The Way We Was...

...is the way we shouldn't be.

So gas here in Tulsa has finally dropped back below $2.00/gallon. Rumor has it that gas may get down to $1.70 or so before bottoming out.

Is that really a good thing? Most people would say 'Yes, what kind of dumbass question is that'. But I, and I am not alone, contend that cheaper gas is not really a positive for our economy and national security.

Don't get me wrong, I hate paying $40 to fill up my Malibu's small 11 gallon tank. It must really suck for others who have 20+ gallon tanks. Though those people can usually afford it, otherwise why would they own an 11MPG SUV? *snicker*

High gas prices have gotten Americans to do something that I, in my entire life, have never seen us do. Conserve. We as a group have actually made changes in our lives - most of them I will contend are positive - to keep our gas bills down. Now though we may end up going back to the way we were before; which of course will drive gas back up to $3.50-$4.00.

Of course by then it will be President Obama's fault. But I digress.

It would be really nice to see people continue to conserve, keeping down the price of oil and gas, and by proxy reducing our dependence on foreign oil. That combined with more domestic exploration would help us keep our economy less dependent on countries that could very easily be our enemy in the future (see Venezuela).

But with that we need the government to enact policies in support of our new lifestyle. Mass transit in the country is pitiful. Tulsa leaves many areas without any options that do not involve driving at all. This is very disturbing to someone like me who is not to interested in walking three miles each day; especially considering the lack of sidewalks in south Tulsa (if you want me to rant on sidewalks and the narrowness of the streets here, I'd be happy to).

We need better alternatives to driving for interstate (and intrastate, but to be honest I believe that's a state by state issue) travel. Amtrak is hemorrhaging money, but I really think that's because it really doesn't go anywhere, nor offer any real ability to go from one place to the other efficiently. I'd love to have the ability to go via Amtrak from here to Springfield.

Alternative fuels like Hydrogen won't be around for a while. CNG is an option, but until every corner station sells it, we won't see CNG cars mass produced like gas cars. As well, natural gas is a finite resource (as far as we know), so it could eventually run low and drive up prices. Gas from food? Maybe. But some people, myself included, have concerns that taking staples from the food supply and placing it into the fuel supply will hurt the cost of food. How true is this? I don't know. But it's certainly something to take into consideration. I'd also question how cheap electric cars are when you take into account the landfill space (or recycling costs) for all those toxic batteries, and the extra money you will be paying on your electric bill to charge your car. Plus fully electric cars (the ones that are not just modified golf carts that I have a hard time believing passed any sort of crash test without a massive bribe) are expensive.

An exception appears to be the Chevy Volt. Allegedly, the Volt will be reasonably priced, in the mid 20's, but it's not fully electric unless you travel less than 40 miles. However that should be far enough for most people. It will be interesting to see what the actual MSRP is when it comes out in 2010. As well, unlike 99% of the fully electric cars out there, the Volt actually looks like a car.

Yeah, aesthetics are important, just like functionality.

In summary, I hope people will stop and think about how we got to $4 a gallon for gas and not listen to those who would claim Exxon's profits and George Bush's oil connections have everything to do with it. I hope that people will continue to conserve, will continue to drive reasonably, and will push their elected governments to implement programs to encourage less vehicle use, like light rail, bus service and intra/interstate train service.

If not, then when gas goes back to $4/gallon, I will happily tell you to STFU.

Here We Go Again...

By the time I am done writing this, Hurricane Gustav will be very close to making landfall. According to NOAA predictions, it looks like it will catch NOLA with it's northeast side; the most powerful side of a counter-clockwise spinning hurricane.

We had a short show today and not much for me to do, so I spent a lot of the day on the internet. I checked out CNN, FOX, BBC, etc. One thing they seemed to have in common really pissed me the fuck off.

All of them mentioned how the RNC was holding off on the celebratory aspect of the convention. This was then followed by a quote or soundbyte from Bush in Texas. This was then followed by how he doesn't want a repeat of how he and FEMA fucked up Katrina.

