Let your red heart show…

(via YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz8tzP3oeDg)

By the way, that last song is “Red Heart” by Hey Rosetta!

How wrong was I? How wrong were so many of us?

As the days went on, further into the heart of the games, a swell of something emerged. Instead of being pleased with mediocre or “just about” finishes, we were winning medals. The crowds began singing “O Canada” in the streets, at events, as we curled. We became not a humble nation, but a nation proud to wave our maple leafs, our Hudson’s Bay gloves and shout to the rest of the world that we are an awesome country. Tired of being criticized for the games, we fought back, which is not something we are akin to do at times. We threw down our gloves, fed up, and said we’re going to enjoy this party…because this is our party.

And with that, we started winning gold.

Alexandre Bilodeau, Maelle Ricker, Christine Nesbitt…not content with just being there, they looked past the pressure and performed. Jon Montgomery took the infamous stroll through Whistler with a pitcher of beer. If it’s any indication of what kind of country we are, there are probably a few of us who got choked up seeing that (let it also be known that pitcher was finished at the end of his walk). Canada 1 and Canada 2 went Gold and Silver in the women’s bobsleigh. We watched as our athletes celebrated, yelled, cheered, soaked in the home town crowd. Team Canada’s women’s hockey team went perfect and gold…they celebrated with beer and cigars. The long track men’s speed skaters, having been lambasted for poor performances, took it on the chin and won the gold in incredible fashion. Kevin Martin and his crew celebrated their gold before the last rock was down the ice.

Sidney Crosby took a pass from Jarome Iginla and won the most amazing hockey game I will ever remember. Gold.

From the dust we rose, brushed ourselves off – as athletes and a nation – and created memories that we will hold onto forever. Personally I will remember the birth of my daughter Madeleine at 1:21am on February 23rd. I’ll remember her being 4-0 in hockey games she watched. I’ll remember tearing up at the sheer emotion our athletes felt, win or lose. I will remember feeling a pride in being Canadian as I have never felt before. Proud, but no longer in the shadows. We’ll remain dignified, humble, but I will shout it from the rooftop how much it means to be Canadian. We made this our party, heck we made it a record breaking party and I don’t think that will ever be taken away from us. Lastly, I’ll remember how we poked fun at ourselves and had perhaps the greatest start to any Olympic closing ceremonies I’ve ever seen. We effed it up in the beginning, but in true Canadian fashion we made it look graceful in the end.

As I watched a sea of red and white sing “O Canada” at Canada Hockey Place after the gold medal winning goal by Sidney Crosby, I couldn’t help think that millions of us across this country and across this world were singing along in unison. Our shirts are off, and our Canadian body paint is showing now, hope you don’t mind. Can you blame us? We won the most gold by any nation at any Olympics. Ever. We didn’t just own the podium, we stood atop it and shouted O Canada!

We really did believe…it just took us a while to believe we did.

Thanks Vancouver, Thanks Canada, Thanks Athletes…

Well to be more precise, David Atkins effed it up by making what I like to call the Debbie Downer Olympic opening ceremonies.

I was truly expecting a party, like we know how to do and all we got were a slew of sad songs, a confusing storyline and moments that should have seen the cutting room floor.

Before I rant, there were some highlights that I absolutely adored. K.D. Lang rocked Hallelujah. She was incredible. Little known poet Shane Koyczan inspired me with his poem “We Are More” – in fact his passionate, patriotic poem almost made up for the dismal show, but sadly lost its gusto with horrible speeches. That kid, Shane Koyczan, should be a household name now, that was a beautiful poem. I can’t find the Opening Ceremonies version, but here’s another version of his “We Are More” (transcript) on YouTube:

That’s where the wins end.

The whole cultural display/story was just short of awful. Visually appealing I guess, but in the grand scheme of things it was confusing and dreadfully drawn out. At one point I turned to Tamie and said, “Is Corky from Waiting for Guffman the creative director of this show?”

He wasn’t obviously, but David Atkins and his creative team took whatever Canadian we had and made it weirder than Cirque de Soleil. More to the point was the music selection; a depressing medley of cheesy, epic orchestra music coupled with depressing music from the likes of Sarah Mclachlan, Joni Mitchell, and some french-Canadian guy who I’ve never heard of. K.D. Lang’s selection was equally depressing, but she was amazing, so I can’t fault her. I would like to touch on the punk-fiddling nation we’ve suddenly become with Batman playing the fiddle in a suspended canoe, but I just can’t find the right words to express my puke inducing disgust.

