Eric mentioned it last week in his blog post and you have probably seen it all over CNN and iReport.com... there is this bizarre gas shortage in Atlanta. Actually several cities in the South East are experiencing shortages due to refinery damage in Texas caused by Hurricane Ike. People are lining up to get gas.

It's a little Carter-esque really. Many of us Gen-Xers can all remember being in the backseat of the station wagon, listening to Tony Orlando and Dawn on the AM radio, waiting with our folks in line to fuel up. The Boomers and the Joneses remember being the drivers! But that was an embargo, this is just a shortage.

35 years later and here we are again! Except this time we have the Web to help ease our gas pain!

Mapquest has a tool called Gas Finder that will tell you where nearby stations are and how much their gas costs... but it doesn't indicate whether those stations actually HAVE fuel.

Gasbuddy.com offers a similar service, that also includes notes indicating wait times at some stations.

Atlanta Twitter users are keeping their friends and followers updated on which stations have gas.

Of course, you can also check your local Public Transit website. Everyone who works on the "News To Me" team is sick of me talking about it... but now is a great time for those of us with access to it to take another look at mass transit. A few weeks ago Eric interviewed Christian Lander who created the self deprecating site "Stuff White People Like," where he keeps a list of very non-PC but hysterically accurate stereotypes. One of the things on his list: "Public transportation that is not a bus." Regardless of our race or religion we need to get over that. No, it's not as convenient as your car, but it is a heck of a lot cheaper AND you'll get this wonderful sense of satisfaction as your city bus passes a line of cars that stretches into the street waiting for gas. Trust me, I've felt it.

For residents of certain cities, Google has a great tool to help you plan a trip using your city's bus or rail system.

On this weekend's "News To Me" we'll show you some of the temper tantrums caught on camera that are breaking out in the gas lines in and around Atlanta, GA., Nashville, TN., and Asheville, NC. You'll definitely want to get a bus pass after you see that tape!

We always run out of time in a show... it's amazing how quicky 30 minutes fills up! We're actually pretty lucky that way. That time constraint forces us to use only the BEST parts of a video or the MOST popular post from a great blog. Thing is, you may want MORE than our half hour can provide. You may actually want to see the WORST part of a video or the LEAST popular post on a blog we featured on "News To Me." That's why each week we provide you with the links to everything you saw on the show. Good, bad and ugly.

All we ask in return is that you leave us a comment letting us know what you thought of "News To Me" this weekend. We'll even make fun! Our challenge to you is at the end of this post. In the meantime, here are the links:

Tom Green's House Tonight:
Your daily dose of uncensored, high energy, do it yourself talk show action is at TomGreen.com.

Mexican Independence Day grenade attack:
This clip is graphic and may be tough to watch... if you are uncomfortable with intense situations or blood think twice before viewing this clip on LiveLeak.com.

Viral Politics:
Check out the site that inspired our story: techpresident.com.

Madonna takes a fall on stage:
We led up to Madonna's fall with a few other notable nosedives...
Beyonce: metacafe.com
Miss America: YouTube.com and again the next year: YouTube.com
A member of Destiny's Child: jokeroo.com
And the one you have been waiting for – Madge: YouTube.com

Bizarre Basebrawl:
We think we've solved the mystery of what is going on in this clip... take a look at the full video and guess for yourself: YouTube.com

Evil tree destroys orphan's dreams:
A dramatic balloon release intended to draw attention to the plight of British orphans and other charities goes wrong. The full video is here: YouTube.com

Your challenge: Leave us a comment letting us know what you thought of "News To Me" this weekend, but make it in the form of a question. For example, "Is it possible for me to like a TV show TOO much?" or "Why don't you do more stories about cute puppies?" or "No one else ever comments on these Hotlinks posts so why should I?"

Ask and we WILL answer!!!

Thanks for watching!

Hi everybody, Eric here.

First of all, if anyone knows where I can get some dang gas anywhere in the state of Georgia, please tell me. 5 gas stations and 3 fist fights later, I am still on “E.” What the heck is going on? It's like Armageddon here… weird. What’s weirder is that I was in Montana last week, a state that has like 50 people in the whole territory and there was gas everywhere! Gas for me. Gas for you. Here take some gas, it’s free… really take it… c’mon, stash some in your luggage… wow!

