seinfeil: You must remenber this
Is this extra disappointing because it’s at a school? Maybe just a little.
Saturday’s seinfeil
We are grammar nerds, sometimes.
It was only a matter of time before poor use of an apostrophe made its way into a seinfeil.
This would lead me to believe it's Saturday's only...something...
What exactly is a Byelection?
This is Paul Hinman's new house. Or something.
We know that not everyone has time to pay attention to politics.
We know that a lot of political information is forgotten after high school.
We know.
And we want to break things down so everybody can be an engaged citizen.
Part 1 of “Muddling Through: The Strange World of Provincial Politics”
By Dustin McNichol
Yesterday, Albertans got a chance to vote. But not all of us. Only those in the constituency of Calgary-Glenmore, where Wildrose Alliance candidate Paul Hinman won the provincial byelection.
A byelection occurs when an elected member of the provincial legislature vacates his or her seat at the legislature. Remember, every electoral constituency in the province gets one seat, and one member in each seat represents one constituency. Still with me? Good. (more…)
Most important item of the day*
This is Lucy, on the way to art class.
The City of Edmonton (rather, the Valley Zoo) is providing an update on the health of Lucy the elephant.
Not because Bob Barker is coming to town or anything…
Does it feel, to anyone else, that the two sides of this debate aren’t connecting?
It’s like the Bob Barker/Zoocheck side is arguing that elephants get lonely and need to be in warmer climates, while the City side is arguing that Lucy is loved and people should stay out of our business.
Sigh…at least there’s not a recession to deal with right now.
Health update on Lucy, the Asian elephant living at the Edmonton Valley Zoo Edmonton, September 14, 2009 - Community Services General Manager Linda Cochrane and Valley Zoo veterinarian Dr. Milton Ness will provide an update on Lucy's health, including the results of a recent examination of Lucy and the opinions of a third-party specialist. Date: Monday, September 14, 2009 Time: Noon Location: Valley Zoo, 13315 Buena Vista Road Media representatives should sign-in at the Zoo's administration building.
* It’s not really the most important thing happening today.
Opinion: Why is there no money for healthcare in Alberta?
By A. Sumaru, C.F. Crozier and L. Richards
“In the analysis of social and political issues it is sufficient to face the facts and to be willing to follow a rational line of argument. Only [sic] common sense, which is quite evenly distributed, is needed… if by that you understand the willingness to look at the facts with an open mind, to put simple assumptions to the test, and to pursue an argument to its conclusion.”
- Noam Chomsky (1978) Language and Responsibility
We are going to preface our comments with Chomsky’s remarks because everything being written about is based on information that is easily accessible to any citizen who pays attention and/or has access to the Internet.
With the government of Alberta delisting services to cut costs, in order to eliminate the deficit in the health care budget, our analysis of this problem will focus on a simple line of reasoning that asks; “Why is there no money for health care in Alberta?” (more…)
Gimme (a reason for) Sympathy
Letter to the editor: By Janine Edwards
Where's the strike?
Alright Edmonton, I’ll admit it. I went to get groceries yesterday. And do you know where I went? Safeway.
Why Safeway? Because they don’t need me to buy cloth hipster grocery bags. They don’t charge me for the plastic ones either. And it’s about 2 blocks from my house. (See? I’m eating local.)
When I trudged home with my arms laden with groceries, a thought came into my head. Sure, there are a bunch of distribution centre workers on strike. (I think some make ice cream?) But how are they going to rally my support?
All of them are picketing in front of some warehouse I didn’t even know existed until this strike. Sure, if they were blocking the Yellowhead I’d notice. But where are they? I don’t see them, therefore they don’t want me to care.
However, I heard this morning that Safeway hired up some Scabs. Great! Now, you can picket those Scabs… OR you can rally the city by picketing rotating Safeway locations.
If I rolled up to a Safeway and there were tons of people standing with signs, perhaps chanting… my instincts to avoid conflict would kick in, and I’d immediately consider my options for other grocery stores. I don’t want to risk walking up and getting pummeled with produce, which is what I hear usually happens when distribution workers go on strike.
