Tag: CBC

The banged up emotions, banged up car, and big boom finale

As we left off the quest, I was on the back roads of southern Ontario, with the Spotify music pumped. I was taking the back roads partly because it was taking everything to keep myself together, and partly because the 410, 407, and 401 scare the hell out of me. It was at this point, I decided that seeing Niagara Falls wasn’t going to happen with the gloomy dark cloud of depression. It was also raining and cloudy too. After close to 2 hours, I arrived in Kitchener and the sun came out there. I managed to find a convenient little parking spot and walked down Festival street. I have written before about Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest but there is something about this festival that in its own special way brings it over the top. There seems to even be a much higher percentage of people in a traditional dress than you even see in Munich. The Rogers Hometown hockey was there and there was a beautiful smell in the air that brought nostalgia back. Like most things, however, the second time is just not the same and the depression came back. I grabbed a sausage and water and then went to…

StartUp Weekend Saint John

StartUp Weekend Saint John

As most of you know I have volunteered at ROGERS tv for going on 19 years. Bi-weekly there is a talk show that I work on called What Matters most. A few weeks ago the had someone on as a guest from the Momentum Group to talk about a then-upcoming event for a Startup Weekend. Long story short that episode didn’t make it to air and was instead put on YouTube. Therefore you can watch the following 13-minute interview to get the idea of what it is about. Or not… I guess I can tell you what it is about. The premise is that you pay money for a ticket and choose if you are a Developer (can code), Designer (can design stuff), or Other (smart person, marketing person, money person, et cetera). Then on Friday you show up raid the buffet spread, socialize, network, and assess the competition. Then you get to listen to speeches, “The is is how the weekend is going to go down”, “we love business”, “entrepreneurs are awesome”, “there are so many services you have never probably heard of that you are going to get a taste of”, “your community needs you”, and lastly “who…

The Day I Killed the Town

This is another one of my memories while under good drugs in the hospital, most of it never happened but it is how I remember it happening. I was brought for the morning after cleanup to this glass office building that was being used to house patients. As the day went on the nurse was having trouble moving me for cleaning and the brought in a lift thing to try that didn’t work out. However, as I was on the lift and couldn’t move it had me down near the floor and beside the desk. Then this snake came out from the desk and this guy used a spinning rope on a stick thing to kill it but there were dozens more everywhere. The decided that I needed to get back to the main hospital so I was moved through the Indian spice store next door and they used a hose to dry and get the snake infestation out but it got too much and I got pulled under into the drain with some other dead bodies that were grossing me out. I managed to be pulled out and placed on another stretcher. This left us in a parking lot…

CBC News – NB – Review Anglo Society flag motion: language chief

CBC News – New Brunswick – Review Anglo Society flag motion: language chief. This has to be one of the most overhyped stories of the month. It would be common practice for the City of Bathurst to fly this flag. I firmly believe that every group or person has the freedom to speak their thoughts. Just as much as it is everybody elses to consider to merits, then decide if it should be accepted or driven out-of-town with pitch-forks. In this case I think the City of Bathurst is committing censorship but the few deciding without the Anglo-Society having a chance to give the Anglo-Society their moment on the soap box. Personally from the time I was in Fredericton I think the Anglo-Society should be driven out with pitch-forks but everyone should be given a chance to hear their points.

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…

A drop in the bucket… err… table

A drop in the bucket… err… table

Who is left to tell the tail abount the drop. This may be just a little drop of coffee on the table, but who will tell the world. It was interesting to learn the only part of CBC during these layoffs are the CBC.ca department. The web seems to now finally be changing the directon of media. The idea that you don’t need huge television systems, broadcast transmitters, and printing presses to the people. To those ends there is now not a need for the content to suffe either. The question however is how will interactive benefit the telling of the news? Can the local not be lost to a global voice? Can the web emerge as a primary source for news rather than current methods as regurgitation of the news reported by old media sour we and techniques?

