Mike's Bloggity Blog

A couple of months ago I discovered this amazing site called 52mixtapes.com. Essentially, it’s an old-school callback to the amazingness that once was mix tapes.  Yes, in this day in age, the fun of making personalized playlists for people has certainly lost a lot of its excitement.  I can remember spending hours going through my older sister’s CDs and making tape after tape after tape.  I don’t know who exactly who I was making tapes for, but we would play them in our parents’ car and silently await for their approval.

52 Mix Tapes is trying to bring back that magical feeling cassette tapes used to bring us, but in a modern iPod-generation sorta way.  Every week, the site’s creator Tyler asks someone to make their own mix tape. The lucky person gets to give the “tape” a name and make the playlist (Two sides, 30 minutes per.)  Then you have to create the cover art and write the liner notes.

The site then takes your choices and makes a digital mix tape that you can then stream anytime you want!

COOL.

This week, I got to be the lucky mixtape maker and I wanted to recall all the great pop music that I grew up listening to. Of course, I’m using the word ‘great’ as something that is up for your interpretation, just cause I think it’s great, I’m pretty much certain that that means you won’t.

I’m not going to spoil it for you, you’ll have to check out the mix tape yourself, but it was such a fun exercise in remembering what music was important to you, and I was even more surprised by all the flashbacks that came back to me as I poured over Rick Dees charts.  Oh and yes, that’s me on my album cover.  (Somebody had to do it, might as well be me, right?)

You can click here to hear my mixtape, and then play around on the site, there is a TON of amazing music to found.

Love. This. Site.

We may be the butt of most of the jokes on South Park and How I Met Your Mother, but I think I know one network that will leave Canada alone…at least for a little while.

NBC released the first trailer today for The Firm, the TV version of the hit film, of which was originally a John Grisham best-seller.  The series, which has a lot of buzz behind it, is largely a very Canadian production.

When it premieres in January, Toronto will pretending to be Washington, D.C and the cast of bad guys will be filled by Canucks Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Gallatica) and Shaun Majumder (Every CBC comedy ever,) who try to take down legal eagle Mitch  played by Josh Lucas (The Lincoln Lawyer).  His wife is played by another Canadian Molly Parker (Deadwood).

NBC has been struggling as of late to find any shows that bring in the ratings and if the first look at The Firm is any indication, I think this might be the one to bring eyeballs back to the once monster network.  The Firm looks exciting, twisty and mysterious.  Plus, it’s kinda fun knowing that all the actors have loonies and twoonies in their pockets, eh?

The Firm premieres on January 8th.

I’ve written about Calgary’s weather before, mostly because it’s so crazy. Actually, as I write this, the entire downtown core of this city is shut down because of extreme winds. But it’s usually not the wind we have to worry about, but rather the cold. The cold that comes out of no where, the kind of cold that freezes hearty rivers, in what seems like mere moments.

And while the bone chilling cold of Calgary might be unique, the way we deal with it is not.  Across the country Canadians hate being cold, but we do nothing to stop it. Where it’s for fashion or hair, we refuse to dress for the weather.

So since much of Canada has already gotten a little taste of what Winter has to offer so far, I wanted to let off a little steam on my Metro column this week.

What is it about Winter than makes us able to think like rational human beings?  Is it that the cold makes us do stupid things like forget how to drive or freeze to death because we don’t want to zipper up our coat?

Oh Canada, sometimes you frustrate me.

(Photo credit)

If there’s one thing I know, it’s sports.  Okay, that’s not true, but I do know that there a LOT of people out there who would go nuts over a signed Steve Nash basketball.

Just in time for Christmas gifts, I’m giving away the The “Nash Enough?” Prize Pack, that comes packed with glacéau vitaminwater, an autographed Steve Nash mini-basketball and a chance to meet the basketball superstar AND co-star with him in his next online video!  From now until November 30, Steve Nash and glacéau vitaminwater are teaming up for the “Nash Enough” contest – to enter, visit www.vitaminwatercanada.ca/nash and submit a 1 minute video about why you think you’re “Nash Enough” to win!

