Today's assigment had me in the presence of the most powerful non-elected person in the world: Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernake.

He gave a speech today at the Palmetto Expo Center, talking about how the IT boom in the last decade is the key to increased productivity in the American marketplace - and I gotta give him props for using the phrase, "killer apps" momentarily dumbfounding part of the audience.



But, I experienced a surreal moment as he talked about how the changing landscape of technology would impact our economy. My reporter, Nigel handed me his Treo which had Bernake's speech streaming live on CNBC - flashing how the market was affected at that moment by his every word.

For me, that confirmed his whole speech in that one moment.

Saw something funny today while I was strolling around the local CompUSA. The sales guy said to me, "Have you seen our new twenty inch laptop?" and I was all, "No. man. Let's see it!"



He walked me over to the end of the laptop row where there was this ridiculously large cage, with an enormous Acer laptop stored safely inside. It seemed less that I was looking at a laptop, and more like I was paying a visit to Hannibal Lecter.



I imagine one of those scenes out of movies like Jurrasic Park - you know the kind. I envision a team of rain soaked CompUSA techs carefully unloading the cage from a cargo hold amid thunderous bursts of lightning. Inevitably, one of them gets careless and the laptop bites down on his arm, yanking him into the cage, and quickly devours him as the other guys fumble with their cattle prods.

I've always thought that working at an electronics superstore would be a pretty cake job, but now - after looking into the heart of darkness - I'm not so sure.

Please, someone tell me you have a similar problem...



Kyann and I were about to set out to do some shopping today, but when I found out that we might be going to Old Navy I had to change my clothes. You see, I don't like to shop at Old Navy if I'm wearing an Old Navy shirt. Weird, I know. And, I don't even own any shirts that actually say "old navy" on them, but they have that distinctive ON style.

Maybe it's because I don't want the sales people to think I stole it. Maybe I don't want to buy a shirt, while wearing the same shirt only in a different color. Or perhaps, I don't want too seem like I'm some guy who's obsessed with Old Navy. I don't know, man. I just feel weird about it.

And since we have work uniforms, it's not like I'm even buying that many shirts there, just the occasional $5 graphic tees. But, sure enough - I'm always wearing a stupid Old Navy shirt every time we're about to go there, so I have to change.

Am I alone on this one?

[Of course this is the opposite of the "Gap Rule", that was explained to me when I was a dork in high school. Back then, it was verboten for socially awkward teens to shop at the Gap if you weren't wearing any Gap clothes - which was just ridiculous.]

Today's assignment had Waller and I driving down on a nice, rural highway outside Easley, South Carolina to interview a crew of skilled automotive technicians.



Owned-and-operated exclusively by women, the Dipstick Fast Lube has the distinction of being the only lube center in the nation of its kind. We spent a few hours there shooting our story, and I was amazed by the non-stop flow of automobiles into the place.

Here's a video link to our story, proof of a totally awesome Friday at work.

I've been getting a bunch of my weird old videos all ready to upload to my YouTube profile, and I decided to start with this clip from the LLR viddy vault:



I shot this a few years back with interpid reporter Chris Murphy, and our station actually aired it. Although the video was twice as long at the time and at the end he took a swing at me with his space axe-thing.

It's probably no secret that news anchors routinely get mail sent to them at the station. Typically these letters are obscure story ideas, fan mail, or the occasional "I hate your hairstyle" communiqué. But, sometimes there'll be a letter from a lovesick inmate or derranged lunatic. Today I got the chance to read a real gem.



The letter consisted of over twenty handwritten pages, all of them bound together in the corner with electrical wire. For the most part, the letter was undecipherable, but it did have the premise clearly stated on the front page: "NBC and CBS are owned and operated by the Roman Catholic Church"

Bang! As soon as I read that I was hooked. "I'm reading the DaVinci Code up in here!" I said as I flipped through each page. In retrospect, I should've probably been wearing plastic gloves as I did this.



The letter was filled with weird mathematical equations, word puzzles, drawings of snakes, bible verses, and weird little "historical" factiods. All of it, pointing to the apocalypse and joint cover-up between the Vatican and national news media. I'd like to say that I understood some of it, but sadly, it was the kind of stuff that would only make sense to people in mental asylums and super villans. You know, undeniable logic like: 1 + gun = rainbow



Anyway, I had a little chuckle on the final page when the author stated, "Book Movie DaVinci Code Lies" and then finally closed the letter with friendly, "Now how about that?"

Moments later, the letter was placed back in the envelope and sent to a special filing cabinet, never to be seen again. And so the cover-up continues....

Went to the grocery store after work and had a weird little episode:

The folks at the Publix are really nice, and the grocery baggers are always offering help: "need a hand with your buggy?" That's a shopping cart, in case you didn't know.

