Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Toronto Mike'd #78

Episode Date: May 27, 2014

Mike and Elvis talk about Dean Blundell, cutting the cable cord, death, birth and Mad Men without spoilers.

Welcome to the 78th episode of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything, often with a distinctly Toronto flavour. I'm Mike from torontomic.com and joining me is my brother from another mother, Elvis. You do not look like Barb DiGiulio. She's a pretty good looking lady. Did you see that little discussion in the comments? Somebody said she was in her mid-40s and somebody came back, I think, completely tongue-in-cheek and said she can't be more than 28. And then that other person explained why that's impossible.

She started in 91. She would have been six years old when she started. And then the guy had to throw him a wink because he was clearly just... Can we maybe suggest that people interpret every single comment on the internet as 100% sarcastic? But you know what? In real life, I'm a very sarcastic guy

but i i like to deliver my sarcasm in a style where you know it's sarcasm like i think there's there's visual clues and you know the audience doesn't always know a little there's a little glint in my eye i have a client of mine who has no comprehension whatsoever of sarcasm. And to this day, right now, this woman wakes up believing that I fully endorse 100% every single thing about Rob Ford. Okay, that's funny. Every single thing that he's ever done, I was able to explain away to her at this lunch that we were at. And she said to me numerous times,

Did you sell her on him? You're an asshole who lives in 905. And in my head, I'm like, she's not picking up that I'm being extremely sarcastic here. And it was the greatest thing, because I never corrected her, and so she now believes that I'm an asshole. We must remember now that a number of people

congratulated me on my Gemini for best Toronto blog on the movable type platform 2006 or something. A Gemini which is awarded to television shows? I guess we have to remember there are some people who, believe me, I was driving to Bradford on Saturday. I'll talk about that in a minute. But I told my mom for I think the 400th time in my life, I told my mom that it's strange that the word gullible does not actually appear in the dictionary.

Like, it's strange. Like, if you go in a dictionary, you won't find the word gullible. You'll find twerk, but not gullible? You won't find gullible. And I think it's the 400th time she was surprised to learn that fact. And my kids are in the backseat. And the kids were, like, shaking their head. Amazing.

So you got to be careful. Your mom's getting a lot of air. You should bring her in as a guest one day. She's getting a lot of air time here. That's three consecutive podcasts, I think. But this one's just an anecdote. That's not a story. Yeah, well.

I don't have a story about my mom today. How about I interview your mom? That'd be awesome. Go ahead. I'd love to do that. That'd be really interesting. I won't listen to that one. So, okay. So to wrap up the Barb, so Barb DiGiulio was coming in today and you are not Barb DiGiulio. Barb DiGiulio got a call from the mighty 1010 to co-host

friendly fire with John Downs. Do you know what that is? Friendly fire with John Downs? No idea. I'm assuming, is it like a crossfire thing where it's like, you know, you have different opposing points of view? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't listen to 1010. I've heard the name John Downs like lobbied about because I'll get lots of radio comments on my site and I hear them talk about John Downs. I think I heard Humble and Fred talk about him at some point. Friendly Fire with John Downs sounds like it might be exactly that.

Crossfire maybe. There you go. Well, listen to the if barb's on it so barb's on this week she's on like like yeah today so barb uh nicely nicest email i think i've ever received uh asked if she could come in next week and i thought about it like maybe maybe this 10 10 is like an audition for like a paid gig well you can ask her And I still considered forcing her to come in today and say no to 1010. Nice. So you took Barb's spot. It's now or never, baby.

My grandma died on Saturday. That was sarcastic, by the way. My grandma died? No, my comment about... Yeah, you gotta be careful. Knowing Barb, because when I asked Barb to come on, she went and listened to some episodes, because I guess she wanted to, A, make sure this was something

she should do, and B, yeah, just to see what it was like. Like, are we going to bash her? I guess she doesn't want to walk in and get shot. I don't think there's been any loaded questions by either yourself or me and any of the guests that appeared on the show. No, and her friend, Greg Brady, the big question was, what the hell happened to the Langer?

Oh, I'm trying to talk about my grandma dying, but maybe just before I talk about my grandma dying, which is sad and not sad, and I'll explain why. We got some coverage by your Toronto Sports Media blog. Really? Yeah, like a full article.

His name is Mike in Boston. I remember that name because I'm like Toronto Mike. So there's Mike in Boston. I'm like, oh, he's like the Boston Mike. When was I subscribed to their RSS feed? I hope I have the right blog. I don't know. Anyway. Jonas? Yeah, yeah. Jonas is Toronto Sports Media.

Okay, yeah. This is the right blog. TSM. Okay. He wrote two things in one article and I actually, it's relevant to me in both of them. So one was, he talked, he had Jim Lang, he had an interview with Jim Lang where he asked some follow-up questions that I'm going to ask on my podcast.

So he's still some of my thunder. That's fine. I should have been faster. Yeah, but he's in the written world. You're in the audio world. I'm also in the written world. I never considered it. Well, your interview with Langer will be audio.

That's true. So he did a nice follow-up. He linked to our podcast, episode 76, and he talked about the interview, and then he interviewed Langer about it. And then he talked about something I want to chat with you about in a minute, Dean Blundell, and he quoted me.

I was quoted twice in this article about Dean Blundell being he quoted me. I was quoted twice in this article about Dean Blundell, uh, trying, being on the fan five 90, which I want to talk to you about in a bit. Really? Yeah.

Interesting. So that, yeah. So go catch up on the feed, man. Cause your podcast episode was linked in everything. I'm going to go take a look at it. Maybe I missed it.

I must've. So, uh, speaking of missing. Good segue. My grandmother died on Saturday. Did you call her grandma? Did you call her nanny? I called her grandma. Grandma, okay. This was a big discussion before she passed because I always called her grandma.

But on the other side, my cousins always called her Nana. And with this generation, so my kids are all calling my mom grandma. And my cousin, my cousin, my nephew Nate calls my mom grandma. I guess that's because us kids called grandma grandma. So our kids call grandma grandma. But this guy nate calls

his other grandma nana so we were discussing like it's interesting to see like what terms you get nanny and nana grandma this is because i have i have two little girls and and and they have different names for their grandmas and grandpas what are they and i think it's because to them grandma is the name right so why would why would the two different people have the same name so i think that's where it comes from so they call uh my wife's uh parents nanny and poppy and they call my my parents uh my parents my dad's italian so he's no no oh yes no no and nona and nona yeah right so it works out so no one is grandma or grandpa actually um but they know what grandma and grandpa are they just don't their names are not nanny and poppy

i like that poppy i'm gonna i'm gonna steal that yeah poppy's good and poppy loves it and funny because he picks uh grace up from from school and um all of the neighborhood mothers and dads that pick up their kids from school call Poppy Poppy as well. It's quite funny. Love it. Poppy's good. My daughter, they're fluent in French, and sometimes my daughter will call me Papa because she's French. Your grandma.

Let's talk about her. Okay, grandma died. But I guess this is to say, my grandma was 98. Wow. Wow. She was in an old age, what do you call it, a long-term care facility in Mississauga. But here's the thing about grandma, who I was very, very close to for most of my life. Grandma had severe dementia.

