FUCK YOU BELL GLOBALMEDIA

Yes, you corporate big shots, guardians of canadian culture, owners of half this countries distribution networks for all media. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU IN THE FACE.

Previous reader(s?) of my blog will note that I have referred to the movie "Death by Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets" in the past, pertaining to copyright and CTV (OWNED BY BELL GLOBAL MEDIA) and how this piece of Winnipeg history was salvaged by local artists when CTV and other such entertainment companies were throwing out all of this historical data into the BFI garbage bins.

As I don't read the Winnipeg Free Press (I truly refuse to buy another copy until they fire Lindor Reynolds and Gordon Sinclair Jr.) I missed this article about the final fate of "Death by Popcorn"

'To the BFI bin': local film will be destroyed
Sat Jul 8 2006
RANDALL KING - Winnipeg Free Press

IT looks as though L'Atelier national du Manitoba, the local collective responsible for the cheeky video Death by Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets, will destroy all copies of the work in response to CTV's hissy fit over its use of salvaged footage.

"(Death by Popcorn) will suffer the same fate as the hockey team it eulogized. It will be wiped from the face of the Earth, never to be seen again by anybody," vows collective member Matthew Rankin.

"It seems vaguely appropriate that a movie about an ephemeral hockey team made out of ephemeral video footage found in a dumpster should itself become an ephemeral work, doomed to the BFI bin."

Death by Popcorn screened without incident to sold-out crowds at Winnipeg's Cinematheque last year. But Rankin and collaborators Walter Forsberg and Mike Maryniuk have been compelled to pull the 60-minute video from From the Peg!, the festival of Winnipeg culture at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre, July 28-30.

At issue is the ownership of some of the video's raw material -- video news and promotional footage culled last year from thousands of discarded videocassettes L'Atelier saved from CKY's garbage bin.

"The issue is, they didn't receive written permission to use our material," Ken Peron, operations manager of CTV Winnipeg, told the Globe and Mail earlier this week. Rankin says L'Atelier received a "threatening letter" from CTV, demanding that they cease screening the project.

"Ken Peron did tell us we could keep showing the movie as long as the CKY excerpts were removed. But we've decided that it is better to simply let the film die rather than recut it according to corporate, rather than artistic, imperatives."

Yes, thanks to BELL GLOBAL MEDIA, FASCISTS AT THE SUBSIDIARY CTV, Canadian Culture is taking a step backwards! This obese and corrupt company wants to throw it away. They repackage and resell American television to us and throw us a bone like Corner Gas once in a while.
But should someone turn their garbage into art, they'll send the lawyers. What does Bell Global Media care about Winnipeg? What does Bell Global Media care about CANADA? NOTHING. They are PARASITES. They use the LIE of Canadian Culture and the CBC to ensure it remains so. They want to change the copyright laws to benefit American interests and have Canada remain a small player artistically forevermore.. because its in their best interests. You disgust me, CTV, Bell Global Media. Your lack of interest in this country should be made obvious to all who you profit off of. Your lack of interest in continuing Over the air broadcasts in major Canadian markets in favour of making yourselves a bell expressvu exclusive, well, maybe you as a company need to be broken up. Maybe THAT is in the best interests of Canadians. As I don't see keeping a company like yours together as beneficial as people who care about what they are doing preserving and promoting our Canadian Culture, while you as a company only have an interest in killing and profiting from the people of this country. FUCK YOU.

This is the best photo I've ever come across on the internets.

LEAFS SUCK!!!!!!!

HDTV in Canada - How the CRTC ruins canadian culture

Fark.com pointed me to a story at http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/11/24/hdtv-canada.html on the subject of HDTV in Canada. CBC's slant was obvious, CBC thinks that American competition is bad for Canadian Television and that we should not be allowed to watch american television.

The article basically quotes and spins what two University of Calgary professors, Bart Beaty and Rebecca Sullivan state - that Canadian interests are essentially too slow to adopt digital terrestrial broadcasting of their programming, leaving a majority of the HDTV programming American. This is blatantly true to anyone who has gone shopping for an HDTV in Canada (or alternately some sort of HDTV tuner)

the CRTC had issued a call for comments a while back, It slipped my mind, but truly the opinion of the average canadian citizen who knows anything does not matter, fortuitously some people managed to sift through the politico-speak on the website and submit their personal feelings.

