So, by now, I'm sure you've ALL seen this clip...offering the only reason TV viewers in Bismarck, North Dakota, have EVER been lucky to live in Bismarck, North Dakota. Welcome to your first day of work, and remember, your microphone is ON...
Best. Public Relations Move. Ever. Seriously, this guy went from getting shit-canned for saying "Fucking Shit" on air to going on NATIONAL TALK SHOWS! And what ELSE would he be doing, y'know, being unemployed and all. Actually, as a producer who's used to working with anchors who sometimes have verbal diarrhea, the "Fucking Shit" part of the show was only the SECOND-worst part of that clip. The worst part was trying to watch those two bumble their way through casual conversation. I'm not entirely sure the woman is speaking any form of English or Engrish...and AJ has a big problem with complete thoughts: "I graduated from West Virginia University and I'm used to, um, y'know, from being from the east coast..." I will throw this guy a bone. He apparently lost his teleprompter or earpiece audio or some shit like that. But otherwise? He's terrible. Y'know, his issue verbalizing complete, well-thought out sentences and thoughts reminds me of ANOTHER guy who's been making headlines recently. Trust me, you'll want to stick around for the end of this clip:
I'm gonna push Lochte to be nominated for MENSA. Who's with me?
Hey, want to get on David Alan Grier's good side when doing a live in-studio interview with him? Make sure you spell his name right. While the video has been mysteriously deleted from the interwebs, here's a still shot of the misspelling in question. It's subtle...but it's his last name:
That's Fox Baltimore. After noting on a monitor that his name was misspelled, he went on to offer some David Alan GRIEF, saying the sequester hit the station hard and it was the raggediest studio he'd ever been in. Now, it's all in the name of comedy, but you have to think that seeing his name misspelled might have pushed him a little bit over the edge. Maybe he should try being a guest on this new late-night talk show:
Now, let's wrap up on this beautiful moment...a girl sent this letter to her sorority sisters:
I knew a few Sigma Nu guys. They even wanted me to join their fraternity. I guess this makes me glad I didn't...so I didn't have to deal with crazy chicks. Yay college.
Hey, I'm trying out this new thing of having this blog start out like a regular newscast, with anchors and everything. This is just the first time out, but I think it's gonna be good. Anchors stand by...aaaaaaaaaand CUE!
...aaaaaaaaaaand CUE!
Well, since that didn't work, let's see how our reporter on the scene of a breaking fire that killed 3 children is doing out there...
I'm sure that was a tribute dance. Y'know, like that guest book note written by Justin Bieber about Anne Frank that he thinks she would have been a "Belieber." Yes, Justin, I'm sure she would have "Baby, Baby, Baby" on auto-repeat until she heard the heavy heels of the Nazis coming up the stairs heading toward the attic. Also, to all of the Bieber fans who posted "Who's Anne Frank?"...fuck you AND your schools. I was reading the play "The Diary of Anne Frank" in middle school! I've seen the "Required Teen Reading" pile at Barnes and Noble, and I think Anne Frank's diary could EASILY replace "Murder on the Orient Express"...and I'M A BIG AGATHA CHRISTIE FAN!
Deep breaths...
Okay, enough of the runaround. There was ACTUAL news this week, and you've probably seen SEVERAL hours of it this week, potentially an entire day's worth spread across the whole week. Someone blew up two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon Monday. At this point, one suspect is dead after a shootout/suicide bomb vest explosion with police. His brother, the other suspect, is in serious condition at a hospital after...you guessed it...a shootout with police from a backyard boat (which just gave me the BEST idea for a reality show: "Backyard Boats"!). We'll get back to the suspect and the guns on the boat in a moment, but I want to briefly touch on the media's rush to be the first to report an arrest this week. And no, I'm not talking about Friday night. No, this was MUCH earlier in the week, as one of the networks that has been known for YEARS as the leader in breaking news...completely mucked it up. I have a reporter friend who says "I'd rather be right than be first." I couldn't agree more. This is just absolutely embarrassing...and who covers embarrassing better than Jon Stewart?
Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I have to clean up...my skull is bleeding because I've been beating it against a wall throughout that whole thing. Wait, I just got the name of John King's source: Johnny McBallsack. Apparently he's Scottish.
