So I am new to the area. I've been here 7 weeks now and I love it. It's not that cold, the snow doesn't stick around to long, and everyone is really friendly. I moved here from Pocatello Idaho. Anyone heard of it? I think it's about 30 degrees there and snowy. Don't get me wrong, I love the snow, but I hate driving in it. Also, I know a lot of you will disagree, but the shopping here nice. Pocatello has no Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Dillards, and the list goes on and on.
With that said, is there any place around here that I have to see? Is there something so cool about the big county.... that you take your out of state friends to see it when they come to town? If so, I want to see it.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Leno/Conan Update: "Coco" Takes the Gloves Off
Since my last post, the Leno/Conan saga has become exponentially more fascinating. Now, we know that Leno will be back at 10:35 after the Olympics, and Conan has one foot out the door at NBC. And it's fascinating to see high-profile people take sides in this debacle.
Leno has the backing of the only people who matter: NBC executives. Jeff Zucker, whose reputation is that of an executive who fails upward, won't let go of Leno. Longtime NBC executive Dick Ebersol TRASHED Conan in the New York Times. Never mind that his reasoning was absurd and contradictory; he cited ratings as the reason why he's not sad to see Conan go. But for two years, Leno got crushed by David Letterman. A lucky break got Leno on track (a "hard-hitting" interview with Hugh Grant after he was caught with a hooker).
Now, Jay is quickly becoming reviled. Jimmy Kimmel did an incredible thing this week: he did his ENTIRE Tuesday night show dressed as Leno, and eviscerated him in the process. It was subversive and brilliant. And what does Leno do to respond? He has Kimmel on his show Thursday, where Kimmel eviscerates Leno to his face, and Leno plays dumb. And that's on the same day that Leno signs his brand new deal to take back the 10:35 spot. I watched the replay of the interview, and said out loud "Jay, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" Bizarre stuff.
Meanwhile, Conan has become the darling of this generation, which I am dubbing "the Twitter generation", and has support he's never seen before. His days are numbered at NBC, and he probably only has six Tonight Shows left before he gets the ax. This may be unprecedented: a guy that knows he's getting dumped by his failing network is absolutely dumping all over it, and people are not only eating it up, but ravenously supporting him. The biggest Must-See show RIGHT NOW is The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. After next Friday, it may be a while before anyone sees him on television. It's not the same as guys who've decided to step down, and wrap up their shows with a long, slow Battan Death March to retirement, a la Johnny Carson. This is 2010, baby. It's going down quick and dirty, and quite literally, ANYTHING can happen on the Tonight Show next week. Those five shows should be packaged and sold as their own DVD Box Set.
Stay tuned. I know I will.
Leno has the backing of the only people who matter: NBC executives. Jeff Zucker, whose reputation is that of an executive who fails upward, won't let go of Leno. Longtime NBC executive Dick Ebersol TRASHED Conan in the New York Times. Never mind that his reasoning was absurd and contradictory; he cited ratings as the reason why he's not sad to see Conan go. But for two years, Leno got crushed by David Letterman. A lucky break got Leno on track (a "hard-hitting" interview with Hugh Grant after he was caught with a hooker).
Now, Jay is quickly becoming reviled. Jimmy Kimmel did an incredible thing this week: he did his ENTIRE Tuesday night show dressed as Leno, and eviscerated him in the process. It was subversive and brilliant. And what does Leno do to respond? He has Kimmel on his show Thursday, where Kimmel eviscerates Leno to his face, and Leno plays dumb. And that's on the same day that Leno signs his brand new deal to take back the 10:35 spot. I watched the replay of the interview, and said out loud "Jay, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" Bizarre stuff.
Meanwhile, Conan has become the darling of this generation, which I am dubbing "the Twitter generation", and has support he's never seen before. His days are numbered at NBC, and he probably only has six Tonight Shows left before he gets the ax. This may be unprecedented: a guy that knows he's getting dumped by his failing network is absolutely dumping all over it, and people are not only eating it up, but ravenously supporting him. The biggest Must-See show RIGHT NOW is The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. After next Friday, it may be a while before anyone sees him on television. It's not the same as guys who've decided to step down, and wrap up their shows with a long, slow Battan Death March to retirement, a la Johnny Carson. This is 2010, baby. It's going down quick and dirty, and quite literally, ANYTHING can happen on the Tonight Show next week. Those five shows should be packaged and sold as their own DVD Box Set.
