Category: General

Because every post deserves a category these posts could be about anything and everything.

2010 Golden Globe Award Predictions

Once again as the award season approaches here are my predictions for the 2010 Golden Globe Awards tonight. Best Motion Picture – Drama Up In The Air Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama Morgan Freeman – Invictus Best Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Julie & Julia Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Sandra Bullock – The Proposal Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical Daniel Day-Lewis – Nine Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Anna Kendrick – Up In The Air Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Matt Damon – Invictus Best Animated Feature Film Fantastic Mr. Fox Best Foreign Language Film The Maid (La Nana) (Chile) Best Director – Motion Picture Jason Reitman – Up In The Air Best Screenplay – Motion Picture Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner – Up In The Air Best Original Score – Motion Picture Karen O and Carter Burwell – Where The Wild Things Are…

What a year this has been!

I started writing this on December 29th but researching the links has taken some time, in fact much longer than I thought to find all the links. I have defiantly accomplished a lot this year, looking back this has been the best year in a while. Of the things that stand out as my holy crap moment of the year was standing at the window in the Vancouver airport with the setting sun breaking a bit through the clouds. That was the moment it rang true to me that mountains were more than just really big hills. One of the biggest events that kicked off the year was the 2009 Atlantic Major Midget Regionals at the LBR. This one event not only was my first time writing for sports, but I also learned what makes up a shot on goal in a hockey game was. In addition, actually pulling off the live feed was amazing. That and meeting Don Mabee for the first time. The next moment of this year, happened when I attended to Faces of Fusion dinner in May. That is where I ran into Ian Finley from East Coast Connected. It was from that meeting that I…

Fox, Time Warner Cable reach deal to avoid blackout – Yahoo! Canada News

Fox, Time Warner Cable reach deal to avoid blackout – Yahoo! Canada News

In the view of what may be in line for Canada over the next year in the camps of the Fee-for-carriage debate between “Save Local” and “Stop the TV Tax.” Although this seems unfathomable in the current landscape, the near future will see broadcast, cable, and satellite a thing of the past to internet based distribution methods. Why pay for 100’s of channels that you do not watch? Why can the creators of the content not just distribute themselves? With devices like the Roku player, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox 360, and many others, we can feasibly get HD to your TV. Problems with getting broadband will als be a thing of the past soon as 4G LTE cellular networks with 51 mb/s connections will make getting fast internet to people easier and cheaper. Even more so in less that 5 years with 5G “In the last 12 months talks between cable operators and program providers have become even more tense. Programmers have been seeking better affiliate fees as they have seen advertising revenue hurt by the U.S. economic downturn and remain uncertain about the future of TV advertising as more marketers turn to the Web.”  Yinka Adegoke for Reuters. Fox,…

2009 with 300 Movies!

2009 with 300 Movies!

As we are wrapping up the year, I have seen a movie in the theatres 300 times. The record for this year for most is Star Trek x 6, Twilight: New Moon x 5, and The Reader x 4, and many 2 and 3 timers. Here is the list of 2009 releases that I have seen (I took a list of 2009 movies and filtered it, there are some missing that I added, but I forgot every movie:) 17 Again, 2012, Adventureland, All About Steve, Angels & Demons, AstroBoy, Bandslam, Blind Date, The Blind Side, Bride Wars, Capitalism: A Love Story, Confessions Of A Shopaholic, Couple’s Retreat, Dance Flick, Did You Hear About The Morgans?, Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Drag Me To Hell, Doubt, Duplicity, Earth, Everybody’s Fine, Extract, Fame, Fanboys, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Fast And Furious 4, Fired Up, The Fourth Kind, Funny People, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, Gigantic, The Goods, The Hangover, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Harry Potter And The Half, Blood Prince, The Haunting In Connecticut, He’s Just Not That Into You, Hotel For Dogs, Ice Age 3, I Hate Valentine’s Day, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, I Love You Beth Cooper, I Love You,…

The New Moon where I hope they serve beer in Hell to the Forth Kind!