So grandma hasn't known who I am in, I'm going to say, seven, eight years. Wow, that's sad. So it is sad. And so it actually got to a point, I think four years ago, cause I would still visit her cause my kids have visited her. I got pictures even, even though she doesn't know, like these are my great grandkids. But, uh, a few years ago, uh, it got to a point where like she, she literally wouldn't leave her bed anymore and she didn't know who we were so it became like she got all anxious when we came because we were strangers and it would upset her and we stopped coming because it was like upsetting her to have visitors and she was like yeah so i

and i thought so i when i got the call at 7 a.m i got a call from my mom that my grandmother had passed and i had this overwhelming feeling of relief right like there was no uh it was like i had already said goodbye like she was already dead she just her body had continued like her heart had continued to beat how is your mom with all this she upset about it or well she's similar but i noticed i guess it's different for kids i noticed like for my aunt and my mom it's far more like she died saturday but for me it's different for kids. I noticed like for my, my aunt and my mom, it's far more like she died Saturday. But for me, it's overwhelmingly not like that.

Like I, I, I doesn't feel like she died Saturday to me at all. Like, so I, I, we went up to Bradford on Saturday cause I had to do some, uh,

I'm executor of this will. So I had to finalize and sign off on all this funeral stuff, which is a whole, you know, it's tough cause you're giving her the funeral she would want, and it's not, it's the opposite of what you want to attend. So it's like, you know.

Yeah, but it's all, I firmly believe that. You have to execute to the T all the wishes of the deceased. Well, she got her, she's got a Catholic mass, and her Blessed Virgin Mary is on the cover of the piece of paper that will be handed out.

So she got everything. Yeah, I know. I didn't put any mic stuff. Don't worry. It's all... Don't worry. It's not a link to the podcast. Can you imagine?

It's like... She's worm food now, everyone. I just have a celebration of life. Just tell a story. And then I know the thing that bugs me a little bit about Catholic funerals, and I was at one as recently as April, is that they don't allow eulogies. Like this is the rule in the Catholic Church. And to me, it's going to sound strange, but the best part of a funeral is the eulogies. Like all I want out of a funeral is people to talk about the deceased and their memories.

Yeah. So I grew up in an Italian household and obviously it was, my dad is Catholic, so a lot of influence on the Catholic side of things. But my mother is Anglican, which is pretty much Catholicism. And yeah, they really don't want to allow you to, a lot of times they don't even, they don't even want to talk about it. Right. allow you to, a lot of times they don't even, they don't even want to talk about it. Right. It's,

it's not really like you go and you show up and you eat and there's a lot of eating and that kind of stuff. But there really isn't sort of that reflection time that I think that, um, as unfortunately for both of us, we've experienced some friends over the years that have passed at a young age. And typically I think when, you know, we get together and mourn our friends who've left, we just end up just shooting the shit about stupid things we've done with them, they've done, you know, like all that kind of stuff. Yeah, sharing memories. Yeah, and I'm quite, you know,

like a friend of mine committed suicide a couple of years ago and I remember going to the funeral. It was the first funeral I ever went to in a synagogue. So I got to wear the kippah and the whole nine yards, and I remember the whole time saying that, you know, Daniel got the last laugh because he got to see all of us Gentiles walking around with these kippahs on our head.

Are they called kippahs? Not yarmulkes? Kippahs, I think, aren't they? I think they're yarmulkes, or I think they're called that too. Kipas might just be a nickname or something, but I've heard people call him Kipas.

So I'm sure a commenter will correct me. But yeah, I said, you know, he's got the last laugh and I kept calling him an asshole because, you know, that's a lot of times that's what he was

and that's what I am. But, you know, that wasn't meant as a bad thing. I think that's the best way to remember. But at the same time, you have to respect the deceased wishes, I think, too. Of course.

So she's got the Catholic Mass. It's all set up. The thing, though, is it's a Catholic. Basically, as I understand, I mean, I was raised Catholic. I should know this, except that when you die and you have your Mass, it's really all about God, the Holy Trinity, right? Right. God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. You know, I can't differentiate.

They're all the same entity. But are they? That's another podcast. The century-old. But, you know, I just went. So in April, you know, a much sadder death occurred. Like, I was thinking, you know, my buddy Mike Kick didn't get a third of my grandmother's life. Like, it's like, where's the justice here?

And my grandmother tri grandmother's life. Like, it's like, where's the justice here? And my grandmother went trip, tripled his life. But he, you know, I was at a Catholic mass and it was none of what I was like, it was just, you're in a, you're basically doing a service in to God and I'm not there for God. I'm there for my, my late. But you guys got to do the goodbye thing. Then we went to, yeah, then we went to, we went to a bar and talked about kick. So that, yeah, the celebration of life.

And that last game probably was as much of a funeral as anything else, right? Where you left the left field open. Yeah, when they exploited our... So my grandmother, so it's the funeral's tomorrow. And she lived a very long life. And she was very healthy physically. I'm just here to tell you that dementia sucks. And when your mind goes,

and I was talking to Monica about this, like when my mind goes and I don't know who my kids are and everything, like that's the time to slip some cyanide in my tea. Like that's the time to go. The mind is all we have, man. I think I could go, if my mind is fine, I think you could take my body away and I could have a fairly fulfilled life with just my mind. Like a crystal or like a crystal leaf type of thing? Yeah, or like the scientist. Stephen Hawking. Yes. The scientist.

The scientist. It's like a superhero. But when the mind goes, you're gone. I don't care that. That heartbeat, my grandmother's heart kept beating until 98. And then finally. It's pretty remarkable. But there was no memories.

She doesn't know where she is. It's sad. So dementia sucks. My condolences to you and your family, Mike. I know it's not easy. I know that you sort of had already had it in your mind that she was gone. That's the thing.

I know tears were shed. Maybe I'll be hit with something surprising tomorrow when I'm like there. 98's pretty old. I mean, that's a pretty full life. You can't complain, I don't think. No complaints. No complaints.

So that's it. The circle of life continues. There's a birth. There's a pretty full life. You can't complain, I don't think. No complaints. No complaints. So that's it. The circle of life continues. You know, there's a birth, there's a death, there's another death. You just need another birth to kind of at some point to balance it out and everything will be fine. Well, there is another birth coming up. Good segue, Mike. I'm not sure if you meant to do that or not. Oh, of course.

But I wanted to go to some super happy news. I wanted to make the announcement that my wife and I are expecting our third baby. And very different from Mike and Mrs. Boone. We are not going to find out the gender, nor are we going to name the baby before the baby arrives. Not that that is better or worse. That's just the way that we've decided to do it. That is your decision? We'll find out if it's a boy or a girl around Thanksgiving.

That's the due date. It's right around that time. Firstly, congratulations. Thank you very much. This is kid number three. This is kid number three. So is it any truth to the rumor that you heard my third was on the way and you felt pressure to compete? I actually have a really good friend of mine, not that you're not, who both, I basically followed him, it seems like, in a lot of different life events.

