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Dear Internet, I Have Let You Down. XOXO, Aaron

Well look at me. Yesterday I was a cocky hotshot - all like "if you ask nicely, I'll take pictures" etc etc. What an a-hole. And anyone who's ever read (or starred in) a Greek Tragedy knows how Life deals with a-holes: Viciously and without pity.

The Point: I went to the impromptu "Hey, Summer is Awesome" Late Night party last night, camera in hand. I snapped some pics here and there... I even posed for a few! Oh, it was glorious. Then I forgot my camera in the cab on the ride home. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sniff.

Yeah.

The bottle let me down, people. Instead of sharpening my wit and speeding up my reflexes, Mr. Al Cohol made me - MADE ME - forget my awesome camera filled with great pictures in a cab on the ride back to Queens. I mean, it also made me tremendously funny and extremely nimble... BUT AT WHAT COST?!

I'm sorry, Internet.

HOWEVER, there is a silver lining to this dark thunderhead of disappointment: Today on the show, we WERE going to have the winners of the Huck Finn Commercial Contest - but they got cut!! Hopefully, we'll get them on when we get back from hiatus... To tide you over, we've put up a bunch of our favorite submissions that never made air right here on the ol' website!! Click on the "videos" tab up there, and enjoy! Thanks again to everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to enter our sweet little contest! You guys are ALL winners in my book!! (Yes, it's true, I keep a book with both winners and losers in it. And YOU guys are all winners. The losers are mostly people I hated in high school - Scott Bailey, I'm looking in your direction).

In other news, besides doing a little editing and a little research action today, I also dealt with some of our 6A pictures:

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I Predict A Riot

Working here in 30 Rock can be, at times, rather surreal. For starters, nowhere else IN THE WORLD is there as much TV produced in such a tiny amount of space: Us, SNL, Dateline, NBC Nightly News, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Today Show, NBC Sports, etc. Are all located within like 200 feet of each other. Secondly, the building itself is historic - I'm sure you're all aware of the tours our poor pages give - and the architecture, along with all the sweet murals everywhere, is just phenomenal. Then you've got the World Famous Rockefeller Center Ice Rink in the winter months, as well as the insanely large Christmas Tree. In the summer months, you've got The Today Show concerts rocking out in the plaza every Friday... And to top it all off, we're right next to Radio City Music Hall! They've even made a sitcom (an AWESOME sitcom) about what it's like to work here: Of course, I'm talking about the eponymous "30 Rock".

In short, there is always something crazy going on either inside this building or outdoors. You all saw my beautiful parade picture the other day, right? RIGHT?!

Yes, well, today I get a phone call to run upstairs to Talent Executive Paula Davis' office - whose birthday it is today, by the way ; Happy Birthday P. Diddy! - and when I got up there, I arrived to find everyone hanging out of the windows!! Remember up above when I mentioned how we were right next to Radio City Music Hall? Well, there was a GIANT RIOT outside our building because the Dalai Lama was visiting Radio City this afternoon!!!

Oh, and you guys'll be happy that I learned my lesson from Tuesday and got some pictures that YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE:

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We Gotta Stay Positive

Kids, great news - Operation: SILENT THUNDER is off and running!! Expect something awesome the week we get back from hiatus!!! Oh, and I haven't even TOLD you guys about Project: PRIVATE EYES, which has been going for awhile, and will hopefully be done before the week is out (it's mostly out of my control at this point). OH HOW I LOVE BEING CRYPTIC. HA HA HA HA.

Today went as follows:
- I edited a whole bunch of stuff to show to Sweeney.
- I switched desks with my sister (it was a MASSIVE - but necessary - undertaking).
- I stood by and tried to look tough while Conan mock-seriously explained to Sweeney why he calls me "Blunder Bear" all the time.
- I had a bunch of the Huck Finn commercials that didn't make air bumped off (lingo for "put onto a different format" - in this case, from DVD to an IMX tape) so that we can put them up on the web.
- I sat and daydreamed about what life would be like if I wasn't dead inside.
- I watched Seth Green's hilarious segment... Followed by Russell Brand's hilarious segment (I gotta look up some of that guy's stuff! He's awesome).
- I listened to the CRAZY good new Hold Steady album - Oh man, I hope we have them on soon!!
- I reworked this Google thing to re-pitch for the third time. It's hard to keep being excited about something the third time out... But that's the rub, ain't it?
- I re-found my awesome body fat scale, which Hardy and Parra then used to measure their body fat... And talk about it for the next TWO HOURS.
- I helped Dan Goor out with a problem he was having with his "Audience Holds Up Cards With Pictures On Them" sketch (it's for tomorrow, I think?).
- I picked my nose for a bit. I love picking my nose.

