little lost robot

(Oh man, that’s a terrible headline, isn’t it?) Tonight I posted my last station vodcast for 2007, and (as you might’ve guessed) it’s a look back at some of my favorite Click on JL tech segments from this past year.

Of course, after it was finished I remembered another half dozen things I could’ve put in there, but it was already getting too lengthy for the newscast. Read more

While out shopping in the next few days, and you find yourself in a video game store like Gamestop, here’s a fun thing thing to work into the conversation if one of the employees come over to help you. The clerk says, “You finding everything you need?” and then I like to reply with (in a completely unassuming tone), “Yeah, um…my son is seven years-old and he wants me to get him an Xbox game.” At that point they either ask you, “Which game?” or you just casually say, “It’s..um…Manhunt 2.”

For those of you not up on the video game news, Manhunt 2 is supposedly the most brutally violent game out right now (or least it’s the one that the conservative anti-fun crusaders are whining the most about), so the game store clerks should’ve been warned to not sell it to kids and stupid parents. The guy will either find the game for you, or sorta get freaked out and not know how to handle the situation. Either way, it’s been something that has brought me much joy over the past few trips to the mall.

Actually, if I had the room the actual title of this post would be: Hasser has too much time on his hands, even when he’s not using his hands. I say this after receiving several bizarre emails from him yesterday:

“Dear J L,
How are you doing? I am writing this email without using the keyboard I’m using Windows Vista and the voice recognition software built in to theoperating system. Let me repeat that, I am not typing on the keyboard at all. I am using nothing but my voice to type you this email. The computer is listening to my voice and typing what I am saying to it in this email section. How cool is that? One day are here and will shrivel into nothing and all we will have to do is speak… No wait a minute…Probably by then we’ll just use our minds to communicate. But until then, this new voice recognition software is pretty cool. I think you should check out the voice recognition software for yourself, and an email — “

The message ended abruptly, but was followed-up with the next message:

“OK… I was typing or shall I say dictating your email to the computer, When I Said the word send what all of the sudden the email decided to send itself to you, before I was finished dictating it to the computer. I am trying again to dictate this e-mail to you, by not using the keyboard. So we’ll see how it goes this time. I can see lots of room for improvement for this new technology, but it’s still pretty cool. I guess I’ll just have to get used to the idea of talking to the computer to get my work done. OK this is getting old already. Maybe I just mumble when I talk, but the computer seems to be having difficulties understanding what I’m saying, so I will wrap this up. I will definitely keep trying with this as I read the computer learns more about your voice patterns as you talking to it.

Talk to you later,
Hasser”

PS- holy shit the computer just recognized my own last name when when I just said Hasser! That is actually pretty surprising…

The thing I find the weirdest about this email isn’t that he’s at home, sitting around talking to his computer pretending it’s me, but the fact that he started it off with “Dear, JL”. Anyway, I make fun of him, but after I’m done with this post I’m gonna fire up the VR software and talk to my computer as well.

Straight from the LLR video vault are two weird, little videos I made a few years back with my partner-in-crime, Melinda. Back in the day, photographers at KPTV were occasionally charged with creating a two minute video that the credits would play over at the end of teach Sunday newscast. I gotta tell you: I made some weird credits pieces, man. I had dancing action figures, creepy Halloween costume skits, and one segment where Hasser just drank a Diet Coke in front of the camera for two whole minutes to “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Of course, none of segments these were ever questioned, especially since another photog was allowed to show raw hamburger meat being cooked or (and I’m not making this up) a shaved cat licking someone’s nipple ring for two solid minutes. Ahh, the golden days of TV news!

Anyway, here’s two of my favorite credits pieces I did - both involving a full cast of Star Trek: Voyager collector’s dolls, that I’m now ashamed to admit I actually owned. Melinda and I were inspired to shoot this after the station lobby was “toy bombed” just before the annual Toys For Tots toy drive, and later we shot a sequel when Voyager was cancelled. We were a UPN affiliate at the time, so it made more sense back then. The credits pieces eventually ended, for they were completely erratic and probably didn’t really help our Nielsen meter strategy. At least I have these little holiday gems to fondly look back upon.

I’d also like to point out this that was years before Robot Chicken.

Today was the annual newsroom holiday luncheon potluck at WYFF. (I brought the potato salad). At one point, while waiting in line I decided to snap a photo of the feeding frenzy. And the moment after I got the shot, I thought to myself, “This seems strangely familiar.”

When I got home I flipped through my digital photo archive, and sure enough: I shot some of the exact same pics! It’s kinda funny that Hendon is on the foreground of each photo, but that’s mainly because he’s my lunch buddy and not because he likes cutting in front of me so he can get the warm chicken tenders.

Because if you do, might I suggest the USB Robot Webcam?!

The camera plugs into your PC and then allows just enough cord for you to move the bot around into cool positions around your workspace - although I suspect it’ll spend a majority of its short-lifespan falling from the top of your computer monitor. I costs around $15 at Staples and is totally worth the price, if only for novelty value (as I suspect the picture quality of a $15 webcam is probably shoddy).

I’m working on getting away from the last template, and getting back to my black background. Also, this template will allow me to take my plugins and blogging potential a step further. The header image is chosen randomly, and one or two of the images don’t look so hot now that I see how they flow with the page - others, like the images of my glasses might seem freakishly large, staring back at you if your native monitor resolution is 1024 or lower. I kinda like that.

Why the sudden redesign? Apart from the fact that i do this every 4-6 months, I had a blogging intervention from my pal Stone. He informed me that my template was too conservative and boring. He also mentioned that I need to blog more (which is probably true).

I was roaming around with my wife on our holiday shopping odyssey this weekend, and I would occasionally slip away to poke around in the toys or electronics departments in one of the million stores we visited. Some of you may know of my fondness for discovering lame knockoffs of iPods and other popular gadgets. Here are two items that are guaranteed to make your child cry on this upcoming X-mas day:

Somewhat resembling the Sony PSP is the “Electronic Handheld Game”. You know it’s a bad sign when there aren’t any screen captures of the game, or any particular description of what game you’re playing exactly. Later, I realized that each device had the title of the game labeled in the corner, this particular one being “soccer.”

And cashing in on the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band is the “Shredmaster Jr.”

You plug it into the television and “rock out” or possibly “shred”, although I’m certain none of the songs provided are the least bit recognizable, unless they’re public domain gems like “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “Row Row Your Boat” - in which case you would most certainly not be rockin’ on Christmas morning.

There’s so many weird, viral promotional website out there right now, but this one kinda got my attention. You upload a photo of yourself to see what you look like as one of those nasty Terminator robots with perfectly sculpted abs. [The “subject in action” button on the bottom-right shows a little video clip.] Read more