Month: November 2013

It wasn’t bound to last — between the “two hours a day” Rob spends at the gym, his $170,000/year job as mayor, his battle with Toronto’s city council, a possible future battle in court, campaigning laws that would require him to leave the show should he run for office again, and the fact that he’s got only so many talking point — but Ford Nation has been cancelled sooner than anyone expected. Hosted on Canada’s Sun News Network, Canada’s hokey and low-rent counterpart to FOX News, Ford Nation was the television answer to The City, the recently-cancelled talk radio show featuring Toronto’s Peter Griffin-esque mayor Rob Ford and his brother and city councillor Doug Ford, who fancies himself the co-mayor of Toronto.

Simon Houpt from The Globe and Mail writes:

While Ford Nation pulled about 155,000 viewers, according to overnight ratings, it is a victim of the brutal economics of cable TV and the Fords’ relative inexperience with the medium: Monday’s episode took five hours to record, and another eight hours to edit, making it an unusually expensive endeavour for a niche network that is in only about 40 per cent of Canadian households.

It’s probably the highest-rated show ever to appear on Sun News. In reports filed with the CRTC, Sun News reported a viewership of 16,400 in an average minute; their best-performing shows never broke 100,000 viewers in 2012. Still, The Brothers Ford have only so many talking points, election campaign rules will eventually require them to leave the show, and in the long run, those two jokers might be pure poison with advertisers.

“It’s by far the most successful thing, from an audience perspective, the network has ever done,” said Kory Teneycke, the vice president of Sun News. But the program would not be produced again.

“For the Ford brothers, we welcome them back on our network, as we do all newsmakers, to be part of our programming as a guest on another show.”

For those of you who missed last night’s broadcast, George Jessup captured it and posted it on YouTube:

Don’t have time for the full episode? Here’s his highlight reel:

Don’t have time for the highlight reel? How about just the “urinating in public” bit?

The key line in this collection of sound bites (punctuated with “I’m just stumbling my way through this” sort of music that underscored the old Mac ads featuring ‘ordinary people’) is…

“All these rich elitist people? I’m sick of ’em! I’m sick of ’em. They’re perfect. They don’t do nothing. Get out of here, ‘they don’t do nothing’. They’re the biggest crooks around.”

It’s a message that works, and best of all, it helps people forget that he’s a millionaire from the label-printing company his dad started, with long-time family friends from high up in Canadian government (again, thanks to his dad), and makes a $170,000 salary.

Here’s the longer version:

Click the photo to see it at full size.

At first glance, it looked like a laundry list of our mayor’s problems, especially that last one, until I looked at it more closely. I read “FUSSY eaters” as something else.

Even though I was on vacation, I had to do one career-related thing at a certain place since I had to be in the neighbourhood. I’ll spill the details later, but in the meantime, here’s a hint…

Click the photo to see it at full size.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

In his latest “Rick’s Rant”, comedic new commenter Rick Mercer makes an important point about Toronto’s Peter Griffin-esque mayor, Rob Ford:

“Is he bad for Toronto’s reputation on the world stage? Not really, he makes us more interesting, and let’s face it, Toronto could use the help.”

“Rob Ford’s popularity has nothing to do with the man himself. He is a circus act, but his politics are very real, and they should not be written off just because he is about to be.”

Rick’s right. Rob Ford’s supporters, collectively called “Ford Nation”, don’t care so much about the crack-smoking, his consorting with shiftless criminals, drinking and driving, or his lapses into bigotry or bad taste. They want lower taxes, privatized garbage collection, the neutering of the unions that paralyzed the city during the strikes of the previous mayor’s era. Simply put, they want to pay less for living in Toronto, and they’ve been told that what’s holding them back and preventing them from being rich are all the freeloaders, windowlickers, and do-nothings who are stealing from them through tax-funded services. The purpose of the mayor, they believe, is to make things cheap. Or, as Mercer put it:

“We will vote for a gerbil if we get a dollar back.”

It’s something that candidates in the next mayoral election — which might be sooner than you think — will have to keep in mind.

Me doing my best Lion King impression over the Grand Canyon.
Click the photo to see it at full size.

I’m one of those guys who likes to celebrate his birthday for an entire month, and this year was no exception. I’ve been bouncing all over the continent, having spent each of the past four Saturdays on a plane. Here are a few shots from those trips…

Monterey and Pebble Beach

During the first week of November, The Girlfriend and I were in the San Francsico Bay and Monterey areas, visiting friends and family. We also managed to take in some of the sights, including the breathtaking 17 Mile Drive…

Click the photo to see it at full size.

…and checking out Pebble Beach:

Click the photo to see it at full size.

Click the photo to see it at full size.

Grand Canyon

At the start of the second week of November, before our week in Las Vegas, we stayed overnight at a lodge by the Grand Canyon’s south rim. I wasn’t able to convince the girlfriend to get closer to the edge, but I was able to convince her to take pictures of me as I did so (she insisted on taking the car keys from me first):

Click the photo to see it at full size.

Click the photo to see it at full size.

The Grand Canyon is really good for my zen. I’ve got to come back here and just zone out over the view:

Click the photo to see it at full size.

Following up from an earlier post showing some slot machine themes I found amusing, here are more!

Any classic pre-copyright tale from the western tradition is fair game…

…as is history, or even historical fiction…

…or historical figures…

…or, if you’re trying to attract the Asian market, some tales from their traditions…

(The “Journey to the West” is the story of the Monkey King’s pilgrimage to India with his three friends, returning with Buddhism, which he brought to China. The anime series Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z are very loosely based on it.)

Here’s a particularly nightmarish “attract screen” from the Alien slot machine:

I hear this slot machine dispenses unobtanium:

Role-play + Sex and the City + Slots = GOLD!

And not far from the Sex and the City slots, either physically or thematically, was the Cougar-Licious slot machine:

The Footloose slot machine uses images from  the Kevin Bacon original and thankfully not the the remake:

Childhood memories? Perfect for slots!

Here’s a slot machine you can’t refuse:

I’m not surprised at this one:

My…preciousssss…

Of course:

This one’s aimed squarely at smartphone and tablet gamers:

Once again, this one’s based on the original with Gene Wilder, and not the Johnny Depp remake:

This one’ll move you…

There are lots of oompa loompa song-and-dance numbers in this one:

Speaking of creators who are happy to sell out at the drop of a hat:

This one’s aimed at the people who grew up with Episodes IV, V, and VI, and not those newer, lesser movies:

“Inform Lord Vader that we’ve found the rebel bonus…”

Of course those most sell-outiest feature of the sell-outiest film in the Original Trilogy would get featured:

And finally…

It’s the Rob Ford slot machine!

This one’s got a quote for each major character in the series, so I had to snap ’em all…