Even better – they could hand out hand-drawn maps to locations of other grocery stores! That would sure show Safeway! And, because they’re out where the people are, we could see them.
Who knows? Maybe that would make us start to care about the fate of these workers.
seinfeil: Advertising mistakes
I had to snap this photo because it reminded me how tumultuous a life in radio, dependent on ratings, can be. So many people get fired so many times.
Interior: Edmonton’s EZ Rock 104.9. Early morning. The office of the boss. A nervous looking promotions staffer enters.
Promotions guy: Hey boss. You remember those bus ads we ordered for fall ratings?
Boss: Yup.
Promo: They’re on Edmonton Transit buses today… (a look of dread is on his face)
Boss: Great!
Two of those three people have been fired.
Headlines: The Intervention
I am so crabby this morning, you guys, it’s ridiculous. On a normal day, I would just let things slide. But not today. Today, I’m staging an intervention.
First: I AM BEGGING someone at 630 CHED to send Ed Mason to pun rehab. I am a card carrying member of the “report news in new and interesting ways” fan club – but seriously, this is like getting your news from Wayne & Shuster. Or my dad. If you don’t get this under control, I’m calling Jeff VanVonderen.
Second: Global TV, your website makes me want to murder my eyes. Too many links! Not enough information! Though, if I’m looking for all the headlines from the Edmonton Journal, it’s very helpful.
Third: CBC, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE update your website early in the morning or in the overnight. There’s nothing worse than hearing you guys discuss something interesting in the morning that I can’t find any additional information on.
:(
Okay, I’m done getting my grump on. It’s now time to read the news and be happy! Oh, and while you’re being happy, be happy for us – because we’re just a stone’s throw from hitting post #300!
Gerard Butler is happy for us.
from the Edmonton Journal:
Stony Plain Road chosen for LRT route
Filthy conditions force closure of tattoo shop
MacEwan waits for university status
Push on to keep teachers happy and employed
from the Edmonton Sun:
Future of Jamboree looking brighter
Sex offender agrees to monitoring
Drunk-driving numbers constant
from Metro Edmonton:
from 630 CHED/iNews880:
from CTV Edmonton:
Violent jewelry store robbery caught on tape in south Edmonton
Edmonton police target drivers in school zones
from CBC Edmonton:
Edmonton Public Library’s new catalogue
Enhance.
I am the worst library patron of all time. I go through phases where I don’t go to the library for months, and then suddenly, I wake up with a burning desire to learn CSS, botany and the complete history of the tugboat, all at once. And just like that, I turn into the jerk who takes out 30 items at a time, keeping them all for weeks longer than I should, even though they’re on hold for other people.
So when I heard that the EPL (Edmonton Public Library) was revamping their catalogue, there was a moment where I dared to dream that some glitch in the matrix would cause whatever fines I had accrued (and despite my best intentions, there are ALWAYS fines accrued) to somehow magically be swept away.
Enhance.
But as you see here, no dice. There’s a better chance of us returning to the old card and stamp days than that happening. Now I’ll stop being a cheapskate and just pay the $3.50.
But I digress. I e-mailed Tina Thomas, media relations person for Edmonton Public Libraries, for some more information about the new catalogue.
The website, which has been developed in association with Ontario company BiblioCommons – who’ve also help pimp out the Oakville and Ottawa Public Library systems – is supposed to launch sometime this week to the general public. But, as all you twitter-folk already know, EPL has been tweeting the URL for people to try out, pre-launch.
The new catalogue will have “improved search capabilities,” according to Tina, who adds that it should also help users find whatever they’re looking for with a lot more ease. There’s also some new social networking elements, so users can comment, review and link to library materials.
“As a community-centered organization, we recognize that our customers have great input and opinions on our materials that they want to share,” Tina said in an e-mail. “They also want to access opinions and recommendations from users who share common interests. A social networking inspired catalogue helps achieve this.”
