Assorted Nonsense

Hey, I’m still on vacation… gimme a break!

I’m busy swimming, skating, building furniture, eating sausages, drinking Bailey’s Irish Cream, installing computers, fixing other computers, playing Axis and Allies, hanging out with Schmoopies, watching Heroes, sleeping in, drinking Valpolicella, eating chocolate, getting great deals on Boxing Day specials (500 gig hard drive, two computer desks, one printer stand), did I mention spending lots of money…?

But I’ll be back blogging soon…

According to CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, the concept of blogging is ten years old today. Also according to Metro Morning, the way to get host Andy Barrie to check out your blog is to mention Metro Morning on your blog.

So… hi Andy! Thanks for dropping by.

Speaking of Andy, as many of you know, I work for CBC Radio, and Andy is one of the few on air personalities with whom I’ve never worked. I do have a story about him, though:

One day back when he first came to us from private radio I happened to be working down in his area in CBL. For some reason a get-together of all CBL employees happened in the afternoon so a bunch of us gathered in a big room for snacks and conversation. Andy wasn’t there, but naturally talk soon turned to him. Just for fun I asked the head of CBL how much Andy would be making. The entire room went silent as she answered, “More than you.”

Everybody laughed.

A tiny bit offended at what was essentially a put down (I was working as a lowly tech at the time), I replied, “You don’t know that.”

Everybody laughed again and somebody said, “touche”.

Of course the joke was on me, because he was making at least twice what I was making at the time. He’s almost certainly still making more… but it isn’t about money, is it?

At least, that’s not what I got into public radio for.

It still ticks me off that:

A. the good Ol U.S. of A. was being difficult at Bali

B. idiots are killing their daughters because they’re not dressing the way they want them to and

C. that I lost the original version of this blog.

Okay yes, I realize that that’s nowhere as serious as A and B, but unlike A and B it is something I can do something about.

Now, I thought I had the blog all backed up, but it looks like all I had backed up was the structure and look of the thing.  Because I’ve changed providers, all my tables have become inaccessible to me, and although I could be wrong, it seems I can’t reproduce my original posts and comments without those original tables.

But it turns out it may not matter after all.  I’ve been able to retrieve some material via google searches and finding cached versions of my posts.  And just today I remembered about the brilliant Wayback Machine archival site.Turns out a good portion of Assorted Nonsense has been archived there.  They’re missing the first four months, there’s some weird duplication and inexplicable absences, but they’ve got a good portion of the thing.

So I’m a fair bit happier about the loss of my blog than I was.  

And now, just because I can, here’s yet another glimpse of the original version of Assorted Nonsense, lost lo these last two months.  This was a post called Taxi Radio (hey, I never claimed any of the blog was actually WORTH preserving):

I just took a taxi home. The cab driver was listening to 680 on the AM dial, which used to be CFTR in Toronto. Maybe it still is.

Do people still listen to AM, I wondered? Obviously they do.

I said, “What is that you’re listening to?”

He said, “Dunno. News and stuff. I like to hear the news.”

“Do you ever listen to CBC Radio?” I asked, just for fun.

He said, “What’s that?”

“99.1 on the FM,” I said. I didn’t tell him that’s where I worked.

He switched to 99.1. It was ten to eleven on a Saturday morning. We heard some strange kid’s music.

The cab driver laughed. “Good one, buddy!” he said, and switched right back to what he’d been listening to before.

My apologies to those folk who used to populate my blogroll.  Since the near immolation of this blog a few weeks ago I’ve got the gist of it back up and running, but I’m still missing lots of stuff.

So if you’re missing don’t worry, I haven’t deleted you deliberately… I just haven’t gotten around to putting you back in.

 But I will.  Eventually. 

Recently I gave an interview to the Ryerson Review of Journalism. They wanted to know my opinion on the new blogging guidelines laid down by the CBC. A few friends advised me not to give the interview, but it seemed churlish not to do so… Ryerson is my alma mater (although I took radio and television arts, not journalism) and the Ryerson Review of Journalism is about giving students practice in their chosen field. So to me it was more about helping out a student.

Apparently budding journalist Emerald Austerberry approached several CBC and CBC related bloggers and a few of us consented to give interviews.

And it appears some of us came down on separate sides of the fence concerning the new CBC blogging guidelines…

Since the unfortunate immolation of this blog last weekend hits have gone way, way, way down.  This is perhaps attributable to the fact that it never was a very good blog to begin with and people have only just now awakened to that fact. 

But while this may very well be true, it’s perhaps also because the original domain name is currently not working.  So folk who have linked to assortednonsense through writerbroadcaster.com, or who are seeking assnon (as it shall henceforth be known in this post) via writerbroadcaster, are SOL for the moment.

However we, the hard working minions behind the relative lack of success of Assnon, are working hard to remedy the situation and should have writerbroadcaster.com back up and running within the decade. 

In the meantime, if you would be so kind, please tell your friends, family, colleagues and pets that should they care to while away ten or fifteen seconds during their coffee/dog chow breaks at assortednonsense.com that they should do so at assortednonsense.com and not writerbroadcaster.com, at least until the end of the decade.

This public service announcement has been brought to you free of charge by the United Nonsensical Workers of Canada, otherwise known as UNWC (pronounced “Uhhhnnnkkk).