This is a joke, right? Colbert’s just going to ad-lib his whole show?
I can understand Leno and Letterman putting on a bare-bones show without monologues in order to save the jobs of non-writing tradespeople who work for them. But Stewart and Colbert are all about the writers. What the heck are they going to do?
It’s a bit last-minute, but a snowball fight is being organized (Facebook link) at McGill at 7pm. They’re meeting just inside the Roddick Gates on Sherbrooke at the James McGill statue.
The Agence métropolitaine de transport has still not recovered from this weekend’s snowstorm, and trains on the Dorion/Rigaud line are still not opreating operating properly, forcing delays during every rush hour since, for a variety of reasons (but basically “snow” and “cold”).
Spokesperson Mélanie Nadeau says she hasn’t seen anything this bad in six years.
Which is the same thing she said Sunday, which was “the worst day since I started.”
And apparently it’s worse than breakdowns in May, when she said nobody could remember anything as bad in 10 years.
How many more worst days is the AMT going to experience?
UPDATE: My mother points out that I misspelled “operating” above. I live with the unending shame.
The RCMP announced today that they have made eight arrests in a DVD counterfeiting network based in Montreal that was selling bad copies of DVDs (and in some cases off-TV recordings) of U.S. television series through multiple websites.
The RCMP doesn’t name the eight people arrested, nor the websites involved, nor the name of the company they were working under. But all signs point to TVBoxSet.com, which The Gazette wrote about in August after many users complained of either not getting what they ordered or getting bad copies of what they were expecting. The website is currently offline.
(I tried to call the RCMP spokesperson to confirm this, but their office apparently closes before 3:45pm on a day they issue a major news release.)
Garcia Media Group, which was the company behind the operation, distributed the DVDs through the following nearly-identical websites:
as well as a number of other domains that have since been turned into spam sites.
Many of the sites listed above are still operational and will still gladly accept your credit card information.
Not that anyone should be held responsible for being defrauded, but some simple sleuthing on the part of surfers could have prevented their losing money to these scam sites:
It should be noted, of course, that this is bootlegging in the traditional sense, profiting off the selling of copied copyrighted material. It is clearly covered under existing copyright law, and it’s clearly illegal.
The RCMP says it started an investigation in February (why did it take them that long?). Let’s hope they have a solid case that will result in long sentences and heavy fines, and that everyone who has been scammed will be refunded.
UPDATE (Dec. 25): Missed this TQS video of the operation, including stacks of dozens of DVD burners that practically bring it into the territory of cartoonish supervillainy.
It’s pretty well agreed among most reasonable people that speed is bad. Unless you’re speeding just a bit above the speed limit, then it’s ok because everyone else does it and you’re not hurting anyone. But anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac, and everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot.
So, some wonder, why do cars have speedometers that go up to 180kph? Why not just technologically limit how fast they can go and make it simpler for everyone?
Well nobody is doing that quite yet, but Quebec is taking a step in the direction of making automakers responsible for speeding. They’re considering banning all advertising that glorifies excessive speeding. Basically all that “professional driver on closed course” stuff, as well as shots of ski-doos flying through the air.
It’s clear that self-regulation isn’t effective here. Half of car ads feature unsafe driving, possibly in violation of the industry’s own rules about advertising. New Zealand started cracking down on these kinds of ads years ago, and Australia is running interference suggesting speeders have small penises.
To see an example of how bad it is, take a look at this Volkswagen commercial, which features speeding, unsafe driving, near-collisions and apparently drunk driving, with the moral of the story that the car’s safety systems will leave you without a scratch no matter how far you push the envelope.
That’s just irresponsible. It’s time to shut down the closed course.
UPDATE (Dec. 22): Of course, to say that such a law is a ridiculous overstepping of legislative authority, a gross attack on free speech and an outrageous violation of our rights by a nanny-state too concerned with wasting our money pretending we’re idiots would also be true.
Cyberpresse (which just started playing music on my laptop without permission) is putting up 360-degree photos on its website: already one of a snowy Gilford St. shovelling on de Mentana St., and a truck accident on Cremazie Blvd.
It’s just another example of how big media companies like Cyberpresse understand the Internet and are prepared to use cutting-edge 1994 technology* to bring things that are cool but uninformative to users. (The last picture is particularly apt at showing the weaknesses of the technology: a truck accident is shown from only one angle — it’s great that I can see out in different directions, but I can’t see the other side of the truck.)