... And what did YOU do today??

My Mom's Taco Casserole is Freaking Delicious.

Guys, I screwed up. Today, all day, right outside my window, was the All Star Parade - all the best players that America's Pastime (baseball, not obsessing about gas prices) has to offer were parading slowly by my office window for a good part of the day. "Awesome." I think. "Today's blog is gonna write itself."

Well, today's blog HAS written itself - only, it's written in FAILURE..

See, I took a bunch of great pictures of the All Star Parade from my window. I'm looking at them right now, actually - Look! There's the one that has all the people laughing and cheering in the stands! There's the one with some famous dude waving at the crowd! Oh, these are delightful. Just delightful. There's just one problem.

I can't get them off my camera.

I won't bore you all with the technical jibber jabber, but basically I lost the cord to my camera - so the pix ain't happening. HOWEVER, in addition to being an awesome amateur scientist, male model, and vigilante crimefighter, as many of you well know I AM ALSO AN ARTIST, AN ARTIST OF FINE ART. And so it is no matter that I can't get these stupid pictures off my stupid camera; I SHALL DRAW THOUST A PORTRAIT OF FINE ART SO LIFELIKE IT WILST BE AS IF THY ARE THERE. (Sorry for my masterful illustrious prose... I've been reading a bit of Shakespeare lately, and I can't help it if the ol' bard's magic has rubbed off a bit). So here's what the parade looked like from my window today:

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Guys The Dark Knight Is Totally Awesome. I Mean, Holy Crap.

Hey hey Party People! First off, for those of you who are awesome folks and who entered our "Make Your Own Commercial" contest, THE WINNER IS ANNOUNCED TONIGHT!! Thanks to everyone who entered - we actually got a lot of really great entries! Tune in tonight and find out if you're the big winner - picked by our very own celebrity judge, no less!!

Now... How was everyone's weekend? Mine was bleeech. Just okay. Nothing special. Not a big deal.

Wait, I'm lying. HA!

GUYS, MY WEEKEND WAS COMPLETELY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT AWESOMETASTIC BECAUSE I GOT TO GO TO A SWEET PRIVATE SCREENING OF THE DARK KNIGHT LAST NIGHT!!

Oh yeah. It may be in all caps, but it's all true, baby. ALL TRUE.

Thanks to Producer Dan Ferguson (thanks dudebro!), I was lucky enough to be invited out with Conan, Segment Producers Dan Ferguson & Frank Smiley, and our Music Coordinator Roey Hershkovitz (no idea how THAT guy got to come along, but whatevs), to a sweet private screening of The Dark Knight last night!! It was in the opulent Warner Brothers Screening Room here in Midtown Manhattan, and it ROCKED. The whole experience was mucho awesome, and the movie... Well, the movie is incredible. Seriously. Holy crap.

I won't ruin anything, but let me just say this: I am a huge nerd. And, as a kid, Batman was my favorite superhero - the guy doesn't have any superpowers! - and so I was super excited to see this flick. Plus, the first one was awesome... AND all the talk of how great Heath Ledger was as The Joker really put a LOT of pressure on The Dark Knight to be an amazing movie... And, well, it is! It surpasses the hype on every level. The action is fantastic, the story is great, the performances are UNBELIEVABLE, and it blew us all away!! We all LOVED IT; and that's saying something, because the five of us are a pretty critical bunch (to put it lightly). To say that it's a comic book movie really doesn't do it justice - it's on a whole other level above that. It's a movie with comic book elements. It's super dark, and really screwed up, but also really gets you thinking - the rare movie that wows with explosions, but stays in your head and makes you think about what you've seen hours after you've left the theater. Definitely do not miss this movie. It's a good time.

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You Gotta Fight! For Your Right!! To Harrrrrdy!

