I HAD YET ANOTHER BIZARRE DREAM...
This one was pretty cool.
Now, in real life, I've found stores that break the street date for DVD sales before. In 2001, I got the
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace DVD about a week early at the Pincourt Zellers, and then, a month or so later, I got the
Ah! My Goddess movie several days early at Marché Clandestin, the anime rental/sales place on Ontario street just west of Saint Dénis. Well, in my dream, I went to some store, one that was probably supposed to be the Pincourt Zellers, that really, really, really broke the street date on the
Incredibles DVD, which probably won't be out on DVD in real life until next fall. And my dream made the point that what I had in my hands was the official Disney/Pixar release and not some bootleg taped off a movie screen with a videocamera. And the dream had a couple of "false awakenings", where I dreamt that I wake up in bed and I still had the
Incredibles DVD with me. I don't think I dreamt the cover right, though, since the cover in my dream had white lettering on a blue background just like the
Finding Nemo DVD (and the DVD case was in a cardboard sleeve, also like the
Finding Nemo DVD), while I presume the actual DVD cover will be red, like the movie posters.
Previous bizarre dreams:
Al Sharpton sleeps on our couch and plays with our air conditioner.
Meteors bounce off of Hart department store in Pincourt.
THINGS CANADIANS CAN GET NOW, PART TWO...
At long last, the CRTC has approved Fox News as a channel Canadian satellite and cable TV services can provide.
"The Fox News Channel should be available to Canadian digital subscribers as early as January, says the president of the organization that persuaded the federal broadcast regulator to allow the all-news U.S. service into Canada.
Michael Hennessy, president of the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association, predicted "easy negotiations" ahead between his members and Fox News in New York after yesterday's decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to give the channel unrestricted access to the Canadian market as a specialty service on digital cable, satellite or wireless television.
"They're keen to be here, and we're keen to have them," he said. About 4 million Canadian households have digital programming, either through cable or direct-to-home satellite subscription. With the addition of Fox News -- whose right-wing views and uncritical support of the Bush administration have earned it 80 million U.S. subscribers -- those numbers should swell, Mr. Hennessy said.
"Any time we can offer a service that has brand recognition like Fox [it] can't help but draw attention to all the other digital services.""
While I don't think I should thank the CRTC since I don't think there should be any legislative gates preventing American channels from reaching Canadian viewers in the first place, still, it's about bloody time. No, it's long past bloody time. Especially considering we've had Fox Sports Canada for a couple of years now.
Not that I think all that many Canadians who don't already read the
National Post, listen to Rush Limbaugh online, or live in the province of Alberta will watch it, but, still, I think the majority of Canadians have a far too dim and condescending view of what the people in the so-called "Red States" do, think, and believe, and, as the most populist example of the conservative-biased media, I'd hope this will give some insight into the general right-of-centre worldview and why, despite what the people on the CBC might tell you, why it's not something to be feared or dreaded. And it is nice to have a ideological counterpoint to most of the rest of the liberal Canadian media other than maybe the news on Global stations, which hardly anyone watches.
And now a certain member of one of the anime boards I post at can have a slightly more legitimate reason to believe that I've been brainwashed by Fox News, which he's always believed before even though I couldn't watch it where I live.
Maybe, if it catches on, there will eventually be enough of an audience to start a Fox News Canada, or at least add a couple of right-of-centre shows produced in Canada relevant to Canadians to the American feed.
THINGS CANADIANS CAN GET NOW, PART ONE...
My mother went out grocery shopping earlier, and she got me a mini-bottle of
Pepsi Holiday Spice ("Pepsi Fêtes Épicées" in French), described by Pepsi-Cola as being "the great taste of Pepsi with a festive blend of holiday spices", getting "its festive flavor from a hint of cinnamon and ginger."
Unlike regular Pepsi, the drink is sort of a dark crimson in hue. In opaqueness, it's somewhere between being totally opaque like normal Pepsi and see-through like Pepsi Blue was.
