Wow, covering the superbowl was the most physically intense story I've done in quite some time! I did end up pulling my estimated 20 hour day. A good chunk of it was spent speed walking with gear, practically non-stop, searching for celebrities. I must have walked 10 miles! We did have great success in the celeb department:

Nick Lachey

John Travolta

Jenny McCarthy

Bruce Willis

Chris Issak

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore

William H. Macy


When Prince performed his halftime show he opened with 'let's get crazy'. That song is an inside joke (and, sorry all, it will remain inside. haha) between my friend Nicole and me. So I called her up and shouted into the phone: "I'm at the superbowl! Prince just took the stage! He's singing 'let's get nuts'!". It was difficult to hear her, but I believe she turned on the tv and exclaimed "Oh my god! You're not joking!". Then the call dropped. I think I'll call her back after I finish with da blogging. :)

I think one of the funniest moments at the superbowl happened in the ladies room. I was waiting outside as I was not in need of a pitstop... Everybody who came out had an expression on their face that said something unbelievable was going on inside. My curiosity peeked and I decided maybe a pitstop was in order-- but the police showed up and wouldn't let anybody else in. My reporter came out with the same look on her face:

Me: What is going on in there?
Her: Oh my gosh, when you walk in there the first thing you see is the first stall door wide open, a woman is sitting there with her pants down to the ground and she's passed out. People thought she might be dead and were trying to wake her, but then she started snoring.

Another interesting, yet unrelated, observation: There was a long line for the Men's room and no line for the Women's room.

Greetings from Superbowl XL1! I've been up before dawn at soggy Dolphin Stadium.

Yes, it's been raining all day and will rain all superbowl night. As I type this it's pouring like it's summertime and fans are searching for ponchos!

Here's our field set (under a tent) where our anchors will be doing the news.

This is Lisa, our entertainment reporter, who I will be working with tonight. We're covering the halftime show and the stars who are here to watch the game. Sweeeeet, huh! Unless, of course, the stars decide to stay inside their hotel suites out of the rain. ;)

I'll be putting in at least a 20 hour day here coming off of a couple hours sleep-- and I love every minute of it! There's nothing like covering high energy events! The energy is contagious. You could be up for 5 days and be wide awake at something like this!

Dave and Lisa did an hysterical live shot with this wierd bungi cord game. You put on a harness with a bungi cord attached to your back and run as fast as you can to see how far you can get before the bungi flings you back! Click here for the live shot!

Here's Dave by the Vince Lombari trophy. There's tons of flickr photos from us and a some of our co-workers on our flickr page if you are interested!
To Be Continued!...

Happenings and goings on:

The assignments are out and it looks like I will actually be AT the SuperBowl on Sunday! And I think I might just have the best gig of all since I get to work with our super cool entertainment reporter. It should be a flickrific day!

My Sister-in-Law, Amy, came down for a visit! We celebrated her birthday in the most embarrassing way possible: In a restaurant with it's staff begrudgingly singing a version of happy birthday they don't have to pay royalties for and a firebreathing cake that screamed for the entire restaurants attention. Happy Birthday Amy! :)


Not only was Amy in town, but so was my mother-in-law, Barbara and father-in-law, Marty! We had a blast! We ended up spending 3 hours at the 'Rusty Pelican' on Key Biscayne. Marty has the best stories! Next time we buy a new car, there will most definately be a consultation with Marty! Dave videotaped some of his stories about his overseas adventures. It's amazing how much detail he remembers about moments that passed decades ago.

We also took in the Chihuly exhibit...or perhaps the Chihuly exhibit took in us.

Someone was introducing comedians for Comedy Central's South Beach Comedy Festival!
And sitting near the front row was:



The fam! Poor Dave had to walk out on stage to find us snapping pictures up front! ;)

The next night Dave and I went to see Jon Stewart in concert. The man is pure genius! And as you can see, we had stellar seats! :)


In other news, Hartman continues to flip her ear inside out when cleaning.
If you would like to hear Hartman speak, click on the youtube video below!

