There’s bound to be some confusion over the next few days, so allow me to clarify something: George Stroumboulopoulos is not venting gas from three different places, and is in no danger of exploding. As far as we know.
No, that’s the Stromboli Volcano, off the north coast of Sicily. Not to be confused with The Stroumboulopouli, which is a blog about the other Strombo. That’s not about to spew lava either. As far as we know.
CBC employees in both Toronto and Vancouver are on the brink… but not in the way you think.
Massive construction projects are underway in both locations. In Vancouver, a huge redevelopment project is underway. CBC sold its staff parking lot for $34 million, so a developer can build two highrises “on a TV theme”, including a promenade that lets the tourists stare in at the newsroom workers beaving away. Live webcam image below:
There are some great Flickr pix of the construction also online.
Here in Toronto, construction has begun on the RBC Centre, the first of two massive buildings that cozy up to the Canadian Broadcasting Centre (as blogged here earlier.) I’ve created my own Flickr set for this construction, since it’ll be inconveniencing me until 2010.
The paranoid among us might have nightmares that one day some unsupportive government might opt to simply shove both buildings into these deep holes, throw a shovelful of dirt on them and get rid of the public broadcaster forever. But that’d be crazy. We have a proud tradition of a death by a thousand cuts to uphold.
I must admit to having such impure thoughts twice in the past, however. Back in the early nineties, when I started here, I had pause to wonder when the broadcasting centre was surrounded by a fleet of mobile shredding trucks marked “Shred It.” (Wish I’d taken a photo… CBC Watch would have loved that one.)
And another time, the north side of the building was completely redecorated as an American TV station for the filming of a Tom Arnold movie. Approaching the building from the subway, all you could see was signage for a (fictional) private network, leaving employees to wonder if they’d been privatized while they slept.
I should probably just relax. Still, it’s hard not to gaze into the abyss.
On a related note, we just received word that there will also be a massive interior construction project at the Toronto Broadcasting Centre.
More on that shortly…
My daughter came home from school today bubbling with enthusiasm over a song they played in gym class.
“It’s great! At the start, they keep shouting ‘Yo, man!’ over and over. And then in the main part of the song, you get to wave your arms and sing, ‘Silent C.A.’!”
Took a bit of figuring out… but we got it eventually. Here’s a hint:
Not quite worthy of the wonderful site KissThisGuy.com, “the archive of misheard lyrics,” but close.
(That site is where I learned I wasn’t the only one to hear the Bad Moon Rising line, “There’s a bathroom on the right” and Blinded by the Light’s “Wrapped up like a douche, another rumour in the night.”)
I should probably start a catalogue of song and band titles misheard by my wee ones.
Last year, they kept asking me to “sing that song that grampa sings, about the six strong bones.”
(He was rehearsing for a role in The Music Man, so eventually it twigged that the song in question was Seventy-Six Trombones.)
And once in Tim Horton’s, my youngest asked what song was playing over the speakers in the background.
I told them it was called Walk of Life, by Dire Straits, and they burst out laughing.
“Dire snakes? That’s silly, dad!”
You’ve got to love sponsored links.
When you do a Google search, a robot checks what you were looking for and sometimes serves up paid-for text ads to the right of your search results. Same thing happens when you use Gmail: this supposedly-clever robot reads the content of your mail and serves up ads it thinks you’ll find relevant.
Of course, it doesn’t always hit the mark.
This week, a CBC Archives visitor sent us an inquiry about The Happy Gang, a troupe of cheerful Canadian entertainers that had a show on CBC from 1938-1959. We forwarded the message to the Gmail address of the writer who prepared our profile.