He got engaged, then I got engaged. He got married, I got married. And then all three of our kids have pretty much been in succession. His wife is expecting, I think, in the next couple of months. Is he in Oshawa? No, he's in Mississauga. Milton, actually.

He's in Milton. But we went to high school together, so I've known him. He's one of my oldest friends. And is there, you know, they say when a sitcom is going, like, jumping the shark, they add the new baby or whatever.

So is this to help out with Toronto Mike? Because I had a baby, and it was good for ratings. And if we could have two, imagine Toronto Mike has two 2014 babies. We will. We will, I know, I know. So just imagine that in reality. We were talking about that the other day.

Our kids are going to be in the same grade. Same calendar year. If they make it in a particular sport, they to be in the same grade same calendar year if they if they make it in a particular sport they'll be in the same on the same team uh or the same draft year of course they'll never meet each other because my kids are in southwest toronto hey your kids there's only one ohl my friend it's true right and that is the moment it's true they'll both be in the belleville bulls right uh and you're also i should, I should point out, it feels like it's North Oshawa. Is there a city called North Oshawa? No, but there is definitely the region

of North Oshawa, sure. The region of Oshawa within Oshawa. That's exciting. I can't believe it. We're pretty excited. For all three of my kids, I knew the gender because that was part of me. I gave them a name and they were all named in the womb and I knew what their genders were and it was kind of exciting but I can see why you want the surprise but uh

you know that's one of those shakun sun goo like whatever uh floats your boat the other two have been surprises and uh it's fun and the way I look at it is we've got enough yellow and green outfits to last for at least a few weeks if not a couple of months, before we have to start worrying about if we need to buy blue ones or if we can just recycle the pink ones that we already have. Honestly, though, because they'll never listen. How badly do you want this to be a guy? Like, don't you need a guy? It's a good question. So here's my response, because I have thought about this. When I was expecting our first baby, I was deathly afraid of the opportunity or the possibility of having a girl because I

really have no idea how to interact with women whatsoever. In fact, I didn't even know how it was I was able to accomplish getting married and then impregnating this woman or her letting me impregnate her. Well, she was asleep and drugged. So I was just worried because I only have a brother. And so I wasn't really around a lot of girls when I was younger. And then, of course, now I have not one but two girls and they're delightful. I love them. They're so sweet and innocent and just so great. aren't great, but they're certainly different at this age in terms of their energy levels and their personalities. And so sure, it would be nice to have a boy and have, you know, someone else in, in the house that has a penis. Um, and I guess testicles since our dog is a male, but doesn't have any testicles anymore. So yeah, it would be nice to be able to have that, to have a boy and round out the family in that way. But I know how to deal with girls and I know

how to work with them and have fun with them and get down and dirty with Barbies and all that other kind of cool stuff. So honestly, I know this is cliche, but as long as a baby is happy and healthy, I'm good. Whether it's a boy or a girl, I'm honestly good to go. That's the only acceptable answer. I was testing you and you passed. But then again, I will tell you, I spent last night and tonight and tomorrow night on the baseball field with my son and it's the best part of my day. It's just, I love it. And this is no, I mean, my daughter and I are tight. We went on a great bike ride on the weekend and we are amazingly tight and she's amazing. But man, the fact my son loves hockey and baseball

just makes my life better sure that's all i'm gonna say i wish my daughter loved baseball i tried my best i put her in tim bits i tried she wanted to dance she made her call and i go to the recitals and that's you know that's it but that's one once or twice a year i go to these recitals but with my son it's several times a week we're out there and it's the best and and as long as she's cool with that and he's cool with that then it's all good man everyone's happy that's good that's good stuff week we're out there and it's the best. And, and as long as she's cool with that and he's cool with that, then it's all good, man.

Everyone's happy. That's good. That's good stuff. So we're excited. We're, uh, we're, we're really excited.

Do you want to talk about Dean Blundell for a moment? There's another trick question. You have to. Sure. So, uh, I've never met, I've never,

I'm trying to remember, like we, no, I've never met Dean Blundell. Have'm trying to remember, like we, no, I've never met Dean Blendow. Have you emailed him? Yeah, we've exchanged email. As recently as when he was, before he launched his podcast, we exchanged emails about his

podcast. Like we actually, yeah. Was it about hosting it or helping him out with it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whether I offered to, I mean, I have ground, I have real life experience doing exactly what he did. So the model he's following with the podcast is identical to the model that Humble and Fred followed and now Todd Shapiro followed. And the model is going on Sirius? No.

Well, that all evolved. Okay, so to be specific, it's basically to have a podcast where you create your own contact and then you have like sponsors as like partners where you you they're part of the show in the sense that you might interview the guy from the wine place and you will talk about them live like you don't just run ads or whatever right so they and these sponsors pay like real cash to you right like that's what this podcast is missing i pay you cash every week i come here yes. Yes, yes. Well, you should see what I charge Barb DiGiulio. So this model, so forget Sirius for a minute, because I'm not going to speak too much out of school,

but Sirius isn't cutting a check. Sirius is giving you airspace so that you can sell more to your sponsors. Your sponsor will pay X to be on the podcast, but to be on podcast and Sirius, they'll pay X plus. Quick question about Sirius, though. Are they paying Sirius to be on to be on the air no okay because i know that there are radio stations out there that you can pay for time oh we can do that right you can pay to actually like we could be on 640 if we wanted to be in that's yeah yeah that's no no it's uh no it's uh that's not happening so uh but you're not you know it's not like the olden days where the the radio would actually pay you for your content this is like here you can have the first space so

dean blundell starts a podcast and i actually honestly have not heard it yet i haven't got around to it but i've heard about it because humble and fred talked at lengths about it and some other people came in to say they were disappointed by the production values and they felt like it didn't sound like we sound more professional here than he did on his podcast. Now I need to listen before, I should have listened before I spoke about the Dean Blundell podcast but let me be clear, I haven't listened to it. But that's what I've heard. Well, I haven't listened to it either. I mean, I don't even listen to the one I'm on. So why would I listen to somebody else? No, you're too busy with 101 and 100.

That's true. You know what? Frankly, I'm not really interested in Dean Blundell at all. But here's where I thought I might draw you in. So I don't want to talk about him. I'm happy to talk about him. But I just want, for the record, I really have no opinion on him whatsoever. He doesn't interest me in any way.

He never did. I never liked his show. But it's not because it was a bad show. It just wasn't my thing. It just wasn't your cup of tea. Me too. Actually, me too. Why do you think I reached out to talk about his podcast?

