* Monday was fun. I came up with this out of sheer boredom…
* 13% of Illinois voters approve of Governor Blagojevich’s job performance. Apparently, 13% of Illinois voters also eat paste.
* Arch Nemesis Producer Jim sent me this message today: “New NBC poll only puts your approval rating as 4:30 producer at 11%.” I’m frankly surprised I did that well.
* Please refer to Beyonce as “Sasha Fierce.” How quickly we forget the flaming failure that was Chris Gaines.
* A Fox affiliate in Tulsa started their own blog, ripping me off, but referring to me as “the best.” Don’t you forget it, Fox 23 News Daybreak. Oh, and I used to work for a Fox affiliate. My condolences.
* Millennium Park is costing us $8 million to maintain. Eight million? For what? We can pay some local kids $20 to mow the lawn. What else is there?
* Today, Ginger wore the coolest outfit I’ve ever seen on NBC5. It was this vest thing that made her look like a cool 21st century gangster. I told Zoraida she should get something like it and she got all fussy. This is Chicago. Gangsters play in this town.
* Fill-in producer Jenel informs us that baby orangutans breastfeed until they are 4 years old. I don’t know why I didn’t lead my newscast with that.
Ye Olde Warner Saunders Photo
* NBC5’s rock, Warner Saunders will be bowing out next year. The man has worked here since I was 3 years old. Simply incredible. Warner needs to keep the lights low in his office so people aren’t blinded by the shine from all his Emmys. He’s also like 9 feet tall. I realize all this makes him sound more like Paul Bunyan than a news anchor, but it’s all true. In his spare time, he wrassles crocodiles and uses the Sears Tower antennas as toothpicks.
* Rob and I are working on a top secret Halloween project. Stay tuned.
* Blog reader SW blows the lid off a Wal-Mart conspiracy. Their PR department hit us up and did two segments about pet costumes on NBC5. Same pets, same costumes, different morning shows. Tsk, tsk, Wal-Mart. You just broke one of the cardinal rules of PR-dom. I will never book another Wal-Mart guest as long as I live. You hear me? (I haven’t booked a guest for a year and a half, so that’s kind of a moot threat, but still…)
* I have no desire to run any of the following stories:
- California wildfires
- Cute animal adopts baby from different species of cute animal
- Anything involving the Nikkei Index
- Pretty white lady living nowhere near Chicago murdered/abducted
- Building implosion
- World’s oldest man/woman has a birthday
- Fundraisers/charity balls
- Phone interviews with snowplow chief telling us that the plows are, in fact, plowing
* Tomorrow night, get thee to the iO Theater to watch the high wire hilarity that only Whiskey Rebellion can provide. We rock the stage at 8 p.m. If you stick around until midnight, we let the general public try their hand at improv.
Ben's Breakfast Blog 