Thursday, January 30, 2014
Fishing in the Discount Bin - Star Trek: First Contact
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, where I gaze upon one of the many movies I own and just ramble about it. Back in the spring, I wanted to watch every Star Trek movie before Into Darkness came out, which brings us to part 8 of this 12 part series, what many consider to be the best of the Next Generation films, Star Trek: First Contact. This shows up in my notes at April 27, 2013.
Labels:
Fishing in the Discout Bin
Sunday, January 26, 2014
We Have a New Targ! But for How Long?
What's this? Have I finally brought back the podcast?
Well, what can I say? When I did the Off Mic Podcast a month ago, Drew asked me what ever became of mine. He said that maybe doing his would inspire to me bring back mine. And I thought about it and said, "Why not?"
So let's see how long we can maintain this new series with Episode 7.01: Back for Maybe. I kind of ease into things by sharing:
- An untold tale I forgot to tell when I did the Off Mic Podcast
- Ramble a bit about The Time of the Doctor, aka this year's Doctor Who Christmas special
- And just gab about the Christmas blockbusters I saw, like Thor: The Dark World, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and Frozen: Doesn`t Have a Subtitle.
Click here to go download it!
Head here to subscribe in iTunes!
Be a fan in Facebook!
Labels:
U62: The Targ
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Fishing in the Discount Bin - Star Trek Generations
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, where I watch and blog about one of the many VHS/DVD/Blu-Rays that I own. For those just joining us, back in the spring of 2013, I decided to watch every Star Trek movie before Into Darkness came out. And today, we jump from the original to the Next Generation with Star Trek Generations. This originally appears in my notes at April 20, 2013.
Labels:
Fishing in the Discout Bin
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Scarecrow's Oscar Picks - 2014 Edition
Well, it's that time of year again! The Oscar nomination were announced a few days ago, so that means it's time for me to take to the blog and dish out my annual Oscar picks...a proud tradition going all the way back to the late 1990s when I figured blogging would be a fun way to get the word out about my radio show!
And again, going back to those halcyon days of the late 1990s when my college radio show ruled the Camrose airwaves and the dot-com bubble hadn't popped yet making blogs all trendy, I do my Oscar picks a little bit differently. Best Picture, Best Actor & Actress, Best Director...you're going to see people picking winners in those categories every where you look. Me? I only offer up my Oscar picks in the two categories I have a good track record of picking: Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song. In 2001, I expanded it to include Best Animated Feature, because I love animation.
So, without further ado, here's my Oscar picks!
Best Visual Effects
My Thoughts: Lots of good entries here. If The Hobbit follows the same pattern as The Lord of the Rings, all the Oscar love is being saved for the third in the trilogy, so a no-go for The Hobbit. Iron Man 3, while spectacular with all the Iron Man suits battling out at the end, really didn't strike me as something cutting edge and new. Same with Star Trek Into Darkness. Space battles? Been there, done that. I LOVE The Lone Ranger, and it's amazing train chase finale which was an amazing blend of CGI and practical effects, but probably not a big enough hit for the Academy voters. But Gravity, with it's spellbinding space vistas, and the fact that most of the space scenes had Sandra Bullock and George Clooney doing staff in performance capture suits with the space suits animated on later, makes Gravity's effects barely noticable...which is what good special effects shoud do.
My Pick: Gravity
Best Animated Film
My Thoughts: What? No love for Pixar and Monsters University? Pixar is an Oscar darling...it's shocking for them to get snubbed like this! But, here it is. I think the only other Pixar film that's been snubbed since this category began was Cars 2, and Monsters University was nowhere near as bad as Cars 2! But I digress. Let's see...The Croods really didn't make great waves among the critics when it came out, so I don't feel good about it. Ernest and Celestine is the token foreign film that no one's heard of, so I don't feel optimistic about it. While the critics did love Despicable Me 2, and the world loves those Minions, the first one didn't win, so I'm not sure the sequel will win. The Wind Rises promises to be the last film from renowned Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki...just like the Oscar-winning Spirited Away was 10 years ago, so the Academy might be thinking, "Been there, done that" with The Wind Rises. Meanwhile, the entire world is currently nuts for Frozen. The critics love it, and it's still in theatres and fresh in people's minds.
My Pick: Frozen
Best Original Song
"Happy" from Despicable Me 2
"Let It Go" from Frozen
"The Moon Song" from Her
"Ordinary Love" from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
My Thoughts: I think there's no debate in this category. I began my winning streak in this category during the Disney renaissance of the 1990s, when this category was swept every year by the latest Disney animated film. The world has gone nuts for Frozen, and the one song they're the most nuts about is Let It Go.
My Pick: Let It Go from Frozen.
And, I guess, as an acknowledgement to mainstream trends, we should also do the Big One.
Best Picture
- 12 Years a Slave
- American Hustle
- Captain Phillips
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Gravity
- Her
- Nebraska
- Philomena
- The Wolf of Wall Street
My Pick: 12 Years a Slave
The Oscars are on March 2 this year...a little later than usual, so they don't conflict with the Winter Olympics. For all the nominations, and to make your own picks, you can check out The Official Academy Awards Website.