Because I don't dislike Dean Blundell. I don't have any passionate dislike for the man. I know others close to me do, and I don't. I actually wanted to talk to you about uh something happening with a station you do listen to the fan 590 where blundell uh has been i think as a co-host to blair he's been brought in as i'm not kidding has this happened already well okay because it's not officially like now he's part of the show but he has appeared as blair's co-host and what's deemed as sort of like a trial like oh and here's two things i have noticed uh that i would like to share with the audience

and one thing i know for a fact from people who would know is that blundell employs a uh expensive pr agency so he cuts a check every month to this big pr agency and their job is obviously is pr so i don't think it's a coincidence that there were these two interesting articles came from the Globe and Mail within the last month about Dean Blundell. One talked about him in his podcast venture, which really did insinuate like this was revolutionary. Like it really did. I read the article, this article I read. I read that one too. And it came across like Blundell was doing something radically different here by you know in his basement he was going to record his own podcast

and you know control the content himself and he would bring in sponsors and it was really presented like wow blendel no one has ever done this before what a genius when it's the exact same model i just followed with two other former radio people and and not to you know burst, burst your bubble or anything, because what you did was remarkable, but it's not like you were the first person. No, no, no. And we never suggested we were. No. I mean, this is the beauty of the internet, right?

I mean, the ability for anyone to sort of invest a little bit of coin in equipment, and it doesn't even have to be as great of equipment as what you have here. This is fantastic. And I think this goes a long way to, to why it is that, you know, you and I have been able to attract some of the people here that we've been able to attract because it does sound professional. But one of the very first podcasts I ever listened to was called,

um, things you should know, uh, run by the same website. Um, and, uh, it really was sort of amateurish when they began it was just two guys riffing like

we do and now they're like hardcore i mean they got websites they got twitter they got like a huge following um it's it's for the globe to insinuate that dean is doing something it just felt like a pr agency had got to the author he's getting his money's worth yeah but then a second article came out like a week later kind of about all about how he would be a fit on the fan and how he was getting this tryout with a fan and basically it was about him being on the fan 590 and it was it also felt like a pr rep had written it like so there were two back-to-back globe articles that seemed really they smelled like a pr firm had interfered and he does have employed this pr firm so this happened and uh i don't know how much you know about dean blendell but his father was like a

radio guy at chum or something and now he's like an executive at rogers so he's got these like ties to rogers which might explain the tryout of the fan but it'll be very interesting to see because the rogers is like famous for for being hardcore and anyone who says anything even slightly homophobic. Remember Damien Goddard and all that? That's it. So we'll see. But I just wondered what you thought about the Jeff Blair show having Dean Blundell brought in as a second voice. I'm not a fan.

I mean, we've spoken about, uh, Jeff Blair on this show before and, um, you know, he's, I like Jeff Blair is he's kind of like Jim Lang in the sense that when he first started, uh, on his show, he was pretty raw. Yeah. He mumbled a lot. He's gotten better. Uh, he has a little bit of mike wilner in him where he will go off on callers sometimes which is great um but i i also find that sometimes he'll entertain idiotic callers a little bit too long um but uh and and you know he's come a long way in that sense he's a he's a great broadcaster now i think he's really really good um he he's he obviously his strength is is baseball which is

uh good when the jays are winning i'm not adverse to jeff blower having a co-host to sort of round out some of the other sports that maybe he isn't as knowledgeable about but dean blundell seems to me to be a publicity ploy or um a way in which they can maybe you know spark some interest in the show i'm not sure why they would need to. And I'm not really sure how that works out. If I'm Jeff, maybe I'm a little worried that Dean will take over my job. Or how about this? What about grooming Dean to replace Brady and Walker?

They've tried the whole bring over a music guy and do a morning show with John Gerringer. And that didn't work out very well. But this guy is more over a music guy and do a morning show. Oh, Derringer. John Derringer. And that didn't work out very well. But this guy is more than a music guy because I mean, he on CF and why he just talked. I, but is he going to be, have be able to like he,

for Dean is, is trying to be controversial and bringing out his personality. How much of your personality are you going to bring out when you talk about sports? But it is an interesting idea. Like I, I don't know ratings. I don't know the ratings,

but let's say Brady and Lang had higher ratings and Brady and Walker. And know ratings i don't know the ratings but let's say brady and lang had higher ratings and brady and walker and let's say you know uh let's say they want to bring in dean blundell to be the morning show on the fan that's a big name with a lot of male listeners it could make a splash in the market and then uh maybe this is like us maybe this is that i don't know like i don't know now i'm this is that. I don't know. Like, I don't know. Now I'm speculating, but. Yeah, I don't know either. I'm, who knows? And who cares, right? I'm not listening to that show now because Dean is on it.

Let's just put it that way. There's a lot, I've heard a lot of that, but I think, yeah, I don't hear a lot of people who are now going to listen because Dean is on it. Because his knuckle dragging, knuckle draggers or whatever they are that follow his show i don't see them listening to sports radio with no not at all i i think um you know greg brady brought up a a great point uh during his interview where he said um that uh sports stations that were on AM that moved to FM saw an exponential increase in the number of their listeners. I wonder if maybe this has something to do with it. Maybe they're looking to

add in some FM talent and make the jump over. Who knows? Who knows? But speaking of Rogers, since I'm on a segue role today, Rogers, two things speaking of Rogers. One is they own the Blue Jays and the Blue Jays are on fire. Like, I know I made some predictions they'd be third place, but I don't even know if it'll be mathematically possible if they keep this up.

I don't know if they're going to lose again this year. Well, I said second place by two and a half games, I think. And you said third place by four games or something like that. We'll have to pull the audio on July 1st. But yeah, dude, they're on fire, man. They're just rocking it.

Yeah, it's unbelievable. And Edwin Encarnacion had like a May for the ages. He beat, what was it, George Bell's record and Delgado's record? Oh, Jorge Bell. Kiss my purple ass. Yeah, 13 homers in the month of May, man. That's a record.

No, I'm hesitant to jump on. I mean, I've always watched. When they sucked, I'd watch. But I'm hesitant to jump on. I mean, I've always watched. When they sucked, I'd watch. But I'm hesitant to buy in. I feel like I've been hurt before, and I'm just very hesitant to buy in. So I am waiting until July 1st before I jump in. So I'm kind of keeping my eye on it, and I'm checking it out, and I'm enjoying what's happening.

And if, like you said, if July 1 were right there, then i'm i'm ready well let's put it this way the jays right now have the fourth best record in the entire major leagues and the second best record i believe in third best record in the uh american league itself um but in the al east the yankees are knocking on the door only two games behind and baltimore's two and a half games behind so it's not like as if they've got this in the bag. It's not like as if it's the 84 Tigers. I mean, it's a tough division. We're just lucky Tampa Bay took a step back.

Yeah, and Boston's got a bunch of injuries now, which is good. Yeah, which is very good. So we got just those, yeah. So the Jays are kicking ass, but also speaking of Rodgers, I give Rodgers a, I've written, I don't know if I ever talk about this, but I've written about this extensively, but I give Rodgers, I don't know if I ever talk about this, but I've written about this extensively, but I give Rogers, I don't know, about $100 a month or something, just basically so I can...