Here’s the sponsored link that was served up beside the Happy Gang inquiry:
*Most Dangerous Gang DVD*
Discover the Methods and Members of the World’s Most Dangerous Gang.
www.NationalGeographic.com
Hmm, that doesn’t sound like Old Pappy and Bobby Gimby to me… here’s the full DVD description, from the National Geographic site:
You’ve spotted the graffiti. You’ve seen their tattoos. And you’ve read the shocking headlines documenting their brutality. But what is driving the rapid spread of the ultra-violent gang MS-13, which has infected big cities and small towns across the country? National Geographic Explorer’s Lisa Ling takes you deep inside a merciless world hidden in plain view—the shadowy culture of MS-13. It is an organization that recruits the most desperate, including children, and twists them into hardened criminals capable of the most heinous crimes.
Gang, yes. But not happy! Not at all!
To my absolute delight, MC of the excellent pop culture blog Culture Kills… wait, I mean cutlery has weighed in on the Commuting by Numbers experience, with his own set of 23 statistical categories. Thanks Matt!
This edition comes from an not-precisely-disclosed location in Southern Ontario. It’s not only amusing, but gives me some ideas for categories I’ll count next for Toronto. Enjoy!
Commuter: Matthew Caverhill
Location: Southern Ontario
Commuting time: 1-1.25 hours
Route: Travelling the Riverside blues by foot and down and about the thoroughfares of the next town by bus.
Graffiti: 38 locations
Tim Hortons: 10
Ethnic Grocery/Bakeries: 11
Pizza places: 17
Coffee shops: 12
Apartment Buildings: 38
Parks: 15
Panhandlers: 6
Buses: 18
Car dealers: 4
Gas stations: 7
Traffic lights: 18
Bars: 23
Of those, I’ve been in: 8
Strip clubs: 5
Of those, I’ve been in: unspecified
Casinos: 1
Teenaged Girls dressed inappropriately… for the weather: 5
Churches: 4
Of those, I’ve been in: 0
Hospitals: 2
Bookstores: 5
Recalcitrant Geese that don’t fly south for the winter: about a hundred
Numbered Streets: 0
As always, I’d love to hear about your commute, wherever it may be. Count something - anything - and let me know about it!
My five-year-old, looking out the window at today’s snowfall:
“Uh oh. Yeti weather…..”
Runner up line of the day comes from my three-year-old, watching her mother putting on deodorant under her t-shirt:
“Mommy, are you doing the chicken dance?”
As an update to my previous post, the extremely funny and popular “Introducing the Book” skit from the Norwegian broadcaster NRK has been pulled from YouTube.
It seems NRK is one of those broadcasters that isn’t comfortable with sharing their stuff outside of their own confines (*coughs nervously and looks around him*).
“Introducing the Book” was “removed by user” from YouTube last night - despite NRK’s own glowing news report (from two days ago) on how “Norwegian humour is catching on internationally”. (One wonders how long this clip will be YouTube…)
That clip describes how the clip has topped the YouTube charts - a relative rarity for a clip from Norway - and had received over one million viewers via YouTube. But the writing was on the wall: the announcer also mentioned that
It is illegal to upload NRK material to the Internet without an agreement, and NRK’s lawyers are now investigating the case.
She goes on to say that Oystein Bache, who cowrote the skit six years ago, was “flattered” by the bit’s popularity:
this is probably the closest we are getting a world wide launch, and we are very pleased so far.
A sad response to international acclaim, huh?
For the moment, the original Norwegian version is still on YouTube, but don’t bet on it staying there.
To NRK’s credit, the clip is available on their own site - in Norwegian only. (The accompanying story headline still refers to their former viral success: NRK-klipp på YouTube-toppen.)
Which is great, and all… if you understand the Norwegian language. Which only 0.07 per cent of the world does.
Now, lest I sound too sanctimonious about NRK’s decision to murder their own success, I should disclose that CBC has done the very same thing.
One of the most popular clips on the CBC Archives site (where I work) is a 1993 clip entitled A Network called ‘Internet‘. The National host Peter Mansbridge introduces the internet for the first time, and you can hear the air quotes around the term (throughout, it’s just called “internet” - the word “the” became popular later, I guess.) Great clip, gets a lot of traffic.
