Wednesday, July 27, 2005

One of these days, I'm going to simply give in to my almost irresistable urge to do an entire posting in Pig Latin. Today, however, is not that day, my friends.

Top Story: 47 year-old Bruce Walrod allegedly was a frequent visitor to a phone chat room (they still have those?) While on a sojourn there, he allegedly promised two girls, 13 and 15, that he would meet them in an Aloha park and give them beer. The cops say he did and, go figure, stuff like that is illegal. One of the girls' moms showed us that she had Walrod's name and phone number on her phone's Called ID. Sheesh, Bruce, cover your tracks, dopey. Hilary Hutcheson was On The Scene in Aloha to tell us about all this. Her part is now on the left and is crooked.

A guy accused of peeping was nabbed early Wednesday morning. The cops, answering a complaint, found him walking along a nearby railroad track. Since no one could positively ID the guy, all the cops could charge him with was trespassing.

A patient at the State Nuthouse in Salem has gone AWOL. I drove past there on Wednesday afternoon. Ever seen that shack? One day on the inside of that haunted house and you'd break out, too.

Meth Watch. David Frietas/Freitas/whatever was in News Control to tell us about a meth bust in a trailer park in Astoria earlier this week. The video of the place just screamed "White Trash." They must have found some knives and stuff there, too, 'cause Davey Boy had a knife as his prop for this story.

Did Victoria Gould critically hurt her son? That's the suspicion.

There was a shooting at 29th and G Streets in Vancouver. The victim is expected to be OK. I loved the name of the eyewitness: Chache Perez. As in Joannie Loves...?

A body was found in Salem. It was so decomposed that the gender couldn't be determined. Or as they say in those on-line chat rooms KPTV loves so much, "MorF?"

The next story was one of those semi-misleading pieces KPTV likes to scare their viewers with. It started off implying that there was an unusual increase in violent crime over the past few weeks. As the story progressed, I was yelling at the TV (yeah, I do that), "Doesn't the violent crime rate go up every summer in cities?" Lo and behold, the cop who was featured in the story said that the violent crime rate goes up every summer in Portland. Duh. So, the whole story, as presented by Jamie Wilson, was essentially a big nothing.

Fire Season 2005. A wildfire has started in a clover field in Banks. David Wilson was in the studio (on tape?) to inform us of this fact.

A fire along I-205 was determined to have been started by a car. And now you know.

Break.

Remember Randy Pope, the guy who was convicted recently in Lincoln County of molesting at least 9 boys and who kept videotapes of his victims? The creepy bastard who lured the boys with pot and meth was sentenced to 53 years in jail while one of his victims was in the courtroom to watch. Even Pope's sister said that he needed to be out of civilization for a while.

James Gassner is also accused of sexual assault. As hard as KPTV works to give the impression that this sort of thing is wildly out of control, I'd really love to see some actual statistics.

There was a 2-alarm fire somewhere or other.

We got to hear the 911 call about that murder-suicide in Dallas from Tuesday. It was as creepy as you'd imagine.

Dean Schwartzmiller (from earlier this week) had his hearing moved. Justice may grind slowly, my friend, but it grinds exceedingly fine.

Alabama wants to strap GPS monitors on the ankles of sex offenders and make them wear them for five years. Isn't that what they do to endangered animals in the wild? Yeah, I know, what's my point?

Northwest Tonight

*An alleged stabber was arrested in Idaho.

*The guy we mentioned the other day who wanted to blow up the ferry in Washington state was sentenced to 22 years in jail. I didn't have to say "allegedly" because he's been convicted. So there. He was ratting out some other alleged would-be-blowers-uppers-of-people but the deal ran out so off he goes to the pokey.

War On Terror/London Terror

*The Brits have arrested a Somali man. They say he was involved in the unsuccessful bombings last week in London. This story gave us our first-ever "You don't expect that in this neighborhood" -type comment by a non-American. Oooh, milestone!

Fight For Iraq

*Just in time for the mid-term election season, tens of thousands of troops may come home from Iraq next Spring. The Bush administration is now claiming that the Iraqi troops are well on the way to being able to defend their own country without U.S. assistance. This claim directly contradicts a recent report that says that only 3 batallions (out of a needed 107) are ready for battle.

Breaking News. There's been a homicide in North Portland. More later.

Break.

A new instance of mad cow disease has been found. As I read later on the Internet, the sick cow was actually discovered last Fall, but the scientist who found it lost his notes or some lame excuse for not revealing the discovery sooner. Anyway, supposedly, the cow didn't enter the food chain so therefore there is no threat to the eating public.

3 teenage hikers from West Linn were lost near Multnomah Falls but they managed to find their way out of the woods today. One of them made the most of his 15 seconds of fame by cracking wise about how he wished they had more sushi to eat while they were the next prospective Natalee Holloways.