Take the following statements in a letter to the CRTC posted to the crtc website (which is really poorly designed by the way.. bleh) by Jon LeBlanc, of Delta BC, one of few individual Canadians intelligent enough to understand the issues and one of the few people who submitted a comment to the CRTC on the subject who did not represent a media interest.

- OTA is the original method of TV broadcasting in Canada
- satellite and cable tv are just supersets of that
- satellite and cable companies have business plans that are based on value-added features over OTA
- they are not meant to replace OTA
- they offer quantity of channels over quality of signal reception, as OTA DTV is technically superior
- citizens do not owe private satellite and cable companies a living if their business plans are not able to keep up with modern technology
- citizens have the right to not pay for television service to their homes
I feel that the baseline of Canadian broadcasting is OTA, and so the adoption of digital OTA transmissions nationwide is not a want, but a need. I believe that Canada requires a specific, static, mandatory cutover date by which all analogue TV transmissions must be replaced by digital versions. Further, given the large savings in energy costs required to transmit digital television over analogue, I do not accept that broadcasters face ongoing higher costs of transmission, given that the new equipment is a one-time only expense. Many modern stations have already updated to digital studios and equipment since analogue gear is rapidly becoming obsolete, so it is my firm belief that complaints of higher equipment costs for digital transmission are red herrings. Thank you for considering my thoughts.

Jon LeBlanc
Delta, BC

Kudos to you, Jon LeBlanc. You are a HERO. A testiment to Democracy. I award you the first ever Reed Solomon Hero award for heroism. Congratulations. Everything he states in his letter to the CRTC is quoted for TRUTH. The CRTC is not interested in Canadian Television, nor are the media companies that exist in Canada interested in providing Canadian television. Theres no gauranteed profit in it! They want us to pay the cable or satellite companies in order to watch American television . They want to profit off american television.


How do we know this for certain? The public hearing on the future of television for all Canadians is being held in Gatineau Quebec. Why Gatineau Quebec? Who in Quebec watches American Television? This hearing should be taking place in Toronto or Vancouver or even in Winnipeg, where people watch American Television and want to watch it because Canadian television tends to be garbage, and as we already pay for the CBC through our taxes we should get digital over the air broadcasting.

At the same time, I must commend Shaw Cable, my own former cable provider (I still pay them for the internet but I found I just don't want to pay extra for any television I should be getting for free) for stating:

Consumers Should Not Have to Pay for What is Free Over-the-Air

Specialty and pay television services do not transmit free over-the-air and thus consumers understand and accept the logic of an associated fee. However, the signals of Canadian television stations are available to consumers free over-the-air. Canadians will resent and resist being forced to pay for these signals and many will find alternative sources of programming, including the black and grey market and web-based services. As a result, such measures will actually undermine the viability of all programming services.

Ken Stein of ShawCable is QUITE RIGHT about this, I WOULD RESENT having to pay for what I should be getting free over the air. I should NOT have to pay even for american signals that make it over the border. The frightening thing for broadcasters is that the digital signal stays clear for longer distances. They shouldn't really be frightened, as every Canadian watches these channels already. And if they are worried about the fact that it will eat into their advertising dollars by airing the same programming, well, thats your fault isn't it for not airing Canadian programming Canadians want to watch?

You know, I think if the big city television stations all switched to digital OTA tomorrow (nevermind HDTV, thats neither here nor there) most Canadians would be more than happy to watch their local Canadian channels. Cable and Satellite have been eating into terrestrial broadcasts for years because frankly, until now, the quality afforded sucked. Now all these companies want to control their profit stream to the detriment of the average canadian getting to watch what they want to watch. Well guess what, If I can't watch what I want to watch, I will download it, or find some other way. I can live without television. I cancelled my cable tv connection in february and I'm doing fine. Stop trying to gouge my wallet and start trying to create something worth paying for.

