Duncan Street Townhouse Trashed

Partygoers trash townhouse and attack tenants | CBC News

Tenants attacked after house party gets out of hand | Metro Halifax

Landlord fumes over party | Chronicle Herald

It’s Fun to Stay at the YMCBC

This shouldn’t be shocking to anybody familiar with the state and age of the buildings on the corner of South Park and Sackville Street, but word from the YMCA Board of Directors and Management team is that they are in planning stages for a new downtown complex alongside CBC/Radio Canada. This is in the early stages and includes about two years of market research, site reviewing and consultation. In what appears to be just the beginning of “a long and multi faceted process”:

Today, we are in the preliminary stages of clearly understanding the potential development opportunities on the joint parcel of land and the implications for a new YMCA. To this end, the YMCA and CBC/Radio Canada will be submitting a joint development application to HRM at the end of January 2009.

There is no need to panic just yet about temporary closures, because the Halifax Regional Municipality still has to hear and approve such a development (up to 18 months away) plus involving the development community and most likely countless consultations. This appears to include South Park YMCA building (built in 1951), the CBC Radio Building and the adjouning parking lots.

Why is The YMCA collaborating with the CBC/Radio Canada?

In addition to being neighbours with joint properties that may have greater potential as one piece of land, The YMCA and CBC share a common mission and mandate to serve the whole community for public good. This shared purpose heightens the potential positive outcome for this community if a collaborative development could take place.

I couldn’t see much talk about this joint venture online, but it looks like $1,642.57 was spent on meetings involving Michel Saint-Cyr, President, Real Estate Division and meetings with CBC Regional Director Andrew Cochran, the YMCA, Halifax Films and Port Authority last August.

Halifax “being fair to everybody” by eliminating bus passes for the blind

According to the CBC, Halifax will stop giving free bus passes to CNIB to distribute to blind riders this summer.

“It’s not something we like to have to take away from one group,” said Lori Patterson, spokeswoman for Metro Transit. “But the fact [is] that we’re not able to offer it to many groups.

“We’re trying to be fair to everybody, and this is what we have to do.”

This blogger explains that some of the “freebies” blind people are entitled to ensure that the blind have Access to Information (free talking books or devices to play the audio).

Blind people are not permitted to drive, therefore the free transit pass was introduced as a means of protecting the right to access employment, education etc.

If HRM was concerned with promoting fairness for people with disabilities, wouldn’t providing free service for more people with disabilities make sense?

Reason #109 to Avoid the Bridge Terminal

15 Arrested in Dartmouth in Dispute Over How Long It Takes to Cook Microwave Popcorn

Update Local Mensa members comment on story:

What are we supposed to do with these wannabee gangsters/criminals? How about one-night in Compton to teach them a real lesson, one which hopefully they don’t return from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton,_California

Thank god for wikipedia!

and again, genius from my new favourite CBC commentator, clamdigger from Shediac, NB:

Get rid of the young offenders act and start sending theese punks to boot camp and if they scew up the secound time send them to afghanstan.OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MINE.

clamdigger is a huge fan of the sending criminals to afghanstan (sic):

perfect sentence for cowards like these people.SHIP them t to afghanistan.Bet they won’t feell so tough over there on the front lines

clamdigger has never met a sentence he couldn’t mutilate.

Horrible Human Being Coming to Halifax

Gene Simmons of Gene Simmons Toyota and the band KISS is packing his Axe bass and coming to Halifax.

“We’ll do a handful of shows to keep in the game (next) summer, maybe 10 (dates), some Canadian shows. I know Halifax is one, but before you get out there and start the baseball season, they hold exhibition games, that’s what we’re doing. ’Cause once we go out, it’s going to be for a year and a half,” Simmons said.

Simmons has recently set out to revitalize the Canadian music industry with his label Simmons Records.

“We’re going to provide the kind of caring record company the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Motown, where the head knucklehead — that’s going to be me — is involved in every facet of your life,” he said.

I’m going to burn him a CD of Halifax bands he should consider for his label. Any suggestions? Who is the Gene Simmons of Halifax?

For inspiration, check out this interview Simmons did with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Jim vs Jim

Speaking of news, I caught this interview on Thursday night featuring local actor John Dunsworth (Mr. Jim Lahey on The Trailer Park Boys) and Jim Nunn (anchor of CBC News at Six):

Note: I apologize for the watermark on the video. If grabbing streams of local media becomes a regular thing, I will spring for the plugin.

Dal Prof Weighs in on CNNs “Holograms”

A hologram expert and professor of theoretical physics at Dalhousie sets the record straight on the hologram-like images used in CNN’s election coverage in this CBC article:

The CNN anchors were not really speaking to three-dimensional projected images, but rather empty space, Kreuzer said. The images were simply added to what viewers saw on their screens at home, in much the same way computer-generated special effects are added to movies.

