You may have noticed the fact that UR and URBMN now sport Google AdSense bars (as have antecedent blogs The UR Blog and URMN since 2004).  I’m using AdSense again now for two reasons.  For one thing, I’ve been a hop, a skip and a jump from being skint lately.  No, thank you, OSAP payments.  I’m applying for interest relief until I actually have a proper job.  Anyone want to hire a Film Studies graduate?  I’m planning on doing freelance work for CBC Radio.  I know, I’m intensely critical of CBC Radio and I’m gunning for a job there!  I’m a “hypocrite,” I admit it!  Why don’t you admit it, too?

Strangely enough, three people actually clicked on the various ads AdSense throws out from time to time today.  This isn’t outwardly worthy of news, but I’ve never had more than two clicks before.  At the risk of being trite, keep it up.  It keeps me affirmed that what I do is worthwhile.  If anything discourages me, it’s not knowing who the hell my audience is.  I’m not a shill, but this site costs me good money to keep up.  It’d be nice to say that I’m pure, I’d never sell out to commercial interests bla bla bla.  Reality is different.  I’m not selling cynicism, but I am selling myself.  Saying that AdSense or any other referral program compromises me is pure and utter naïveté.  If I’m selling porn here, though, then I’m selling out as it compromises who I am as a writer and a man of some ethics.

Finally, for the first time ever, no one has searched my site for the term ‘girlfeet.’  Has UR finally turned a corner?  I don’t know, but you people are getting smarter or something.  Take a look at this chart – this might be the most historic thing to happen to this site.  It won’t last, but people are finally starting to understand what UR is about.  All I have to say is…after two years, it’s about damn time.

One of the highlights of the Gemini Awards on Global was when Ken Finkleman won a Gemini for Best Writing In A Comedy Series.  Having won five Geminis in various categories for various shows prior to tonight, Finkleman gave a speech that epitomizes how I feel about the Canadian television industry.

His speech was simply this: “The best thing about writing is you don’t have to thank anyone.”  Then he left.

Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but it came off as a flippant remark.  Finkleman stars, writes and is executive producer of The Newsroom.  His character on the show is that of an egotistical executive producer of a news program.

If Ken Finkleman’s character isn’t essentially his personality writ large, he did little to disprove it here.  It’s almost like Finkleman expected the award.  There were funnier programs than The Newsroom on Canadian television this year, but that’s the thing with the Geminis – he just didn’t seem to care.  If he doesn’t care, why should I?

Something else I could never figure out was when Trailer Park Boys won Best Ensemble Performance – the nomination clip littered with as many S-and-F-bombs as could be expected of the program.  ”Shit” is quite acceptable for prime-time audiences and has been in Canada for years, but “fuck” is not (well, not before 9:00 PM, anyway) and was censored for the audience.  Later on, Mary Walsh trudged through a rah-rah speech about the Canadian television industry, letting out a few F-bombs just because…well, because she could.  The speech was about as subtle as a hand grenade being delivered by a fist to the face.  Trailer Park Boys uses that language because it’s colloquial to the inhabitants of the show’s redneck setting.  Walsh just seemed like she was peppering her speech for the sheer hell of it.  Edge and reverence: two tastes that don’t go great together.

That’s the principal problem with the Gemini Awards.  The Geminis try to be a hipper version of the Emmy Awards – well, about as hip as one can go considering Luba Goy’s involvement.  The awards ceremony (or, more importantly, its closing gala as the awards are spread out over three days) came across as uneven and unbecoming of an anniversary gala.  The awards broadcast was produced by both Global and CBC, CBC having lost Gemini broadcast rights this year due to the CMG lockout.  It still felt like the CBC-oriented Gemini Awards, on another network.  How else to explain the involvement of Gavin Crawford, Sean Cullen, assorted members of the mutated husk that is modern-day Air Farce and Mary Walsh?  On top of that, Scott Thompson and technical problems also featured.  It’s like the purveyors of cornpone and the hipsters were thrown into a blender and expected to become something that didn’t taste off.

The Geminis are a train wreck.  There’s no way to say this aside from the direct way.  I had never watched a Gemini Awards ceremony before this one, and I might never again.  I can’t understand why Canadians need to ape the American model of awards ceremonies so slavishly.  The majority of Canadians probably wouldn’t know who Michael Riley and Cara Pifko are, which suggests why the Geminis don’t work in the CBC-centric awards ceremony format.  Marrying the American style with Canadian hand-wringing about a national identity makes for bad television.  It’s nice to see an awards ceremony being produced in part by someone other than the CBC (with a ridiculous 204 Gemini nominations, which is why the award’s credibility always comes into question.)  The Geminis still need retooling.  If this is the most prestigious awards ceremony for television in Canada, the Geminis need to look it.

Perhaps Global will be able to wrest full control of the Geminis from the CBC next year and make the Gemini Awards look as respected as CTV makes the Junos look.  Canadian television should be supported.  Bad awards ceremonies should not.

