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:

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:

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??

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:

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.

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:

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:

Why am I filled with so many synonyms? Well, because those sweaty suckas over in the NBC marketing department have put MORE GIGANTIC AND FRIGHTENING AND UNNECESSARY AND OBNOXIOUS POSTERS IN ALL OF THE 30 ROCK ELEVATORS:

Can you believe that crap? Ugh. Man! There is nothing worse than obnoxious, "hey look at me look at me look at me" in-your-face advertising. They did this once before with an ad for "The D-LIst Awards", and it was almost unbearable - I took the stairs for weeks. And I'm fat, so you KNOW I was mucho pissed.

To recap briefly, my problems with these insane posters are thus:

1. They are actually giant, wasteful PLASTIC STICKERS (aka they make Mother Earth cry).

2. Putting these giant ads in the elevators is TOTALLY POINTLESS because we here in the building already know about these NBC shows - we are the people who are make them, dude.

3. All these posters are for just one show. ONE SHOW. Why not mix it up? Do we not have enough money to make more than one kind of poster at a time? Or is NBC trying to saturate us employees so fully with "Burn Notice" ads that we become part of their new "NBC Universal even owns your dreams while you sleep" advertising campaign? (Honestly, that'd be okay with me - I really could do with one night of NOT dreaming about my teeth falling out while I'm naked in the Housewares section of Kmart).

Let me just say something right now: I've seen a couple episodes of "Burn Notice". And I'm not gonna lie; I thought it was a pretty awesome show. It was smart. It was funny. It was action packed. It had the totally awecellent and hilarious Bruce Campbell. It was kind of like "Miami Vice", but like, good. However, now that I see that Burn Notice has been given the "D-List Awards" ad treatment, THERE IS NO WAY I WILL EVER WATCH THAT SHOW, EVER. NOT IN A MILLION, BILLION BILLION BILLION YEARS, NOT IF YOU PAID ME MONEY, NOT IF YOU GAVE ME A SWEET JETPACK SO I COULD FLY AROUND, NOT IF YOU BROUGHT MY CHILDHOOD TEDDY BEAR CHIEF SNUGGLEBUTTONS BACK FROM HIS WATERY GRAVE, NOT IF MY LIFE AND ALL THE LIVES OF EVERYONE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET DEPENDED ON IT I WOULD NEVER WATCH BURN NOTICE NEVER NEVER EVER. Seriously. Right now, if aliens or werewolves or sentient trees (like in that stupid Shamalamalan movie holy moses it was terrible) took over the earth, and they came to me and were like "Aaron. Dude. We will let everyone on the planet live if, and ONLY if, you watch just ten short minutes of the season premiere of Burn Notice", I would be like "Sorry, Tree Men. Looks like those posters have doomed humanity. Just kill us. And make it as painful as possible." (Unfortunately, "As painful as possible" probably means "riding in a 30 Rock elevator with one of those dumb Burn Notice posters for more than three seconds", so they've got me either way. Oooooh NBC. You are some right smart bastards.)

Now, as many of you know, I don't just take things sitting down (except whiskey - getting black out drunk while standing is too dangerous). So when this new BN elevator invasion sprung up, I decided enough was enough!! It was time to put "Burn Notice" on...Uh, burn notice! It was time for some VIGILANTE JUSTICE, BABY!!! Just like Batman!! Except that I'm fat. And poor. And bad with gadgets. Also: I am afraid of bats. BUT I KNEW THAT IT WAS STILL TIME FOR SOME AWESOME BATMAN VIGILANTE JUSTICE.

Unlike Bruce Wayne, I am a man of simple means and sparse funds - so I took some paper, scissors, a marker, the most dangerous weapon of all - MY MIND - and I went and "Modified" a bunch of the posters a little bit. Here's a taste of what I'm talking about:

"How Great Thy Is" by Samuel Ou

always grateful,
shardy fan.

