Sunday, June 19, 2005

Yeah, I took yesterday off. Dinner got a late start and it ain't easy taking notes on KPTV's 10 o'clock "news" show when you have both hands, let alone doing it with one hand while you try to eat with the other. Hey, I give, I give and I give to you people. Don't I deserve the occasional night off? Anyhoo, here's the skinny on tonight's debacle:

Top Story: A guy is dead after trying to help four women who got dumped from their boat in the Clackamas. Kind of a shame.

"Storm Team 12," in the guise of regular Weather Weasel Mark Nelson, showed up early to tell us the reasons for the wacky thunderstorms the Portland area experienced on Sunday. There was even hail in spots East of Portland. Power went out for about 4000 customers.

Ah, the old "fix your driveway cheap" scam is being pulled on some senior citizens in Washington County. For some reason, this piece didn't feature the actual scamee, but some oldsters who happen to live nearby. They were, as you might guess, upset about the crime happening right there in their very own neighborhood!

That King City cop accused of child molestation is going to get his day in court soon. Yup, it's the old "we don't have any new scary crime to tell you about but we still want to make you think crime is rampant so we'll just do another story about something we've already told you about even though we don't have any new details" ploy. Yes, that's the actual technical name.

Some nitwits went to a car dealership, asked for a test drive, headed out with the salesman in the car alongside them, then made him get out and stole the car.

A nurse already in jail in Texas is the suspect in some Oregon deaths.

A teacher in Tigard was killed on his bike on Saturday. Uh, where was this story on SATURDAY NIGHT??

A man from Eugene, apparently having an argument with his significant other, drove off a cliff south of Newport.

Northwest tonight

*The Prime Minister of Vietnam is visiting the Northwest currently. This marks the first time a Viet P.M. has made an official visit to the U.S. since the unpleastantness between the two countries. You may have heard about that; it was in all the papers.

*Something mysterious is killing birds in Yakima. They look healthy but they die suddenly.

Break.

America Tonight. Question: How does this segment differ from News Across America?

*"KPTV's Julie Banderas" was in Aruba to tell us about the ongoing Natalee Holloway case. You know Natalee Holloway; she is the subject of the current attractive young blond woman missing person case. 4 young men have been arrested in connection with the disappearance but no one has been charged with anything yet.

OK, I have to tell you a few things about Julie "Banderas." First off, she doesn't work for KPTV, although you probably figured that out. She works for Fox News Channel. Second, her real last name is Bidwell, not Banderas; she seems to have changed it to her mother's maiden name to sound Hispanic. Third, I had a little encounter with her two years ago when I went to New York (my home town) to perpetrate a media hoax in which I pretended to be a minister who runs a church specifically for smokers; it was a satire on New York Mayor Bloomberg's ban on smoking in restaurants and bars. Julie Bidwell/Banderas took the bait and did a story about me which ran on her then-employer Channel 5, WNYW's 10 o'clock "news" show.

Oh, not too long after my little scam on her, Ms. Bidwell/Banderas got canned by Channel 5 for having simulated sex with her cameraman in their news van. She got hired soon after by Fox News Channel. Keep that in mind the next time you see someone on FNC go on a rant about "family values" or the like.

*There's a missing scout in Utah. He may have been kidnapped.

*A plane crashed in Florida. The pilot is dead.

*There was an accident involving the log flume ride on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. The current Steel Pier is, by the way, a very pale successor to the old Steel Pier which burned down years ago.

*Lightning hit a house in Florida and caused a fire. Yeah, lightning'll do that.

*Next was a fairly complicated story about a woman who lives in a house on National Park Service property. The Park Service wants to kick her out despite a deal she signed with them way back when. This is in Colorado.

*People in Iowa City, Iowa made a giant pizza, although none of them apparently thought to inform the Guinness book people. Duh.

*The annual Hollerin' Contest in Spivey's Corner, North Carolina got the obligatory coverage.

Break.

Fight For Iraq

*A suicide bomber in Baghdad blew up a restaurant, killing dozens of people along with himself. What was that about the insurgency being in its "death throes," Vice-President Cheney?

*An Iraqi reporter was shot in the neck. Yup, it's just a matter of time before they run out of people to kill. Then we will have won!

War On Terror

*American troops shot off some rockets, killing "20 terrorists." Uh, pardon me for asking a question here, but how can they possibly know that they were all terrorists?? You know, since they were blown up by remote control and all, I mean.

*The Department of Homeland Security is looking for people to adopt puppies that will eventually be trained to be bomb-sniffing dogs. I love a feel-good angle on a terrorism-related story, don't you?

Break.

The state of Oregon is going to spend mucho dinero on new amenities for Crater Lake, including a new visitors' center, etc. Yes folks, a big hole in the ground is the Number One tourist attraction in the entire state!

The 10th annual Gay Pride Parade was held in Portland today. It's supposed to be the third largest parade in Oregon but the camera angles seemed to have been chosen to hide the absence of people along the parade route. No, I'm not crying "liberal bias" or any crap like that.

A little girl needs a transplant of some kind. This was your standard "lump in the throat" story. See, if we had universal health care, we wouldn't have stories like that, reason enough to be for it.

Weather. Break.

Final Cut

*First we got a story about some "High Tech Home Inspections" nonsense. Apparently, you can hire a guy to come in with an infrared camera to show you where the studs in your walls are. I think I've seen a tool in the local hardware store that costs about $20 that'll accomplish the same thing, but hey, this was High Tech! High Tech is always better.

*Remember that security screw-up involving Mastercard holders from the other day? Well, it's no big deal, according to the spokesman for the vendor that caused it, because it "only" involves 68,000 cardholders.

*"High Tech" seems to be the Mystery Phrase tonight. The next story was about a "High Tech Gold Rush" in California. Some guy with a financial interest in the Idaho-Maryland mine told us that there is a lot of gold still in there (what would you expect him to say?) They're planning on reopening the mine. Don't wait, get in line NOW, suckers! By the way, this story was "reported" by "KPTV's Claudia Cowan."

It's Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes night in the Hollywood Buzz

*We saw pictures of the virgin and the hearthrob in London at the premiere of one of their new movies (do the details really matter here?)

*Some guys thrust a fake microphone at Cruise and squirted him with water. Oh, what a wacky prank!

*Holmes' Batman Begins is Number One at the box office.

Back to non-Cruise-related "news," we found out that a grapefruit smell on women makes men estimate their age as younger than it actually is. Ain't science grand!

Pump Patrol

Uh, gas is a little more expensive in the Portland area at the moment than it is in the rest of the country.

Speaking of gas, we got a long story about a guy who has converted his Volkswagen Beetle to run on cooking oil. The conversion only works on diesel engines and costs about $1500. He gets his oil from a Chinese restaurant. So there's that.

WHAT KPTV DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT TONIGHT (a sampling):

*Oil hit $59/barrel for the first time ever. Nah, this isn't important or anything. By the way, didn't our "allies," the Saudis, promise to step up production to lower prices?

*Shouldn't the "Fight For Iraq" segment include something about how no clear winner has emerged in Iran’s presidential election and an unprecedented run-off vote will take place next Friday?

*The European Union summit meeting collapsed in chaos. Nothing to see there, keep moving.