Labels:
Movie stuff
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
No Needs
I went to the city today. Usually, when I make the effort to go into the city, I justify it with a need to do so. But today, I had no need. No need for new socks and underwear. No vital piece of new hardware that I needed to fix up the car or computer. None of that stuff.
I was off to the city just because I wanted to see Frozen.
I love animated movies. And I've blogged before that there was once a stretch in my life where I would make the effort to head down to the local movie theatre and see every new movie that came out. But, there was a stretch in mid-2000s where every animated movie became talking animals making pop culture references, and that ended my effort. I learned that not every animated movie demanded my viewing. And again, when Frozen came along, I was fairly indifferent, because I think we've said just about everything that needs to be said about the Disney princess genre. However, Frozen was getting amazingly good reviews, and I've always had a soft spot for Disney anyway, so I finally said, "Why not?"
I always like to go to West Edmonton Mall, and since the showing I wanted to see was at high noon, I got to the Mall a little earlier than usual. I like getting the Mall in the morning. The crowds are much more manageable. You've got a little more breathing room. I can check out the Apple Store, and not have to fight through throngs of people to stare longingly at iPads. I can head to my favourite comic book stores and root to the backs of Star Wars action figure racks with minimal judgement. The only downside is I start feeling like having an early lunch, and most food court places don't open until 11:30 or so. So I had to eat lunch pretty quick to get to the theatre on time.
So. Frozen.
Frozen has a long and complicated history. Disney has been trying for decades to do an adaptation of the Hans Christen Andersen tale The Snow Queen. The first attempts were done by Walt Disney himself back in the 1940s. A few tries were made during the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s. And when Disney decided to revive traditional hand-drawn animation in the late-2000s, an attempt to tackle The Snow Queen was made once again. And because The Princess and the Frog underperformed at the box office, Disney declared traditional hand-drawn animation dead once again, and The Snow Queen was moved over to computer animation. And the final product is Frozen, which, after decades of rewrites, bears very little resemblance to The Snow Queen.
Our heroines are the sisters and princesses Elsa and Anna. Elsa has been gifted with powers over ice and snow, but these powers frighten her parents, and she accidentally injures Anna with them one night. So Elsa is taught and told to keep rigid control over herself and her powers, lest she accidentally hurt someone again. Fast forward to when their grown-ups, and Elsa is about to crowned queen. Needless to say, with Elsa's strict upbringing of "keep it under control" and the stress of becoming queen, on her coronation day, she's just a bundle of nerves, leading to some mishaps with her powers. Elsa storms off into the wilderness to be by herself, and never hurt anyone again, but in doing so, she throws her queendom into perpetual winter. So Anna sets out on a quest to reach out to her sister and bring summer back to the land.
As you know, my favourite movie is The Iron Giant, and I always go back to the scene where the character of Dean has to undo his fly in the middle of a crowded diner to let out a squirrel. (Just see the movie.) That's the moment when I knew that The Iron Giant was going to be something different. So whenever I see an animated film, I'm always hoping for a "squirrel-down-the-pants" moment to signal to me that this one is going to be different. And I'm pleased to report that Frozen does have a couple of "squirrel-down-the-pants" moments to keep the Disney princess formula fresh. And I like that it does continue what The Princess and the Frog started, with kind of playing with the notion of what "true love" is and maybe "true love's first kiss" is the be-all and end-all in these sorts of stories. There's some unexpected betrayals, too, that lead to some unexpected villains which made things, well, unexpected.
That's the scene for Let It Go, the big power ballad from the film that everyone is raving about.
The songs are amazing. I really enjoyed them. Just about picked up the soundtrack for the drive home. The animation, well, it's Disney, so you know it's good. Voice acting is all top notch. And the characters are just fun. Elsa and Anna are a believable pair of sisters and you share their pain when these powers start driving them apart.
I didn't find it as overwhelmingly good as a lot of the reviews have said, but I did enjoy it quite a bit. A solid 3 Nibs.
And I should mention that it started off with the animated short film Get a Horse!, which has been getting as much critical love as Frozen itself. It starts off as a classic Mickey Mouse cartoon from the 1920s...black and white and hand-drawn animation. And when the evil Pete comes along to make a play for Minnie, Pete actually throws Mickey Mouse out of the movie itself, and into the real world. In the real world, Mickey morphs into the thoroughly modern, full-colour CGI, and outside of the film, he discovers ways to manipulate the movie screen and give Pete his comeuppance. It is incredibly clever and a whole lot of fun.
After the film, just wandered the Mall for a little bit more. When through HMV, but got that empty, hollow feeling inside when there's no new Blu-Rays I wanted to buy. There were a few that I kinda-sorta wanted, but there were no MUST-HAVES. And last time I was in the city, two weeks ago, I picked up The Alien Anthology because I kinda-sorta wanted it. That was two weeks ago and I haven't touched it yet. So, no more Blu-Rays that I kinda-sorta want until I've made it through all four Alien films.
