24 :: 6AM - 8AM

6:00AM - 7:00AM

Jack returns from China! The Chinese beat the hell out of Jack, but he wouldn't talk! I don't even know if any of us remember why the Chinese were after him to begin with.

Anyway, Jack has to sacrifice himself to Fayed, a terrorist, to save the world. Fayed will give up the location of another terrorists who's causing FOX NEWS ALERTS like mad. So Jack does, since Jack is so uber. But Fayed, while he's torturing Jack, forgets that he's an Islamofacist and not a cartoon or James Bond super-villian and tells Jack that HE is the one behind the attacks, not the other guy!

Jack will die for nothing! Jack finds this unacceptable and while Fayed is taking a phone call (people really do call at the most inopportune times) Jack bites one of Fayed's lackeys in the neck, eating his soul and killing him.

One hour, one kill.

7:00AM - 8:00AM

So Jack escapes from Fayed and goes to find the other terrorist who's name I forget. This guy is bad, but wants to be good. But Fayed set this dude up with CTU and the military is about to blow up his house!

Jack busts in and saves him just seconds before the airstrike. One of Fayed's lackeys was also there and is saved. So Jack and his new partner (I'll remember his name for the next ones) take him to a house and Jack tortures him for a minute and gives up.

The other guy is like WTF dude? He then reminds Jack how to torture people and gets the location of an attack. Jack's sad. He really doesn't think he can do this anymore. Fucking Chinese bastards!

Anyway, the new dynamic duo take off and find a suicide bomber and his handler. Good terrorist dude heads after the handler to find Fayed and Jack goes after the bomber.

Jack and the bomber fight on the subway train. Jack wtfpwns him and kicks him out of the train where he blows up. I know he's a suicide bomber, but Jack made him explode early, so I am giving Jack the credit for this kill, for no other reason than we've gone two hours with only one Jack kill. Sad.

And it just wouldn't be 24 without some whiny turdstain teenager who's in top all sorts of b-story related problems. I hope Jack 'accidentally' kills this kid. I hope Jack kills someone! 2 hours, 2 kills? And FOX is really grinding my gears by making it almost appear that they will be killing off Jack tonight...

I'm smart today and I slept already, so i can be prepared to watch tonight, and won't have to wait till morning.

The Official Unofficial Jack Bauer Body Count!

As it is once again time for the greatest television show ever created to come around again, I have begun preparations for the body count!

24 Season 6 begins on Sunday with 4 hours of Jack Bauerey goodness. I've learned my lesson from Season 5. Keeping track of everyone who is killed in 24 is a far to difficult task, and based on the trailer I've seen, the overall body count is going to be astronomical.

So this year I have decided to only count the people that Jack pops himself (or that die as a direct result of Jack Bauer's magnificent presence). The graphic on the right will show the Bauer body count, which I am sure will be high as well! It will be updated within 24 hours or so after each episode, as I will be watching the show and not taking notes while it airs. That's what TiVo is for!

Here are the rules of the body count, in case anyone wants to help keep track.

1) Jack must be directly responsible for their death. For example, Jack shooting a terrorist in the head while eating a sammich counts, but Jack telling Curtis where a terrorist is and Curtis shooting them doesn't.

2) If a terrorist dies as a side effect from a Jack action, it counts. An example is Jack 'questions' a terrorist, and rather than deal with being WTFOMGBBQPWN'd by Jack he takes his standard issue terrorist suicide pill, that counts.

3) If Jack walks into a room and people drop dead from fear, you better believe that counts.

4) If Jack ends up killing little Palmer, it counts as double.

This thread will be updated when the graphic is to show a hour by hour tally as well, plus any big fish that Jack kills.

Now, in the words of Drowning Pool... Let the bodies hit the floor.

6:00AM - 7:00AM

Fayed Lackey - Neck bitten clean through

7:00AM - 8:00AM

Fayed Jihadi Lackey - Blown up in the subway

9:00AM - 10:00AM

Fayed Lackey (The Handler) - Blew himself up when he saw Jack was about to WTFBBQ his ass.

10:00AM - 11:00AM

Curtis - Jack shot & killed Curtis to keep him from killing Assad! OMFG...

11:00AM - 12:00PM

Jack didn't kill anyone...

12:00PM - 1:00PM

Jack didn't kill anyone... again... Will probably kill 71 people next hour...

A Plea For Calm...

It's going to be fucking cold tonight. Please, bad people of Las Vegas, I beg of you. Don't do anything bad tonight! Please, allow me to stay in the warmth and comfort of the newsroom. I'd do ANYTHING you want...

Except that.

Thanks.

(( WTF? I didn't move here for the goddamned ambiance. Get this cold midwest weather the hell out of here! ))

10X Multiplier ACTIVE!

In a city of two million people, when does a person being shot in the leg become a story when a different person, shot in the arm is not?

When it happens in a school parking lot.

