Tag Archives: bad ideas

| Movies, Technology

Guzzo is doing searches

The federal government’s new law against recording video inside movie theatres has come to its inevitable conclusion: Cinema Guzzo is now searching people who enter its theatres and seizing any type of camera, whether it takes video or not.

As you might expect, some people are not happy about this.

Guzzo can’t really be blamed for this. The law makes the cinema owner just as responsible if the law is broken, so they’re just looking after their own asses. But the idea that so much is contraband — food, drink, bags, cameras — inside a room where all they’re doing is projecting an image onto a screen kind of boggles the mind. Even aircraft luggage doesn’t get this kind of treatment.

Of course, it goes without saying that, other than proving the U.S. movie industry has our government by the ballsack, this bill doesn’t do anything. Michael Geist (whose blog should be on everyone’s reading list) has a roundup of its problems (and a cool video about it too), to which I will only add this: Movies recorded in a crowded movie theatre are of such bad quality that I’m surprised anyone actually does it.

Take this badly-camcorded Family Guy / Star Wars bit. It includes a laugh track, viewer commentary, a partially obscured, darkened, oblong screen (that the camera pans away from every now and then) and a barely-discernable original audio track. Is this kind of stuff the world’s greatest threat to the movie industry?

| Business, On the Net

How hard is it to do online classifieds right?

Along with Quebecor’s acquisition of Osprey comes news that they’ve launched yet another online classifieds website. The Gazette’s Roberto Rocha correctly points out that they have stiff competition from everyone else out there. Some are run by big media companies, and others don’t suck.

I’m forever confused as to why big newspaper owners put out such horrible online classified sites. They senselessly limit their audience to just those areas where they own newspapers. They charge ridiculously high fees for simple ads online when others give away the space for free. They make their websites crazy-complicated while the incredibly popular Craigslist keeps it simple.

I mean, if you’re trying to outdo Craigslist, wouldn’t you at least want to copy some of their good ideas?

Continue reading →

| Uncategorized

Doug Camilli advocates MURDER

From today’s column:

A way to get the ratings for American Idol up again: In Manila, Romy Baligula was singing in a karaoke bar when another customer, Robilito Ortega, yelled that Romy was out of tune. Romy kept singing, so Robilito pulled out his gun and shot him dead.

Oh Doug, just be glad they don’t do that when newspaper columnists miss their funny mark.

… and I’ll be glad that self-important bloggers are also exempt, for now.

| Montreal

Save the park! Keep the rubber off! Let it go bareback!

The Save Westmount Park group got an opinion in the Gazette today. Their cause is keeping artificial turf out of the park, due to the artificial surfaces’ perceived risks to health and the environment.

Wikipedia has a good roundup of the pros and cons of artificial versus natural grass:

  • PRO: It’s easier to maintain
  • CON: It’s made of old tires and heavy metals which are poisonous

The things we do just to make our lives a bit easier and our grasses a bit greener…

| On the Net

Hate will cure our country

There are those in Canada (outside Quebec) who believe the best solution to the issue of Quebec separation is to simply let it happen. These people, tired of being asked to learn French in order to work in the federal government, think allowing Quebec to separate will turn Canada into the English-speaking-only paradise it is meant to be.

The website Canada Divided represents one of these groups. They think all Quebecers are francophones and all francophones are separatists. Without them, they argue, language purity can be achieved. French is not part of the “Canadian identity” and somehow represents “ethnic segregation” (a xenophobic website denouncing segregation — now that’s balls).

The website is pretty bare, just a web forum and some links to videos. The videos are posted to YouTube, including:

  • This one where a skinhead oppressed anglophone seems to think that the only people hired to bilingual public-sector jobs in this country are unilingual francophones
  • This one which warns that the media (which, as we all know, is part of a giant Jewish francophone conspiracy) is ignoring the growing threat of multiculturalism against our fine country.
  • This one points out for all us stupid people that the French civil code, which Quebec law is based on, is actually COMMUNISM, and that Quebec is secretly annexing the rest of Canada.
  • This one notes that all our health care funding issues are a direct result of the government wasting money promoting bilingualism.

Honestly, it’s really hard not to invoke the obvious comparisons that come to mind. Couldn’t they at least have picked a non-bald guy and had him speak in front of a non-black background, maybe have him smile a bit?

| Business

What does an overpriced potato peeler taste like?

In the area of senseless branding idea comes Têtes à claques, the drink. Their excuse is as laughable as it is transparent: Well, there was this drink shown in one episode. So now, those same people who want to smell like Britney Spears will want to drink that yellow juice that came out of the pilot.

And yet, the franchise must be doing something right, since it’s worth $12 million now.

| Montreal

For the sake of children’s health, please bring back smoking

On the one-year anniversary of Quebec’s anti-tobacco law, we have this interesting story about local youth sporting groups losing money because of the downturn in bingo revenue. So they’re asking the government to allow smoking in bingo halls, since it’s just old people and all.

The key sentence is this:

Bingo accounts for 100 per cent of the organization’s fundraising, Beaudoin noted.

Isn’t it kind of silly for an organization to put all its fundraising eggs in one basket, especially when that basket has been on fire for a year now?

So because of this ban, fewer people are wasting their money on bingo, less alcohol is being consumed at bars, and less money is being fed into video lottery terminals. Isn’t that a good thing?

