Mike's Bloggity Blog

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time.  It was announced tonight that Blockbuster will soon be closing all of its Canadian stores, not only that, but they’ll be closed within a matter of days!

Seriously, I can’t believe this franchise is done.  I can’t think of a store I visited more growing up.  On Christmas Day, it was the only thing open on Christmas, as a teenager I must have applied to work there dozens of times, and I can still remember buying my first DVD ever there, it was the Perfect Storm.

It has definitely been stormy for Blockbuster over the past couple of years, which eventually succumbed to competitors like On Demand and Netflix.   The writing was on the wall earlier this year when the franchise closed more than 150 stores and now it will dim the lights on the country’s remaining 250 shops.

Well for what it’s worth, thank you Blockbuster.  Thanks for letting me spend hours upon hours wondering your aisles, recommending movies to strangers and letting me discover the classic movies that my parents and grandparents grew up on.

Before you close, I’ll try to swing by one last time, for old times’ sake.

With just a few weeks to go until its premiere, CBC has announced the judges for its new show Cover Me Canada.  They include a group of people who make it very hard to find modern day photos of, including: NKOTB’s Jordan Knight, renowned songstress Deborah Cox and star-maker and veteran producer Ron Fair.  It was already announced that Nicole Appleton (former All Saints band member) will be the show’s host.

So how do you feel about this show, now that you know about the judges?  I can’t help but just feel an overall feeling of “meh.”

I’m not really sure what my problem with this show is, I think I’m just annoyed that it is so blatently admitting that all the artists will be singing covers.  I mean, yes I know, all these singing shows do covers, but to so obviously ackwnoledge it by naming the show Cover Me Canada?  It seems worrisome.

CBC has a bit of a hit miss history with its singing reality shows.  Remember that show called The One: Making A Music Star?  It was hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos  and it was an American/Canadian edition of Europe’s highly successful Operación Triunfo / Star Academy.  Don’t worry if you don’t remember, it lasted only two weeks before it was quickly canceled.

Where CBC did do well was in the musical theatre genre shows.  Both Triple Sensation and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, while were never huge rating success, they developed a passionate fan base and their conclusions were both exciting and rewarding.

So while we’ll have to wait a few more weeks until Cover Me Canada premieres on CBC, you can get special sneak peek of what songs the contestants will be singing by turning on your radio, or your iPod, or your CD player…..

Cover Me Canada premieres on Sunday, September 18 at 9:00 p.m.

The next in the series of videos from my Behind The Scenes visit to Cirque du Soleil’s OVO is now up.

Things to look forward to in this educational video:

* I interview the tallest person of life.
* I get to go underneath the Cirque stage and make an amazing discovery.
* I meet the Calgarian who runs the entire tent, he’s called the Tent Master!

Don’t forget, Tourism Calgary is giving away a trip for four to Calgary, with tickets to the show, backstage passes and hotel accommodations! All you have to is caption a ridiculous photo of me! It can’t get any easier,click here to enter!

This blog post is also available on Huffington Post.

I think a famous actor once said, “I think we’re going to need a bigger cup of coffee!”

Well fans of Tim Hortons will soon get exactly that. It’s just been announced that some stores in Ontario will soon be testing a larger 24oz cup. Tim Hortons loyalists are already calling foul and I can practically see Morgan Spurlock smugly sitting in his New York apartment, working on his essay on why we don’t need bigger portions, but like Spurlock took on the Big Mac, I’m all over it.

Look, we all know that the extra large at Tim Hortons, when compared to other coffee shops, was never really an extra large anyway, so why get your Timbits in a tumble for a new size that’s still a lot cheaper than a venti at Starbucks?

If getting rid of that small sized cup really means some people will go elsewhere, then I’m okay with that. I mean really, why are you in line for three mouthfuls of coffee anyway? While the coffee giant is at it, I wish they would stop making mochas too. Seriously, if you can’t handle a whole cup of fairly weak coffee, than you have no business drinking it in the first place.

I guess one of the reasons I’m so passionate about my morning cup of coffee is because, as a Maritimer, living in Alberta, I’ve had to fight a lot of prejudice in order to continue my love of Tim Hortons. Every morning, I always make sure to get my coffee in a reusable cup, not because of David Suziki’s passive-aggressive tweets, but because I often feel judged for even holding a Tim Hortons cup in the first place. I live in a city where people regularly dress like cowboys and yet I get mocked for slowly sipping a double-double. These are indeed troubling times. Those in the prairies don’t seem to get it, maybe it’s because I grew up in a city with seven Tim Hortons on a single street. Or perhaps it’s because, on cold days, the only way I could convince my mother to drive me to school was by bribing her with a bagel and a cup of Timmies, which was on the way to the school.

Now I’m not saying that Tim Hortons is perfect. I still yearn for their long-abandoned cakes and really wish they would get in the business of free refills, but I’ve grown up believing that Tim Hortons is as Canadian as Roots clothing, so really, who am I to argue with something that is so iconic?

I was always jealous of Charlie from Charlie and Chocolate Factory, now I’ve come one step closer.

Earlier this week, a mysterious package showed up in my mailbox.  Assuming it was a DVD or promo CD, I was pleasentaly surprised when it turned out to be a bag of candy…WITH MY FACE ON IT!  (If anyone tells you that I cried, I’ll adamantly deny it.)

The candy is part of a new campaign from the sweet folks at Maynards candy.

Canadians are invited to ‘Make Your Face a Maynards’ on the Maynards Canada Facebook Page – morphing fabulous facial features into virtual candy caricatures for the chance to enter to actually BECOME Maynards next delicious edible treat.  In a few easy steps, you can “candify” your face into a Fuzzy Peach, Swedish Berry, Sour Patch Kid or Sour Cherry Blaster and share your sweet mug with your friends and followers.