*Actually, it’s a Flash-based emulator of cutting-edge 1994 technology, but otherwise indistinguishable from Quicktime VR (right down to the unintuitive navigation).
Monday went by and I totally forgot about the geography question this week. Christmas shopping (and writing stories to be published over the holidays) have gotten the better of me.
So here we go, another what-do-these-things-have-in-common quiz:
Go fish.
UPDATE: Yul B. has the answer below. They’re all (mostly) undeveloped islands in the waters immediately adjacent to Montreal. Ste. Thérèse is the largest, next to the eastern tip of the island, Du Moulin and Rochon are north of the island in Pointe-aux-Trembles, and St. Jean and St. Pierre are part of the Iles de Boucherville.
TQS, which you’ll remember is in serious financial trouble, blaming it on a lack of revenue from cable operators to which they’re not entitled, asked CIBC World Markets to conduct a business review and tell them what they should do with themselves to avoid going under.
The answer, apparently, is bankruptcy protection and a major overhaul. Ouch.
TQS is owned 60/40 by Cogeco and CTVglobemedia.
UPDATE: Le Devoir goes into detail about the network’s troubles and owner Cogeco’s financial situation. It even adds an editorial cartoon.
UPDATE (Dec. 19): More stories about the network’s troubles:
UPDATE (Dec. 20): Patrick Lagacé writes eloquently about how Quebec media, and not just Radio-Canada, have special treatment from the CRTC that forces people to subscribe to their channels whether they want to or not.
The idea of blaming Radio-Canada for being government-funded is kinda funny. People blame the Mother Corp when they waste government money on unpopular programming. Then they blame RadCan for popular programming.
Considering TVA, an entirely private company, is killing TQS in the ratings, the blame seems a bit misguided. Perhaps if they just stopped producing crap…
UPDATE (Dec. 21): The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business has an article about Radio-Canada and how it’s a ratings success compared to CBC’s ratings failure. I’m sure the fact that CTVglobemedia owns the Globe and 40% of TQS has nothing to do with the article’s negative stance toward RadCan.
The article also misses one very important point in comparing CBC and Radio-Canada: French TV receives 22% of the CBC’s budget, and English TV 36%. That’s a pretty significant advantage for RadCan considering the number of francophones in Canada’s population.
UPDATE (Dec. 22): La Presse’s Nathalie Petrowski asks what Quebec would lose if TQS just disappeared.
Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay announced today (the press release is, naturally, not available in English) the launch of 3-1-1, the city’s non-emergency information service, just over two months after Laval brought its own system online.
It’s basically just a shortcut for the city’s Access Montreal phone service, and is available from phones off-island by dialing 514-872-0311. It runs weekdays 8:30am-8:30pm and weekends/holidays 9am-5pm. Things that can’t wait but aren’t necessarily life-threatening (broken traffic light, water pipe burst, snow’s been falling a whole five minutes and your street hasn’t been plowed yet) will be dealt with immediately you can leave a message about at any time and I guess someone will check the voicemail during the off-hours regularly.
The city plans to spend $3 million on this service in 2008, but wants to remind you that most of what you’d need to call about is available on its mammoth website. That includes finding out where those evil plow people took your car last night.
UPDATE: A Gazette story.
La Presse reports that Louis Morissette, who stars in Radio-Canada’s C.A., was scrubbed from a list of potential actors for the upcoming season of TVA’s Lance et compte, even before he could audition for a part.
The reason is simple: The two shows air at the same time, opposite each other.
I’ve always found it cute when I could see one person on two different channels at the same time, for whatever reason. But I hadn’t considered the idea that the network would care so much about it.
Waiting only 23 years after the media-glitzed introduction of the Apple Macintosh, cable Internet provider Videotron has decided to start supporting the operating system used by hundreds of thousands of Quebecers.
I can’t find the press release online, so whether this will apply to subcontracted technicians who have never heard of Macs isn’t clear.
At this rate, they should have basic Linux support by 2020.
UPDATE: Roberto forwarded me the press release:
The only provider with in-house experts for Mac support
Videotron now supports Apple/Mac platform
Montréal, December 17, 2007 — Videotron has announced that it now supports the Apple/Mac platform in its regular customer service operations. The move will benefit the growing proportion of Videotron subscribers who use Macs. Customer service, technical support and technical quality staff have already received training to enable them to guide customers towards connectivity solutions between Apple/Mac systems and Videotron’s service.
