This morning while I was trying to line up tonight’s Good Question expert, I logged onto
Twitter, where a friend had posted about breaking news, a fire in downtown Minneapolis.
He thought KARE was live streaming pictures of the fire. I pointed him to the WCCO.com livestream (we’re pretty aggressive about getting live breaking news on the Web). He then
wrote this suggesting we have an emergency breaking news feed on Twitter.
Greg asked, we responded.
You can follow WCCOBreaking on Twitter here. We’re just starting it, so it’ll be an experiment of sorts. But we’ll send out alerts there when there’s big stuff going on, so you can come over to the website to see what’s happening.
CNN has a similar Twitter feed, I find it helpful. They only send out alerts when it’s really important, so they don’t overwhelm me with dumb alerts. Not to pump up my own employer, but our general manager here is pretty smart about television just being one platform for us to distribute our message. So I like that we’re experimenting with different things.
Hey, one bonus of being on Twitter and
following me: I often post our
Good Question topics there, looking for people who might want to share thoughts. And those comments make it into TV stories. So it’s another way for your voice to be heard.
OK, not of my heart. But, I, like the rest of the free world, was looking at the lunar eclipse last night. It was awesome.
I snapped a couple pictures from my back porch:
If you’re a photo geek, there are more than 17,000 photos tagged with “lunar eclipse” at Flickr.com right now. The site was a little slow last night, as all of us uploaded our shots.
My dad called me during the eclipse, quite happy that after 33 years, finally I was geeked to see an eclipse. He was amused that Seth wasn’t really into it. (my son did ask me if the moon was coming back.)
For more great pictures, check out the wcco.com slideshow of your lunar eclipse shots.
(Reposted from WCCO-TV DeBlog)
It’s one of the biggest things you guys are asking me about. The transition to digital television is one year away. If you get cable or satellite, you’re good to go. Don’t worry about this. But if you have any TVs that get over-the-air broadcasts (TVs that use an antenna), you’ll need to take some action.
You can buy a new TV, but you don’t have to. You can buy a converter box (it’s like a set-top cable box) for around $50.
Wal-Mart is selling them, as is
Best Buy. The federal government is sending out $40 coupons to people, you can get up to two of them.
Apply for a coupon here. We’re going to keep updating you over the next year at
WCCO.com/digital, so you can check back for more information and all the information there.
More questions answered at
DTVAnswers.com (set up by broadcasters) There’s tons of information at
the federal government’s Digital TV page. We tried to answer why WCCO isn’t in high-definition TV in our story tonight (
Benjamin’s video question is in beautiful Hi-Def right here). It’s complicated, but basically, it costs a ton of money and takes a ton of time to transition ALL our equipment to hi-def. Not just studio cameras, switchers, tape players, editing machines. We have to upgrade our cameras for out in the field, live trucks and helicopter. And WCCO has three transmitters: the metro transmitter here, KCCO in Alexandria, and KCCW in Walker. We cover 59 counties (another metro station only covers 20-some counties). That costs money to upgrade each transmitter. The metro is ready, the outlying stations are not.
Related: In USA Today there’s a story on
Why reality shows aren’t in Hi-Def. Do you want to send a video or regular Good Question?
Put down the remote and send it in!
Monday, Feb. 18, 2008 — 10:38 a.m. Tonight’s Good Question has me taking on the bigwigs at WCCO. Benjamin sent in a video question
in hi-def, asking why we’re not Hi-Def. It’s pretty funny stuff, but the question is one I get a fair amount.
So I was a little surprised when our managers said, “Sure” when I suggested we answer the question for GQ. I presume the main answer is that it’s expensive to transition, but there must be more to it than that. So I’m about to interview our GM and ask her the tough questions. You won’t want to miss this one at 10!
First, Happy Valentine’s Day to my wife, Alyssa. She’s amazing.
Second, today’s a big day for our own Lisa Kiava. She got engaged on Valentine’s Day. Her husband Tim was working on a TV show that was doing a segment on Valentine’s Day, so he decided to propose. He was going to surprise Lisa in a hot air balloon, but it was too windy. So he got her on the most popular morning radio show in Louisville, and proposed on the air. She was in studio under the ruse that the DJ wanted to do a “Meet the reporter” segment. Very funny.