So I moseyed on home.
And that was my day in the city. I know, as there was no need to go in, there's not grand ending. No completion of a quest. Just me, having enjoyed a movie. I think I need to do this things just for me once in a while.
I was off to the city just because I wanted to see Frozen.
_poster.jpg "Frozen Movie Poster")
I love animated movies. And I've blogged before that there was once a stretch in my life where I would make the effort to head down to the local movie theatre and see every new movie that came out. But, there was a stretch in mid-2000s where every animated movie became talking animals making pop culture references, and that ended my effort. I learned that not every animated movie demanded my viewing. And again, when Frozen came along, I was fairly indifferent, because I think we've said just about everything that needs to be said about the Disney princess genre. However, Frozen was getting amazingly good reviews, and I've always had a soft spot for Disney anyway, so I finally said, "Why not?"
I always like to go to West Edmonton Mall, and since the showing I wanted to see was at high noon, I got to the Mall a little earlier than usual. I like getting the Mall in the morning. The crowds are much more manageable. You've got a little more breathing room. I can check out the Apple Store, and not have to fight through throngs of people to stare longingly at iPads. I can head to my favourite comic book stores and root to the backs of Star Wars action figure racks with minimal judgement. The only downside is I start feeling like having an early lunch, and most food court places don't open until 11:30 or so. So I had to eat lunch pretty quick to get to the theatre on time.
So. Frozen.
Frozen has a long and complicated history. Disney has been trying for decades to do an adaptation of the Hans Christen Andersen tale The Snow Queen. The first attempts were done by Walt Disney himself back in the 1940s. A few tries were made during the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s. And when Disney decided to revive traditional hand-drawn animation in the late-2000s, an attempt to tackle The Snow Queen was made once again. And because The Princess and the Frog underperformed at the box office, Disney declared traditional hand-drawn animation dead once again, and The Snow Queen was moved over to computer animation. And the final product is Frozen, which, after decades of rewrites, bears very little resemblance to The Snow Queen.
Our heroines are the sisters and princesses Elsa and Anna. Elsa has been gifted with powers over ice and snow, but these powers frighten her parents, and she accidentally injures Anna with them one night. So Elsa is taught and told to keep rigid control over herself and her powers, lest she accidentally hurt someone again. Fast forward to when their grown-ups, and Elsa is about to crowned queen. Needless to say, with Elsa's strict upbringing of "keep it under control" and the stress of becoming queen, on her coronation day, she's just a bundle of nerves, leading to some mishaps with her powers. Elsa storms off into the wilderness to be by herself, and never hurt anyone again, but in doing so, she throws her queendom into perpetual winter. So Anna sets out on a quest to reach out to her sister and bring summer back to the land.
As you know, my favourite movie is The Iron Giant, and I always go back to the scene where the character of Dean has to undo his fly in the middle of a crowded diner to let out a squirrel. (Just see the movie.) That's the moment when I knew that The Iron Giant was going to be something different. So whenever I see an animated film, I'm always hoping for a "squirrel-down-the-pants" moment to signal to me that this one is going to be different. And I'm pleased to report that Frozen does have a couple of "squirrel-down-the-pants" moments to keep the Disney princess formula fresh. And I like that it does continue what The Princess and the Frog started, with kind of playing with the notion of what "true love" is and maybe "true love's first kiss" is the be-all and end-all in these sorts of stories. There's some unexpected betrayals, too, that lead to some unexpected villains which made things, well, unexpected.
That's the scene for Let It Go, the big power ballad from the film that everyone is raving about.
The songs are amazing. I really enjoyed them. Just about picked up the soundtrack for the drive home. The animation, well, it's Disney, so you know it's good. Voice acting is all top notch. And the characters are just fun. Elsa and Anna are a believable pair of sisters and you share their pain when these powers start driving them apart.
I didn't find it as overwhelmingly good as a lot of the reviews have said, but I did enjoy it quite a bit. A solid 3 Nibs.
And I should mention that it started off with the animated short film Get a Horse!, which has been getting as much critical love as Frozen itself. It starts off as a classic Mickey Mouse cartoon from the 1920s...black and white and hand-drawn animation. And when the evil Pete comes along to make a play for Minnie, Pete actually throws Mickey Mouse out of the movie itself, and into the real world. In the real world, Mickey morphs into the thoroughly modern, full-colour CGI, and outside of the film, he discovers ways to manipulate the movie screen and give Pete his comeuppance. It is incredibly clever and a whole lot of fun.
After the film, just wandered the Mall for a little bit more. When through HMV, but got that empty, hollow feeling inside when there's no new Blu-Rays I wanted to buy. There were a few that I kinda-sorta wanted, but there were no MUST-HAVES. And last time I was in the city, two weeks ago, I picked up The Alien Anthology because I kinda-sorta wanted it. That was two weeks ago and I haven't touched it yet. So, no more Blu-Rays that I kinda-sorta want until I've made it through all four Alien films.
So I moseyed on home.
