Some things never cease to amaze me. Take, for example, the creators of reality television.
I’ve discovered they sank to a new low when I recently channel surfed my way to Celebrity Rehab.
Ugh. You watch celebrity drunks, drug addicts and sex addicts come to some guy named Dr. Drew for a very public cure.
In the very recent past, certain celebrities boosted their popularity by going into rehab. It got them headlines, and sometimes sympathy.
Now, celebs can get face time as they grapple with their addiction demons.
I lasted perhaps five minutes checking this stinker out. From the likes of Hollywood has-beens Bridgette Neilsen and Daniel Baldwin to porn actress Mary Carey (yes, I had to look up who she was) and a former professional wrestler named Chyna, this show has it all – or nothing, really.
How anyone can watch week after week as this troupe of sludge tried to get clean is beyond me.
It would be less tortuous to brush your teeth with steel wool.
If you like watching silicone and collagen stagger around, perhaps this show is for you.
Specialty channels are no longer so special.
Remember when MTV and Much Music played nothing but music videos? To cater to the 25-40 crowd, the CHUM group added Much More Music to the channel spectrum.
Tune one of these in sometime. Good luck finding music videos. Sure, they still play them here and there, but chances are you’ll see crappy television shows, not videos, if you bother to tune in.
Hogan Knows Best. Reruns of The OC. The Surreal Life. And now Celebrity Rehab. Yowsa, what bung.
Documentaries such as Behind the Music or Classic Albums were cool. Video spotlights on various artists were decent. What generally runs nowadays is pure crap.
But the stations with “music” in their name but not on the air aren’t the only places to stumble around after losing their identities. Look no further than Lonestar to see a station that convinced the government communication overlords it would pump out shows and flicks focused on the Old West, only to now run action flicks, regardless of genre, every night.
There’s nothing wrong with a good action movie. But this is a channel called “Lonestar.” It should be running old “Dusters” on a regular basis, not the Die Hard flicks.
Just because Bruce Willis says “Yippie ki-yay, (expletive deleted),” doesn’t make it a Western.
Speaking of movies, I must say HBO forgot its roots. Its initials are for “Home Box Office.” Box offices are usually in theatres. And in theatres, they show movies, not TV series.
As decent as shows such as The Sopranos, The Wire and all those other HBO hits may be, they aren’t movies.
I’m Canadian, so I shouldn’t care about HBO, but HBO programming starts cramming up TMN.
And TMN is short for “The Movie Network.” Like HBO, anytime TMN shows something other than a movie, they are doing their name an injustice.
Bruce Springsteen once sang, “57 channels and nothing on.” He was prophetic, but wrong. Two hundred channels and nothing on.

The North Bay Skyhawks’ three-year lease agreement with the City of North Bay, which is about to expire, is public information.
Here are some of the financial highlights:

— The team pays the city $372 per game at Memorial Gardens (2007-08 season).
— The team pays the city for up to 145 hours of practice time per season.
— The team pays the city 10 per cent of the total value of each season ticket package, less the Capital Reserve Fund charge.
— The team pays the city 10 per cent of all walk-up and promotional/discounted ticket sales, less the Capital Reserve Fund charge.
— The team pays a Capital Reserve Fund fee to the city of $5 per season ticket, and $0.35 for each single-game or promotional/discounted ticket.
— The team shall receive net revenue from the sale of alcohol. The city shall retain all revenue from other food/refreshment concessions.
— A maximum of 150 complimentary tickets can be provided for each game and will be excluded from the 10 per cent and capital reserve fund charges.

Do the math.
The Skyhawks pay the city around $29,000 for icetime ($11,160 for 30 games and $17,500 to $18,000 for 145 hours of practice).
The city collects an estimated $16,000 from the sale of season tickets (an estimated 800 at roughly $200 each) and anywhere from $13,000 to $18,000 from single-game ticket sales. (This figure can vary, because of different prices for adult/senior/student tickets, as well as unknown quantities of promotional/discount tickets and complimentary tickets which are included in each game’s attendance)

So a statement that the Skyhawks pay the city $65,000 a season is not inaccurate.

