little lost robot

Today’s assignment had me and my reporter, Erin (and “Ricky the Intern”) taking a nice extended drive to North Carolina. We were sent out to cover a horrible fire that happened overnight at an old-timey bed-n-breakfast. Pretty easy assignment, but there was a catch: we had to drive back to the station, rather than go live. The SNG truck was already booked.

All three map programs gave different directions, but they all were in agreement that it was well over two hours away. That gave us just enough time to drive there, jump out of the car, shoot our story (really quickly), and then haul-ass drive back. We picked the route that looked easiest on the map, but ended up regretting it after about thirty minutes [see diagram below].

I maneuvered around non-stop curves for what seemed like forever. And as I went round each bend I prayed that we wouldn’t be smashed by an oncoming truck or that I’d succumb to my ever-increasing motion sickness.

And nearly the entire way we were behind this MF truck.

I have no idea how Erin managed to stare at the laptop all the way back, logging our video and banging out the scripts. But at least she had something to keep her occupied. I had one new curve after another, occasionally offset by the sideways glance at the dashboard clock (which had me calculating numerous speed vs. mileage vs. time equations).

Anyway, everything worked out. We made a desperate call to the newsroom, and they magaged to deciper through the messy cell coverage the following key words: “….xxxx….need….xxxx….live truck…..xxxx….meet us……halfway…..back….xxxx” They had a truck meet us, and I chopped up some video and we were good - although still quite car sick.

Allow me to geek out for a moment:

Whenever I want a little “pick-me-up” I head on over to Microsoft’s semi-new Games for Windows website (which curiosly doesn’t work with Firefox browsers). I jump right to the game advisor section, and then almost immediately mash the “scan my system” button (on the left). Then it shows you how your computer stack up among the top gaming rigs.

Here’s a how mine did - which is kinda sad, considering a few months ago it ranked much higher before a ton of systems with dual video cards showed-up in the mix.

But just when I’m feeling low, I check my compy against the system requirements of most games and I come out on top.

And all is right with the world again.

I filed my weekly “Click on JL” tech segment today, so here’s the link. It’s a fun little year-in-review piece, which is mainly a highlight reel of me abusing gadgets and being an all around jackass. Enjoy! [video link]

I’m gonna take a moment to show off two of my favorite gifts that I received yesterday. I got a bunch of really fun stuff (thanks, everybody!), but these two presents from my wife really help elevate my level of geekery.

The first item: the Ideazon Fang Gamepad.

This thing allows my left hand to effortlessly slay monsters and cast magical spells whilst playing my online video games. So basically I’m surpassing the keyboard in an effort to be lazy more effeceint, while being lazy playing video games.

The second item: “citizen journalist” backpack.

As soon as I saw this thing, I knew I wanted it. It’s a laptop backpack that has a seires of compartments for video or SLR camera gear. I’ve been lugging around a laptop case and a camcorder case, but those days are over!

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I just had a terrific little weekend at the coast. And while I’m not the biggest fan of holiday decorations, seeing little palm trees swathed in lights and tinsel just seemed too weird.

So after a whole weekend of listening to endless christmas carols (Aimee Mann’s new album is rad) and repeated viewings of Elf (still funny after the millionth time), I decided to take a break from all the holiday magic and get medieval. I logged into one of my favorite online games, Everquest 2 - the plan being to kill orcs and mercilessly torment stupid unicorns. But I ended up landing right smack in the middle of “Frostfell,” the Norrathian holiday devoted to snowy holiday cheer (which game developers adamantly state isn’t christmas, although their explanation seems rather thin as the world is littered with candy canes and snowmen - although a manger wouldn’t seem out of place).

Somehow the palm trees and at the coast don’t seem so weird now.

Forgot to mention that I had a fun Friday at work. Erin and I filed this report about those hard to open plastic packages that toys and electronics sealed in - and the syndrome it creates: “wrap rage”. [video link]

Not sure when I’ll have a chance to post again over the next few days, so Happy Holidays, everybody. After work today, I’m heading to the coast for the weekend, and returning on Monday. My iPod is filled with all kinds of delightful music to make the four hour drive (in holiday traffic) more manageable.

For those of you who prefer Silent Night, Deadly Night to Christmas Vacation, then I (re)offer some holiday magic from the LLR video vault: “O’ Robot Tree” [youtube] and “Candy Cane Incident” [mov] (I’m converting “Last Girlfriend” to youtube later today)

Not much to report today, but I thought I’d share a photo from the news department’s holiday potluck feast [photo gallery]. [I cooked up some of the 2 liter sodas at the end of the table]

We have a long-standing tradition of lining up a bunch of tables along the hallway, and loading them up with various homemade goodies - which are quickly devoured. Later, the night crew gets to pick through the leftovers and wipe meatball sauce off thier keyboards. Holiday magic!

[Also, today I filed my video segment about e-greetings and “elfing yourself” and whatnot.]

“The best way to spread holiday cheer is singing loudly for all to hear.” - Buddy the elf

I was going through Flickr and saw that posting “Elf Yourself screenshots” are all the rage. In case you haven’t seen this marvel of modern technology, head immediatly to Office Max’s mini site: Elf Yourself. There you upload a photo of yourself and it magically pastes you into a freaky, flash animated elf.

I spent a good while uploading photos of our anchors into it this afternoon, and I know there were other elven hijinks going on with some of my other co-workers. Later tonight, I had to endure several elvish ‘performances’ before I was able to get a good screen capture of my little Keebler doing ‘the robot’ dance move - which comes right after the ‘faux humping’ dance maneuver.

Now that’s holiday cheer!