Today we begin an occasional chronicle/critique of the Orange County Register, using highly-detailed, top-secret scientific research crafted in the sub-basement of the OC Weekly DataLab®.
Here’s how this works. Every week, we start the Register off with a generous 100 points. Then our expensive-ass computers (the same ones used to coordinate BCS rankings, control space shuttle launches and animate Daybreak OC’s Pete Weitzner) add or subtract points based on the quality of the Register’s print edition, their website, and anything else Reg-related. If the end tally meets or exceeds 100 points, we’ll officially proclaim the Register as The Greatest Newspaper That’s Ever Existed In The History of Recorded Information, and immediately discontinue our monitoring. But if the final number freefalls to zero or below, well . . . we just keep on going.
This week’s Register-culled info entered into the Reg-O-Meter©:
MONDAY
•Jennifer Galardi, a Pennsylvania native currently working as a dancer and choreographer in LA—who isn’t?—wins the gig hosting the Reggie’s new TV show, The Juice. There’s video of Galardi posted on the Reg website today. She’s bubbly! She’s outgoing! She’s blond with dark roots! She also has the tits of a 10-year-old boy—kudos to the Reg for going against the big-boobed-bottle-blond-beach-bimbo OC stereotype. Segments of The Juice (the name is obviously swiped from Led Zeppelin’s “The Lemon Song,” where Robert Plant commands his woman to “squeeze my lemon till The Juice runs down my leg”—perhaps this will be the show’s theme song) are also slated to air on KDOC, and Galardi’s effervescence should at least make Pete Weitzner look far less corpse-like.
•Some, however, aren’t too pleased about Galardi, as Gorgeousgirl posts on the Reg web site: “Based on the lack of comments here, it appears no one cares about a Pennsylvania prostitute who was a backup dancer for Idol assclown William Hung.” Ooohhh . . . SNAP! Now that’s some good snark!
•Hey—look at who got suckered into writing the news story (which, of course, isn’t a real news story) on Galardi’s hiring: none other than longtime Reg scribe Peter Larsen. Dude . . . are things that bad over there? Or were the interns—also known as “community news reporters”—all out sick?
•Front page of the Local section. Gary Robbins and Mark Eades team up to write a 316-word story about . . . wind. “At Hart Park in Orange, two children gave up on trying to fly a kite. ‘It’s too windy and keeps blowing it down,’ said Juan Garcia, 8, of Orange.” If the Reg-O-Meter had eyeballs, they’d be rolling.
•Main news section, page 12. A quarter-page in-house ad. “Could you be the face of Orange County TV?” Christ on a bike, it’s a month-old blurb announcing that the Reg is holding auditions on February 9 for the new Juice hosting gig—running the same day Galardi gets hired. Unless Galardi’s already been fired, which actually wouldn’t surprise us.
GALARDI HIRING: +18.3 points
GORGEOUSGIRL SNARKINESS: +17.2 points
POOR, POOR PETER LARSEN: -47.9 points
BREAKING WIND: -22.7 points
GALARDI FIRING: -10.8 points
Reg-O-Meter Subtotal: 54.1 POINTS
]
TUESDAY
•The Weekly’s Nick Schou pounds the final nail in the coffin of the Register’s horrible, completely ridiculous, should-never-have-even-started entertainment tab Squeeze OC, and types about it on our Navel Gazing blog, which almost instantly elicits bitchy comments from pseudo-anonymous posters—actually, thin-skinned Reg employees who don’t like to be reminded of how quickly their ship is sinking. Two days later, however, ex-Reg staffer Jonathan Volzke (or someone saying he’s Volzke) adds a sad, sympathetic post to the discourse; he’s clearly someone who recalls the paper’s better days. Volzke ends with a Macbeth quote, the passage with the line describing the “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”—clearly, it’s a Gordon Dillow shout-out.
HYPERSENSITIVE REG EMPLOYEES: -67.3 points
VOLZKE’S COOLNESS: +43.1 points
Reg-O-Meter Subtotal: 29.9 POINTS
WEDNESDAY
•Letters page: predictably psychotic rants. Ron Paul is God. Liberals are stupid. Christians feel insulted. Plus columns from Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, two of only nine black Republicans known to exist.
•A Gordon Dillow column, scribbling yet again about his love of men in uniform. Probably something he wrote with his pants off, a tube of K-Y at the ready. Y’know, if the Reg wants to increase ad revenue, they should try selling the space on Dillow’s massive forehead.
LETTERS: -8.0 points
DILLOW’S HEAD: -13.6 points
Reg-O-Meter Subtotal: 8.3 POINTS
FRIDAY
•Page 3 of the sports section of OC’s favorite family newspaper: an ad for a male sexual enhancer, complete with a photo of an extremely aroused young lass (though she could be a trannie—we see an adam’s apple!). First sentence of copy: “She’s in position and ready to score!” This, coupled with all the Asian massage ads the Reg runs—and Reg employees constantly get on the Weekly’s case for running escort ads? Dicks.
•One of today’s three (just three?) “must-read” stories, as teased on the front page of the Local section: “Cypress Girl Stars in Nick Jr. Series.”
REG HYPOCRISY: -53.7 points
DESPERATE NEWS STORIES OF ORANGE COUNTY: -12.3 points
REG-O-METER GRAND TOTAL: -57.7 POINTS.
Better luck next time, kids!