A statement from Coun. Dave Mendicino that the city “loses” $50,000 per year on the Skyhawks should be qualified.
Each year, the city loses more than $650,000 operating Memorial Gardens, which includes staff costs, utilities, maintenance etc.
So the city “losing” $50,000 on the Skyhawks is a function of operating Memorial Gardens for the 220 hours the Skyhawks are on the ice during a season.

The city is responsible for providing Zamboni and rink attendants, security staff, ticket-takers, parking attendants, timekeepers etc., as well as utility costs etc. associated with operating the arena during games.
If the city wants to “make” money on the Skyhawks or any other tenant, they would have to charge the Skyhawks $300 an hour for icetime.

But no, the Skyhawks pay the same for ice as anyone else. It’s the arenas that are money-losers, not the Skyhawks.
Without the Skyhawks, Memorial Gardens would be “losing” an additional $65,000.

Funny things said while in job interviews:

When asked why the job was well suited to my talents and career path, I nodded toward the hallway of desks straight out of a Dilbert comic strip, I said: “I’ve always dreamed of having my very own cubicle.”

Dumb things said while in job interviews:

“I’ve always dreamed of having my very own cubicle.”

Most depressing greetings in the morning:

1) Six or seven email spams advertising “erectile difficulty” cures.

2) Wishing that was the problem.

Weird moments:

1) Halloween night, 1983: Sitting in an old Chrysler at a stop sign in the Cherry Street district of Canton, Ohio. My buddy and I were dressed up as mummies with toilet paper wrapped head to toe, the car stalling, and several black guys walking by . . .

2) Capreol High School, 1980: Passing a joint around outside the school yard smoke shack and not realizing a teacher had crept up beside me.

3) Hooking up with the mom of a college buddy . . . briefly.

Things that make me glad I don’t have a temper and pack a pistol:

1) Tail-gaters, especially people in smaller, older cars . . . with grey hair — smoking cigarettes and talking on a cell phone . . . with a baby in the back!

2) Donut shop workers who can’t tell the difference between milk and cream . . . and then argue that they marked the lid properly (when they didn’t)

3) People who bring two year olds to the Galaxy Theatre to watch Iron Man even though the show ends at 8:30 p.m., eroding my appreciation for fine art after investing $50 on tickets and snacks.

4) Managers who expect me to stop writing my blog during the afternoon just because a breaking news story requires immediate attention . . .

. . . to be continued.

-30-

Two Grade 6 Monsignor Uyen Catholic School kids have been deputized as honourary Junior Constables with the Chatham-Kent OPP after a local police officer spotted their science project while channel surfing.
OPP Const. Aaron McPhail wanted to recognize Andrew Mason and Troy Pollard after watching them being interviewed on Cogeco Channel 11 about a science project on distracted driving they entered in the Chatham-Kent Regional Science Fair last month.
The 11-year-olds won a silver medal in the Life Sciences category of the junior division for their project.
“It’s always good to recognize good work and this was good work,” McPhail said.
The officer was impressed with how these two boys, who aren’t old enough to drive, were able to pinpoint so many causes of driving distractions and how dangerous they can be.
These included eating, drinking and smoking while driving, along with using cell phones, navigational systems and computer devices. The project also highlighted the dangers of reading books and maps while driving.
“The OPP gets numerous calls about distracted drivers,” McPhail said, noting the driver of a tractor-trailer unit was recently caught with a DVD players suctioned to the dashboard while driving.
The Monsignor Uyen students used a Sony Playstation2 simulated driving game to illustrate the dangers of being distracted while driving. They had McPhail try playing the game in front of their fellow students while drinking bottled water and simulating using a cell phone.
“You should never drive while distracted,” Mason said, adding it could lead to a crash that kills you or injures you or someone else.
He said other distractions include driving if your dominant eye is covered or if their are noisy passengers in the vehicle.
Pollard was not expecting to receive this kind of recognition.
“I was completely surprised,” he said.
Pollard gave McPhail a passing grade for how he handled himself while distracted.
“He did pretty good for this first time on this game,” he said.