I always cheerfully decline their help, but today I didn't really have much choice. Before I could say "no" the grocery bagger, a semi-elderly lady, had strolled away with my cart. I quickly caught up with her and was explained, "Oh. That's okay, you don't have to do that." But, she wouldn't have any of it. She pointed to the front of the cart and said, "Jus' lead the way an' I'll follow ya." At this time I should probably point out that I only had two small plastic bags in my cart. To be honest, I don't even know why I was using a shopping cart in the first place.

Reluctantly I lead her out of the store, only to pass at least a dozen people along the way who all looked at me (and the old lady in tow), and flashed me looks that screamed, "Look at this lazy ass guy right here!"

To make matters worse a pregnant lady who had checked out at the aisle next to me was struggling with a overflowing cart, and strode along side us in the parking lot. At one point she glanced at us, and then into my near-empty cart. I had to look away in shame. The entire trip to my car lasted maybe a minute, but it felt like I was riding an eternal train car through hell. Such shame.

[Of course this is coming from a guy who wouldn't hesitate making a little kid pilot a rickshaw if I ever visited India or Asia. I guess shame has a sliding scale in these situations.]

Just looked over the list of Autobots and Decepticons that'll be appearing in the upcoming Transformers film and I'm sad that Soundwave didn't make the cut. Mayber there isn't much room for an 80's boom box/cassette player in the line-ups of cool robots.

Anyway, being nostaligic for the old days, I found this little gem on YouTube:



And this video is even further proof of just how rad Soundwave is. Although even as I write this, I'm sure the dork campign to get Soundwave in the film has already begun.

SNAKES ON A PLANE

[Yes, I've been waiting for months to do this stupid post. Can't wait to see the movie this weekend.]

UPDATE: The [unofficial] Snakes On a Plane playset!

I was surfing around early this morning and saw this little blurb on Huffington Post about the guy arrested in the JonBenet murder. I hadn't seen what the guy looks like yet, and when I saw the article blurb [below] I thought to myself, "Is that the dude from Coldplay?"



Ummm....no. And now that I've actually went at looked at photos of Chris Martin (and photos of the alleged molester guy) I'm convinced that I was probably just tired when I saw it.



Although, I bet if I google using Yahoo the right photo I can make a stronger case for myself.

Oh! That reminds me of this retarded thing I read about the Google's objection people's use of the word "google" as a verb - unless the people are actually using Google to "google" something. Quote:

"We think it's important to make the distinction between using the word Google to describe using Google to search the internet, and using the word Google to describe searching the internet. It has some serious trademark issues."

So stupid.

Who even says, "I'm gonna google something" and then doesn't actually go to Google? You would think that someone who gets around to using "google" as a verb is probably someone who uses Google. Furthermore, who would say, "I'm going to google something on Yahoo!"

I think the TiVo folks have more to complain about when it comes to trademark infringement, considering people "tivo" stuff all thiem with their crappy Motorola DVRs. The Google people should be thankful that people are using their word to mean "look something up on the internet", rather than something like "ass rape".

Hmmm.

At this point, I should probably lay off the google bashing. Partly because I have no idea where I'm going with this argument anymore, and also because I'm using Blogger (owned by Google). I'd hate to log in and find out someone "googled" my website.

No fun nonsense to report on today, as I was doing murder-related coverage all day. But, here are two random items I stumbled across today whilst web surfing:

1. Some guy got his hands pierced with metal claws like Wolverine. No shit. It's not horrific or anything, but definitely don't click there if you can't handle random body piercing photos.

2. "The Caps key is an abomination"
Some folks are lobbying to get the CAPS LOCK key taken off all future computer keyboards. It's a dumb issue, but the more I think about it, I find myself kinda conflicted. I hate caps lock key abuse, but I also might need to ABUSE THE CAPS LOCK KEY myself someday.

I've been a Tenacious D fan forever, since the beginning of the HBO show anyway. I went to their first, jam packed small venue show in Portland. Half a year later I went to their overcrowded, large venue show in Portland.

But I was crushed when I couldn't get the night off to go to their massive concert at the Portland Rose Garden. I wanted to see "the D's" complete rise to power.



But, that night our assignment editor said to me, "I need you to go shoot a concert. I guess Jack Black is playing in some band..." Before she could even finish I yelled, "Shut up!" and ran out the door, camera in hand.

Not only did I get to watch the concert from an excellnt spot, but I also got an audio drop from the sound board. Later, when I got back to the station one of the other photogs told me, "Dude, you got to make a bootleg of that!"

I never did.
I guess I kinda forgot.

Well, the other day I was going through old archive tapes in my closet and came across the Tenacious D tape. And now that some time has passed since the album has come out, I've decided to make that bootleg!