Excuse me?

What I want to know is why, after soundbytes with Ray Nagin, NOLA mayor, they did not say the same thing. Nagin fucked up and fucked up bad. In fact, had Nagin and the now fired Gov. Blanco not fucked up, there would have been nothing for FEMA to fuck up. Nagin, in my opinion, has taken no responsibility and accepted no blame.

On the BBC, they showed stories from 2005. The BBC and his intrepid photographer found people and interviewed them in the days after the hurricane. One by one... "Where's Bush?" "Why has Bush abandon us?" "Help us FEMA!"

Not a single 'Where's Nagin?' 'Where's NOLA PD?' 'Why has Nagin abandon us?'

Do people not understand how this country works?

We are a nation of 50 sovereign states. Each state has a government that works for the whole state. In each state there are multiple counties or parishes. Each one of those has a government that works for each county or parish. In those there are villages, towns, hamlets and cities. Most of those have their own government.

After each one of those fails, city > county > state, THEN it's the federal governments responsibility to step in.

I guess when I put it that way, the feds should have intervened before the hurricane hit. Nagin failed to order a mandatory evacuation soon enough. He failed to make sure that those who couldn't leave, got out. He failed by setting up the Superdome without enough supplies and police to keep things from falling apart. Blanco failed by not stepping in and fixing what Nagin screwed up.

Then FEMA and the feds failed. FEMA, a formerly reactive organization by its very nature didn't move in fast enough. Yes, I believe that FEMA failed as well. They respond to emergencies. That's all they do. Yet it took them days to get fully mobilized. Don't get me started on the trailers.

However, had the city and state not failed first, the human suffering and death toll would have been FAR less.

You know, I posted a warning from NOAA/NWS before the hurricane hit. Here's an excerpt.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

...

WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

Seems like they are doing things this time like they SHOULD have done last time. The National Guard has been activated ahead of the storm. The city is making sure people get out. They are bothering to evacuate the hospitals and nursing homes. And NOLA PD, assuming another batch doesn't walk off the job again, has placed every officer on duty.

I am sure that if NOLA is spared, or damaged without massive loss of life, Nagin will be the first one to accept credit.

(A section was removed due to new information coming to my attention!)

Figures.

Another example how life likes to shit on me at every opportunity it can. During my cleaning and reorganizing that still continues several weeks later, I found an old watch that I hadn't seen in years! I was thrilled, but the battery was dead.

Lucky for me the jewelry store across the street does watch batteries, so I went over there and paid 15$ to get the batteries replaced.

Not more than 50 feet from the front door, the rubber band breaks. Wasn't cracked or anything, it just.. broke.

Every victory, even the small ones, are quickly turned into defeat. And people wonder why I don't believe in God. (Okay, I might be over reacting and being a drama queen, but still it's a telling indication of how things are going!)

Macintosh And Gizmo

I could essentially sum up this entire blog entry in a single sentence.

I hate Macs.

No, let me fix that. I FUCKING hate Macs.

There are hundreds of reasons to hate Macintosh, including the fact that they are nothing but the attention starved little brother to the PC that try so hard to be just as cool as him. But my reason is a little more personal.

As part of what I am calling Operation Clean Sweep, which is an attempted to reorganize my life through both physical cleaning and reorganization of my personal effects, I am trying to turn dozens of Beta and DVCPro tapes into neatly organized DVDs.

So first I put all my Beta stuff on DVCPro. I lucked out as FOX still had a BetaSP deck. SP is quickly becoming extinct, so I am glad I did this while I could! Then came the more difficult task of digitizing the DVCPro tapes and putting the stories on DVD in a file format I could upload or otherwise share.

Here is where Mac comes in. It seemed like a pretty simple task. I would ingest my video into Final Cut Pro, then export it as a file. Rich, our news engineer, who is a Mac nut himself, explained it as a simple 4 step process. I decided tonight after my shift would be the perfect time.

