It features some really great up-and-coming artists from Canada(yes artists, not Will.I.Am types who fart into a Moog and call it music).

“The New Noise Live is a monthly showcase, providing a professional platform for independent Canadian artists to present their music to industry professionals and music fans alike.”

I had the pleasure of creating the website for the series so you may think i’m a little biased, but you’d be wrong.  As a music lover, this is the kind of  monthly event i keep my eye open for and hopefully you will take the time to check out the lineup and support local good music!

Link : http://newnoiselive.com

Jack Layton was a rare breed in the world of politics.  his love of canada and the people in it has been very well documented.  you can find numerous stories of his passionate support of environmental issues, cyclists, the LGBT community and so on.  you know those bike posts all over the city of Toronto?  those were Jack’s idea.  several people have told stories of times when Jack would take them out for a beer to discuss what’s important to them.  no camera crews, no tipping off the media for a photo opp, just a man who genuinely cared what the people had to say.  pretty rare these days to find from anyone in public office.

also pretty rare is the fact that most people i know referred to him simply as Jack.  he was that kind of man and that kind of politician.  whether you agreed with his viewpoint or not, there’s no denying that he cared about everyone he came into contact with, something i think we could all learn a lot from.  no matter what position he held over the years, he always seemed approachable and honest, almost like a friend.  i honestly can’t think of any other politician in this country i refer to by their first name…i can think of several names i call them occasionally, but not their first names.

i went to city hall this week the day Jack died and seeing the hundreds of people there writing their messages, letters and words of thanks to him in chalk all over Nathan Phillips Square was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.  seeing what an impact he had on canadian politics and on so many people just made the loss of him that much harder to swallow.  part of me fears we will never see another in public office with such conviction, determination and passion…but another part is hopeful that what Jack started will not be undone.  I hope not only those in his party will take up the torch and continue his work, but also that we all, as Canadians, remember what he started here and especially remember his final words to us all…

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair.
So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

thanks for all you did for us Jack.  you will not be forgotten. Rest in peace.

Jack Layton
1950-2011

On Sunday, June 26, 2011 my family, friends and I participated with thousands of others from all over Ontario in the Walk Now for Autism in Toronto.  This was my family’s 4th year participating in the annual event and we’ve seen it grow each year in attendance and funds raised.  My nephew has autism.  His name is Ethan and he is without a doubt one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

We gathered at Nathan Phillips Square around 8:30am to meet with other families who have been touched by Autism.  The kids were kept entertained by bouncy castles, games, face painting and musical performances.  For the adults there was free Starbucks, merchandise booths and the affirmation that we were not alone in this by meeting with other families who are experiencing the same things.

At 10am we proceeded to walk up the northbound lanes of University Ave. to College St. and then back down again.  By 11am the walk was done, the traffic was flowing at its normal pace and we were saying our goodbyes to friends and family who had travelled to Toronto in support of the event.  All in all, it was a brief but very rewarding and beneficial day for all involved.

You have said that you believe “the purpose of marathons is to create revenue for charities” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eX66AjIXC8) but I believe you’re overlooking another, possibly even more important reason : awareness.  Though financial donations are a large part of these events, getting the message out about them on the largest stage possible is also key.  Downtown Toronto is one of the greatest stages an event could have to spread such important messages.  A lot of people know about these events but don’t necessarily know much about the causes.

Autism, for example, affects 1 out of 110 children and 1 in 70 boys.  This percentage is increasing dramatically every year. In fact, more children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with AIDS, diabetes & cancer combined.  Frighteningly however, Autism receives less than 5% of the research funding of many less prevalent childhood diseases.

You have said you are in favour of moving these events to city parks or bike paths, but I strongly believe that would hinder, and in some cases cripple the progress being made by holding them on city streets.  Our audiences and potential supporters would shrink from thousands to possibly only hundreds at most.

Autism may not be a cause you can relate to, which I understand as a lot of people still don’t know much about it. So let me talk to you in terms you will understand – local economy.  My family members live out of town, and they traveled here the day before the walk.  They stayed in the Sheraton Hotel across the road from the square.  Hundreds, possibly thousands of other families also stayed in hotels in the area. These families eat in our restaurants, use public transportation, view tourist attractions and even do some shopping during their stay. My family did.  All of which generates revenue for the city of Toronto.

I will never understand how globally recognized companies like Toys R Us and Starbucks feel it absolutely necessary to support Walk Now for Autism yet our own mayor would rather push us out to a park simply so we don’t disturb 2 blocks of traffic on a Sunday morning.

It breaks my heart and makes me embarrassed of my city, which I never thought I’d say about Toronto.

