The oddest part about that sentence is that there were no quotes around it until I put them there, which means a reporter and editor made a conscious choice to write something that sounds like it came straight out of a public relations handbook.
It reminds me of a time back in school when a kid nearly drowned in the swimming pool. It was pretty serious, but you wouldn’t know that based on the assembly that was called to discuss it. While there, we were told that the boy had swallowed some water and was helped out of the pool. Technically correct I suppose, but if the goal was to get us to take water safety seriously, you probably should have mentioned the part where he was rescued unresponsive from the bottom. Softening the language like that was extremely unhelpful, and there were lots of people after the fact joking about it. Most of those people were kids, who are often much smarter than adults give them credit for being.
My point here is please, stop complicating everything. If something is simple, it’s simple. The more words you use, the more suspicious we get. That’s exactly what happened with the kid in the pool. When they weren’t joking about it, people were busy wondering what might be getting covered up. That’s not what you want.
I don’t know if I’ve posted this George Carlin bit before, but even if I have, I think we need it again. It’s as relevant now as it was in the 80s.
A little while back, we were out to dinner with some people and unfortunately the conversation somehow turned to Trump.
“The nicest thing that I can say about Donald Trump is that he’s a complete buffoon,” I recall telling the group at one point. “It’s all down hill from there.”
Things like this are why I say that. The man, in addition to being a dangerous lunatic, has a good understanding of literally nothing.
I understand why number one is what it is, but if it were up to me cows should have to use ladders to climb over the border wall would be a solid 1A. Burying it down at 16 is a god damned injustice.
Oh, and just to answer my question from up in the title, they didn’t. not even close.
I’m a little surprised we got this given how abruptly things ended, but this is audio of the final newscasts and promos from the day CHML died, capped off by the pulling of the plug.
I don’t know what happened at 10 o’clock. Was it technical problems or did we throw to the news while the people who were supposed to be delivering it were in the midst of finding out they were about to be unemployed? We may never know, but it’s some eerie listening in hindsight.
This video contains the final complete radio newscasts at 9 AM and 9:30 AM on CHML, and its official (brief) sign-off.
0:00 – Station ID & final hourly newscast (9 AM ET)
4:16 – Traffic/weather check (9:05 AM ET)
5:16 – Station ID & final news brief (9:30 AM ET)
7:07 – Final traffic/weather check (9:32 AM ET)
8:04 – Throw to network programming (9:33 AM ET)
8:34 – Station ID, news beds with no local announcers (10:00 AM ET)
10:57 – final promos, commercials, station ID, and final sign-off
I’m a big fan of pickles on burgers. Relish too, for that matter. But if you substitute those two things for lettuce and tomatoes (especially tomatoes), I 100% understand where these poor folks are coming from.
And before anyone asks, yes, I’m fine with ketchup. Ketchup is different than tomatoes. Ditto tomato sauce. The problem is straight up tomatoes. They’re gross. So gross that I make Carin slice her own if she wants them on something I’m cooking. It’s a nice little compromise we have because I’m fairly certain she wants barf in her food almost as much as I want tomatoes in mine.
The reasons for its demise should be all too familiar to anyone who pays attention to this stuff. Overly large company wants to own everything, but doesn’t much care for the part where it has to pay to run it.
The embattled media company said Wednesday that the closure follows years of financial losses related to shrinking advertising revenues that have gone to “unregulated foreign platforms.”
Last month, Corus reported a third-quarter loss attributable to shareholders of $769.9 million and said it is actively looking to cut costs.
Executives revealed they expect to have slashed one-quarter of the company’s full-time workforce by the end of August when compared with the beginning of Corus’s 2023 fiscal year.
They also blamed Canada’s unfavourable regulatory environment, because that’s what you do when you’re a private company that historically gets whatever it wants from the CRTC and the government but still don’t think it’s enough.
I hate to have to go on this rant again, but if anyone should be complaining about the regulatory environment, it should be the people of Hamilton who just lost a nearly century old radio station because of shareholders who have probably never been there or listened to it. If we hadn’t spent decades allowing the rampant media consolidation that creates monsters like Postmedia, Bell, Rogers, Corus and the like, chances are we wouldn’t be seeing this sort of thing happen over and over again at the pace it’s been happening in the last five-ten years. Those companies exist solely to wring every bit of value they can out of assets and then discard them. They have zero interest in running properly scaled, sustainable businesses or in the communities that those businesses are supposed to serve.