So let's go back to the suspect's shootout with police. He had somewhere between one and "a shit-ton" of guns with him on the boat when he was captured. Yes, guns. So take a moment and express your outrage that a terror suspect and his brother were able to get a shit-ton (or fewer) of guns. Now let me bring it back to what ELSE happened in news this week (or, as I call it, "Some Very Good Reasons To Punch 46 Old White Dudes...Also Including A Few Blacks And Latinos...In The Face"):
Look, I get it. Y'all likes yer gunz. I know people who own guns who are very sane individuals and would EASILY pass an expanded background check on the guns. Personally, I'd feel safer knowing that my neighbor had been THOROUGHLY checked out by SOME government agency if I saw them with a gun. To me, protection of my freedom of speech (by protecting me from being SHOT IN THE FACE BY SOME ASSHOLE WHO WASN'T SUBJECTED TO ENOUGH OF A BACKGROUND CHECK) supercedes the second amendment. Because, y'know, I figure they put the Bill of Rights in order of priority. For those of opposed to the background checks, I'm curious what they have to hide. "Well, there was this one time, as Governor of South Carolina, where I completely ditched my job for three days to go hook up with some hot latina piece of meat and, though I lost my job then, the people in charge of hiring me think I'm responsible enough NOW to get hired for a similar job...and I want a damn gun." (obviously I realize that would NOT come up in a background check, but how I can pass up another Mark Sanford joke? It's not like Alvin Greene is still talking about Jim DeMint starting the recession...)
Okay, so it's been a tough week, including a deadly fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. So let's go back to Boston. After that debacle at the beginning of the blog with the anchors, I've decided SPORTS STARS should be commenting for Thinking Hard. And I just fired up the link that will broadcast this video to all major networks live. I'm not worried about censoring anything because sports stars are pretty responsible on the microphone. So, Big Papi, let's get some final, rousing comments about how great the city of Boston is. And we're going live to the network feeds in 3...2...1...
Shit.
(Could've been worse...I could've gone with a gun control joke.)
Hey, everybody, mind the balloons and streamers...it's Thinking Hard's 300th Post Party!
...well, that was it. Thanks for coming!
In all seriousness, thanks to the dedicated readers who check back here on a weekly/bi-weekly/semi-regular/whenever they damn well feel like it basis. This blog is free and I wouldn't ever dream of charging anything for it because, frankly, no one would pay for it. So honestly I just post random shit and don't really expect people to keep up with it. But you do, and for that, I thank you. It drives me to write more than just "Some shit happened this week...here are 20 clips from the Daily Show." Wait, I guess I actually do that, don't I? Hey, let me make an admission since you bothered to show up for #300...I'm a nerd. A geek. A dork. A regular guy with a regular job...whose extracurricular pursuits are often viewed with a turned-up nose. Comics? Yup. Video games? Hells yeah. Board games? Throw me a d20 and let the good times roll. So for all of you out there with a passion, no matter what it is (with the exception of murder, rape and the Kardashians), this anthem is for you...
For those of you who prefer to just hear a song at the club and start grinding on the nearest warm body, here's the latest hit from PSY (everybody sing along!)...
Wait, so a gentleman is supposed to allow some guy to shit his pants in an elevator?
Happy 300!
-B-
My tax dollars at work. Shit, they should at least have included a provision for what happens if North Korea gets too big for its britches...like it's doing now. Okay, gotta take a deep breath. *exhales* It's okay, nothing to get upset about. Not when high school students are going through THIS:
Those poor math lab kids. But you know how drugs just cause other problems to multiply. (Yes, it's a math joke. Deal.)
Since we're dealing with exploits of nerdiness, let me get one thing out of the way: I. Love. Video games. Always have. And being in my mid-30s, I have watched many video games come and go on several different video game consoles. Allow me then, for a moment, to go retro for a look at classic video game sequels with a great (but short-lived) internet show called Sequelitis (this guy is REALLY entertaining...but it helps if you know the subject matter):
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm diagonally-whipped. RIP Roger Ebert.
-B-
That's Fox Baltimore. After noting on a monitor that his name was misspelled, he went on to offer some David Alan GRIEF, saying the sequester hit the station hard and it was the raggediest studio he'd ever been in. Now, it's all in the name of comedy, but you have to think that seeing his name misspelled might have pushed him a little bit over the edge. Maybe he should try being a guest on this new late-night talk show:
Now, let's wrap up on this beautiful moment...a girl sent this letter to her sorority sisters:
I knew a few Sigma Nu guys. They even wanted me to join their fraternity. I guess this makes me glad I didn't...so I didn't have to deal with crazy chicks. Yay college.