Congratulations to Douglas and Michelle Wright who have accepted the position of chief executive officer for not-for-profit side of the Divine Family Training Counselling and Support Centre.
They local couple will be attending an open house May 21, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the centre’s new home in the former Victoria Residence on Stanley Avenue in Chatham.
The keynote speaker will be Eleanor Josaitis, co-founder of Focus Hope in Detroit, which is the inspiration for the local centre.

Twenty-eight area residents will be among the 250 people from the region who are being honoured for giving the gift of life, during the Canadian Blood Services 10th Annual Awards Ceremony at the Giovanni Caboto Club in Windsor on Tuesday evening.
The Canadian Blood Services said the local donors, who are being recognized for donating blood 50 or more times, have collectively given more than 1,675 units of blood.

Let me begin by saying that if the North Bay Skyhawks either take a leave of absence or eventually fold that I doubt it will spell the end of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League.

The NOJHL was operational before the Skyhawks took to the ice five years ago and there is no reason why it couldn’t remain afloat without a franchise in North Bay.

But having said that, the NOJHL is a better place with a franchise in North Bay.

Not only does North Bay outdraw the well-supported Abitibi Eskimos by about a 2-1 margin, the Skyhawks are a model Jr. A franchise in terms of fan attendance. The Port Hope Predators are the top draw in the 36-team Ontario Provincial Jr. Hockey League and their average attendance is about the same as Abitibi’s — which is about half of North Bay’s.

Which makes me wonder why the Skyhawks seem to be getting the cold shoulder from the City of North Bay. Unless I’m missing something by reading the numerous articles in the North Bay paper, it sure as hecks seems as though the Skyhawks are being treated as second-class citizens.

At any rate, let’s assume that Nipissing University will ice a hockey team within Ontario Universities Athletics come the ‘09-10 season. Can the NOJHL and OUA not co-exist in North Bay?

I’ve read about the problems of the two outfits potentially sharing rink board advertising at North Bay Memorial Gardens and that it wouldn’t be enough to support both. And perhaps that is indeed so.

But I work out of Sault Ste. Marie where the NOJHL Thunderbirds live in the long shadow of the Ontario Hockey League Greyhounds. The Thunderbirds average about 250 fans per game and the Greyhounds about 4,500. But you know what? The NOJHL team has been around since 1999.

Now let me add that the Thunderbirds aren’t a money maker. But let me also add that one of the Thunderbird owners told me that if the team drew 400 fans per game the franchise would be “just fine.”

Point is, how many fans do the Skyhawks have to draw to be “just fine”? Are the Skyhawk owners content to be part of the NOJHL landscape “for the love of the game” as long as they break even?

Whatever the case, it appears to me that the Skyhawks are being dealt a rather harsh hand by those who oversee North Bay Memorial Gardens. Then again, Skyhawks’ general manager Guy Blanchard isn’t known as an easy man to deal with.

But let’s get real here. The Skyhawks are a premier Jr. A franchise. Few in Canada can boast their support. It doesn’t make sense for them to be treated with such apparent disrespect.

MICHIGAN SOO STILL NEEDS USA HOCKEY APPROVAL

The prospective owner of a proposed new NOJHL franchise for the Michigan Soo has paid a non-refundable deposit to the Northern Ontario Hockey Association as a means of applyng to be part of the NOJHL for the ‘08-09 season.

And from what I’ve been told, the NOJHL would like to welcome the Michigan Soo back into the league when it gets together for its annual general meeting in June.

But NOHA and NOJHL approval will mean nothing if he proposed Michigan Soo team doesn’t get the go-ahead from USA Hockey to become a registered franchise.

To that end, Paul Theriault, the would-be coach of the Michigan Soo Eagles, told me that either he or prospective owner Greg Eagle will be heading to USA Hockey headquarters in Colorado Springs shortly to seek approval to enter the NOJHL as an expansion franchise.