While I might not be able to help you win the chance to be in his next video, I can give you the vitaminwater and autographed Steve Nash mini-basketball.

If you think you know who would love this gift, in the comments section, tell me who you’d give the mini-basketball to if you won and why…don’t worry, it can totally be yourself.   I’ll do a random a random draw this Monday at 11:59pm MST.  Good luck.

Oh Jean Morrison, you did it again. If you happened to watch George Strombolopolous Tonight last night, you may have noticed a certain Artic Fox named Jean Morrison, who just so happens to be my Granny. At 89 years old she is now a finalist in the Winnipeg Gone Wacky comedy competition. The video of her chatting with George Strombolopolous is just too cute for words. While technically she is my granny, I’m more than happy to share her inspirational message with all of you!

Go Granny Go!

If you want to see her original routine, click here.

A few weeks ago I found out that I was lucky enough to be chosen to speak at the Pecha Kucha, which if you’ve never heard of, it’s okay.  I actually went to my first Pecha Kucha event only a few months ago!

Devised in Tokyo in 2003, PechaKucha Nights are now taking place in almost 450 cities around the world. Drawing their name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat,” It’s a format that makes presentations concise and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.  Essentially it’s a presentation style that forces its presenters to get right to the meat and potatoes of the subject matter, which this week is the word reclaim.   The challenge to the presenters is this:  Give a presentation using only 20 slides, each slide can only be up for 20 seconds, which means the best (or worst presentation is done is 6:40.)  It’s been a little stressful trying to get everything together and keep it until the alotted time, but it’s also been a lot of fun.  I think the slides are cool and I hope people will be fun.

So if you find yourself in the Calgary-area this Wednesday, Pecha Kucha #10 will be taking place at the John Dutton Theatre in the Central Library. Doors at 6:30pm, event at 7:00pm.
Here is the list of speakers, I seriously have no idea how I ended up on it.  So impressive.

• Kathleen Bell, Communications Officer, Calgary Counselling Centre
• Lorna Crowshoe, Aboriginal Issue Strategist, Social Policy and Planning, City of Calgary
• Brian Johns, Wildlife Biologist
• Ben Millen, Board of Directors, The New Gallery/John Snow House
• Jesse Moffatt, Manager of Collections and Artifact Care, Cantos Music Foundation
• Mike Morrison, Blogger/Writer
• Gene Poole, Calgary Cassette Preservation Society
• Dr. Roger Saint-Fort, Associate Professor and Chair, Mount Royal University Department of Environmental Science
• Sonny Tomic, Manager, Centre City Planning and Implementation, City of Calgary
• Kris Vester, President, Slow Food Calgary

Well it took long enough!  After releasing a new album and a blockbuster biography, Jann Arden announced a brand new cross Canada tour!  Okay, correction, it’s actually only half of Canada, but at least it’s something right?

It’s actually a jammed packed tour with lots of dates, so it looks like it will be a busy two months for Jann.
Here is the concert listing.

02.19.2012 Victoria
02.20.2012 Victoria
02.21.2012 Vancouver
02.23.2012 Calgary
02.24.2012 Red Deer
02.25.2012 Medicine Hat
02.27.2012 Edmonton
02.28.2012 Saskatoon
02.29.2012 Winnipeg
03.02.2012 Thunder Bay
03.03.2012 North Bay
03.05.2012 Kitchener
03.06.2012 Hamilton
03.07.2012 London
03.09.2012 Toronto
03.10.2012 Toronto
03.11.2012 Ottawa
03.13.2012 Kingston
03.14.2012 Montreal

If you want in on the action, The Live Nation Presale is November 23rd at 10:00am and the General Public sale is on November 25th at 9:30am. If you’ve never seen Jann before, she is a must see. Not only is the music amazing, the ends up turning into a sorta stand up comedy show too, which makes for a really great night!