In the interest of science (SCIENCE!) I’ve been test-driving the catalogue myself, and in my opinion, it’s pretty sweet. The FAQ is very clear, and I found the whole site to be very intuitive. I also found it surprising, yet brilliant that you can follow people who like the same kind of stuff as you and see what they recommend..
seinfeil – Meanwhile, Back at Casino…
Lightbulbs are expensive. Don't you know there's a recession on?
Opinion: Are you f&*!ing kidding me with this, Commerce Place?!
A nice week off, and the first thing I come across on Monday morning is this. What is this, you ask? This is the third of what were once four functioning doors at Commerce Place. Now there is one functioning door. That’s right, 75% of doors at Commerce Place’s Jasper Ave entrance are now down for the count.
Look, I know this is stupid. I know I have a functioning body and a low-to-average intellect and thus, I should be able to just immerse myself in other pursuits and let this go. Commerce Place has every right to spend the rest of time not fixing their doors, if they so choose.
And that is just what I thought to myself as I called GWL Realty Advisors to ask WTF is the deal with these stupid doors.
The person who answered the phone was very nice. I assume she was the receptionist, though she didn’t say, and I kind of felt like she couldn’t get me off the phone the fast enough once I identified that I was calling on behalf of the edmontonian. She told me that they are waiting for parts for the doors. I asked if parts typically take more than a year arrive. She said no, and told me it’s just kind of been one thing after another with the doors. First the parts, then the contractors. They may have to remove the doors entirely and put in new ones, she said.
Now, I would be lying if I said that I believed this was all just an honest mistake. Unless part of those doors are being smelted in the fires of Haley’s Comet, they should’ve been fixed, oh, A YEAR AGO.
But I would also being lying if I said that talking to a real live person about the real live constraints of their job didn’t kind of ruin my feud with Commerce Place. :( So, to that end, I’ve decided that the time has come for me to put the whole thing in more of a “glass half full” kind of perspective.
What do you guys think?
SEINFEIL SERMON
Umm, what?
I think, near the bottom of the list of things needed is a holy war with Leduc.
Seinfeil: “Do you think anyone will notice…”
..that you accidentally bought the wrong sign? No, I think you're cool.
Great Bloomers at the Hydeaway: One of many things that happened after my bedtime.
Landon R. Coleman at the Hydeaway
First things first: I never made it to see Toronto’s the Great Bloomers. Even though I really wanted to, because if you give them a listen, you will see that they are pretty great.
But, because I am 79 years old, and because I have important things to do, like get up at 4:45 to watch Canada AM (I so love Seamus), I could not sit through a 4 band set on a Tuesday night – even if that set featured the Great Bloomers as headliners. Plus, my ego was bruised from my first trip to the Hydeaway. All these attractive young people in their skinny jeans and irreverent t-shirts. It just made me want to hop on my hoveround and go home.
But I will tell you this; I did see the first performer on the quadruple bill – a young fellow named Landon R. Coleman. Landon is a singer/songwriter from Nova Scotia, and goddamn, folks, this will probably be the only time the kid plays to an audience this small. Seriously, Landon R. Coleman is Landon R. Awesome. He performed a four or five song solo acoustic set and it was so, so good. His voice is a kind of cross between Nathan Willett of the Cold War Kids and Jeff Buckley, and his songs are clever, sweet and haunting. He said he’s going to be back in town later this year, so look for him; I certainly will.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go meet my pinochle team over at the Legion.
*rides hoveround away*
Doorwatch ’09: Day 7
I know you think you’re winning this, Commerce Place. You think I can’t go the distance – but you’re wrong. There is one thing you must never underestimate about me: I am an incredibly petty. I’m so petty, I’m practically Dini Petty over here. This is UNEQUIVOCALLY a hill that I will die on.
So let’s discuss the “Please excuse our appearance, we’re renovating” poster. Because I don’t see any renovating going on anywhere else in Commerce Place. It’s just this door. And after months of being “under renovation”, this door had better be pretty spectacular when it’s unveiled. I’m thinking like, a thin film of pure energy that protects us from the elements without requiring us to open or close it. It also hydrates us and heals any minor cuts and scrapes we may have acquired throughout the day. I’m talking like the Osmosis Door 3000 brought to you by Polysporin(patent pending).
