Courtesy: City of Sound
Beauty: This goal by Argentina against Serbia and Montenegro during the opening round of the World Cup. 8 of the 10 players on the field were involved in the play, 24 passes in total. Complete domination.
Beast: A giant centipede completely overwhelming this mouse in an aquarium tank. Not for the faint of heart. Trust me on this. No picture though, I don't need to see it everytime I look at this post.
So our Premier Dalton McGuinty could've avoided the mess he stepped in this week, but chose instead to keep on walkin', leaving a nice, dirty trail behind.
The pooch that left this mess? Whoever thought it was a good idea to spend $220,000 to redesign the logo for the Government of Ontario!
picture courtesy the Toronto Star
Now, leaving aside the extravagant cost (an undergrad graphics designer could come up with something like that for a few hundred dollars, probably, remember THIS that was much more loved than "Toronto Unlimited"), the possible partisanship in awarding the design contract for this thing, and the possibile similarities with Liberal or NDP logos (because there's enough people talking about that), was there even a need to redesign the logo?
Right now, the logo's well known, simple and effective. You could even say that it's iconic. Now, the question becomes, is the new logo so much better that people would remark that it represents Ontario that much better than before?
Probably not. There was never a need to rebrand the government logo. It is not a business firm that needs to stay 'current' and 'edgy' for brand recognition. The government will not collapse because of a lack of it, as much as people may want. The government is here to stay.
Now, as of right now, the government homepage still uses the old logo. I wonder how long it'll take them to revamp all the websites? How much chaos will that create?
What an idiotic idea. They need to repay us, and quick. Or at the very least, whoever approved the idea, have them take money out of their own pocket and put it back into government coffers.
The design firm won't return the government check for sure. But we sure as hell shouldn't have to pay for this nonsense.
The CBC's being killed slowly but surely.
It's being choked off from external and internal threats. They lose broadcasting bids for the Olympics and the Curling championships. They create a TV development division strictly devoted to Reality TV. Then, it released a fall line-up that consisted of mostly reality TV shows based on American and British concepts (Dragon's Den, The Underdog, etc.). It's going to simulcast an ABC American Idol rip-off at 10pm, bumping "the National" news program (the CBC anchor show) to a later time til the end of summer. And to top it off, a Senate report was just released calling for the CBC to drop professional sports programming and to eliminate advertising as revenue. Instead, it called for the CBC to be completely taxpayer-funded.
So, will the CBC become a Canadian PBS, showing no sports, but mainly news and current affairs (though, I can't see any Conservative government willing to pump more taxpayer dollars into the CBC)? Or will it become any other Canadian TV Channel, sans-public funding and fighting with the 800 million other networks on the dial, eventually to be bought out by one of the major media conglomerates? These seem to be the only two directions that people are advocating.
Either fate seems unfortunate for the venerable station that can now only reach every part of Canada through Hockey Night in Canada, all the while being forced to cut back on regional stations and programming because of a lack of revenue. Part of the blame goes to the Canadian viewer, who wouldn't know good programming if it bit them in the butt. Partly goes to CBC, who rarely attempts to back and promote dramatic programs for the long haul (Da Vinci's Inquest is the only recent example I can think of). When CTV shows more Canadian programming (Degrassi, the New Generation, Corner Gas, then the CBC (and kudos to them for doing so), you know something is wrong.
The next few years will be rough on the CBC. They'll have to work hard to justify its existence to the public. They can't rely solely on the National and HNIC to bring in the viewers. But hocking reality-schlock does the Canadian public no justice either. It's a chicken/egg conundrum when it comes to figuring out the lack of Canadian drama on TV and why people aren't watching them. I don't believe that we aren't interested in our own stories. If we're that faithless with ourselves, then the CBC should stick to just news and current affairs. Otherwise, it needs to take risks in people who are willing to tell our stories.
The CBC will change. I'm just hoping it'll change to something for the better.
Two videos of Rube Goldberg devices came to my attention today and they're such fun things to watch:
Presenting...Ramen!
and
In the Outdoors
Catering to superstitions will get you nowhere. An example.
I've just finished helping move my parents into a new condo in Markham. There are sixteen residential floors, except there are no fourth, thirteenth or fourteenth floor to be found. Why you ask? 13 is unlucky in the western world, but 4 and 14 are considered unlucky to the Chinese because the pronunciation of these two numbers sound very close to "death" and "certain death", respectively. And being in Markham, with a more predominant Chinese community pervading, Tridel decided to cater to their likely clients.
The punchline: 'removing' these floors from the elevator has left this condo into having 13 floors! You see, you just can't win when it comes to superstition. So don't bother trying.
Now, as long as this building wasn't constructed over the gates to Hell or something ala Buffy, we'll be fine.
I'm in a bit of a funk right now, not getting any thesis done or anything productive, for that matter. Hell, I'm even having difficulty blogging! Not a good sign; I should see a doctor about this. On the other hand, PhD Comics continue to amuse me to no end. And just as I was "discussing" over the weekend with a friend about what her Master's report title should be, This day's strip popped up, only 3 days too late. Still, it does fit with what Matt and I have always believed report titles should look like:
Copyright Jorge Cham
It's a sure-fire formula for success! Ok, I promise. Next post will either tell the 3 readers I have that I'm out of my funk, or at the very least, be a post about something of actual interest.