It's 6 something in the morning... The sun and I have yet to rise...

**boodoop--BEEEdoop**

That's my '24' ringtone on my cellphone. I stumble out of bed and follow the sounds of CTU to my phone, which is not in it's normal location beside my bed for whatever reason.

"CTU, Almeida" I breathlessly whisper. Okay, actually it was more of a groggy "...h-hello?". "Hi, Ang?" says the familiar voice at the other end. "Oh..hi Grandma..." "I didn't wake you up did I?" "No, I'm up. What's going on?"

The cobwebs upstairs are starting to clear and I now remember my Kansas City family went on a cruise over New Years, and I was going to try to meet up with them at the airport when they returned!


From left to right is my cousin Brandon and his girlfriend, Aunt Shelley, cousin Lindsey and her husband, Uncle Don, me and Grandma Lola.
So, tell me this... why is it they spend ONE WEEK in the tropics and have a nice tan-- where as I have lived in the tropics for 3 years (working outside, mind you) and look like I live in Darkyearound, Alaska?

Dave and I introduced them to Cuban Coffee! You can tell by the looks on their faces they just loooooved the cafe cubano!


Cuban Coffee packs a punch. I love the stuff, but I rarely drink it because I also enjoy sleeping at night!

I'm sure every family has their favorite stories they like to tell. A memory that always gets a laugh every time it's relived.
"Ang, do you remember when you got your arm stuck in that doorknob hole?"
This particular memory has been relived many, many times. :) A family classic. And I remember it as clearly as the day it happened--in 1979! Yup, nearly 28 years ago. I was only 4 years old. I was playing in Grandma and Grandpa's spoooooky basement. I loved going down there and scaring myself pretending there were monsters. Okay, I say 'pretending', but, in my 4 year old mind there really were evil creatures lurking about. Grandpa had this red light on in his workshop that made the whole monster bit quite believable! I went inside the dark closet that held the water heater. There was no door knob on the door. I decided it sure would be fun to stick my hand inside the hole where the door knob would be.

Why my hand was small enough to fit inside the hole, yet too big to get back out of the hole is still a mystery to me. But there I was, stuck, alone-- with only the eerie creeky noises that followed every footstep upstairs and a red glowy darkness to keep me company. I tried for a very long time to free myself...but eventually I gave in to my desire to scream and cry like a 4 year old stuck in a room full of monsters. My Mom, who was VERY pregnant with my brother, flew down the stairs!

Grandma always says she thought Mom was going to fall down the stairs she came running so fast! That's about where my actual memory ends. I have a flash of Dad working to get my hand out.
Don't worry, I returned to battle all the basement monsters. In the battle of tiny Angela V Basement Goblins-- tiny Angela prevailed!

The Moriconi Family Movies:


Here's a look at the Christmas present we made for the family! Dave and I took all the old 8mm film reels Dad shot in the 70s and 80s and turned it into a nice 2 disk dvd set! On the cover you see a nice picture of Mom, Dad in funny glasses, my brother in a sweet 70s striped shirt and little me staring at our Christmas tree. On the back are a couple of pictures showing the set up for our 8mm to mini-dv dub. You'll notice we list 'interactive menus' as a 'special feature'. That's our little jab at real commercial dvds that are so special features poor that they actually list 'interactive menus' as a special feature! Interactive menus is not a special feature!


The dvds look like the old 8mm reels. I wasn't sure at first if simply shooting the film with our GL1 would work out quality wise-- but I was pleasantly surprised. It looks about as good as if we were to have spent thousands having the reels transferred to dvd.
Oh, and the Motion Picture Association gave the dvds an 'R' rating due to 'nudity' (the bathtub scenes). Thanks a lot Mom and Dad. ;)



This was a pretty darn good Moriconi Christmas! One of the highlights was when Mom opened Dad's gift to her. Mom pulled out a coat that looked suspiciously like her own. Mom looked at the coat laughing,"What did you do? Isn't this my coat?". We were all laughing!