Once the show was over I moved into Edit Bay One with my box of tapes, my freshly purchased DVD-R's, and the desire to complete this as quickly as possible. The problems began as soon as I sat down.

No, I didn't break the chair, but what I did notice - or more accurately fail to notice - was that this tower didn't have a DVD drive. Of course that is impossible because how else would you install the software? I looked all over and noticed a could of sliding doors. I managed to pry one open and see that there was indeed a disc drive behind it.

But there was NO FUCKING BUTTON to open it! I checked all the menus. There was eject, but it was shaded - probably because the drive was empty. I searched and searched. Apples version of My Computer, ironically called 'Finder', didn't even acknowledge that a DVD drive existed. Finally, after about 15 minutes, I declared that the Mac had won, and left Edit Bay One dejected and pissed.

Now I am sure some MacAssHat will tell me that it's simple to open the drive. Fuck you. If it were simple there would be a fucking button on the front that says EJECT on it. My computer has two drives, both of which have buttons on the front of the drive that open the tray regardless of whether or not there is a disc inside.

I wasn't entirely defeated though! I grabbed the keys to our live truck that has a Macbook in it and darted outside. I powered everything on and noticed that there did not seem to be a drive on this one either! WHAT THE FUCK??!! However, I did find it, camouflaged in the front of it. Just a little slit. Like a Mac vagina, kind. I inserted the disc and smiled. The Mac, much like my PC, asked me what I wanted to do with the blank DVD. Well, I had a lot of work ahead of me, so I told it to ignore it for now.

Big mistake.

An hour and a half pass as I ingest all my video into FCP. I take my first video file and set my in and out point and then go to export. Lots of options, most of which included words I don't even think were English. But Rich had told me to do Quicktime, since that would ensure comptability. So I chose that and waited the 2 minutes for it to write the file. I then of course checked to see if it was in my 'burn folder'. It was.

It was 2.8 mother freakin' gigabytes!

Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick. That was a 1:47 package. I wouldn't even be able to put another package on the disc!! Screw that! So I messed around and found that FCP won't let you export as anything else unless you use a program called 'Compressor'. So I did and despite the fact I was unable to export to an AVI (I chose MP4), I managed to get some stuff ready to burn.

Here's the fun part. I click on the seemingly to convenient 'Burn' button on the folder. It told me I need to insert a blank DVD. I told it I did, very loudly, probably confusing the drug dealers and hookers in the motel parking lot across the street, but it insisted that I hadn't. Fine, I conceded. I will just eject the disc and reinsert it.

Macbook was having none of that and refused to acknowledge there was even a disc in the drive. Every DVD related program refused to let me eject. Even the DVD Player, which had an eject button, beeped defiantly at me every time I clicked it. And of course, since some fucking Einstein decided not to install an eject button on the front of the drive, my disc was trapped.

At that point I told the Mac exactly what I thought of it, it's bigger sibling in Edit Bay One and that fucking douchebag on the commercial, and deleted my files (after I took 5 minutes using 'Finder' to find them). I then left as if I were to stay I am sure I would have destroyed it and would have certainly been fired and left with a $2,000 bill to replace that piece of shit.

So in the end, I still have a box of DVCPro tapes to move to DVD and no way to do that. Quite frankly I think I would rather go out and rent a DVCPro deck and do it at home than ever deal with a Macintosh again. And be warned. The first person to tell me that Macs are better than PCs... I will hunt you down and punch you so hard in your cock...

I had considered buying a Macbook as my next computer, but not now. I will deal with the viruses and the crashes in exchange for simplicity and the ability to customize. And eject buttons. Whoever thought that there shouldn't be eject buttons... I hope you get AIDS.

But Erin, STFU and tell us about Gizmo! Okay. When I announced to my friends in Vegas that I was leaving the bright lights, glamour and crime of Las Vegas for Tulsa, I was taunted and told that I would now be stuck covering 'cats in trees'. I of course laughed that off. No station covers cats in trees!

My first day I was sent with our Solving Problems photo John to the following story.

