Russell is one of the most refreshing, and energetic performances I've seen on television in recent years.

I also feel kinda guilty, as I am a very loyal HBO viewer (25 years and counting) and I find myself rooting for, not only for the other nominees of Huff, but also for Weeds and Sleeper Cell - both tremendously awesome shows that shouldn't be cancelled anytime soon.

I feel rather lucky that - even though your show has been cancelled - I'll still be able to see Oliver Platt in new and (no doubt) exciting ways, but I'll never experience what becomes of Russell. I kinda hope he settles down (and doesn't go to jail for accidentally killing a prostitute with a bad cocaine overdose), but I also kinda wish that he was still continues getting wasted and smashing plasma screen televisions in drunken, hedonistic rampages.

I recently won an Emmy award myself and it was a quite a thrill, despite the fact that I thought I'd somehow be handed a key to the city and a box full of chocolates (or cash) upon receiving the golden statue - something which hasn't yet happened.

Best of luck to you, Oliver Platt!
You certainly deserve it.

Fingers crossed.

- JL Watkins / LLR

"What in life is free? Two things...the soup kitchen and Craigslist."
- Roger "Buckwild" Johnson

Two amazing things happened to Greenville here in the past two weeks: there's now a downtown Starbucks; we finally have a local Craigslist page. I swear a sonic boom went off, like when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier back in 1947.

Anyway, it was one of those small revelations that made working the July 4th holiday enjoyable. The best part was when Gordon and I (still high-fiving each after our "I pooted" team-up) worked the Craigslist story together. But, it wasn't completely smooth sailing at first. Due to the holiday, many of the cooler story angles weren't working out - like the local man selling his Radio Shack dealership on the site.

I'll be honest, I was starting to get nervous about where our day was heading. That was, until Gordon told me that we'd be interviewing Dr. "Buckwild" Johnson, comedian for hire.



Here's how he was described on his Craigslist ad:

"the world's greatest love doctor/ dr. buckwild johnson comedy for the edu=mo- cation of the nation for a love destination/ this is comedy designed to help men understand women, and love advice."

Let me first start by saying that he's probably the most confident person I've ever met. He strolled into the station and stole every room he was in, although most of the time he was only with me and Gordon. And I genuinely think he's a funny guy, but he wasn't exactly breaking new ground with his "women love to shop" routine. In his defense, Buckwild had to give us his "G rated" material at a moment's notice. I think his adult-themed stuff is probably a whole lot stronger, as noted on his website:

This is where the true Buckwild shines!! That dirty down-south playboy that makes the ladies wanna get with him and the fellas wanna BE him!! Buckwild brings it to you raw with his take on relationships, sex, and life. He lets his audience in on his insight on love and what makes him the playa that everyone wants to be. This adult oriented entertainment pulls no punches and takes no prisoners. Buckwild talks about men "taking the power back" in their relationships and how to "take the power out of the pussy"!!

Anyway, I wasn't going to post this story if I didn't have video to go with it. You can't just read about Buckwild - you have to experience Buckwild. So here's a video link to our story, featuring Roger "Buckwild" Johnson, my new favorite person in the Upstate. As he spreads his "edu-mo-cation to a nation for a love destination."

Just over a week ago, uber-editor Benjie made a 3D rendered LLR robot and sent it to me. Here he is, with attitude. I love the super-heroish logo on the chest. Thanks, Benj.