Salisbury House 75 cent tuesdays

The local restaurant chain here in Winnipeg, Salisbury house, is having 75 cent tuesdays all october and november in celebration of their 75th anniversary.. which is actually quite a remarkable achievement. So I've been eating there every tuesday the last few weeks, and I really can't wait til it's over as I'm going to gain weight at the pace I'm gulping down their burgers (they call them nips.. don't ask)

ah well ill have all of december to starve myself down to a respectable body mass.

Still, their promotion is working, I really do like their food and I just never really got into going there for some reason. Sure I've gone there on occasion but I never really put it at the top of my list of fast food restaurants to go to. Though it's not at the bottom, thats McDonald's. Can't even think of eating their food or I'll get flashbacks to when I got food poisoning eating there. I don't blame McDonald's more than I blame myself. Apparently they offer healthier food now.. meh. But this isn't a post about crappy McDonald's.. who used to have good tasting pizza, hotcakes that were edible, and reasonably tasty scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. This was back in the 80's. Is that still the case? Nope, not anymore. Now they've got cardboard tasting crap. No, this is a post about salisbury house, a local institution. I wonder why they never jumped on the drive-thru bandwagon. If you're not from Winnipeg and ever end up here, check out Salsbury house, theres one in the middle of the footbridge by the forks near st boniface. It's a nice view.

Ignore the man behind the curtain!

wow my last post really was rather incoherant wasn't it. (I just read it for the first time) I had kind of a bad day after taking the bus and then reading an article with the spin that some UN group speaking in Kenya for some reason was whining about Canada winning some sort of poor environmental award and i just kindof went off on a rambling tirade for no reason. I've never been convinced that climate change is necessarily a bad thing by these scientists. It COULD be bad, sure, but we could be wiped out by, i dunno, the moon exploding tomorrow. The universe was here before humanity ruined it all, it'l be here long after. We're just an anomaly. We're a hemeroid on the universe and on a cosmic timeframe will be gone in the blink of an eye. So, please kindly ignore my previous post or take it with a grain of salt. I'm not letting Winnipeg transit off the hook, as they really do need separate compartments for disease ridden people and us healthy non morlocks.

Climate Change, Kyoto, Winnipeg Transit, and Canada

I Am not an environmentalist. I don't care what conflicting scientists data says about climate change. I don't care what activists with Greenpeace or politicians from countries that aren't cold 7 months of the year. Guess what, we need energy to keep warm, to type on our blogs, to keep food on the table, and to operate our neon lights above our mini bars. Maybe you, mister and mrs Kyoto, eat bean paste and live off the grid. Maybe you live in a country thats blessed with beautiful weather and no hippies and live in mud huts and that's great. But I don't. I live in Winnipeg, The only city in the only province where the outcome of climate change really doesn't make much of a difference. Floods you say? We have a freakin dike built around the city to divert excess waters. Floods happen naturally anyways. No, I don't give a crap about climate change. The climate has changed frequently over the history of the earth and your chicken little scientists won't easily convince me to abandon any of my poor environmental habits.

Consider this,

Non Environmental - Drive your car, get somewhere quickly and warmly
Environmental - Take a bus, get their after half the day is done after waiting in the bitter cold for a bus to come cause you just missed it, plus theres snot nosed kids and gutter people coughing and sneezing and wiping their filthy germs on the rails, pissing themselves on the seats.

Yes, that is my sacrifice for the environment. Because I live in a city where you can't leave your car outside for any 4 hour period without some meth addict or underage troublemaker breaking your windows (thanks gutless socialist liberal laws) forcing you to pay at least a $200 deductible to replace them, I sold my car and take the bus. Yay.

Feh to Kyoto. Feh to David Suzuki who acts as if anyone who isn't screaming their heads off that the end is nigh is an idiot. Feh to Meth addicts who made it so the last time I got a cold cause I take the bus with disgusting disease ridden freaks, who are responsible for me taking the bus in the first place cause I hate replacing car windows, made it so that safeway can't freakin sell cough syrup when the pharmacist isn't there. The pharmacist doesn't watch for people anyways!!!!!! cause cough syrup is a major component of meth. Feh to people who are against euthenasia, as people who are so drug wasted are beyond redemption and should just be put to work in diamond mines up north or killed.