What we should have done was put a big hockey rink in the middle of the stage, a few cold ones under each seat, and had Rush live in concert. Throw in some other Canadian idols who will do something Canadian-y and voila, you would have had a better show. That was rather embarrassing.

With all that trouble, we had a chance to end with a bang. We ended with awkward. Hydraulics weren’t working, or someone fell asleep in the control booth, and the grand torch lighting ceremony was an awkward and far too long exercise in ridiculousness. Lastly, we had our national hero Wayne Gretzky light the actual torch. Unfortunately, this torch was twenty blocks away and showed the world how we will drunkenly chase The Great One holding the torch down the streets of Vancouver on the top of a truck with little to no security in sight. Then, we’ll have Wayne light the torch and leave him here…for the rest of the night. Here you go Wayne, here’s some cab money to get you back.

I’m really hoping this Vancouver 2010 Olympics debacle turns around. First the tragic death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luger and second, the craptastic opening ceremony. I sure hope this doesn’t embarrass us…

I think we can all agree it’s time to get back to our Canadian roots and lower our way too high expectations.

GOOGLE – SEARCH STORY:
Just awesome. Though I don’t think it was for the Superbowl. I’ve always like commercials that make you feel and this one did that.

DOVE – THE JOURNEY OF COMFORT:
I don’t know..I like the cheesy song, I love the story…gotta admit Dove is good at commercials.

BUDWEISER – BUDWEISER BRIDGE:
Hahahahaha….awwww, heck why not?

BONUS – U.S. CENSUS BUREAU
Good cast and I love her last line…Absolutely.

Their longtime ad agency JWT must have had a helluva time convincing Tim Horton’s to stray away from the fake mechanics who sip with their pinky or the awkward friend who rides in the back (no one would EVER do that with another friend, that’s just weird) and acts like the rich guy from Monopoly. When Tim Horton’s embraces the culture that surrounds them, they win. When they try to be funny…let’s face it…they lose…bad.

Either way, this ad with Sidney Crosby is a great win. Well done JWT and Tim Horton’s…you finally got it right.

Skip ahead a couple years and I moved to LA. Hanging out, attending parties…oh my it was the life. Here’s a song that I specifically remember driving to the Grand Opening party for the Tommy Hilfiger store on Rodeo…

Time went on, the days got longer, the shine of LA wore off a touch and the rain fell. Just like these days the rain fell, fell and fell. At that time this was what was playing in my disc player…

Los Angeles was great, but I needed a touch of home. So I packed up my car, and headed north once again. It was a long trip, especially in the dead of winter, but as I drove through the desert just north of Las Vegas I heard this come on the radio. It was fuzzy, it cut in and out, but it was perfect at the time. It also stopped the freakout I was having listening to some strange story on Coast-to-Coast-AM.

As I settled back to Calgary, I was enamored by this song. It wasn’t dancy, there were no badass bass tracks or repetitive beats…it was a beautiful voice, a plucky guitar and some great lyrics. Some day I’ll find it, but there was a webcam I was absolutely glued to. This song + Webcam = Greatness.

…This musical journey will continue…heck we’re only up to 2002. We’ve got a long way to go…both literally and musically.

Patrice Cormier has accepted his punishment, suspended for the remainder of the year and the playoffs, without lodging an appeal. Frankly, it’s the smartest thing he’s done, but I still feel it falls far below what should have been done.

I imagine a lot of people have seen the hit by Patrick Cormier on Mikael Tam through YouTube and sports highlights.  I imagine all of us can agree it is disgusting, uncalled for and dangerous.  As I watched Tam twitching on the ice, I was sick to my stomach, what’s worse is the apparent lack of sympathy on Cormier’s part.

Hit is at the 0:15 second mark.

But this isn’t Cormier’s first offense.  At the World Junior Championships in December, Cormier pulled another cheap elbow on a player from Sweden.  The result wasn’t a trip to the hospital, but it was nonetheless another disgusting act by Cormier.

I would love to see this kid kicked out of hockey for good.  It sickens me to think he’ll continue doing this kind of thing, because as we’ve heard through other stories, he was seen laughing while being escorted off the ice.

Since moving back to my birth town, I have seen this city infiltrated with money-hungry douchebags clogging city streets with their cars, changing the nightlife and making it darn near impossible to get around. This town needs an enema. Here are a few long gone memories I have of the Calgary I used to love:

I remember when customer service actually included service…even with a smile.

I remember people letting you in when you signaled for a lane change.

I remember when people signaled.

I remember a Calgary where people were looking for good fun, not poser douchebaggery at the Met.

