Classical Gasbag

I randomly turned on the radio this morning to discover Winnipeg has a classical music radio station.  Bonus points in that it replaces what used to be FREQ/Ignite 107.1 christian rock music. 

It was amusing to me that the first song that came on was Ruslan and Ludmilla.  I remember first hearing this song on the soundtrack to the spectrum holobyte produced DOS game Tetris Classic.  I also coincidentally first heard pachelbels canon on the same Tandy computer.  Oddly enough its still my favourite rendition.

This got me thinking on the nature of pure classical music vs movie and video game orchestral music vs even modern 8bit chiptune compositions and Amiga mods and such.  I enjoy them all, personally.  Now I don't expect to ever hear chiptunes or the soundtracks of sonic the hedgehog, mega man 3 or the Legend of Zelda on FM radio (alas!) But its curious to me that we don't even hear modern orchestral compositions that often .  from movies and modern video games there are some great sounds out there that hold their own against Beethoven and Bach.  Perhaps not Mozart but we're all Salieri when it comes to Mozart.

When the symphony orchestra plays movie and video game music they seem to sell out or do decent business at least.  I'm surprised there aren't more people taking advantage of the popularity.  Video games and movies are both billion dollar businesses.  For me orchestral and chiptune music is all lumped together.  I bet if Mozart had access to an amiga mod tracker he'd have gone nuts.

Anyways back to 107.1… the program director is former CBC host Eric Friesen.  I hope the station succeeds.  CBC radio two certainly hasn't been particularly listenable the last few years.  I enjoy some world music on occasion but ugh.  CBC has been horrible.  Glad there's something to fill the gap.  The only downside to 107.1 is they advertise jazz too.  I can't stand most jazz.  But if its only the best and least pretentious jazz I can put up with it.. And the fact that Winnipeg doesn't have a jazz station helps bring in listeners.  I was going to say I wasn't sure if they played operas but I hear one right now so apparently they do on occasion. 

I Wonder when they did the format switch.  Haven't heard any advertising yet.  Curious to see how they do that.

Ps: There is a pretty damn good orchestral rendition of the legend of Zelda soundtrack on YouTube I recommend. Now to listen to tsn 1290 for some Winnipeg jets hockey talk on the illegal curve show.  I'll be back though, 107.1!

Penny Pinching at McDonalds?

I've been pretty happy with the elimination of the penny, but one place that seems to still be an issue is McDonalds.  I know I'm not the only one (hence the blog post) but either a large segment of McDonalds employees don't know how to round, or their POS systems are programmed to round incorrectly. 

I know its only a few cents but if it is McDonalds doing it on purpose then that is pretty pathetic.  I wonder if theres a complaints department for places that repeatedly do the rounding wrong?  McDonalds automates things to such a degree I can't believe that it wouldn't have a point of sale system that doesn't do the rounding automatically..

Am I (and the people I speak to) the only ones who have noticed this or is this actually a common occurrence?  

Traherne Manitoba

Anybody else think of Jackie Trehorne from The Big Lebowski when passing by signs on the perimeter mentioning Traherne, Manitoba?  Maybe its just me. 

Drive by astuting

It amuses me that the Japanese Cultural centre building on McPhillips Street used to be a Suzuki dealership or office of some sort and that you can still see the Suzuki name on there.