As it turns out, knowing about it for months didn't soften the blow too much.
Aaron Rand, who announced in February he would be leaving CFQR/Q92/The Q after more than 20 years as a morning host, spent his last day at the microphone on Thursday.
And when he finally said goodbye, there weren't too many dry eyes in the room.
I'm pretty sure the aliens are trying to send us a message.
This National Film Board documentary about the state of Canadian radio (particularly CBC/Radio-Canada) in 1949 has some funny lines. My favourite is this one:
"Radio reads its fan mail and makes its listeners' surveys because radio has learned to trust the judgment of the listener. And in Canada, the listener gets what he asks for."
There's also some talk near the end about setting up a national television network and developing this new "frequency modulation" radio. And a clip of Oscar Peterson tickling the ivories.
I watched the special 50th anniversary broadcast of CFCF-12 last night. It was nice to watch for a local TV buff like me.
The anniversary special was preceded by a very short newscast. And since I made fun of a Global error the night before, I can't ignore the fancy camerawork on display during a broadcast that I'm sure many other people also had on their digital video recorders.
Wonky, indeed.
You might have missed it because you were on vacation or something, but the ad agency écorce put together a form of online advent calendar in December with ... let's call them interpretations of things that happened online in 2010.
It was kind of hit and miss, but there were a few gems among the videos that were done for this:
Une fille inoubliable, by Les Appendices. My favourite sketch comedy fivesome, the stars of the Télé-Québec show covered an awfully written and awfully-sung song from a video that was posted to YouTube but later taken down (fortunately, the Internet keeps copies of these things). Even though they use the same lyrics and roughly the same music, the Appendices version is actually pretty good. At the very least, it had a much higher budget.
Contrat d'lezz, by le Girly Show. You've seen Contrat d'gars, right? The show that goes so over the top with the testosterone you can't help but laugh. It's hard to parody something that already doesn't take itself seriously, so Le Girly Show just turns it on its head and has women playing the lead roles. It's not much funnier than the original, but it has the same magic.
L'Année 2010 selon Carole. Carole aide son prochain is a straight-faced comic web series that ... I'll be honest, it's kind of hit and miss, though I like the concept. In this video, she takes on that lots-of-celebrities-political-message asking for a moratorium on shale gas exploration with some simple but effective satiric criticisms.
The rest of the videos from this project are listed on this page, and lots of other non-video-related recaps are also worth exploring.
(Did I miss something awesome? Think one of these videos is stupid and uninteresting? Tell me off in the comments)
I think what worries me most about the weather, as I saw it on tonight's Téléjournal, isn't that major cities on the west side of the country are farther east than they should be, but that the wind there is so strong it is repeatedly pushing Calgary into Edmonton.
This parody of Céline Dion and Julie Snyder: Funniest segment of the night, or mean-spirited attack on Quebecor? In this case, funny is in the eye of your employer
It's tradition in Quebec media to review each year's end-of-year special from Radio-Canada, the Bye-Bye. It went a bit crazy two years ago when Véronique Cloutier and Louis Morissette decided to take their first crack at it. So much so that there wasn't one to end 2009.
So you can imagine how much everyone was anxious to see what would happen when Cloutier and Morissette decided they would throw themselves into the gauntlet again and host the Bye-Bye 2010.
I watched it, along with my family, on New Year's Eve, and followed the reaction live on Twitter. My first thoughts were that it was pretty impressive, that they weren't overcompensating by pulling their punches compared to 2008, and that it wasn't likely to offend anyone ... or at least, no one not working for Quebecor.
The consensus was that the production values were good (particularly makeup and prosthetics, which in some cases made the actors barely recognizable as themselves and instantly recognizable as their targets), the parodies were well done, and the music videos were great, but the jokes fell flat, which is kind of the most important part.
The first professional reviews came quickly afterward (Richard Therrien's was up in less than an hour). But many others waited because they were to go in newspapers, and many of them published neither on New Year's Day nor on Sundays. It would be more than 48 hours before some people would read anything about it.
I didn't catch this on Christmas Day (because, sadly, I was working), but CFCF aired a half-hour year-in-review special in place of its regular newscast. It featured some discussions with CTV staff, and little packaged bits from reporters about their favourite stories of the year.
Artist's conception of the new studio planned for CFCF's newscast
You can watch the whole thing on its website, but the highlight for local TV buffs is the final segment, which takes a look at their plans for a new studio (hinting that the newscast will be in HD in 2012), and finishes off with bloopers (the funniest ones involving Paul Karwatsky).
