For those of us who look down upon Americans, thinking how stupid they are based on cherry-picking the worst responses to simple trivia questions, well, turnabout is fair play:
Category Archives: Video
Fast. Finally.
Dear FinallyFast.com,
I understand computers are hard, and that filming a commercial with people you found off the street can be difficult.
FinallyFast.com is for PC Computers Only
But when you say your product is for PCs only,
This iMac is apparently supposed to be a PC in the magic fairytale land of FinallyFast.com commercials
perhaps you shouldn’t show people using what are obviously Macs (albeit with the logos covered up).
BSOD on an iBook.. err, PC laptop
I can’t tell you how often I’ve gotten a blue screen of death on my iBook. Oh wait, yes I can. It’s never.
Mouvement du jour
Dailymotion has launched in Canada with both English and French versions. Which is better than YouTube did. Among the featured videos is this roundup of what happened at Podcamp Montreal from VideoPresse.
Party leaders, only with more hair
CBC’s Archives, which has good stuff but unfortunately encodes it using Windows Media, which I have to play using my choppy, buggy Quicktime plugin instead of a universal Flash player, has found archival footage of the five party leaders. As you can see, they have wacky hairstyles (Duceppe’s mullet being the most awesome) and big glasses and stuff.
Dion, Harper and Duceppe are all from the same turbulent early 90s era. Dion a political scientist commenting on the Charlottetown Accord pre-referendum. Harper from when he was a Reform Party wonk and before he was elected an MP, and Duceppe after he was elected in a by-election as the first Bloc Québécois MP (and the whole he-swore-an-oath-to-the-Queen controversy).
Layton is from a decade earlier, when he was elected in a surprise upset to Toronto City Council.
But the most interesting clip is of Elizabeth May, 30 years ago in 1978. It’s actually a feature piece for The Fifth Estate, about a debate in Nova Scotia on whether to spray the forest with insecticide to fight the spruce budworm which was devastating forests. Forestry executives were for it, wanting to protect their trees and fearing an epidemic. May was against it, saying the spray had health risks associated with it.
Curious, I looked up the Wikipedia article to see what happened with the whole debate. It seems the infestation died out on its own, as May predicted, and an environmentally-friendly insecticide was created to deal with the problem as well.
Slacker
I just finished watching Michael Moore’s free-to-web (but only in the U.S. and Canada, wink wink) documentary “Slacker Uprising,” about his tour of swing states just before the 2004 presidential election.
Well, you get what you pay for, I guess.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Michael Moore’s work. I liked Sicko, The Awful Truth and Bowling for Columbine, and I was ok with Fahrenheit 9/11.
But Slacker Uprising doesn’t explain any issue. It doesn’t argue any point. It doesn’t actually try to change anything, despite Moore’s pleas that the film be screened before the election. It’s just a bunch of videos of stump speeches pieced together with a bunch of videos of artists performing protest songs. This review from the Ann Arbor News explains it pretty well.
There are some interesting parts, about how Republicans attempted to stop the speeches, offered money to get student unions to cancel them, and even showed up, chanted and prayed out loud while Moore was speaking, but there’s already a documentary about that.
For those used to Moore’s passionate, personal arguments about political issues, you’ll be disappointed. He doesn’t even narrate the movie. Instead, you just hear him speaking to the converted, to the point where the hyperpartisanship of those audiences might turn you off from voting for Democrats.
Michael Moore chanting “one more day” isn’t entertaining, moving, inspiring or educational. And it’s not worth watching.
Jon Lajoie: Franglophone hero
This music video from Fluid Rouge featuring Jon Lajoie gives me an excuse not only to point to Dominic Arpin’s new Vlog blog (where I found it), but also the fact that Lajoie will be performing at Le National next weekend.
Boom de ah dah, eh?
Discovery Channel Canada has started airing its version of the adorably awesome 60-second “Boom de ah dah” commercial developed by its American counterpart. See if you can spot the lame Canadian insertions.
Welcome Daybreak listeners
(or, at least, those who hear about a website in the morning and make a note to visit a half hour later)
In case you missed it, I was invited by CBC Daybreak to come in and give them an analysis of blog coverage of the federal election campaign (my super-secret project). I was originally supposed to go on yesterday, but with the debate going long I was bumped to today.
Unfortunately, in the first time in months (years?) that I’ve taken a metro train during morning rush hour, I experienced four separate delays (one of which had me stuck in the tunnel). I practically had a heart attack, knowing full well that radio deadlines aren’t flexible by even a second.