So here's an mp3, for your non-for-profit, fan-based, downloading enjoyment [right click to save]:

Tenacious D - "Flash / Wonderboy (Live at the Portland Rose Garden)"

Today I photographed a bunch of live shots featuring the zen master of billiards, "The Monk". He's a pretty swell guy, but don't ever be foolish enough to challenge him to a high stakes game of eight ball. That's how we lost our field producer, Amanda - he called me out, so I threw her in as part of the wager.

Cut to the chase: She'll be a fine addition to his staff.



When we all gathered around for this photo, I explained to The Monk that it'll be a Color of Money scenario, him playing the evil arch-nemesis character. Right before we snapped the shot he said something like, "I'm having a hard time looking bad. The monk is always a nice guy."

And I said, "Sorry, man. You're the villain in my story." And then he kinda shrugged and we snapped the photo.

"Can I check out that uzi?"

Not exactly something I imagined I'd be saying this morning when I headed out the door for work, breakfast treat in hand. But, fast forward two hours and I'm standing in front of a massive wall of guns.



We were at the store doing a follow-up story about unrelated murders of pawn shop owners. Charlie, the store's owner was wearing two to three guns on his person and kept telling Gordon and I that we "really should consider buy some guns".

That's when it know it'd probably be okay to check out the uzi, but I'm still not sure about becoming a gun owner. My only experience with guns comes from playing video games and that probably isn't really a great foundation upon which to start up a collection of tactical weapons.

Although in the photo above, I already have a rather formidable weapon in my hand: the Betacam SP.

Aww yeah! Jack pointed out to me that I got props on Friday from Yahoo's webcast the 9 ( I'm number nine, in case you were wonderin'). I love that Maria Sansone.



For what? My Robot Humps, of course.

If you're new to the site, here's the original post with links to the video.

I've had a rather relaxing weekend, thanks for asking. I spent the better part of today venturing around the vast Hogwarts Academy Biltmore Estate up in North Carolina. This is my third visit there, but I have yet to see the bottomless money pit which I'm certain exists somewhere in the basement.



Anyway, my biggest complaint about visting the Biltmore mansion would have to be the people doing the audio tour. You see, for $5 more, folks can get a quasi-mp3 player to listen to as they plod around the castle.

I'm sure it's really neat and all, but once these people put on the headphones they suddenly become completely unaware of everyone around them - blocking walkways, talking really loud to a spouse (also wearing a headset), or basically just getting in the way at every opportunity, as if the audio tape was telling them to do it.

I eventually made a fun (albeit petty) game out of trying to slip by audio-tour-zombies, and then - moments later - blocking their way, pretending that I was enamored by a fancy vase or sconce.

However, the concept of the audio tour intrigues me, and I thought it'd be completely rad to record my own audio tour (like the current one, each track corresponding to a room in the Biltmore Castle) and give a fabricated alternate/fantastical narration for people with iPods and mp3 players.

All I need to do is: 1) work on my British accent, 2) have Hasser come up with some fanciful harpsichord music and foley sounds, 3) and hammer out whether or not I'll be sued by a legion Vanderbilt lawyers.

Before you know it, I'll have a ton of people listening to my guided tour - blocking the walkways and annoying everyone around them. Sounds like a plan.

With the terror arrests overseas, us folks in the media have been pretty busy. Today I worked one of the many "how does this affect local people?" angles, but had a surprisingly nice day.

Jennifer Valdez and I were sent to a local travel agency to see if people were changing their travel plans in light of the terrorist-business. As we headed out the door I thought, "this is total fantasy newscast stuff..we aren't going to get anything like that." Well, I should've had faith because we found an old lady hell bent on canceling her vacation plans - so our story quickly went from "ehh." to "rad" in about 15 seconds.

Other than that, I don't have much else to share - apart from these two items:

1. The new James Bond guy is sad that people don't want him to be the next 007. I don't know..."I'm kinda excited for the next Bond movie, but what the hell do I know considering I didn't mind Timothy Dalton either.

2. My hero, William Shatner is holding an online contest! The chosen winner "winner will receive a large cash award and will be named the official spokesperson for the William Shatner Science Fiction DVD Club". I'm so making a video clip! [contest website]

I recently had the privilege to demo the highly anticipated Verizon phone, the Chocolate, as it's the subject of my "Click on JL" report this week [video link].



The main feature of the Chocolate is the fact that it's a music player, and also a cell phone. The sound quality was pretty good, and I think the online store is supposed to be comparable to iTunes and the like. Plus, it can download all the V-Cast shows (24 and Lost!) and has a nifty camera phone (which I think should pretty much be expected from every cell phone at this point).

My only gripe with the phone were the (extremely) touch sensitive buttons. I kept calling people by accident every time I wiped my finger along the front of the phone. But, I don't completely fault the Chocolate for that since I didn't really know what I was doing anyway.

