little lost robot

I once read this comic book about Dracula running around in our modern age, and how one evening he decided to pop into the White House to have a word with the President. If you’ll remember: old-school vampires can turn into fog or various beasts at will. Anyway, he met with the President, eventually got bored, and then mesmerized him, making him a lapdog for his Satanic endeavors.

This story stuck with me, and on occasion I imagine myself having vast Dracula-ish or Gandalf-like powers and privately popping in on various celebrities and world leaders. My meeting with the President would undoubtedly start with the phrase, “Dude, what the fuck? Seriously.” During this visit, we’d chat - or I’d chat, as the other sat frozen in place by my mystical powers, forced to listen - and then I’d teleport out before his next appointment (or in the case of the current administration: tee time). As I drove home from work today I daydreamed about the calamitous plight of Britney Spears (as I often do), and how I would like to teleport into her life one evening with the intent of performing some sort of supernatural intervention. That would involve me taking Britney on a “Ghost of Christmas Future” tour of her life, or perhaps just bonking her over the head with my warlock staff.

Of course in today’s society, people with wizard powers are limited to table-top dice games and the convention floor of the San Diego ComiCon. So who is left to help straighten Britney out, if not those adept in transfiguration? Perhaps the kind folks from the Church of Scientology should make a run at her. They’ve got the money and resources, and always seem keen on enlisting new celebrity clients. Instead of wasting time of trying to recruit stars like Will Smith - who clearly already have their shit together - they should be trying to snatch-up a troubled starlet and help turn her life around. I have no idea what goes into that process, but I imagine it involves someone getting out their checkbook. It’d be a major score for them if it worked out. Maybe they’ve already thought of this and decided against it, realizing that it was way too insensitive or near impossible. Or perhaps they don’t really have the resources, seeing that much of it goes into Tom Cruise videos and super-deluxe cruise ships. Either way, they’re probably not as evil as I give them credit for - something I definitely can’t say about that Dracula.

I’m not one to go crazy with internet memes. You will not find me making “lol cats” captions. Furthermore, I’m always hassled by my friends for never leaving MySpace comments or playing along with their (endless) Facebook quizzes and games. All that said, I’ve really become fascinated with all the song charts. It’s when you take the lyrics to a popular song and use them to produce a business-like chart or graph - like this one I just made for an Reo Speedwagon song [below].

Now that I published it to Flickr, I can think of a dozen different ways that I could’ve made my chart better. But in addition to it being my first song cart meme, it was also my first Microsoft Excell chart, as well. Anyway, here’s the links to two fabulous song chart groups on Flickr [boyshapedbox, and song chart group].

I’ve been having a swell time tearing through the new Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 maps over the past few evenings with my online Xbox buddies. I love cranking up the sound on the HD and then having to shout over it, relaying enemy positions to my teammates. But the real icing on the cake is when I go to reload my submachine gun. I just have to laugh when I see my photo realistic avatar (thanks to the Xbox Live Vision cam) staring back at me as I swap out magazines.

I never posted a shot of my previous Rainbow character, so I made sure to snap this one while I was dodging enemy fire last night. What I really wish I had a shot of is Hasser’s custom avatar, which is positively FRIGHTENING. I’m not afraid of Al Qaeda, avian flu, or super-AIDS - but Hasser’s screen face has got a me a little freaked out.

I’ve done a pretty good job avoiding covering the Leatherheads movie (aka “Clooneymania”) that was shot in the Greenville area last year. I put together my paparazzi story, but that was sort of a mocking thing, so it don’t think it counted. Well, today my streak came to an end when I was sent to video George Clooney and Renee Zellwegger receiving their honorary keys to the city this morning.

The actors were rather charming, but the thing I was really impressed with was having a key tripod position right in front of the stage. I’ve been to crappy local government stories where we don’t even get to set up so close, so this was a nice change. [To all the other videographers: I was hoping to get a bunch of good nat sound for my pieces today, but all I had when I got back to the station was this endless audio channel of women screaming. One long, endless scream.]

I spent a good part of my day at one of the local peach farms, shooting video (and live shots) as they braced for tonight’s freezing temperatures. Actually not too bad for a Monday, considering that a story about blooming peach trees - mixed with meterologist Jennifer Valdez - pretty much shoots itself.

And we had plenty of time between evening live shots to pose with the plastic dinosaur that lives in my Porta Brace cover.

In other news today:
I had a nice chuckle when I got home from work, received a strange package in the mail, and opened it to reveal an interesting surprise: my five free promotional HD-DVDs! My small HD library just doubled, although sadly, will never increase beyond this point.

Also I’m thrilled to see the first character stills from the live action Gi-Joe movie online. Snake Eyes looks great, but I’ve always though of him as kinda overrated. I can’t wait to see Destro or Cobra Commander (even if he’s being played by the whiny alien kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun).

Pretty good for me, but not so great for the blog, right? I’ve been busily catching up on various projects, and playing quite a bit of Oblivion on the Xbox. Work is just dandy. I haven’t been doing my Click segments much, but the reason’s not quite as sinister as you might’ve read about on Newsblues. Other than that, not much to report today. Right now I’m making a weird ginger-ale glazed ham for Easter. I don’t actually celebrate Easter, but I do celebrate ham.

Another brilliant video from The Onion. I have the videos downloaded to my Tivo now, so I always have an awesome present when I scroll through the “Now Playing Menu”.

Our thrilling, whirlwind tour through the Southeastern states ended this afternoon with a brief stopover in Atlanta (aka: “the obligatory visit to Ikea”). New Orleans was fun, but I think I would’ve enjoyed it more back when I was in my early twenties and drinking all the time. I’ve noticed a trend in my vacation photos over the past few years. I’m taking less and less shots of myself in disturbing poses with historical statues, and even fewer photos of friends engaging in pub shenanigans (a good St. Patrick’s day word).

So when coming up with a photo to epitomize this weekend, it was a draw: either a photo of the obnoxious bachelorette party (and their 6 foot inflatable penis) that seemed to be everywhere we went, all the time - or - a photo of Anne Rice’s house taken on our carriage-ride tour. There’s really no in-between.

Anyway, I kinda feel awkward about even taking a photo of Anne Rice’s house, but it was part of our tour and I took photos of every random landmark along the way. I feel better knowing that I’m not one of the hundreds of folks that drove across town with the specific intent just to photograph the house (all $23 million dollars of it). There was another Anne Rice house on the tour as well, and I think it was the one that Trent Reznor (or was it Marilyn Manson?) might’ve owned for a while. Having plenty of time to daydream during my six hour drive, I imagined starting up a New Orleans tour just to show off rock-n-roll landmarks. From where albums were recorded to notorious places, like where Dennis Hopper trashed the cemetary while filming Easy Rider. Of course, for all I know a tour like that already exists.

That’s what I heard from a bunch of thuggish teens last night in the New Orleans French Quarter last night as I passed them on a darkened street corner. I’ll admit, it was clever. Although, I had no witty retort - I just raised my obnoxious mixed drink towards them and kept going. I heard them a moment later, further down the block, shouting “Chi..chi…Chia!”

I was sternly reminded by my pal Akili, a New Orleans native, to stay where all the stupid tourists are. It was a long drive to Orleans from South Carolina, so much of our wandering ended up being in the evening. I decided to prepare for a future blog post about being pickpocketed, so I snapped a photo of my camera with my digital camera, and then snapped a photo of my digital camera with my camera phone.

This morning I realize that taking out my possessions to snap photos of them only draws more unwanted attention to said items. Anyway, it hasn’t all been shady, and I’m looking forward to exploring the rest of the city this weekend. More updates later!