Also got a lot of traffic on YouTube, where someone posted a pirated version. There was no credit given, no mention of CBC, no link to the source, and worst of all, someone inserted a pre-roll ad for another website at the beginning. CBC requested the video be removed, and it was. (Of course, it reappeared a few months later - but the YouTube version is really horrible quality.)
Are these cases any different? I’m not sure. In CBC’s defence, the YouTube version is identical to the CBC one, but lower quality. The NRK clip is different in that it offers no English translation; the YouTube version added value (one could almost argue it’s a derivative work, if one had a ballsy lawyer.) I don’t decide these things, but in the CBC case I think the lack of credit and the inserted ad made the piracy a lot harder to put up with.
The NRK clip in all likelihood had rights issues not present in the CBC clip - the skit had writers and actors, and I know that in Canada these are major stumbling blocks to putting anything on the internet (see the current ACTRA dispute over just this issue.) Perhaps they had no choice but to take it down from YouTube (but not their own site) or face the wrath of the unions. Who knows.
And, copyright aside, any time a clip appears elsewhere it means less traffic to the owner’s website, and less ad revenue (but more bandwidth cost….)
Regardless, fencing your content in isn’t the best way to get viewers. CBC is exploring outside partnerships already - we already have a deal with Google Video, which now owns YouTube. If you go to video.google.ca, you’ll see a whole section of CBC clips.
To my knowledge, there isn’t a similar section for NRK (though Google Video has over 500 NRK clips, probably illegally.)
Perhaps they are working on a similar deal. I’d check their website to find out… but I don’t speak Norwegian.
—————
Update (22 Feb. 07): For the moment, the video has been reposted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAWR6hzZek
…and many other places on YouTube.
You can also watch it here:
http://www.devilducky.com/media/57946/
Since writing this piece, I’ve e-mailed some new media contacts at NRK to ask if there are any plans for a legal English version. No word yet, though.
—————
Update (26 Feb. 07): I heard back from a contact at NRK, who says that “NRK has had a lot of questions regarding this clip and are planning to publish it again, with subtitles” - which would certainly be better than having it go on and off YouTube at the whim of the lawyers.
Thus far in my blogging career I’ve carefully avoided simply reposting videos and other internet curios upon which I’ve stumbled. Figure I’d leave that to the other 70 million bloggers out there.
But once in a while, it’s hard to resist - as was the case with this absolutely hilarious commercial from France’s Canal+. If you’ve seen March of the Penguins, you’ll adore this spoof of its French title, La Marche de l’empereur.
The march of the Penguins - viral - neychev
In France The March of the Penguins movie has been presented with the title “The March of the Emperor”. This is an amusing Tv spot to promote Canal +. Movies are made to be seen
Remember when those festivals of commercials from around the world were all the rage? Whatever happened to those? I seem to recall going to rep cinemas and paying actual money to see the best of the world… seems unlikely these days, somehow.
Anyhow, this one ranks right up there with my two other favourite foreign-language YouTube clips:
We Are Sinking (Berlitz’ hilarious “German Coast Guard” ad)
Introducing the Book (Norway’s NRK, subtitled in Danish and English)
(Video has since been removed by NRK. Update on this story here)
Any other favourites I should know about?
In exchange for my immortal soul, a family pack of Smarties and copious, extraneous links to his blog, Sinister Dan of The Reasonable Ego (enough?) has tepped up to the plate in my Commuting by Numbers challenge.
SinisTer Dan (who I shall henceforth call STD) travels by car for 45 km, on rural highways from St. Margaret’s, N.B. to Rexton, N.B. – which no doubt takes less time than my 5 km trip down Queen St. in Toronto.
Here’s his list – like mine, but much more amusing. Enjoy!