Sincerely,
Kristian Rogelstad

Update

I sent this email off today (Friday July 22, 2011) and received this auto-reply :

Thank you for your email.

As I promised during the mayoralty election, I am dedicated to delivering customer service excellence, creating a transparent and accountable government, reducing the size and cost of government and building a transportation city.

I will continue to work on behalf of the taxpayers to make sure you get the respect you deserve.

This note is to confirm that we have received your email and that we are lookinginto your matter.

Please feel free to follow up to check the status of your email.

Thanks again and have a great day.

Yours truly,

 

Mayor Rob Ford

City of Toronto

We’re all in this together.

Update #2

i got a response from the Mayor himself…or at least his email address itself…

Good Morning Kristian,

Thank you for your email about marathons and road closures in the City of Toronto. I have listened to many concerned citizens about this matter. Some enjoy the use of our city streets for events, while others are frustrated. I am supportive of the organisers of these events provided they give Toronto residents fair warning to prepare for road closures. If there is anything else I can assist you with, please do not hesitate to contact my office.

Yours truly,

Rob Ford
Mayor of Toronto

i know i never blog much here, and i know that for the 2 of you who read this(my mum and myself), it’s quite painful to not hear random nonsense from me on a daily basis.  well, it’s a new year and i thought why not start blogging more?!   then i remembered i don’t have a lot of free time to blog and threw that idea out the window, but i will try my best to at least post more regular updates.

with that in mind, here’s my first post of 2011 and it’s aptly nerdy.  i found a post the other day from the good folks at Web Designish of the 38 best CSS3 tutorials of 2010.  there’s some cool stuff in there…ok your idea of cool and my idea of cool are probably vastly different, but cool is subjective really and to me this stuff is cool!  back off!

the web and how we designers create our work is literally changing everyday which can be a pain to some.  the beauty though is that while it’s rapidly changing, it’s also getting a hell of a lot better and easier to create the things you envision and until now had to rely on trickery, hacks and, in most cases, compromise.  anyways, go check out the link to learn cool stuff like rounded corners, flash-less animation, shadows, etc.

link : http://www.webdesignish.com/best-css3-techniques-and-tutorials-2010.html

i’ve loved these guys since 2002-ish when a whopping 2 copies of their self-titled debut were shipped to the record store i worked at during that time.  i loved the cover and gave it a listen on my break.  by the end of my 15 minute break, i had purchased the cd and it still remains one of my favourite music purchases to date.  i also got in some crap by my boss because i put their cd on the stereo in the store, when we were only allowed to play a certain group of cds as outlined by head office.  definitely nothing like Empire Records! (damn the man, save the Empire!!) i ended up selling the 2nd copy of ok go by the time the cd had finished, so i was off the sh!t-list.

for nearly a decade these guys have not only created some great music but their videos have been perfect examples of how to still be creative in an era where the closest kids get to seeing a music video is a commercial for the Hills.  not one of their videos are ‘phoned in’, not one looks half-assed.  in fact, each one looks like it’s taken weeks, if not months of thought, planning, rehearsing, reworking, editing, blah blah blah blah.

i spent an hour this evening going through all their videos and i actually said ‘WHOA’ out loud at least 3 or 4 times.  and i don’t say ‘WHOA’ out loud when i’m alone ever.

if you wanna see their videos…and you DO…check out http://www.okgo.net

i leave you now with proof of the brilliance of ok go.  if you don’t like this video, you are not alive.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2fpgpanZAw

to start off this new section, i feel compelled to respond to the trainwreck that was the 2010 olympic closing ceremonies.  they showcased only the lowest of the lowest common denominator bands.  the kind of shit you see on muchmusic 5000 times a day.  so, i give you a list of Canadian bands that i would have enjoyed more than the horrible horrible bands they featured tonight.(note: Neil Young is the exception.  i love the Neil!) (also note : i don’t necessarily like all these bands, but would have enjoyed them a heck of a lot more than what was presented)

here we go;

• arcade fire
• metric
• tegan and sara
• sloan
• the dears
• birthday boys
• the guess who
• rikers
• stars
• feist
• rufus wainwright
• broken social scene
• emm gryner
• coeur de pirate
• lights
• the racoon wedding
• glass tiger
• rush
• organized rhyme
• k’naan
• ash koley
• …more to come…seriously

i’ve been a long-time fan of the fire-haired host since the early days of Late Night (yep, i’m that old) and was thrilled to see that not only is Conan finally getting the show he rightfully deserves, but the Tonight Show would finally get back a good host who is smart, funny and respected by his peers.  not mention the fact that it spelled the end of Jay (i’m not funny) Leno…or so we all thought hoped.

instead we have the stupidest of all network moves that sees jay return to the tonight show and conan out on his ass.  i suppose though thanks to all this we’ve seen the best Conan yet in recent shows, ripping on the network ‘morons’, spending all their money and even a return of the masturbating bear!!!

i won’t go into all the details of the feud because enough has been written about it by much smarter folks than myself.  all i want to say is that Conan is The King of latenight in my mind and he will be sorely missed for however long it takes another network to snatch him up…which i predict, and hope, won’t take long.

