Tag Archives: tv

Rob on what 2010 will bring for social media

I missed passing this along when it first came out, because I didn’t know those nice CBC people had put it on YouTube. It’s their segment on what to expect in 2010 for social media, based on an interview they did with me in their stunning new Vancouver studios.

The key point for me is that I’m finding people are becoming more deliberate and discerning about where they direct their attention, whether it’s in who they friend, what they watch or which applications they install on Facebook. (That doesn’t mean I’ll always agree with the choices they make: witness the rise of FarmVille. [shudder])

And in the background, yes, you’ll see VanTrash on my screen.

Enjoy… and see what you think of how my predictions are turning out one month in.

I’ll be back… to the future

Michael J. FoxSomething occurred to me last night while we watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on TiVo.

(No, not that we should be watching more Canadian TV. That’s a given.)

I realized that Terminator has exactly the same plot as Back to the Future… except with SkyNet in the Michael J. Fox role, trying to preserve the conditions that will lead to its birth, and avoid a future of servitude and humiliation for its family.

So you should probably feel a lot more sympathetic to either Biff or Cromartie.

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE watching TV debates

There’s probably some deep-seated psychological reason for it (“Mommy and Daddy are fighting again!”), but I can’t stand watching televised election debates. I’m on edge the whole time, fidgeting, finding excuses to be elsewhere and just generally miserable and anxious.

Weird, huh? Former political speechwriter, high school and university debater… but I hate debates.

Set aside whatever emotional baggage may be involved for a moment. (Ka-THUMP! Geez, sorry about the floor – man, laminate cracks easily, huh?) The thing that bothers me the most about these things is that they nearly never are genuine debates. So often, what you hear clashing aren’t ideas or arguments, but talking points. And the people in them are driven as much by the fear of a misstep (and the hope their opponent will make one) as they are by the desire to communicate.

Three more of these things to go in the U.S., and two in Canada. Eugh.

TiVo finally comes to Canada

Friends, our long national nightmare is over. As the CBC is reporting, TiVo is officially on its way across the border:

The TiVo set-top device, which allows viewers to record shows and skip commercials, will be available across Canada – except in Quebec – through Best Buy, Future Shop, The Brick and London Drug stores for $199. Device owners also need to subscribe to the TiVo service, which has a monthly subscription price of $12.95, with discounts available on long-term contracts.

For pioneering folks (Rob clears his throat loudly, points at himself), TiVo’s been here for well over a year – provided you don’t mind crossing the border to buy it. And much as I’d like you to think I’ve prevailed heroically against incredible odds (I am, arguably, the national poster child for Canadian TiVo adoption… and by “arguably”, I mean “if you’re really willing to stretch the definition of every word in that phrase”), our experience has been a lot smoother than the CBC suggests it has:

Some Canadians have been able to use TiVos bought in the United States but have reported problems as it has not been officially supported by the manufacturer.

Actually, we couldn’t find a way in which it wasn’t supported, apart from one initial glitch around ZIP codes, the lack of a major Canadian retailer stocking it. (Here’s one support experience we had.) Things like buying movies and TV shows from Amazon.com aren’t on the table, but that has nothing to do with TiVo and everything to do with rights licensing. And you can’t get the HD TiVo, because Canada’s cable providers are dragging their heels on supporting CableCARD.

Oh, and Merry Christmas, Michael Geist.

It’ll be interesting to see how much that changes in the next few months and weeks. For what it’s worth, here’s TiVo’s page for Canadian customers.

A gift to parents everywhere, from SNL

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If you’re a parent with kids under, oh, ten or so, then Saturday Night Live has just delivered the vengeance you’ve been waiting for on Dora the Explorer.

Animated at a gorgeous three frames an hour, written by stunned gerbils and voiced by telemarketers on helium, Dora was the bane of my existence for a solid year. Woody Allen once said his parents’ values were God and carpeting; Dora’s are candy and stickers. There is no torture more horrific than sitting through it, bleary-eyed, at some ungodly hour of the morning while the kid who kept you up all night watches happily.

Now, somehow, miraculously, SNL has managed to channel nearly every evil alternate voiceover I’ve had playing internally during the show. One exception: “Row so Boots can get away from the crocodiles! Row faster, please! Faster! Faster! Oh, no! Now Boots is dead, and it’s your fault! I bet you’ll row faster next time!” I’d pay good money to see that on screen.

(Come to think of it, though, Dora isn’t the kids’ show I most want to see pilloried. That honour goes to Jay Jay the Jet Plane, a CGI cartoon whose writing made Dora sound like the proceedings of the Learneds. But that wasn’t what made me cringe, nor was it the little “educational” bits at the end: “You ever wonder why things fall? Gravity! Think about it! Bye!” It was the whole creepy look of the thing: human faces grafted onto the front of aircraft. You’d think the producer saw the escape scene in Silence of the Lambs and thought, “You know, this gives me an idea for a children’s show.”)