Why Montana? I was on vacation and it was great! Saw the great state of Montana in it’s entirety… fished the Blackfoot, Bighole, Rock Creek, & Bitterroot Rivers… had some great microbrews and ate some great bison steaks. Now that is living!

Now about this weeks show... I don’t really blog that often, for 2 reasons… one, Grayson is the blog king, and I can’t compete [Grayson's note: "Whatever."] and two, no one really cares what I have to say (if you do care tell me and I will send a personal blog to you and you only, my treat). I did want to blog today though because if you have ever seen the video called, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" (check out that link... it's an Eric recommendation) from the master man on the street interviewer Tom Green, you can understand why I am so happy that we got him on the show this weekend. He was very nice and happy to be on the show. I promise by the end of our interview, you will see what true innovation is… Tom Green makes things happen, takes chances… and I think that is really cool. I do hope you enjoy the piece.

Yes, Grayson was correct, I am trying to get you some more guests who have a UGC angle on the show…like Bear Grylls. Have you seen this guy? I was watching his show the other night and he killed a rattlesnake, cut its head off and ate the thing raw! Now why wouldn’t you want him on the show? Especially if you are trying to survive somewhere, you know like the Hamptons, or Martha’s Vineyard?

Coming up: Wait to you see the interview we've already shot with these Bigfoot hoax guys… I can tell you they have something up their sleeve… look for them to come out with a special announcement soon! You heard it here first… I think they will end up somehow duping yours truly in some way… but that’s the risk when you do hard hitting interviews (tis, tis).

Thanks for watching and get ready to laugh this weekend…

Eric

We are all for dedication and perseverance, but this young dancer is really taking it to the next level! Daphne Mills uploaded this photo of a dance recital in Danbury, CT to iReport.com with HER caption: "As they say, '...on with the show...'"

How would YOU caption this pic!? Leave us your best in the comments and you might see yourself on "News To Me," just like James Smith who came up with the winning caption for our last offbeat iReport pic! keep reading »

All systems are go for Eric's virtual visit with comedian Tom Green!

This whole thing started on August 7th when I got this email from Eric:
"Hey, I need you to do something...try and use your contacts and find TOM GREEN's publicist...his new web show is huge..."

I don't know what made Eric think that I have any "contacts," I don't think watching Showbiz Tonight twice a day counts as having contacts... but after making a few phone calls (my first ever calls to the big talent agencies) I found Tom's agent. Turns out that Tom is a big CNN fan and would be happy to be on "News To Me" to talk about "Tom Green's House Tonight!" Coordinating Producer Mike Kane took over from there and about a week later Eric and Tom were virtual face to virtual face on the set of "Tom Green's House Tonight." That "set" by the way, is in the living room of Tom's actual home in the Hollywood Hills!

I'll leave it to Eric to talk about why he was so excited to have Tom Green on the show in tomorrow's blog post. Suffice it to say that he's a fan (Tom you may want to look into a restraining order).

Here's the problem. Now that I've delivered on Tom Green, Eric has a whole list of celebrity guests he wants on the show. So Lindsay Lohan, Bear Grylls, Will Ferrell and Sir Richard Branson, if you are out there, CALL ME!

If you haven't made up you mind yet, these two guys want you to consider hanging a chad for Sasquatch. Yesterday Eric had a face-to-face with the two guys who were behind the big Bigfoot hoax that went down over the summer.

I don't want to get all X-files on you but covering this story has got us all kind of edgy.

A few months ago, Rick Dyer and Matt Whitton claimed to have found a dead Bigfoot. They created a website called bigfoottracker.com, stuffed a bigfoot costume full of animal parts and froze it solid. Then they posted a video on YouTube saying they'd found the body of an actual Sasquatch.

That much we know for sure... everything that happens after that is less certain, and that's what's got us questioning just about everything anyone tells us about this story now.

Dyer and Whitton say that once their video started making news, another man entered the picture and basically took over the hoax. He allegedly promised the guys a multimillion dollar cable TV movie project, a network special made by the same guys who brought you "Alien Autopsy," a book deal and even a meeting with the New Kids on the Block (Dyer is a big fan). Here's the twist... the man that Dyer and Whitton say encouraged and even partially orchestrated their "joke" is none other than Tom Biscardi, a man who has built an empire around the assertion that Bigfoot is REAL!

