CBS announces Rockstar: Wiggles *

CBS and Mark Burnett will launch a new reality series that promises to find the next great rock star.

ROCK STAR: WIGGLES, from “Survivor” executive producer Mark Burnett, combines the world of preschool ditties with relationship-style unscripted drama, performance competition and a weekly contestant elimination. The last singer standing will become the lead singer of the internationally renowned band The Wiggles and embark on a worldwide concert tour with the band and be part of the group’s ongoing bid to dominate the world of children’s entertainment.

Each week, the show will feature a LIVE performance competition that will eliminate one contestant, as determined by a combination of celebrity judges, Wiggles band members and preschool audiences around the world. Blonde ingenue Wendy of Bob the Builder fame will co-host, a role popularized by Rockstar hottie Brooke Burke.

Speculation has been rampant about who would replace the band’s lead singer, Greg “the Yellow Wiggle” Page, after he recently announced his retirement from the band due to illness. “We’ve already been contacted by representatives of Elton John, George Michael and Billy Corgan,” said purple Wiggle Jeff Fatt. “We told them that they would have to try out just like everybody else.”

The series, which will be broadcast weekdays starting at 6 am and repeated thrice daily, will also focus on the relationships and interaction between the contestants as they live together with a select group of fans in a Hollywood Hills daycare facility.

The new show will be produced by Mark Burnett Productions. Mark Burnett, Captain Feathersword and Wags the Dog are executive producers. Dorothy the Dinosaur is co-executive producer.

The Wiggles are Australia’s highest-grossing entertainment act. They have sold more than 17 million DVDs and five million albums worldwide.

(* not really)

Self-conscious

You know how sometimes you’re in a room crowded full of people, and everyone is practically shouting to be heard, and all of a sudden you say something particularly intimate as loud as you can – just when the rest of the room falls silent? Or when you’re in the middle of telling an anecdote and you’re suddenly so aware of the people listening to you that you lose the thread of your story?

That’s how blogging feels lately to me. I’ve suddenly become aware of all of you out there on the other side of the fourth wall. I’m self-conscious, and I can’t seem to shake it off.

This hasn’t been a problem for me up until now. I’ve been content to just blather on shamelessly, without really contemplating who might be reading. Usually I am thinking of a particular person or a small group of people when I write something – sometimes it’s just for me, and I’m remarkably good at blocking the rest of you out – but lately all I can hear is your collective expectation. All of you, even the random googlers looking for information about pineapples and infertility  <http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=pineapple+and+infertility&meta=>or the Ikea dog weiner <http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=ikea+dog+weiner&meta=>.

When I write intimate stuff about the boys, or how I’m still coping with the aftermath of the miscarriage, or any of the personal dreck, I am suddenly picturing some of you out there tapping your toes and checking your watch and wondering when I’ll get on with it.

But when I blog about the world outside my head (sometimes it’s hard to remember there IS a world outside my head), I feel like I’m trying too hard, like I’m fishing for comments. And when I write what I think is a really great post and I get minimal feedback, I’m perplexed. (I know, I’m spoiled for comments. I know.)

More than a year ago, a friend of mine was talking to a friend of hers who happened to read my blog but didn’t know me in person. The comment that got relayed back to me was something along the lines of “I can’t believe how open she is about personal stuff” and I was never quite sure how to take that. Is that a compliment or a criticism?

And more recently, as the news of my miscarriage spread through the gossip channels at work one woman, instead of saying ‘Did you hear about Dani?’ asked our mutual colleague ‘Have you read Dani’s blog lately?’ You know too many people at work read your blog when…

I think that’s part of the reason why I’ve been posting so much lately (and this is the third post I’ve written today, and so far the only one remotely worth publishing), because I am so self-conscious that I want to put up not just any post but a good post. Every day. Just don’t ask me what the criterion are for a good post, because I have no idea. I’m holding myself accountable to a set of rules that don’t exist.

(Plus, my head is overfull these days. Too much time in my head leads to both an excess of blogging and an excess of neediness. Bear with me, this too shall pass.)

It’s a classic ‘be careful what you wish for’ scenario. All along, I just wanted this little blog to be popular in a way I never was. I’d love to be cool enough to admit that I write for me and that the rest of you out there don’t matter, but you do. I’m an attention junkie to the core, and I thrive on the affirmation that you like blog – through the comments, the hits, the eco-system ranking. I kind of wish I could get over that, but it’s not likely to happen any time soon. And yes, I’m well aware of the fact that you just bathed me in the affection of your votes for the CBAs just two short weeks ago. What can I say, no matter how good the high, a junkie still needs another fix.

In closing, I either want you to remain silent and ignore me so I can forget you are all there, or shower me with comments and compliments so I can bask in the warmth of your affection. I’m not sure which. Can you do both?

Christmas joy

Once upon a time, I dreamed of the day when our Christmas tree would be filled with ornaments made by little hands.