The New Moon where I hope they serve beer in Hell to the Forth Kind!

Yes once again the post with a really long esoteric name is a movie reviw post for the following 3 movies I have seen (at least once) over the past week. Lets start with the biggest New Moon the continuation of the Twilight Saga. I never left a theatre before so wanting to read a book then with this most epic cliff hanger of an ending. The first movie introduces the love story, where the second explains the relationship between the native’s haterid towards the vampires and introduces the senero to be portrade in the final two incarnations, and then stop abruptly that the story is not complete, and disappointment that you must wait for the next one. The next movie is “I hope they serve beer in hell” for such a long title this is one of the best comedies fo the year, based off a true story, up along the same genre as the Hangover. It crosses elements between Weading Crashers and The Hangover. This is most definately a must see. The last movie is the Fourth Kind. This is a really bad movie a slight thriller based of a (possibly) true story about abductions across Alaska. It…

WordCamp Victoria 2009

WordCamp Victoria 2009

The first session I am attending is Jodie Gastel talking about installing WordPress. She is cheating a little bit using cPanel Fantastico. Which is good for beginners, although the regular way is not too much harder. Next , I went to see Jeff Richards presentation on widgets. It was very interesting to see the basics of widgets and how they can be used to link people’s sites together. It somehow left off many of the cool and fun stuff that widgets can be used for. Tris Hussey’s presentation on extra tools for WordPress users was absolutely amazing. I haven’t had a chance yet to download all these tools yet but I sure plan on trying them. The last presentation I attended was Jeff Richards about widgets. He has posted his presentation on his personal blog at Widgets:Making Your Site Great and Letting Others Help. It was very informative on how widgets can be used to enhance a site or a marketing tool for others to put a link back to your site. The best part of this WordCamp was the discussions in the breakout room about everything from Copyright, Creative Commons, WordPress MU, legal issues with hosting internationally, and many…

To sell or not to sell ‘tis the question…

Selling of electrical utilities is becoming of a common occurrence in the news this month. When the common opinion is to never sell anything one must take a look a the pros and cons of every situation. Like all situations it will prove to be devastating if careful consideration is not taken. Part 1: NB Power to Hydro-Quebec I really like this plan. Not only is it a short term win for New Brunswick it is good in the long term too. In the spirit of the 1920’s when NB Power was created to protect New Brunswick from the scheming of several private hydro utilities the were ripping off everybody in New Brunswick. It was to be decided then that a public utility was the way to go. Hydro-Quebec is such a utility that values affordability and the environment. This agreement to match the wholesale industrial rates is guaranteed to be a personal benefit since I live in Saint John and my power is provided by Saint John Energy a large local wholesale buyer. Which brings us to… Part 2: Mayor Ivan Court is trying to see if the city can sell-off Saint John Energy. What a really terrible idea!…

The Future

Last weekend I received my LSAT score back and it was not what I had expected. It got me thinking about what I really like doing and to a greater extent what I want to do. Lately I have been obsessed with words of the day on various online dictionaries and one of my favourites Wiktionary had the word “tranquil” on Saturday when I first opened by LSAT score e-mail. It became a matter if irony of that words full definition in relation to the experiences of the weekend. Wiktionary defines it as “Free from emotional or mental disturbance.” which has firmly been at odds with my passions, in fact I have had to turn down many paths to make this transition fit. Paths that would have led more to the path that destiny seems to have written. In the class Modern Europe History: Renaissance to the French Revolution one of the main figures in Protestant Reformation is John Calvin. John believes that our salvation or destiny is predetermined to the extent that our actions cannot make a difference and that we can cannot fight nature. Which is interesting with tranquil or brought further tranquility the calm inspired by nature,…

