HEARD IN THE NEWSROOM overnight 3/27

DISPATCH

• "please be advised... subject is eating glass."
• "they'll be on the corner... 2 men in suits claiming to be conducting a seat belt effectiveness survey?"
• "caller says her grandson is being destructive ... does not seem to know her grandsons name"
• "he goes by T-Rex... he's got two small arms"

CALLS TO NEWSROOM

• "Yeah... I'm trying to figure out ... where did the moon go? .. I looked up, it was there, and now it be gone."
• "You all are a [bleep] disservice to news. I'm going to call the [bleep] governor on you guys. And then I'm going to blog about you mother [bleep] to every [bleep] person I know"

HEARD IN THE NEWSROOM

I recently accepted a job at News Channel 4 (I love it!) and I work night shifts here. Since I'm not doing too much going out these days... as I'm mostly a vampire who sleeps all day and then works all night... I decided to do a new 'segment', if you will, to this blog titled 'heard in the newsroom'.

Basically, all night I listen to about 17 different police scanners and answer calls from people, most of whom just want to talk or curse at you. I'm going to start compiling a list and posting all the crazy and hilarious things that happen... let me just say - people are CRAZY!

BLOGGING PRESENTATION: overview

I plan on doing my presentation over a blog I've been following for close to a year now, A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings. I found this blog after watching the Travel Channel's "House Hunters International" (which I'm OBSESSED with). This particular show featured a sweet Utah couple who were moving to England to pursue the husbands dream career. While trying to find the link to the show (so I could send it to my mom... who is also obsessed with the show but said she missed that particular episode), I stumbled across her blog.

I think what initially drew me to this blog is that I've always wanted to live in another country, but I've always been semi-terrified at the thought of leaving my family behind. I also think I identify myself with the woman who writes the blog, and so it's interesting to read of how she adapted to living in a place so different from home.

You guys should definitely check it out!

Thunder Games

So, I know that most people think Thunder games are expensive... and you are right to think that. BUT! Last Friday, some friends and I made an impulsive decision around 2 PM to go to the Thunder game that night (we played the Cavs. Spoiler Alert: we lost).

I didn't know that you could go and line up outside of the Chesapeake Arena and get $10 tickets. I'd heard of that before, however, I thought it was only for playoff games or something. Granted, it is an all day event... -You must be there 4 hours before the game, you stand in line, get a wrist band and a raffle ticket (each wristband gets you 2 game tickets)... and then get back in line an hour before the game where they randomly draw 25 tickets, and the holders of those tickets get to get in for free!! If you don't get your raffle ticket called - you still get $10 tickets.
However, there is a downside to the raffle ticket thing, as my friends and I found out. I've never won anything in my life... I'm just not that lucky. But! the very last raffle ticket they called just so happened to be my ticket... therefore, my friend and I got our tickets for free. Awesome, right? Well... Not if you're with a group of 6. We all ended up getting separated, and while my friend and I didn't get any better seats (Loud City row Q.. IE: the row right before the very top of the stadium... IEE: The second worst seats in the arena) we still didn't get to enjoy the game with our friends.

But we still had fun, and granted, if you are on a budget, $10 seats in the nosebleeds doesn't sound all that bad.

As I mentioned, you need to be there 4 hours before the game... possibly sooner. Only the first 100 in line get $10 tickets. If you are number 101 in line... tough luck. I can't imagine how early people get in line during playoff games... but I'm sure it starts pretty early... as we got there at 2:30 and there were probably already 75 people in line (and it was only vs the Lebron-less Cavs... no one that important) But still, its a fun experience... and trust me, you'll meet some interesting characters while standing in line... I'm talking Oklahoma State Fair worthy characters.

Have Fun! :)

FOX&HOUND

The past few weeks, my friends and I have been meeting up at Fox and Hound to watch the Thunder games. I've always heard everybody talking about this bar, however, I must say I was slightly disappointed.

(note: the above statement is a polite way of saying that I do not recommend this place)

Heres a little checklist:
- The service sucks.

- The seating is terrible...just a bunch of bars stools and pub tables strewn about. To go to the restroom you have to basically walk through a maze of bodies and legs.

- It is smokey. There is not a separate smoking section. While most of the time, smokey places don't bother me (I'm assuming because of filtration systems) the past two times I've been to Fox & Hound, I've practically been choking on smoke. I could taste it in my food. It also doesn't help that last time I was there, the table next to me was sucking on cigars all night and blowing them in our direction. Yuck.

-$9 an hour for shuffleboard?! Are you freaking kidding me?!

-$9 an hour for billiards?! Are you freaking kidding me?!

- $9 an hour for darts?! Are you freaking kidding me?!

- Typically, spinach and artichoke dip is about the same everywhere you go... it's not that hard to screw up. Leave it to Fox and Hound, though, to give me the lumpiest, most lukewarm spin dip I've ever had. And the chips were stale. Double Whammy.