And that was my day in the city. I know, as there was no need to go in, there's not grand ending. No completion of a quest. Just me, having enjoyed a movie. I think I need to do this things just for me once in a while.
Labels:
life,
Musings from the Mall
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Fishing in the Discount Bin - Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, that time of the week where I watch something in my DVD library and blog about it. Back in the spring, I wanted to watch every Star Trek movie before Into Darkness came out, so that brings us to Part 6 of the 12-part series, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Confession of bias time: this is my favourite film with the original crew. This is dated in my notes at April 14, 2013.
Labels:
Fishing in the Discout Bin
Thursday, January 09, 2014
Fishing in the Discount Bin - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly critique of one of the movies in my DVD library. Back in the late-spring/early-summer of 2013, I decided to watch every Star Trek movie to prepare myself for Into Darkness. That brings us to Part 5 of my series on every Star Trek movie, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. This is originally dated in my notes at April 12, 2013.
Labels:
Fishing in the Discout Bin
Sunday, January 05, 2014
Brutal Drive
I can't believe I went into the city yesterday. With the winds we had, and the incredible amount of blowing snow, it was one of the most difficult drives I ever undertook. But, I had a pocketful of gift cards and Christmas cash, and it was itching to get spent.
First stop: the movies! Of course, the big holiday blockbuster I'd been wanting to see is The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. And because it is such a long movie, my theatre-of-choice, the Soctiabank Theatre in West Edmonton Mall, had it starting at 11:30AM. So seeing the movie was the first order of business. I kind of like getting to West Edmonton Mall before noon. Things are kind of quiet in the mall, and it's not so crowded yet, so you have lots of room to just enjoy the place. But I didn't have much time to enjoy it, as the movie was starting!
With The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, I kind of have the same complaint as with the first film. Having read The Hobbit several times, you can feel the padding. So many new characters are introduced...so many characters who didn't have backstories before suddenly have epic backstories. It just bogs things down. I know, I know, it is all still canon as Peter Jackson poured through Tolkein's appendices and Middle Earth encyclopedias, but it just slows things down.
Lots of good stuff, though. The sequence with the wine barrels is one of my favourite bits from the book, so it's nice to see that on film, and they nicely expanded it into a pretty good action scene. And Smaug the Dragon is amazing. As large and as terrifying and evil force as he is in the books.
But the ending. Oh my God, the ending. If the angry groans in the theatre were any indication, that was NOT a good place to end the film. As I was chatting with a friend last night, with the first film, and indeed, the Lord of the Rings films, the endings were all pretty satisfying conclusions. You knew the saga continued, but that particular chapter felt closed. With The Desolation of Smaug, it's so abrupt and so surprising, that you get no satisfaction at all. I think it shows that the decision to make this a trilogy was very much a late-in-the-game decision, and despite all the re-shoots, they didn't know how to end this chapter.
I give it 3 Nibs. I do have the complete review up over at my website, so feel free to click on through and check it out.
But now it was time to spend some gift cards! And I walked away a little disappointed. I was really hoping to snatch up Disney's The Lone Ranger on Blu-Ray, but all my favourite DVD haunts didn't have it! Either it turned out to be really popular on home media, or it was such a huge bomb that stores are refusing to sell it. So I guess I'll have to break down and buy it online.
I did, however get The Alien Anthology, which is the big boxed set of all the Alien movies. When it comes to sci-fi franchises, I've always been pretty indifferent towards Alien, but it was so ridiculously cheap I couldn't say no. I also snatched up Kick-Ass 2, having enjoyed the first film, and finding the second one to be just as over-the-top ridiculous.
To finish things off, I had one last stop to make. If you've been reading this blog for the past few months, you know I've been on a quest to get a new printer. I love my old one, but being 10+ years old, I discovered they stopped making the ink cartridges for it. And with my Christmas cash, and some great after Christmas sales still going on, I knew I'd be coming home with a printer.
I swung by Staples, went to their printers section, went to the one on sale that I had all picked out...and they were out of stock. So I started thinking. Do I want to come back another day...or do I want to get the slightly better printer which is also on sale, but still a little more expensive? So I thought, "Screw it," and got the the slightly better, slightly more expensive one.
When I got home last night, I had a great time playing with it and getting it set up. My new printer is one of these "all in one" units, which means it has a printer, scanner, and copier all in one. (Oh, so that's where they got the name.) I've had fun printing stuff, but it's so cool finally being able to scan stuff.
Some of my sample scans.... There was an event in Athabasca a couple years ago where some of the Edmonton Oilers came up. I got me a signed Louie Debrusk hockey card.
Oh, and my parents went to Germany about a year-and-a-half ago. Knowing my love of greasy fast food, they grabbed me one of those cardboard Burger King crowns from a German Burger King. As you can see, it's in the colours of the flag of Germany.
So that's going to provide hours of fun. Finally time to get on Instragram and share some of this with the world.
All in all, not a bad day in the city, if it just wasn't so tough driving in.