NASCAR vs. The Simpsons

This morning I was listening to CBC Radio 1 and one of the main stories today is that the local cable company cut off the final few laps of the Nascar race for an all new episode of The Simpsons. Let’s face it The Simpsons is one of the most important influinces of my generation. The Simpsons, teaches that it is important to think for yourself and that one voice can make a difference. In retrospect this week’s particular episode was one of the best lately and I feel bad if an cable company didn’t cut off NASCAR for it.

Saint John Transit and Google Transit

I sent an e-mail to Saint John Transit offering a suggestion : I recently read on CBC News the plans to incorporate an text messaging system which is great, however the currently the method of displaying the schedules in PDF remains unreadable by 90% of cellphones.The new Google transit system works with most cellphones (minus the maps for some) and for people with GPS Enabled cellphones it can use the Google Transit to find the closest bus stops an times. Best of all it’s free. And here is the response from  Chris Campbell at Saint John Transit: Good morning Mr. Frees-Melvin. The system we will be using is from a company called Grey Island. There will be an interface with Google Transit, but not immediately. You will be able to text a 5-7 digit code from any cell phone and we will be adding a 5 digit numerical code at every stop in the city. Text that 5 digit number specific to the stop and the next bus arrival time will be sent to your phone. This will be in real time, not scheduled time. We hope that in the future people with a PDA will be able to access…

On-Air Appearances

Television Appearances Guest Appearance: Daytime (Saint John Edition) {Rogers Television}(November 2006) Reporter: Too Close To Call “Saint John Sea Dogs’ Mike Thomas Interview” {Rogers Television} (October 2006) Reporter: First Local “Hockey Canada Interview” {Rogers Television October 2006) Turned Around in Background: Scott Thomas “My Way” Promo {Rogers Television} (2006-2007 season) Interviewed at a Stephen Harper Rally: Rick Mercer Report {CBC-TV} (January 2006) Sitting in Chair Laughing: Volunteer @ Rogers Promo {Rogers Television} (2005-2006 season) Interviewed in Montreal: Rick Mercer Report {CBC-TV} (March 2005) Guest Appearance: Municipal Vote 2004 Candidates Messages {Rogers Television}(2004) Reporter: Focus NB {Rogers Television} (2002-2003) Radio Appearances Guest Appearance: Talk of the Town (CFBC 930 AM SaintJohn) (2004) Debate Participant: CBC Saint John’s Information Morning(91.3 FM) (2004) News Director/Announcer: CHSR News at Noon (2002) Band Interviewer: CHSR 97.9 FM Fredericton (2002)

A Quickie

I guess to compensate for this short post I will post a humorous picture for you, my loyal viewers. This I had made and posted to Facebook a few days ago, when someone question whether or not I really had a barcode scanner. In retrospect it could be considered a metaphor for the way many people on the retail sector think during customer disputes. And when it comes to disputes I think I have just learned the secret to dealing with a dispute, and thinking back to past experiences I believe this is an actual approach that will always work. “Never loose the control in a situation” I think it is that split moment when the control is lost that leads to an escalation. By keeping control, it allows for “Personal Accountability,” keeping the situation in the range where you have control. I think that if you gave a little but have the customer, client, co-working believing that it is better for them to beat there head against a brick wall than challenge you for more, you remain very likely to succeed in your delima. Although key factors in this actually working is, you appear to actually know what you…

Toronto, Cabaret, and 25 other warm fuzzys.

While it has been such a long time since an update so this one might be a little longer than normal. And the full blame of this goes to www.facebook.com and www.youtube.com I have spent most of my Internet time on those two sites. Some of you might be even reading this from the notes section on Facebook. Okay so let us start with Toronto, I took lots of pictures that I will add to my gallery soon, and some very interesting ones at that. The greatest story was the one where I was sitting in the Glenn Gould Studio in the CBC Broadcast Centre as the marble tile fell off of the 60th story of First Canadian Place it shook the ground and nobody really noticed that is Toronto for you. And I went to see the show at Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament  www.medievaltimes.comit was defiantly one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life something that I would for sure go see again, and the food was amazing. I’m not sure what the soup was but my mouth is watering just thinking of it. I also took a trip up the CN Tower again it…