While my company seemed to enjoy the beer, I'm not really a beer drinker...however I like girly cider beers. I asked the server for my typical Woodchuck Amber Cider and she said they no longer carried it. I asked her if they had anything similar, and she told me she didn't know... - she'd find out.

 I waited a good 10 minutes (I think she forgot about me) and finally someone else came to the table and recommended to me some kind of Amber lager. I don't think they knew that Woodchuck Amber Cider tastes like freaking apple juice, and the stuff they were trying to give me was some stout, strong, full bodied beer. (I don't really know what those words mean that I just used to describe that beer, however, I hear them on the Samuel Adams commercials often)

Luckily, my company seems to know more about beer than those who worked there, because they told me that whatever it was that was recommended to me was NOT similar to the adult apple juice that I was looking for.

So I decided to settle on a mixed drink. Let me just make a disclaimer that, as previously mentioned, I was a server for 6 years. I am always polite and never act like there is a problem to my servers (even when I basically ask for milk, and they tell me they're out but that pepsi tastes exactly like milk).
With that disclaimer, let me continue.

I decided on a mixed drink and my server just gushed over some cream soda concoction. Now, I like soda, and I certainly like cream soda, so I was all in. What she gave me was pink and thick like pepto-bismal and tasted like strawberry milk. If you like strawberry milk... order this. I, for one, DESPISE strawberry milk ever since I threw it up on the bus in 3rd grade.


Needless to say, I barely touched my drink, and my company didn't care for it either. The server came back around and she said, 'aw... you didn't like it?!' I politely told her that I did not, and she recommended me a different drink, which I obliged to. Because she offered me a different drink and saw that I clearly didn't like it, I guess I expected to not have to pay for my pepto-bismal.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful, I liked the other drink I got, and then the game ended, so we tabbed out. To my dismay, my pepto-bismal was still on my tab.. and yes, I had to pay for it. I didn't ask about it, because as that point I was over the whole ordeal and just wanted to go home and wash the cigar smoke off.

Case in point is, I really don't like Fox and Hound.

TIPS FOR SERVERS.

I'm a stickler for good service, however, there is little difference between bad service and overbearing service.

People know what bad service is - being ignored all night, wrong orders, rude server, blah blah blah. One thing that isn't usually covered is overbearing service. 

The other night at Fox and Hound, my server was a very sweet girl, but, she came up to our table just about every 5 minutes to ask us the same question, 'are you all doing okay?'

Let me make one thing clear - I was a server for a good 6 years at a high end restaurant and at a country club. I am therefore entitled to give my opinion on serving, whereas someone who has never been a server is not.
I know that there is that awkwardness of, 'I don't want to ignore my table... but I don't want to annoy them either.' I get that. But as a server, one must also keep in mind different factors.

1. Is it a bar? - if yes, it is more laid back. People will typically flag you down if they need you. Just keep yourself visible, walk around every 5 minutes or so and QUIETLY (this means don't talk to them) do a table check - are the drinks low? if yes, ask if they'd like another. if no, don't talk to them.
    -If their drink is low, but they don't want another one right now... don't ask again unless its at least 45 minutes later. Then, resume keeping yourself visible and walking around doing checks every 5 minutes.
2. Is there a game on? - if yes, tables are more likely to sit around longer and linger, because they are watching a game. People are obviously there for the game, and don't want to risk missing a play because you won't stop talking to them. The best service is silent service. If there is no game on and it looks like some kind of business meeting or old friends catching up, again... silent service. Keep yourself visible.

3. This all my be redundant so let me just make one fact clear in case you didn't get it: keep yourself visible. Even if your table doesn't need or want anything from you, there is nothing more annoying than knowing if you DID need or want something, your server is nowhere to be found. And don't keep yourself visible by chatting up another table for hours. If they chat you up, be polite, talk with them for a bit, but make it clear you are not there to slack off and that you have a job to do and other tables to attend. I can't stress that enough how annoyed I get whenever my server is being Chatty Cathy with a table all night and I feel rude interrupting them. I also get annoyed if I feel like that table is getting better service than me.

finally,


4. Always put yourself in the position of your guests. Do they look deep in conversation? If you were one of those sitting at the table, would you want to be interrupted at that point? Keep this in mind.

CLASS REQUIRED POST: David Rhea, Guest Speaker

On Tuesday, we were by guest speaker, David Rhea, from the Journal Record. The thing I got most out of his lecture was that you shouldn't update your blog too little... but you should also not update it too much. He said that if you updated it too much, you lack valuable content and 'regurgitate' information... a blogger should build up good content. One way that he does this is by thinking of blogging as 'writing a song'... Rhea said he has ideas throughout the day and will jot down ideas.

He also told us to keep things brief, people don't have time to sit down and read a 1200 word story on a blog..-Focus really tight on one single subject.

So, taking the advice of Rhea, this concludes my post.