First stop: the movies! Of course, the big holiday blockbuster I'd been wanting to see is The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. And because it is such a long movie, my theatre-of-choice, the Soctiabank Theatre in West Edmonton Mall, had it starting at 11:30AM. So seeing the movie was the first order of business. I kind of like getting to West Edmonton Mall before noon. Things are kind of quiet in the mall, and it's not so crowded yet, so you have lots of room to just enjoy the place. But I didn't have much time to enjoy it, as the movie was starting!
With The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, I kind of have the same complaint as with the first film. Having read The Hobbit several times, you can feel the padding. So many new characters are introduced...so many characters who didn't have backstories before suddenly have epic backstories. It just bogs things down. I know, I know, it is all still canon as Peter Jackson poured through Tolkein's appendices and Middle Earth encyclopedias, but it just slows things down.
Lots of good stuff, though. The sequence with the wine barrels is one of my favourite bits from the book, so it's nice to see that on film, and they nicely expanded it into a pretty good action scene. And Smaug the Dragon is amazing. As large and as terrifying and evil force as he is in the books.
But the ending. Oh my God, the ending. If the angry groans in the theatre were any indication, that was NOT a good place to end the film. As I was chatting with a friend last night, with the first film, and indeed, the Lord of the Rings films, the endings were all pretty satisfying conclusions. You knew the saga continued, but that particular chapter felt closed. With The Desolation of Smaug, it's so abrupt and so surprising, that you get no satisfaction at all. I think it shows that the decision to make this a trilogy was very much a late-in-the-game decision, and despite all the re-shoots, they didn't know how to end this chapter.
I give it 3 Nibs. I do have the complete review up over at my website, so feel free to click on through and check it out.
But now it was time to spend some gift cards! And I walked away a little disappointed. I was really hoping to snatch up Disney's The Lone Ranger on Blu-Ray, but all my favourite DVD haunts didn't have it! Either it turned out to be really popular on home media, or it was such a huge bomb that stores are refusing to sell it. So I guess I'll have to break down and buy it online.
I did, however get The Alien Anthology, which is the big boxed set of all the Alien movies. When it comes to sci-fi franchises, I've always been pretty indifferent towards Alien, but it was so ridiculously cheap I couldn't say no. I also snatched up Kick-Ass 2, having enjoyed the first film, and finding the second one to be just as over-the-top ridiculous.
To finish things off, I had one last stop to make. If you've been reading this blog for the past few months, you know I've been on a quest to get a new printer. I love my old one, but being 10+ years old, I discovered they stopped making the ink cartridges for it. And with my Christmas cash, and some great after Christmas sales still going on, I knew I'd be coming home with a printer.
I swung by Staples, went to their printers section, went to the one on sale that I had all picked out...and they were out of stock. So I started thinking. Do I want to come back another day...or do I want to get the slightly better printer which is also on sale, but still a little more expensive? So I thought, "Screw it," and got the the slightly better, slightly more expensive one.
When I got home last night, I had a great time playing with it and getting it set up. My new printer is one of these "all in one" units, which means it has a printer, scanner, and copier all in one. (Oh, so that's where they got the name.) I've had fun printing stuff, but it's so cool finally being able to scan stuff.
Some of my sample scans.... There was an event in Athabasca a couple years ago where some of the Edmonton Oilers came up. I got me a signed Louie Debrusk hockey card.
Oh, and my parents went to Germany about a year-and-a-half ago. Knowing my love of greasy fast food, they grabbed me one of those cardboard Burger King crowns from a German Burger King. As you can see, it's in the colours of the flag of Germany.
So that's going to provide hours of fun. Finally time to get on Instragram and share some of this with the world.
All in all, not a bad day in the city, if it just wasn't so tough driving in.
Labels:
life,
Musings from the Mall
Friday, January 03, 2014
The Off Mic Podcast: What I Should Have Said
The French call it "L'espirit de l'escalier." It's that moment when you're leaving a party/meeting/gathering of some sort, and on your way out, you finally think of the perfect witty retort/comeback/thing you should have said.
And ever since I did the Off Mic Podcast a few weeks ago, I've been consumed by l'espirit de l'escalier.
The Off Mic Podcast is a new podcast an old classmate of mine from NAIT launched. In it, he interviews some of the best and brightest working in radio today. I kind of hoped he'd get to me someday...I just didn't think it would be the eleventh episode. I thought it'd take him a lot longer to get to the bottom of the barrel. It's embedded below, if you want to hear it.
Having been listening to it since episode 1, I figured I was prepared when I sat with Drew to do it. I was a little taken aback when the first thing he wanted to talk about was my days in college radio, and the fact that I went to university first to get a Bachelor of Science. It's generally the first thing I'm asked in job interviews, too. I occasionally find the questions frustrating, but I've accepted a long time ago that, to a lot of radio folks, the fact that I have a degree in physics and mathematics is the most interesting part of my story. The question always comes up, "Why are you working in radio with such an eduction?" I do find it funny. In a society that purports to loathe doing math and brags to their high school math teachers about having forgotten and never needed to use anything they were taught, the answer "Because being on the radio is more fun that doing math" fails to satisfy.
