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Saturday Snap – Some Stammering Bumbler on CTV Morning Live Promoting Assistive Technology

Before I appeared on a local morning TV show to promote some of the new Assistive Technology we have at Regina Public Library earlier this week, I jokingly posted on my Facebook and Twitter that people should tune in if they were fans of “awkward pauses and stammering answers”.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be true – at least at the start of this interview.  When I first started talking, I was a bit unsteady as you’ll see in the clip below.

Why’d it go off the rails at the start?  The guy interviewing me came in the Green Room beforehand and we briefly chatted about what we’d be talking about on air.  I explained we had a bunch of new assistive technology at RPL – some in all branches, some in our largest branches only and some specialized equipment in the Outreach Unit.

But when I started talking on-air and said what, for me, is a pretty standard spiel about how “the Outreach Unit serves visually impaired and homebound patrons”, the interviewer seized on the word “homebound” and went down a rabbit hole about how people who were homebound could use this exciting new equipment we purchased if it was in our branches?  (Luckily, I didn’t  blurt my initial smart-ass answer – “if they’re homebound, they’re probably not going to be using this equipment in branches, chucklehead!”)

I had planned to talk about the in-branch equipment so this question threw me for a bit of a loop.  I stammered about how we’d have screen reader software on the RPL web site (meaning we could have a link to where homebound patrons could download it though I fear it didn’t come across that way), almost started talking about e-books as another option for homebound patrons but quickly aborted that idea and luckily, I think I recovered fairly well, steering it back to the equipment we did have in the branches, got in a nice anecdote about how the equipment has already positively impacted on patron and even had a bit of fun “blowing the interview’s mind” around a common library misconception.

All in three minutes!

(Sorry for the sound is a bit low in this clip – I used the very advanced technique of “point iDevice at TV and record it”.)

Posted 03 November 2012 § Library § Saskatchewan § SaturdaySnap § Video § Work ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged:

Friday Fun Link – How Much Did It Cost Google To Stream “Gangnam Style” 600 Million Times? Did They Make a Profit?

[Edit: This video is now poised to be the first YouTube clip to reach 1 billion views, amazingly in less than six months!]

[Edit2: Some further analysis of the revenue Gangnam created.]

“Gangnam Style”, a quirky Korean pop song with a very “uniquely” stylish video is the second most watched clip in the history of YouTube with over 600 million views as I type this and is projected to soon eclipse the current #1, Canadian Justin Bieber’s “Baby” video which has 795 million views.

A poster on Quora asked how much it would have cost Google/YouTube to stream this video that many times and whether there’s any way they could’ve made a profit on showing something 600 million times.  The answer, at least hypothetically and with a lot of assumptions about proprietary Google operational inforamtion, is yes – the cost was extremely high but so was the profit – something like $350 000 to stream the video that many times and $400 000 in revenue from ads related to the video.

Posted 02 November 2012 § FridayFunLink § Internet § Meme § PopCulture § Technology § Video ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

Canada Reads 2013 Releases Top 10 Books By Region

Lots of interesting looking books on this list.

Posted 01 November 2012 § Canada § PopCulture ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

Holy Halloween Batman!

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Posted 31 October 2012 § Family § Humour § MemoryLane § Pace ‡ Comments (0) °

Will Ferguson Wins #Giller Prize, Is All Around Good Guy #canlit

When I worked for the Writers Guild of Alberta, the biggest part of my job was probably working with beginning and emerging writers.  So you can imagine my surprise when the phone rang one day and I heard a voice on the other end of the line say: “Jason, it’s Will, Will Ferguson calling.” He went on to say he needed some advice.

I still even remember what he asked though I won’t say it here out of respect for his privacy.  It was nothing scandalous, just a business-type question that you might imagine a bestelling, high profile Canadian author asking (not the “how do I get an agent?” and “How do I stop an agent from stealing my ideas?”-type questions I tended to get.)  I didn’t have an answer for his question off-the-top-of-my-head but promised to look in to it.  He gave me his personal e-mail, asked me not to share it with anyone and hung up.

