Mike's Bloggity Blog

Look, let’s be honest.  It’s Tuesday, but it’s also kinda Monday.  No one is really happy about it.  Half the country had the day off yesterday, the other half are mad that they didn’t.

So what could make this day a little better?

How’s about a fun video featuring Dallas Green on the CBC Kids show Mamma Yamma? Seriously, how can not this make you smile at least just a little bit, right?

And in case you’re wondering, I already Googled it and Mamma Yamma is indeed a talking Yam.

Kids have it so lucky.

Before you start reading this, know one thing:  I know that I’m not a celebrity. 

This past weekend, I got the chance to play Celebrity Balderdash with two people who make my palms sweat: CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi and West Coast editor of the Globe and Mail Shelley Youngblut.  It was all a part of the Glenbow Museum’s annual fundraiser.

This year’s event was called Schmancy and it brought together all sorts of people from different fields in Calgary for a once a year party that had lots of food, music, fun times and crazy hats.

My favourite part of the night was definitely the Celebrity Balderdash.  It was a tense competition that saw the three of us play the game of lies and trickery, but instead of funny words, we had actual historical artifacts from the museum to play with.  The rules of the game were that we had to convince the sold out crowd and the judges  (City of Calgary’s Chima Nkemdirim  and W.Brett Wilson) that we were telling the truth about the often made up definitions.  At least that’s what I thought the rules were.  The whole thing turned into a popularity contest and let’s be honest, it’s impossible to beat Jian Ghomeshi in a popularity contest.  When the dust settled, I thought the tremendous applause for the host of Q meant that he had won, but thanks to rules that no one really understood, I ended up with the whole thing.  Needless to say, it was shocking…and AWESOME!

The night was definitely a good time and it’s not very often that I get to dress up, so that was a really cool part too.  I’m proud to say that I pulled together that whole look for under $100.  Although I live in Calgary, I’m still a (cheap) maritimer at heart.  Schmancy was a big success and I can’t wait for next year!

If you’re stuck in a dead-end job and you’re looking for a little bit of change in your life, then you’re in luck! Two very different reality shows are coming to a city near you and if you’re lucky enough, you could soon end up on TV…again, for very different reasons.

It was only last week that CityTV announced that Canadians would soon be enjoying The Bachelor Canada with their kleenex and boxed wine and now comes word that the show is a cross-country hunt for the 25 lucky ladies who will be vying for the heart of the yet un-named Bachelor!

Beginning Sunday,Feb. 19 in Vancouver, the six-city casting tour will also make stops in Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. Full details on the casting tour are available at www.citytv.com/bachelorcanada. The Bachelor Canada begins principal photography this spring and will debut on Citytv this fall.

Here are the casting call dates:

Vancouver – Sunday, Feb. 19
Calgary – Tuesday, Feb. 21
Winnipeg – Thursday, Feb, 23
Toronto – Saturday, Feb. 25
Montreal – Monday, Feb, 27
Halifax – Tuesday, Feb. 28

Good luck and please wear protection.

If you’re more the type that like to earn your fame without making out with a complete stranger, the producers of Dragon’s Den are also hitting the road starting this weekend on a casting tour that will see them hit nearly every corner of the country, for an expansive two-month casting call that will even hitting up a couple of cities a few different times.

I actually once sat in on the auditions and it was definitely an experience.  If you want to make it on the show, my tips are this:  Have an idea, have revenue and be serious.  If you’re not already making money from your idea and you get asked to be on the show, they are doing it to destroy you.  You’ve been warned!

Visit the Dragon’s Den website for more information about the auditions, here are is the complete list of audition dates.

