"Prime Time" is because of me...

I wanted to give you an entry on Sunday, but I decided to read comic books during basketball instead. Sundays are about the same as Saturday.

I had plans to give you an entry yesterday, but I was busy for 8 straight hours. I hit the ground running, and just never had the time. What could I have possibly been doing???

Mondays are the day of the week that I work the "Prime Time" shift. 3PM-11PM. Great programming, with lots of extra things to do. I like it, because there's no down time. It makes time go faster. It seems more important, than some overnight shift, where I'm pretty sure myself and 4 other "tweakers" are watching, and they're only watching until they decide to take apart the TV.

I've been riding a bike the 4 miles to work on Mondays. Gotta stay sexy, right?? It's actually because I don't get paid like a God. We have one car. Each ride is an 20-30 minute adventure. I ride down MLK Blvd. Now, who's the man?? I have to be careful of the broken 40 oz. bottles, and the little school kids making gun motions with their hands as I ride by. Another weird thing about the trip through "Suicide Slum" (great Superman reference), is that the laws of Atmospheric Science don't apply. Really. If you have a 15 mph headwind, it makes the trip harder. It's constant. As an experiment... I turned around, and rode a block the other way. Same headwind!!! How does that happen?? Only in the hood!

So what did I do at work??

Right...

So, after my cool down...

I relieve a guy we'll call... Rodney. It's his name, anyway, so it works... He gives me any info I need to know, so nothing catches me off guard. Missing spots in my playlist, any work he just didn't have time to finish, or like he did this time... an EAS test. I had to run a weekly test of the "Emergency Broadcast System". It was only a test...

I had a pair of IT engineers in my business for a few hours. They're about the best in the business, and I know, that even though it was a hassle to work around them, they are doing something cool, to make my job easier. What that something is, I don't know. That's why I'm not an engineer.

At 4, I take a feed of "Inside Edition". I segment it for air 3 hours later. Sometimes, due to technical stuff on the feed, I have to take a replay. It happens. It just tightens up how much time I have to get stuff done.

Sometimes... A guy will call me and say, "Take the next feed, due to..." One time I erased the old one, and prepped for this new feed. Turns out the guy with the fast speech was from the other show, "The Insider", which we haven't taken for over a year. I had to get a re-feed of the show I erased. That cost lots of money. Bad Sean!!! That guy still calls, but I'm wiser now. I tell him to take us off the call list, He still calls. You'd think he'd want to do less work???

While all this is happening... I'm monitoring "The Doctors" and "Dr. Phil". I'm looking for "Creative Services" to come up off my news teases, so I can get them in the playlist in time. Yesterday, they changed something last minute. I hustled, and it got in about a minute before it played. See what I mean by "Television God"?? A mere mortal would have told them too bad, and it would have to be OK. But that is below me. I bend time, so I can pull stuff like that off. "Bend time"??? Some other time, I'll explain that.

So... I get into CBS12 News at 5. It's a 90 minute block of news. I used to have to wait for them to call for break, run it, while giving them time cues back to segment. Technology says, "Do it yourself, yo!!" So, now they do. It frees up time for me, as I am busy filling in the holes where my "episodics" are missing. What's an episodic?? That's a promo for a show that plays every day. They promote the next day's episode. "Tuesday, on Dr. Phil... A guy who's mentally screwed up... On CBS12..."

At 6:30... I go to "The CBS Evening News... With Scott Pelley". This show is the trickiest part of my day. One half hour... 2 local breaks... One emotional man... This show has three breaks. First one... All network. Second break. 2:00 national, then local. Third break... 2:30 national, then local.

It's really hard for me to get this right. Here's why... The count for the 2:00 national, might start when the dip to black, or... it might start when the first commercial starts. You never can tell, and the next break might be the same way... or not. There's one way to help this out. That's counting back at the start of each commercial. That can get you as precise as half a second, if you are lucky.

During this show, I am getting the log for the next day, and entering the playlist. I spend an hour or two dubbing missing commercials, and promos, so there are no holes, and I can watch my prime time shows in peace.

At 8PM, I take a transmitter reading, and check the tower lights. Can't have planes crashing into the tower. That would be rude.

My lineup is so good. I watch "How I Met Your Mother". I just plain watch it. Same with "Two Broke Girls".

During "Two and a Half Men", I start recording "Dr. Phil" for tomorrow. As I segment it, during "Hawaii 5-0", I watch the episode. I make sure it's got audio and video. I then realize, I'm not really that screwed up, and I feel better about myself. Thanks, Doctor... Your show has really helped me.

After that, it's a few news teases to dub in, and kick my feet up, and watch the exciting conclusion of "5-0" Then my relief comes in... We'll call him... Ray...

I like Mondays. Most people hate them. How can you, though?? You get a fresh start, every time one comes around. It's a chance to redeem yourself from last week, and make it better. It's chance to start something totally new.