Commuter: Sinister Dan
Location: Rural New Brunswick
Commuting time: not specified
Route: Highways 11/134
Trees: approximately 195,000 (according to The UNB school of Forestry)
Houses: 29
Abandoned houses: 6
Houses that look like they ought to be abandoned but aren’t: 3
Road signs warning about random moose attacks: 8
Buildings owned by the provincial government with no obvious purpose: 2
Billboards: 1
Gas stations: 1
Churches: 2
Roadkill: 4 (today)
Signs with illegible aboriginal place names: 5
Bridges: 5
Streams and rivers: 7
Marshes: 1
People in other means of transport: 1 (he’s the crazy hitch-hiker who never gets picked and yells at you car as you pass him)
Building taller than 2 stories: 0
Kilometers of 4 lane highway: 0
Universities, bookstores, strip clubs, decent restaurants and good coffee shops: 0
People selling fish out of their trucks at 6:45 a.m.: 2
My degree of woe (1-10): 9
STD also sends his regrets for not providing pictures, but offers this description of the one billboard on his journey:
…it’s for a place that makes soap “the old fashioned way” (although not so old fashioned as to render hog fat for the purpose) and they offer tours. The Billboard has one of the owners (who I know through local business conferences and such). Supposedly he’s supposed to be the ringmaster of a circus looking excited or something and it is without a doubt the silliest thing I’ve ever seen — it looks like the cover shot from Platoon from a higher angle and gaudy clothes…
I will do everything in my power to extort a photograph asap.
There may be more Commuting by Numbers contributions coming soon – and I’d really appreciate yours! Who knows, maybe this will become a meme of sorts.
One that won’t be coming is from Tod from Vancouver, who offers this excuse:
Heheheh… I’m afraid the only time I commute it’s pitch black (5:45 am)!
Fair enough. No sense counting street lamps over and over. Although Tod also works from home a fair bit -I’d be most amused to hear someone’s numbers commuting from the bedroom to the home office (floor tiles, cats, dirty socks….)
Anyone?
Sometimes when I’m commuting to and from work, and the streetcar is so packed I that I can’t read, I just count stuff. Schools, traffic lights, crazy people, whatever - it helps pass the time.
I thought it might be interesting to blog the list, so here it is thus far. There will no doubt be more counting coming eventually - and not just from me. I’ve challenged some of my fellow bloggers in other parts of Canada to do the same. The regional comparisons might be rather interesting.
And of course, I’d love to hear from you! Count up something from this list on your own commute - or make your own categories. Let me know, and I’ll count them. Here we go:
Commuter: Paul Gorbould
Location: Downtown Toronto
Commuting time: 45 minutes
Route: Queen/King Streets, via streetcar
Billboards: 36 (48/hr)
Neon signs: 48 (64/hr) [pictures]
Poster-type ads: 291 (388/hr)
Public art installations: 16 (21.3/hr)
Indian restaurants: 4 (5.3/hr)
Pizza places: 9 (12/hr)
Coffee shops: 19 (25.3/hr)
Condos under construction: 14 (18.7/hr)
Cows: 0 (0/hr)
Parks: 9 (12/hr)
Really hot women: 21 (28/hr)
Panhandlers: 3 (4/hr)
Churches: 7 (9.3/hr)
Strip clubs: 1 (1.3/hr)
Street cars: 17 (22.7/hr)
Car dealers: 4 (5.3/hr)
Gas stations: 0 (0/hr)
Traffic lights: 14 (18.7/hr)
If you really care what my criteria were for what constitutes a park or a hot woman, I can tell you, but I don’t think it matters much. [For the record: A park had to have some trees and enough grass to play frisbee on. Counting women is embarrassingly crass, and explaining what I consider hot would only make things worse. Use your imagination.]
So, there’s round one. I’m awaiting results from the ragtag fugitive fleet of bloggers I’ve challenged to do likewise: Sinister Dan in New Brunswick, MC in Southern Ontario, Joe in the ‘burbs, Tod in Vancouver. John in Newfoundland informed me that a St. John’s “commute” takes five minutes (but 20 in “rush hour”) so he’s off the hook.
How about you? Anyone else love to count?
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