Thought Piece

When reviewing the subject of the course I am reminded of when I started to research something a while back. I started writing and entry for my blog on whether the “Digital Revolution” was really or not a revolution that lead to a bigger philosophical question of other revolutions throughout history. Then, I started to ponder the question about revolutions in general. What does it take to make enough people to take the big jump to start the revolution? The larger question that also I keep asking myself if it was considered before a revolution begins: “Will the king end up dead, and do we really care?” I then proceeded to start an introduction that was never finished. It is suited to be used here since these are some of the questions that I am hoping to be able to answer by taking this course. Over the course of recorded history, revolutions have changed the course of the future to countless Peoples. To these ends certain questions would be asked, and answers pondered. The first question is why would people change the comfort of the things as they are to instate change. How bad do things have to get for…

Barron writer does not understand nature of Saint John

Barron writer does not understand nature of Saint John

Today I picked up a copy of The Barron, UNB Saint John’s student-produced paper. I came across the article “Travelling around Saint John: what you need to know” by staff writer Simon Jack. It does not take long for one to realize the writer did not understand the history of Saint John or the Transit system. The first point so I can move on was the reason he did not find information on the “Night Owl” run was that it was cancelled in Spring 2008. Now to the areas of Saint John, to refer to drawing a random line to determine the limits of both Millidgeville and South End is vastly poor research. The boundary for Millidgeville dates back to the 1950’s era boundary of city limits. Basically, the official boundary is if a line was drawn from Somerset Street and Sandy Point Road westward to Pokiok Point that was the city limits pre-amalgamation in Saint John. To define the South End one has to go much further back in time, back to 1785 (the beginning.) The Royal Charter that created Saint John defined the 4 wards of the “South Central” peninsula was split into quarters at Duke and Sydney…

Open Letter to my MP on Fee for Carriage

Today I checked my e-mail hand found this letter from my cable television provider Rogers Cable. Dear Rogers Cable Customer: {snip} I am now writing to inform you of yet another broadcasting policy proposal that is under consideration by the CRTC After rejecting it twice, the CRTC has reintroduced the idea of having a fee-for-carriage: a payment to Canadian over the air broadcasters that could ultimately end up costing cable and satellite TV subscribers between $5 and $10 per month!The proposal is being championed by over the air television networks such as CTV and Global (Canwest Media). These companies also own highly profitable specialty channels, such as TSN and History, and therefore overall are financially healthy.Furthermore, the CRTC has suggested that if the cable and satellite distributors don’t go along with the fee-for-carriage scheme, the television signals of American network stations, (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX and PBS) which we have distributed since cable TV began, will be taken away. The “fee for carriage” proposal is strongly opposed by Rogers and most other cable and satellite distributors.You as a cable TV customer can take a definitive position to oppose this new tax, called “fee-for-carriage”.To do so you should contact the CRTC…

Change

Change

As you can see CEFM.ca has a fresh clean new look. It is a metaphor for things happening in my life now. I am preparing for the bittersweet life of Academia. I am returning to UNBSJ in a little over a week only this time I have a plan. I am intending to complete my BA with an Economics Major and History minor. I am also going to take a stab at the LSAT next month. I haven’t started studying yet for it. C’est la vie of the eternal procrastinator. I am also happy to announce that the goals I have set to lose weight are moving in the right direction. I have not been able to get to the gym this week, my old back injury from High School just came back. However, it did a big snap that really hurt Wednesday while running for the bus and is tender but it feels like it repositioned in the right way for the first time in a long time. I should be able to head back next week. I’m considering moving my Gallery section to Gallery3 however it is not ready yet and there are no themes at the current moment…

Saint John Transit Changing Routes

Over the past few weeks, I have heard discussions on the bus about these upcoming changes. Some of the things I hear sounded stupid but look to be true. Now that I have seen the changes as a whole it makes a lot more sense. Basically, the routes I use are only changing by about 5-10 minutes and better evening runs. I really would not call this a major change, with the exception of the East-West and University, runs and addition of a few routes. But the numbers are. They are now grouping lines by the area where the old system had numbers all over the place. These changes are taking effect on August 9th, 2009. Please leave comments below on what you think of the changes. saintjohn.ca/transit-schedules has more information.