My heart grew three sizes this week when Tristan brought home his first hand-made ornament, carefully crafted at school and packaged in a brown paper bag.

It’s a keeper.

Building a bed for my boy

Like many of you, I was out searching for the perfect tree this weekend. However, while you simply strung some lights and decorations on yours, I hauled mine into my woodshop, cut it into just the perfect amount of boards, stained a few and built this lovely little bed for Simon:

What’s that you say? You can see the assembly instructions right there on the floor? Busted. Okay, so I didn’t carve the raw lumber, and the holes were pre-drilled. But I did get to use my power screwdriver and some sandpaper, and even had to hammer in a few dowels. That’s the tricky part, you know.

(Beloved tried to suggest that maybe he could build the bed, but I wouldn’t let him anywhere near it. I so love to assemble DIY furniture. It satisfies my urge to make things while taking the more dangerous power tools out of my hands. Win-win.)

And judging by the three-hour nap, Simon seems to like it, too:

Northern lights alert

The skies over Ottawa may or may not be clear over the next couple of nights, but at least it will be mild. That will make it a lot more comfortable for me as I stand out on the back deck, scanning the skies for the northern lights.

According to this article from CTV.com, a significant solar flare will be rushing past the Earth over the next little while. The plasma wave surrounds the Earth and when it collides with the gases in our atmosphere, the collision results in energy being emitted as photons which cause the aurora borealis – the famous and unforgettable northern lights.

Have you ever seen them? I clearly remember my first time. I was driving from Ottawa to Sudbury one Christmas – maybe 1990 or so – with my ex-husband and his brother. It was brutally, bitterly cold and we nearly froze to death standing on the side of the highway where we had pulled over to admire the display. I’ve seen them a half a dozen or so times since then, but never have I seen dancing curtains of multicoloured light like that first time.

According to this observers’ page, last night’s display was seen well into the US. If it’s clear where you are tonight, it may well be worth taking the occasional peek outside to check for the northern lights!

Blog payola

I’ve been doing a lot of research on the bigger world of blogs lately, and I’ve been seeing some interesting stuff. And not interesting in a good way, either.

A while ago, I declared blog an ad-free zone. I’m content with the decision, and haven’t regretted it. I also turned down a few product review opportunities, just because I was still trying to find my comfort zone with the whole viral marketing thing. I wanted to make sure that I was being completely transparent. For example, I accepted the free phone (a phone I’m not hugely thrilled with, to tell you the truth, but free is free!) for blogging about it, but I think I was honest about the whole process of how I came to have the phone and why I was blogging about it. Same with the books I’ve reviewed – I’ve made an effort to tell you when I’ve received a review copy from a publisher, and when I’m doing a review just because the book inspired me to do one. (Feel free to call me on it if you disagree – I always like to think the best of myself, despite evidence to the contrary!)

I’m thinking about all this after reading about services like PayPerPost. Have you read about this? Advertisers pay to post details of their ‘opportunity’ to a forum, and bloggers snatch up what seems to be a finite number of opportunities, then write a post about the product or service – and get paid to do so. I followed one set of links back to a low-traffic, low-ecosystem blog who posted about a Harry Potter audio book and is bragging in her sidebar – but not in the post itself – to have made more than $800 in a few months through PayPerPost.

Since its launch this summer, PayPerPost has been roundly criticised by many in the blogosphere for its lack of a disclosure policy. In other words, you aren’t required to mention anywhere in your post that you were getting compensated to flog a product on your blog. In response to that criticism, PayPerPost launched a new website called DisclosurePolicy.org , which TechCrunch compared to big tobacco companies funding addiction research: “they are creating a distraction, designed to keep the buzz about PayPerPost going strong, as well as to move people’s attention away from the core issue of blogger disclosure of product shilling.”

In a related story, Jason Calacanis, former General Manager of Netscape and CEO of Weblogs, Inc., is following rumours that users are being paid to ‘digg’ stories. (Digg is a way to rank news stories and web pages by allowing users to ‘digg’ or ‘bury’ an item.)

Every day, it seems like there are more ways that marketers are finding ways to influence (I thought about using the world ‘infiltrate’ instead of ‘influence’) the blogosphere. Personally, I find initiatives like this extremely distasteful. Call me a purist, but when I read a blog post, or see something has been conferred a certain status by a group of users, I’d still like to believe it’s on the basis of merit and not remuneration from a faceless marketer. On the flip side, it gives me faith in the power of the blogosphere to see that these services are being exposed by the very network they are trying to manipulate.

I’m still struggling with my own comfort level on accepting products or reviewing services. I suppose a blog with my readership numbers and links is considered moderately influential, and I get a couple of requests for pitches every month. I consider each one carefully, even the simple “link to my site” ones, but haven’t taken up anyone recently simply because I’m not sure where to draw my line in the sand. I wish there was a handbook for this somewhere!