Stay tuned. I know I will.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Houston is NOT that bad!
I actually just moved to Abilene from the Houston area just a few months ago, and part of my job here is to help produce the evening newscasts.Well, I couldn't help but noticing, just weeks after starting my job here, that NO good news ever comes out of Houston. I've been seeing that trend pretty much every day now.
Well I'm here to say, Houston is NOT that bad!! It's actually, in my opinion, the best city in the world!! You don't have to worry about getting shot going to the grocery store, or in your own driveway for that matter. I have spent about 80% of my life in Houston and I'm still alive....
I will say though, I went home last month in a plane, and as we approached the Houston area, there was like a black haze sitting right on top of the city. The skies were also like a blueish-grayish color. Sooo, the air quality in Houston is NOTHING like here in Abilene. :-)
I just love the deep blue skies here in the Big Country; simply gorgeous! And I haven't had ANY allergy problems so far....
But I hoped I have changed some minds about the image of Houston! Trust me, it's a fabulous city minus the air quality, lol.
Thanks for reading and watching :-)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Snuggie?? Really?!?!?
I'm definitely a night owl, and my work hours don't help. So it's only natural for me to watch more infomercials than television shows.In my moments of dozing in and out on my couch, there's always a commerical I never seem to miss--the Snuggie.
Ahhh yes, the infamous Snuggie. I know people have written about this "blanket with a sleeve" before, but why is this thing still so popular?
I don't know about you guys, but my fingers get cold fast; and looking at the picture, this new blankie sure won't help me out. I guess there's a population suffering from cold arms that could benefit from this.
Even so, is it that difficult and painful to take your arms from under your blanket and change the channel or read a book? Seems like good ol' Snuggie's trying to make everyone even more lazy.
The funniest part of the commercial was how they advertised that you can wear it and go to outdoor gaming events to keep toasty. Ummm...I wouldn't wear this thing out of the house or I'm pretty sure people would ask me which cult I belonged to (or why I stole my church's choir robe).
I don't know. Call me crazy, but blankets are just fine for me.
Or maybe I really AM the crazy one because Sir Snuggie made a killing from this odd invention, and I'm stuck writing about it on a blog.
Makes me want to create my own frivolous invention that will have me blogging all the way to the bank. Patent Pending...
TV news without the teleprompter
There was a little problem with our teleprompter Monday morning. There was nothing there. We had to do Daybreak the old-fashioned way...reading if from the paper in front of us. It was odd, and you may have noticed us looking down more than usual. There were no words on the screen, and we get used to reading the words flashed on the series of mirror images that appear at the lens. It made it a little more of a challenge, but we had the news and weather to present. The best we could hope for is that you didn't notice. If you did notice, we did our best. The teleprompter was working again this morning.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Leno Drama Leading to Big Changes?
"Your local news starts right now!"
If you're like me, you hear those 6 words every single weeknight, right before KRBC News at Ten starts. It's the last thing Jay Leno says as his new show fades to black. And now, the world knows that the days of hearing that phrase are numbered. At least, in a way. But we'll revisit that in a little.
I've always had a little something of a fascination with Mr. Leno. I was never a regular Tonight Show viewer (I'm more of a Jon Stewart fan). But even when I was younger, I remember clipping a couple of headlines out of my hometown newspaper in east Texas and mailing them in to him, hoping they'd pop up on his show (to my knowledge, they never did).
Then in high school, I got my start in television because of another Leno bit. Through a scheduling error, I found myself in Media Technology class ("A/V Club" to some). It allowed me and some of my friends to roam around the halls of our school, filming whatever we could find that was interesting that was worthy of filming. Then one day, we had the brilliant idea of ripping off "Jaywalking". Although I'm a producer now, I was the on-camera guy for this job. We came up with some EASY questions, just to test our classmates. And sure enough, they couldn't answer.
Flash forward a few months: several installations of "Hallwalkin'" later, and I'm something of a campus celebrity. And in a good way, too! You'd be surprised how many people want to be on TV, even if it's just broadcast through the school, and even if they know they're going to look dumb if they can't answer easy questions.
Now, years later, Jay Leno's show comes on right before mine. But thanks to a series of questionable moves by the big guys at 30 Rock, that experiment appears to be ending soon, and Leno will be out of prime time. I didn't work for KRBC when The Jay Leno Show launched, but I remember the contention that went on before the show started. Affiliates around the country weren't happy about it. Case in point: The NBC station in Boston -- Leno's hometown, mind you -- initially refused to even run his show, and only did so because NBC, shall we say, talked them into it.
