Hey Switzerland...

...I AM VERY JEALOUS OF YOU! :( :( :(

Can I go spend the lockout in Switzerland?

Movie Night: Dredd

This no-hockey stuff SUCKS and Pleky is overseas dishing sweet Czech Sausage to Jiri Tlusty... So I went to see Dredd 3D in the meantime.

And with this no hockey stuff, it was strange how incredibly EMPTY the movie theatre was on a Saturday night in the middle of the Montreal suburbs... I swear 10 people were watching the film with me and that was it. There were more idiots in the Hurricane arcade machine than watching a film!

So how was Dredd 3D? It was A+ as far as super violent simple story films based on a graphic novel go. (Hey I don't care much for Oscar material. One of my favourite films ever is Cobra, you know). It sticks to it's source material fairly well, complete with keeping the helmet ON and none of this love interest crap Stallone felt he had to do. I'd call it the more practical "realistic" Dredd, like what Batman Begins is to Tim Burton's Batman. It's also one of those rare instances when someone uses 3D properly and for a reason instead of just "hey look bullets flying to your faaaaaaaaaaace". Also Karl Urban knows to keep quiet and snarls better.  But the film was basically the Raid, only dystopian future-y Dredd themed and a hundred times larger.

Of course if you don't like excessive violence, well, you probably shouldn't see it. Though watching someone go splat in super slow mo in 3D from the point of view of the pavement was something I never thought I would see and ended being an interesting new way to fade a scene. Do we call it splat to red?

Lockout Talk: Ovechkin Threats

Leave it to Ovechkin to drop the bomb we've all been waiting for: You don't like it? I go home to play, suckers.

"I said it before, before I sign a contract, if the league decides to cut our salaries and cut our contracts for what they want, I don't know how many guys will be coming back. We signed contracts before so why do they have to cut our salaries and our contracts right now? They signed us, [now they] want to cut it. I think it's a stupid idea and a stupid decision by the NHL, [commissioner Gary] Bettman and the guys who work there."

Meanwhile, TSN roundtable fools laughed at Ovechkin's idle threats. Sorry, guys. But I completely agree with Ovechkin on this. The fact the owners allowed their teams to throw huge money to players with this malicious intent to rollback salaries 24% is complete and utter crap AND WE DON'T HAVE HOCKEY NOW BECAUSE OF STUFF LIKE THIS. How can anyone legally offer contracts knowing full well they don't intent to fulfill them? Especially in the high profiled entertainment business of professional sports.

Owners crying poor 'cause their hobby venture is sucking money? Cry me a fucking river. Maybe you're losing money on your fancy toy 'cause your team is in a shit place? (Don't forget, these owners are billionaires who make their money from other ventures like beer and Comcast. For the most part, these hockey teams are really just one giant penis contest).

Funnily enough, if Ovechkin decides to "fuck you NHL", he will be in violation of his contract and will be sanctioned by the IIHF. No owner will face any sanctions by violating the contract of the players though.

And I don't care how much money Ovechkin makes. You don't pay superstars 500 000 anymore. Maybe the owners need to get out of the 70s when they were allowed to screw their players left, right, and center. And you know which owners I'm talking about...

That's right. Suck it, Ted. We go to watch him, not you or your rich fat friends.

As midnight falls...

The NHL has officially gone into a lockout.

That's why teams signed over 200-million dollars worth of contracts in the past 48 hours under a CBA their owners apparently hate so very much despite fighting so very hard to put it in place 7 years ago. Oh and the president of the Florida Panthers was tweeting about eating frozen yogurt.

Whatever. Go Bulldogs!

Ring a Bell

You may have heard the propaganda notice on air while listening to stations like CHOM or TSN690. There's a cheery, matter-of-factly dude casually explaining how Bell Media is being picked on and the buying of Astral is REALLY for the good of Quebec and how they're committed ever so deeply to the very cultural soul of the province and how they will be creating more original French-language content locally.

What the happy dude fails to mention is that Bell Media is A PACK OF FUCKING ARSEHOLES and are creating this French-language content by REMOVING the English-language content they acquired a year ago, where they even went so far as to boosting the signal to better serve the English community by going to 690.

Let's be clear: the demise of CKAC was a shame, but it speaks volumes when many Francophones prefer listening to CKGM. Maybe it's because they'd rather hear Mitch Melnick instead of what is basically the radio version of L'Antichambre. Maybe it's because the English station isn't so Quebec-centric by finding the happy medium of boosting local sports talent with world talent and not devoting all their time to the David Desharnais Is Better Than Tomas Plekanec shrine. And let's not forget, CKGM is listened to all around the world over the internet. This talk of the station being operated at a loss sounds exactly like Electronic Arts' profit-firing ratio (we only made 5-billion this year instead of 10 so we're firing a thousand of you we'll probably have to rehire in a month). They just ripped the rights to broadcast Habs games from Talk800, and apparently have this goldmine for like SIX years! I seriously doubt the ratings count anyone listening online. They sure have plenty of commercials for a station that supposedly isn't reaching anyone...

"See this book? This is you pissing off an entire community.

By the way I have 9 of these."

And how much more disingenuous can the people from Bell Media be when they claim during the CRTC process how they would love so very much to keep the station English DESPITE NEVER BOTHERING TO ASK FOR AN EXEMPTION FROM THE CRTC OWNERSHIP POLICY, OF WHICH THEY ARE PERFECTLY ALLOWED AND CAPABLE OF DOING?! This reeks of Bell Media not giving two shits of a fuck about the English community of Montreal. I mean hey what's one more shaft to the English community right? And creating more French content while eliminating English content is complete and utter rot. You want to better serve your consumers? CREATE A NEW FRENCH SPORTS STATION AND LEAVE THE ENGLISH ONE ALONE WHICH IS HOW IT SHOULD BE instead of somehow shoving the fragmented carcass onto Talk800 (the boring network that used to have the Habs games, but really is just 24hrs of complaining about something). Frankly there are way too many contradictions in Bell Media's talk about the issue, never mind the fact the company is just eating way too much for anyone's liking... Regardless, the Montreal market is way too different to follow CRTC rules and we only have 2 community focused talk stations which they want to smash into one (the FM stations hardly cover that front and one of them beams in from Burlington, Vermont).

Maybe the station should go back to it's pirate-y radio roots and move to Kahnawake. Oh and play the Bulldogs games again.