“As the only major Internet Services Provider in its service area to support Apple/Mac users with in-house experts capable of solving Internet-related problems of all kinds on Apple/Mac platforms, we are proud to be able to serve this growing customer group,” said Manon Brouillette, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Content and Product Development.
Supported applications
Forty Videotron customer service employees have received training and are able to advise Apple/Mac users on setting up Mac software such as Apple Mail, browsers and Mac OS 10.x and higher, including Jaguar v10.2, Panther v10.3, Tiger v10.4 and even Leopard v10.5, the release of which was announced in October. Like other Videotron services, this support is available 24/7.“With the booming popularity of Apple and Mac products today, we are confident that our decision to support these platforms and meet all the needs and challenges involved will have a very positive impact on customer satisfaction,” said Manon Brouillette.
As of January 2008, Videotron will be offering Mac users an Internet kit that has been fully redesigned for Apple/Mac systems, including installation CD, modem box and documentation.
Security on the Mac
Videotron has decided not to offer any security services for Apple/Mac products for now, since Apple/Mac systems have little vulnerability to security threats. However, the growth of Apple’s market share may eventually lead to the introduction of Mac security systems similar to what is available for PCs.
Videotron Ltd. (www.videotron.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Quebecor Media Inc., is an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, Internet access services, cable telephony and wireless telephone service. Videotron is a leader in new technologies with its illico interactive television system and its broadband network, which supports high-speed cable Internet access, analog and digital cable television, and other services. As of September 30, 2007, Videotron was serving 1,616,000 cable television customers in Québec, including 720,000 illico subscribers. Videotron is the Québec leader in high-speed Internet access, with 899,000 subscribers to its cable modem service. As of September 30, 2007, Videotron had activated 39,000 phones on its wireless telephone service and was providing cable telephone service to nearly 574,000 Québec households and organizations.
Since people have been Googling about school closures tomorrow (Monday, December 17), here’s a quick list of decisions that have been made as of 11pm Sunday. (Assume “open” means “tentatively open” and check the website before leaving in case they change their minds.)
(Decisions apply to all schools and head office unless otherwise indicated)
(That I could think of, have your butler check the website (or CJAD’s list) if not listed here)
Universities are usually open through all but the most crippling of snowstorms. Check individual class websites or student portals for details.
I was going to do some Christmas shopping today, but because (a) shopping malls amazingly are still closing at 5pm on weekends two weeks before Christmas and (b) I took one look outside, I decided to stay home and be one less strain on the transportation network.
That kept me in perfect position to see the lightning that everyone’s talking about, along with its acoustically suppressed thunder.
UPDATE (Dec. 18): The Journal wonders if the schools jumped the gun and if the closings were really justified.
Mitch Melnick, of the Team 990 fame (and his blog), is apparently in trouble with the city of Westmount (via Media in Montreal). Last month, the city ordered his home on Hallowell Street to be sold at auction (PDF) in January for non-payment of taxes.
Unless Melnick pays his back taxes by then (and really, these kinds of things are more threats than anything else), his home and others on the list will be up to the highest bidder on Jan. 30. You’ll have to pay a hefty price though, the city has it pegged at $579,600.
A successful walkout by freelancers at MTV Networks (or “permalancers,” who still have a lot more benefits than I get) has got me thinking: Could something similar happen here? What if all the freelancers that media outlets rely on for regular columns suddenly decided to stop working for a week?
Fresh off his successful campaign to have Montreal Alouettes head coach Jim Popp removed, The Gazette’s Herb Zurkowsky is breaking the news of his replacement, a guy named Marc Trestman, and in the same breath suggesting the new guy is as incompetent (if not moreso) as the old guy. Could another campaign be forming?
Zurkowsky is starting to live up to his mean-looking mugshot.
UPDATE (Dec. 18): The Alouettes confirm the news, and Zurkowsky adds a pessimistic post about how bad a choice it was.
Bleublancrouge, the advertising company behind The Gazette’s “Words Matter” campaign (including those TV commercials), is helping the newspaper with an interesting twist to its annual Christmas Fund campaign: The paper is donating 10 cents to its own charity fund every time someone sends an e-greeting card through its new e-greeting-card website.