I can’t remember if it came out of that same conversation but another big part of my job was organizing an annual fundraiser for the WGA.  The event was held during Calgary’s Freedom to Read Week celebrations and I decided to invite Will to attend.   He said he’d try to make it but wasn’t sure if he could.  I had an ulterior motive – his book, “How to Be A Canadian” had just come out so I wanted to get a signed copy for my Canadian-born aunt who now lived in the States.

Will did show up at our event which was held at Kaos, a dark, smoky jazz club on 17th Ave (aka the Red Mile).  He signed my book and I decided to push my luck.  I’d taken a lot of ribbing from the other members of the FTRW committee because the previous year, Cuba Gooding Jr., who was in town to shoot “Snow Dogs“, had come into the bar while the event was happening so everyone joked that he was the “Surprise Celebrity Guest” and I had to do something to top this.

I didn’t have the Oscar-winning star of *Snow Dogs* but when he showed up, I asked Will if he would mind doing a spontaneous reading after the planned program.  He grabbed my copy of his new book, said “give me a few minutes” and later, jumped on stage and absolutely killed with one of the funniest readings I’ve ever heard in my life – part stand-up comedian, part-bestselling author, part natural storyteller.

I had numerous encounters with Will during the rest of my tenure with the WGA – having him as a featured speaker on our Word on the Street main stage where he took the stage in a sleety-rain to the rocking strains of “Paperback Writer” to randomly running into him and his wife and baby around town to asking him to donate a book to a Canada Book Day event and having him show up at my office to hand deliver a copy of the Australian edition of one of his books.  “I always like to donate something unique that people won’t have seen” he explained.

Anyhow, that’s a really long way to say that Will won Canada’s richest literary prize, the $50 000 Giller Prize tonight for his new novel, “419” and it couldn’t happen to a nicer, more genuine guy.

I’d actually taken his new book out from RPL just a couple weeks ago as I’ve read most of Will’s work and this one sounded like an interesting departure from his usual humour/nonfiction stuff.  But I didn’t get to it and now that I’ve returned it, I suspect it will be a LONG wait until I get it again!

Anyhow, congrats to Will Ferguson!

Posted 30 October 2012 § Canada § PopCulture § Work ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Music Monday – “He don’t mind the cadavers/He don’t mind human remains/He got no problem sleepin’ at night,/Ain’t nothin’ a little whiskey won’t tame”

The last few Mondays have been “Meili Mondays” but a timely new video release from Corb Lund is a great time to revive “Music Monday” posting for a week…

Posted 29 October 2012 § Humour § MusicMonday § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

@Erin_Weir @ryanmeili Or this? #skndpldr

Max FineDay asked the #skndpldr candidates who they were going as for Halloween on Twitter. Ryan Meili replied that Che Guevara was in the lead but he was open to suggestions.  Somebody suggested he dress as Tommy Douglas and Erin Weir replied that all candidates could go as the leaders I compared them to in a previous post on this blog.

Given the difficulty of Trent dressing up as “a combination of Lingenfelter, Calvert with a dash of Romanow” (that’d be a hell of a costume though!), I thought I might make the task easier by adding a comparison of each of the four 2012 candidates to the four who ran in the 2009 Leadership Race.

Going from easiest to hardest analogy…

Ryan 2012 = Ryan 2009 (but with a beard, a book and a baby of course!)

Trent 2012 = Dwain Lingenfelter 2009 – both because Trent is the only one of the four 2012 candidates who supported Lingenfelter in 2009 but also because many of his 2012 supporters are also people who supported Link in 2009.

Erin 2012 = Yens Pedersen 2009 – both are youthful, intelligent, well-spoken long-time party insiders and former NDP candidates (Yens provincially, Erin federally) making a bid for the top provincial job [Edit: After I posted this, Erin tweeted back to say: “One [other] thing I share with Yens is an interest in tax issues and the revenue side of the ledger”]

Cam 2012 = Deb Higgins 2009 (someone had to be Deb in this exercise but beyond the gender thing, there are other similarities.  Cam and Deb are both solid, reliable MLA’s and like Trent & Link, they also share the connection that Cam was a Deb supporter in 2009).