"I didn't have time to go shopping for you", Dad said. He let her think for a few moments that this might actually be true. Then Dad told her to check the pockets:

You can see even Heather the cat couldn't wait to see what was inside the pocket! Dad had bought her a nice necklace! "Should I check the other pocket, too?" Mom asked. "No," laughed Dad,"Well, you can, but there's nothing in there!"

Dad had also wrapped his ankle weights with the coat to give it weight! hehe.

One of the gifts I gave Mom and Dad was this jewelry box I bought in Egypt. Inside was a rock from Mt Sinai where Moses got the 10 comandments. For some reason... Mom decided to sniff it...

And apparently...

It smells as bad as the holiday jones soda's taste!


I'm so glad I was able to travel home for Christmas! Hope everybody had a great holiday!

It's almost quitting time at work. My stomach's already growling. Soon I'll be relaxing at home, watching tivo, fixing some stir fry--

*CHIRP*

Oh, Nextel. Why must you chirp so close to the finish line?

"Angie, can you shoot one last thing before you go home?"

This is the antithesis of the unexpected snow day when you were 7...

Tivo and stir fry will have to wait until I finish my one last battle with rush hour traffic.
After my 40 minute drive to travel 5 miles, I arrived at this:


Oh. My. Goodness. My mission was to shoot some video of this particularly festive home. Trust me, there is a home here! lol! My camera phone doesn't do this place justice. Every square inch, front and back, was taken. It was overflowing with inflatibles! There must have been at least 100 different ones. And the yard wasn't that big!

There was a path carved through the inflatible jungle just big enough for my camera and me. As I weaved my way through Homer and Frosty and Elm---oh--Elmo fell down onto the path. No problem! I pick poor Elmo up with my free hand and tunnel under. I stopped to take in the absurdity of standing alone in the middle of 100 gigantic, googly-eyed, practically dog-piled, christmas inflatables. It was a truly funny moment! Definately worth putting off Tivo for. It's important to appreciate the little things (and big inflatable things) in life! :)

In another page from my little book of absurd moments:

I interviewed Rosie O'Donnell as she christened a bowling alley on a cruiseship the other day.

And now for the trifecta:

She's a never ending source of entertainment for us! You don't know how long we've been waiting for her to get into that exact spot and position!

Just in case I haven't blogged enough about Stargate for you lately (haha), there's a new blog you should check out: Joseph Mallozzi's Thoughts and Tirades, Rants and Ruminations. Mr. Mallozzi is an Executive Producer/Writer for Stargate. He and writing partner Mr. Paul Mullie are responsible for my favorite episode of all time "Window of Opportunity". He is an integral part of what has made Stargate so great all these years. His latest entry gives an interesting inside look at his writing process-- and details regarding what he had for dinner that night. You will leave his blog hungry, I'm tellin' ya! If you are ever in Vancouver, check his blog for all the hot spots. :) Joe left a comment on my blog today congratulating me on my Stargate 'Keep The Gate Open' video contest win-- which made this fan's day. Thanks, Joe! If I'm ever in Vancouver, I'll buy you lunch and we can blog about it!

I'm flying home to Kansas on Saturday! Can't wait to see you all!!

Time for our segment I like to call "Who's honoring me now"! For those who do not watch The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, I should probably explain that is a joke based on Stephen Colbert's 'who's honoring me now' segment. I'm actually not one to toot my own horn. But tonight:
TOOT! TOOT!


First up: www.GCBme.com has awarded me the Grand Prize for my entry into their Stargate video contest! Thanks to everyone who voted for me! Winning this really means a lot to me. I am going to frame my autographed script copy of the their 200th episode, '200'!

Next up:

TOOT!


The Suncoast Chapter of the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences! I won an Emmy for Photography of a natsound piece I did. I like how they have re-designed the statues to look like the nationals now. It's heavier too!

What does Hartman have to say about all of this honoring?



Welllllll, she's Hartman.

I'm going home for Christmas! I'm sooo excited! The dvd project I've been working on I going well!