Tag: Radio and TV

My Day South

Up in the middle of the night with too much road head. We went into CNY for some Labour Day weekend treat gathering, flipping back and forth between sports radio and crisis news until the Prairie Home Companion took us around eastern Lake Ontario, through sunset and dusk, north along beautiful highway #3 from Oswego to Watertown.

Through our travels we got to give to the Sally Ann as well as the American Red Cross through folk making it easy to give while going about doing their job. Rudy’s in Owsego had big jugs on the counter on a very busy Saturday night pouring all tips and whatever else customers wanted, all to be given to the ARC. Good to see. Good also to see that they were happy to take Canadian as well both for the tip jar and their wonderful fish sandwiches and little crab cakes. $2.09 USD for a Genny Cream to go with that…except they let me pay in CND at par. What was that about – a tribute to Bangour Maine circa 1975? The tip jar got the difference and more.

Gas prices were everywhere from $3.15 USD in Clay, a suburb NW of Syracuse, to around $3.60 USD in the Watertown area another hour north. The same US gallon cost around $4.11 in USD in Canada – that’s at $1.30 CND a litre. portland reported $3.00 USD in southern Maine Friday. I took my own over out of some personal plan to micro-manage gas supply. Crossing back we got to witness four early twenties lassies make the error of trying to sneak a shopping spree past customs. Oh dear.

Best line of the day? NPR’s Car Guys:

Brother #1: what happened to all the drive-in movie places anyway?
Brother #2: global. warming.
[Brother #1 then has coffee come out his nose and laughs for the next five minutes.]

In a day almost entirely based on going to place already known and liked, we even got to have lunch at Ann’s in Cape Vincent, home of the nicest waitresses on the planet, right after being allowed to enter by the nicest US customs guard who, when we said we may go to the State Fair, looked right into the back seat at the kids and said with a big smile “you let get them to buy you lots of candy, lots of candy, you hear?”

John Peel Day

I like this idea. To celebrate the memory of the massively influential BBC radio host John Peel, who died last year, people are encouraged to put on their own gig of some sort:

The very first John Peel Day will take place on Thursday October 13th. The day will be a celebration of John’s life and massive contribution to music and broadcasting with as many venues as possible staging gigs across the UK under the banner of Peel Day.

Maybe Gordon and the Salty Hams will reform for John Peel Day. That and a drum and cymbal parade around the living room surely are in order.

Update: On a somewhat unrelated note, if you have broadband, check out Hayseed Dixie on BBC Player. That is why the internet was created.

Hand Of God TV

Something to think about when you look out the window on a Tuesday afternoon wondering why, why we Canadians are kept from Argentinian TV by the all seeing eye of the CRTC:

Maradona and Pele, who have rarely seen eye-to-eye, swapped national shirts and headed a football to each other as Maradona’s new career began with goodwill wishes from his guests. Both took to the stage: Pele playing guitar and singing a song he composed himself and Maradona singing an Argentine tango about football. Pele praised Maradona for offering an example of how to beat addiction, calling him an inspiration for his jailed son.

I expect they shared their secret preferences for grilled meat condiments as well.

BBC Broadcasts First To Web

Sometimes new things actually do happen on the internet:

BBC Three is to premiere comedy series The Mighty Boosh on the internet before it is broadcast on television. The second series of the show will premiere via broadband from 19 July – a week before it is shown on television.

Seven years or so ago all the talk was convergence. All we got were podcasts. Maybe the BBC, which is doing its best to define the internet as much as pr0n has, is on to something.

Thanks Cable Co Guy

I have altered history through the power of email!

In late April, I complained to my faceless anonymous cable company complaint email service about the blacking-out of the last half of a local Yankees broadcast. I do not love the Yankees but their local broadcast is pretty good coverage and I do need my Kate Smith “God Bless America” seventh inning fix now and then. So I wrote as follows:

I noticed you made an error in switching to a Canadian broadcast of one US channel on Friday night. At 9 pm on Friday, Channel 5 (Syracuse) switched to the CTV Ottawa broadcast of “Third Watch”. Third Watch is not shown on Friday nights on channel five – the Yankees game is. As a result, we lost the last third of the game and had the same “Third Watch” show on channels 5 and 6. You are only required under CRTC regulation to switch when the broadcast of the US station is also on a Canadian so this swtich was not proper.


Gee – I hope Al saw me do that…

I received this in response:

Thank you for taking the time to contact Cogeco Technical Support.

As we do try to have a system that does not fault, some issues do occur such as some switching issues. Although I do not know the extent of as to why the switch did occur we do also try to resolve such problems in a timely manor. If you have any other questions or concerns please visit the Contact Us section at www.cogeco.ca. If you would like to speak to a customer service representative please call 1-800-267-9000. Our representatives are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

“Try” was not giving me the happy and I was a little concerned that this was actually a canned autobot response so tried again:

Will this practice be stopped? Channel 5 in Kingston will carry
baseball on Friday nights and will not have the same TV show as on channel 6 through out the season.

To which this respose was given:

Hopefully the programming that we receive from the stations was corrected and will not happen again.

“Hopefully” still left me wondering but I dropped it as it was apparently no bot. Frankly, as there is only a game on the odd Friday night, especially early in the baseball season, I had in my mind it was a switch requiring human attention and so the cause was lost. Happy, then, was the man that watched the 9:00 pm time slot come and go with no switch to the Canadian broadcast of a US show and happier still the man who saw the same pass into the 10:00 pm hour. Victory. The entire see-saw Yanks v. Cubs game with the local Yanks announcers and US car dealer ads. Yes, I know I have corrupted myself as a Canadian in spending my Friday night in this way but I could not help myself.

Dalek Found

A Dalek stolen from a Somerset tourist site has been found on Glastonbury Tor after thieves said it was “too hot”. The prop, which was at Wookey Hole Caves, near Wells, for a Doctor Who exhibition, was taken more than a week ago…

Last Thursday, staff found a Dalek plunger arm and a ransom note on a doorstep. The note read: “We are holding the Dalek captive. We demand further instructions from the Doctor.”

Now those are some good weirdos. ‘Cause they are not really real, right? Right?

F.A. Cup

Now that the long weekend is upon us and the events of Parliament’s crisis-ette have passed, it is important to remember there are real events out there in the real world and one happens tomorrow morning with the English F.A. Cup Final between Arsenal (yea!) and Man U. (booo!).

If you think Martin and Harper had issues recently, look at these two gents, the managers involved in tomorrow’s game – they have learned to love again compared to their past dealings but there is still a lot of love left over laying around doing nothing when these two meet. Roger’s SportsNet is telling us the game is on live and for free this year – starting 10 am EST. In past years, I have spent two hours swearing at the pay per view satellite dish when it would not take my order for the game so I am hoping the gods of digital cable transmission are with me tomorrow.