These groups will just have to find other sources of revenue. Surely these old people will find other things to waste their money on, with all they’re saving by not going to bingo, not drinking, not using VLTs and, of course, not smoking.

| Video

Hi. I’m an original idea. And I’m one that’s been badly copied.

Just when you thought you’d had enough of those “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ad spoofs, the Young Liberals are at it, launching three videos making fun at the Conservatives.

Quoting their press release:

“Look, it’s no secret the Conservatives are a wealthy party who can afford all kinds of fancy marketing executives and focus groups,” admits Pickup, “but within the Liberal family we’ve got talent, we’ve got dedication, and we’ve got a clear vision for Canada of which we’re proud.”

No money, eh? Chuck Gui(l)té didn’t return your phone calls?

Come on, I expect more from you, Youth Campaign Director and Online Campaign Co-chair Denise Brunsdon (also a former McGill Daily staffer). You clearly had enough money for the press release and the website. That’s far more than the New Democratic Youth of Canada could do.

| Montreal, On the Net

Are you a Tremblay fetishist?

Then you’ll love the MICU’s new website.

Wait, let’s back up a step. The Montreal Island Citizens’ Union, Mayor Gerald Tremblay’s party, has changed its far-too-long name to simply “Union Montreal”, and has a new 70s-throwback logo.

The big part of this is the party’s new website, which still carries the micu.ca domain. And that’s just the start of its problems:

  • The mayor’s face appears on its homepage at least seven different times. I realize he’s the centre of the party and all, but isn’t this just a bit of overkill?
  • What used to be a cardinal rule of web design: Don’t start playing audio until you’ve been asked to, is broken. So those of us who forgot to mute our audio will hear Tremblay welcoming us to the party’s new website. (Just what does that do for us anyway? And won’t anyone who wants to consult the site on a regular basis get fed up of that pretty quickly?)
  • “Arrondissements”, which is rightly plural, becomes the incorrect “Borough” in English. Below that it says “to acess your borough”. Further down you see the incorrect “Maisonneuve Street” instead of “De Maisonneuve Blvd.” You’d think they could hire a proofreader.
  • Video clips are provided with no captions whatsoever, leaving us to guess based on a tiny screen capture what they’re all about.
  • The site is entirely unusable if style sheets are removed. It is far too heavily dependent on Flash and images.
  • The “news” section hasn’t been updated in a year and a half.
  • The “cultural communities” and “youth”, proudly linked to at the top of every page, contain nothing more than a phone number for the person responsible for that portfolio.
  • Clicking on the “Pierrefonds/Roxboro” borough gets me a video greeting from the mayor of Lachine for no good reason, and it’s at the bottom of the page, forcing me to hunt for it to kill the audio.
  • The “become a member” page still uses the old name for the party.
  • Filling out the “become a member” page and submitting your information (unencrypted — fortunately they’re not asking for credit card numbers) results in a 404 error.
  • In fact, everything in the “getting involved” section is just another form. The website doesn’t actually provide any information on how to get involved.
  • Clicking on “Ahuntsic/Cartierville” gets you a video greeting from the right mayor, but only in French. Ther, mayor Marie-Andrée Beaudoin asks us if we knew that the borough’s northern border is on Rivière des Prairies. Really? Wow.

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. This website is nothing to be proud of.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere: “Brand New” (The Other Bloke’s Blog)

| Montreal, Public transit

Say goodbye to the 21 and 23 … nevermind, you won’t miss them

Now that they’ve been in service for almost a year, the STM will be evaluating the “senior” buses running through Côte-des-Neiges (21) and NDG (23), and disappointment with their popularity might lead to them being cancelled.

Is anyone surprised? Let’s go over why these routes were a bad idea in the first place:

  • They run only on Tuesdays, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., meaning you have to set your weekly schedule around them.
  • They run only every 50-55 minutes, which means you can spend almost an hour waiting for a bus.
  • They only stop where the STM thinks you want to go. So unless you live in a big apartment building and want to go to Loblaws, you’re out of luck.
  • The routes are confusing, even for me. Instead of going up and down a street like the very popular 105, they take wild loops around everywhere, passing on many major streets in only one direction, meaning you might have to go in the opposite direction of where you want to go.
  • You can’t find them listed if you go to the STM site and search for bus schedules. The only way to find them is to download the PDF flyers and search for departure times.

These routes, which were launched with much fanfare last June, were quite possibly the worst the STM have ever come up with, and that showed after the initial novelty quickly wore off with seniors.

What’s hilarious about this is that the borough mayor, Michael Applebaum, is worried about wasting money. Why? Each route uses only a single bus for four hours a week. Compared to the cost of running a single regular route (like, say, the underused 138), it’s barely a drop in the bucket.

Next time, focus less on the colour of the bus stops and more on how useful a new line will really be to users. There’s nothing special about seniors that will cause them to embrace crap.

| In the news, Montreal

OMG brrn bok sooooo colllllll!!!1111oneone

So the paper is aflutter about the “St. Thomas Burn Book” on Facebook, which apparently contained some unflattering comments about teachers at this Pointe-Claire high school. (It originally broke two weeks ago, but it’s still news now, right?)

Students with atrocious spelling making libelous comments  about teachers is hardly anything new. I’m sure we’ve all said things about (or even to) teachers that we’ve later regretted.

What I find interesting is that, while the original group has been taken offline, at least two others have sprung up in its place to debate the issue further. One says the entire issue has been overblown (true) and the other says the reaction was justified (also true).