I think I always look back at TSN2 as being the big one, so TSN2 might be the reason I'm coughing up $100, because I... TSN2, wow. I know, because the way it worked was there was a tier where I had everything I wanted, but I didn't have... Because TSN2, I guess, is owned by the enemy, Bell, Globe, Media, or whatever. And they put it on this extra tier,

which was like 11 bucks more a month or something. So basically to get, I had a list of like 10 stations I wanted. And I went to all the big wigs, like not just Rogers, but I did go to Rogers. These are the 10 stations I actually need to receive in high definition on my television. go to rogers these are the 10 stations i actually need to receive in high definition on my television and basically this is the cheapest way to get me all 10 because tsn2 was like the outlier that was in some special sports tier or something like that so it's it's what effed me up and you can say okay well don't get tsn2 but believe it or not i actually there are especially the raptors especially the raptors but there's there's actually a lot of programming on tsn2 like live sports programming that i would like you know i work very hard and i'm gonna you know

we're all gonna die i want to i want to receive it in hd upstairs he works hard you know the first time i ever went to a strip club uh that was the song that was playing oh my that's what crazy that you even remember no actually it wasn't it wasn't i think i got the wrong tune anyways no no no that's a pointer sisters right no remember no actually it wasn't it wasn't i think i got the wrong tune anyways no no no that's a pointer sisters right no wrong song wrong it's kind of a weird song to be playing no it is a wrong song uh what am i confusing it with pointer sisters oh i think i'm tina turner private dance that was a song yeah even maybe you were a better singer i wouldn't have made that gaffe so tell me tell me so i uh two and a half maybe three years

ago i uh decided i gave the finger to rogers and i walked away and i was going to do it all over the air and over the web and i lasted exactly two months and then i came back because i wasn't able to get a reliable hd feed of the nhl playoffs on tsn and i ended up going back to rogers and realizing that's just the price of my entertainment each month. Please tell me about your experience. Well, here we go. I've cut the cable. Actually, totally cable-free. I have nothing against Rogers.

I think that Rogers and Bell are both sort of shitty companies in terms of customer service. And regardless of who you go with, you're going to have problems. So these people that post on Facebook, yay, I'm free from Rogers. Actually, there was someone, a friend of mine, who said that she was free from Rogers. And she was so excited because she going to have problems. So these people that post on Facebook, yay, I'm free from Rogers. Actually, there was someone, a friend of mine who said that she was free from Rogers and she was so excited because she moved to Fido. And I'm like, Fido is Rogers. Well, that's dumber than saying tech savvy, which at least resells Rogers. Right. Well, that's the way that the thing works here in Canada is that it's pretty much owned by those two. And so if you go with tech savvy or I'm with smart communications or start communications, I think it's still Roger.

So anyway, what I did is I have gone completely cable free and I wanted to talk to you about how it is. How long ago did this happen? About a month ago. And I have been able to watch every single NHL playoff game. That's you're right. That has always been the problem is how do you watch live sports and so there's a couple of things here that i've done first of all i estimated that i pay approximately 1350 every single year to rogers for cable um i paid it was approximately 12 112

bucks a month um and similar to you i wanted all of the sort of the sports packages and and had to buy a bunch of channels that i didn't want so what what I did was as I installed an over the air antenna, so CQ would be very happy to hear that because I know CQ who's a blog, a commenter has one. Um, and with the, with the, um, the over the air antenna, I received Toronto and New York based stations. So I still get all of the major networks, both Canadian and American side of things, as well as a bunch of other channels that I wouldn't have even thought of. I actually get 33 channels over the air. And they're HD. The channels that I get over the air are real HD. The HD that you're watching right now is not filtered. It's not pure HD. It's compressed.

So the HD, as soon as I literally, as soon as I plugged it in and I turned on the TV, I was blown away by the quality but these are stations like ctv cbc abc nbc correct so the major networks as well as again some of the other like omni and whatever some of the other ones that we don't get here but also ones that we do get here okay that's 33 stations boom right off the bat the problem is of course if the game's not on cbc i can't watch a hockey game right oh yeah right right right or it could be, right. Or it could be on NBC, I guess you'd be correct. But you know, if the Leafs are on Leaf TV, I can't watch that game, right? So that was always the issue. So what I did was is I subscribed to a monthly service called Unblock US. And what that does is it gives me an American

DNS address. So I put that on my router, it cost me five bucks a month. Then I go ahead and create a US iTunes account. Okay. And I travel to the US all the time. So I buy US iTunes credit cards or gift cards, load that up into the US iTunes account. And I bought NHL Center Ice. How much was that? That was $159.99. And that gives me access to every single NHL game. And because it doesn't know you're in Toronto, you get Leaf games. Correct. So I'm not blocked out. It thinks that I'm in the U.S.

What I also did was I also bought the MLS package online, which allows me to watch Toronto FC games. I could do the same thing with the NBA. The NFL is not a problem because I get all the major networks and all the games are on TV. So that's right. That's right. That's right. So the other thing that this allows me to do by by this, my router thinking that I'm actually in the US is I can install on my iPad the different apps for the major networks and the minor networks for that matter.

And I can stream television shows from there because they put full episodes on those apps because it thinks i'm in the u.s and then i just you know use my apple tv to put it up on although episodes there's a million ways to skin that cat like you can always grab a latest madman for example sure but um okay so i'm curious uh like like i'm trying to remember i remember during the olympics i could watch everything streamed on the web for free. I remember. So is that the same? Like does, does TSN stream like the Canada, the world junior championship? It does. Yes. So I'd be able to watch all that. So you basically use like an HDMI cable to put it on the big screen. No, I use a Apple TV. So I've got Apple TV on all of my, uh, on all of my TV. So here's, here's the nuts and bolts. I figured I had $1,350 to be able to play with

for the first year to be able to install all of this stuff. So I've got $293 approximately of programming charges. So that's for the entire year. That's my NHL, that's my soccer, and that's my DNS server change. Then the one-time cost for this year equaled $780. And that's for the over-the-air antenna? An Apple TV for the antenna and the installation of the antenna. That's one-time cost for this year equaled $780. And that's for the over-the-air antenna? And Apple TV for the antenna and the installation of the antenna. That's one time.

Right. So my first year savings is going to be $568. But next year, even though I'm investing in programming that's paid for NHL and soccer, I will save over a thousand dollars. So for me, that's, uh, that's really why I did it was to save money. And now the idea is, is that my wife and I are going to take that thousand bucks and put it into, uh, an RESP for our kids. $1,000 people. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass, I guess. Okay, where's the pain in the ass? I can't just turn on the TV and all of a sudden there it is. Is that pain in the ass worth $1,000 to you? Yes. It's not... I don't mind pain in the ass, actually.

I have a push mower because I prefer the push mower because I like the idea of using my energy to do it. And I did it all week and it's harder and I like it because it's harder. I feel like I'm off the grid even though I'm totally not. I'm totally not. But I love it because then the other thing is that through Apple TV, we have a subscription to Netflix, but we had that before, so I didn't include that in the cost analysis. And that gives us all the kid shows that the kids want to see. Yeah, the kids are happy.