It's actually a pretty sweet phone, and a great deal for someone who's looking to upgrade their cell and is in the market for a decent mp3 player.

My Verizon Wireless contract is almost up, and I just about had myself convinced that I was gonna upgrade to the Chocolate. But moments later, I dropped the borrowed demo phone on the floor and completely damaged the LCD screen! [remember the curse?]

Which is all the proof I need that I'm not responsible enough to own another cell phone or digital camera for a long time.

Oh well.

[video link: "Click on JL #13: Hot Cell Phones"]

While out shooting a story on school bus routes, Gordon and I came across two little girls and their lemonade stand.

Here's a shot of thier menu. As you can see, it was quite a bargain. Although, those prices would've been a bargain even back in 1812.



What did I end up buying, you ask? I went for the cup of water and some spin art. It cost me four cents, but I never got the change back from my dime. Oh well, I think I still got a good deal.

Tonight I went to Greenville's anniversary baseball game, and even somehow managed to snag a free t-shirt. But, the highlight for me was the green-dyed beer (which somehow photographed to look like jello shots).



I've encountered green beer a bazillion times, but I find it weird that the first time I've ever actually drank it was in The South (not a huge Irish contingent) and on a random Tuesday night.

One percent dyed. One hundred percent delicious.

Every photographer has their own favorite edit bay, for a wide array of reasons. A monitor has better color. A certain machine eats less tapes. An edit bay is hotter or cooler than the others.

Well, even as our edit bays become homogenized by the AVID takeover I still have my favorite suite. Although, lately it's become kinda weird.



On a whim, fellow photographer James Cooper decided to inexplicably place a book shelf next to the door, blocking the view of passers-by.

It probably would've been removed by now, if it weren't for the bizarre hole carved out of one of the upper shelves, creating a massive peep-hole similar to those at major metropolitan construction sites.

As I edit, I can watch the people traffic from my low-tech lookie hole.



The reverse view shows displays the editor's disembodied head to everyone glancing in that direction.



And at least five or six times a day, someone will feel compelled to stick their head through the hole and scream or laugh hysterically at the AVID editor.



Who knew a hole could be so much fun? (Hmmm. That didn't sound right.)

Got some disappointing news at work today, but I had some respite at the end of my lunch break in the form of a ROBOT BATTLE!

James Cooper and I stopped by the Radio Shack to get some photog-related gear, and I picked up the remote for one of the Robo-Sapien knockoffs near the front counter.




At first, I thought the employees would be kinda annoyed as I tinkered with the robots, but within 10 minutes both cashiers had picked sides and were cheering us on throughout our Thunderdome deathmatch.

In all honesty, it really wasn't much of a battle. Neither of us could really pilot our bots well enough to deliver a killing blow upon the other. In the end it was decided that I won the match - only because I somehow walked my robot backwards into Cooper's, tangling the arms together enough to force a stalemate.

I'm not blogging enough these days, so I'm going to make a point to write something new each day. Hopefully only half of the posts will be about all the television shows I watch.

Day 1 - here we go:

I just had a rather relaxing weekend, and I'm back at work on this fine Monday. I spent much of the weekend playing World of Warcraft and catching-up on various projects around the house. It was a nice distraction from last week's email snafu [where I accidentally sent an email out to the whole newsroom, rather than just my boss. Not that I wrote anything all that bad, but it did give everyone new insight into just how much of a kiss ass I can be].

I ended my "not going to the movie theatres for a long time" thing and went to see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - and it was completely awesome. I'll probably go support my Broken Lizard peeps and see Beer Fest in a few weeks (and then I'll go back to boycotting expensive movie outings).

Right now I'm totally hooked on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and can't imagine my television-viewing-experience without it. It is absolutely vital that I watch episodes off my video iPod between live shots each day, or I'll simply perish. [That, and the 4400]

PANDA WATCH!

Today's assignment put me face-to-face with a natural born predator, the nearly-extinct red panda. Okay, so they're really all that dangerous - but if cuteness was a lethal weapon then these little furbags would be about ten ninjas each.



Shooting a story about cute animals is the equivalent of using a fire hose to wash your dirty dishes - it's so insanley easy.

My favorite moment of the "photo opportunity" this afternoon was when friendly, rival photog, Jason Parker and I both got right up in the panda's face with our lenses.

Take that, newborn panda!

Oh! Here's a cool little factoid: the pandas were born on June 6th, 2006 (aka: 666), so the zookeepers named one of them Damien. How rad is that?

[more cuteness: slideshow ]

If mechs are the future of warfare, then I'm not so impresed at the idea anymore. A swift wind, or someone driving a Yaris could knock this thing right over. But as a DIY garage project, it's pretty rad.