So after the interview, I started thinking I should try a different approach. The question: why do you want to work in radio when you have a degree in physics and math?
Well, being on the radio was always my childhood dream. When I was 10 years old and saw the movie Good Morning Vietnam, I knew that's what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I got to college, the first thing I did was volunteer for the college radio station. I figured that would be a good way to get this dream out of my system, before settling down into a real job and a grown-up career. But something funny happened. Working in college radio didn't make the dream go away...it made the dream stronger. After graduation, when you spend your time working the variety of minimum wage jobs figuring out what to do next with your life, the dream of being on the radio was always there.
During those years of minimum wage jobs, I'd occasionally head back to the ol' university to visit my friends who hadn't graduated yet. And whenever I arrived, my first request was always to visit the station. If no one was in the station, I'd hop behind the mic and do an impromptu show. It was during one of these impromptu shows that one of my friends looked at me and said, "You really do love this, don't you?"
That's when it clicked for me. That's when I realized that it was time to just go for it, and try to make a living at it, or give it up completely and go that grown up job.
So I decided to go for it. And here I am.
Another thing that I never got to talk about during the interview...the story that I really wanted to tell...was my adventure with Sonic 102.9. Because after a year of pounding the pavement and looking for that first radio job, that's what finally broke me though.
So when I was looking for my first radio job, it was very early in the history of Edmonton's Sonic 102.9. And Sonic decided to have open auditions for a news guy to be part of the morning show. It was to be a whole American Idol-style contest where they whittle down a bunch of hopefuls to that one lucky person who got to become a part of Sonic's morning show. After hearing about the contest, and actually seeing it posted on several media job websites, I figured it was just as good as any other job I'd been applying for, so I decided to go for it.
The open audition part was happening at Edmonton's Southgate Mall, so I headed down there, and got into the really, really, long line. It was a tad embarrassing. This being Sonic's early days, they'd also hired a lot of my fellow NAIT graduates to fill out their promotions department. They'd recognize me in the line, come over to say hi, and we'd chat about their gainful employment and how I was still looking for work. One even accused me of already having a job and being sent down there to spy for the competition. But no. I was just another of the hundred hopefuls, dreaming of radio stardom.
Several hours later, I was at the front of the line, and I was handed my news script. My old news training kicked in, and I grabbed a pen out of my pocket and began frantically rewriting the script to more suit my style. I remember it was one serious news story, and three silly news stories. I left the serious one untouched. I rewrote two of the three silly news stories to have better punchlines. I didn't get a chance to rewrite the third, because that's when the reporter for CTV Edmonton shoved a TV camera in my face and started interviewing me about why I was auditioning today. If I remember right, I told him how I was a recent NAIT grad looking for his first radio job, "and this is as good as any other job that's turned me down."
That's when they called me up, and it was time for my audition. Hands down, my most stressful job interview ever. In front of me is the panel of three judges. To my right is one of my former NAIT classmates, employed at Sonic as a producer, and running the recording equipment to record my audition. And to my left is the CTV Edmonton videographer, filming me for the 6PM news.
I go for it. I do the serious news story. Respectful nods all around.
The first silly news story. My new punchline gets a big laugh.
The second silly news story. My new punchline gets a bigger laugh.
The third silly news story. The one I didn't get to rewrite. I do it as scripted, and it falls flat. I quickly ad-lib a new punchline, and it kills. One of the judges says, "Well, I think we're unanimous here," and I got my silver ticket saying I'd made it to Hollywood.
A few weeks later, I'm in the semi-finals, and I'm joining Mr. Garner Andrews on the Sonic morning show to do the news. Sadly, didn't make it past the semi-finals. I should have taken my cues from that sample news cast at the open auditions. The sample news cast had a strong focus on silly news stories. The cast I put together and read that day had a focus on serious news stories. And the general criticism I got from Garner Andrews and the other judges was "not funny enough."
I specifically remember one of the judges - a reporter from the Edmonton Sun - picking apart one of my stories. This was the fall of 2005, when the Ralph Bucks were about to be sent out. But, there was a hiccup in the program, and the news that day was the Ralph Bucks were being delayed from In-time-for-Christmas 2005 to Spring 2006. Mr. Sun reporter wanted to know why I didn't take that opportunity to take a few jabs at Klein. Seeing as to how the Sun is one of the biggest pro-PC papers in the province, I found it odd and ironic that a Sun reporter was giving me the gears for not making making of Klein and the PCs.
So, a few months later, I was back at NAIT. I'll forever be grateful to the teachers at NAIT as, during that year of job searching, they were always letting me sneak in after hours to use the equipment to recut my demo and such. And such evenings always began in my old teachers' offices, asking for job leads and advice.
One of those nights, one of my old teachers said, "I find it strange that you haven't gotten any response to any applications for news jobs, seeing as to how well you did on Sonic."