Final 2 Days in TO

OK, well the past two days have been quite interesting. On Friday I went to see the Casa Loma, Baldwin Steps, CBC Building, CHUM City and the Bata Shoe Museum. I never thought I would make it to the top of the Baldwin steps I have never seen so many steps in my LIFE! The CHUM Building was a pinnacle moment of the day. The CHUM City Store had more stuff than you can believe! It is 10 times the size of the CBC one. The coolest thing about the CHUM City building is the CityPulse24 Truck coming out the side of the building about 15 metres above the ground with the wheels spinning. Speaking of the CHUM building, Friday was one of the saddest days I had in Toronto since it was the Last day of Star Trek: Enterprise I was quite impressed with how the series ended it was quite upholding for Star Trek. Yesterday I went to see the Hockey Hall of Fame, It was quite impressive and much larger than I had expected. It was quite erie to see to see Bay Street on a Saturday last time I was there on Thursday at about noon…

June Callwood

Because I was in class during the time, the June Callwood was speaking in the Ted Daigle Auditorium at St. Thomas University I was originally not going to bother with this assignment. When I went to class, I started hearing all the other stories on this particular guest speaker I decided to do it anyway. On the evening of November 1st, I sat down and listened to the rebroadcast lecture on the program “Ideas” on CBC Radio One. I turned on the radio to listen but there was very poor reception on my little cheap radio. After spending about five minutes trying to clear up the reception I gave up. Then later I had an insight that I could pick up the signal on CBC Radio One’s web broadcast so after missing fifteen minutes of the broadcast I began listening. Once I first heard the words coming out I became intrigued. I started to take notes but shortly stopped in awe of the remarkable voice of inspiration and experience. I cannot recall anything in part that she said but the words all appeared well-chosen and magical.

Journal Entry Sept 17, 2002

The CBC 50th Anniversary Special on the History of News and Reporting was on. It included a roundtable at where I believe was the University of Regina. Many of the panellists were former and current broadcasters and reporters, including my favourite two Peter Mansbridge and Adrian Arseneault. I found this program particularly interesting, as it should the transition from the only Canadian broadcaster to one of the lofty standards.

Critique on Article (Ernie Coombs)

Subject: Critique on Article The article I have chosen to comment on is about the life of the late Ernie Coombs. Although it is not specified who the author of the article is, it is a Canadian Press story which I found on canoe.ca. This article explains the what of how Ernie Coombs a children’s television legend was an influence on at least two generations of Canadians as the legendary Mr. Dressup. The where, when, and why is because Mr. Coombs kicked the bucket on Thursday at the Toronto Western Hospital after taking a stroke on 11 September. The reason we care is that the man was well-loved by all and things like this bring people together. This story is only one-sided since usually on a legend dies under respect for the family only the good side and positive accomplishments are written about. Much of the research was done by interviewing people who were there first hand.

Commentary on TV Coverage of the “Attack on America”

Jour 1013- Intro. to Journalism Charles E. Frees-Melvin (920722) Thursday 13 September 2001 Subject: Commentary on TV Coverage of the “Attack on America” I woke up on a beautiful summer day, as usual, went to class and came back for a noon rest. I left my dorm room and went to see my neighbours in the next room, who watch movies all the time, I saw the WTC and Pentagon on fire and ask, “What movie is this?” They responded with a “Dude, this is real!” At that moment I returned to my room and turned my T.V. on to watch a day of coverage. Switching back and forth from: NBC/CBC/Global/ABC/CTV/CBS/FOX/CNN/&TBS. I found that most of the footage was from CNN but I was hooked on the commentary by Peter Mansbridge (CBC). Peter made me feel more secure in really knowing what was going on. It was also very helpful to have it from a Canadian perspective. I found that Lloyd Robertson (CTV) did not really have as of a heart touching production as Peter Jennings (ABC News). Some of the most questionable stuff I saw was the broadcast from Global National News where most questionably the showed the man…