• Jun 19, 2007

    New Nora Young show on CBC Radio

    A big congratulations to Nora Young and the whole team who put together her new show Spark. According to the show blog, the half-hour show was just approved, will starts in the fall, and will be

    a magazine of smart and irreverent trend-watching. It explores stories in technology, trends, and new ideas that register high on listeners’ personal radars, but often slip between the cracks of traditional News and Current Affairs. Neither ‘gee whiz’ nor cynical about the future, Spark is inspired by unconventional wisdom, by genuinely surprising takes on technologically-driven change.

    The Spark pilot team is made up of the same people who bring you the excellent language show And Sometime Y. I’ve heard both of the pilots they produced, and they’re really great.

    There’s a huge spectrum of technology journalism out there. On one side is the dumbed-down, let’s -explain-FaceBook-to-Ma-and-Pa-Saskatoon-months-after-everyone’s-already-on-it school, and on the other side, there’s the ooh-ooh-gadgets-flashy-new-web2.0 tech journalism for the sake of tech journalism. I think (and hope) that Spark will live somewhere in the middle, where there are many interesting and intelligent conversations waiting.

    This is exactly the kind of show CBC should be doing now.



  • Jun 13, 2007

    Trapped in the Closet, Chapters 13-22

    Two weeks ago, Jenna and I spent a long weekend in Boston, visiting relatives. My cousin Emily took us around town, and we ended up at Newbury Comics, where I found a relatively inexpensive copy of Trapped in the Closet, which I first saw almost a year ago.

    We watched it as soon as we got home, and then again this past weekend. As always, it struck me as a masterpiece, but left me wanting more. Its narative structure is, after all, patterned after soap opera.

    So imagine my delight when shortly afterwards, while perusing Wikipedia’s entry for TITC, I stumbled upon this exciting news:

    Chapters 13-22 are scheduled to be released July 24th, 2007 according to the inside booklet of Double Up.

    Waiting will be hard.

    And just today, Steve Pratt recommended a recent review in Entertainment Weekly of R. Kelly’s latest, Double Up. It does a great job of summing up Kell’s mystique as a performer:

    Kelly is kidding, right? If you’ve ever watched him lip-synch ”Closet” in its entirety with a straight face, you know this is a riddle for the ages. Is a sex-as-food anthem like ”Sweet Tooth” (”You’re lookin’ like a big ole piece of cake”) deliberately campy? Your guess is as good as ours.

    If you haven’t seen Trapped in the Closet, go buy it (or watch it on [YouTube](http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=026150F42E5D7A06) Google Video). I’ll see you in the lineup July 24.



  • Jun 10, 2007

    Kids + Money

    This week’s New York Times Magazine is The Money Issue, and online, they have a great video feature. It’s a lovely little film by Lauren Greenfield called Kids + Money, and it’s about kids in LA, and what money means to them and their lives.

    Well worth the 15 minutes it’ll take you to watch it.



  • Jun 7, 2007

    What do CBC employees write on Wikipedia?

    If your website has ever been visited by someone inside the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, intout.cbc.ca probably shows up in your traffic records. intout.cbc.ca is the public face of the entire corporation (online, anyway), and it resolves to 159.33.10.92.

    One neat thing about this is that you take a look at the Wikipedia user contributions for 159.33.10.92 to find out what CBC employees are writing about. Its seems that a popular topic is the CBC itself:

    And apparently someone at the corporation has a hate-on for Jacob Hoggard:

    Since everyone has the same IP address inside the CBC, it’s impossible to know who wrote what. Check out the full list of edits. Fascinating reading.



  • Jun 5, 2007

    Crumpler’s Beer For Bags: What’s the best deal?

    Crumpler Bags are very nice.

    And right now, they’re having a promotion where you can pay for a bag with beer instead of money, which is also very nice. It’s called Beer For Bags, and it runs in Toronto and New York from June 2 to 10. On their website, they list the type and amount of beer required to purchase each available bag.

    So I started to wonder, “Which is the best deal?” Then I did some arithmetic, and spit it into a table:

    Bag Bag Price ($) Bag Price (Beer) Beer Price ($) You Save
    Thirsty Al $19.38 4 Cans Boddington’s $10.50 $8.88
    46%
    Bundle (S) $27.35 1 Bottle Olde English + 4 Cans Colt 45 Strong $5.50
    + $12.00 ($3.00 x4)
    = $17.50     		$9.85
    36%
    Status Belly $57.00 1 Case Alexander Keith’s $38.25 $18.75
    33%
    Skivvy (S) $68.40 1 Case Steam Whistle $41.95 $26.45
    39%
    Moderate Embarrassment $102.60 1.5 Cases Sapporo + 1 Bottle Soy Sauce $39.95
    + $20.25
    = $60.20     		$42.40
    41%
    Western Lawn $85.50 1 Case Moosehead Lager + 4 Fosters Oil Cans $37.50
    + $15.80 ($3.95 x4)
    = $53.30     		$32.20
    38%
    Complete Seed $131.10 1 Case Grolsch Lager $66.00 $65.10
    46%
    Free Holy Bean Bags $273.60 2 Cases Corona Extra + 1 Bag of Limes $88.70 (2 x $44.35) $184.90
    68%

    All bag prices are based on Crumpler’s Canadian website, and include 14% sales tax. All beer prices are based on The Beer Store’s website, and include GST, PST, and deposit. I left out the pricing for soy sauce and limes, and concentrated on beer.

    Crumpler’s Toronto store is at 831 Queen West. The nearest Beer Store is at Queen and Markham.