I didn't shoot any, I was just there to watch and learn. I may have mentioned this before. But now you can see the video, courtesy of b-roll.net TV.

Fail...

Hardcore, sickening fail.

I speak of CNN and its viewers/readers. As well as those who view FOX News' website.

Here are some facts:








What could very well be a major conflict that could end up causing the United States to deploy forces is going on in Georgia. Something that could cause disruptions to the supply of oil - Georgia has 20 or so thousand cubic meters of oil flowing through it. Something that is an INVASION by the Russian military...

No one cares.

I don't get FOX News channel (though I doubt O'Reilly and the like would ever talk about anything other than liberals) nor MSNBC, but CNN has barely mentioned it. What's been the focus tonight?

John Freakin' Edwards.

And us. Americans... What do we find important? Edwards. Sex changing athletes. Things in the larger scale that do not matter.

I have CNN on right now. Finally, now at 9:30, Anderson Cooper has found some time to talk about the war. And now, 9:35, all done.

Enough of that bitching though. Here's my opinion on the matter.

Between 1994 and 1996, and then again in 1999 into 2000, Russia used their military to attack and destroy separatists in Chechnya. Russia, under the rule of Boris Yeltsin for the first war and Vladimir Putin for the second, exercised their right to maintain their territory. Thousands of soldiers, irregulars and civilians killed.

August 7. Georgia exercised their right to have control over their territory, and launched a military incursion into the self governed, yet not independent (not a single country in the world recognized SO's deceleration of independence - including Russia) region of South Ossetia (SO).

Russia, who had granted the residents Russian passports and citizenship, decided what was acceptable for Russia was not so for Georgia and launched an incursion into SO. This incursion has expanded with, as of the time I am writing this, Russian troops moving outside of SO and into Georgia proper. As well, Russian forces have landed in another breakaway province, Abkhazia. There have been air strikes on Georgian military and civilian targets.

In my opinion, Russia has clearly violated Georgia's sovereignty and internationally recognized borders. Russia must withdraw immediately and unconditionally and an international and neutral peacekeeping force needs to be deployed to SO.

However the likelyhood of that happening is slightly between none and zilch. The UN, which has once again proved what a pointless organization it is, has tried for 4 days to draft a strongly worded resolution telling Russia to stop.

Of course since Russia can veto anything that comes before the security council, it's an exercise in futility. Right now Russia can tell the rest of the world to STFU and do what it wants.

So, what can America do about this?

Some armchair politicos have said Georgia's actions were encouraged by the United States. I doubt that very much. I cannot see the CIA and other military advisers not seeing that this would piss off Russia and egging the Georgians on. Besides, Georgia cannot join NATO if it is annexed by Russia - which to me is what this looks like this is headed for.

Right now it looks like the only thing we can do is what we have been doing. Making frumpy faces and telling Russia to stop. Our military is too over extended and tied up to force Russia out - not to mention that it would draw us into an even bigger war that - god forbid - may turn nuclear.

Europe is in the same state. While they may have the military in place, the EU has never done anything militarily. Also, both Europe and the US needs Russia to help keep Iran in check. Although after the WMDs in Iraq stuff, I don't know how much I believe US intelligence reports that Iran is indeed looking to build nuclear weapons.

What COULD happen is other former Soviet republics, afraid that Russia might come for them next, could supply forces or at least logistics and non-military aid to Georgia. The Ukraine has already barred Russian warships from returning to their Ukrainian ports, so long as Russia continues to occupy Georgia.

All in all, what is happening will impact the United States for the forseeable future. And it would be nice if the media and the public would realize that and stop focusing on nonsense and crap that doesn't affect a single person.

Miscellaneous Things...

Some of the pictures on my blog are no longer available. For some reason I cannot seem to find them on my hard drive, so they were lost when Douglas Avenue died. I apologize for this, since I know how much some of you loved my maps and stuff. As well, I still need to go through and change the URL for the ones I still have, which will take some time.