It’s media law that, what I call, the 10X multiplier is added when a school might be involved. Tuesday morning I was stepping out of the station to grab a breakfast jack from Jack in da Box. I made it about a block from the station when I heard a 415A – a shooting – go out in west Las Vegas.

Frankly, this isn’t a great area, so I wasn’t surprised, but I did keep my ear on it. There was yet to be a victim, so as far as I was concerned, there was no story yet.

A couple of minutes later, there was a victim; I started in that direction, angry at the fact that I had camped out at the station all night and hadn’t eaten since midnight. I continued to monitor the traffic on the radio and found out that this was in the parking lot of Western High School.

Call me sad, but I got a little excited! A school shooting (at this point I still hadn’t heard anything about the condition of the victim, so as far as I knew it was just someone shot at with minor to no injuries – if it’s serious, they are on the radio screaming for medical) and I could be the first one there! Whoopie!

A moment later, I hear its road rage related, and the suspect is in his 30’s. I slow down. This doesn’t seem like a school shooting anymore. When I hear that the victim only has a bullet wound to the leg, I’m like screw it. Not news. See, people get shot in the leg a lot here. And the sick reality of Las Vegas is no body, no story.

However, I then hear that a school police officer on his way to this got into a crash and he was unconscious (he turned out fine). Holy shit! Cop in a crash on his way to a call, that’s news! So I divert to that. I call the executive producer and explain about the crash and the shooting.

“OMFGWTFBBQ!” She yells at me. “GET TO THE SCHOOL!”

“It’s in the leg…” I whimper to myself. Then I remember.

10X multiplier.

See, no matter where you are in America, and no matter what the event, if it happens at (or near) a school, it’s 10 times worse than if it had happened a block away. The story did eventually have more merit to it, as the victims (two shot, neither seriously) were students at the school (I was fooled originally as school didn’t start as early as the shooting, so I was working under the assumption that these people just happened to pull into the school parking lot to argue about traffic flow), but it was still interesting to see the 10X multiplier in full swing (5 live trucks, 3 helicopters, 2 radio stations, 1 print photographer and 1 print reporter; CNN, FOXNEWS, MSNBC taking live hits from the scene!).

A previous instance of the 10X multiplier was about a year or so ago I was sent on a wild goose chase because a school police officer asked for 443, which is assistance (non-emergency) due to a verbal argument that was starting to get out of hand. The desk knew the name of the street, but not which school. So I had to drive from one end of the street to the other (from about 6000E to 11200W) looking for a high school with 167,672,019,216 police cars in front of it. Lucky for me I heard school PD call a code four and finished my search at Starbucks.

Normally an officer asking for backup won’t warrant a news response, but with the 10X multiplier, as far as the media was concerned, this cop was a dead man walking. I find it humorous in a way, since I thrive on artificially created chaos!

The 10X multiplier also applies to airports, malls and to a lesser extent (maybe a 5X multiplier) banks. If you have an example of the 10X multiplier in effect, I’d love to hear it!

BREAKING NEWS!

10X modifier strikes again! Motor vehicle collision, minor injuries... Meh. School bus one of the vehicles?! 10X!
School Bus Crashes with 32 on Board! OMGWTFHAX0R!

I am so going to get spanked for teasing my own station. heh...

Slow News Week...

Here's something to help keep your eyes on the prize!

What is News?

What is news?

More specifically, what is hard news? There are varying opinions on this. Things that the government does are news. Police, school districts, the mayor, anything that those guys do are news. Casino closing, building a new tower, that kind of stuff is news too (as it effects the economy, which effects us all; here in Vegas at least).

I pretty much consider news anything that effects more than one person in what is, or could potentially be, a profound way. Or something that people who are nearby have the right to know about. For instance, a police standoff that ends in the police going in and finding no one. The people nearby have the right to know what all the police cars and cops with assault rifles were doing in their neighborhood.

No soft news happens at night. There are no school dedications, no children donating their allowance to breast cancer research, no political fundraisers at three in the morning. And the only hard news at night is that John Doe was killed in a drunken driving accident, Bob Clerk was stabbed thirty times at the Circle K, and Suzy Dumbass ran at the cops with a knife and is now wondering why she’s full of bullet holes. Doom and gloom.

So imagine the feeling that went through me when I heard that research said that morning show viewers don’t want doom and gloom.

I could feel my job, my life, disappear from below me. I could see my news director smiling his best ‘sorry dude’ smile and informing me that it’s been nice knowing me. I felt myself ready to explode for just resigning my apartment lease for another year. This could not stand!

I raised my hand from the back of the conference room. I hate research meetings, mainly because I feel they are more about the talent and the producers and have little to do with me. Holy fucking shit I was wrong today.

“Erin?” Ron, my every so wonderful news director acknowledged me.

“NO DOOM AND GLOOM!?!” I cried. “ALL I DO IS DOOM AND GLOOM!!!!!”

