In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lest we forget.

It's strange...with all the things cascading to pieces around here today, I was tempted to dig out my DVD set from Outer Limits (original series) and watch it...somehow the control voice that opens each ep seems so appropriate somehow.

FYI, the subs are broke, vids are showing up weird and Recently added shows list shows nothing...oh, and I modded a Red Green sub last night where the system poofed part of it during the process.

I thought this stuff only happened on long weekends..

Tickets

It suprised the heck out of me to read this. I just got the editorship here out of curiousity about the show and such (seeing former NHL enforcers figure skating in Maple Leaf Gardens with guest judges like Don Cherry and Lanny McDonald is an odd mix.

I'll blog a bit more about Battle of the Blades this weekend and some other stuff...take care everybody!

I miss my friend.

Hi, everybody!....hope things are going ok where you are...starting to get those nippy temps in the air but still its glorious weather....they had the annual Windsor Pumpkin River race down in my neck of the woods where entrants paddle or motor giant pumpkin boats down a river. Sounds silly but when you think about it, its something that sounds a heckuva lot more interesting than a typical weekend in many ways...

- TV wise, I've been watching a fair bit of Survivor and Amazing Race this year and as far as Survivor goes, I'm getting a little irked at people recruited to that show who turn out to be nothing more than minor actress/actor wannabes who mug for the camera in hopes they get to launch a career out of it. Yasmin, who was just eliminated in this season, wore high heel shoes to Tribal Council for crying out loud!...and she's not the first in recent seasons. If anything kills reality shows in general, its the influx of actor/actress by producers looking to prop things up ratings wise. I want to see a real guy/gal from the US in a show, not a "model/bartender/hairstylist" looking to land more acting gigs.

- What else today?..hmmm..I've read where V might be shown in two blocks for the upcomng season with a break inbetween...oh, yeah, that'll work....go ask the folks behind the late Jericho or even Lost how that experiment went....

- Site wise, it's a little quiet though the forums themselves have looked a little squirrely at times. I've seen Dec. 31, 1969 as latest thread posting for all forums...strange but for here, its normal. Guide wise, I'll be finishing the recaps for Urban Legends this week and moving onto some other old shows I'm doing afterwards. I did assume editorship over some old Depatie/Freleng toon guides recently (same people who did the Pink Panther toons) and will work away on them.

- Real world wise, I see where RCMP across the country have been advised by the Taser manufacturers to avoid hitting a target in the chest with device as the voltage may lead to complications. Considering the incidents over the last twelve months in Canada, this isn't a surprise. Tasers need a bit more stricter guidelines for use in general, in my opin....

- That's bout all.....next season of Hawaii 5-0 comes out next week on DVD...always good to watch....

Have a good week, everybody!

Hello, everybody!....hope things are going well for ya....'round here, we're getting our final taste of hot weather before the slow descent to fall type weather. Personally, I really enjoy the fall more than any other season...cool weather, no stifling humidity, wind chill or the slushy junk of spring.

- Well, things on the site seem pretty quiet...the staff here have fully retreated from posting in the forums completely which is sorta like the days of Snide sadly. Oh, and if you think I'm overlooking the announcements about new vides/new HD vids, I'm not...just ignoring them like the Import Cast glitch has been ignored by the site techs.

- As for me, working away on the guides....finished recapping Season 1 of Urban Legends and have a handful of eps left for season 2. Besides that, working on the odd guide as well as moderating subs. I do wish people would realize that not everything mentioned at Wikipedia/Wikis needs to be in a guide here. There's a line between Trivia and junk when it comes to guides and items like the number of times a character is sick in an ep, for example, is usually in the latter.

- Entertainment wise, two things grabbed my attention recently. One is that Bryan Singer, director of the first two X-Men movies, has been approached to direct the big screen version of Battlestar Galactica (Glen A. Larson version, not Moore). It'll be interesting to see what Larson and Singer can do given that Singer was originally asked to do the re-imagining before dropping out to do the big screen X-Men movies.

The other thing that intrigues me is that Frank Darabont, director of The Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile, will be doing a TV series based on the comic book series The Walking Dead, a zombie apocalypse series that is also character driven and the show will be on AMC. For any other director, I might say mehhh but Darabont has a habit of bringing out the best in source material. That being said, it'll be interesting to see how they get this kind of story on television without the censors going wild.

- Well, that's about all...hopefully, the new fall season will pop up a few gems this year though up in Canada, it's kinda scary when E! Canada just folds and all five of the stations they had were re-branded or are on the verge of going off the air completely.

Have a great week everybody!

I miss my friend.