Does it even matter though? I sit here thinking to myself that I will start blogging again. I have lots of things to talk about, I think. There are a few interesting stories I have done at work, there are some interesting things going on at work - though if I talked about those I would probably end up on the receiving end of a caning or waterboarding or whatever they do to insubordinates - but none the less, I have no real desire to get up in the morning and go to work; much less blog about it.

I don't know if you noticed, but my last real blog post was back in February. There is a reason for that. In February, I had another seizure. I wasn't driving, as I still wasn't (and still am not) allowed to. I once again took a trip to St. John Hospital here in Tulsa staring at the roof of an EMSA ambulance. On the bright side, at least now I have insurance, so it isn't costing me $1,000.

Things haven't gotten back to normal for me. Work just keeps getting worse and worse. Two weeks ago, on a day that has received the moniker 'Black Wednesday', Newport, our new owners, chopped 7.5% of their workforce - which ended up canning 14 people from my station. I was saved probably by the fact that the photography department was short two people and they were just able to eliminate those positions. Though, I will be completely honest and say I am neither relieved nor happy to have been spared. The severance packages handed out were very good, even for short time employees, and it would have saved me the effort of having to get the motivation to quit.

How can I be upset that I wasn't laid off? Pretty much because I absolutely hate my job right now. The why can be chopped up into the fact that I detest being unable to drive, so I cannot ever have a VOSOT day or go shoot anything on my own. I cannot get any overtime, and my current debt level, which was not that cool to begin with, has been exasperated by the bills from my first seizure. Hell, I don't even have a cell phone right now because I cannot afford to pay the bill. I really don't like the stories that I have been doing, nor the live shots that serve no purpose (What we in the business refer to as 'dog lick live shots'. Called that because it follows the philosophy of 'why does a dog lick its self? Because it can.'). Also, the only reasons I came to Tulsa are gone. I can't drive, so I cannot weather chase. Chad was caught in the layoffs, which double sucks for me because he was going to help me get an internet position with the station - and those were eliminated!

So I have applied to go to Tulsa Community College. Hopefully I can get some education into me. I have considered a couple of options. I am entertaining the idea of becoming an EMT and eventually working my way up to paramedic. I was really affected by the way the EMSA people treated me when I had my seizures and wreck, and it would be nice to be able to help people like they did.

However, I would have to find out how squeamish I am first. I am not a big fan of watching people stick needles in me - and God knows I have had that done more than any man should have in the past 8 months - and I am curious to see how I would respond to having to stick them in someone else. Also, I am a rather sensitive person and while I have seen my fair share of dead bodies in this job, I don't know how I would respond to seeing someone die in front of me. For reference, the only person I have actually seen die is my Grandmother, but that doesn't seem like a fair instance to judge by.

It's also a very stressful job. My current job is stressing me out, but being a medic has the bonus of being rewarding. Could that counter the stress? Plus while I am an EMT before becoming a paramedic, I would be the driver. I cannot think of anything more fun than driving an ambulance, except for driving a fire truck.

But that is only one option. Another is getting a degree in Political Science, since I am interested in stuff like that. Of course then the question is 'where do I get a job?' I'd enjoy being a lawyer, but law school is too long and I will probably be dead before my dumbass could pass the bar exam.

Urban planning is interested to me as well, but of course then I would find the sad realization that it is nothing like SimCity. English/Journalism would also be cool, since I enjoy writing. But again, I don't want to work in news, so where would I work?

Finally, there is computer stuff. CISCO certification could get me a high paying job, but it really wouldn't be that interesting. However, I think I could do a good job at it, since I am pretty computer savvy.

Another option I have been mulling around is joining the military. Decent money and they would pay me to learn how to do something, rather than the other way around. However, I don't like the idea of being sent to Iraq (I oppose that war - wouldn't have an issue with being sent to Afghanistan) and I would have to scurry my ass off to, well, get my ass off. I am pretty sure they don't allow big fatsos into the military. And being 31, I am dangerously close to the cutoff ages for most of the branches.