Break.

So, uh, did I tell you the Space Shuttle was a piece of shit with a rocket strapped to its ass or what? The thingie that fell off it during launch was a TILE. You know, a TILE, like what fell off the last one, two years ago. The one that went BOOM. Because of this, the Shuttle fleet has been indefinitely grounded. Small consolation to the astronauts who are floating around the Earth in that friggin' Space Pinto.

A billboard hawking beer has been taken down because of controversy. This story didn't make a lot of sense because the video of the actual billboard didn't come up, rendering the copy Wayne Garcia was forced to read incomprehensible.

Jim Hyde was in Waterfront Park, where an Oregon Brewers' Celebration is being held. As you may be aware, Oregon has a shitload of microbreweries. Jim made a point of talking about people bringing their small children to the festival. See, kids, alcoholism isn't a disease if you only drink difficult-to-obtain, expensive Yuppie beer with some fruity shit mixed into it! It's more of an...addiction-related hobby.

Weather. Break.

Back from the break, I loved how Shauna told us that tonight's Final Cut/News Across America was "full of bad decisions."

*A Big Lots semi was hanging over the edge of an elevated highway in Texas.

*Some stupid woman got herself shit-faced and thought it would be a bad idea to drive home. OK, so far, so good. The hilarity started when she had her 10 year-old daugher drive instead. The girl promptly drove into a house. This all happened in Albuquerque, which is fun to type.

*Missing blonde Natalee Holloway is Back In The News, Baby! A pond in Aruba was drained because someone said they saw a couple of young men hanging around it on the night Natalee disappeared. I take it they found nothing or we would have heard, right? In the course of this story, we got a quick look at a poster offering a million dollars for information leading to her recovery. I knew her folks were well-to-do, but they have THAT kind of dough?

*Some out-of-touch person in Miami city government thought it would be a Kumbyah-bringing-everyone-together kind of thing to promote a "Ghetto Party" complete with a watermelon-eating contest. Some people of the Negro persuasion found this upsetting. Go figure. I guess they just forgot to schedule the penis-measuring contest.

*Speaking of fuck-ups, some new road signs in Massachusetts have an outline of Alabama on them. I kind of like the concept of Massabama.

*Some guy is advertising for a bride on a billboard in Madison, Wisconsin. Five bucks says it turns out to be a radio station promotion of some kind.

*A little boy in Hillsboro saw his cat carried off and killed by a neighbor's dogs. Since the attack didn't involve a human, the neighbor got his dog back. The boy and his mom are understandably upset about this.

Breaking News. This was about the homicide from earlier. Jamie Wilson was On The Scene to tell us that cops were now there (Vancouver and Fremont in North Portland). There are no suspects yet.

Ah, to wrap things up tonight, we got an I-Team Report. Keri Tomlinson was in News Control, having apparently evicted David Frietas/Freitas (I do think she could whip his ass in a fair slap fight). Turns out a guy named Earl William Knott was a guest in the State Cuckoo Lockup in Salem (the same one I drove past on Wednesday). Well, Earl has his good days (manic) and his bad days (depressive). His hobby, when in his manic phase, involved running an ad in the Oregonian seeking a realtor.

Rian Muleback took the bait, not knowing Old Earl was a resident in Wacky Town. Knott got him to reveal his Social Security number. Knott claimed he was related to the Knott's Berry Farm people (he isn't, according to Keri).

Under the law, patients are allowed to use a payphone at the hospital, which Knott did in the course of his cons. "Erica," a former friend of his, says he loves real estate (and who among us doesn't?) He also had business cards describing him as "scamster." Well, he's honest!

Knott, who declined to talk on camera, is now out of the nuthouse and is in county jail.

The Final Cut ended 6 seconds early. Hey, no Hollywood Buzz tonight!

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

*Suspended Miami Commissioner Art Teele fatally shot himself in the head in the lobby of the Miami Herald building late Wednesday afternoon. Although Matt Drudge implied that this had something to do with Teele being mad at "the media," the article he linked to offered no evidence of that.

*President Bush postponed his visit to that Boy Scout Jamboree where 4 scout leaders were electrocuted the other day because of bad weather. He'll show up there on Thursday, barring another delay.

*Speaking of George, American voters disapprove of the job President George W. Bush is doing 53 - 41 percent, his lowest approval rating since becoming President. This compares to a 50 - 44 percent disapproval in a May 25 Quinnipiac University poll. "Quinnipiac," like "Albuquerque," is just fun to type.

*The House passed CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, by two votes. Some analysts say this will create many new jobs in the U.S.; others say it will cause a lot of jobs to leave the country. Either way, isn't this more important to the life of the average viewer than a rampaging monkey in Pennsylvania?

*I'm not even going to try to summarize this story. Just go and read it for yourself:
http://www.nbc17.com/news/4773243/detail.html