Excellent work, Sam! I mean, you sound completely insane, but I appreciate the awesome Hardy story!! Remember kids, if you've got something to share about the World's Greatest Late Night Researcher, Sharon Hardy, sent it to Sharonhardyisthebomb at gmail dot com and join in the fun fun fun happening all this week!!!

Now, on to the sports section of today's blog:

Last night we had our first Late Night Softball Game in three years! Why three years? Well, here in NYC space is at a premium - and softball permits are harder to come by than a clean stall at the Port Authority! So all of us here at the show were just delighted when our friends over at the hilarious and awesometastic VH1 show "Best Week Ever" invited us out to swing the ol' bat around!! (They actually don't have a permit either - The Daily Show is on hiatus this week, so we were all using The Daily Show's permit! Thanks guys!!). About 17 Late Nighters came out to play, and many more hung out in the dugout cheering us on! It was pretty sweet... And the game was INTENSE, yo. Late Night was down by 6 at the end, but we made a major rally to force extra innings! The final score?! 15 to 15!! IT ENDED IN A TIE BECAUSE THE LIGHTS ON THE FIELD WENT OFF JUST AS WE WERE STARTING THE 10TH INNING!! Laaaaaaaaaaame duuuuuuuuuuude. Much booing ensued! You know what THAT means... REMATCH!

As for the specifics of what will soon be referred to as "The Legendary Late Night Comeback of '08", I'll let Coach Chillemi give you all the play by play of how the end all went down:

"Never have I been more proud than by our "never say die" attitude. Down by 6 in the late innings, we were able to cut their lead to 15-12 entering the bottom of the 9th. With 1 out, Aaron Bleyaert and Matt O'Brien hit a couple of clutch base hits to get the tying run to the plate. Then with 2 outs and our backs against the wall, Todd Blass hit a double to center that scored them both, making the score 15-14. That monster hit was followed by an even bigger one as John Rau rapped a triple to right-center that scored Todd and tied the game. This run forced extra innings which wasn't able to be finished due to the park closing, but I can only assume we would have won because that is what we do. That Is What Late Night Does!"

It was crazy crazy crazy, but we all had an awesome time - and both teams hit a bar down the street afterward to moan about how crappy the NYC park service is! Ha ha ha. It was great. Thanks, Best Week Ever! You guys are awesome!! The pics are after the break:

Before we get down to silliness, let me just say that tonight's show is AWESOME. Mr. Ted "The Red" Koppel is on our show tonight... And HE THROWS DOWN A RINGSPIN CHALLENGE FOR THE AGES. Dudes, the battle is awesome. You haven't seen gladiatorial combat like this since Russell Crowe played a gladiatior and fought that other gladiator in that one movie that I can't remember the name of right now! Also, COB takes a little visit to Joe's Pub and runs into an unexpected delight that made all of us here in the office crack up! All in all: A show not to be missed!!

I tell ya - It's only been two weeks, but it seems like YEARS since I've talked to you guys!! What's been going on? What's the haps? What's the word on the street? What's the whisper on the stairs? What's the shouting from the rooftops? Seriously. What's with the shouting? Knock it off, bro! If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was ol' Bad Singing Larry all up in my eardrums!! DUDE! Go play in the street or something!

Anyway, BSL notwithstanding, I had a great break - I spent the last two weeks climbing Oregonian mountains, passing out at The House of Pies in LA, fishing up in Northern Michigan... And trying to decide which shirt was the least dirty to wear. Living out of a suitcase is ROUGH, yo! I had a great time, however.

What WASN'T a great time over the break was what shall here fore be referred to as "Sedgwickgate '08". Oh, it was a fiasco of epic proportions. To make a long (and extremely boring) story short, Hardy had to come in, OVER BREAK, to pull my ass out of the Kyra Sedgwick file fire that I was burning in. So, to thank her, I gave her two "Get Out Of Work Free" cards today;

I just have one thing to say about that: Daddy Bley feels your pain. And I'm here to make it all better.