Of course what I would love to do is to open up an anime store. Selling DVDs, books and toys and the like. But that would, as all start-up businesses do, take money I don't have and, in my current financial state, don't have access to.

So, here I be, wondering what I should do. For now, I suppose I should just grin and bear it. I cannot find a placeholder job that will pay me what I am making now. I would, of course, pick the middle of a slumping economy to grow disgruntled with my career.

I would like to make that clear. I don't really hate my job. I don't hate my employer. I don't hate my co-workers. I don't hate Tulsa. I hate my career. I and my reporter spent the day today circling like the vultures we were outside of a funeral waiting to ambush mourners to get their unneeded opinions on the arrest of the deceased's husband. If looks could kill, both of us would have been dead before we had the truck in park.

That is what television journalism has become. Random sound bytes with random people for random reasons. It drives me nuts. There is really one thing that I miss about working for WICS in Springfield. We told stories. There wasn't enough death and mayhem to turn a chicken little the sky is falling story on a daily basis, so we actually did stories about interesting people and things that affected people in the community.

Shame I only made $8 an hour.

I think I have rambled on long enough for one post. This is another reason I need to blog more often. If I do it more than once every four months, I won't feel the need to blubber on for 18 paragraphs.

Couple of things before I go. First off, congrats to the SCOTUS for their recent decision confirming that the second amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms. I find it ludicrous that people could think that our founding fathers placed, in the middle of a document securing individual rights, an amendment that applied to the government.

Secondly, if you have a chance, pick up Neil Bortz's book 'Somebody's Gotta Say It'. Good reading, especially if you have any libertarian leanings.

See you in the next post, hopefully sometime before fall.

Democrats are Idiots...

Why, for the love of God, why, are you trying to make the ONLY democrat who could lose to the republicans in November, the presidential nominee?

WHY? What the fuck are you people thinking?

I am saying it here and now, November 5th, I will be posting biggest HA HA I possibly can when Hillary loses to what seems like will be a McCain/Giulianinineeleven ticket. Paul running as (I) or (L) which he's said he won't, (but when has flip-flopping been shunned by a politician) may take votes away from the GOP, and then Rodham-Clinton (I see she's no longer a feminist, since all her signs just say 'Clinton' on them) may win. But I assure you. Hillary on the ticket will bring out the republicans en mass to insure she doesn't win.

Obama could get the disenfranchised GOP vote, but whatever.

*sigh*

Lacking either a comeback from Obama or Romney, the next four years are going to be miserable.

Monday and the Beck & Call of ORU...

Some one must have heard me complaining about last week, because to start off our week this week, we did three stories. Of course, one was totally shot before we were moved! Figures. The second, a dude commits suicide by hanging himself. Not going to comment on the fact he did it in a public place, got in trouble for that before. Didn't end up shooting it, thankfully (if you ever want my opinion on suicides and the news worthyness of them, just ask).

Then the next call came. Scurry to ORU - which is Oral Roberts University - they have an announcement to make!

It would take me the better part of the day to explain what's going on at ORU. I suggest you Google it. But the jist is that they have been having some issues with money and corruption and lawsuits.

Anyway, it's 430... We're live at the 5. Been there, done that, but the really interesting fact is how amazed I am at the fact that a place that's been quite frosty to the media regarding the stuff that has been happening, needs only snap their fingers and they can get 4 live trucks and at my best count, 6 other crews there in the period of a half hour.

METRO, in Vegas was good at that too. "Media? Screw you people!" Then, they want to tell everyone how they dropped the rate of car burglaries by 0.03%. "Media! Assemble here now!" And of course the media is like 'Yes Masa! We be right there, masa!' It's like one of those abusive relationships where the woman refuses to press charges on some asshole because she knows, deep down, he loves her.

Like most things, being at people's beck and call seems to encourage bad behavior. Its unlikely to be a factor at ORU now, as they were friendlier to us then I can ever remember them being. But still, my point remains.