I love that Ryan and Erin (so far) plus some others are using Twitter to have fun with “what will you be for Halloween” idea.  If that isn’t an example of a great way to get some insight into the personalities of the candidates and their respective supporters who are on Twitter, I don’t know what is! 😉

Posted 28 October 2012 § Humour § Politics § Saskatchewan § Technology ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: ,

Saturday Snap – High Impact Wrestling Moonsault (Gives New Meaning to Saturday “Snap”)

So after probably more than a year of saying I would get to the monthly card of High Impact Wrestling, Regina’s local wrestling promotion, I finally went last night.

And it was AWESOME!

I should step back a bit – there are a couple guys at work who go regularly and I always meant to go with them but I’d either have something on the final Friday of the month when the card was held or we’d be out of town or I’d forget until the last minute and then the tickets would be sold out.

Finally, yesterday, it all came together – I remembered it was High Impact Wrestling night, I cleared it with Shea that we had no other plans, I called over and they still had tickets, I popped over at lunch to get them.  And then when I got back to the library, I found out that the two guys who usually go wouldn’t be going! 🙁

Oh well – from watching FB updates on the nights of other cards and looking at the promotion’s FB page, I thought there’d likely be somebody there I knew.  And if I had to sit in the back row and enjoy the cultural experience myself, I’m not ashamed to do that either.

I showed up at 7:30pm for the 8pm card and…see a whole row of guys I know.  But, here’s the twist – it was ALL of their first time attending too (apparently one of that group of guys is training with the HIW and convinced all his buddies to attend – including one of my best friends from high school, that guy’s dad and a few other guys I mostly knew through my high school buddy.)

Anyhow, as I said, it was a great night – is there anywhere else where the crowd plays such an active role in a performance?  “Legitimate” sports to a certain degree, perhaps a comedy show or a rock concert.  But otherwise, not many places compare to the interaction that happens between crowd and performers as at a rasslin’ match.

This is a dumb example but after one match, the trunks of one of the guy getting out of the ring had slipped down exposing his butt crack.  So I yelled “Pull up your pants, plumber butt!”  And then he mooned me.  Which was about the most perfect, hilarious thing he could’ve done in that moment and I loved it!

There was also a tag team match that was about as good as anything you’d see in a big-time promotion – except you’d rarely be ten feet away from the action like I was.

This was a highlight of the match which I happened to catch on my camera phone:

I always plan to do a longer post about my fandom of pro wrestling – from watching Stampede Wrestling as a kid to today (although I don’t follow the sport nearly as much as I used to) as well as what it is about the sport that I think appeals to different groups of people.

For many kids, it’s like real-life superheroes; for many women (and probably a few men), the hard chiseled bodies are appealing; for many, it’s witnessing the conflict between good and evil, even if the results are pre-determined; as with my “mooning” story, for many it’s the humour and/or the interaction that happens; for many, it’s the creativity of the “promos”; for many it’s all about the various character archetypes; for many, it’s the opportunity to yell things you can’t normally yell in public (and we can have a further debate about whether this is a good or bad thing).

Anyhow, that’s a post for another day…

Posted 27 October 2012 § MemoryLane § Photo § SaturdaySnap § Sports § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Friday Fun Link – Shea and I Are Expecting (You’ll Watch This Video We Made)

Posted 26 October 2012 § Baby § Family § FridayFunLink § Humour § MemoryLane § Pace § Sad § Shea § Video ‡ Comments (1) °

A Tale of Two Cities: Comparing The Most Recent #yqr & #yyc Mayoral Elections #yqrvotes

You could probably do this for any two cities in Canada but since I lived in Calgary and am now back in Regina, those are the two cities I’m most familiar with.

And they truly are two cities that share many similarities – oil & gas-based economies creating boom times, comprised of many people of solid prairie stock (including the fact that the number of Sask-expats living in Calgary means it often gets called “Saskatchewan’s third largest city”) and quickly changing demographics.