Here’s one I’ve created especially for Fagstein visitors. You’re welcome.
Unfortunately, the design of the site (and the e-cards) is painfully annoying. In the same way that Bleublancrouge (and every other advertising company on the planet) has a Flash-only site that’s hard to navigate, this e-card site is also Flash-only. It features a 30-second piano rendition of Deck the Halls on infinite repeat, and the “sound off” button doesn’t appear until after you’ve already hit the mute button on your computer. It also appears to not have been sufficiently tested in Firefox on the Mac, because I have to scroll up and down to see anything. When you get to the card itself, it takes a full minute and a half to animate the 10-word message.
In other words, Patrick Tanguay, don’t click on that link.
That said, 10 cents to help a down-and-out Montreal family is worth a little annoyance. And if you don’t think so, feel free to donate to the fund itself via this page whose URL and design make it look a lot like a phishing page ready for your credit card information. (It’s not, of course, and you can donate by phone or in person.)
Chris DeWolf emailed me about this blog post on the two solitudes from Voir’s François Parenteau. In it, he argues that anglos are zombies (then he argues that we’re not zombies) and that we’re coming to get francophones so we can enslave them, or other such nonsense:
Et c’est vrai aussi que, d’un point de vue strictement francophone, les anglophones sont des morts-vivants. Ils sont vivants, en ce sens qu’ils marchent, travaillent, mangent, dorment, votent et font des enfants. Mais comme ils font tout ça en anglais, ils sont morts au regard de la communauté francophone. Ils ne créeront jamais rien en français. Ils ne consommeront aucun produit culturel en français. Ils ne retireront rien et n’amèneront rien à la sphère culturelle francophone. Ils la “compétitionnent” même avec la leur propre, indépendante, nourrie à même la culture majoritaire de ce zombie-land qu’est l’Amérique du Nord. Et pire encore, on le sait, ils transforment automatiquement en zombie les francophones avec qui ils entrent en contact. Il n’y a qu’à voir les communautés francophones hors-Québec pour s’en rendre compte.
My problem isn’t that he’s paranoid, or that he spews vitriolic hatred and xenophobia, painting hundreds of millions of people with one gigantic brush. My problem is how familiar this kind of language is, leading people to believe that such opinions are valid.
I wonder if I should even point out that the entire premise for the post is wrong. He says census data shows that French is the mother tongue of less than 50% of Montrealers (which is true), and that this is because of an increase in the number of English speakers. A quick look at the census data shows that almost all the change in percentages comes because of an increase in immigration and the number of allophones (who speak neither language at home). What’s more, a majority of these immigrants to Quebec are choosing French over English for the first time.
Of course, facts are irrelevant. What matters is what’s in his gut. And the irrational fear is there. Just like Americans think they’re going to get swarmed by illegal Mexican immigrants and have to speak Spanish, people like Parenteau think there’s an organized anglo conspiracy to rid Quebec of the French language, and that the percentage of francophones, now around 80% province-wide, will drop to zero.
I’m not suggesting that being surrounded by a population 50 times your size doesn’t put a melting pot pressure. It does, though nowhere near as big as alarmists make it out to be. And the shrinking population of francophones outside Quebec should be of concern as well to anyone who wants this country to promote bilingualism.
But it’s not equivalent to South African apartheid, as one commenter (who wants everyone to know he has a bachelor’s degree) suggested.
Parenteau points to the English-only Facebook as an example of the assimilation of francophones into anglophonia. I think it’s annoying that Facebook is only now considering creating versions of itself in other languages. YouTube, which launched an English-only Canadian site despite already having translated versions, is even moreso.
But the blame for this should rest on Facebook and YouTube, not anglophones in general. And the suggestion that francophones should boycott these sites (yeah, good luck with that) is exactly how it should be dealt with.
Even if we ignore all of that, the fact remains that Parenteau and company don’t put forward any serious solutions for the problem of “zombies” eating their brains. Some suggest sovereignty, which wouldn’t stop Quebecers from using Facebook, nor would it make French more common elsewhere in Canada. Restrictive legislation like Bill 101 just makes companies look for loopholes, which is why Momma’s Pizza House is now Maison de Pizza Maman but Burger King is still Burger King. Boycotts and popular campaigns don’t work.