G.D. it, Commerce Place, it’s been 7 days. Just fix the door. 
Breakfast at the Route 99 Diner
Jeff and I have started a new Sunday morning tradition – story meetings. Yes, Edmonton, instead of just arbitrarily googling the word “Edmonton,” or wandering through the streets taking pictures of anything we can find, we’ve decided to try something different. Preparation. And our first story meeting took place at one of my favorite places, Route 99 Diner.
you can't see, but this cup is actually full of syrup.
As with all great diners, there is very little on the menu that won’t take you one step closer to heart disease. Maybe toast, if you specifically ask them not to dip it in butter. But if you’re all wound up about your diet, C. Everett Koop, then maybe you should just stay home and eat some Weetabix.
I missed Cariwest :(
Ah, Cariwest. A frenzy of music, dance, costumes and partying. A blur of jubilant Caribbean festivities. Or so I hear. Because I failed to check the schedule before I went.
seinfeil – a trusty mechanic
You know what, if I had a car I would totally take it to TOONTOWN AUTO.
I'm told it's Downtown Auto. My way is funnier.
On a total sidebar, there are a lot of Roger Rabbit fan sites. By “a lot” I mean more than the one or two I was expecting to find by Googling Toontown.
Opinion: that g.d. door at Commerce Place
Look, I’m not one to criticize, y’know … people in glass houses and all that jazz. But Commerce Place, you’re killing me.
I’m pretty sure that the last time I used this door was in 2008 (and yet, I still forget it’s blocked off, every time I try to exit onto Jasper Avenue).
So I am sincerely asking: WHAT IS THE HOLDUP WITH FIXING THIS DOOR?
Are we waiting for breakneck advances in door science to level out, so we don’t get stuck with out-of-date door technology?
Are we unsure about the future of the west side of the building?
WAS IT REALLY LESS WORK TO BOARD THIS UP THAN TO JUST REPLACE THE DOOR?
Starting today, Commerce Place, I’m keeping track of how long this door remains blocked off at the bottom of each post. You even get a clean slate – today is day number one. How long until you fix the door?
Big Valley Stage Collapse
So by now, we all obviously know about the tragic scene this weekend at the Big Valley Jamboree. There’s not much to say about it, besides how deeply saddened we are that such a beloved event wound up costing someone’s life, and that there are now reports that the province is calling for a probe into what caused the collapse.
The thing I’d like to mention about Big Valley, which is kind of unrelated to the nuts and bolts news of it, is that Jeff and I actually heard about the stage collapse while casually checking Twitter. Over the course of the night, we watched as information was tweeted and retweeted from the concert site, including photographs of the scene and initial injury counts. People offered consolation to panicked family and friends, and other reconnected online.
This was particularly interesting to me because, regardless of the accuracy of the information being put forward, it allowed people to connect as a community during a really horrible moment. Not only could you check on your friend at #BVJ and make sure they were alright, people (myself included) who had no connection to the event whatsoever could feel like they were doing SOMETHING by re-tweeting information or offering their sympathies to worried onlookers. It was a lot better than watching the shocking scene unfold alone in my living room and feeling helpless.
There were also some claims that cell providers (specifically Rogers) had shut down cellular service, allowing only for emergency calls (we ourselves re-tweeted this one, figuring that even if it wasn’t true, it would go a long way towards easing the minds of frightened friends and family). Telus Mobility’s Chris Gerritsen says that, at least for Telus, this wasn’t the case. He attributes any difficulty getting through to a sudden influx of calls.
“We’ve got a robust network, of course,” he says. “But there aren’t an infinite number of lines.”
(Rogers Wireless never returned my call).
Anyway, for those following events on Twitter, much of the information from Big Valley came by way of Vancouver singer Jessie Farrell, who was there performing. I exchanged e-mails with her Sunday.
“I was using my cell,” wrote Farrell. “Most of my tweets were from the convention centre. We ran there from our trailer when we saw the stage collapse.”