The verdict? Actually, it does taste delectably ambrosial, certainly much better than I'd heard elsewhere on the Internet by people who hate all kinds of flavoured colas. I don't know if it's just a suggestive psychological effect of the red colouring, and I certainly can't find any official acknowledgement of this in the list of ingredients, but I'd swear that this drink almost tastes like spicy cranberry juice. (I suppose cranberries might be included under the vague "natural flavours", the weasel words both major cola companies use to avoid listing the exact ingredients they use to make their cola taste distinctive from the other guy's cola, because, yes, Coke and Pepsi do taste very different from one another.) Like Pepsi Blue, I can't really detect the actual Pepsi "secret formula" taste which I could detect in Pepsi Twist, Wild Cherry Pepsi, and Vanilla Pepso, but, unlike Pepsi Blue, Pepsi Holiday Spice doesn't taste completely noxious.
Yes, Pepsi Holiday Space is very much like egg nog in being a special taste that is something that is very pleasant to drink every once in a while, but you wouldn't have with every meal. But I would drink it again, even if it wasn't a novelty drink.
Then again, I also liked the short-lived Sprite Ice, the mint-flavoured Sprite that Coca-Cola test-marketed in Canada and a couple of other international markets. (It didn't taste like mouthwash, the subtle mint flavouring actually kind of accentuated the lemon, making it taste more like Schweppes' Bitter Lemon.) And I'm a big fan of Vanilla Coke, which a lot of people seem to hate (though CJAD's Kevin Holden also loves it). And I was one of the few people who actually preferred New Coke. So be advised that my tastes in soft drinks do not necessarily reflect the plurality opinion. Like my favourite pretentious Latin phrase says, "de gustibus non disputandum est". (When it comes to taste, there is no point in arguing.)
So, this Christmas... erm, I mean, "generic Politically correct unspecified holiday" season, 'Tis the Cola, as Pepsi puts it.
Also, speaking of holiday soft drinks,
X-Entertainment.com's Matt Caracappa has written a hilarious article wherein he, and a panel of four other co-workers, have a taste test of
Jones Soda's heavily-publicized Limited Edition
Holiday Pack of five rather unconventional (or four unconventional and one plausible) soft drink flavours: Turkey and Gravy Soda, Cranberry Soda, Mashed Potato and Butter Soda, Green Bean Casserole Soda, and Fruitcake Soda, with proceeds going to the charity,
Toys for Tots. I don't know what Cranberry Soda is doing in with that lot, since I'm sure I've seen such a concoction sold elsewhere by one of the fruit-flavoured soft drink manufacturers, but the X-E panel also didn't totally hate the Fruitcake Soda, with one of them commenting that it "would be good [with] some Belvedere", whatever that means. Maybe she means it would taste good while she watches the great 80s sitcom
Mr. Belvedere, since both fruitcake and the late Christopher Hewett, who played the titular Kim Belvdere, are both rather British in origin. (Ooh, I didn't know Christopher Hewett was born in Worthing, West Sussex, near Rustington, where I was born.) Also, the Mashed Potato and Butter Soda apparently tastes mostly like butter, which means that at least one person in the world, or, rather, the fictional
"Free Country, USA", would appreciate it:
The King of Town"!
EDIT: Speaking of Pepsi Spice,
this site, written by a guy who, according to
his blog, was the model for the guy in Sierra's
Half-Life, is chronicling a month and a half drinking only Pepsi Holiday Spice, obviously inspired by Morgan Spurlock's
Super Size Me. Fine, but, like with Morgan Spurlock's experiences with McDonald's, I hope he realizes that he's only doing a glorified Stupid Human Trick and doesn't think he's proving anything significant by showing that, gasp, a constant diet of junk food isn't the healthiest thing in the world.
YUP, GUY CLOUTIER IS SCUM...
Guy Cloutier, the Quebec impressario mega-producer who managed Quebec "vedettes" like Nathalie Simard, Réné Simard, Clodine Desrochers, and Natasha St-Pier, and who was behind many popular Quebec television series, like
Le Village du Nathalie,
La Fureur, and
Loft Story, and stage shows, like
Elvis Story (which has just opened in
Shanghai) and
Don Juan de Marco,
has pled guilty to five of eight of the charges brought against him, involving the sexual abuse of one girl and the sexual assault of another minor, whose gender cannot be revealed.
"Guy Cloutier, who's been called the king of Quebec's show business world, surprised court spectators Wednesday by pleading guilty to five sex-related charges.