That's when I told my teacher that I hadn't been applying for news jobs, as I really didn't have any desire to do news. My teacher looked at me like I was the biggest idiot on the planet. "Mark," he explained to me. "Every other radio station in Edmonton was turned to Sonic during that contest. Every news director in Edmonton heard you. And you impressed some of them. You have to get a news demo out NOW, while your name is still top-of-mind."
So, that night, I put together a news demo, starting applying for news jobs, and within a month, I was interviewing for the news position in Athabasca. The rest is history.
In the podcast, Drew did cut something out. He originally asked me about the origins of the name "Chaos in a Box," and how I came to use it for my online stuff. I don't blame Drew for cutting it...I didn't tell the story very well. So let me attempt to tell it well.
Chaos in a Box was the name of my college radio show back in the day. When it was time to name my show, I had just read a newspaper article about an outfit in Vancouver called "Brewery in a Box," which sold you everything you needed to start your own microbrewery in a box. Of course, "the box" was a huge-ass shipping crate, but it gave them a cute and media-friendly name for their business. So I had the phrase "In a Box" rattling around in my head. And since my music tastes were rather varied (back in college, I was deeply into both country AND techno), I knew the music choices on my show would be pure chaos. Chaos in a Box.
So, when graduation came, and I no longer had my college radio show, and I grew desperate for a creative outlet, I turned to the Internet and started blogging. When I was looking for a name for my blog, my friends said, "Dude, isn't it obvious? Chaos in a Box. That is too good a name to stop using." So I've claimed it as my online brand ever since.
And that's about everything I wish I'd said on the Off Mic Podcast. L'espirit de l'escalier has left me. One again, thank you to Drew Dalby for inviting me on the show. You can check out the Off Mic Podcast at its official website. You can also subscribe in iTunes. And you can follow Drew on Twitter @Dalby. The Off Mic Podcast has its own Twitter @OffMicPodcast.
And ever since I did the Off Mic Podcast a few weeks ago, I've been consumed by l'espirit de l'escalier.
The Off Mic Podcast is a new podcast an old classmate of mine from NAIT launched. In it, he interviews some of the best and brightest working in radio today. I kind of hoped he'd get to me someday...I just didn't think it would be the eleventh episode. I thought it'd take him a lot longer to get to the bottom of the barrel. It's embedded below, if you want to hear it.
Having been listening to it since episode 1, I figured I was prepared when I sat with Drew to do it. I was a little taken aback when the first thing he wanted to talk about was my days in college radio, and the fact that I went to university first to get a Bachelor of Science. It's generally the first thing I'm asked in job interviews, too. I occasionally find the questions frustrating, but I've accepted a long time ago that, to a lot of radio folks, the fact that I have a degree in physics and mathematics is the most interesting part of my story. The question always comes up, "Why are you working in radio with such an eduction?" I do find it funny. In a society that purports to loathe doing math and brags to their high school math teachers about having forgotten and never needed to use anything they were taught, the answer "Because being on the radio is more fun that doing math" fails to satisfy.
So after the interview, I started thinking I should try a different approach. The question: why do you want to work in radio when you have a degree in physics and math?
Well, being on the radio was always my childhood dream. When I was 10 years old and saw the movie Good Morning Vietnam, I knew that's what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I got to college, the first thing I did was volunteer for the college radio station. I figured that would be a good way to get this dream out of my system, before settling down into a real job and a grown-up career. But something funny happened. Working in college radio didn't make the dream go away...it made the dream stronger. After graduation, when you spend your time working the variety of minimum wage jobs figuring out what to do next with your life, the dream of being on the radio was always there.
During those years of minimum wage jobs, I'd occasionally head back to the ol' university to visit my friends who hadn't graduated yet. And whenever I arrived, my first request was always to visit the station. If no one was in the station, I'd hop behind the mic and do an impromptu show. It was during one of these impromptu shows that one of my friends looked at me and said, "You really do love this, don't you?"
That's when it clicked for me. That's when I realized that it was time to just go for it, and try to make a living at it, or give it up completely and go that grown up job.
So I decided to go for it. And here I am.
Another thing that I never got to talk about during the interview...the story that I really wanted to tell...was my adventure with Sonic 102.9. Because after a year of pounding the pavement and looking for that first radio job, that's what finally broke me though.
So when I was looking for my first radio job, it was very early in the history of Edmonton's Sonic 102.9. And Sonic decided to have open auditions for a news guy to be part of the morning show. It was to be a whole American Idol-style contest where they whittle down a bunch of hopefuls to that one lucky person who got to become a part of Sonic's morning show. After hearing about the contest, and actually seeing it posted on several media job websites, I figured it was just as good as any other job I'd been applying for, so I decided to go for it.
The open audition part was happening at Edmonton's Southgate Mall, so I headed down there, and got into the really, really, long line. It was a tad embarrassing. This being Sonic's early days, they'd also hired a lot of my fellow NAIT graduates to fill out their promotions department. They'd recognize me in the line, come over to say hi, and we'd chat about their gainful employment and how I was still looking for work. One even accused me of already having a job and being sent down there to spy for the competition. But no. I was just another of the hundred hopefuls, dreaming of radio stardom.