How? Well, by giving you ANOTHER awesome Underground video! What?! No. YES!! One for the road, as it were... But this isn't just ANY Underground video; no. I know how you all are. What you crave. What you need. And what you need is some delicious Robert Smigel goodness!! The video is of the rehearsal of the day he was on, and features a bit that ended up getting cut from his appearance on our show... For reasons that will become painfully obvious. I hope you like it!

Also, from everyone's comments, I realize that I was remiss in telling you all about the Late Night Ice Bucket Tournament without providing any pictures! What a total jerkweed I am!! Well, I'm gonna tear that jerkweed out by the root right this very second:

It burns bad.

Speaking of burning bad (Aaron Bleyaert = Segue Master), today I fought off the woozy sleepiness that threatened all day by setting up a little tournament... An ICE BUCKET TOURNAMENT. That's right, fools!! The stupid mistake that Chillemi, Tracy King, and I made yesterday by shoving our hands in ice water for sport went PRIME TIME FRONT AND CENTER today!! Chill and I set up a whole podium/ice bucket/stop watch competition situation! I even made posters, people! POSTERS. It was awesome - we got pretty much the whole staff to compete against one another to see who could hold their hand in ice water the longest!! I lasted 30 seconds. Yes, I am a horrible wimp.

Today and tomorrow we're taking everyone's best times, from Head Writer Mike Sweeney to Executive Producer Jeff Ross, and then the top 16 ICE WARRIORS will be put into a sweet sixteen competition bracket, whereby (after our impending 2 week hiatus) they will battle head to head to see who will be THE FIRST EVER LATE NIGHT ICE BUCKET CHAMPION!!! (Don't worry, we're shooting it all for a little future Late Night Underground madness to happen later on!) I think you guys are going to be happy. Or as least amazed and/or frightened. Ha ha ha. Seriously... Sweeney is like a robot or something.

Anyway, before I go, I just have one question - would any of you guys happen to know off the top of your head the point at which ice cold water starts causing permanent nerve damage to the hands? I was just curious.

(Who's there?)

There's a brand new video up over at The Late Night Underground right now!

(There's a brand new video up over at The Late Night Underground right now who?)

Don't be a douche, dude. Just go over there and check it out already! Yeesh!

I hope you all enjoyed the little Chill-tacular edition of the Late Night Insider yesterday - it sounded like Chill had a great time running the Deepak Chopra remote!! I hope you all enjoyed watching it!!

Conan was in a great mood today... Possibly because of the AWESOME 40 POINT CELTICS VICTORY LAST NIGHT?! Perhaps, perhaps. Or maybe because TONIGHT'S SHOW IS FREAKING AWESOME?! Yes, I think so! The hilarious and talented stair-running Mike Myers is on the show this evening, as well as My Boys' Jordana Spiro, and bellydancer Dolphina!! A first rate show by any standard (especially the standard I'm using, which is the "Pretty First Rate to TOTALLY First Rate" Standard).

Today Chillemi, Producer Tracy King, and I played a fun game down in the NBC Commissary. It is called "Ice Bucket". Here's how it works: Two people each put one hand in a bucket full of ice and ice cold water. Whomever takes their hand out first loses. And what happened? You guessed it, party people - I took my hand out first, every time. Even the last time, when I screamed for a rematch against Chillemi and told myself that I was leaving my hand in no matter what, that "This Time I'm Not Screwing Around" and "Just Try To Think Of Your Happy Place When The Pain Comes", I took my hand out first. I AM SUCH A WIMP GUYS SRSLY.

The big winner? Tracy King, who beat both Chill and I with ease. WITH EASE. After my eyes started watering (read: Crying) and I had to take my hand out of the punishment bucket, Tracy left her hand in for 30 more seconds just to prove how much more pain she could take. Holy crap. It was both impressive and HORRIBLY FRIGHTENING at the same time. Like that guy who can pull a truck up a ramp with his tongue piercings. Or Clamato Juice. HORRIBLY. FRIGHTENING.

