Newsroom Snickering

I am a night owl, as most would clearly see by the time I am writing this post.  The news just before late night TV shows give me all the news I can afford to watch, coupled with another half hour of reading the Times before going to work.

But I’ve noticed something recently between the anchorman and anchorwoman on WCBS’s 11:00 news.  At first, it was just a little bit of teasing that both parties were guilty of, but now it looks to be jokes not unsimilar to those tossed around between fictional newscasters on Family Guy.  The other night, I heard the anchorwoman ”Coming up, a publication that [anchorman's name] has his heart set on joining,” or something similar.

Sure enough, the story was on the new FDNY calendar, where New York’s finest firefighters pose to help fund raise, I guess.  After the story, the anchorman stated he took offense to the earlier comment, and she said, “Oh come on!  You love to look at yourself.”  And then to sports.

I figure someone should record the news every day to keep watch of their antics and edit them together.  I see this getting more and more juicy.

Spore-aphernalia (56k warning)

Recently I came into contact with a college friend of mine in the journalism business.  He said that there is an article in the works about a video game named Spore.  He says that he’s spent hours fiddling with it, and this is surprising to me because I never knew him to be a gamer at all.  When I saw it and what it was about I was… amused.  Here are a few things that amuse me about it.

Creatures as Objects…or is it Vice Versa?

Yes, that’s right.  A sofa animal.  I think of it as a kind of odd reversal of the concept of personification.  Whatever the case, this is some really weird stuff!  Let’s continue…

Now you can have your animal and eat it too (wait… ah, never mind)

Yikes.  Some pretty dangerous crap you can make!  Speaking of dangerous…

Rip-offs

This little fellow looks familiar (electrifying depiction).

So does this one.

Ok, this one’s a stretch, but it is supposed to be Brian Griffin from The Family Guy television show.  All of these creatures made in the likeness of popular symbols of pop culture.  I guess it is not fair to call it a rip-off, maybe “intellectually inspired” is the appropriate phrase here.

Unreal

It is pretty remarkable that anything you can imagine can be made real.  I can understand why it appeals to my friend so much, who has a very creative and artistic mind.  I am not one of those people who can create monsters like this, but I can appreciate it.

Yes, that is a sperm cell on the right