Yeah, so everybody's happy. I don't have a box anymore, and I can go ahead and do it all for free. I know at the time I cut the cord that your solutions here were not an option for me because I had an apartment, and it didn't face the CN Tower, and there was some issue with my over-the-air or something. Where I'm situated in North Oshawa is actually really good for the antenna because we're elevated and there's no blockage. So I get 33 channels, which is crazy. That's the guy who installed it at his shop. He's like, I only get 15. So we're doing quite good. Okay. And you like just to, so you definitely

have NBC, for example. So if you want to watch the triple crown, you've got that. Got that. I've got NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, the four major networks, plus all the networks here, City TV, Global, CTV, all that kind of stuff. You're good for the Oscars. I'm good for everything, man. As long as it's on a specialty channel, so like my wife can't necessarily watch the Kardashians anymore. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. And if she really wanted it, we could just download it, I'm sure, somewhere.

You can find that somewhere. Okay, congratulations on cutting the cord. We'll want updates on this because uh maybe this is the honeymoon period and maybe we'll discover issues as it arises but the world cup is going to be huge oh yeah is that gonna be huge i think it's on cbc and tsn and then it's on i'm not sure what it's on in in in um in the u.s see okay so at this point in my life i feel like because you're making some substantial savings but to just not worry about it where it's like i press a button and there it is where i want to be at this point i think i leave it be especially with monica on matt leave it seems like while she's on matt leave it's important that she just it's just easy i would agree i would agree it's

not necessarily for everyone but uh for me it was, I like the idea of being free from a cable company. Who wouldn't? That sounds great. My co-host before you was the great Rosie. Formerly, I noticed she changed her Twitter handle. So she was forever Rosie in Toronto. And then the other day I saw she tweeted and i looked and it wasn't rose she lost the toronto is out of her twitter handle did someone call her out on actually not living in toronto or maybe she doesn't work in toronto anymore i'm guessing that's the uh reason so

she now identify with the radio station she's working no she does not she's like rosie ferg which is her name all right so sort of sort of her name, almost her name. So although not the name I ever knew her by, so in my head, I don't know who Rosie Ferg is because I go back to high school with this girl and she had a different last name. But Rosie... Okay, where was I going with the Rosie talk?

Okay, so when I had Rosie sitting in that seat, we used to talk about... We had very, very different opinions on television spoilers. Very different. Oh, right. It was infuriating to me, actually. It's one of the few times

where I didn't get where her brain was. What was her argument? I think we're on the same page. Basically, her argument is that, okay, so Mad Men just, it's not a season finale. They split like a bunch of dinks,

like Breaking Bad did this too. AMC keeps doing this. They broke season seven into two halves and the finale of the first half aired on Sunday night. Right. And did you watch? I did. I watched it live. I watched it live as well. I watched it live. I had to watch ads and it's strange. It was so weird. But I see it, you know, then I realize, well, you know, Mike, how many times have you seen that shitty Jim Hewson Budweiser ad? Like I've now seen it a hundred times. This airs during Hockey Night in Canada,

which I've watched almost every night for the last month. It airs between the teaser Don Cherry trailer. Don Cherry's coming up, but first the Budweiser ad, and then Don Cherry. And I'm a big Don Cherry guy. That's important to me. More important than the game, maybe, is that I'm there for Don Cherry.

I want to hear what Don Cherry says. Yeah, me too. And I hate the Budweiser ad, because it's not real nhl teams and it's not real nhl players it's a fictional final with fictional names and stuff and jim hewson of all people is calling it and i hate it because i hate i hate it when they don't use real teams that cost them money oh i know why they do it cost them money then go cover like a junior game or something and i don't know. Or a national game.

I know they can't. But anyways, I hate that ad. But I hate ads. But at AMC, we watched it live. So Rosie would have no problem today talking about spoilers that aired on Sunday night. Because, well, it's your problem if you missed it. Really? Yes.

I have to go back and extract this audio. But she doesn't. So I actually employ a very strict six- month rule policy where i will not blog that's for blogging it's for blogging but i would transfer it here too like i don't want somebody listening to this be afraid i'm going to blow the finale so i'll start by saying no spoilers will be on this podcast because if elvis spoils something i'm going to edit it out before I upload this file. But this is a different era. Maybe back when MASH aired their finale, Rosie had a point. But in 2014, so many people are following things

a little behind. And a week or two is nothing nowadays to catch up on your madman. I give six months because I would hate to be reading my favorite blog and I'm going to make something up now but oh I would find out um um um the colonel died on mash I'm not making that up that's not a spoiler is it I spoil anything or I you know you need six months before you can talk

about the breaking bad finale for example but Rosie no she would uh if you missed it you missed it that's your problem it's now in the public domain i can talk about it that's that's treating that's treating television like news like when news or sports things like that that was her big compare well you can mention the jays won 10 to 5 yesterday but she doesn't understand that live sports and news are in real time. Once they happen, they did happen. But these television programs, not everybody is watching them live. They might be streaming them later or PVRing them. I'm guessing that a lot of people aren't watching them live anymore.

So I'm fully on board. I will say this about the Mad Men finale. Go ahead. As long as there's no spoilers. There was an event at the very end or a scene at the very end, which I'm still unsure of how I feel about it. I have a great theory on it. But as soon as I finish this recording, I will share with you. My wife reminded me that if that particular type of scene had happened in any other show, I would have ripped it to shreds and said that that was ridiculous.

And so I'm conflicted as to how I should actually feel about what has happened. And maybe it's because it's a mid-season sort of ending, and I don't know where they're going to go with it. But on the surface, this season in general has been excellent. I'm not

someone who subscribes to the fact that Mad Men is boring. I know a lot of people think it's boring. It's one of my favorite shows. I that i really really enjoy madman and monica loves it i think it's great um and i've really enjoyed this uh last season and especially this last episode it's been fantastic it's going to be interesting to see where they go with it i could tell you because i had a the same guttural reaction to this scene and it is because the glory and the wonder of madman is its subtlety okay it is a very it's smart writing and good acting and very subtle i find it like it's yeah and this scene was the opposite it was not subtle like it was and it was not madman e and there was right if it was on any

other show we'd rip it to shreds for being what's that term trope a trope it can't be yeah essentially some people would talk about oh we just jumped the shark right right in fact i don't know if jump the shark.com is still live because 10 years ago i used to go to jump the shark.com to see when shows do you know who runs that no or he sold it to tv guide but you might remember him as or you might know him as john hein the guy who's on the howard stern i do i did not know he he's he's basically a millionaire because of that show or because of that uh website well that was a great website and he sold i haven't been on it in like 10 years still around okay uh this

this would be the moment is it or i mean i'm sure that you could have argued that it would have been before i'm gonna look it up while you while you talk think, you know, for me, the show is, I love the fact that they write the show using backdrop of what happened in real life. Yeah. Like this last episode was, the backdrop was the Apollo 11 takeoff. The Eagle landing.

Yeah, and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It just, it adds it, makes it really real. This is not a spoiler, but watching them watching the moon landing and you know what the stuff that you never consider in 2014 is you never consider the real fear that they wouldn't make it like what if they don't make it like what if they die in space because and what and remember the one guy like what if it's quicksand on the moon like they just all these unknowns and you don't you don't appreciate just basically yeah you don't appreciate it because now you just take it for granted that it's this big rock and this may sound silly but i know the show is fictional but when they do that it makes me feel like there's some realism in the show like okay maybe there wasn't don draper i know there wasn't don draper

and peggy olsen and all these people but maybe there wasn't Don Draper. I know there wasn't Don Draper and Peggy Olsen and all these people, but maybe there were people like them, right? It almost makes it seem more believable. You know, some shows are obvious. We know that there aren't, you know, the characters that are in Game of Thrones in real life. Which I've never seen, by the way.