I remember when Moxie’s, Earl’s and Joey Tomatoes were places you didn’t need to dress up to attend.

I remember when you watched Flames games because you followed the team…Even the Young Guns.

I remember when men weren’t more concerned about how they looked than the women.

I remember when driving a pick-up actually meant you used it, not just compensated for misgivings.

I remember when we had a spirit.

I remember when we had a real Mayor.

I remember when people said hello to you on the street.

I remember when people were proud of where they worked, no matter where it was.

I remember when we used to talk to people.

I remember when we spent time with our families instead of spending the day at Chinook.

I remember when we weren’t so cocky and we had humility.

I remember when we walked our head high, not planted in a mobile phone.

I remember chivalry.

It’s sad to see all of those things are mostly gone or long forgotten. I used to love this town, but somewhere along the way we got caught up in ourselves and stopped looking around. Who knows, 100 years from now, when the oil and gas dries up and we never planned for it – an exodus will bring us back to the real days of innovation, community, humility and togetherness. Otherwise…it’ll be the crammed, selfish, money hungry city we’ve come to love hate.

1. Ikea Lamp

Spike Jonz directed this commercial and did it with perfection. I think it got a lot of us, perhaps making us feel a little silly for feeling sorry for the lamp, but it also made me laugh.

2. Muscle Relaxant Commercial for ProLine

This Canadian commercial was brilliant. Such a simple idea, but well acted, edited and directed. Granted you tend to forget who it was for, but nonetheless we’re still talking about it today.

3. Vicks

This started my obsession with Anathallo, but really the music is what makes this commercial appealing and even emotional.

4. NHL Stanley Cup Commercial

It must have taken forever and a day to do this commercial, but it is an homage to the roots of hockey, a celebration of its stars of yore and a great salute to the greatest trophy in sports. The Stanley Cup.

5. Dove Real Beauty Campaign

I’m sure we’re all acutely aware of how much photoshop is used nowadays, but this put it in perspective…it was a brilliant commercial.

6. HTC You

I don’t know, maybe because I love the song Sinnerman by Nina Simone/Felix Da Housecat (Remix), but this commercial is decent enough to capture the essence of life with our phones. I prefer my iPhone…but still.

7. Jetta Shopping Cart

Simple, yet effective and decently funny. Frankly, I would have done this too. The only knock on this is the voice saying “I’m okay” at the end. Just took it far enough to almost suck. Almost.

8. Stella Artois Pirate Ship

The style, the visuals, the actors…a nice change from the old Stella commercials which were cheesy and not funny at all. This commercial was perfect and set the tone of ol’ Belgium (of which we’ve been we know). The frame of art for the pirate fight? Awesome.

9. Extra Gum Commercial

No surprise, it’s on the blog in another post…

10. Mitsubishi Outlander

This was another one of those commercials where the music made me a big fan of the band. Telepopmusik. This song, Breathe, is a hit. The commercial also tells a nice story too…one man’s journey through life with his car.

11. Yes, we’ll turn it up to 11. Chuck Storm Commercial…

Okay, shameless, shameless plug…our very own Chuck Storm in TransUnion’s TrueCredit commercial.

FUDDYTV Chuck Storm Video TrueCredit from FUDDYTV on Vimeo.

Let’s face it, the departure of our fine friend Dave kind of rocked our world and threw FUDDYTV into panic mode. Suddenly and out of the blue we’d lost an integral part of our group. So as we picked up the pieces and decided how we were going to move forward, we threw up some videos that had been sitting in the bank for a while – namely the Chuck Storm Wine videos and a couple blooper videos. What shook the old head the other day, was the feeling as though the “Zombie’s Guide to Survival in a Human World” was finally a step towards our former selves and perhaps a going back to what we had intended…funny sketch comedy that is off the wall.

So I think we’re getting back into the groove…heck I’m even putting keyboard to screen again. In fact I even changed the look of the blog and began redoing our About Us page to reflect the absence of Dave. That’s got to be a sign doesn’t it? Oh Momma yes.

One thing we’d planned to do is bring in a permanent replacement for Dave, and that’s still on the table for sure. We had an idea to do a “So You Think You Can Dance/American Idol” hybrid for the site called “So You Think You Can Fill Dave’s Shoes”, but as time kept on passing and inaction kind of ruled the day, we scrapped it. Who knows, we may do it someday but right now we’ll go with the odd trustworthy guest star who knows their FUDDY.

In any case, look for us to start ramping it up soon and get this red squared train back on track baby!