Bear with me and we’ll muddle through it together. I can promise you this, though: if I’m getting any benefit from a product or service or link I promote here, I promise I’ll tell you about it. Hey, it’s not much, but it’s a start.

A sad excuse for a post

Simon doesn’t get sick too often, but he seems to be making up for lost time this week. He has a horrible, snotty head cold, a fever AND he’s barfing. Sheesh, I’m *so* very glad we got our flu shots last weekend. (insert eyeball roll here)

He’s also so incredibly grumpy and needy that I can’t even tear myself away for 10 minutes to write up a blog post. Hopefully more later… or maybe I’ll just see you tomorrow.

Kids online

In this post, I will either come across as indecisive, self-deluding or a hypocrite. I’ll let you be the judge.

One of the debates around our house this Christmas has been whether or not to get Tristan a video game for Christmas. I’m not overly fond of the idea.

The boys already love the games on the Peep and the Big Wide World website. (I too love this site, and the cartoon.) Each night after dinner, Simon asks, “Peep now? Peep now? Peep now?” with the regularity of an atomic clock. I’ll hold the laptop and move the cursor for them, but won’t let them play by themselves. I’m not sure if this is a parental influence issue or a “you’ll not be touching MY laptop with your sticky fingers” issue.

Video games for the preschool set seems to be the latest thing. I see that Leap Frog, a company to which I generally give a lot of credence, has come out with Little Leaps, a DVD/video game console targeted to the 9 – 36 months set. (Seriously? A video game for 9 month olds?)

I’ve given up a bit of ground, and we’ll be getting the Zoooos game set for the boys. It works like the Little Leaps, turning the DVD player into a video game console. Oh well, at least the games are educational. And more importantly, not handheld portables so (a) I can see when, what and how much they are playing and (b) they won’t wander away and get lost under somebody’s bed or in the closet or any of the myriad other places our toys seem to end up.

I was doing some research yesterday and came across this article from topix.net about how kids as young as eight are logging in to virtual communities:

Hundreds of thousands of Canadian children are signing up to online social networking communities where they can chat, play games and create virtual worlds. But unlike sites like Myspace or Friendster, which encourage members to leave
personal information on their profiles, social websites for the younger set do the exact opposite.

Webkinz, Club Penguin and Neopets are sites aimed at kids between eight and 14. They allow members to take on a character – usually in the form of an animal or creature – and create a world for them.

Eight years old and online social networking. Yikes!

What do you think? At what age do you introduce your kids to computer games? Are they evil, or educational? Do you have a fave kids’ website?

Blogger beta and haloscan – help!

I’ve started a new blog for internal use here at work (maybe I can share some day soon) and I’m having a hard time installing the comments. Any blogger beta / html experts out there?

I can install the comments just fine on the main and archive pages, but on the post pages, only the blogger comments appear. I reverted to a classic template (same as this one, matter of fact) expressly so I would have a known commodity to tinker with, and followed the code on this blog as a template, but it’s not working. I’ve gone through Haloscan’s help pages, and nothing they suggest works either.

Any ideas? If you think you can help but need to see the template, send me an e-mail or leave your e-mail in the comment box and I’ll give you more info.

Christmas crazies

In the Citizen this morning, there was an article (sorry, subscriber only – why do they do that?) about the hot ‘toys’ this Christmas and how people are frantically bidding outrageous amounts for them on eBay. The article notes,

Over the two-week period beginning Nov. 23, eBay has sold 6,470 Wii units across Canada — most at double their retail price of $280. The Playstation 3 has sold 7,060 times at an average of $2,317 — four times its retail price of $550. Meanwhile, the Elmo T.M.X. has been sold 10,247 times for an average of $30 more than its retail price of $44.99.

I’m going to have to back this rant up a little bit. I’m going to ignore for a moment the whole idea of the bidding wars, and just shake my head in dismayed disbelief that anyone would pay more than FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a video game console. I’m not spending $500 for both boys combined, and don’t anticipate doing so any time in the near future. Not in this lifetime. (If the lottery fairy dumps a load of cash in my stocking and deems it must be spent on home electronics, a new computer for the family and a Canon Rebel digital SLR are at the top – and bottom! – of that list.)

But seriously, did you see that last line in the quote? People are spending an average – an AVERAGE! – of $75 for an Elmo doll. And while I think $75 for Elmo is questionable in an eye-brow raising sort of way, I simply can’t conceptualize paying over two thousand dollars for a video game system where you still have to pay extra for the damn games. I don’t have enough italics, caps and exclamation marks to fully express my astonishment and contempt.

These things will all be back on the store shelves, not to mention their regular price, by mid-January. What on earth is possessing people to pay these outrageous amounts?

What’s the best gift you are giving this Christmas, the one you can’t wait to give? And would you pay four times the retail price to give it?