Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
email topstorylive % at # gmail + dot = com

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

big 10

Another exhausting day at the buttons. Had to turn 'em on and off six times... ......................(that's a Jetsons reference.)

My stomach was tying itself in knots all evening. I brought over a small garbage can because I kept feeling like I was going to start heaving. Bear in mind I was filling in for a producer who was out sick (on the show I never work with -- the big hour newscast).

I swear I gave myself an ulcer; but it seems like the show worked. And nobody unleashed wrath on me.

Of course, let's see what happens again when the producer is out sick again.

What happens when I come to my weekend (Wednesday) and the producer is still out sick?

Sidebar:
I made a typo of "prouducer." Is that a producer who's always tooting his own horn about his shows?

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 5/09/2006 02:13:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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It's Patriot Day In Massachusetts, And The 110th Running Of The Boston Marathon

Apparently, Kenyans rock the asphalt.

nbc5i.com - Sports - Kenyan Goes On Record Run In Boston Marathon: 27-year-old Robert Cheruiyot (Google, news) has beaten all Boston Marathon records, running the 26.2 miles in 2:07:14, one second faster than a record set in 1994.

"American Meb Keflezighi placed third, the highest finish by an American runner since 1983, when Greg Meyer placed first."

It was also pretty cold to be running from Hopkinton to Boston, apparently.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 4/17/2006 05:52:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
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Fascinating

Fortune Cookie - Dashboard - Games

Hooray for widgets -- the next generation of Desk Accessories!

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 4/17/2006 04:03:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
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Misspelled

I hate it when I see "lastest" when people mean "latest." In local television we use the word "latest" quite a bit and thank goodness the humans reading it can recognize at the last possible second what is actually meant. Why don't people recognize there's an extra S in there? Spell checkers should recognize it as wrong too! Nobody cares anymore.

Today in Stop & Shop I saw a laminated, laser-printed sign at the checkout stand:

For the sake of the customer behind you, when you have finished emptying your cart, please push it foward.

That is funny, because so many people SAY "foward", incorrectly dropping the first R, but I've never seen it SPELLED that incorrect way. There is NO way anybody in such a position could possibly be using a speech recognition mechanism to construct this cute little sign, so somebody must have thought, "Well, it SOUNDS like foward, so it must be SPELLED foward." While this somebody must be a decent businessman or manager, did he ever finish high school?

It aggravates me no end. I thought about getting a pen and writing in the R by hand to make it forward but then I saw it was laminated, and even though the store manager had obviously taken this initiative himself, the lamination had a feeling of permanance.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 4/16/2006 02:22:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Another entertaining read

I have another book-report-review blog entry to tell you about. While the author doesn't seem to be as fire-breathing as Justin Henderson, she is just as entertaining.

Dahne, also known as Claire, lambastes that pillar of American literature, The Sun Also Rises. Do I have a copy of it round here? I'd be willing to bet I've got The Great Gatsby, which I read in the same year in high school, and which is in the same vein.

I guess it's been a long time since I read The Sun Also Rises, and so I don't remember much of it. I guess it's in one of those times of my life when I now feel I didn't fathom as much as I do now (don't ask how or why).

But Dahne's assessment seems dead-on; those people that you think are the pillars of society are actually very boring indeed:

Possibly it was written in order to prove that, while a bunch of people sitting around cafes in Paris or bullfights in Spain getting drunk may sound like they would do something interesting, they don't. The point can't be in the plot, since I've given it all to you right there. If having your characters go on a fishing trip provides a relief because it's finally some action, you have a fucking problem.

So this roundabout concept-pushing is what all those followers of "Papa" are drooling over?

Oh, did I mention that Brett was a nurse in WWI where her fiancee died, and Jake is impotent due to injuries sustained in said war? Well, neither does the book. You're supposed to figure it out by literary osmosis or something. It's one of those "look at what he doesn't say" books, which is another way of proving that when a brain is starved enough for sustenance it will invent some just to keep from imploding. So the point is that these people are wounded. Broken.

Hey, wanna know something?

So is everybody.

Um, yeah, I suppose I should be thankful somebody must have done the deductive reasoning for me and told all the class about the WWI-backstory stuff. Oh, yeah, I knew this, I just don't remember coming to the conclusion on my own.

As for the "broken" bit, maybe it's that relating-to-people kind of thing, like, "my situation isn't as bad as Jake's," or whatever, as to why we read about the broken who never mend themselves neatly for us.

And you know what's worse? They refuse to do anything about it. They refuse to even consider trying to do something about it.

• • •

Run or limp or crawl, it doesn't matter. But don't just sit by the side of the road and bitch about the people going by.