But, you know, Seinfeld maybe was real, or there could have been real people in Seinfeld, but there wasn't really, you know, there wasn't a lot of that sort of backdrop of what's happening in history. How would Kramer have been able to live? Where did he get his money? How did Kramer make money? From America Industries. If you had told me 10 years ago I'd be here about to save the world's energy crisis, I'd have called you crazy.

Now help me drop this big ball of oil out the window. I love it. I love it. So I just, it seems more real. Anyway, this episode was, it's been really, really good. I really enjoy the idea of them bringing in this like modern piece of equipment that required construction. Like it's just crazy. It was very 2001, a space odyssey. Did you know a lot of illusions? So they had the monolith. It was a lot of like, I think it's a very smart show. And it somebody one commenter and I don't want to get the wrong commenter. Is it Ben or Ben Vidal? Maybe some commenter rips me every time I mentioned Mad Men because he says it's a horrible show. And that's like the guy who tells me my favorite band sucks. Who the hell are you? Come on. This is art and I love this piece of art.

I love Mad Men. I will tell you that your favorite band sucks. Your favorite band sucks. You don't know what my favorite band is. ACDC. Aerosmith. Right. But it seems like Mad Men really divides people.

You either love it or you hate the people who love it. Is it fair to say Mad Men is the Rob Ford of television? I wouldn't go that far. I wouldn't go that far. You know what sucks, Elvis?

What, are we going back to the old format? What sucks, Mike? The end of this season starts in April 2015. It's so ridiculous. That means, first of all,

the first challenge is to live that long. Exactly. We can't take anything for granted. I keep going to funerals. Can you imagine, can you imagine like you don't make it or we don't make it? The only saving grace is that I won't be aware I didn't make it.

That's the only saving grace. That would be so disappointing though. You're on your deathbed and you're like, fuck, I'm going to not know what happens in Mad Men. Wouldn't it be, uh, I just remembered a conversation. I won't name who said it or anything because it was very sweet,

but somebody who was telling me about now that grandma's gone, they talked to grandma and they said that, you know, grandma can tell someone else who died that they love them and they can be together again. And I was thinking how wonderful that feeling is. Like, could you imagine believing that? A lot of of people do man like just imagine believing that you're gonna die and you're you're you're you're gonna be with grandma and grandpa again and you're gonna

like be playing euchre with your late uncle well that's why they the those types of stories were created or that feeling oh i know it adds comfort to a scary thing i know but i just i just wish somebody would give me a pill and i could someone's the matrix i'm gonna swallow this pill and then i'm gonna 100 believe that and a it would make me want to die right now i would i don't know how people don't uh like i would do risky things like suicide doesn't get you there right so they they closed up that loophole so you got to do like risky shit like i'd be paragliding like crazy. You'd be like that guy in The Bachelor. I heard about this guy because Monica likes The Bachelor. Christy watches The Bachelor as well.

His name was Eric and his goal was to go to every country in the world. He didn't finish this goal. He died paragliding somewhere. 300 countries or something, right? Yeah. Apparently, it's been done like hundreds of times, it is a tough tough goal yeah no kidding well he didn't he didn't make it but yeah they're airing the bachelor with this guy in like they kept it in she went on a date with a one-on-one date with him last night and um yeah he's dead there was a line in it where he said um or the bachelorette was talking about the date and and

there it was a very physically oriented date where they like went snowboarding and they did a whole bunch of like he was he was a adventure guy yeah and they did a whole bunch of outdoorsy stuff and she comments you know like in the in the camera interview thing like oh my god he's so great at everything like is there anything he's not good at and i paragliding well i responded back to the tv i'm like staying alive no the answer is paragliding. Well, I responded back to the TV. I'm like, staying alive? No, the answer is paragliding. Apparently, he's not great at paragliding. No, because he crashed and burned. And literally.

And he died. So we found out what he's not good at. He's not such a fucking amazing guy after all, is he? Fucking asshole. Speaking of mortality and stuff, so I'm like this close to 40. So I don't know. The next milestone, I guess, is 50. But 40 is the imminent milestone.

And I'm really close. I'm looking at the calendar and I'm seeing it's a month today. I hit 40. A month today? And what I'm proud of is I'm going to enter my 40s in the best shape of my life. Look at you. I know. Isn't that awesome?

A lot of guys are in their best shape at 25 or something. But nope. I did a 65, almost 65K ride yesterday. Do a 69K ride. That's right. I actually GoPro'd it. So I got a new GoPro video.

Well, I took 20 minutes of GoPro video because I don't think anyone wants to watch that. You went out and bought the GoPro? No, Monica gave it to me for my birthday. Oh, look at you. And she let me open it early so i could enjoy it as i trained cool i've heard that i've heard they're really cool it's amazing it's fun and i i did my daughter and i did a big ride and i did it for her or i or she's in front of me so the gopro's on my handlebar and it's does it use vhs tapes yeah it's really big awesome it's big and bulky so i'm in uh i'm just

just to say that when i do these 60 kilometer rides, I don't even feel sore. Like I feel good. The only thing that's stopping me from going out and doing a 100K ride is time. I've got a question for the people who are listening to this. If you could comment in the comment section.

Mike is having a birthday party. Is Monica having the birthday party for you? I sent the email from my account so I could hit up my contacts I wanted to attend. But if you have any follow-up questions, you can go directly to her. Well, there's no questions. I don't have a follow-up question. I have a question for the general audience out there. So Mike is turning 40.

He has a new baby boy. He has a lovely wife and two great older children, which I'm sure are going to be there as well. Yeah. Mike is not a consumer, as he said, yet he is a great friend. Am I obliged to bring a gift to this party? I'd like to know what people... Do you want my answer?

No, I don't want your answer. Oh. I have an opinion myself, but I'd like to know what other people have, what their opinions are as to whether or not you should bring a gift. There's an answer, but you clearly don't want it. What's your answer?

My answer is, you're obliged to bring something to be consumed at the party. I disagree with that, too. I don't think you need to buy a gift for the person. No. We don't have to buy something for a 40-year-old who doesn't want shit. But, and it's really

tacky to come, here's the some here's a 20 enjoy um go to the movies you typically would bring maybe if you brought like uh some beer or you brought some kind of like dessert or something or bought something and then that would be enjoyed at the party as like food or drink here's my here's my uh comment on that uh i agree i mean you should. I mean, you should be polite. So you do agree. You should be polite, but that's because it's a party, not because it's a gift for you, Mike. Yeah, because you don't need to buy a gift. The gift is that you're going to come and smile at me.