Several hours later, I was at the front of the line, and I was handed my news script. My old news training kicked in, and I grabbed a pen out of my pocket and began frantically rewriting the script to more suit my style. I remember it was one serious news story, and three silly news stories. I left the serious one untouched. I rewrote two of the three silly news stories to have better punchlines. I didn't get a chance to rewrite the third, because that's when the reporter for CTV Edmonton shoved a TV camera in my face and started interviewing me about why I was auditioning today. If I remember right, I told him how I was a recent NAIT grad looking for his first radio job, "and this is as good as any other job that's turned me down."
That's when they called me up, and it was time for my audition. Hands down, my most stressful job interview ever. In front of me is the panel of three judges. To my right is one of my former NAIT classmates, employed at Sonic as a producer, and running the recording equipment to record my audition. And to my left is the CTV Edmonton videographer, filming me for the 6PM news.
I go for it. I do the serious news story. Respectful nods all around.
The first silly news story. My new punchline gets a big laugh.
The second silly news story. My new punchline gets a bigger laugh.
The third silly news story. The one I didn't get to rewrite. I do it as scripted, and it falls flat. I quickly ad-lib a new punchline, and it kills. One of the judges says, "Well, I think we're unanimous here," and I got my silver ticket saying I'd made it to Hollywood.
A few weeks later, I'm in the semi-finals, and I'm joining Mr. Garner Andrews on the Sonic morning show to do the news. Sadly, didn't make it past the semi-finals. I should have taken my cues from that sample news cast at the open auditions. The sample news cast had a strong focus on silly news stories. The cast I put together and read that day had a focus on serious news stories. And the general criticism I got from Garner Andrews and the other judges was "not funny enough."
I specifically remember one of the judges - a reporter from the Edmonton Sun - picking apart one of my stories. This was the fall of 2005, when the Ralph Bucks were about to be sent out. But, there was a hiccup in the program, and the news that day was the Ralph Bucks were being delayed from In-time-for-Christmas 2005 to Spring 2006. Mr. Sun reporter wanted to know why I didn't take that opportunity to take a few jabs at Klein. Seeing as to how the Sun is one of the biggest pro-PC papers in the province, I found it odd and ironic that a Sun reporter was giving me the gears for not making making of Klein and the PCs.
So, a few months later, I was back at NAIT. I'll forever be grateful to the teachers at NAIT as, during that year of job searching, they were always letting me sneak in after hours to use the equipment to recut my demo and such. And such evenings always began in my old teachers' offices, asking for job leads and advice.
One of those nights, one of my old teachers said, "I find it strange that you haven't gotten any response to any applications for news jobs, seeing as to how well you did on Sonic."
That's when I told my teacher that I hadn't been applying for news jobs, as I really didn't have any desire to do news. My teacher looked at me like I was the biggest idiot on the planet. "Mark," he explained to me. "Every other radio station in Edmonton was turned to Sonic during that contest. Every news director in Edmonton heard you. And you impressed some of them. You have to get a news demo out NOW, while your name is still top-of-mind."
So, that night, I put together a news demo, starting applying for news jobs, and within a month, I was interviewing for the news position in Athabasca. The rest is history.
In the podcast, Drew did cut something out. He originally asked me about the origins of the name "Chaos in a Box," and how I came to use it for my online stuff. I don't blame Drew for cutting it...I didn't tell the story very well. So let me attempt to tell it well.
Chaos in a Box was the name of my college radio show back in the day. When it was time to name my show, I had just read a newspaper article about an outfit in Vancouver called "Brewery in a Box," which sold you everything you needed to start your own microbrewery in a box. Of course, "the box" was a huge-ass shipping crate, but it gave them a cute and media-friendly name for their business. So I had the phrase "In a Box" rattling around in my head. And since my music tastes were rather varied (back in college, I was deeply into both country AND techno), I knew the music choices on my show would be pure chaos. Chaos in a Box.
So, when graduation came, and I no longer had my college radio show, and I grew desperate for a creative outlet, I turned to the Internet and started blogging. When I was looking for a name for my blog, my friends said, "Dude, isn't it obvious? Chaos in a Box. That is too good a name to stop using." So I've claimed it as my online brand ever since.
And that's about everything I wish I'd said on the Off Mic Podcast. L'espirit de l'escalier has left me. One again, thank you to Drew Dalby for inviting me on the show. You can check out the Off Mic Podcast at its official website. You can also subscribe in iTunes. And you can follow Drew on Twitter @Dalby. The Off Mic Podcast has its own Twitter @OffMicPodcast.
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life,
Opinions I Should Keep to Myself
Thursday, January 02, 2014
Fishing in the Discount Bin - Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
It's Thursday, so another Fishing in the Discount Bin! And my first blog entry of 2014! Of course, we're in the middle of a series here on Fishing in the Discount Bin. Back in the spring, I wanted to watch every Star Trek movie before Into Darkness came out, and today, we're up to movie #4, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This entry is originally dated in my notes at April 7, 2013.
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Fishing in the Discout Bin
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