So the next time you're wondering what it takes to be a big time television producer, remember this: You have to have ice water in your veins.

Literally.

Chill here. This is just like the old days, and by old days I mean April, when I was hitting you guys with blogs daily. First Thursday, now today, what's next? I told you I would keep popping on when I had stuff to say, so that is exactly what I am doing. I mentioned on the blog on Thursday that I was out late the night before because of a Late Night remote. Well that shoot is on tonight's show, ladies and gents. And it is 10 minutes of hilarity from your very own Conan O'Brien. The premise was simple: Conan O'Brien would meet with Deepak Chopra (best selling author and spiritual advisor) at the Chopra Center and Spa in Midtown, and together they would help Conan look within himself and find the path to enlightenment. And since I was there, I can tell you guys it is a sweet ride.

Now the hardest part about remotes with 2 celebrities is:
A. Finding a location that would work for the bit and our talent, and
B. Coordinating the arrival of both to our shoot location.

But when one of them owns their own Chopra Center and Spa, it becomes fairly easy.

A. It is Deepak's place so getting permission was no problem and
B. getting Conan, myself, and my crew (2 Cameraman, 1 Audio Engineer, 1 Wardrobe person, 1 Prop guy, 2 Interns {I like to bring interns on remotes so they can experience Late Night outside of the offices} and 1 Writer) there was pretty easy as the place was just 4 blocks from 30 Rock. As far as Conan remotes go, this was basically like hitting the jackpot!

And it keeps getting better: Not only did I have the easiest remote setup ever but then I got to watch Conan be hysterical for the next 3 1/2 hours! Conan and Deepak were the perfect team. Deepak was all business. The perfect straight man. He acted how he does everyday of his life. And after hearing him throughout the remote, he had all of us thinking about how we all could be better human beings in our life. And Conan, of course, was his usual insanely funny self. (I thought I heard all the funny stuff while it was taping but then when we showed it at rehearsal, I was laughing even harder cause there was stuff I missed that night). So all of you should tune in to NBC tonight and catch this beauty. And maybe you all will learn a little something about yourselves.

Until next time....Chill is out

Speaking of interns, like I've said before, there are Summer Interns everywhere. Seriously. I go to the bathroom - interns. I get in the elevator - interns. I close my eyes - INTERNS. TINY INTERNS HAVE INFECTED MY BRAIN OH SWEET LORD THERE'S SO MANY THEY'RE JUST SPRAWLED OUT ALL OVER OUR OFFICES ON THE GROUND LIKE DEAD BODIES. It's insane. Normally, they all sit around in the conference room (aka "The Pit")... But when The Pit is being used, they all hang out right outside The Pit - and trying to wade through them is exactly like running through some kind of medieval gauntlet where all the knights are dressed in Old Navy and discussing last night's Gossip Girl Episode. In a word: Extremely difficult.

So I become violent.

Look; I'm only human. And sometimes humans get angry. Especially if humans are hopped up on the fifteen DCVDPs I just drank. So sometimes I lash out at these poor undereducated souls who want nothing more than to pop their collars and undress each other with their eyes. It's not their fault! It's MY fault. And today, while running the Abercrombie & Fitch Underage Summer Gauntlet 2K8, I grabbed an intern's magazine and threw it on the floor while screaming "I DON'T RESPECT YOU AND NEVER WILL." I then stared into his soul while I walked away. I think it was... How do you say? A little much. Perhaps a tad too violent, even for comedy purposes.

To make matters worse, it turns out that the innocent magazine-reading intern I horribly abused was actually the same dude who went and got all those phone cords for the new video I made! Oops! I felt bad (which is saying something, because I have a cold, black heart that only bleeds Smicker's Jelly) so I decided to write him a crappy apology. But not Just ANY kind of crappy apology - a crappy BANANAGRAM Apology: