Monthly Archives: March 2007

| Montreal

Andy Srougi is running

Andy Srougi, the Fathers 4 Justice guy who climbed the Jacques Cartier bridge, is running as an independent in the Jacques Cartier riding (“a coincidence”, he says).

Srougi, who I interviewed last year, is a conspiracy theorist who believes 99% of judges are “complete idiots”, and that the government is conspiring with feminists to discriminate against men.

Last month Srougi was named a “quarrelsome litigant” by a Quebec judge and prevented from filing lawsuits, after an “avalanche” of filings against his ex-wife and the government.

| In the news

“My mother never saw the irony of calling me a son of a bitch”

Andy Nulman (formerly of the Just for Laughs festival) breaks the news that comedian Richard Jeni (quotes) has committed suicide. No news links yet. Apparently Jeni was supposed to perform in Chicago but was replaced at the last minute. Jeni’s website is blank.

Sad. Comedy isn’t supposed to be sad.

UPDATE: The news coverage begins in the gossip column. Now AP has finally picked up the story, which means it will be in the papers tomorrow.

| Technology, TV

HD isn’t worth it

Chef Nick of MontrealFoodBlog has a refreshingly realistic post on why HD isn’t quite ready for prime-time yet. It mentions the lack of available channels (besides the major networks, TSN and Discovery – and even those have very little in HD outside of prime time), the confusing technobabble (there’s TV, digital TV, 720p, 1080i, 1080p HDTV, UHDV — try reading this article without drawing a diagram), and the ongoing HD DVD format war.

The thing that bothers me most beyond this is the rather unsmooth transition from regular television. For example, my parents recently got an HD-ready television with its 16:9 aspect ratio, but they’re still connected to standard-definition cable. The result when watching prime-time programming is that the TV centres the cable signal, leaving black bars on the sides. The network, meanwhile, centres the HD programming, leaving black bars on the top. So on a 21″ HD television, the picture is only about 17 inches wide.

Ironically, the TV has a “zoom” feature, which expands a standard-definition signal horizontally to fill the TV, but there’s no option to do the same vertically when there’s an HD-filmed program on. The result is big black bars on the top and bottom, and a very stretched picture which makes everyone look about twice their weight.

Not that I’m bitter. But I think I’ll keep my trusty 13″ CRT and standard-definition cable box for the time being.

| Montreal

Meters won’t be “parkavenued”

With the success of the Park Ave. citizens’ revolt, a group of angry drivers is trying to get a similar thing started with parking meters. To get the point across, they’ve coined the term “parkavenue” in an effort to strike fear in the heart of politicians.

The problem is that a lot of the people behind the Park Ave. protest, young tech-savvy Plateau residents, don’t own cars and care about the environment. They aren’t likely to support this cause.

This protest is instead being run by the business interests. Those who want to eliminate reserved bus lanes and turn the entire downtown core into a gas-guzzling parking lot. They want to reduce fees, reduce hours and create more of those eyesore private lots.

Sorry, I’m not buying it.

One thing they will get my support for is eliminating parking meters on Sundays. I’m against Sunday fees not because I want to encourage driving downtown or because I care about businesses, but because I want to help cut down on drunk driving. There are no studies to help prove my case (I’m a blogger, I don’t need evidence for my opinions), but common sense dictates that people will be more likely to drive under the influence on a Saturday night if they know they can’t leave their car and come back for it in the morning, lest they find a ticket in their windshield.

| Media, Montreal

Now I know how to commit suicide

The Gazette today has a very long feature article (inexplicably split into three parts online which, of course, don’t link to each other – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) about the life of Dawson College shooter Kimveer Gill, and seeks (and fails) to answer the question of why he did what he did. The piece is some feat for reporter Sue Montgomery, since Gill’s family has been long reluctant to speak to the media.

Meanwhile, Peggy Curran speaks to the family of Anastasia De Sousa, who was Gill’s lone fatality on Sept. 13, 2006. They too have been hiding from the media spotlight, and the article speaks of the stresses of ravenous reporters stopping at nothing to get a scoop.

Both articles are well-written and insightful, but a nagging feeling persists: De Sousa’s article is a page long, while Gill’s spans three pages. Had Gill simply shot himself or committed suicide some other way, he likely would have had no coverage whatsoever, due to newspapers’ policies of not giving publicity to suicides.

But because Gill went out in a blaze of gunfire, his suicide prompts an in-depth look at his life larger than most major politicians would receive. The uncomfortable message here is clear: If you’re going to off yourself, make sure to take a few people with you. Then nobody will forget you.

Hopefully no one will take that message to heart.

| Uncategorized

He’s all yours, Ed

The Gazette is reporting today that Dr. Ed Enos, former athletics director for Concordia University, died this week.

What the glowing obituary doesn’t mention is a scandal (PDF: Pages 2-3) which painted a rather large stain on Enos and the department after Link reporters (and Kurt Cobain conspiracy therologists) Ian Halperin and Max Wallace discovered that the athletics department was using its budget to pay athletes. The case escalated to the point of an alleged fistfight between Halperin and Enos’s son, which witnesses said Enos Sr. encouraged.

| Media, Montreal, Slow News Day

CTV is on the ball

CTV must be having trouble filling their hour of news. Tonight they have a “report” from Paul Karwatsky about how, I kid you not, buses are crowded at rush-hour.

To fill a few minutes get the big story, he interviewed Marvin Rotrand outside the Snowdon metro station (I’d like to see Rotrand for once interviewed somewhere other than outside the Snowdon metro), and then took him for a ride on the 51 (“arguably one of their busiest lines” — Sorry, Paul, it’s not even in the top five). The conclusion? They need more money for more buses.

Really, is there no news happening right now?

| Canadiens, In the news, Media, Montreal

Media too much for Habs?

Apparently the media firestorm that pounds at our beloved Canadiens day after day has brought out the veterans (Yvan Cournoyer, Henri Richard) who say they need to calm down.

But really, are there that many media outlets covering the Canadiens’ every move? Let’s see:

  1. The Gazette
  2. La Presse
  3. Journal de Montréal
  4. Le Devoir
  5. The Globe and Mail
  6. RDS
  7. CBC/NewsWorld/CBC Radio
  8. TVA/LCN
  9. TQS
  10. Canadian Press
  11. CTV Montreal/CTV NewsNet
  12. TSN
  13. Rogers SportsNet
  14. The Team 990
  15. CJAD Radio
  16. 940 News

Some of the above don’t cover every game, and others probably rely on wire services a lot, but it’s still a lot of coverage. The Gazette, for example, will have the following on a Habs home game:

  1. Red Fisher doing a game story
  2. Pat Hickey doing an analysis
  3. Jack Todd doing commentary
  4. Dave Stubbs blogging or writing features
  5. Mike Boone live-blogging
  6. Kevin Mio writing about coverage of the game
  7. A photographer shooting photos

That’s a lot of people doing a lot of work just for one news outlet, and this crew is small compared to the number of people required for adequate television coverage.

So maybe they’re on to something. The question is: what do we do about it?