...So how was the season premiere of Burn Notice last night? Did you guys watch it?! I missed it, but the NBC microchip implanted in my brain forced me to see SOMETHING NBC related in exchange... So I went and saw The Incredible Hulk! There was one love scene that was awful, but the rest of it was TOTALLY AWESOME. Holy crap. That scene on the college campus was, dare I say, INCREDIBLE? Seriously. Him getting mad at the thunderstorm was also a nice touch.

I'm super excited about this weekend, because one of our producers, Daniel Ferguson, set up a special "Dark Knight" screening for Conan, and I get to go!!! It'll be me, Dan, Producer Frank Smiley, and Conan!! I can't wait!! I did Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart's research, so it's technically "work"... THE MOST AWESOME WORK THAT I'VE EVER HAD TO DO. I'm super pumped.

Great and HORRIFYING show today, as LaBamba sheds most of his clothes! I can't believe that dude shot down a bit I pitched to him where he had to wear a black spandex bodysuit... AND THEN GOES AND DOES THIS ON THE SHOW TONIGHT. What gives, bro?! Anyway, watch as he tries to leave the studio - I think he got what was coming to him.

Finally, today is the last day of SHARON HARDY IS THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD week!! the response has been OVERWHELMING - Thank you to everyone who sent in your stories; I'm sorry we couldn't get to all of them! Almost every single one was totally crazy, however, and that was something that I didn't expect! I thought it would be appropriate to end the week with an actual, TRUE TALE of how Sharon is so great... TOLD BY THE WOMAN HERSELF!! So ladies and gentlemen... May I present... The Best Person In The World... SHARON HARDY:

"Hi all! I've really enjoyed reading all of your stories about how awesome I am. But I just wanted to set the record straight that I'm not THAT awesome. You know, I can't fly and I don't have crazy powers... I am a REAL PERSON, just like all of you! So I thought I'd share with you my own story of how awesome I am:

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Wow... NBC Really Wants You To Watch "Burn Notice"

After my "Burn Notice" elevator freak out yesterday, our office was on high alert for anything and everything BN related - and, UNFORTUNATELY, I've got two new insane things to report.

First of all, The Best Person in The World Sharon Hardy saw something crazy on her way into work today: Outside on the 30 Rock plaza, there were 8 or 9 people all in Burn Notice Tshirts, short-shorts with Burn Notice across the ass, holding "Burn Notice" boogieboards, on rollerblades. Hardy says that they were all together posing for a picture, but she was under the impression that they were all about to zoom off in different directions to rollerblade all over the city. That is insane.

Secondly, one of our interns Scott said that he was walking through Times Square this morning and he saw a GIANT SAND CASTLE WITH THE BURN NOTICE CHARACTERS ON IT. So I sent one of our trusty interns, Ian, out to grab pic of this shameless promotion:

...Or what USED to be a shameless promotion. HA HA HA HA. Looks like some of you faithful readers got there first!! Nice work, guys. ;)

Anyway, I'm going to let it go. I'm not going to let it bother me. I'll just punch an intern in the head a couple of times, take a steam bath in Chillemi's APO Room, and then relax. (that's how I usually deal with most of life's stresses). My unhealthy fixation with ridiculous Burn Notice promotion is starting to bleed out into other areas of my life - it's affecting my work! For instance, yesterday I was so angry about those stupid Burn Notice posters that I forgot to mention a couple awesome things that happened yesterday! They are as follows:

- I went down and watched the legendary Joe Cocker during his sound check. It was incredible! He did one of my favorite songs of all time, "Feelin' Alright" - and was accompanied by Dave Mason (from the band Traffic) on guitar!! For all you younger/not-as-musically-nerdy-as-me people out there, this is cool because Feelin' Alright was originally a Traffic song that was written by none other than - you guessed it - Dave Mason!!

- The Hulk tripped while running through the brick wall out of the studio yesterday during the show!! Did you guys catch that?! To make matters even more funny, Lipton looked lost after he got out into the hall - providing us all with one of the funniest impromptu show moments in the last couple weeks! Poor Lip.

- There was a fire drill yesterday... BUT IT WAS AT 9:30AM, BEFORE ANY OF US GOT HERE!!! Ha ha ha ha. Awesome awesome awesome. One less time that I have to hide under my desk is always a good thing. ;)

And today, TODAY kids, something completely RAD went down in the Research Office:

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