Now this bit is particularly interesting and inspirational to me at this point in my life because I want someone to come along and give me a swift kick in the pants. I am stagnant and have no impetus or motivation to get out of this rut that I'm in on so many levels.

I'm reading recently (or, I read recently -- not the past tense of "to read") that some people, in depression, flat-out need, get, attain, help to get themselves out of bed in the morning. Roommates, perhaps not so much helpful, but what if a group of depressed people got together to try and help each other up?

Is a group home for depressives as opposed to autistic persons, people in wheelchairs, people who have less-than-average motor skills or whose minds are younger than their bodies -- a good idea?

And now we move on to Brett, since the word 'bitch' has come up and anyway you're wondering what the hell the title has to do with anything.

• • •

[I hate]... Women who ruin people. (And yes, the archetype is almost exclusively feminine, which irks me on a feminist level almost as much as the women who play along with it.)

• • •

She does nothing but make people miserable, and you know what? They can't get enough of her. They love her. They'd do anything for her. They're being destroyed bit by bit every minute they're near her, and for all you know she's so wrapped up in herself she doesn't even see it happening.

I've known at least one woman, maybe two, maybe three, in my life who is like this. And if not particularly like Brett, then just plain manipulative.

Or maybe I'm mixing up manipulative with bossy. Both are equally abhorrent.

But with the women I realized it about, I started to realize, I am really not into this. I'm not getting the kind of things out of this relationship that I want. I don't like this woman running my life like this.

This also goes to a comment in a Fark article comment thread (do a find on the page for "resent who you become") -- where, with one of the women, I started to fight back, and it was like even though we were on equal footing for decision-making, she still had to rule the roost. And even though she was bossy, I wasn't allowed to match her in "bossiness;" she would reprimand me for what she could get away with, and when I would reprimand her for the same thing, she would laugh it off with a joke. (That fucking bullshit is unfair, but how the fuck do I deal with it?)

Dahne also notes the intense worshipping of alcohol:

If you took a drink every time somebody in this book did, you'd be blind by page forty. I mean hospitalization, maybe a liver transplant here. These people aren't alcoholics. They're superhuman. Not only do they imbibe more than the combined consumption of some Soviet satillites[sic], they manage to do it without doing anything remotely interesting.

I don't have much to say here except Bravo to the paragraph for what it says. And then:

...I couldn't find a point. So I asked the teacher. [Teacher? Aren't you supposed to be in college? We call them perfessers.] Turns out, it's one of those books where the point is that there isn't a point. Cute. Everyone in it is so ruined that they're barely alive. You know what it turns out the pervasive, underlying theme is?

Emotional blue balls.

Give me a fucking break.

Hmm. So is it that we should act and be damned instead of constantly being trapped in indecision? That everlasting theme of we want it, can't have it, once we get it we want something else?

Dahne manages to stay on topic better than I have here, but she brings up good points to kick at. Brett, as though she were reading this blog, it is unacceptable to do it halfway. You tried getting Jake up? And it didn't work? Then give up.

And I think if I'm not mistaken Brett eventually does, doesn't she?

So, short version: Ernest Hemingway can bite me.

Though he is, however, one of the few authors with whom I will admit I might lose a fistfight.

A good acknowledgement of a worthy adversary.

And an immense enjoyment.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 4/14/2006 09:30:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Dawes, Tomes, Mousely, Grubbs, Fidelity Fiduciary Bank

Okay, again I'm a geek, but I can't figure out how to classify myself this time -- a branding geek? a corporate consolidation geek? an interconnectivity geek?

I was so psyched when I saw a logo in somebody else's VO the other night -- of a bank robbery or something -- where a Banknorth had gotten new logos to match TD Canada Trust.

So, yes, I was aware that it was now TD Banknorth -- after all, it's the TD Banknorth Garden. It just hadn't hit me that it was all the same company now.

Now my question is this: if, say, I was to travel a lot between Toronto, New York, and New England (like Boston), would it behoove me to get a TD Canada Trust or TD Banknorth account, and would I have to pay exhorbitant ATM fees to withdraw cash here or there, beyond the exchange rate?

(Of course, I could ask the same question about Citizens Bank having joined the sphincterical* Royal Bank of Scotland Group.





If I put my U.S. bank card in an RBS ATM in the British Isles, can I really expect to get away without paying an arm and a leg?)

• • •

Shoot. I'm hungry too. For a bacon cheeseburger.

*: look closely at the logo

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 4/05/2006 02:29:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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THE ONLY THING I WILL SAY ABOUT WORK TODAY IS:

I am exhausted.

But, I did make it into the dictionary:

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 3/30/2006 02:41:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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SEMPRINI?!

