Todd gave me a heads-up on this, at the Potomac News, where we both worked, once upon a time:
Media General Northern Virginia Community Newspapers is seeking a bilingual reporter to provide local news for its new Spanish-language weekly newspaper and to cover diverse local cultures for its dailies, the Potomac News and the Manassas Journal Messenger. Must speak Spanish and English. This reporter will cover hard news and do features as assigned, as well as generate his or her own story ideas. He or she will also work closely with other reporters, photographers and a graphic artists, and editors.
So far, so good, right? Let’s skip down to the required job skills:
Cover breaking news in all kinds of weather or difficult terrain, including covering police stand-offs, moving quickly to avoid becoming a target, climbing/descending stairs or ropes or ladders or steep slopes.
It makes you wonder what the heck is going on back in Woodbridge.
We just received this by fax:
On Wednesday, September 7, 2005, the Victorville Chamber of Commerce will hold the Verizon State of the County Address sponsored by Verizon, American Medical Response and High Desert Primary Care, beginning at 7:30 a.m. at HomeTown Buffet. The meeting will feature 1st District County Supervisor Bill Postmus giving the State of the County Address. All Victorville Chamber members are encouraged to attend. The cost is $15 with a reservation made prior to 12 p.m. on Tuesday, September 6, or $20 at the door. For more information, call the Victorville Chamber at 245.-6506.
“Verizon State of the County Address?” Well, you can’t say the Victorville chamber aren’t sharp businessmen and women.
The greatest roleplaying game of all time, Kobolds Ate My Baby!, is getting a new edition in December.
Words cannot describe how giddy this news makes me. If you thought Grand Theft Auto was bad, wait until you get to play hapless little furry monsters intent on kidnapping and eating babies!
Between the new edition of KAMB and Races of the Dragon, it’ll be the Winter of Kobolds.
I wonder how badly I’ll scar Jenn if I teach this to her as her first RPG.
Some art from the new edition of KAMB.
So, we’re now on the third or fourth episode of Over There. Unlike most of the Internet, I’ve actually watched the series before criticizing it. I watched the latest two episodes back to back last night on TiVo, in fact.
For a while now, it hasn’t really clicked for me in the same way as FX’s other hairy chested man series, like The Shield and Rescue Me, do. More importantly, it doesn’t click like the best of Stephen Bochco’s other work does, specifically Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue (at least before the latter got wimpy and silly).
Last night, I think I finally figured it out. It wasn’t the preachiness — all of the above shows did that at times, and really, Over There is probably the least preachy, most of the time, especially once all the competing messages are dumped atop each other — it’s the lack of realistic little details. Other than the soldier in the first episode eating coffee crystals from the packet, nothing in this show feels more realistic than one of the blur of Vietnam movies in the late 1980s. In fact, pretty much every element of the show feels ripped from someone else’s war movie. Now, I’m just an Army brat, not Army myself, but the whole thing feels very ersatz. I think Eric Palladino’s Sergeant Scream character has more to it than we saw at first, but really, does the world need yet another screaming sergeant angry whenever someone calls him “sir?” How many movies (not to mention the M*A*S*H TV show) have we seen the creeeepy military intelligence officer who lies every time he opens his mouth? And of course, the rest of the characters aren’t startlingly original, either.
But the coffee crystals (and Eric Palladino) are sticking with me. The show has potential. I think many of those working on the show are genuinely interested in creating an apolitical wartime TV show. If they can just stuff all the Hollywood types in a sack and get some (more) consultants there to load up the script and set dressing and direction with more vermisilitude, they’ll have a hit.
Right now, though, it tends to stay on the TiVo a week or two before I watch it.
They’re really starting to cut into bone on Rock Star: INXS. Jessica Robinson is pretty much destined to have a career fronting some band, though; she’s the Mouse That Rocked. By day, she’s a somewhat mousy looking coffee shop art chick, by night, she’s a bikini top-wearing rocker who could be Michael Hutchence’s pissed-off sister. I’m sorry to see her go, but she’ll be back.
And I think the top three vote-getters this week, Jordis, Mig and Marty, are probably the final three. Jordis is still the one to beat at this point, with Marty and Mig tied for second place. (Ty is probably in fourth.)
I’m starting to look forward to the new INXS album. I’d love to download some of the singers’ songs, but to hell with MSN Music; I’m now downloading a WMF file, ripping it and then importing that into iTunes. Whoever the well-paid idiot is at Microsoft who thought that up, I’m just going to have to disappoint them.
Reality TV Magazine agrees with me about the probable final three.
In other news, I finally caught an episode of the American version of The Office. Yep, it’s just as annoying as the British one. I’ve had enough fear and loathing in the office for one lifetime; I don’t need to watch it turned up to 11 on TV. Life’s too short to watch shows not of the caliber of Rescue Me.
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