“We’re cautiously optimistic…we’re hopeful,” said Theriault of getting approval from USA Hockey to join the NOJHL.

by Randy Russon, Osprey Media

Well if you haven’t been busy lately playing the new Grand Theft Auto IV (for PS3 and 360 owners), or been rounding the corners on the Wii with the new Mario Kart then there is even more coming out this week to grab your attention. What’s interesting me most personally is Boom Blox - a new video game that comes out of the collaboration of  Electronic Arts and Steven Spielberg. EA has been the biggest publisher of video games for years and Spielberg has certainly helmed some of the largest movies in his career so it’s interesting to see what these two power houses would come up with. Perhaps your initial reaction will be the same as mine - a puzzle game? I love puzzle games, but it’s not what I would expect from the likes of Spielberg. I’m willing to give it a chance though. Perhaps it’s good that he’s not delivering a cinematic “game like a movie” since that genre is a little over crowded at the moment. Bring it on, Steven and while you are at it - how about a next generation remake of E.T.? Throw in some more M&M product placement and you’re sure not to lose money like the first E.T. game did. Oh, the horrors.

The North Bay hockey landscape, as well as the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey league, could be about to change.

The North Bay Skyhawks have called a news conference for noon Sunday, at which they are expected to discuss the organization’s status and future.

The Skyhawks and the City of North Bay have been negotiating terms for a lease extension for Memorial Gardens, but it appears a different brand of hockey could be on the horizon in North Bay.

Nipissing University has long considered launching an Ontario University Athletics (OUA) hockey program and, with the novelty of the Skyhawks wearing off after six seasons at Memorial Gardens, that could be the topic of discussion Sunday.

A background column appeared in Saturday’s Nugget:

http://nugget.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1013158&auth=Ken+Pagan

It’s believed the Skyhawks would have at least one more season as the primary tenant at Memorial Gardens. If Nipissing submits an application to launch an OUA men’s hockey program, it likely wouldn’t take the ice until at least the 2009-10 season.

LAJOIE DE VIVRE
Kevin Lajoie

The Cornwall Colts will win the 2008 RBC Cup.
Before you read on, let me assure you I haven’t been drinking on the job and I’m not having a medical reaction to any drug.
I admit it’s a bit of a crazy prediction. Just look at the opposition. The Camrose Kodiaks and Humboldt Broncos are the cream of the crop of Junior A hockey in Canada, and the Oakville Blades and Weeks Crushers are anything but pushovers.
Based on the season records alone, it would be easy to believe the host Colts don’t stand much of a chance.
But my confidence in the Colts extends beyond league standings and playoff success to a simple, time-honoured fact: Cornwall has a way of winning national hockey championships.
Look at the Royals. They played in three Memorial Cups and won each time. In the first two, 1972 and 1980, the Royals were considered the underdogs and weren’t given much chance to win a game, let alone the cup.
“Most press coverage labelled them underdogs, or ‘Royals Who?’ One reporter even asked, ‘Where is Cornwall?’,” wrote the late Bill Gallant in his Royals’ history, The Frozen Stage, of Cornwall’s odds of winning the 1972 national championship.
In both cases, the Royals managed to dig deep and find a way to beat the favoured Peterborough Petes for the Memorial Cup.
The third cup in 1981 was a bit different in that the Royals had a great returning cast of players that included Dale Hawerchuk, Doug Gilmour, Marc Crawford and Scott Arniel. Still, it was far from a sure thing as the Royals had to win the Memorial Cup over a Kitchener Rangers club that featured its own list of stars including Al MacInnis and Brian Bellows.
One exception to the winning trend was the 2000 Royal Bank Cup in which the Colts visited Fort McMurray, Alta., in search of a national crown. True, the underdog Colts didn’t win the championship - actually they didn’t even win a game - but they weren’t pushovers. With the exception of one game against the host Oil Barons (the eventual champions), the Colts lost every contest by a single goal. A few lucky bounces could have resulted in a completely different outcome.
One can go back even further in time to the 1938 Cornwall Flyers. The club captured the town’s imagination by making it all the way to the finals of the Allan Cup, the national championship of senior hockey. In those days of regional playdowns, it was a huge feat just to make it to the finals. In the end, the Flyers lost in the finals to the Trail Smoke Eaters, but they could take pride in finishing second. As champions, the Smoke Eaters represented Canada the next year at the world hockey championships. Trail went on to win all eight games in the tournament, outscoring their opposition 42 to 1.
If the past tells us anything, it’s that Cornwall hockey teams always show up to play at national championships.
So what can we expect this time around?
In order to win it, the Colts will have to be at the top of their game, something we haven’t seen on a consistent basis this season. Cornwall made a first-round exit in the CJHL playoffs and they haven’t played a meaningful game in several weeks. They’ll also face the pressure to perform well in front of the hometown crowd.
On the flipside, playing in their own building could provide an advantage to the Colts, and the downtime has given the players a further chance to bond and come together. On paper, the Colts have a well-rounded roster with enough experience, depth and talent that they should be able to sneak out some wins. Given the short, win-or-die type format of the RBC Cup, all it takes is a few strong games to end up in the finals.
Most important of all, the players seem to be ready for the challenge.
“We’re going to do Cornwall proud in this tournament,” Colts goaltender Justin Roethlingshoefer said at a city council meeting earlier this week.
That confidence, and the experiences of the past, is good enough for me.