Bob, our VP of news could see the look of dread on my face.

“We still need you to shoot and gather the bad stuff that happens overnight. What we mean is that we don’t have to lead with it. We don’t have to actually put the bad stuff in every single block and make it the focus of the news cast.”

I almost leaped across everyone and began to lick Bob. I was saved.

It’s kind of interesting. Just a couple of days ago I was complaining about having to see dead bodies all the time, but today I was fearing the fact that I wouldn’t ever get to go to a Vegas crime scene again!

I don’t know if it’s sick or sad that I could be upset about that.

ABC News7 Photog Assaulted By Police

Story here.

Cop thinks it's okay for him to shove ABC7 News Photog Randy Davis, but when Randy shoves back, the cops pounce him. It appears that CHP is the only one there with some brains, but of course they don't get involved in the inital assault, only when the Golden Gate District Officer is shoved back.

For the record, the way Randy reacted was understandable, but it's best not to do that. Cooler heads always prevail. And when I say prevail, I mean take home a big check courtesy of the local police department.

I look forward to seeing this 'police officer' charged with aggravated assault.

((Photo hotlinked from SFGate.com))

Then Again...

It really wasn't that busy. Probably because we had an assignment editor in until 1 to help me. Damn you, irony! No, it's not actually ironic, but I had to damn something.

I started like I did last year by finding a place where I could get the whole Strip in one shot for the fireworks. For what ever reason, the fireworks people decided to light off the fireworks two feet above the roof of the hotels, and really spread out so my video blew. Too far away. Try again next year, I guess.

As midnight rolled around the calls started coming in. I heard a six car, METRO involved pile-up, but was unable to obtain a location. Shortly there after was our first fatal car crash of the year.

00:16. The drunk assholes of this town couldn't wait more than 16 minutes to kill someone and get the year started on a bad note. What makes me happy about this is that I got there in time to catch METRO giving him (and him failing) his field sobriety tests, and him being put into handcuffs.

I feel some level of personal satisfaction that everyone in town will get to see the face of an inconsiderate, fuckfaced killer.

Yeah, I hate drunk drivers. Personally I think they should up the charge from felony DWI with death to 3rd degree murder. No, he didn't intend to kill that woman, but when he chose to drive while drunk he knew that he might kill someone.

That's a different rant for a different day.

I ran all around trying to find the METRO involved, but couldn't. Meanwhile my scanners (I added a fourth for this amazing day) chirped of fights, overdoses and domestics, but nothing too serious.

There were even some Iraqi wannabes firing guns off into the air in celebration of the new year. (that's a reference to the Iraqi's firing guns into the air to celebrate Saddam's hanging, nothing racial. I have no idea if these soon to be Darwin Award canidates were white, black, hispanic or what.) One guy had a rifle!

A couple of people were shot at, but no one was hit and there were two minor stabbings that I caught. Nothing like last year. In fact, by 4AM they were only at event 900. Amazing!

Soon I had to go back to the Strip to shoot the street sweepers. Yipee! Once that was done, I ran to the station and edited my two stories, amazed at how well behaved the general population was tonight.

All in all it was a good night until 7:10 when I was sent to a 3 car minor injury accident clear up in North Las Vegas because 'dayside has nothing and they will for sure run it!'

I've never thought a slow news day an acceptable reason for running non-news. I've always thought that you can find a good, hard news story if you want to look for it. But this is why I am a lowly photog, and not a manager.

That and I'm just not a management type person. I'd hit to many people.

Happy New Year everyone!

The Busiest Night In The World...

My blog was broken, and now it's not. Yay!

Anyway tonight is going to be the busiest night of the year. I fortunatly don't have to be down on the Strip with the drunks, which is good only in the sense that I would get angry that they could be drunk and I have to work. The nice thing about this shift is that I get excused from putting on the NYE show since I do have to work util 9AM.

I'm actually going to start early tonight, to just get a head start on things. Will find my spot over by Decatur & Sunset to shoot the fireworks, and then get to head into the city for the real fireworks.

Last year I remember 6 shooting calls going out between 12-1ish. Crash after crash after crash. I was all over this city! METRO, which usually has about 500 calls for service between 12-4am and 800 the entire shift was on event #1000 around 3AM.

To top it off, I was the only Channel 8 out there (as I will be tonight, although a reporter is coming in early - I hope his photographer is too...) and I was sent to the hospital to get the first baby born! Suprisingly, the mom didn't want to go on camera an hour after she went through child birth. Go figure.

The crown of the night comes about 3AM where the big news is the street sweepers! OMFG! I guess I am just the eternal cynic in that I don't find streetsweepers (even a small armada of them) all that interesting.

Anyway, happy new year. I'll try to take some pictures and get them posted as well as any screen captures I can. You can between now and 12:30 watch the goings on here in Vegas on www.lasvegasnow.com.