Then I received this text message and suddenly, it wasn’t so glamorous.

ERIC: Coming to you live from the Foothills hospital! It’s the appendicitis telethon. Just waking up from surgery, gonna have to take a rain check on tomorrow.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? That was pretty much my initial reaction, complete and utter shock. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t respond with some sort of witty remark, which went along the lines of:

RYAN: Holy Sh*t Eric! Did it burst? Are you alright? Is FUDDYTV going to have to get ANOTHER Eric?

Hopefully the comedic part was not lost on him, but knowing his wit, I’m sure it wasn’t. It could be that the morphine and pain medication made it funnier…or not.

Needless to say, I’m extremely happy that he’s doing well, safe and not dead. It would suck otherwise. Oh and there’s no video this week, which really doesn’t matter right now at all.

Get well soon Mr. G.

However…

As my work was pretty much completo when the editing and animating got started I do have to say that seeing the Mac’s strike poses and that crazy shaking and exploding when Directive I took over was pretty damn glammy. Sorry guys, I think I’ve gotta disagree with you on this one

I am currently putting the finishing touches on the pilot for our webisode based series, “Directive I”, and must return to that, but in closing I want to invite you all to join us in the spirit of the new Fuddy. “Participate!”

Well, first this was all made possible because of the addition of two very talented people. Eric Giesbrecht, an accomplished director and creative mastermind and Erika Livingstone, a very unique and talented writer with an eye for the not-so-obvious. Prior to their addition, fuddytv had become somewhat stale, with little to no new content and no real direction. I have had nothing but a joyous time creating what has been created over the last three years and I didn’t want to see it die.

That said, the time was absolutely right for us to reflect on our maturity as a company and the unique offering which we bring to not only our fans, but the advertising market place. In truth, our new branding position as a company that will aggressively pursue web entertainment and business avenues isn’t new, it’s a reflection of what we’ve always been. However, our new positioning does bring a much more “open source” feel and collaborative mantra. The “collective” as it were, is where you find success and where you find happiness. That’s the new fuddytv.

Over the last three years we have significant growth in the company and look forward to expanding our base of national client relationships, but no matter how big we become we will always pride ourselves on being honest, hard-working and creative craftspeople. We’ve always believed the minute you start making art for the sole purpose of obtaining money…you will fail. We are no longer about money. It’s about art, creativity and the collective.

Some things about our new-attitude company/site I’d like to highlight are:

• Open commenting, no longer restricted to members
• Open rating system
• Four Words and a Film monthly contest!
• Very active Eric Giesbrecht and Erika Livingstone in our community
• A return to a new video every week!
• A slew of new actors
• New episodic series to tickle your palette
• Boris is back

Of course there is more, but it’s an impressive list.

I’d like to touch more on our Four Words and a Film contest that will launch any day now. One of our limitations in the beginning of fuddytv was the absence of more creative people. It was a tight ship up until now. As a way to generate more creativity not just on the site, but in our community alone, we came up with the idea of a monthly contest where anyone with a camera can participate. The rules are simple, every month we release 4 random words from a list of hundreds. With those 4 words in hand, you are tasked to create a video based on those words, with one being a major part of the plot line. After the video is done, you can upload via www.fuddytv.com to your YouTube account where we’ll post it. A group of judges picks the top three and the winner gets a nice little prize. What’s more exciting about the contest will be how the words are utilized, it will be a very entertaining, fun and exciting challenge!

We are tremendously proud to be relaunching our brand with a clear focus on creativity, the collective of talented people and an energy we’ve not seen before.

As always, thanks for being a part of our little community.

Cheers,
Ryan Northcott
FUDDYTV Founder

The day was stressful though, as it was looking as if FedEx had dropped the ball and wasn’t going To deliver on time, but by some miraculous gift from god it was delivered.

First impressions are amazing. It took some finagling to get the Rogers sim card working. The issue: don’t install the sim card after you connect with iTunes. The activation button, “View Account” disappears. It took a call to Apple support and being on hold to figure out that if you run into this problem simply power down the iPad and then reconnect with iTunes. You’ll get a prompt that reads: “would you like to download an updated carrier list?” After that the “View Account” button will reappear and you can activate the Rogers 3G.

My first sync uploaded all of my iPhone apps, which do seem to work on the iPad. In fact I just gave Skype a whirl and if connected to wifi and you have the earphones with a microphone you bet it friggin works like a charm. It’s amazing. Have I said amazing enough?

One thing I noticed versus the iPhone is the speed. With the A4 processor this thing is lightning fast. Apps load quickly, websites render in great time and battery life is stellar. I have been working on this for a good hour and it’s still at a fantastic 93%.

The last thing I’ll touch on here is video. First of all, if YouTube the site was anything like YouTube the app the world would be a better place. The videos load seamlessly and even our Meet Brian’s Memory, which is full HD, played without hesitation and looked absolutely beautiful in landscape and portrait mode. Launching video and watching those stored on the iPad is a cinch and flawless.

Initial reaction is incredible and I am so so happy to have this thing. 10/10 so far.

Oh and was I missing Flash because I didn’t even notice

Here Lies Love, a collaboration between David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, tells the story of Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos and her rise to prominence. Throughout the album’s two discs and 22 songs, they also tell the parallel tale of Estella Cumpas, the servant who raised Marcos.

Byrne and Fatboy Slim tell their stories using club music from the ’70s disco era — Imelda Marcos loved the discos — and they incorporate quotes from the first lady and her husband, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, to help with the narrative.

(NPR.com – Bob Boilen)

Hear the 2 CD Set in its entirety.

It’s a big WTF, but a pretty enjoyable one. It’s not everyday you go on a 70′s disco journey of Imelda Marcos’ life.

Enjoy.

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.