Biscardi denies he had anything to do with creating the hoax. He says he was duped just like the rest of us. "News To Me" reached out to Mr. Biscardi yesterday after our interview with Dyer and Whitton to see if he would like to respond to some of their claims. He made it very clear that he was not happy with the guys, and is considering coming on camera to talk about the whole deal. We hope he will.

What started out as a story about viral videos gone wrong is quickly becoming something bigger and far more interesting than we could have imagined. Well keep you posted on our progress here on the blog, and hopefully have the complete story on the air by the end of next month!

Check it out! Our friend Brett Rounsaville better known as the amtrekker has crossed yet another item off his list! The pic above is #43: Create a crop circle.

When Eric sat down with Brett last April he'd only crossed a few items off his list. Since then we've been following him via status updates on Facebook and he's made incredible progress! Even being featured on "Good Morning America" where he got to cross #21 off the list: Tell Donald Trump "You're Fired!"

He's only got a few more to go! He's planning on wrapping his journey up next month with a big "End of Amtrekker" party in California. If you'd like to help sponsor the bash or just want to follow the final days of Brett's journey, head over to amtrekker.com!

On "News To Me" we get a unique perspective on the big stories of the day for two reasons:

1: Our stories come from YOUR cameras. So when Ike changed the lives of everyone who lives on Galveston Island we found people who were braving the storm to shoot video you won't see anywhere else. And when tragedy struck a train full of Los Angeles commuters we checked in with a citizen journalist who was on the scene minutes after the head-on collision taking some of the most up close and heartbreaking shots that only "News To Me" is going to bring you.

2: We have time to bring you the whole story. Breaking News is fluid and constantly changing. Reporters on the scene know how to piece information together the best they can as it gets to them, but it's chaotic. Chaotic, exciting and hard to turn away from... but hindsight is 20/20. On "News To Me" we can take a step back to bring you the emotions AND the the result of the investigations into why and how things went down the way they did.

Get the raw footage from the stories on this weekend's show on the next page »

We're always on the lookout for people making a difference or even just people just making something unique online. Here's a few we have had up on our monitors for the past few days... they MAY end up on a future episode of "News To Me:"

Merry-go-wrong:
News To Me cameraman/editor/writer/producer Teague stumbled on this clip during his daily YouTube rounds. What do you get when you combine a playground merry-go-round, bored teenagers, and a motorcycle? Certain pain.

Hurricane Harmony:
No one is happy that Ike hit, but one man tried to take inspiration from the storm... check out Herbert Midgley and his musical iReport: Ike in East Texas. Our favorite line: "The wind is blowin, the rain is raining, and I'm out here rocking and rollin!"

Adorable puppy head tilt:
Don't you love it when dogs tilt their heads when they hear something they're not familiar with? So darn cute! We'll here's a guy who wrote a whole song for a puppy named Willy that inspires some extreme head tilts. Stay with it till the end, Willy's got skills.

Angry kangaroo:
Honestly, this man in marsupial's clothing is more than just angry, he's kind of a jerk! Blame "News To Me" producer Charles for putting this one on your radar.

Black Cab Sessions:
Our new "News To Me" sucker... I mean intern Corey, found a site called black cab sessions where you can watch acoustic tunes performed by the original artists in the back of a black taxi. Why a taxi? Not sure, but it's cool.

If you have a site we should be surfing let us know!!! Don't forget that we're looking for you to be our location scout AND to give us your 4 word review of last weekend's show!

The links to everything you saw in this weekend's show (and a challenge for you) are on the next page... but before we get to those there is one very important link all of us at "News To Me" want you to bookmark. CNN.com/IMPACT.

Ike is tearing up Texas right now and Louisiana and Florida are still recovering from Gustav and Fay. At CNN.com/IMPACT you can find links to organizations that have been vetted by CNN correspondents that will help out when disaster strikes, whether it's a hurricane in the United States, a landslide in China or an earthquake in Iran.

OK, public service announcement out of the way... on the next page we've got links to the raw footage of the stories we're bringing you this weekend keep reading