I polled my Facebook friends on whether or not they’d buy candy with my face on it and sadly, they said no, because it would be too scary.   Well, what they don’t know is that if a bag of Mike candy really existed, I would buy every single bag they produced and give it to my friends as Christmas gifts for the rest of their lives.

I think the power has already gotten to my sugar-coated head.

Now I’m just trying to decide if I should open the bag of candy or not?  It seems a little like cannibalism.

I’m not usually a big country fan, Garth Brooks and The Wilkinsons aside, but there’s something about the genre that is always great to come back to.  Unlike so much of today’s music, country music seems to always be authentic, raw and never overly-produced.

That’s exactly how I would describe the new song by Jessie Farrell  Turn You Down.  I came across it through my daily goings on and I’ve been listening to it with quite a bit of frequency.

Jessie’s new album Love Story comes out today, and I’m probably going to wait to hear another single or two before I start exploring my country roots, but if you’re looking for a break from the Britneys, Keshas and Biebers, Jessie Farrell may be exactly that.

On Thursday night, I threw a little party to thank all of the people who have helped me with blog.  It was all in celebration of the blog’s 5th anniversary, or as I was lovingly referring to it, The Bloggity Birthday.  With more than 4,300 posts, there’s no way I did it alone and so I wanted to say thank you!

It was an amazing night, we celebrated at Craft Beer Market and it went well into the wee hours of the night.  Here are some of the photos, thanks to Bridge It Photography for the amazing photos.

Aldona Barutowicz (Alberta Theatre Projects) and actress Ksenia Thurgood

From National PR Lauren Piercy and Kelly Sinclair.

Alex Kingcott, Sheenah Rogers and Lana Rogers from Anstice PR

Taylor Barrie (The Calgary Foundation)

Blogger Jess Fralick, Aldona Barutowicz (Alberta Theatre Projects) and Alex Bonyun (Calgary Opera)

Lauren Barrie, Twitter expert Justin Reti and Taylor Barrie (The Calgary Foundation)

Adam Schink, Brad Walker (Bottom Line Productions), Blogger Jess Fralick and Todd Hawkwood (Bottom Line Productions.)

Are you bored with your Canadian films?
Do you want to see something that doesn’t have Paul Gross directing, starring and working Craft services?

Well there’s a new Canadian flick that’s currently being produced in the Toronto-area that ass me all kinds of excited…and kinda scared.

The movie is called  Dead Before Dawn and the flick is actually directed by April Mullen and written by Tim Doiron, the same guys that made the cult hit RPS: Way of The Tosser a few years ago, so I already know it’s going to be funny.  But other signs of it being cool include, that it is being shot in 3D (which I normally hate, unless it is for scary movies, like FD5.) It is also going to star one of my all time favourites Christopher Lloyd! Remember when he played the bad guy on Dennis The Menace? Classic.  Dead before Dawn also stars  Martha MacIsaac (Superbad), Devon Bostick (from the Wimpy Kid flicks), Jay McLaren (Being Erica), Brittany Allen (All My Children), Kevin McDonald (Kids in the Hall) and Rossif Sutherland (ER).  And lastly, ZEMONS.  Yeah, you heard me right, ZEMONS.  I’m not really sure what ZEMONS are, but I do know that they are a mix of zombies and demos and that my friend is COOL.

The flick is described as a fast paced adventure comedy that follows a bunch of college kids as they accidentally unleash an evil curse that causes people to kill themselves and turn into Zombie Demons, AKA ZEMONS!!!

Good enough for me.

If you have some time, head of over to the website for Dead Before Dawn.  It’s kinda a new experience in making films, allowing fans to be involved in every step of the production with tweets, videos and other behind the scenes stuff.

Admittedly, I’m a little biased towards all things Canadian horror movies (Dale and Tucker VS. Evil, Ginger Snaps, Score: A Hockey Musical) but at least it’s fun to see a Canadian flick that doesn’t seem to be taking itself too seriously with gun slinging cowboys or melodramatic family dramas.

Look for Dead Before Dawn to hit the big screen around mid-2012!

Every now and then, I like to do something different.  Explore a different part of the city, walk in a different direction or yes, see a baseball game.  Most people probably don’t even know that Calgary has a professional baseball team, but it’s true.  They are called the Calgary Vipers.

It was a perfect Sunday last week and I thought it would finally be time to go see a baseball game.  It’s been years since I saw the Expos and a Blue Jays game, so I figured the Vipers would do.  As luck would have it, Jose Canseco was playing for the other team, so there was definitely a cool Celebrity Apprentice vibe to the whole day.

This week’s Metro column follows my day at the old ballgame.

Click here to read it!

To take a page from SNL’s Seth Meyers, Really Hedley, Really?

Earlier this week the band released their first single off of their upcoming third album and they’ve sorta pulled a Metallica and are making it nearly impossible for their fans to enjoy, unless you spend the money. The song is called Invincible, and you can hear the first minute of the song on the band’s website (or below), but if you want to hear a full version of the song, without buying it first, well that’s nearly impossible.

Look, I’m obviously one of the biggest proponents of paying for music. I legitimately can’t tell you the last time I downloaded something for free. It’s been years, maybe four or five. But in this day in age, to only put up a snippet of your song, just seems so out of touch, doesn’t it? I mean, your last album was terrible, they should be grateful that people are still interested in hearing what the band has to put out.

I’m not even that big of a fan of the band, but it just seems like the wrong decision to make. Especially since the band’s core demo are the very teens who tend to download for free more than anyone.

I like buying music, I like supporting it. But if it’s going to sound anything like Cha-Ching or Don’t Talk to Strangers, well then I have a right to hear the full version first.

Have a listen below and let me know, is it worth your $1.29?

Hedley – “Invincible” by unimusicC