klajoie@standard-freeholder.com

As fun as blogging can be - and I do like lobbing onto our web page the random thoughts as they wander through my cranium - our online video offerings are just plain cool.
Whether you want to read our blogs or check out our video, head to www.chathamdailynews.ca. The blogs are on the lower left portion of the page, while the video can be accessed by hovering your mouse icon over “Video” on the blue menu bar, and then click on “Online videos.”
We are still in the fledgling stages of posting video to the Internet, but it’s an excellent leap in terms of multimedia.
The Chatham Daily News is rapidly evolving into more than just a newspaper, as I’ve stated before. We’re striving to provide breaking news online as it happens, local web logging (the blogs), a very useful community portal in the URChatham-Kent.com side of our website, and now the video of certain news stories.
Photographer Diana Martin and reporter Ellwood Shreve have been particularly strong out of the gates with video coverage. It’s “outside the box” in terms of what they went to school for, but they are learning on the fly and doing a very fine job in the process.
Our other staffers are naturally involved as well and will be contributing more in the coming weeks.
We’ve come a long way from putting up basically raw footage of an African children’s choir visiting in Dresden back in March. Photographer Sarah Fraleigh was the first to dip her feet into the video waters with that offering, and one of the Br. 28 Legion pipe band preparing to its European trip. By the way, the band left Sunday and is playing at Vimy Ridge today.
***
A quick update for regular readers of this column. I think I’ve done it - outsmarted and out-stubborned (that may not be a real term) my avian adversary.
That’s right, Bruce 1, innocent Mother Robin 0.
She tried for days to make her nest on my motion-sensor floodlight. And I ripped it down day after day. Two near-complete nests and countless bits of straw later, I believe she finally moved on.
Good thing, too. A kind reader on Tweedsmuir Avenue called me up after my initial piece on the robin war ran (April 23, “Bird is ‘robin’ us of more than just sleep”) to tell me to keep that bird the heck off the light. It seems a robin built a nest above her light last year and the consequences were dire.
Motion-sensor floodlights, for those of you who don’t own them, will stay on if you suffer a very brief power interruption - say five seconds or less. So, if you aren’t home to reset the light by flicking off the switch for perhaps 10 seconds and then turning it back on, those floodlights will stay on, day or night.
Combine a hot floodlight with straw and the wet mud of a nest and you have a recipe for disaster.
According to the caller, the mud shorted out the light, blowing the unit off the outside wall and nearly setting the house on fire. The scorch marks are still evident, she says.
Yikes.
Robins are cute birds, don’t get me wrong. Just keep them off your light fixtures.