Semprini elected party chairman of state GOP:

New Hampshire Republicans elected Wayne Semprini as their new party chairman Saturday.
Semprini, 55, of New Castle, will replace Warren Henderson, who resigned because of family health problems.

There is a Monty Python sketch where Michael Palin runs through a list of "naughty" words that are no longer allowed to be used on the program. The words include things like B*M, KN*CKERS, KN*CKERS, B*TTY, and SEMPRINI.

At that point, a girl rushes on in disbelief, shouting, "Semprini?!" She's rushed out of the studio.

Then, cut to the chemist's scene where we'd been a few minutes earlier. The chemist exits his dispensary and asks the customers waiting for their prescriptions, "Who's got a boil on his Semprini, then?" He, too, is rushed out of the studio by the censors.

Now that there is actually somebody with that name, especially a politician, where did it come from?

Turns out Semprini was a pianist. Whether he was a 12-inch one is anybody's guess. But he performed for many years on the BBC, according to Wikipedia.

But it sounds like it is more likely to be a name than anything else.

There is also:
• a blogger in Glasgow called Semprini
• an entry at everything2 for Semprini

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 3/26/2006 10:26:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Posh Nosh

You're the man now, dog:*

To be sung by a eunuch, or, failing that, a man in falsetto:

What care I for my house and my land?
What care I for my treasure, oh?
What care I for my new-wedded lord?
I'm off with the raggle-taggle gypsies, o!

* Or, my sorry-ass excuse for it.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 3/22/2006 03:41:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Super Police, reporting for duty

I originally commented on this on LiveJournal but I got very dorky myself, so I did not want to clog Troy's space up with my rabbiting on:

Palabra Jot - Palabra Jot - Quite possibly the most dorky thing Troy's ever done in his life.

Click it to see first the super that he aired in his morning show when the Westminster Kennel Club dog won.

Then read the comment I had originally:

...okay, apparently I'm NOT done being dorky for the day...

I could spend twenty minutes discussing exactly HOW I didn't get this super and how I might have been *helped* to get this super, but suffice it to say that, as you aired it, Troy, that was ...pretty bad! It makes me want to bury my head in the sand, or, failing that, my pile of dirty clothes on the floor.

I say this in the most affectionate way possible!

RUFUS WINS-RIGHT: ...okay... better for the joke...
RUFUS 'WINS-RIGHT': calls attention to what you're trying to make it sound like...
RUFUS WINS, RIGHT?: ...what question are you asking here?

Maybe you were a headline writer for the New York Post in a past life and this stems from that.

Geez!

Now I'm trying to remember some goofy thing I put in a morning show and nothing is coming to mind. Weekend evening shows and others are tending not to let time, pacing or brainpower in for that sort of thing.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/22/2006 02:17:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Days are numbered

So I have turned the lights back on. I figured, I tried to turn people away from viewing the site, got 85 visitors one week at a low point, and went back up from that again this week, so might as well go the next step before closing up shop here.

Because that is indeed my next step: closing down TopStoryLive -- turning it into "vintage" TopStoryLive, with only the entries left -- and opening up a new blog with intent of making it far less work-oriented.

My latest thinking for the next blog is: Bill's search for Mister Right.

Yeah, I know, I'm already falling asleep about it.

I didn't like the idea of "mrright.blogspot.com" or "misterright.blogspot.com" so I was playing around with ideas of love-representation. Herbie the Love Bug sprang to mind. I thought, what if I do something like Where's Herbie?, as I search for my own love-bug. I know, it's disgustingly cute. It also smacks of Where's Waldo?

Then, to make sure someone else hadn't already done it, I googled "where's herbie blog." And then I found this:

Zornitza Stefanova: Traffic Jams:

In my car this morning, I thought of a question derived from the book, which is "Where's Herbie?". To most people this question means nothing. But it is supposed to be standard jargon among those involved in production planning. In a chapter in the book, the protagonist takes a group of grade school students hiking. The slowest boy in the line is Herbie, and he screws up everyone else's progress. Hence, if you figure out where Herbie is, you can fix delays in your production line or on the freeway, for that matter.

So I'm thinking it's not going to be "wheresherbie.blogspot.com" even though I'm sure there's that one swing-arm or robot in the mechanical workings of my life that's screwing everything up.

I don't know, McGuffin? The search continues.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/19/2006 10:47:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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drink

It's really creepy how the Cocktail test at Go-Quiz.com Quizzes, Questionaires and Personality Tests for Blogs and Online Journals got me spot on:

How to make a Producer Bill

Ingredients: 3 parts anger 5 parts crazyiness 5 parts energy

Method: Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Top it off with a sprinkle of sadness and enjoy!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/13/2006 01:42:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Bill's iTunes is listening to... "Only You" by Yaz on Napoleon Dynamite.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/11/2006 11:01:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Feminine mystique

I have a theory about the Feminine Mystique. It has returned -- in a different format.