Should there be better laws on maintaining our environment? sure! But kyoto solves nothing. It's a tax on rich colder northern countries who use energy. Yes lets pay credits to some freakin island country who doesn't use energy cause they live in mudhuts.

Am I worried about polution in the earths oceans? Yes. How does kyoto stop this pollution? It doesn't. Am I worried about extinction of fishing stocks? Sure but Kyoto doesn't do anything about it. Passing law's against speeding doesn't stop speeding. If people think that the speed limit should be 70, they're going to go 70. Screw the speed limit (the other reason I stopped driving, god damn speeding/red light cameras.. anyone who destroys them is like Robin Hood in my books.. and anyone who thinks they stop speeding and save lives needs to be shot)

Yes I'm grumpy right now.

The CBC yet again

So I was listening to the CBC Radio this morning, all morning, cause I had nothing better to do. Every hour at the top of the hour they led the local news with a story about how for the Grey Cup festivities this year people who use the food bank will be given a special treat, dinner and tickets to watch the Grey Cup on the screen at the MTS Centre downtown. That's all nice and all, but who really cares? This is their lead story? Every hour on the hour people in Winnipeg gotta know that we're feeding poor people and treating them to a big screen presentation of the CFL game at a local arena? I don't get it. Why is this interesting? Why does the CBC have to do everything they can to make it seem like anyone cares about segments of society nobody cares about? That said, I'll say something nice about the CBC, they had some interesting shows this morning and Brent Butt from canadian TV series Corner Gas was there to promote some sort of book that I'm not going to read about Corner Gas.. and then Margaret Atwood was on as well, those were mildly interesting interviews, plus the fact that Brent Butt finally put to rest the rumour that CBC could have gotten Corner Gas (It was never offered to the CBC, it was only offered to CTV), because why offer something that has a chance of success to a television station that only wants to air uninteresting drama's (Aside from Doctor Who, the one good hour long show the CBC spent my tax dollars on)

Deoderant

There is nothing worse than trying to find a new deoderant. Right Guard Sport, Clean deoderant stick, seen here, is what I have found to be the most effective at keeping away the rank. Well, nobody sells it anymore. At least it doesn't look like it's the same stuff, it has a completely different packaging and probably a different formula. This stuff never gave me a rash (I'm looking at YOU, Speed Stick, in any case, I must say to Gillette, if you read my blog, I demand restitution. I will be calling 1-800-GILLETTE or visiting www.Gillette.com with a piece of my mind and If I cannot find a suitable replacement, I'm coming over there the minute my last stick of deoderant runs out (luckily I bought a couple extra last time I was at the store) and I WILL FORCE MY FILTHY STINKY SELF ON YOU. You have a RESPONSIBILITY as purveyors of such products to keep your existing customers like me smelling good and clean.

Dismantle the CBC

the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation continues to annoy the hell out of me. Based in Toronto, the least Canadian of all canadian cities.

In the first place, there was no Doctor Who on this week. Well now, what the hell was the point in coming home to watch Doctor Who if it's not on? Why can't they air a repeat on like Saturday morning or something. Back when the CBC wasn't completely run by out of touch Toronto elitist socialists, they aired entertaining stuff on occasion and made an effort to appeal to a broad demographic. Not anymore.

Secondly, I read here at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061101.wspttruth1/TPStory/Sports/columnists that the CBC won't be airing any CFL semi-final games in HDTV. Why? Because the precious Leafs play the day before and they only have one piece of equipment, and it's too precious to move all the way from freakin buffalo (where the the maple laughs will LOSE ANYWAYS) .. so two hours away and they cant lug the HDTV equipment to air something that will appeal to the rest of Canada because the CBC MUST air EVERY SINGLE LEAFS GAME on TV always in HDTV and nothing else.

Screw the CBC, they are inconsequential. They infuriate me frequently. They haven't produced television of any interest since Fred Penner's place, and I hated that show and word bird. Complete fools. Plus, you know what, It'd be nice to have the Friendly Giant on DVD. I'd buy that and I'm in my late twenties.