Cloutier, 64, had been facing eight charges. He pleaded guilty at the start of his preliminary hearing Wednesday to fourof those charges, including sexual assault, indecent assault, obstruction of justice, and having sex with a girl under 14.
He also pleaded guilty to a new charge of indecent assault involving another victim.
The offences Cloutier was accused of spanned from 1978 to 2001. All involved the same woman, who was not identified because some of the alleged crimes happened while she was a minor.
The Crown has asked the judge to sentence Cloutier to five years in prison."
Here's an excerpt from a
French language article about the case:
"Le producteur Guy Cloutier a plaidé coupable, ce matin, à Montréal, à quatre chefs d'accusation d'agression sexuelle et d'entrave à la justice qui pesaient sur lui et à un cinquième chef concernant une seconde victime.
Dans le cas des cinq premières accusations, la victime est une femme qui était mineure au moment des premières agressions. Dans le second cas, le sexe de la victime n'est pas spécifié et comme le juge Robert Sansfaçon de la Cour du Québec a accepté que la preuve soit présentée à huis clos, cet élément demeurera secret.
"C'est une situation unique dans ma carrière de 20 ans", a déclaré le magistrat qui semblait fort mal à l'aise. Malgré les représentations faites par un avocat qui s'opposait au huis clos, à la demande de divers médias, le juge a conclu que si les informations concernant la seconde victime étaient publiques, cette personne serait non seulement facile à identifier mais subirait "un préjudice grave et important" en plus d'effets dévastateurs à moyen et long termes."
The gist of that is that, if any details about the second victim were published, not only would it be very easy to identify that person but his or her career would be overshadowed by the abuse.
Here's another article in French with details about the abuse and the paying off of the first victim. Cloutier was allegedly giving her at least $2000 a month, which was up to $5000 a month by the time the allegations first surfaced in the media, and he also bought her a house valued at $450 000. In 2002, the victim told her brother, who then went to Cloutier and told him that he's pay dearly for what he did, and, in January, the victim met with Cloutier, threatening to write a book about her experiences, but Cloutier told her that her book would bomb and she probably wouldn't get more than $150 000 for it, and Cloutier offered her $300 000 to not write the book. A couple of weeks later, she finally went to the police. (EDIT: I found
a Globe and Mail article in English with many of the same details.)
Guy Cloutier's daughter, Véronique Cloutier (a.k.a. "Véro"), the former Musique Plus V.J. and host of the
Véro Show and
La Fureur and an actress in the 2002 film
Les Dangereux, has taken over her father's production company, Les Productions Guy Cloutier, now renamed
Novem. Guy Cloutier's name has been erased from
the page about the history of the company.
The Montreal Gazette is reporting that, despite the publication ban, Internet speculation about the identities of the two victims is running rampant. Well, duh! Although I've selectively edited certain old blog entries where I mentioned a certain name directly in correlation to the allegations (though, intitially, I didn't think it was that person, and, in any event, this is technically an American website outside of the jurisdiction of the publication ban), plenty of information about the victim was leaked out in the early days of the case and a couple of French language news sources either named the name directly or gave the initials, and, because of that, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Quebecers think they know exactly who the victim is. This is just one of those rare cases where, for better or for worse, the publication ban is completely futile as the genie was out of the bottle pretty much as soon as the story broke and you can't erase Quebecers' memories. "Je Me Souviens" and all that. You could almost make the cast that the publication ban actually
helps Cloutier, since knowing who the victim is would make what he did seem just that much worse to most people, not that the abuse would really be any less tragic if most of us who think we know who it is have the wrong person, but, and I know it's awful to admit this but I'm just telling the truth about society so don't shoot the messenger, the "perception" of the awfulness of the crime would be that much worse.
Cloutier pleading guilty is probably a blessing to the sanity of Quebec reporters, since, if this case had gone to trial, it would have indeed been the "Trial of the Century", the O.J. Simpson trial on a local scale, and reporters would have driven themselves batty trying to find creative ways to flout the spirit but not technically break the word of the publication ban, offering a lot of subtle "nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean?" hints about the victim. And some American papers would have picked up this rather sensationalistic story and they'd have been able to say pretty much everything including names, much to the ire of the local reporters, who would be muzzled. I'd imagine any American paper that would flout the publication ban on the names would be pulled from circulation in Canada on the days they report on the trial, so you'd likely be getting record traffic across the border to pick up a newspaper in some little "2 feet across the border" hamlet like Rouses Point NY.
