A Few Quick Notes 559

-When I woke up yesterday it was close to -13 or -14.  By the time I went to bed last night the temperature was hovering around 0.  Today we reached a high of 11.  You may not be surprised to learn that the snow we received on Friday is now gone.

-This evening I borrowed a bread cookbook from my local public library.  Of course, I didn't even remember to consult this cookbook before beginning this evening's bread baking exercise (I ended up just going for a pumpkin/molasses/whole wheat/multigrain improvisation).

I may not be good a following recipes, but at least I am getting much better at making just one loaf of bread at a time.

-Listening to actors talk about acting is the worst, it's probably even worse than listening to pop musicians talk about what their music is about.

-Thanks to some inside info from my father about the relationship between meat consumption and kidney stone formation I have recently drastically reduced my consumption of meat.  So far I have been surprised how easy this has been to do, and how cheap.  If I learn to make it to foods more nutritious than rice it might even be healthy!

-Check out the hot plane puns the Judiciary Committe made in the title of its 2006 report on the Air Marshal's dress code.

A Few Quick Notes 548

-The past two days have been overcast and intermittently rainy. I guess this isn't too surprising an occurrence after a period of particularly dry weather. The other big change is that these days have also been much cooler than the days preceding them. I think it isn't even 20 degrees outside right now, which is a fair bit cooler than I would normally expect for this time of day.

-Our cherry tomato plants might finally be starting to set fruit, though it is a little hard to tell as the prospective fruit are still quite small. Hopefully it is the case that we have a few pre-cherry tomatoes.

Yesterday Jeannette and I finally got around to pruning them. It seems that we likely should have pruned the plants differently and now allowed them to grow as tall as they were allowed to grow. They really are out of control.

-My Google Reader account seems to be non-functional at the moment. And because I can't access it there is nothing I want to do more than check my Google Reader feeds. And because it isn't working I am checking for status changes every 30 seconds. This service would be causing me to waste much less time if it was functional right now.

-Yesterday I listened to an old episode of On The Media and heard an interview about the site 0 Views, a site dedicated to finding and then re-posting YouTube videos with 0 views. During the interview the site's manager noted that much of the content was really quite bad. Now that I have had a chance to check the site's content out I am in a position to agree with this individual, though is a little disappointing as I do find the idea of the site kind of entertaining.

-I guess I should stop wasting my time and get back to work (at least my time here hasn't been spent checking my non-functional Google Reader feeds).

Framing and Media Coverage

How appropriate that just hours after I post about the nature of media and political framing of this election that I happen to hear a great interview about research into the potential impact of such frames and metaphors (what is a frame if not a metaphor?).



[Embedded audio]

I love that while the CBC is allowing their resources to be used as a tool of the parties with little effort to take control of the coverage they are conducting hard hitting investigations into the safety of bean sprouts - the dangers of which have been known for years (and can be found with a simple Google search)

Before I go, I should mention that I have just recently started listening to On the Media (the source of interview mentioned above) and am quickly starting to think of myself as a fan. If you are interested in American media and have a chance you might consider checking it out as a radio show or a podcast or through their website.

Picking up steam?

This afternoon I was interviewed by a Telegram reporter about Doyle Pitches. Two weeks ago, or whenever it was that we started Doyle Pitches, I couldn't have imagined this development. The idea that there would be any media interest in this endeavour would have seemed as crazy as having the Halliday's guy look after a stolen horse being hidden in a house across from the aforementioned meat market.

I guess we now just have to wait and see how this all plays out. I will keep you updated if I hear anything else on this subject.

Oh, and the Doyle Pitches Twitter account now has 31 followers, up from 18 yesterday.

Score
Cameron 27
Neil 0

Questionable move

Because it exists, not because I think it is necessarily a good idea, here is the audio of the interview I did yesterday morning on the CBC St. John's Morning Show about the Nova Scotia constituency allowance spending scandal. The amazing thing is that you can even download an mp3 of the interview so that you can listen again and again (it is sure to become my most frequently played track in iTunes in the not too distant future). Also, if you decide you would rather not listen, that is also just fine with me (maybe even better than you listening).

Blog-off Score

Neil: 0
Cameron: 19

Slight delay

This morning, as planned, I woke up at about 6:45 so that I would be awake and ready for my early morning radio interview, which was scheduled for 7:15.

Almost as soon as I awoke I checked my email and RSS feeds, which is how I start most of my days. Almost immediately I noticed that St. John's was in the midst of a snowstorm that had closed the university, among other things. This didn't bode well for things being on-track as my planned interview was concerned. As I hadn't yet heard otherwise I continued with my preparations, which included making a pot of coffee and reviewing/arranging my notes.

Not surprisingly, a few minutes before I was expected to be on the air I received a call from the station indicating that the storm had preempted the story and that they would likely be interested in re-scheduling for Monday. Almost immediately I went back to bed.

So it seems that I will have the pleasure of re-playing this early-to-bed process again on Sunday night, which is probably a good thing in the long-run but will certainly be unpleasant in the short-run.

Blog-off Score

Neil: 0
Cameron 12

It continues

So it seems that this whole MLA spending issue has continued on into today, which isn't all that surprising given the breadth of the issues in question.

What was a little more surprising to me was that my involvement in the media coverage of the event seems to be continuing. Early this afternoon I was contacted by a local television station who were interested in taping an interview with for their evening news show. Unfortunately due to class obligations, and a moderate disinclination to be on TV (but really the former), I had to turn them down.

A few minutes later I received a call from another CBC radio station about an interview for tomorrow. In this case I didn't have any conflicting engagements so I was able to agree to do the interview. The downside of this interview is that I will have to get up several hours earlier than normal. I just hope that I am awake and coherent during the interview (which will likely cover more Nova Scotia than the first one) to not make a fool of myself. In preparation for this interview I am catching up on today's media coverage and also reading some of the Auditor General's reports from both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia (which isn't how I planned on spending my evening as of this morning).

While all of this was happening I received an email from the local paper indicating that they are interested in printing the item that I submitted. Assuming that have space, and I am not making such an assumption, they might print it on Saturday. Because of this possibility I won't post the text here until Saturday at the earliest, as I wouldn't want to possibly scoop myself (or something like that).

Blog-off Score

Neil: 0
Cameron: 10

Interview on Media and Politics

For the past few weeks I have been reading about media and politics (mainly because of an assignment on the same subject). Much to my surprise, this topic has really stayed on my mind and caused me to think about at least some of the media that I consume on a daily basis.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of listening to a The Sound of Young America interview with Gideon Yago (former This American Life contributor), which happened to be on a similar subject. Yago, a former MTV News employee, talks about his experiences with that organization as well as about other media related matters in the United States. Maybe it was just my recent reading, but I found this to be a particularly informative and insightful interview. If you have any interest in the subject matter you might want to check it out.