And most importantly, blaming all us anglos for the problem and calling us names won’t do a thing for the cause. It’s not going to make us all run away to Toronto or start speaking French. It’s just going to get us riled up and start writing blog posts.
But I’m not going to stoop to François Parenteau’s level. I’m not going to pretend like he represents the majority of francophones. I know better than to suggest that 80% of Quebec’s population are ignorant xenophobes who want to rid the world of everyone who isn’t like them.
Montreal is the most bilingual city in North America. It’s a place where it’s not uncommon to find people switching languages in mid-sentence. But rather than embrace that, the two solitudes are at each other’s throats. Yes, that means we have some unilingual anglophones, but they represent less than 5% of the population. Is this really the end of the world? The alien invasion? The apocalypse?
We should be celebrating the fact that we can speak two languages here. We should be promoting it as an economic strength. Instead, we have people like François Parenteau who believe refusing to speak another language makes him a better person.
For those of you who’ve missed my blog profiles, fear not. This week I profile The Evolution of Jeremiah, a very personal journal of a gay man studying to become a minister at Christ Church Cathedral:
“Among all the gay reads I have on my blogroll, I am the only one who writes about life and religion,” he says. “If I help change one life or I help a gay person come out and live to tell the tale, or I help an HIV-positive person live another year after diagnosis, then I say I have done my job.”
(More)
Also this week, another Bluffer’s Guide, this time about copyright reform going on in Ottawa. It’s as quick a summary of the situation as I could fit into 750 words (with lots of movie title puns that honestly were last-minute throw-ins). Those of you interested in it should check out Michael Geist’s blog.
It’s a tricky issue because nobody has actually seen the copyright reform bill that Industry Minister Jim Prentice is going to put forward next year. Most of the concerns are based on Bill C-60, an attempt by the Martin Liberals to amend copyright in 2005. It was heavily criticized as favouring the interests of big media companies instead of users, and was never passed. There are concerns this is a similar attempt, mostly because there has been no public consultation about the bill.
UPDATE: Geisted!
Via Patrick Lagacé comes this video from comedian Jean-François Mercier, reciting his saga of trying to get a $100 mail-in rebate cheque from Bell Mobility, only to have them refuse to help him because of his “unprofessional” tone.
It’s eight minutes of him reading letters back and forth, but it’s probably the most entertaining eight minutes of talking-head letter-reading I’ve seen in a while. (Be sure to check out some of his other videos).It’s also why I avoid sales based on mail-in rebates and don’t count their discounts as real.
UPDATE (Dec. 17): Lagacé has a follow-up, with comments from a Videotron CSR who says we shouldn’t be shooting the messenger.
UPDATE (Dec. 18): Another follow-up from Mercier himself, who posts a video apologizing for his rude behaviour but reiterating how customer service agents aren’t servicing the customer and mail-in rebates are a scam. Naturally, his problem was solved quickly once his story hit the media, and he got a call from a high-up VP at Bell. (Sound familiar? We’ve seen this kind of blatant special treatment before from Bell.)
I’m sure Bell bigwigs think that having a VP stepping in to personally fix a situation and offer a thousand apologies gives people the impression that the company cares about customer service. But I think it just reminds people that all Bell cares about is the appearance of good customer service, treating people in the media with the red carpet and telling everyone else to stop bothering them. If Bell really cared about customer service, Mercier’s problem would have been resolved on his first phone call. It wasn’t.
The winner of this round of Where is Karla Homolka Now? goes to TVA, for their EXCLUSIVE report that she’s trying to make a new life for herself in the Antilles.
Did I mention it was an EXCLUSIVE report? An EXCLUSIVE special report, even? Because this report has special EXCLUSIVITY written all over it. EXCLUSIVITATION is what it’s all about. EXCLUSIVELY.
The “reporteurs d’un réseau anglophone” they EXCLUSIVELY speak of (God forbid they should name another media outlet in their EXCLUSIVE report) is Global Quebec’s Domenic Fazioli, who EXCLUSIVELY tracked her down to an East-end apartment in July 2006.
But that doesn’t make TVA’s report any less EXCLUSIVE.
UPDATE: Both CanWest News Service and Canadian Press have put out wire stories that rewrite what TVA reported, even though TVA doesn’t provide a source for their report and nobody can verify any new information about her.