I know I'm a guy, but hear me out!

Consider this scene from the pilot of Desperate Housewives:

FORMER CO-WORKER: So… how’s domestic life? Don’t you just love being a mom?

NARRATOR/MARY ALICE YOUNG: And there it was - the question that Lynette always dreaded.

LYNETTE: (hesitant) Well, to be honest...

NARRATOR: To those who asked it, only one answer was acceptable. So, Lynette responded as she always did - she lied.

LYNETTE: It’s the best job I’ve ever had. (smiling widely)

(script excerpt courtesy Hypnoweb)

Perhaps you might say Felicity Huffman was born to play this role. In interviews -- most notably the one she did last month with 60 Minutes which I loved -- she has asserted that concept that she is trying to be a good mother, but it is really hard.

And, I would say, when your child is being difficult, being a mother doesn't seem the greatest thing in the world to do.

Whereas practically everybody else in the world (note, this is an exaggeration) is all about "it's the most rewarding thing i've ever done" and so on.

The crux of The Feminine Mystique is there is more to life than being a homemaker (read Betty Friedan's obit from CNN/AP).

I don't know, I've never had a child, I probably would like to try being a father someday. But you don't have to .... I don't know ... gloss over the difficulty when speaking about raising a child.

Maybe I'm just thinking of all the celebrities who appear on talk shows and say it's wonderful to be a mother. .....I mean, you don't want to say, NO, IT'S AWFUL, I HATE MY CHILDREN, but come on! .......

.... I think it was somewhere in one of the Ramona Quimby books where there was a discussion of how you may hate your mother, father, brother, sister, etc. at certain moments, but love them at others. .....

More Felicity dish at Blogging Baby.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/10/2006 03:04:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Sorry I couldn't make it. Had a prior engagement.

--

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/04/2006 06:10:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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The computer car that smiled

When the Macintosh first came out it was an example of the slogan that Apple would use several years later: Think different. The Mac was the first computer that smiled, somebody once said.

This Studio Stills Photo reminds me of that: the car that smiles.

And what's more, this trumps all those Chevron commercials where the cars were talking conspiratorially to the camera like Aardman Animation's "Creature Comforts."

When I was in Toronto last week I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe* and during the trailers I saw something that started out seeming like it was just a car commercial. It's not uncommon sometimes to see just flat-out commercials for products like cars or things before the movie these days.

But then the cars started talking.

So, since I still haven't seen Lilo and Stitch, Finding Nemo, or The Incredibles, maybe I'll actually see Cars.

*: While watching I realized I must have stopped reading the book halfway through and never begun again. Sometime after the freezing of certain characters into stone I got lost and then I thought we were being led up into a quick cutoff of the story like The Lord Of The Rings, (at least as I remember it) thinking Peter would become The Dawn Treader. But face it, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/03/2006 02:49:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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The broken back

This is a copy of my comment about Random Acts of Sanity: BrokeBack Mountain

Because typed text often gets misinterpreted, picture this comment in a musing voice:

I sat through a movie last night virtually in tears, as the silver screen repeated off my biggest fear: That in being gay I may end the rest of my life being lonely.

Boy, I had no idea my being lonely was because I was GAY, jeez!

That is an awful thought -- but now I wonder: is that the case with me? is it BECAUSE I identify that way? is every gay man like this? How cruel!

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 1/18/2006 02:02:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Celt

Maybe I will actually return to blogging TopStoryLive. However, the lights are still off.

Despite that, you can still click to hear allisonbarber.com -- cool Celtic artist who went to Ithaca. It's funny who you'll find through clicking through Friendster.

a) I want to hear my boy Patrick doing a duet with her. Not that their styles are any sort of match, mind you, it'd just be fun.

b) I want to get the name of the person who did her head shot. Even though he or she had a great piece of material to work with to begin with -- Allison Barber is made to look exquisite and seductive in this photo. I am determined to get a head shot like that done while I am in Toronto, Kel -- not that you have the balcony to do it on providing a nice cityscape in the background.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 1/18/2006 01:44:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Bill's iTunes is listening to... "Sleepwalk" by The Brian Setzer Orchestra on The Dirty Boogie.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 1/17/2006 05:03:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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Lights out

Lights out

I should probably explain why the page has gone dark.

I just felt like turning the lights out on TopStoryLive for a few days. I mean, like any darkened room, you can still see some things, and the things in the room are still there (well, most of them anyway) so you can feel around for them, if you will.

The more-easily-viewed version of the page will likely return at a later date.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 1/12/2006 10:15:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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