There should be no gift. You don't need to bring a gift. No, I would not expect a gift. No. I also like the move. I like this move. A buddy of mine did this to me, and this is his move. He'll show up to a party, you know, like you have a dinner party or something, and the polite thing to do is to bring a bottle of wine.

But he doesn't feel like that's appropriate necessarily because the bottle of wine is for you, the host, as a thank you, not as something that the other guest should be consuming. So what he'll do is he'll bring the bottle of wine and say, hey, this is for you, and then hold on to it and hide it somewhere in your house. And then after the party's over, he'll send you a text and say, hey, by the way, the bottle of wine that I gave you is here in your house. A lot of times he's brought two. So one to be consumed by the guests and then one as a gift for the host or the hostess. So I like that. I like that move. I think that's a cool move. But I'm interested to hear what other people have to say about bringing a birthday gift specifically for you and only you because you're turning 40.

Yeah, sure. But I sure don't expect any gifts. I don't expect anyone to show up. I just did some math and realized, well, if just family, like just immediate family shows up, we can have a great party. So it's anyone to show up. I just did some math and realized, well, if just family, like just immediate family shows up, we could have a great party. So it's going to be fine.

And that's Wednesday. That's sometime between the ride to conquer cancer and the day I turn. I think it's the Saturday before I turn 40. Some housekeeping items before we wrap up this episode 78. Adam Thompson. I have to get him in here i almost forgot he is going to bike over when the weather gets better and guess what the weather is better this is great biking weather get over here thompson is the program director at 88.1

and i'm sure me and the hive mind and you we have a bunch of questions for this guy. In the Great Toronto Alternative Music Battle between 88.1 and 102.1, a battle you have zero interest in. Zero. Because they don't play ACDs. ACDC. Neither of them play ACDs. There's no ACDs going on. They're just arrogant. They're just arrogant. I'm not better because I listen to those stations. They play a lot of City in Color, though. Who? Okay, so Adam Thompson's got to get in here. I haven't forgotten that. And I'm on Todd

Shapiro's show this week. Oh, look at you. Cool. And next week, I'm on Humble and Fred's show. Look at you. What are you talking about? We're talking about Conker. Next week is actually interesting. So there was a I don't know what to call it but an interesting moment where i was on humble and fred show a couple of weeks ago and the guest the day

before was this guy who calls himself the cell guru and i had a personal like experience with the cell guru i should have talked about this podcast but we're almost out of time but we were at an event remember when you and i did the man venture yes yes before that yes monica and i did uh they flew us to ottawa and they gave us the tracks and said go to gatno and we had an amazing time in gatno so at dinner in gatno he's there and we're talking and i'm talking about toronto mike and then i mentioned torontomommy.com and some ideas i had for torontomommy.com which is now monica's blog and then i made the mistake of saying out loud before I own the domain,

I mentioned, maybe I'll do something with Toronto Daddy too. And he, in real time, Cell Guru takes out his iPhone. He opens his godaddy.com app and he buys torontodaddy.com in front of me in the next 10 seconds. And then he said, I just bought it. And then we proceeded to dine. And I was like, what the fuck? Like he basically, what an asshole. Yeah.

So I told this story on humble and Fred, because the day before sell guru, I heard him on. Sure. And I told this story and sell guru. I got all these tweets. Like someone in his family said we were trashing him because the consensus at the table and Barb was there too. The consensus at the table, and Barb was there too,

the consensus at the table was that that was a dick move. I don't see any other way around it. He didn't buy it to give it to me. He squatted on it. I don't know what he did with it. I stopped caring when I left that. I said to Monica, forget it, whatever. But I know he bought it. He might have let it go. It might be available

right now. But I don't care anymore. But my point is, he wants... So I'm going on humble and fred because he's going on humble and fred and they want i guess he wants to fight i don't know if there'll be a fight because i only and i i only and i at monica was there so i asked her to listen to that appearance and tell me if i uh embellished anything i told that story to a t as it happened i didn't embellish a thing so it'll be very interesting to hear what he has to say. I don't know what he's going to say, except I know what I presented was fact.

So this is going to be like a UFC type thing? I don't know. I don't even know if he knows I'm coming in. They asked me to come in, and I hope I didn't ruin a surprise or something. Like he's at the table, and then I walk in, which is like... TorontoDaddy.com is available. Yeah, so he mentioned in the tweet that he didn't do anything with it and then he didn't even renew it but he i mean let's say he bought it for a year he bought it for a

year i had at that point given up on doing anything with it someone else can squat on it i don't really give it a shite but he uh the fact that he did that in real time when i mentioned it to me that's that's a complete dick move. I would agree. And I didn't confront him. I mean, here, I'm a guest of General Motors, and we're having this beautiful free complimentary meal at this beautiful cabin. And he did that, and there were other people at the table. And I just said to myself, what a dick move.

And then I told Monica later, can you believe he did that? And then I never told the story again until I was on the Humble and Fred show last week when I decided to share the story. That's ridiculous. It really is ridiculous. is ridiculous it's stupid i mean if he really wanted it he could have at least waited until after dinner i saw it as he was being a peacock like he's kind of that way like there were other he wanted to show off watch how quickly i can steal this from you and i think he thought it was like we're gonna like offer to buy it from him or something either either either and he's probably going to offer to buy it from him or something? Either. He's probably going to come on the Humble Fred show and say he had no plans to ever do anything with it,

but he still got to explain why he bought it. He sure didn't buy it and then approach me later and say, hey, I can transfer this to you. I wanted you to have it in case somebody else... What does a cell guru do? He talks about how to make you a better salesperson? Is that his thing? Cell is C-E-L-L.

Cell guru. Cellular phone. Oh my God. it's the cell is a c-e-l-l cellular phone oh my god so he talks about uh mobile phones i think well well i know that we had a hike and we had a clay pigeon shooting 1995 and he was inside playing on his new device that somebody had lent him to review or something wow that's it's pretty amazing yeah so so but i got nothing against selgru he's actually a friend of a friend it was a small world story and i'm i'm happy to um make my goal is to go into humble and fred to to make peace with him even though i'm the victim here i don't need fight i don't want to fight with anyone i'm too old for this shit i just want everyone to be happy well give, give it to him, Mike. Go hard. Go hard.

And let's see. I'm trying to think of what I care about less. Cell Guru or 88.1? Or Dean Blundell. That's it. I gotta think about that one. That's a good F. Mary kill right there. Before I kill this episode,

I overcompensated. So last week I felt the music was too quiet. That's pretty loud right now. I feel like I'm going to have to yell. I actually, it is too loud. I have to make some amends before the great Barb DiGiulio is sitting here. I can't be looking like an amateur. F. Mary Kill, Dean Wendell, 88.1, and Selah Goon.

And I'm nowhere near the volume I'm usually at for this inline audio.1, and Sel O'Goon. Man. And I'm nowhere near the volume I'm usually at for this inline audio. I've got to make some edits here. And that brings us to the end of our 78th show. You can follow me on Twitter, at Toronto Mike, and Elvis, at Oshawa Elvis. See you all next week. Peace. I'm gonna take a streetcar downtown Read Andrew Miller and wander around

And drink some Guinness from a tin