On a personal note, I listened to CHML like my dial twisting self listened to everything else. It often wasn’t the best signal wherever I lived, but I caught enough of it to be familiar with many of the famous voices like Bob Bratina, Roy Green, Bill Kelly, Ted Michaels and John Hardy who came through it.
My strongest memories of it were only made in the last few years, though. When we moved to Kitchener in 2012, CHML was suddenly one of the most powerful stations we could get, day and night. I’m not kidding when I say that it rivalled the strength of 570 News. Since 570 didn’t have much to offer at night once baseball or hockey was over, we spent years falling asleep to “Those Old Radio Shows”, a block of old time radio that aired seven nights a week until it was replaced by a network talk show called “A Little More Conversation” in 2022. This often meant waking up in the middle of the night to “Coast to Coast AM”, which was always an adventure especially if you were having a night full of strange dreams. There was also the morning news wheel hosted by Paul Tipple and Shiona Thompson, which sometimes had me feeling more connected with Hamilton than with my own city. And just for Carin, I must mention that there was, at times, Doctor Michael Pinkus! on the weekends.
I guess all that’s left to say now is goodbye. Goodbye to a station that didn’t have to die. The city of Hamilton should not be without one of its largest, most important news outlets because of corporate greed and mismanagement. I hope that everyone who lost their jobs will be ok. And most of all, I hope that something worthwhile can fill the gaps that this closure has left. For the sake of the future, we need a strong media. Events like this are a huge step in the wrong direction.
The victim was located on scene suffering from a gunshot wound and transported to the hospital where he later died.
The suspect, identified as 43-year-old Gilbert Vermillion, was apprehended after falling out of his moving vehicle in an attempt to flee the scene, according to police.
Vermillion was treated at a local hospital for his injuries sustained in the crash and is being held on suspicion of first-degree murder.
If Lex Luger is telling the truth here and I have no reason yet to think he isn’t, my mind is blown.
According to a story he told on a recent edition of his podcast, the WWF didn’t pay him anything for all the time he spent riding around on that damn bus before SummerSlam 1993.
Luger also claimed that he did not get paid at all throughout the summer because he wasn’t wrestling in the ring due to the tour on the bus.
“I didn’t get paid all summer. I got zero,” he said. “I wasn’t working. You know how it was back then. I didn’t have a guaranteed contract like WCW. My contract wasn’t guaranteed. No play, no pay. At least they paid for my hotel.”
I’ve heard plenty of stories about the company being ridiculously stingy with payoffs for TV tapings even for big stars (numbers as low as $50-$75 a night because the real money was made on the house shows and the pay-per-views), but this is insane! You send a guy all over the country on a meet and greet tour with fans designed to sell tickets and PPV buys, not to mention air video packages from that tour on every one of your television shows, yet somehow the guy isn’t working so you’re not going to pay him? Jesus! At least he got 50 grand for looking like a geek in the eventual championship match. That’s something, I guess.
Yes, Vince McMahon is a dickhead. We all well and truly know this by now. But somehow I’m still able to be occasionally surprised by it.
I don’t think we need the two night SummerSlam we’re getting in 2026. I say this as someone who, even after four years, still isn’t sure we need the two night Wrestlemanias we’re getting now. They exist purely to wring money out of the fans who watch and the cities that host them. I know that’s the point, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
But if we’re going to go with this two night big event thing, there are plenty of shows each year where it would actually make sense. How about the Royal Rumble? Elimination Chamber? Money in the Bank? Survivor Series assuming we’re going to keep doing WarGames every year? These would all benefit from being stretched out,and for the same reason.
Having a men’s and women’s version of each of these matches is a good thing. But cramming them both onto one show means that at least one of them inevitably suffers, even if both are good. If you put one on each night, everyone wins. Big matches get the spotlight they deserve, which I’m sure would make the people beating themselves up to make them the best they can happy. The company gets the money from two nights of ticket sales, not like it needs it. And you don’t burn out your crowds by having them sit through a very long match twice, which makes for a much better atmosphere. that atmosphere will then make the shows seem more fun, and make more people want to watch or even go, which makes everyone more money. And that, as we’ve discussed, is the whole point of doing this weekend long festival thing to begin with.
WWE has announced today that Minneapolis will host WWE SummerSlam over two nights on Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2, 2026, at U.S. Bank Stadium.
The 2026 edition of SummerSlam will be the first Premium Live Event in Minneapolis since TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs in 2019 and will mark the first time WWE will host a stadium event in the city. In addition to the massive two-night event, WWE and MNSE will deliver a host of fan and community events in the days leading up to and after SummerSlam.