Month: September 2007

TVWorks blogging policy

This policy governs the publication by employees of TVWorks Canada Inc. and its related companies (“TVWorks“) of blogs and other on-line commentary on platforms such as Wiki’s and social networking sites such as Facebook (for ease of reference all called “blogs” on this policy).

In all the time I’ve been blogging I’ve been quiet about where exactly I work; it hasn’t been for fear of retribution or anything like that—it’s always been a cool place to work that way, and it’s not like I get all that controversial on even the worst of days—but just because I didn’t have much to say. I’m not sure I’ll have that much more to say now that we’ve got a blogging policy (based on Sun’s) but it’s nice to know that we’ve got an executive team who recognize that there are conversations out here—about OCAP, interactive television, cable and media in general—to start and to contribute to.

Oh yeah, before I forget: everything I post here is my own opinion and doesn’t represent the views of TVWorks or Major League Baseball.

Evolution of user friendliness

The new attachment warning could mean the end of those “Sorry, I forgot to attach the file” emails. If you try to send an email that contains the word “attachment” (or similar words), but don’t actually attach a file, you will see a helpful warning.

Things I learned today

From CBC’s Test the Nation: The correct spelling of just desserts is actually just deserts:

Deserts, in the sense of ‘things deserved’ has been used in English since at least the 13th century.

From the Quirks and Quarks blog: The Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched over two weeks after Voyager 2. Despite that, Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth, due to differences in trajectory between the two probes. (Also of interest: a playable/viewable version of the Golden Record is online.)

Love for Dear Harvard

Brett Love at TVSquad has posted a review of the Dear Harvard pilot:

[…] there was a nice surprise in Dear Harvard. […] Of the four drama pilots that I saw, this one is the closest to what I would call ready for prime time. It starts with a solid premise. The ‘Dear Harvard’ from the title is a blog kept by the main character, Honor, chronicling her quest to make it to the Ivy League. […] It’s also the best ‘pilot’ of the bunch as it really does a good job setting up what the series would be. […] The production values of Dear Harvard are really high as well. It’s one of the best looking of the pilots I have seen.

(You’ll remember that Dear Harvard is the TV pilot in which Claire Jenkins has a few songs. There’s a trailer online, but it’s being served in such a way that I can’t play it to see if any of Claire’s music appears in it.)

He suggests, as I did, that it’s obvious CW fare, but points out that that mini-network has a similarly-targeted show already scheduled. There’s obviously hope, though, so I’ll keep fingers crossed and an ear to the ground for new developments.

And developments there are…

“Harvard,” a teen drama about a young girl at an elite private school, won three awards, including the TV Guide Audience Award, which is voted by popular choice. The Anne Jarmain-produced pilot also won for best drama, and Ella Rae Peck was named best actress.

By the way, lest any regular folk think from the recent slew of posts about Claire that I’ve forsaken Lenni, fear not! There’s much good news to come from Miss Jabour… just not quite yet.

Gilmour, Sowande and Ellington

A brief followup to Li Robbins’ Radio 2 blog post, mainly for my own future reference: the particular movement of Fela Sowande‘s African Suite that was used as the opening theme song for Gilmour’s Albums is the fifth and last, Akinla. (For some reason the CBC Shop claims it’s the first movement, Joyful Day, but unless it was changed or the song changes substantially from that sample, that ain’t it.) The closing theme is Duke Ellington’s Saturday Night Function.

Ahoy!

Those of you who will be near or in Toronto next Monday night need to find your way to Supermarket for Claire Jenkins Avec Band‘s CD release concerts. I hesitate to call Claire’s music indie rock, because that can refer to an awful lot of stuff that’s nothing at all like what she does; on her MySpace page she says indie / acoustic / pop, which is closer, but your best bet is to head on over to listen to the tracks she’s posted and come up with your own genre.

There’s an early show at 7pm and a late one at 10pm, so no it’s a school night excuses will be accepted. (I’m driving down for the late show, so I’m less than sympathetic to the it’s too far folks either. 🙂 ) And bring cash, because you’ll feel awfully silly not being able to relive the show (through the magic of CD technology) as soon as you get home.