During my usual submissions, I routinely submit a Note to an episode guide if a cast or crew member is credited under an alias so that a) someone won't come along and submit a change to the listings that is not needed and b) helps noting for person's guide where an Alias was used. Today, I had such a sub rejected for an older animated guide by staff and have to resubmit to explain "why it is significant".

Must..order..more...stress balls...

The staff recently made it so that Level 1 newbies can submit...and now the down side of this emerges. I just had a submission for an ep in my guide that is recapped from a level 1- 0 % member who changed nothing but mentions in comments that he/she wants to see the series and episode.

So, for those who think this change is a good idea, keep this in mind when new eps start rolling out of popular shows...sigh....

Sad to hear that David Carradine, star of Kung Fu and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues as well as the Kill Bill movies and a large number of other shows/movies, was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room today. David was 72.

I think the best way to describe his acting style was relaxed and laid back. He seemed to have a wry sense of humor even as he was in an intense action/drama scene.

RIP David...you will be missed.

- Hi, everybody! Hope everything is going well for the start of the week....round here, it's still sorta cool and wet spring type weather...it's not bad, though, compared to the hot and humid stuff soon to come.

- Well, the upfront stuff is being announced for the coming fall TV season and a few surprises will be happen here and there. Dollhouse got renewed by Fox but given the budget cutbacks, lousy time slot and its lead in show is a comedy(!), I'll be surprised if it gets all the way thru a second season. Shows that have me interested that are new/sorta new: Day One, V (remake of the 80's series that was huge as a mini-series but was very weak in its lone season afterwards) and The Bridge (another CTV/CBS joint show). I'm sure they'll be other shocks and surprises as the schedules roll out this week.

- Guide wise, finished recapping Season 1 of King of Kensington (3 eps unavailable for music copyrights) and have a few left for Season 2. Next, recapping a few shows I've just not had time to get done (recorded but stored for free time, whatever that is... )

- One thing I have been doing is checking the New Shows section here at the site fairly regularly...some kinda odd stuff popping up. Mind you, I also saw one show that has been announced as a pilot for one network that already has an editor in place without any eps listed. Ahhh, the dedication of some people these days even with the need to attain 80 CP's to get the honour...it really is, well, hard to put into words...

- That's bout all...as for me, watching Season 6 of Mission Impossible on DVD...I really like the show but the sixth season had far too many criminal syndicate plots. A lot of shows tend to get like that when they pass their expiration date.......take care, everybody!

I miss my friend.

Hi, everybody....hope things are going good for ya wherever ya are...round here, it's slowly creaking into warmer weather though a bit hit and miss so far....low 20's C for high today before diving down to mid-teens again for rest of this week.

- Well, the swine flu is THE news item on the networks and part of me can't help but be a little cynical about the media coverage. If this had originated in Europe or South America instead of Mexico, would CNN and all the talking heads be on this as hard as they have been? I hope this whole think peaks soon regardless and there are no more mortalities associated with it.

- Site wise, I see level updates are frozen once again with no real idea when they will be fixed. Hopefully, it will be soon as I'd hate to see people slow down guide work because of this. As for me, picked up a few guides recently and working away on updating others. Just too much work to do to put off and such.

Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqqO-sWDM7E

(A great little folksy song I first heard a while back..not the original music video made for it but still good.)

Well, that's bout all...oh, I do recommend that if you get a chance, watch the Season 6 DVD set of Hawaii 5-0....the last ep of the season features a great performance by Patrick Wayne. Take care, everybody!

I miss my friend.

Howdy, everybody..hope everything is going well....spring like weather is gradually coming here and luckily, no floods like what is happening out in Winnipeg and surrounding areas.

- Saw a sports article about various promotions being carried out in pro baseball stadiums this summer with the Florida team holding a "Lawyer Appreciation Night"....two things come to mind with this: 1) Holding this at a place that serves alcohol to non-lawyers may not be a good thing 2) Saying one appreciates lawyers is kinda odd for anyone to say...

- Site wise, I was a bit taken aback by the staff not only rolling back part of the disastrous ep page redesign but PMing people to thank them for the feedback. Is it a sign that someone in power is giving more than lip service to the statement that "Feedback is appeciated and listened to..."? We shall see though I still say the Dev team here has to get more hands on when they ram thru site changes. Making the PTB happy is all well and good but if it results in diminished functionality of the site to people visiting, the site slides backwards as a result.

- Myself, continuing to recap the odd show. I picked up the editorship for The Friendly Giant and will fill the guide in as best as possible. Oh, and it's been rather amusing to keep up on the New Shows added to the database here recently as apparently whoever does it forget to check to see whether show X is here already from time to time. In addition, there's been some odd choices for adding as well...Roland Garros (twice), which is the French Open tennis broadcast, was added along with a fairly large number of TV movies...interesting, yes?..

