Monthly Archives: June 2008

Mad Men: The Best New Show of the Summer TV Season

Television

MAD MEN

Broadcast time in Canada, Season One of Mad Men: Sundays, at 10 p.m., on CTV

One of the great delights that VanRamblings has experienced with our new Telus HDTV system occurs each Sunday evening at 10 p.m. when we tune into AMC / CTV’s ground-breaking Mad Men television series, an odds on favourite to pick up a whack of Emmy’s come September 21 on ABC, and most assuredly the best show of the otherwise woeful summer TV season.
Tracking the machinations within a swingin’ 60s ad agency, “when guys wore narrow-lapelled suits and guzzled bourbon”, Mad Men emerges as outstanding period television drama (and far superior to its period drama competition, the pandering 70s CBS summer drama, Swingtown).
Mad Men excels because of its universally superior and eminently identifiable performances, an unusually sophisticated storytelling style rarely found on broadcast television, a wonderful evocation of time and place, as well as its arresting visual style (even more appealing in HD). As Tim Goodman writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mad Men emerges as “an adult drama of introspection.” One could hardly wish for more this summer TV season.

Telus HDTV: 175 Channels and (Almost) Nothin’ On

Television, Web & Tech
TELUS HDTV

Here it is summer, the days are warm and the sun shines, and what has VanRamblings all excited? HDTV. That’s right, High Definition Television.

Yes, in the sweltering days of summer, VanRamblings has signed on to the Telus HDTV package, replete with 57 channels and nothin’ on (well, actually, there are more like 175 channels, and nothing to watch). Be that as it may, we’re still pleased that we switched to Telus TV.

And why might that be? Because we’ve saved money on our home phone, Internet and TV package — with more goodies than we had before — over what we’d been paying previously. Here are the Telus TV packages …


TELUS TV BUNDLES

Being cheap, VanRamblings went for package number 1, including …

  • Telephone: Telus IP phone with crystal clear reception; call waiting and call display (including call display on the TV when someone phones); 200 minutes of long distance free, and 7ยข a minute after that
  • Telus high speed enhanced, which doubles the speed of downloads, and makes surfing perceptibly quicker
  • Telus HDTV, with the essentials, and two theme packs. There’s an additional $15 charge for HDTV.

 

Total cost of the package: $95.95 + $15 = $110.95, plus tax.

Telus Optik TV Channel Guide, June 8, 2011

Well, hold on a minute. Things aren’t quite what they seem at first glance. There were some hiccups that occurred on the way to achieving HDTV bliss.

First off, according to the somewhat confused folks who initially answered the phone at Telus TV in late June, if you want almost all of the HDTV channels available in Canada (the few of those that are currently offered), as well as most of the U.S. networks that are broadcasting in HDTV, we were told, latterly, that you have to sign up for theme packs that include those channels. HDTV for those channels is not automatic. Well, if you have a look at the Telus HDTV page all of the HDTV theme packs come in at $15. Which is where Telus
gets its $15 HDTV subscriber "come on" from.

But the Telus TV folks told VanRamblings that subscribers have to subscribe, at a cost of $6 for each theme pack, to the conventional digital theme packs that include those HDTV channels. And pay $15 more to watch those channels in HD. Confusing. Misleading. And off-putting.

So, if you want the Discovery Channel, the Time Choice channels, Movie Central HD, TSN and Sportsnet HD (which broadcast out of Toronto), you’ll end up paying another $24, plus another $15 for those channels in HD! Telus HDTV isn’t quite what it seems, then. Not good. We were not happy.

On top of that, Global TV Vancouver HD is not (currently) available on Telus HDTV, although it is available to Shaw and Bell satellite subscribers.

Locally, only CBC broadcasts the local news in HD. Global news programmes may go HD in the autumn, BCTV’s engineer told VanRamblings; hopefully Telus will have initialed a broadcast agreement with GlobalBC by then. CTV Vancouver broadcasts most American programming in HD, but not their news programmes. CTV Vancouver promises full HD by 2010, in time for the Olympics, which will likely mean sometime towards the end of next year.

Telus also does not currently offer a PVR, as Shaw does, so subscribers cannot record HDTV programming for viewing later.

Shaw, if you indicate that you’re leaving them for Telus will offer you a bundle package, including Shaw High Speed and IP Home phone with unlimited long distance in North America, for $95, plus $29 more for the HDTV package. But VanRamblings did not want to move to Shaw at this point, although we were most recently on Shaw’s digital TV package.

VanRamblings called Telus TV to express concern about their confusing and misleading advertising, and commitments not met, and was forwarded to Telus’ Loyalty and Retention division (where we found some fine folks).