Kreuzer said the images were tomograms, which are images that are captured from all sides, reconstructed by computers, then displayed on screen.

Holograms, on the other hand, are projected into space.

Will.I.Am was unavailable for comment.

Halifax Podcast Explosion

CBC Radio 3 has posted a podcast of Saturday night’s Marquee show featuring The Ruby Coast, The Got to Get Got, Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains, and Islands.

The Got to Get Got play Tenerife around 16:30 into the podcast and Let’s Roll Around Our Graves and Get Dirty in the Afterlife around 22:36.

Here’s a creepy video of Mark Mullane:
TGTGG – Blood Test

Helen Hill story on Fifth Estate tonight

Beloved filmmaker Helen Hill’s tragic story will be told tonight (Wednesday) at 9:00pm on CBC’s The Fifth Estate.

From the CBC:

Canadians Helen Hill and Paul Gailiunas left their thriving artistic community in Halifax to live in New Orleans. Then in 2005, in a way that no one could have imagined, their lives became entwined with another story, one that filled headlines and television newscasts everywhere. On August 29th, Hurricane Katrina swept over New Orleans, leaving a city awash in death, chaos and crime. Murder statistics skyrocketed and, one night, Helen Hill became one of those statistics. She was shot dead by an intruder. Bob McKeown reports on the story of Helen and Paul and explains how her death explains what has gone wrong in New Orleans before, during and since Katrina.

I found this interview with Helen on Youtube talking film and New Orleans:

The Hour Blog Marred By Poor Writing

Last year, Jess Watt and Jenn Good covered the Halifax Pop Explosion for CBC’s The Hour and man did they hate Windom Earle:

Windom Earle, or as I like to call it, possibly the worst band I’ve ever heard. A never ending interlude of repeated chords that never found a hook, or a chorus and never really ended until a much appreciated break for some Bon Jovi Karaoke in the middle of the set. Their big song beef chowmein, apparently a local favourite made me hungry and wishing I was eating that instead of listening to this. It was band camp gone wild up there; the sax player who was to his credit playing like it was life or death, almost took himself out with the sax and ended up air-guitaring… on his sax. That kinda sums it up really. Windom – Playing long and loud doesn’t make it sound any better, although bonus points for the cowbell.

Please consider that this is from a pair whose musical taste is suspect to begin with:

As someone who loves, understands and constantly defends The Killers, who are one of the best bands of our time

This year, Jess Watt, with a year of covering superlative festivals like V Fest, Edgefest, the Vans Warped Tour and NXNE under her belt, came back to Halifax, stayed for three days,took some terrible photos, saw about 10% of the bands and declared that the festival had fizzled.

Watt, admittedly, missed out on most of the headliners including: GZA, Holy Fuck, The Inbreds, Monotonix, Josh Ritter, and Jay Reatard. I can understand that she didn’t arrive until Thursday thus missing out on Jay Reatard, Josh Ritter and the Monotonix, but how the hell could you skip out on the Brutal Knights, the Endless Blockade and the GZA?

What is most puzzling are the comments that the Pop Explosion fizzled and was “marred by poor attendance and bad venues”. I can’t prove or disprove the attendance comments, only knowing that the Gus’s Pub shows all did incredibly well, Josh Ritter sold out and there was a healthy and energetic turnout for Jay Reatard. I don’t need to disprove the bad venues comment. Watt does that on her lonesome.

If there were so many performance marred by bad venues, why write:

Already going into The Seahorse I knew this was going to be a good show. Boston’s Scarce admittedly have a very warm place in my heart.

Not to mention the sexual tension in a few of their songs. Wow, the room was heating up.

or

Saturday night…the finale of the Pop Explosion. What better place to end off the weekend, then at the best venue in Halifax, The Marquee, with CBC Radio 3 presenting and transmitting live.
Locals, The Got To Get Got kicked off our night, playing with a full band, in full form.

or, better still…

First stop, the legendary Gus’ Pub on Agricola Street. Though out of the downtown core, Gus’ Pub felt like home, full of unknown to me, though friendly folk. The bartenders embraced our requests for local brew, Moosehead Dry. Introduced as being from, ‘just up the street from the pub’

I must be missing something.

Reading through Watt’s review of the Pop Explosion, you get the feeling that she enjoyed the festival more than she wants to let on. Scarce, the Got to Get Got, the Stance, Ghettosocks, Sebastien Grainger and the Mountains all receive rave reviews in the entry, so what exactly fizzled about this year’s Pop Explosion? Could it possibly be you showing up in the middle of it and missing great sets by bands like Vkngs, Statues, Horses, Attack Mode and Retribution Gospel Choir?

You can’t blame this one on Windom Earle, you missed their set too.