Alison Lorge is working on a slideshow, that may or may not be called “WCCO Smells.” She’s been asking everyone what kind of cologne or perfume they wear. Look for that
in the slideshow section of wcco.com. My cologne should be no surprise to any of you:
Very Sexy.
Last night’s story on chocolate was fun, you can
find that here.
And last year, Ben Tracy answered whether this is a Hallmark holiday,
you can find that story here.
For tonight’s Good Question, we’re talking about pets (because of the Westminster Dog Show). Why do we feel drawn to animals?
Out in the field, I talked with a guy who told me that Burnsville had 60,000 residents, and 60,000 licensed dogs. That sounded remarkable to me, and I was tempted to put it in my story. But I thought, maybe I’d better double check that. According to Burnsville Animal Control, historically they have about 600 - 1000 licensed dogs. 600… 60,000… hey, what’s the difference!
The story is pretty interesting tonight… I learned three new things about why we’re into pets… so check it out at 10.
I asked for thoughts on spending time online, and got some great answers on my
Facebook,
MySpace and
Twitter pages.
Erica said, she’s “totally addicted to the internet, not that there’s anything wrong with that.” She added,
Just had a conversation… yesterday about applying 12 Steps to the internet. I am powerless!”Paul
twittered that his wife thinks he has a problem, and “It’s more about her thoughts of ‘when’ I should disconnect. ‘Honey, we had a live stream of your labor’…I don’t see a problem.” (he did broadcast the birth of their child via live streaming on the Internet)
Alan sent me a
Twitter reply ”Yep, I work from home so I need the Internet to work but my home computer is close and hard to resist when a tweet or email dings.”
I love Nina’s e-mail via MySpace: “Honestly, I never thought I’d ‘waste’ my time online. Scratch that, it’s not a waste, it’s an addiction. 10 minutes becomes one hour, then it’s three hours, and before I know it, sometimes it’s bedtime! Ha! I YouTube old shows and watch them. It’s great. Anything from Smurfs, Baywatch (when the storyline was about Matt and Summer) and of course Felicity! I LOVE Felicity. Some generous fans have uploaded all four seasons. I finally finished it! LOVE it and want to watch it again. :)”
My friend
Taylor sent me this fascinating assessment of the issue:
it compares checking e-mail to playing the slots or training a dog. I think that’s true. In my case, I check e-mail somewhat obsessively. But I think it’s more a habit than an addiction. A bad habit. But I have to keep answering your good questions. I should turn over some space in the blog to my wife, to have her write about my online obsession.
Drop me an e-mail with your thoughts. If you can squeeze it in with all your other on-line commitments.
Monday, Feb. 11, 2008 — 11:24 a.m.
Tonight, we’re answering a viewer’s good question about Internet use. Kelly Thomas wrote, “Why do I always have to check my email?” and “Why are sites like Facebook or MySpace so addictive?”
It’s a great question. I compulsively check my e-mail at home. I wonder if it’s how my brain is wired. So I want your stories. E-mail me your stories of online overuse. Does it drive your husband or wife crazy? Do you check work e-mail while you’re on vacation? Do you feel like you spend more time with your Blackberry than your spouse?
E-mail me, and we’ll put it on TV. (Or, send a video clip.)
(repost from DeBlog)
I wanted to draw your attention to this press release from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. I’ve never met Detective Tim Harris, but I can assure you we’d get along.
The release is titled: “Elvis is in the building!” (that stolen Elvis painting wasn’t really stolen. Someone thought it was put out as garbage, so they “saved” it.)
It includes references to “Return to Sender,” “Hound Dog”, and ends brilliantly: “Thank you, thank you very much.”
Tim Harris, I love you tender(ly).
(from deblog)
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 — 9:45 a.m.
Not to say, “I told you so,” but, well, I kinda told you so. Last week when we asked the Good Question, “Why Do We Caucus?”, we pointed out many of the flaws with the caucus system. Today, many people are talking about the need to get a primary started in Minnesota, including the Star Tribune editorial page.
Last night, my wife and I were at the Town Talk Diner in Minneapolis, and a guy came in who was turned away from voting because he showed up at 8:04 p.m. On our news last night, I saw pictures of traffic jams and heard of voters who couldn’t vote because there were too many people in line. At some precincts, they ran out of ballots, and people voted using torn off pieces of paper.
That’s plain nutty. Hopefully the parties and the legislators can get together and find a better way to vote, where everyone who wants to cast a ballot is allowed to cast a ballot.
(from deblog)