Time to pull Mayor Court

One of the major articles from the Telegraph-Journal this week that had caught my attention (Petition would oust Mayor) was the petition by Gerry Webster to recall the mayor. All I can say is where do I sign. No don’t say that I don’t agree with democracy, in fact I believe that petitioning to recall the Mayor is very democratic. I gives everyone the chance to vote on whether to keep the Mayor or pick someone better. Ivan Court in my opinion has not kept up the standard in the first year of his reign that this city needs, and is in fact going to be severely detrimental; as his and councils policies do nothing more than chase businesses out of the city. On the other hand I see that Fredericton would be probably the most likely and willing to nail the tomb on Saint John. In a historical perspective the city of Fredericton was created because of all the morons and poor decisions of Saint Johners. It would be very interesting to see who would come out of the woodwork that could beat Mayor Court. The fact that it only takes 15% of the electorate is a good number…

There ain’t no flies on us!

Once again it is summer. Last week something happened at work that got me remembering the amazing days of summers past spent at Camp Glenburn. Glenburn has to be one of the best places in New Brunswick to promote active living. It is on the south shore of the Bellisle Bay on a big hill that about every 2 hours you would go up and down. When you were up you were up, when you were down you were down and when you were only half way up… I Spent 4 summers there, the first was the year before the boathouse, the second was the year they built the boathouse, and the third was the year after the boathouse was built, and the final was when I was 16 in 1998. One of my most favorite activities was canoeing, especially when one year we went to the island in the bay east of the camp, and the other year when we went to a beach across the bay and to the west. And then there was the treks way up the hill to Mt. Baldy however it was in hindsight just a huge rockface and not really a mountain.

Okay, or maybe Save Local that gives a $#!+

While in my last post I may have took the position that Saving Local is not important. That is not true. I am against CTV and Global who have for the last few years, mainly CTV, treated New Brunswick as a second class maritime province in terms of share of news coverage and local programming. Now on to the main topic of this post, CBC Radio 1 in Saint John. In reality Saint John has about 4 main contacts for news CHSJ, CBC, CHNI, and Telegraph-Journal. However, only the Telegraph-Journal and CBC provide the depth of information and understanding of our community as a whole. Despite radio being close to a hundred year old technology. The style of the CBC just draws you in and is never shallow on good storytelling. Technically speaking the CBC does have a trend on over staffing on productions on the TV end but with the radio it takes less people to technically produce the shows so that leaves cutting the staff as ripping out pages from the unpublished book, still there but more shallow. I definitely plan on attending the rally in King’s Square this weekend. We Want Our CBC

Why not to “Save Local”

Today I seem ads on CTVGlobeMedia stations that are urging the government to require cable/satellite distributors to pay for distributing the signal. I think this is just plain wrong. Here in Saint John there are 4 broadcast stations CBAT (CBC Fredericton but licensed and has its main transmitter in Saint John), CKLT (Has no programming differences from CJCH (CTV Atlantic) in Halifax, NS), CIHF-TV-2 (a semi satellite of CIHF-TV known as Global Maritimes from Halifax.), and CBAFT-1 which is a re-transmitter of CBAFT the Radio-Canada Moncton feed. When it comes to local programming CTV is the absolute worst, as I have noted before at most has 2 stories from the Saint John area and 4-5 total from the entire Province of New Brunswick on a good day. Global TV despite their severe cut backs have managed to keep their news stories basically equal per province. The basics is that all 4 of these broadcasters offer their signals for free over-the-air (a.k.a. poverty-vision). The cable company simply re-transmits the feed via an antenna to cables to the subscribers. Why should we pay to have something that we get for free anyway? In fact this even benefits the TV stations by making…