Saturday Feb. 11 2012 Toronto ON
Thursday Feb. 16 2012 Peterborough ON
Friday Feb. 17 2012 Surrey BC
Saturday Feb. 18 2012 London ON
Saturday Feb. 18 2012 Vancouver BC
Tuesday Feb. 21 2012 St. Catharines ON
Wed. Feb. 22 2012 Campbell River BC
Thursday Feb. 23 2012 Kelowna BC
Thursday Feb. 23 2012 Saint John NB
Saturday Feb. 25 2012 Calgary AB
Saturday Feb. 25 2012 Sydney NS
Tuesday Feb. 28 2012 Port Hardy BC
Friday Feb. 29 2012 Quebec City QC
Thursday Mar. 1 2012 Barrie ON
Friday Mar. 2 2012 Sherbrooke QC
Saturday Mar. 3 2012 Burlington/Hamilton ON
Saturday Mar. 3 2012 Montreal QC
Saturday Mar. 3 2012 Ottawa ON
Thursday Mar. 8 2012 Saskatoon SK
Saturday Mar. 10 2012 St. John’s NL
Saturday Mar. 10 2012 Winnipeg MB
Tuesday Mar. 13 2012 White Horse NWT
Wednesday Mar. 14 2012 Oshawa ON
Thursday Mar. 15 2012 Charlottetown PEI
Thursday Mar. 15 2012 Dawson City YT
Thursday Mar. 15 2012 Timmins ON
Friday Mar. 16 2012 Waterloo ON
Saturday Mar. 17 2012 Halifax NS
Saturday Mar. 17 2012 Sudbury ON
Saturday Mar. 17 2012 Victoria BC
Sunday Mar. 18 2012 Nanaimo BC
Tuesday Mar. 20 2012 Sechelt BC
Thursday Mar. 22 2012 Sarnia ON
Thursday Mar. 22 2012 Collingwood ON
Thursday Mar. 22 2012 Kamloops BC
Saturday Mar. 24 2012 Windsor ON
Saturday Mar. 24 2012 Calgary AB
Saturday Mar. 24 2012 Montreal QC
Saturday Mar. 24 2012 Vancouver BC
Monday Mar. 26 2012 Abbotsford BC
Saturday Mar. 31 2012 Toronto ON

Last thing, how awesome does Arlene Dickinson  look in that pic?  I effin’ love her.

Earlier this morning, I was asked to join CBC Radio’s Unconventional to talk about the relevancy of the monarchy.

Seriously, they get me to talk about the weirdest stuff. Luckily, it’s always a blast.  This time I was joined by Western editor of the Globe and Mail Shelley Youngblut and the always entertaining George Brookman.

The debate was definitely divided between “old” and “young”, but it was easy to see where both sides were coming from.

Click here if you want to have a listen!

A few weeks ago, the future of CBC Television wasn’t in question, but people were certainly not in love with it.  After weeks and weeks of lackluster ratings for their shows, CBC was struggling to find an audience for any of its shows that didn’t take place on ice.

Well all of that changed this week, when CBC kicked off the New Year with a bang and didn’t look back.   In fact, last week, the Canadian network had its most successful season premiere week ever, with a number of new and returning CBC comedy, drama, unscripted and current affairs programs winning their time blocks – and several with audiences of more than one million viewers!  (For those who aren’t too familiar with ratings, anything over a million viewers is considered a success.)

Here are some of the highlights:

Artic Air had the largest audience for a premiere of a new drama series in 20 years, with total viewership of 1.05 million!

Mr. D. stars popular comedian Gerry Dee and it premiered to 1.23 million viewers – the largest for a comedy since the debut of  Little Mosque on the Prairie in January, 2007!

Marketplace, Dragons’ Den and Republic of Doyle all topped one million viewers too!

So what do you think, did you check out CBC for the first time in a long time.  I know that I did.  Mr. D. is hilarious, let’s all hope that for the sake of Canadian content, these numbers stick.

Welcome back to the game CBC.

Being a blogger, I get asked to a lot of weird things. And this morning was no exception, as I was asked to join CBC Radio’s Unconventional Panel and talk about, of all things, the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  Seriously.

I actually didn’t even know what it was, so I had to research (see: read Google News), which was fine. The situation got a little more stressful when I found out that I would be doing the panel with none other than W. Brett Wilson from Dragon’s Den and Risky Business.  Did I mention that he owns TWO Oil and Gas Companies!  Good grief!

Click here to listen to the panel, it got a little heated, but we always have a good time.

On Wednesday night, CBC will toast the holiday season with a special episode of Dragon’s Den. The festive-themed episode will see the Grinches and Scrooges take on entrepreneurs hoping to get a mistletoe of a deal. Has holiday wrapping met its match? Will a new seasonal light dazzle the Dragons? And it is Hockey Night in the Den with an original sporty belt.

To help celebrate the episode and CBC’s 75th anniversary, Gift A Day Giveaway #10 is for the CBC fan on your list.  Actually today’s giveaway is so huge, it will be sure to stuff more than one person’s stocking this Christmas!

The brand new Dragon’s Den Board Game
Driven – by Robert Herjavec
Cold Hard Truth – by Kevin O’Leary
Cornered – by Ron MacLean
Heartland DVD pack (Season 4)
In the Kitchen with Stefano apron
Best Recipes Ever cookbook
Persuasion – by Arlene Dickinson
Republic of Doyle Guide Book

Two ways to enter, each one will get you an entry to a maximum of two entries per gift! All entries must be received by Monday, December 19th at Noon/MST

1) Leave a comment telling me which was your favourite CBC show of all time.