Telus finally stepped up to the plate, and during the course of a quite pleasant discussion about what we had been promised at the time we signed up for Telus TV in May, not to mention the information that appears on their website, we arrived at a joint agreement which offered VanRamblings: 3 months of Telus TV (including HDTV) for free — so VanRamblings won’t begin paying for TV til October — with an additional $144 in credit on VanRamblings’ Telus account, for a total saving of $330.

Beginning October 1st, VanRamblings will pay $136, plus tax, each month, for the phone (with call display and call waiting, plus 200 minutes of long distance, monthly, in North America), high speed enhanced Internet, and the essentials TV package, plus 5 theme packs. VanRamblings will receive almost all of the HDTV channels available in Canada with this agreement.

If VanRamblings deducts the $144 credit offered by Telus, as well as the $186 three month saving on the TV / HDTV that was agreed to by the Loyalty and Retention division, VanRamblings’ monthly HDTV / telephone / Internet package, in reality, will come to only $108.50 per month.

VanRamblings can live with that. Cheaper than Shaw, with a decent service.

Come fall, though, when we switch to the five theme packs from the full-meal deal that VanRamblings is receiving for the next three months for free, we expect trouble with Telus (not to mention, we’re not sure that we want five theme packs).

So far Telus has not been great at keeping their word, or being consistent from Telus salesperson to Telus salesperson as to what Telus offers respecting HDTV, and how much that will cost a subscriber. Come late September, chances are that we’ll end up writing more about Telus TV and what shenanigans, if any, Telus may be up to at that time. Stay tuned.

Hypocrisy on the Right: And It Was Always Thus

Politics

VIC TOEWS


Would you sleep with this man?

The federal Conservative party’s “family values” guy, Vic Toews, who currently serves in Stephen Harper’s cabinet as President of the Treasury Board, and was a former Minister of Justice in Progressive Conservative Premier Gary Filmon’s government in the 1990s — as well as, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, in the early part of Harper’s lingering, undeserved mandate — seems to be in a spot of personal trouble.
Now, Mr. Harper and Mr. Toews (the latter, a socially conservative right-winger, and even prior to the emergence of the current scandal was something of an embarrassment to the Prime Minister) up until a month, or so, ago was slated for a federal appointment to Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench. Hey, it all could have worked out so well. Harper gets rid of an old fogey (he’s 55, but he looks much older, don’tcha think?), putting him out to pasture in the sinecure of the Courts, and Toews gets to make blue collar criminals miserable while offering white collars thieves an opportunity to carry on with their dirty deeds.
But no, it is not to be. No Court appointment for Mr. Toews will be in the offing, it would seem. And why not offer the old fascist homophobe a cushy retirement within the luxuriant confines of the august Manitoba Court system? Yes, folks, there is a story to be told, a juicy scandale du jour.
Mr. Toews is “embroiled in a messy divorce” after fathering a child last fall with a much younger woman. So, it’ll be no $232,000 a year job for the federal MP often dubbed the “minister of family values”. In Mr. Toews’ crowd you just don’t go around knocking up a much younger woman who is not your wife. Particularly when you’ve fashioned yourself as an ethically pure saint, a man who knows the “true” way, a family man with family values.
Tch, tch, Mr. Toews. But it could be worse. Just ask poor ol’ Larry Craig.

The 2008 Vancouver Folk Music Festival

Folk Festival 2008, Music

2008 VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL

Well, the 31st annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival oughta be interesting.
With longtime Festival programmer and 12-year artistic director, Dugg Simpson, out, and Salmon Arms Roots and Blues Festival creator, Linda Tanaka, in (particularly given Ms. Tanaka’s recent messy leave-taking from the Shuswap festival), Vancouver lovers of the folk music scene are in for what looks to be a “provocative” folk music fest in its 31st iteration.
For all the shenanigans surrounding Fest management, the line-up of the 31st annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival still appears mighty fine.
On the bill this year: headliners Aimee Mann, Eliza Gilkyson, Ferron (returning to Vancouver after a too-long absence), Jason Collett, John Reischman and the Jaybirds, and Ozomatli, among a raft of others.
In the days to come, we’ll highlight the various artists who’ll be appearing on the main and artist / musician stage(s) on the Festival site, and seek to provide, as well, an historical perspective on the events and perambulations which have lead up to the 31st annual Folk Music Festival.
In the interim, once again this year the Little Folks Village and stage may be found due north of the 4th Avenue entrance, with arts market vendors galore situated nearby (due south of the area where the food vendors may be found). We’ll see you there (here’s the ticket info you’ll need to know)