For CFCF's Barry Wilson, who hates it when people wish him a Happy Holidays:
Season's Greetings, Barry.
And a Merry Christmas to everyone.
(And thanks to hifichet, ladyjaye27, TVRetroQC, mtltv and others who are finding jems like these and putting them on YouTube so they can be enjoyed nostalgically by everyone.)
Making a joke about this would lessen its comedic value.
Those folks at CBC Montreal have taken to embarrassing themselves in front of the Internet to promote a holiday fundraiser for Dans la rue.
The Carolling Challenge will see personalities and listeners sing along in an effort to drum up donations. There's even a practice today at 1pm (in case you're not going to either the protest against the Journal de Montréal or the protest in memory of Mohamed Anas Bennis, which are both taking place at the same time), before they hit five locations between Monday and Wednesday. Send a picture of yourself at one and you could even win a bag!
After that, next Sunday, there's the annual Christmas Sing-In, a recording that will air on Christmas Day on the radio.
But if you just like seeing videos of CBC radio personalities singing Christmas songs (and if that's the case, there's something wrong with you), here's a bonus video of Sue Smith singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town:
You'll probably be seeing mention of this video in the local media in the coming days (hopefully some will actually look into the issue instead of just posting the video with baseless conjecture like I am here). It shows a metro train travelling between the Assomption and Viau stations on the green line with a door stuck open, and is already getting traction on Twitter.
It shouldn't be difficult to see the very serious safety implications of this kind of failure.
Metro trains are designed with a safety system designed to prevent exactly this (which is why it's so rare). When it detects that a door has opened beyond a set limit, it automatically commands the train to stop. This is what causes a train to come to an abrupt halt, usually as it's leaving a station, when someone either accidentally or deliberately attempts to force a door open.
Clearly, unless this video is an elaborate fake of some sort, this system failed on this train. Hopefully it will prompt an investigation that ensures it never happens again.
Since the failure happened on an older MR-63 train, expect some people to link this to the age of the trains and the apparent desperate need to replace them with new ones from Bombardier-Alstom.
UPDATE (Nov. 9): The Gazette's Max Harrold has preliminary details from the STM: It was just that door, it was locked closed when the STM discovered the problem at Berri-UQAM, and it has since been fixed.
The spokesperson also adds "someone should have pulled the emergency brake" - though those handles on board the trains don't actually stop a train in motion, they merely prevent it from leaving the next station.
Just about everyone has picked up the story, with varying amounts of journalism involved:
There's also commentary already, mostly along the lines of "why did they just film it instead of pulling the emergency brake?" - from bloggers like Cécile Gladel. While I think I would have pulled the emergency brake if I was in that position, I would have also taken photos or video of it.
Consider this:
The Metrodemontreal.com forum also has some discussion of this event and testimonials of similar things happening in the past.
Automatic sprinkler systems annoy me quite a bit. I mean, we get enough rain here that it's really not necessary to use the public potable water supply to water the grass.
But those behind the Place de l'Adresse symphonique of the Quartier des spectacles know it's important not just to keep the grass drowning in water, but to keep the garbage can and sidewalk wet at all times.
Grass drowning in sprinkler water for no apparent reason
I'm not necessarily in favour of spending millions of taxpayer dollars on massive air conditioning systems for the three or four weeks a year they'll be useful, but I have to admit this Projet Montréal video is damn funny.
(The original, for those who haven't seen it)
You can find the party's dossier on the subject on its website. It includes those pictures of people holding up giant thermometers on the metro.
If only all public policy discussions involved dancers (and am I the only one who thinks it's a missed opportunity that we don't see Richard Bergeron, Luc Ferrandez and Peter McQueen prancing around a fake metro car?)
Annakin Slayd, known best for his songs about the Canadiens (so popular they've been parodied) but also a die-hard Expos fan, has produced a music video honouring Montreal's former baseball team.
The look back comes just as Andre Dawson is set to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame tomorrow as an Expo (even if he preferred a Cubs cap on his head).
And if that isn't enough, here's another video (well, it's more about the song than the video) to remind you of the Team of Heartbreak:
And a preview of what might be the last Expos Hall of Famer someday, Vladimir Guerrero:
Meanwhile, The Gazette's Andy Riga explores what to do with that giant monstrosity that the Expos used to call home, including what to do with the space around it, what to do about its roof, and what to do about getting events there. There's also some numbers worth looking at, and his blog has a whole truckload of suggestions from readers about the stadium's future (some serious, some not so much).
And the Bleacher Report has compiled a list of the top 25 Expos.