As the Regina election developed over the past few months, I couldn’t help but notice the strong similarities between the top candidates in each of their most recent mayoral races as well.

In Calgary’s 2010 race, the top contenders were Ric McIver, a businessman and long-time city councilor; Barb Higgins, a well-known personality from the local arts & entertainment scene with a business education and Naheed Nenshi, a highly educated member of a visible minority group with a special interest in municipal governance.

In Regina’s 2012 race, the top contenders were Michael Fougere, a businessman and long-time city councilor; Marian Donnelly, a well-known personality from the local arts & entertainment scene with a business education and Meka Okochi, a highly educated member of a visible minority group with a special interest in municipal governance.

There was even a major building project as the top local issue in each election – construction of an airport tunnel in Calgary, construction of a new football stadium in Regina (although I don’t remember the YYC Airport Authority wading into the fray!)

In both races, the long-time city councilors were the initial front-runners but that’s where the stories diverge…

As has been well-documented, Naheed Nenshi came from a distant third-place in the last couple months of the race by using social media, a swell of grassroots support and a focus on a post-partisan approach to politics that led to him winning the top job and becoming Canada’s first Muslim mayor.

In Regina, there would be no similar come-from-behind victory for Okochi. Instead, Fougere, the initial front-runner held that position for the entirety of the race right up until election night when he was declared the winner.

So, the question I find myself asking, for all the similarities, what was different?

  • Calgary has a reputation as a conservative city but the reality is that Regina is probably both more broadly conservative and more deeply conservative in many ways than Cowtown at the present time.
  • This is partly because Calgary is both a much more ethnically diverse city than Regina but also a more youthful and more well-educated city as well. (There’s a good chance that Calgary Centre could give Canada it’s second Green Party MP in an upcoming by-election. Chris Turner is the author of the best non-fiction book I read last year, a regular on many of the same community web sites I visit and so I’ll take off my NDP-supporter hat for second and say that I hope he succeeds!)
  • These analogies aren’t perfect – comparing Donnelly to Higgins because both were in the “entertainment” field is a bit of a stretch. Donnelly is more “arts & culture” in her background whereas Higgins was more “infotainment” in her background as a well-known Calgary supper news anchor.
  • For that reason, if the race had developed differently, there’s a good chance that Okochi would’ve been the person I supported rather than Donnelly. Don’t tell anyone but my pencil even hovered over Okochi’s name for just the briefest of seconds as I filled out my ballot!
  • I didn’t intend for this post to be “why did Fougere win in Regina instead of Okochi while Naheed won in Calgary instead of McIver?” but another sad reality is that I think Regina’s probably not as open to the idea of a person who’s a visible minority in the top chair – both because of the lower level of ethnic diversity in Regina generally but also unfortunately, because Regina has been identified as one of the most racist cities in Canada (and that’s a serious charge and I can’t find the citation. I think there was a study a couple years ago that found Prince Albert as the most racist city in Canada and Regina was right up there too – maybe #3? Again, even wondering how you define “most racist” but whatever Regina’s “rank” in this terrible category, it is a part of our reality.)
  • In Regina, the highly popular out-going mayor was outspoken in his support of Fougere whereas in Calgary, my memory is that their highly popular outgoing mayor didn’t anoint a successor in the same way.
  • Calgary 2010 had 15 candidates running but only three got more than 1% of the vote.
  • Regina 2012 had 8 candidates running but in our city, a fourth, Dr. Liz Brass, managed to be the only other contender to get more than 1% of the vote. Her 5% of the vote would’ve have been enough to vault Okochi past Donnelly or Donnelly past Fougere even if all had broken for a single other candidate. But her strong campaign did add a different dynamic that didn’t exist in Calgary’s three-way race.
  • Final rankings in Calgary 2010: Nenshi: 40%, McIver: 32%, Higgins: 26%
  • Final rankings in Regina 2012 : Fougere: 42%, Donnelly: 32%, Okochi: 18%
Posted 25 October 2012 § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,