I've always wondered what would happen if one day, some one snapped their fingers, and no one responded.

Trivia: What's Wrong With This?

Incident: Two officers shot, one suspect dead, one very complicated story. All stations respond to the scene, two stations hold over crews and respond to the hospital.

Police Reaction: Sheriff holds a press conference at the hospital, whre most of the media is not, and does not tell anyone.

Result: Two stations that held over their nightside crews get sound with the sheriff, two other stations that have AM crews coming in early, but haven't arrived yet miss it.

Continuation: Police department says that they will not give any more interviews, PIO says it's not his job to rush out and tell the media the sheriff is giving sound at a different location, PIO goes home. Two stations forced to go on air with unconfirmed witness statements.

End Result: ewink REALLY FUCKING PISSED!

So am I the only one who thought it's slightly bull-shit for the police to have screwed us over like this? In fact, the PIO that was at the scene said to me "When we're at an active crime scene like this, I don't have the time to run out and tell you every little detail." When questioned why he did not tell us the sheriff was at the hospital.

Last time I checked, that was the only purpose of the PIO at a crime scene. To funnel us information.

Whatever.

Sgt. Wholley from Traffic who I do my live shot with on Wednesdays is lucky I don't consider him METRO, other wise he'd be in for an earful.

Calling The Station Checklist...

To help people who call television stations to complain about various things or that have story ideas, please familiarize yourself with the following in order to expedite the resolution of your grievance/idea/suggestion:

• Make sure what you are calling about actually aired on the station you are calling. If you want to know about something that aired on Contact 13, and you call Channel 8, you're not going to get anywhere fast.


• On a related note, just because we call come out of the same TV set does not mean we all come from the same building.


• Please know what the hell you are talking about before you call.


• Do not call with something generic like 'I'm want to know information about that story you did about the doctor, yesterday, in the news.' We had about 8 hours worth of news yesterday. I need something more specific in order to find it.


• I cannot give you a copy of the script. Sorry. You're going to have to order the story from the recording service. I'll give you all the info in the script, but I will not print you a copy. Not because I don't want to, but because I am pretty sure I can't.


• On a related note, no, you may not get a copy of our raw tape.


• Commercials are not news. Do not call the newsroom to ask about a commercial. We don't have a clue. (Call M-F 9-5 and ask for traffic. Not Skywitness Traffic, just traffic.)


• The schmuck answering the phone, 99.99999% of the time, had absolutely nothing to do with the story you are calling to complain about. Please save your hate filled rant for the person who does.


• Do not call and ask to talk to a reporter at 2AM.


• If you do, I reserve the right to forward you to a random reporters voice mail. If you call back, I'll just do it again.


• I am sorry your dog/cat/car is missing/stolen, but no, we will not put in on the news. Do you have any clue how many dogs/cats/cars go missing/stolen every day in this city? It's a lot!


• Similarly, we only do missing person stories when the cops ask us to. We don't know what your interest in the missing kid/person is, and we will not help a stalker find his prey. Ask the police to call us. They will be happy to.


• Three police cars do not qualify as 'a ton of cops.'


• Shots fired /= a shooting.


• Burglary /= Robbery.


• Losing all your money at a casino /= theft.


• If no one died, no kids or seniors are involved and it's not part of a greater story, we did not cover it, nor will we. (This is subject to change based on the moon's orbit and the distance to sweeps.)


• Managers don't work weekends. There is a reason they become managers, and it's not to hang around the station on a Saturday evening.


• If the power is out, call the power company and then call the news. They can probably tell you more than we can, considering we ask the same people.


• We don't cover suicides. That's why you didn't see anything about it.


• 99.9999999% of the stuff that is not local was not covered by us. Please take your complaint to the network.


• I do not know Katie Couric's phone number.


• I will not give you the phone number to another station.


• 411 is 4 digits easier to dial than the newsroom, will get you the number faster and will not get you on my shitlist.


• tvguide.com knows more about our stations lineup then I do. Check it first.