I gave up at Laurier metro as the lights went out in the train, and hurried outside to let the producer know I wasn’t there. They quickly decided to do the interview by (pay)phone. (One thing payphones still have over cellphones is that, because they don’t have to compress their data into compact wireless streams, the sound is much clearer and more radio-friendly. Not as good as in-studio, but desperate times…)
As I told host Mike Finnerty, I don’t blame the STM for the delays, which were due in part to technical problems and because of the traffic tie-ups those problems create. But I wasn’t thrilled with the transit corporation this morning, that’s for sure. (And, of course, the trip back home was entirely uneventful)
Anyway, we talked about this blog (it’s really a place for any opinions I like to give on anything, though I focus specifically on the media, public transit, stuff going on in the news, blogs, and of course myself. You can also read what I’ve written about the federal election so far.
We also got into the meat of the matter (though six minutes goes by so fast when you’re talking about stuff), discussing blogosphere reaction to Elizabeth May in the debates, as well as a video by Justin Trudeau (and the parody of that video by Prenez Garde Aux Chiens, whose season premiere is tonight at 10pm on Canal Vox) that has been making the rounds in the blogosphere recently.
I’ll try to get a clip of the segment up soon.
Caucus meetings yay!
Dear Bloc Québécois,
Press conferences, scrums and MPs spouting talking points isn’t nearly as interesting as you think it is.
(And yet, a pretty decent campaign song)
In a world where laughter was king…
Hurricanes suck
I admit, I get a perverse pleasure out of people who are the creators of their own misfortune. Tragedies in the classical sense. Not necessarily causing death, but at least causing inconvenience. Hurricane Gustav created two examples of this, and the victims are our favourite punching bags: politicians and the media.
The first comes out of the video above. A few weeks ago, Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family posted a video online in which he half-jokingly suggests that Christian Conservatives pray for rain during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at an open-air stadium. They say they never meant for it to be taken seriously, but it was, and the video was pulled (the one above is a copy).
Of course, there was no rain the night of Obama’s acceptance speech, and the Democratic convention went off without a hitch. But the day after, as John McCain was announcing his vice-presidential pick, we start hearing about this hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast. Toward New Orleans. Three years almost to the day that Katrina struck.
Oh the irony. It almost makes me believe in a god, as it did Michael Moore.
The second example comes from our good friends at CNN. When Barack Obama announced his VP pick, CNN filled the airwaves with news and analysis. Responding to a viewer comment via Facebook (oh how the media has changed, folks), anchor Rick Sanchez says this on air:
By the way, I have to share this with you. It is from Sam. He says, Rick — this is on Facebook — I’m counting on you to do the same kind of coverage when McCain announces his vice president as you’re doing tonight when Barack Obama has announced his vice president. Sam, we’ve already made that decision. I can guarantee you we will.
No caveats, no ifs or buts, just a bold guarantee. Of course, neither CNN nor the other news networks are coming close to meeting that guarantee for the convention. Half the news about Sarah Palin was surrounded (literally) by hurricane updates, and the convention coverage is being threatened by it. Even the convention itself is changing plans at the last minute to deal with people (like President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal) who can’t speak.
I actually feel a bit bad for the Republicans. It’s not their fault this hurricane hit with such horrible timing, nor is it their fault that Bristol Palin got pregnant. If they lose in November, it should be because of the issues, not because the campaign was derailed by … well, acts of God.
Barack Obama abandons newborn babies in dirty rooms alone to die
Oh, and his middle name is Hussein. Therefore he’s evil.
It’s pretty crazy how issues can be taken to their extremes in anonymous attack ads.
This is what I love about the Olympics
Yesterday, in the pole vault, Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia, the undisputed world champion and world-record holder (having beaten her own record numerous times) has eliminated her opponents, including a show-boating American who thought she would kick Russian ass.
Despite already securing the gold medal, she manages to inject some drama into her final vault by attempting a new world record: 5.05 metres, more than 16 1/2 feet. Her first two attempts fail as she brings the bar down with her.
The video above is her third attempt, taken from Russian television (until YouTube is forced to take it down because of the evil Olympic empire). The Gazette’s Dave Stubbs summarizes what happened.
Unlike Michael Phelps, Isinbayeva doesn’t hide her emotions. And it’s so much fun to watch that.
As a bonus: An Adidas “Impossible is Nothing” commercial featuring Isinbayeva.
UFOs in Brossard: Conclusive proof
Well, that settles it, I guess.
(UPDATE: Maybe they should apply for government funding?)