Weekend Live Web page

To those of you I haven't told yet, my show now has its own page on our station's Web site.

You can access it by going here: http://www.nbc15.com/weekendlive

The site features news stories covered on the show, events going on that weekend, information on in-studio guests.

Also, you can see video of live remote and in-studio guests from our show. They're in the "Featured Video" section in the top right. Melissa, our live reporter, does an interview each half-hour during our show, so we splice together her interviews into one video.

This Saturday's live interview (1/27) was one of the best - the Monster Nationals' "Monster Truck and Thrill Show." If you click on "Melissa at Monster Nationals," you'll see "The Tailgator," "Bad Habit," "Lil' Miss Dangerous," and quite possibly the world's fastest recliner chair, the "Cra-zee Boy." You have to see it to believe it.

Hillary for Prez

The race for President in 2008 just got a little bigger; Hillary Clinton says she's "in to win": http://www.hillaryclinton.com/

While I'm happy that a major contender for President is a female, I'm a little hesitant to throw my support behind her. It's not because of her views or her abilities - I'm sure she would make a great President, and would make a lot of good decisions to get this country on the right track.

What I'm worried about are nasty campaign attacks by the other side if she does receive the party's nomination. If the last two presidential elections are any indication, Karl Rove and the conservatives are really, really good at character attacks. So good, in fact, that they were able to raise doubts about the legitimacy of war hero John Kerry (remember the bogus Swift Boat campaign?) and painted Al Gore as an arrogant exaggerator. And let's not forget the rumor that spread in 2000 about John McCain's adopted Bangledeshi daughter being his illegitimate child with a black woman.

All indications point to Rove and his goons doing the same for the next election, ESPECIALLY with someone whose last name is Clinton. There is way too much dirt that can be dug up on Hillary, and even if most of it is false, that doesn't mean they can't use it to create the PERCEPTION that she's a horrible person. And there's already a strong base of people who are completely anti-Hillary.

Which brings me to the other "candidates" in the Democratic field. And I use quotes, because no one these days seems to want to actually commit to running for president (which is one bold move that I applaud Hillary on). Barak Obama is certainly another good choice: he's certainly got the right mentality for the job, he's got name recognition, and he has a sort of aura of optimism that no other candidate has. I believe he's the type of person that can bring about a more positive tone in an election, and he doesn't really have anything (at least that I can see) character-wise that can be used against him.

However, I know people will say he's not experienced enough, which is always counteracted by the fact that Abe Lincoln only had a few years of experience when he took the office. My main concern is that there's still a segment of this population that's not ready for a black president, and that's a little sad. Maybe his candidacy can bring a real dialogue about race in this country.

My pick right now is New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who's expected to announce that he'll file the papers for an exploratory committee tomorrow. He's got the experience: he's a former senator, ambassador to the UN, and Energy Department Secretary. I think the latter two jobs are appealing to me, especially because this current administration has done a lot to screw up foreign policy and has done very little to slow down our energy consumption. Plus, governors typically do better in presidential elections, because they have the look of an outsider.

And, if elected, Richardson would be the first Hispanic person to be president, which I don't think many people realize. I also don't know at this point what can be used against him. But, I wouldn't put it past Karl Rove to somehow use Richardson's strengths against him.

The Democrats have a very diverse field, which is encouraging. And if John McCain ends up being the front-runner for the Republican side, we may be able to get rid of some of the nastiness that's plagued the last two presidential elections.

Things are looking up?

Work update:

The weekend show has been running pretty smoothly with a few glitches every once in awhile, but all-in-all I think we're proud of the content we put out there. It's still hard to make the transition from weekday AP to weekend producer, mostly in the sleep category. On Saturday mornings/Friday nights, I have to be at work about 3.5 hours before my weekday schedule, and it's really hard to try to get enough sleep on Friday during the day. During the week I can usually wait until it's dark out when I go to sleep, but on Friday I think I put extra pressure on myself to go to sleep during daylight hours, which ends up backfiring.

The first hour or so of my shift that night/morning is pretty hellish because of the lack of sleep, but once a certain time rolls around and the caffeine and adrenaline kick in, I'm good to go. After that everything seems to go pretty well, and I usually leave with a good feeling after the show.

I'm just worried about having this perpetual feeling of tiredness while at work, and it really kills my motivation at the beginning of my shift. I can handle it for now, but I know that this schedule is not sustainable in the long term.

I've got a feeling that I've impressed people enough to gain respect from my coworkers, but I don't know if or when that will translate into a promotion. And don't get me wrong, I love working with the weekend team, and I'm glad we have this show; but I think health-wise, it's just not good for me to have this kind of shift, and I feel like someday it's all going to come to bite me in the ass.

Another question is, do I necessarily want a promotion? I know some of the day-shift producers can get really stressed out because of deadline pressure, and I don't want to turn into that. I think in the end, I've made the right choice in going back to grad school. But for now, I'll do my best in the job I do. I can tell lately it's been getting easier to get everything done, although a few things fall through the cracks now and then.

One sad note: our executive producer/assistant news director, Glen, had his last day on Friday. He's taking a news director job in Eau Claire. Glen probably was one of the main reasons I decided to work at NBC15 after I had interned there, because he was so good at injecting humor into work, and he was really good at what he did. I think I (and the other producers) look up to him as a mentor, and I'm a little sad because I'm losing the person I could always turn to for guidance. I know someone will take his spot, but the newsroom won't be the same.

However, I've been looking at it a different way to soften the blow: in the beginning of my short producing career, Glen was the one person I came to for story ideas and reassurance when things went wrong, and I believe he is one big reason I stuck with the weekend job. Now that the show is going much better, I haven't had to rely on him as much. In this way, I feel like he's kind of like a mother (or in this case father) goose in that he's taught me what I need to know to fly; now it's up to me to use that knowledge and spread my wings and fly with my show. And now I think I have a lot more confidence in the decisions I make with the show.

When I said goodbye to him yesterday, he congratulated me over and over on the weekend show, and told me to keep "pulling the train" of the show. And for him, for now, I'll stick with it.

All You Need is "Love"

I'd like to talk about a topic that's near and dear to my heart. It's been a passion of mine since about third grade, and many people know me in terms of my near-obsession with this topic.

Of course, I'm talking about the Beatles. I just ripped the new "Love" CD from my roommate (and am listening to it while typing this post). For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's basically a remix of Beatles songs done by producer George Martin and his son Giles for the Cirque du Soleil show.

Now I already know there are some Beatles purists out there who will no doubt discard this album as an abomination without actually listening to it. To them, I say, give it a chance.

Upon first listening, I must say that there are some really cool things to it. The songs are at their best when they transition almost seamlessly from one song to another. There are also other songs, such as "I Am the Walrus," where certain elements of the original sound are highlighted more than other. The strings in this song really come out, and they make you stop and think, "I never really heard those before in the original." Other songs use bits and pieces of other songs to include in the background music.

All in all, it ends up as a rethinking of how the songs go, and true Beatles aficionados will no doubt spend their time trying to pluck out each foreign sound and determine where it originally came from. It's kind of a fun mental test.

However, there are some songs where it's hard to determine what's different. In those songs, I don't think the remixing goes far enough. And that's probably the biggest flaw of this album.

Overall, though, I think most Beatles fans will be pleased. Anything that has "new" and "Beatles" in the same sentence will always be welcome to me. Heck, I even liked the DJ Danger Mouse mash-up of Beatles' "White Album" songs with Jay-Z's "Black Album," dubbed "The Grey Album." But I think the sounds in "Love" are more recognizable than in "The Grey Album." There are a lot of "I can't believe they did that" moments in this CD.