• I will try and help you out as much as you can, but just because I work for a TV station does not mean that I know everything and that I can answer any question for you instantly. Most of the time I use Google. You should try it too!


• I call and confirm news tips with the police before I go to a scene. Don't bother prank calling me. I have caller ID.


• If you call with a great story idea, but then refuse to go on camera/speak with someone off camera (or in silhouette)/at least give your name, the story will probably never see the light of day, and I will be very frustrated.


• If the story doesn't involve more than just you, it better be good.


• I reserve the right to add more things as more people call with just plain silly issues.

Thank you for your time.

ATTN Police PIOs and Wannabe PIOs

The decision of whether or not something is 'nothing' or not is not yours to make!

If all the news stations in a city are on a scene, then it's officially lost it's 'nothing' designation. And trust me, we're the laziest four photographers ever created, so we're not going to go somewhere if we don't think there is something to it!

For the sake of not being tattled on, I won't disclose which police department I HaPpen to be Directing this to.

To be fair, I did not hear the comment that it was nothing, it was second hand. But it was a trusty second hand that might slap me at Starbucks tonight.

((For the record, nothing happened to include 8 police vehicles at one business, 3 in an alleyway, 3 others on a roadway, a section of the roadway shut down and police keeping people from going into their houses. Regardless of the cause, or the mediocrity of the crime, the very fact that people were prevented from moving about freely places this as a news story. Your opinion is moot. Of course the whole issue would be moot if your patrol officers/sergeants/lieutenants would speak to the media about on going events... We're not al-Qaeda. We're not out to blow you up or eat your souls. We just want the info so we can properly inform the people who would like to know why they couldn't go home.))

Why I Hate Society...

It's not just because 9/11 has turned a whole lot of Americans and American law enforcement into total freakin' retards as demonstrated in Boston earlier this week. It's also because there are people in our society like the one I am going to tell you about.

Last night, North Las Vegas police responded to reports of a man down in the street on North Las Vegas Blvd. near Lake Mead Blvd. When they arrived they found a man dead. It was quickly determined that this man was killed in an AutoPed (automobile vs. pedestrian crash).

The thing is, the car that hit him left the scene. The only person to report it was some dude who just happened to be trolling by. It's unknown how long this man lay dying in the street before he was found.

What kind of person hits another human being and then just leaves them in the street to die? How much of a fucking asshole do you have to be to not even give a flying fuck about this man's life like that? This guy did nothing to the person who hit him. He was just minding his own business, crossing the street (in a marked cross walk I might add) and this (probably drunk) son of a bitch plows him over and continues on about his business like he hit a bird or ran over a pile of trash.

I know he won't read this, but I have a message for this guy. Sir, I hope that you die. I really do. And I hope when you die, no one cares and you are left to rot like you left this man too. I hope your death is slow and agonizing and if there is a God and if there is any sense of justice in the world, I hope it happens soon.

I have absolutely no compassion or caring for someone who cares so little about other people. I know this is out of character for me, but I am quite frankly pissed off to even think I can occupy the same planet with someone like this guy. I went to two of these on the same night back in Novemberish and it just made me incredibly angry. I don't know the people who died, but I feel so bad for their family and their friends, mostly because they have to know that their loved one was just left for dead on the cold concrete.

I see people who were killed in car crashes on a semi-regular basis and while it's sad, it doesn't make me angry like this. This - not giving a damn about anyone or anything but saving their own evil hides - just really kills all the good aspects of me and really makes me wish for some sort of mass disaster that would cleanse the planet of people like this.

But since we all know that the world is such a fucked up place, bad things only happen to good people. So people like this shitbag would some how be spared, while those who seek to better the lives of others would be killed.

Though I doubt it would help, if you happened to be in the area of Las Vegas Blvd and Lake Mead Saturday night - Sunday morning between midnight and 2:30 and you think you might have seen a red car that had front end damage, give NLV Police a call at 702-385-5555.

I promise tomorrow I will return to my normal, not so spiteful self.