Click here to get your tickets!

With just over a week to go in Movember, the moustache has FINALLY emerged from my face.  For weeks I was getting messages from people saying that I should be doing Movember, it was especially awkward because I was forced to explain to them that I was.

When the campaign kicked off, I asked Canada for nothing more than a dollar donation. I was hoping to gather $1,000 to help fight Prostate Cancer research.  And so far the fundraising is going really well, I’ve already raised $763!  Even celebs like musician Jill Barber got a little charitable and donated to my Movember page!  How cool is that?

If you wanna donate to my Movember cause, here is the link to my page!

Throughout the month,  I’ve also been challenging my editor at Metro, Darren Krause to a grow-off.  The rules have never been clear on what made the better moustache, but with only a week to go, it all comes down to the public vote.  Whoever gets the most votes will be declared winner, in a surprise twist, the winner will donate $250 to the loser’s cause!

If you want to vote for me or Darren, head on over to the Metro site and vote!

When Jian Ghomeshi comes to Calgary, it’s clear to see that he is man in demand.  While in town last week, he had just completed a sold out taping of his immensely popular CBC Radio show Q and he also had a full day of meetings and interviews. Just hours before going to see the Lights, the award-winning singer that he has managed for more than ten years, I got the chance to hang out with him in the ever glamourus Bloggity studios, (shhhh it’s just my laptop.)

Nestled comfortably in a noisy hotel lobby, we talked about the show’s popularity, the responsibility that success comes with and most importantly, he teaches me how, even I, can perfect the Jian Ghomeshi radio voice.

This weekend in Calgary was cold, like really, really cold.  I believe at one point the wind chill dipped down to -30.  And while I’m used to this city, that is nestled beside the mountains, getting cold, this seems an awfully early time of the year for it to be that cold.

But luckily, I had lots of activities to do in the city to keep me warm. I thought I’d do a little re-cap, since it’s still too cold out now to do anything. On Friday, I was lucky enough to judge a Gingerbread House competition.  It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it, right?  It was all apart of the celebration to kick-off Christmas All Through The House at the historic Lougheed House. It’s one of my favourite buildings in Calgary, and seeing it decorated by about a dozen different designers was absolutely beautiful.  There were six houses to judge from including a pink interpretation of the Lougheed House by Jelly Modern dougnuts, it looked absolutely delicious and made me and my fellow judge, Avenue Magazine’s Jennifer Hamilton question why there wasn’t a Gingerbread House eating competition?  The decision was tough, but in the end I chose Brûlée Patisserie as my favourite and the other judges seemed to agree since it picked up the coveted Judges Favourite award. I loved how they showed the inside of the Ginger Bread house, that’s something you never see.  Jelly Modern won People’s Choice.

Christmas All Through the House runs until November 27th and again, it’s beautiful.

On Saturday morning, with the temperature dipping to around -30, I could think of nothing more fun to do than participate in a Ice Sculpture contest.  The contest was all apart of the Christmas in Inglewood celebration and even though the frigid temperatures kept a lot of people from coming down, those who did make it down to 9th ave had a blast. The contest saw some different media types including Dan Clapson, Julie Van Rosendaal, Brian Keating and city counciler Gian-Carlo Carra chipping away at a block of ice trying to design a house.  Which when you’re thinking about ice sculpting, a house design is probably the easiest thing you could do.

After a quick lesson, we all started chipping away and while I was nervous about severing an artery, it was actually a lot of fun.  I tried to make a chimney, which I then quickly accidentally chipped off. In the end, the judges (Santa and Mrs. Clause) realized that in ten minutes, all of our houses pretty much looked the same and I don’t think they felt right awarding a winner, probably because none of our designs deserved to be called anything close to “winning.”

Christmas in Inglewood was a blast and a great example of no matter how cold it is, there’s always lots to do on a chilly Saturday afternoon in Calgary!