- Well, that's bout all....have a good weekend everybody...oh, and new DVD sets for Hawaii 5-0 and Mission:Impossible come out in the next few weeks...good stuff!

I miss my friend.

Hello, everybody!....hope things are going well....first day of pro baseball not counting the Sunday night thing (and I don't)....a time to look outside and hope the snow is done for a while round here though I do remember one year getting snow in May (walking home from work in sneakers and 2-3 inches of fresh stuff is an experience...)

- Well, the turmoil continues round here with some of the staff acknowledging it exists in their blogs. I think the phrase " waiting for the other shoe to drop..." definitely applies to many senior members around here as the next re-design looms on the horizon. Will the concerns be heard and addressed in it or ignored completely? Hard to say though if it's the latter, look for a lot more sounds of crickets around here with regards to guide work.

- As for me, I picked up the editorship for the Super Dave show this past week....a good little variety show that spun off, in a way, Super Dave's appearances on Bizarre. Besides that, adding recaps (about 90 % done with Swiss Family Robinson) and building up the Wayne and Shuster guide. I wish the latter was still broadcast on TV around here...I'd take it over reruns of Relic Hunter or cheaply made travel shows any day...

- Well, that's about all....maybe another guide soon.....take care, everybody, and have a good week!

I miss my friend.

Hello, everybody!...I hope things are going good for everybody!....around here, we just got another snowstorm and it was that crappy wet snow that typifies spring....yuch....

- Well, another redesign washed across the site yesterday and this one hit contributors/editors hard as it buries data behind more links in favor of ep summaries and reviews(!). The whole thing is being hashed out in the forums with nary a peep from staff as usual. One thing I will say is that there is probably another change coming to those pages where the video content CBS wants to push is put front and center even if 90% of the guides doesn't have it and such....wheee!

With all this going on, a lot of people are openly talking of leaving. Me? Nahh, been here too long to just bail on this place. However, I will say that I'm strongly tempted to mimic the infamous scene from the movie Network and vent but no one listens....CBs has their agenda, staff rarely venture into forums with anything other than "Problem reported" or "Looking into this" and Devlopment workers treat interaction with users like a contagious disease (it's not always been like that either).

It really bugs me especially when I think of editors who work to add cast/crew and the other stuff that draw people here to see it treated like unwanted items. People want info in front of them, they don't want to dig like coal miners....I look at an ep page now and it look no better than one just set up yesterday by a scraper site.

I'll stay around and continue to work on guides and chat with people here but feedback for staff? They'll be listening to static from me.

Well, that's about all...despite all the carnage here, I hope everybody's week gets better in some way....take care, everybody!

I miss my friend.

Hello, everybody!...hope things are going good and such...weather wise, we had a snow event here a few days ago. Blowing and drifting snow..hopefully, the last gasp of a winter preparing to go into hibernation......oh, and the storm resulted in a stretch of highway round here getting snarled up again...same mountain type stretch (Cobiquit Pass) that got fouled up at the beginning of winter...gotta love beaucracy at times.

- Speaking of paper pushers, it seems the RCMP high ups got caught speaking one thing and doing another with regards to Taser usage. Back in Feb, they promised tighter control on how officers use them at a public inquiry into a man who died after being tasered multiple times. In reality, they quietly deleted two lines from regulations governing them...one part dealt with number of times a suspect should be tasered and the other said a suspect should be warned before being tasered. Shaking head...just wow....

- Site wise, a few things of interest..first, read this thread Here ...it's important if you edit a guide with a lot of Trivia/Allusions methinks. Personally, I picked up Wayne & Shuster guide this week and will fill it in as much as possible though the source I have skips a few years. The two were a big part of Canadian comedy for decades with many great sketches that poked fun at everything from ads to Shakespeare....and the closing theme still rings with me......oh, and I submitted another long time Canadian show as well....hopefully, it gets added.

- Well, that's bout all...hopefully, spring gets here soon...take care everybody and enjoy the week!

I miss my friend.

Well, it's the middle of the week....winter round here is starting to lose its icy grip though that doesn't mean a storm or two won't roll thru before green grass is prevalent...it is Canada, after all...

- Local provincial gov't submitted their budget this week that was a bit odd.....freezing wages and cutting civil service isnt a surprise but cutting personal income tax was...that and the announcement they are closing down Small Claims courts here, which makes the regular court system that much more convoluted in the coming months...

- Site wise, I finished recapping one of the smaller guides I edt here (a cartoon series) and work away at a few others a bit at a time. For the first time in a while, I went out and got a new guide - Heli-Loggers, a Discovery/TLC show showing a very small logging company in British Columbia who go into remote locations for huge trees that are extracted by Chinook helicopters that cost $10K/hr to run....only 10 eps in first season but I like it and figure it's bout time I had a forestry themed show (worked around the woods for many many days in my youth). Oh, and I submitted a few other shows to be added here at the site including one I mentioned at April's blog a while back. I still think it's a shame there's not more Can content at this site from back in the 70's and before....shows ranging from This is the Law to Mr. Dressup and The Friendly Giant need ep guides/details somewhere...

