Starting Aug. 1, CTV is “rebranding” its Razer specialty channel (which had the occasional Buffy episode, but little else of interest to anyone over 12) to MTV2, which I can only imagine will make it suck more.
The move completes the transition of the specialty network from a youth-oriented TV network to a youth-oriented music TV channel in the same family as MuchMusic, MuchMoreMusic etc.
The other day (you know, back when it wasn’t raining), I wandered on to the Just for Laughs outdoor fun zone. For those of you who have never been here, it’s not so much funny ha-ha (the comics are saved for shows people pay for), it’s more about having fun with games, clowns, mimes and other amusing things.
The most amusing thing for me was this: a metro car, pulled out of the garage and parked on the street to be turned into an ice cream parlor.
Last week at its board of directors’ meeting, the STM approved a plan to extend service hours to five bus routes serving the downtown and near-downtown areas:
All of these routes are 7-day daytime routes, but their service ends before midnight (the 31 and 138 have their last runs as early as 7pm). Though the STM hasn’t said what exactly the extended service hours will be, expect these routes to have added evening service seven days a week, starting at the next schedule change in September.
Also at the meeting, the STM approved a new senior shuttle service for Montreal-North, St-Michel and Rosemont. I guess the stunning failure of the previous senior-shuttle experiment hasn’t fazed the transit authority.
What is this?
UPDATE (July 18): Nobody’s gotten it yet (beyond “it’s a fountain”), so here’s a hint:
Now does it seem clearer?
UPDATE: Finally we have the correct answer: It’s the artificial waterfall outside the Musée d’art contemporain at Place des Arts.
I’ve been asked (along with other bloggers, local media and left-wing conspiracy rags) to write about this video, in which an anonymous person in sunglasses and a tie rants about being “fair gamed” by the Church of Scientology and its minions (in the same way that someone rants about her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend).
I guess I’m just supposed to assume that everything this person said actually happened, and for the reasons given.
All I know for sure is that the anti-Scientologists seem just as weird as the people they’re protesting against.
UPDATE (July 17): I knew from the moment I posted this It’d get undue attention, and comments like this:
Title: Fagstein is gay | URL: http://fagsteinsuckscock | email: fagsteinisafag@fag.fag
Read about Scientology before you take a shit on the internet you dumb fuck
Fagstein is gay
La Presse’s Rima Elkouri starts a new summer filler first-person series “Une journée à” with a trip to the Casino chatting with the slot-machine zombies.
Anyone want to provide a home for a junior hockey player for $100 a week?
The CBC would like it to be known that they support (financially) Canadian orchestras… unless, of course, those orchestras work for the CBC.
This weekend, the Chronicle launched its much-touted (by itself) online-only weekend edition, which seeks to continue the age-old tradition of … whatever it is the West Island Chronicle is known for.
I don’t notice anything particularly new with this weekend edition, but perhaps it’s new for people used to getting a physical paper at home every week. It seems to be filled mainly with pixellated non-expert columnists talking about gaming, parenting, sales, exercise and … miscellaneous, I guess.
Cyberpresse editors are really excited about this new widget they’ve launched. There are versions for Windows XP, Apple Dashboard and Google Desktop. I tried the Dashboard version and I was rather disappointed:
I know all the know-it-alls are saying widgets are the future of media online, but I don’t think this is quite what they had in mind.
This is 90s-era Pointcast technology, with a mindset to match.
La Presse music columnist Alain Brunet has launched a music blog which he’s using to cover the Jazz fest. Nice of La Presse’s editors to tell us about this after the festival is over.
Dear La Presse,
Maybe you should get out of the video business. Your people are great writers, but they’re not equipped to do standups in the street about business stories. It’s just embarrassing.
By all means, put up videos of things that require video to properly understand. But if the video is a talking head surrounded by B-roll, why bother?
(I’d provide a link, but Cyberpresse seems to have something against people linking to its videos)
La Presse unveiled its Beijing Olympics blog, noting that it’s sending a team of reporters, including columnist Pierre Foglia, to China next month. (Ten years ago, a newspaper sending reporters to the Olympics wouldn’t be news, but with the industry suffocating and cutting back, every plane ticket and hotel room has to be justified as a Newspaper Reporting Event.)
The Star, meanwhile, is putting links to its Olympics website on every page, including a logo next to its flag. Sadly, the website from Canada’s largest newspaper has about the same design finesse you’d expect from a YMCA bulletin board.
The Gazette’s Dave Stubbs, meanwhile, is still milking the Chinese news sources for weird stories relating to the Games on his Five-Ring Circus blog, which contrasts with Canwest’s matter-of-fact topic page.
The Globe and Mail hilariously has its Olympics coverage in a section called “Others“. Their Olympics blog is better, at least, though I’m not sure what “Wb” stands for in the URL.
The best Canadian Olympics news website unsurprisingly goes to the CBC, which not only has a general Olympics website, but has separate related sites for each major sport at the Games, each filled with stories. These will be the last Olympics the CBC has broadcast rights for.
And for completeness sake, Quebecor’s Canoe portal has yawnable websites in French and English for the Games with stories from its newspapers and wire services.
But even that’s better than CTV’s Olympics website, which doesn’t exist. (CTV has rights to 2010 and beyond, so you’d think they’d take advantage of the opportunity to get some practice online)
I pity people who have to drive around downtown this weekend. It’s worse than usual because of all the street closures:
And I’m sure there’s plenty I missed. It all adds up to one giant headache for downtown drivers.
At today’s St. Hubert street sale, I noticed a crowd gathered near a stage as a band was playing. I figured I’d stick around a couple of minutes to take some pictures.
I ended up sticking around to the end.