Merlin Olsen, Dead at 69
Published March 12, 2010 @ 07:57 in Celebrity Death Watch
Merlin Olsen was 69. He was a member of the Los Angeles Rams' "Fearsome Foursome" in the 1960s, along with Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy and Rosey Grier. He later starred on NFL broadcasts, commercials, and the TV series "Little House on the Prairie" and "Father Murphy."
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Toronto Blog Stars (Or Kids Today and Their Pangs for Fame)
Published March 11, 2010 @ 21:45 in Toronto News ~ Toronto Focus
A few Toronto bloggers are hosting an event they're calling The Guide to Social Media Success: The Ultimate How-To with the Toronto Blog Stars. As you'll see in the promo YouTube video below, it's featuring "the top three bloggers" in this city.
I must admit, I hadn't heard heard of Sean Ward before I saw that clip, and I only first heard of Casie Stewart earlier this year when I caught a Raymi tweet about her. Raymi I've known for years, having interviewed her not once, but twice. In 10 seconds, this Sean Ward guy comes across as such a pretentious douche bag I just broke my laptop screen trying to punch him in the face, but I digress...
What do you get from these Toronto Blog Stars for your $20? According to the Toronto Blog Stars registration page, you will learn everything you need to know about living the Blog Star lifestyle using blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and social networking, including:
- how to get - and keep - the attention of movers and shakers in your industry
- how to turn your everyday life into compelling content
- how to brand yourself online
- what programs and applications to use to host your site, keep track of your statistics, and promote yourself & your blog
Full props to these three Toronto bloggers for trying to make a little coin from kids today, desperately panging for some semblance of celebrity. If they can get a bunch of local blogger star wannabes to cough up $20 a pop for this content, good on 'em.
I invented compelling content. I have the attention of movers and shakers. I've branded myself online. If you want to learn all these things and more, I'll sing like a canary for $15, and I promise you'll never feel compelled to kick my ass.
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The Monster Under the Bed North American Premiere
Published March 11, 2010 @ 21:19 in Reviews
The Young People's Theatre, or Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People (LKTYP) as it's now known, hosted the North American premiere tonight of The Monster Under the Bed. I was lucky enough to catch it from the first row with my kids, who wore their pyjamas to this giant PJ party.
Performances at the LKTYP are consistently great, and it's always a big bang for the buck. The way I judge these plays is I watch my kids' faces. Tonight they were wide eyed and thoroughly entertained by The Monster Under the Bed, and that makes this another winner.
If you've got kids between the ages of 5 and 12 and you're looking for something to do this March break, you might want to click here and order tix to this thing. It features a giant bed and tonnes of fun.

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Relax? You Relax! The Star on Crosby's Gear
Published March 11, 2010 @ 11:22 in My 2 Cents
Maybe I shouldn't check my RSS feeds when I'm in a fighting mood. The headline in my Google Reader ticked me off. From The Star's hockey feed, "Relax, Canada: Crosby's Gear Found".

It's the "Relax, Canada" part that really boiled my potatoes. This whole anxiety over the whereabouts of Sidney Crosby's missing stick and glove was completely manufactured. I skipped every article on the subject and never once felt inclined to write about it. Crosby scored the golden goal, giving this nation a moment we'll never forget, and I don't believe one Canadian gives one iota what happened to the gloves and stick her threw into the air. I sure didn't.
I clicked through the "Relax, Canada" headline and noticed the actual article on The Star's site was changed. "Relax, Canada" was preserved in the page's url, and cached in my Google Reader, but gone from sight on the actual page.

Relax, Star... we could give a shit about the gloves and stick. It's your condescending tone that's got me all riled up.
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Most Popular Social Networking Websites
Published March 10, 2010 @ 19:47 in Lists
According to Wikipedia, these are the biggest social networking websites you'd know about in North America, sorted alphabetically.
- Classmates.com
- Facebook
- Flixster
- Flickr
- Last.fm
- LinkedIn
- MySpace
- Twitter
- Windows Live Spaces
I currently have accounts with Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and Twitter. Which ones do you use?
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Corey Hart - Sunglasses at Night
Published March 10, 2010 @ 16:15 in Weekly MP3s
I share an MP3 from my collection every Wednesday. You have seven days to grab this week's MP3. Please right-click your mouse and select "Save Link As..." or "Save target as..." so you can download it to your PC before playing.
Corey Hart - Sunglasses at Night In a decade ruled by Coreys, this was my favourite of all the Corey songs.
26 years after it's initial release, it still sounds great.
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Corey Haim, Dead at 38
Published March 10, 2010 @ 08:44 in Celebrity Death Watch
Corey Haim was 38. He was the Toronto actor who starred in such films as "Lucas", "The Lost Boys" and "License to Drive". Locals will remember him as Larry on "The Edison Twins" before he shot to fame in the mid-to-late 80s.
Growing up in this city, it seemed like everyone had a Corey Haim connection. Every one of us was two degrees of separation from him or closer, and we all heard the stories. Here's a little something I wrote about Corey Haim back in 2006.

To Corey's friends and family in this city, I'm deeply sorry for your loss. I always liked the guy and rooted for him to slay his demons.
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Farrah Fawcett's Oscar Snub
Published March 9, 2010 @ 22:13 in Television
Ten years ago, my brothers and I drafted a dead pool. At some point I deemed the contest grossly insensitive and stopped updating the page, but I didn't delete it. Instead, I changed "the dead pool" into the slightly less offensive Celebrity Death Watch.
When a famous person kicks the bucket, I write about it and add them to that page. When Farrah Fawcett passed away last year, she got an entry, even though her death was overshadowed a few hours later by another celebrity passing.
During the Oscar telecast Sunday night, they aired this "in memoriam" segment, as they do every year. It includes just about everyone in the world of film that passed away during the previous year. Michael Jackson was recognized, even though he's not primarily known for his film career, but Farrah Fawcett was snubbed.
I didn't notice the Farrah Fawcett snub on Sunday night, but thought it was awfully strange when Jill left a comment about it on this entry. Although best known as a television star, Farwcett did appear in 19 films, including The Apostle, Extremities, Cannonball Run, and Logan's Run. They recognize people for far, far less than that.
The Academy can't even claim it was an accident. Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences spokeswoman Leslie Unger says "every year, it's an unfortunate reality that we can't include everybody".
You'd think they'd have found a second or two for Farrah. As the kids are saying, this was a huge FAIL.
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Sarah Palin Used to Cross the Border for Canadian Health Care
Published March 9, 2010 @ 16:02 in Politics
Our Canadian Health Care used to be acceptable to Sarah Palin. I'm guessing she didn't pay for the services she received in this country, either.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin - who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care - admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.
"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"
The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.
How does that old Alanis song go again? Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you..
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