I'm not sure how I feel about this whole saga... I've heard it said that the late night drama is more interesting than the late night shows, so maybe this isn't such a terrible thing after all. But what's next? NBC has let it be well known that they don't want to lose Leno, even if it means making some Major-with-a-capital-M changes. What about Conan O'Brien, who was promised The Tonight Show years ago? Does he accept his show being pushed back a half-hour? Does he bail for another network? What about Jimmy Fallon and... that other guy that comes on after Jimmy Fallon?
And of course, what of KRBC in Abilene, Texas? We have no control over what shows the network picks to run before our newscast starts. We're just spectators, along with the rest of the country.
So, I want to know what you think. Are you on Team Jay? Team Conan? Do you think, like I do, that Randy Turner should be the new host of The Tonight Show? (He'd still be able to do news and weather for KRBC... the guy is just that good). Or do you think people should just turn off the TV and curl up with a good book... after watching the 10 o'clock news, of course.
If you're like me, you hear those 6 words every single weeknight, right before KRBC News at Ten starts. It's the last thing Jay Leno says as his new show fades to black. And now, the world knows that the days of hearing that phrase are numbered. At least, in a way. But we'll revisit that in a little.
I've always had a little something of a fascination with Mr. Leno. I was never a regular Tonight Show viewer (I'm more of a Jon Stewart fan). But even when I was younger, I remember clipping a couple of headlines out of my hometown newspaper in east Texas and mailing them in to him, hoping they'd pop up on his show (to my knowledge, they never did).
Then in high school, I got my start in television because of another Leno bit. Through a scheduling error, I found myself in Media Technology class ("A/V Club" to some). It allowed me and some of my friends to roam around the halls of our school, filming whatever we could find that was interesting that was worthy of filming. Then one day, we had the brilliant idea of ripping off "Jaywalking". Although I'm a producer now, I was the on-camera guy for this job. We came up with some EASY questions, just to test our classmates. And sure enough, they couldn't answer.
Flash forward a few months: several installations of "Hallwalkin'" later, and I'm something of a campus celebrity. And in a good way, too! You'd be surprised how many people want to be on TV, even if it's just broadcast through the school, and even if they know they're going to look dumb if they can't answer easy questions.
Now, years later, Jay Leno's show comes on right before mine. But thanks to a series of questionable moves by the big guys at 30 Rock, that experiment appears to be ending soon, and Leno will be out of prime time. I didn't work for KRBC when The Jay Leno Show launched, but I remember the contention that went on before the show started. Affiliates around the country weren't happy about it. Case in point: The NBC station in Boston -- Leno's hometown, mind you -- initially refused to even run his show, and only did so because NBC, shall we say, talked them into it.
I'm not sure how I feel about this whole saga... I've heard it said that the late night drama is more interesting than the late night shows, so maybe this isn't such a terrible thing after all. But what's next? NBC has let it be well known that they don't want to lose Leno, even if it means making some Major-with-a-capital-M changes. What about Conan O'Brien, who was promised The Tonight Show years ago? Does he accept his show being pushed back a half-hour? Does he bail for another network? What about Jimmy Fallon and... that other guy that comes on after Jimmy Fallon?
And of course, what of KRBC in Abilene, Texas? We have no control over what shows the network picks to run before our newscast starts. We're just spectators, along with the rest of the country.
So, I want to know what you think. Are you on Team Jay? Team Conan? Do you think, like I do, that Randy Turner should be the new host of The Tonight Show? (He'd still be able to do news and weather for KRBC... the guy is just that good). Or do you think people should just turn off the TV and curl up with a good book... after watching the 10 o'clock news, of course.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Dapper Does the Rose Bowl
While mosts sports fans in Abilene were at home watching the Rose Bowl, former KRBC sports director Michelle Dapper was on the sidelines taking in the action. Dapper now serves as the sports director for KEZI, the ABC affiliate in Eugene, Oregon.As you can imagine, the Rose Bowl has been the top story in town for the last few weeks. However, the Ducks were left with disappointment when it was all said and done. Ohio State was able to defeat Oregon 26-17.
Michelle described the atmosphere in Pasadena as "amazing," and I'm sure it was. Check out her report from the Rose Bowl by clicking on this link: http://kezi.com/page/157580.
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