2) Second entry can be done on twitter. Tweet: “I want to win CBC prize package from @mikesbloggity http://goo.gl/UYhVN #bloggitygifts”

Gift A Day Rules:
1) Gotta live in Canada.
2) Two entries per give away.

Missed a Day? You can still enter until December 19th at Noon/MST!
Gift A Day Giveaway #1: Panasonic Digital Camera.
Gift a Day Giveaway #2: Tom Tom Go 2505
Gift A Day Giveaway #3: Panasonic Genius Inverter Microwave
Gift A Day Giveaway #4: BBC Super Prize Pack!
Gift A Day Giveaway #5: Two night stay at any Delta Hotel and Resort!
Gift A Day Giveaway #6: Breaking Dawn Prize Pack!
Gift A Day Giveaway #7: Coca-Cola Prize Pack!
Gift A Day Giveaway #8: A Perogy Boyz Party for 12 people!
Gift A Day Giveaway #9: HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-one printer
Gift A Day Giveaway #10: CBC Prize Pack
Gift A Day Giveaway #11: Papyrus Gift Package
Gift A Day Giveaway #12: BlackBerry Curve!
Gift A Day Giveaway #13: Philips SensoTouch 3D/2D Series
Gift A Day Giveaway #14: Blurb Book Giveaway!
Gift A Day Giveaway #15: Degrassi Super Prize Pack!!
Gift A Day Giveaway #16: Sony Movie Prize Pack!

Tonight was a really special night in Calgary. CBC Radio’s most popular program ever, Q with Jian Ghomeshi taped an episode of the program right here in the city.

Now, to you Toronto and Vancouver folk, you might not think this is a big deal. But here in Calgary, we don’t get a lot of shows that involve a live audience. I actually can’t think of one, especially one as big as the cue.

The show will air on Friday, November 18th on CBC Radio, but I was lucky enough to attend the taping on Thursday night.  What I really loved was that Q really highlighted some of my favourite and this city’s most talented people  including Jann Arden, Michael Bernard Fitzgerald, actress Rebecca Northan and of course, our mayor Nenshi, who’s own superstar status almost stole the show.

The Calgary edition of Q also introduced me to Samantha Savage Smith, an amazing singer who’s album is currently downloading on to my computer as I type. There was also an interesting media panel discussion about both The Occupy Calgary movement and the Keystone pipeline debate, you’ll have to listen to the show yourself, but let’s just say there were cheers, jeers, boos and thankfully a little laughter.

It was great to see such an important show come to our little city in the west, I’m hoping that Jian will go back to Toronto and spread the word to other shows and that they themselves might think about coming out to visit us too.

Q airs daily on CBC Radio.

First things first, I know that this post being above the other one is ironic, but it was too funny to actually do anything about it.

This morning I got to join the always enjoyable Unconventional Panel on CBC’s The Eyeopener to talk about the Christmas Creep.  To be honest, I didn’t know what the Christmas Creep was at first.  I thought maybe there was a weird man wondering around in a Santa Claus costume.  But no, The Christmas Creep is actually the term used to discuss the idea that we are celebrating Christmas earlier and earlier every year.  I remember seeing in August that people were Tweeting about seeing Christmas Trees in Costco.  (God I love Costco, Xmas idea anyone?)

So this morning I joined comedian Cory Mack and Leanne “The Ironic Mom” Shirtliffe to talk about if by celebrating Christmas, are deluding the importantce of my favourite time of the year.

Click here to listen to the segment.

Thanks to David, Angela, Jenn and everyone at CBC, always a blast.

Happy (early) Holidays.

Just like any good mystery, the foretold death of Murdoch Mysteries has seen a twist, and it’s a gooder!

CBC has just announced that it will save the show that was canceled by Citytv after five relatively successful seasons.

If you’ve never caught the show, Murdoch Mysteries explores the intriguing turn-of-the-century world of William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson), a detective who pioneers radical forensic techniques for the time in his quest to solve the city’s crimes. Basically it’s like CSI without electricity. The series is shot in and around Toronto and Southern Ontario as well as additional locations across Canada including Dawson City and Ottawa,  and it’s also featured a lot of cool cameos and guest stars including Victor Garber, Peter Keleghan, Sebastian Pigott and of course, Stephen Harper.

I tried to think about other show’s that were saved by other Canadian networks, and none really came to mind.  I know that CTV brought back Degrassi, which initially aired on CBC.  But that’s really about it.  It would be nice if CTV, Global or Citytv took the steps necessary to save Being Erica, which is presumed to be currently airing its final season.

While I’ve never watched Murdoch Mysteries, it’s great to see that the Canadian production has been saved, because since it was developed in 2003, its created more than 5000 jobs for actors, writers, directors, producers, crew, extras and technical and production services.