- Other than that, not much to say....I'm watching the original Outer Limits DVD series set....some good eps there with a style much different than Serling's TZ....

- That's bout all..take care, everybody, and have a good week!

I miss my friend.

Well, this is a solemn day for me.....it's been two years exactly since Drea passed away. It's strange....I never met her or even talked to her on the phone but the brief time I knew her at the site is something I will always hold to me as something special. We talked about stuff over PM's that I'll never discuss anywhere on the net.

Lifting up a bottle of chilled Mountain Dew (her favorite, I gather) for her.....

I will always miss my friend.

Hello, everybody...winter is slowly making its way to its end and minds round here turn to hoping for an early spring especially when the green grass of baseball's spring training starts popping up on TV screens...beats seeing another snowstorm pass thru...again...

- Well, taser use by police is getting scrutinized here in Canada with the police chiefs association fighting against restrictions on usage. I read where one spokesman linked taser related deaths to something called " in custody death syndrome".....personally, I think the taser is a good thing for police to use in situations where violence is definitely possible BUT six cops cornered a housewife armed with a paring knife that chased after an ex-husband shouldn't need to taser the woman....twice.......I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to know that if a person whose blood pressure is elevated or has adrenaline flowing through their system and is hit an electrical shock, it can mess up the heart's ability to function. Just my opin....

- Site wise, I'm recapping away.....nearly done one of my smaller guides and halfway done a few others. Oh, I saw something interesting last night when browsing the New Shows tab....apparently, whoever has been adding shows hasn't been checking to see if they already exist........for example, there are now 2 Mantracker show guides and a couple other guides whose name is the same as already existing ones (Power Play, for example...). Interesting how people are asked to avoid duplicate guides and more than a few work to condense them when people who should know better can't be bothered for a ten second look in the site search engine. I can't wait to see the duplicate Border show guide pop up in the future at this rate (Canadian show that will be airing in US in future)......

- Well, that's bout all....I'll try and blog a bit more in the coming weeks....take care everybody and enjoy the coming weekend!

I miss my friend.

Howdy, everybody!....sorry I haven't blogged much recently or posted but its the winter blahhs and I'm not feeling real healthy these days. Weather round here has been typical winter....snow and the odd freezing rain spell....mehhh...

- Lots of news round here about medical breakthrus with a news item tonight talking about a cancer vaccine being developed from the drug used for birth control for seals(!). Seems to me that more than a few drug developers want money for research and nothing drives donations like tagging a prelim. drug with the word "cure"....(yeah, I'm cynical.. ).

- Site wise, working away on da guides....finished recapping most of Season 1 of King of Kensington (a few eps are unavailable due to music rights issues) and working on a few other shows. I do enjoy combing thru a show with little info on it online like Bizarre and putting names to people appearing it (from the well known like Howie Mandel to supporting cast like Cec Linder and Melissa Steinberg). One other thing I've noticed is that it's been kinda quiet round here for site look and bug corrections....almost too quiet methinks......

- TV wise, Survivor starts next week and I think I might check out Fox's Dollhouse when it debuts though the Friday time slot doesn't spell a lot of confidence in the show from Fox brass. Still, in a season where the word "blahh" sums up a lot of series this year, it might be a hit....might be....

- Well, that's bout all....I'll try and blop a bit later on....enjoy the rest of the week and take care, everybody!

I miss my friend.

Hello, everybody!...hope everything is goin good for you all...the first, and hopefully last, cold snap of the winter is supposed to go thru my area starting Thursday and go thru the weekend with daytime highs around -15 or so Celsius and lows dipping towards - 30 not counting wind chill. I don't really mind that much...cold can be dressed for, heat you can only suffer through....

- Speaking of the weather, the New Year's Eve bash round here had an amusing sight for TV viewers. One local channel has an annual outdoor concert that happens in the hours before the year changes. This year, a blizzard hit the open area at the same time so you can imagine how the musicians and such looked on stage....memorable, to say the least....

- Site wise, adding recaps to some older guides and I'm glad to see some bugs getting taken care of. At the same time, however, I see another article has popped up regarding CBS ramping up the video side of this place. Considering people who d/l TV shows off the internet aren't really interested in the social stuff this place has, I have to wonder how CBS plans to make this place look better than a clone of Hulu and such. Makes no diff to me as I can't view the videos but still I wonder.....

Well, that's bout all...take care and stay warm, everybody!!

I miss my friend.