I hope the victim does write that book, since we would no longer have to skate around the name on anything we write in a public forum.
AS RARE AS THIS IS FOR ME...
...I'm going to criticize McDonald's.
Now, you know I defend McDonald's against the Morgan Spurlocks of this world, because, whatever Spurlock's intentions were when he was making
Super Size Me, a whole lot of activists, trial lawyers, and other nanny state advocates that you bloody well know never willingly eat at McDonald's jumped on Spurlock's bandwagon after seeing that stupid-human-trick-cum-documentary and put pressure on McDonald's to make changes, and McDonald's capitulated and removed the option to super-size your meal in the United States (but not Canada), though you could still get large sizes, but you have to order the individual menu items separately, which is a little more expensive. The problem with the capitulation was that people that don't eat at McDonald's were indirectly responsible for McDonald's removing of an option for those of us who like eating at McDonald's, and, with the "Nutrition Gestapo", if McDonald's gives them an inch, they'll go for a mile and try and get McDonald's to make other changes, such as, maybe, cooking the fries in an oil that might be a bit healthier but makes the fries taste less good. Worse still, while
Super Size Me by no means started the drumbeat in the media calling for more government regulations and fat taxes (which
David Frum thinks are a good idea? Is he channeling the spirit of his liberal CBC mother?) and other such nanny state nincompoopery, it certainly increased the tempo and amplitude of the drumming for a while. The straight truth about McDonald's is that plenty of us choose to eat there fully aware that it isn't close to being the healthiest food in the world, but the taste and/or enjoyment that we get from eating fast food outweighs our concerns about our nutritional intake.
However, all that being said, by no means do I think that people should pig out at McDonald's, eating to excess, just because I think they should be able to do so if they so choose. Common sense and moderation should be the guiding principles. Having McDonald's a couple of times a week won't kill you, but that shouldn't be all you eat. And the large sizes should be an option, for the rare times you feel like eating that much, but the medium-size portions at McDonald's are more than enough for most people most of the time.
Getting to my criticism, as someone who always has the non-supersized meals at McDonald's, I've noticed, the last couple of times I went to McDonald's, I did not get the game pieces for the
annual Monopoly "Best Chance Game" sweepstakes promotion on the side of my fries and drink. At first I assumed that perhaps this was just because the various McDonald's locations I've visited over the past month, in Beaconsfield, Dorion, and the one in Central Station in downtown Montreal, just, for whatever reason, hadn't received the cups and cardboard french fry containers with the game pieces on them. This evening, after seeing
The Incredibles at the Famous Players Colisée cinema in Kirkland, I took the 217 bus to Beaconsfield and had dinner at McDonald's, and, while there, had a good look at the overhead panel advertising the Monopoly promotion.
It turns out, to get the Monopoly pieces, you need to order the *large-sized* fries and drink. Well, okay, technically, according to the
contest rules, there is a way to get game pieces without any purchase via mail-in requests so that the government doesn't consider this promotion to be a "lottery", but to get the pieces the normal way, without jumping through any hoops, you have to order the large-sized items, either individually or by super-sizing your meal. And that's even though, in past McDonald's Monopoly promotions, I'm pretty sure the game pieces were available on the medium-sized items too. This just doesn't strike me as being particularly responsible or prudent a promotion, either to McDonald's customers, most of whom otherwise wouldn't be ordering the largest sizes, or considering the pressure McDonald's has been getting to become more health conscious from the aforementioned nanny state advocates.
The purpose of the Monopoly promotion should merely be to bring more customers into McDonald's, not to, for all intents and purposes, force them to purchase the least healthy-sized portions if they want to participate. McDonald's is giving ammo to its opponents by giving some degree of validation to the belief, fair or unfair, that McDonald's tries to coerce its customers into ordering the largest size possible.
Bottom line, America? McDonald's of Canada should go back to putting the Monopoly pieces on the medium-sized containers too.