In closing, i think you should all join the “I’m With Coco” movement online.  and if you’re a Leno fan, please leave.  thanks.

garth is my friend, for real, i know him!  seriously, we high five all the time….and uh….hang out, like all the time.

he’s a visual artist, but not like any you’ve ever seen…and i know what you’ve seen!

in all seriousness, his innovation, talent and passion for all he does blows me away constantly and you need to check out his work.  you won’t be disappointed, i pinky swear.

http://www.thegarthshow.com

Scrubs, much like another favourite of mine Ed, has always been one of the best shows on tv. it always seems to find a perfect balance between comedy and drama week after week, even through all the time slots moves, cancellation threats and overall lackluster ratings. scrubs should be retired as one of the blockbuster sitcoms of all time but sadly critical acclaim and a cult following don’t equal $$ to tv networks. abc has definitely done a much better job of promoting the show than nbc ever did, but still it never quite hit ‘Friends’ or ‘Cosby Show’ hype as i firmly believe it should have.

anyways, i could literally go on for pages and pages about scrubs…but i won’t. i’ll just bid a very sad farewell to jd, turk, elliot, carla, dr cox, dr kelso, janitor, rowdy, the todd, jordan, jack, laverne, tasty coma wife, gift shop girl, ted, ted’s band(the worthless peons), gooch, doug, keith, lonnie, hooch(is crazy), lloyd the delivery guy, denise, dr beardfacé, dr mickhead, dr wen, snoop dogg attending (formerly snoop dogg resident and snoop dogg intern), colonel doctor, jimmy the overly touchy orderly, leonarad the security guard with the hook for the hand, randall the janitor, troy the cafeteria worker, laverneagain, jo, all of jd’s hot guest-starring girlfriends, dan, dr. zeltzer, cabbage, sasha the scooter, enid and all the others that have made me laugh and tonight will possibly make me shed a tear or two.

in the words of JD : “Goodbye trumpet player I don’t know. Now I know why your music is so sad.”

Update : the finale was so good i had to watch it twice…and i’m man enough to admit i teared up both times! so sad yet so great.

that’s just one of many brilliant quotes from what i truly believe to be one of the best(and horribly underrated) tv series in boob tube history.  for those unaware, i’m referring to a show that ran on nbc from 2000-2004… Ed.

in a nutshell, here’s the plot : “Tom Cavanagh plays Ed Stevens, a hot shot New York City lawyer, who, upon finding out that his wife is cheating on him, moves back to his hometown of Stuckyville where he buys the local bowling alley and sets up his new law practice. Ed tries to win back Carol Vessey, the woman of his dreams, only to find it is more difficult than it seems.”

there’s so many great things about this show i can’t even begin to list them all here…hmmm, i may have just inspired another blog topic for myself!

anyways, what does Ed has to do with my ‘twbnth’ list? well let me tell you, good people of the tundra.

we live in an age where literally every tv series gets a dvd set released seemingly within minutes of it’s season finale.  an age where even if a show is crap and gets canned after 6 episodes, that program’s mourning fans can still own the ‘entire series’ before their tears have even dried.  an age where nickelback is still popular for some reason despite making the same terrible record over and over again!! (ok that last point had nothing to do with the topic at hand, it just really erks me to no end)

the point of all this ranting? you ask, well let me tell you.  in the midst of all this garbage being put out by studios, no Ed dvds yet exist!!  4 seasons of dramedic brilliance just sits on the shelf somewhere at nbc just begging to be converted to dvd format and thrust into the marketplace.

and it’s not only the show itself that’s begging to be on dvd, we the fans have been dying, aching and pleading to the powers that be to realease the set for years now.  check out this petition .  over 12,000 people signed so far.  if they release the complete 4 season box set at around $70 each, let’s say….that’s like…..erm….well it’s at least $100 in nbc’s pocket!!(ok my math sucks, but come on nbc, with the poor state of your shows these days [cough cough Heroes cough Leno Show cough cough] i think you could use that pocket change)

the people demand Ed on dvd!  do what’s right nbc!  make it so!!!