Cassie Vojvodin has traded in her long locks for a short and sassy hairdo.
And she will help some cancer patients feel better.
The 10-year-old Grade 5 Monsignor Catholic School student had about 10 inches of hair cut off on Wednesday in front of several classmates and teachers. Her hair is being donated to Locks for Love, which will use it to make wigs for cancer patients who have lost their hair because of chemotherapy treatments.
She was joined by her dad, Greg, who had his head shaved at the same time, so she wouldn’t have to get her haircut by herself.
“I’ve been willing to do this,” said Cassie, who has grown her hair for the past two-and-a-half years with the purpose of donating it.
She and her sister Stephanie, 14, donated their hair before.
“I know that I can help people,” Cassie said. “I just feel really good when I do it.”
Greg called his daughter’s efforts “admirable. We’re really proud of her.”
Greg, who works at Mahle in Tilbury, and his wife Liz, a Union Gas employee, raised about $375 through donations from their workplaces.
Monsignor Uyen students also made a donation to watch Alyssa Myers and Jeannette Urquhart from Angles Hair Care Inc. cut Cassie and her dad’s hair in the school gymnasium.
Check out the video of Cassie and her dad getting their hair cut online at www.chathamdailynews.ca.

The John McGregor Secondary School cheerleading team are going to be putting their skills to the test May 10, during the Wonderland 2008 Power Cheerleading Competition.
Team coach Amanda Wyatt said this if the first time the 11-member team will be attending the event, which takes place at Canada’s Wonderland.
“I thought it would be a great opportunity for them to go and see what it was like,” Wyatt said.
She believes the team will do well, noting they have been practicing after school Monday to Thursday.
Team member Michael Lapp, 17, said they are pretty excited about going to the competition.
“We’ve really improved over the last few weeks,” said the Grade 12 student. “We’ve just become more like a team.”
Lapp said it doesn’t matter where the team finishes in the competition, because their preparation has shown “we can be a team and come together and work for a single cause . . . That’s important to us.”
The other team members include: Kari Nash, Mercedie Hornick, Laura Vince, Sammy Taylor, Megan Wonnacott, Elisha McKinlay, Jon Howes, Martha Reddekop, Courtney Herfst and Sara Caron.

The folks at St. Joseph’s Health Care are looking for some interesting and heart warming tales about people who either gave birth or were born at the London hospital.
They want to know if anything was particularly special or meaningful about the experience. The hospital is planning to use the stories to publish a book or create a video.
Since the St. Joseph’s perinatal program, including the neonatal intensive care unit, serves the southwest region, there are sure to be some stories from the Chatham-Kent area.
I know I have one.
Both my sons, Ethan, 10, and Evan, 8, were born at the hospital.
I’ll never forget my wife Brenda swearing up and down she wasn’t going to have Ethan on his due date. The night before Ethan was due, we were at my brother Kevin’s house having a little pre-Christmas cheer when Brenda announced her water had just broke.
It was go time!
We ran home, grabbed her bag and headed down Highway 401 to London.
Having spent the previous day doing all kinds of work around the house and topping it off with a few “pops” at Kevin’s, when Brenda still hadn’t given birth by 9 a.m., I had some idea of the pain she was feeling.
Brenda had planned to experience “natural child birth” and try not to take an epidural shot.
With her labour becoming more difficult as I was practically chewing on coffee grinds to try to stay awake, I decided to try some calm, reasoned begging to get her to take the epidural.
I don’t know who was more relieved — me or her — when she got the shot.
Well, I do know. It was me, because I was asleep on a cot set up beside her hospital bed before the needle was removed from her spine.
The staff were great and both Brenda and our boys received excellent care at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Stories can be e-mailed to comdept@sjhc.london.on.ca or by regular mail to Communications and Public Affairs, St. Joseph’s Hospital, 268 Grosvenor St., London, Ont., N6A 4V2.
Remember to include your contact information.