“I’m very active online. I tweet and am on Facebook daily. Twitter was the easiest way to let people know what was going on. I know a lot of people I’m connected to had people they knew at [Big Valley Jamboree] so I wanted to let them know what I knew.”
She added that the response to her tweets were overwhelmingly positive.
“Mostly people were sending their prayers and wishes for everyone to be safe… The organizers and first responders were all amazing. They did a truly fantastic job. Of course I would return to BVJ. This was a tragic freak occurance.”
Letter from the Editor – Jeff – August 4/09
You have to make a lot of tough calls in a regular, 24-hour, newsroom. I don’t envy people making those calls.
Newsrooms are under constant pressure to churn things out in the 24-hour news world, and that means they’re bound to get things wrong (as a former reporter for radio stations across the country, I’ve been there). There’s also the ongoing case of stories running without all the facts, perhaps to be added later.
Last week it was clear how tough things can be for the 24-hour newsrooms.
The recent story of police officers being swarmed by a group of teens is the kind of thing that grabs headlines, nay, creates headlines, and makes people want to watch and listen. It’s the sort of story that will fill talk radio with middle aged folks wagging their fingers, and saying it’s time to “teach young punks” some respect.
I mean, it’s not every day a police officer is assaulted (thankfully) and it touches a nerve that even those who protect us can still be vulnerable. But how do you tell this story in an even-handed way?
Because, as we all know, news isn’t a movie or television plot; in real life, things are rarely as black and white as we’d like. It’s incredibly difficult to get these stories across to the greater public in a fair way. It’s tough for a lot of crime stories, actually.
I bring this up because the accused in this swarming case is telling the Edmonton Journal police have it wrong. It’s easy to dismiss this as someone trying to defend their name. But sometimes the story does end up being very different from the initial version.
Days before this story of violence, a case of assaulting a police officer was thrown out of court by a judge. Here, the judge says the police officer went too far. It took the trial process to get more on the case. The information wasn’t readily available or provided at the headline-grabbing stage.
(Notes: The case could always be appealed and there are still other legal avenues being pursued. I’m also not linking the two stories to say this latest one will be thrown out.)
So what do you do? Do you just put up a little blurb mentioning the charges and wait for details at court?
The fear there would be that your competition will have a front page or top story all about the charges and people will wonder why you didn’t do anything more than a brief update.
Though, the days following the Journal story with the accused show that not everyone went full-out on that story. Even the Journal went from the front page with the assault allegations to page B4, with the story from the accused teen.
Another example of why newsrooms should ease up on the crime headlines (or work on the story thoroughly before publishing) is right here; this story was all about how four teens beat a man to death on an ETS bus. Turned out that’s not at all what happened. Again, things had to go to court before all the facts could be learned.
I think limiting sensational headlines (and possibly, most of the sensational story), especially when details are coming from one side, would be a start.
It would take bold newsroom decisions though. You might have to work on the story for a couple of days, watching the other guys produce stories one fact at a time, before you could give a full and/or fair balance.
It might also take some feature and in-depth reporting to make up for the lack of easy-to-cover stories. But wouldn’t it be better to have the story correct, all the way through?
The Princess seinfeil
Not only do I get to allude to one of the great 80s movies with the headline, I also have to point out a seinfeil that pains me a little.
I like the Princess Theatre. It’s too bad they ran out of letters/room to tell us about their third movie. (Thankfully, this is a temporary sign, since Moon is no longer showing there.)
Look right there under the Princess II sign. It's there.
seinfeil gets sporty
I’m sorry, which sport are we playing?
What kind of equipment do we need? Rackets? A helmet? Does that require a BALL?
I hear the ones with the extra L cost more.
seinfeil – spelling
I think we’ll end up finding that a lot of the best seinfeil’s include spelling mistakes that cause a double-take. Or just a plain head shake.
In this case, the sign company likely offered “convenience” but no “quality control.” I mean, it’s on both sides of the building…
As an aside, I also think ATM Machine (with "M" already meaning "machine") takes this up to new levels of fail.