One of the things about the mail is that there will always be something from the Reader’s Digest or Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes chum mills in it at least once a year.  Lately, there have been new companies that don’t even bother with the subtleties of pretending to be a legitimate business or offering any sort of actual service, and there’s one “company” that takes this conceit to the next level.  Well, it’s actually not one company – this sweepstakes mill is more like a hundred companies, but they all point to being small parts of a grand ripoff.

The company goes by National Awards Commission, Westport Enterprises and a hundred other names with different mailboxes in Las Vegas, Kansas City, and Rogers, Minnesota.  The spiel is always the same – here’s a check for $1,000,000 or other large sum if you send the letter by this date while buying some product of vague description, if you have the winning number.  Here, “National Awards Commission” is selling a coupon book good for “over $2,500″ of “savings” from “certain participating establishments.”  If that’s not enough, the PRE-SELECTED WINNING NUMBER IS VERIFIED!  At least Reader’s Digest gifts readers with its edited book anthologies and other bits of assorted junk, though the company uses negative billing to make people pretend that they’re obligated to pay anything for things they weren’t asked for.  Here, you pay some “acquisition fee” for some vaguely defined national…something – in this case, a coupon booklet.  God knows who might be stupid enough to fall for this, but that’s why these insta-companies exist.  You’re supposed to fall for it.

The greatest part of these letters is the rules and regulations slips, with the occasional badly edited space or bit of bizarre English that suggests that the letters may be foreign in origin.  A PNG of the actual official rules for this sweepstakes is there for you to peruse, but there are a few bits of comedy gold here that I can’t get enough of.  Prepare yourself…FOR BULLSHIT!

Doesn’t that fill you with pride?  The chances of winning the Grand Prize are not to exceed one in 300 million!  Essentially, that means there’s only one “Grand Prize.”  Earlier versions of this letter have the typical odds for prize payouts, with that deathless “odds of winning $1: 1:1″ line that always puts an angry smile on my face.  Here, National Sweepstakes Pretense doesn’t even do that – it’s just one grand prize for essentially the well-off parts of North America.  In fact, wording is so vague here that this line could suggest that the odds of winning can be one in 500,000,000 or one in infinity, but not one in 299,999,999 or anything approaching fairness.  Hell, the company can “draw” a number that no one has, and nothing can be legally done about this.  It’s all predetermined.  The odds are better of sweetposer.tk suddenly becoming a bloody buzz site, and the odds of that happening are what?  1:49,999,999?  Really, now.

Here’s the part where the discount coupon book is discussed.  I love lines like “purchases are required at time of redemption to receive the full benefit of the discount coupons.”   Oh, using the coupons is the only way to benefit from them?  No shit?  Never mind the fact that no one knows what the hell the coupons are good for.  Oh wait, they’re good for “hotel, car rental and cruise discounts.”  The way this is worded, the coupons are also good for restaurants, trips and amusement parks.  Neat!  So National Fake Contest Shillers’ coupon book gives you actual businesses?  That is one powerful coupon book.  I must send my $14.89 post-haste.  Might as well send a voided check, so National Westport Dummy Corporation can continue to leech off my bank account.  What do I need with money?

Here’s where the Engrish starts to show.  In this linked picture, the general conditions start off well, but what this part of the rules seems to say is that the Sweepstakes can be terminated if “compromised for any reason.”  There’s the bit about administration, security etc., but the sponsor can just theoretically stop the contest if a legislative body decides to look into the legality of it, since the terms are written so vaguely.  Considering the “National Awards Commission” has one PO Box, “Westport Enterprises” has another and this sweepstakes is similar to the other five hundred that came through the mail this week, this has the markings of a scam.  The contest could be shut down, and the schmucks that paid $14.89 for a coupon book would be left with a coupon book and no chance to win.  After all, this is junk mail.

Here’s the best line of all:

With odds like that, how can you lose?  No one but National Thingy Bit knows what the criteria are for drawing this number, and it’s predetermined anyway.  It makes the whole concept of actually running a contest moot.  You’ve already paid the $14.89 (or not, like it matters how legitimate this business is), and the lack of obligation to enter means the coupon book is separate from the promotion itself.  All anyone’s doing by entering this contest is subjecting oneself to more mailing lists, since this is just one giant address farm.  One letter sent to National Address Farm seems to be all this company needs, a confirmation that one wants more of these letters sent constantly.  Why anyone enters is ridiculous.  The odds are terrible, the presentation is even more unconvincing than sweepstakes like this usually are, and the mailings are incessant.  If this sort of sweepstakes lasts longer than the year or so it ought to, I’ll be surprised.

At least “Westport Enterprises” is honest about the purpose of this sweepstakes.  I’m placated by the cut and paste job done on this rules sheet, really.  Yeah, this company’s real legitimate.  Assuredly Westport will be around forever in some form, as long as someone wants to make a fast buck off the burgeoning idiot populace.  Truly, there will be no end to these sweepstakes, not even when humanity evolves into the sentient humanoid armadillo race it is destined to become.