Coackroach 30, Staff 0

This is too funny not to post...

COCKROACH GETS TV STAFF FIRED

Thirty TV station staff have been sacked after a cockroach was seen scuttling across a news reader's desk during a live broadcast.

Disgusted viewers bombarded the station in Turkmenistan with calls saying it had put them off their dinners.

The large brown insect crawled a full lap of the newsdesk on the 9pm news programme, Vatan.

But the appearance of the insect had more far-reaching consequences than viewer complaints.

The country's president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedo, was told about the incident.

He was so horrified that he fired 30 workers from the station.

The sacked workers included journalists, directors, camera operators, and technical staff.

The country's minister for culture, Gulmurat Muradov, has also ordered an internal investigation.

According to The Guardian, it is not the first time the country's leader has had a run-in with the state news channel.

Former president Saparmurat Niyazov, whose authoritarian eccentricities were world renowned, sacked several executives after drunken technicians failed to screen the new year's address to the nation.

The bulletin eventually aired at 3am.

I find it ironic. Usually management doesn't appear on the air...


Hey!! No heckling in this blog...!!

Ahem..

But this isn't the first time a bug has caused hysteria on a news set..



Even a little gecko gets into the act...



What was it W.C. Fields said? Oh yeah, "Never work with children or animals."

Apple

I'd like to say that those cutsey commercals that have the younger, hipper kid as the Apple and the frumpy bespectacled middle aged man as the PC were the reason that I wanted to get an Apple. That's not the reason though.

My laptop, a Gateway, was three years old and starting to give me error messages and just shutting off anytime it felt like it. Well, now it can go to the senior citizens rest home called, "The Kids' Computer" now.

I got a Mac Book Pro, 15.4", 2.4 GHz laptop. Man, this thing is fast!! Came with a free printer, after the $100 rebate.

I need to get used to the lack of a second button like the PC has. But If that's all I need to get over, it's not a bad switch at all.

Now all I need to do is set up the new printer and the wireless print server whic will probably take all day for me.

Why Is It?

That people feel the need to honk their horns when we're going live with a freeway behind us? We're about 50 feet from the roadway, looking down on it and someone going by at 65 m.p.h. thinks that they're going to get our attention.

What are we supposed to do? Stop our broadcast to say, "Look...!! That person in the white Kia just honked at us!! They're great aren't they folks?"

Pay attention to your driving and lay off the horn, you attention whores.

Mr. Plow...That Name Again Is Mr. Plow.

Why does every man who has a pickup truck and adds a snow plow to the front of it think that he is saving the Earth and democracy in that order. Homer Simpson wannabees totally.

Having a snow plow driver dude with a pickup truck swearing at me for being in his way when he needs to plow a large parking lot, even though I was there for two hours before he showed up was very funny to me. I couldn't move my truck because my mast was up and I had one more live hit to do so I told him to start at the other end and I'd be gone by the time he got to me.

He started swearing at me again.

Go ahead Mr.Plow. Saving the world from snow, communists and Islamic radicals.

Mr. Plow I salute you. Now go plow yourself.

Rain, Rain, Rain

Yesterday here in NE Ohio, our area got about 2-3" of rain. I guess I should be happy that it wasn't snow but truthfully, I'd have been happier with the white stuff instead of the wet stuff.

But we got rain and with that much rain falling you get a lot of water pooling under overpasses. You also get a few people that can't tell when there is a lot of water in front of them and they drive their cars into about three feet of standing water.

I was sent to one of these places where five people decided they could make it through that much water. Each one needed to be pulled out of their cars because they couldn't make it through. I shot my video from the north side of the overpass then realized that I could get much closer if I went to the south end of the scene. I did what any logical person would do. I drove around the area using side streets to get to the other side.

I set up my shot, edited three v.o.'s of various flooding areas that I'd shot that night and fed them back. Then I waited for my reporter to show. About 15 minutes before our hit my phone rings..

"Brian, where are you at?"

"I'm on the south side of the water. Where are you?", I asked.

"I'm on the north end. Can you see when I turn my headlights off and on?"

"Yep, I can see them. But you'll need to come around. The scene is better from this side."

"Ok...but I think I can make it through the water."

"What??!!?!"

"I think I can make it through. It doesn't look that high."

"Um...I don't think you should do that. There's already one SUV that is stuck in the water. Your's won't make it through that.."

"But it doesn't look that deep. I think I can really make it.."

"Famous last words.", I told him. "Go around through the Metro Parks and don't risk it."

I could just see our reporter becoming part of the news story by getting his car stuck in the high water. I know that his car would have flooded and he wouldn't have made it through.

He eventually went around and made the shot but I didn't need the headache of my reporter not making the shot because he thought he could make it through.

Although, it would have made great video....

How Yunz Been?

Me? I've been sick for pretty much the past three weeks. Sore throat, cough, clogged up ears, headaches and gunk pouring from my eyes. Yes, it's been a fun time span and I'm still not over it.

I'm popping pills (all non-narcotic) like there is no tomorrow and I still feel like crap. I'm back to work but it's difficult to get through the day without coughing up a lung or my left ear feeling like it weighs 10 pounds and wanting to fall off.

I hope I feel better soon. It's getting very frustrating.