The trend of cancelling every television show I watch on a regular basis continues with word that Showtime has nixed Dead Like Me from its schedule. MGM, who produces the show, is attempting to shop it around to other networks and plans to make a final decision regarding production in the next 45 days.

Fast Company puts Malcolm Gladwell on their cover. It’s certainly a testament to Gladwell’s writing that so many different types of people can find something of interest in it, and the accompanying feature profile is an example. It almost scares me to think major companies are trying to make Gladwell into their own corporate ideology guru. In fact, my discomfort is best illustrated by this short quote:

Gary Warech, a vice president at Simmons, puts it plainly: “It was a great book. It became the bible, the must-read in business circles. Our guys read it and said, ‘This is great. We can operationalize this and help our clients.’ “

My distaste for terms like “operationalize” knows no bounds. And many of the people quoted in the article, I think, seem to miss the point on Gladwell. When Nikki Baker, a Pepsi marketer, expressed surprise that Gladwell didn’t have all the answers, it was proof of a fundamental disconnect between what she takes away from Gladwell’s writing and what I take away from it. She’s looking for concrete answers and business strategies; I’m looking for interesting and new ways of better understanding the strange ways in which society works.

Even the idea of calling Gladwell a guru is a bit unnerving; the terminology seems to hook into an entire business-as-religion-and-spirituality construct I don’t buy. Combined with the whole “operationalize” business, the whole article is an interesting peek into the world of big business, and the apparent search for the Next Big Idea, with Gladwell as a possible Savior. Of course, I never really believed in Big Ideas or Saviors. I wonder if Gladwell does?

Vancouver, BC (5 p.m. PST): 6°C.

Thornhill, ON (8 p.m. EST): -22°C (feels like -34°C).

Flying home for the holidays may not have been such a good idea after all.

I’m impressed by York Region’s new rapid transit plan despite the overly-smarmy copy and the heavy emphasis on the branding of the system. If Viva actually manages to implement all the Phase 1 improvements planned for 2006, it’ll be an innteresting experiment to see how effective they are. And for once, York Region’s urban sprawl actually leads to a benefit: the much wider roads are perfect for the sort of boulevardization planned for the transit-only lanes of Phase 2.

More important than the actual service upgrades, though, is the apparent commitment to making public transit work in York Region, the suburban area north of Toronto where population density and the current road layout seems to work against public transit. $150 million going towards Phase 1 is a step in the right direction, and while the branding campaign is perhaps a bit over the top, it also represents a genuine desire to sell rapid transit not just as an essential service, but as a superior alternative to driving.

I’m also wondering if perhaps some of the same principles can be applied to Vancouver’s bus system, whose downtown service is caught up in horrendous gridlock. The Translink plan for future improvements seems to have the right idea, with bus priority lanes along Burrard and improving Granville Mall as some of its priorities. But other ideas, like the Viva bus shelters, would be welcome; how come only the B-Lines get to have snazzy next-bus displays? (And how come the one at Nelson and Howe isn’t even being used as a bus stop anymore?) And since bus drivers in Vancouver are essentially useless as fare collectors, perhaps switching over to a fully automated system would be a net benefit in time as well.

What I would like to see in the plans for Viva, however, is something Vancouver is getting better at: off-peak service. Are you seriously telling me there’s no demand for buses after 1 a.m. on the weekends? Or maybe the rich kids are used to cabbing it home or having someone DD after a night out clubbing.

Back when web banner ads were still enough of a novelty to be really annoying, advertisers were beginning to find falling clickthrough rates. Traditional banner ads simply weren’t working anymore; advertisers needed to try something new. Thus was spawned the second wave of banner ads, utilizing animated GIFs and sneaky tricks to get people to click on their ads. The worst were the ads that mimicked various aspects of the Windows interface to make the user think the ad was a legitimate Windows error message. Not that your computer would ever tell you that “Your internet connection is too slow! Upgrade you’re connection NOW!!!” but people fell for it anyways. Eventually people cottoned on to the less-than-honest trick, but even today you’ll find people clicking on fake OK buttons in vain.

The art of faking the Windows interface is still with us today, and unfortunately supporters of the superlative Mozilla Firefox have begun using it. Recent versions of Internet Explorer 6 have added a so-called information bar that appears whenever a pop-up has been blocked. Never mind that Firefox came up with both features first; that’s practically taken for granted with IE6 essentially being three years old and showing its age.

However, some enterprising Firefox supporters have subverted IE’s information bar to display an ad for Firefox. While I certainly understand the thinking behind the subversion and support the cause, I can’t really get behind a campaign that essentially fools the user into thinking IE is actually telling you to switch browsers, nor subvert a UI widget and eliminate whatever usefulness it had through sheer noise.

Thankfully, this is an unofficial campaign, and not actually supported by the Mozilla team. And truth be told, having a yellow bar pop up telling you to use Firefox is benign compared to an ad pretending to be a Windows pop-up that, when clicked, leads you to a site full of spyware-installing ActiveX controls. Still, I’d say the tactic of pretending to be a legit IE message falls on the wrong side of the line.

The last time I really got into a discussion on Vancouver’s public transit with someone, I was trying to argue how pitiful service is here compared to other Canadian cities I’ve seen. Downtown is choked with traffic, there seemed to be no service at all past midnight, and the logic of running a lot of major bus lines through Granville escaped me. In response, a friend who’s been here longer simply noted that what I saw as dismal, she saw as steadily improving—that a couple of years ago, there was no Millennium line nor a NightBus service.

As it turns out, she’s right. The latest improvements to Translink service have just been implemented. In summary: better NightBus service and new Community Shuttle lines. North Vancouver should be especially pleased to hear there’s a new NightBus route connecting them to downtown, and unless I miss my guess, part of Broadway is now covered by a NightBus line as well.
 

But perhaps most interesting is my apparently unfounded assumption that the NightBus ran only on the weekends. Turns out they run until about 3 a.m. seven days a week starting on the 13th. This is welcome news, but it's unfortunate that this fact isn't widely advertised. The paper bus schedules are outdated, and even the website doesn't list the new NightBus lines nor the Community Shuttle lines. The few ads I've seen in the buses are somewhat unclear; they advertise Monday-Friday service between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. and show eight lines. But when I originally came to Vancouver I was under the impression from the bus schedules that a) there were only four lines, b) it was a pilot program, and c) it only ran on Fridays and Saturdays. Always assuming the worst, I went with the Friday/Saturday theory.

While the >TTC’s website has deteriorated horribly in recent years, it still has a great map of all the Blue Light routes, complete with general timing info (every half hour from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., still a cut above Translink). I’d kill for a similar map in Vancouver.

As a lifetime member of Urbanites Anonymous and a general supporter of public transit and green technologies, I’m supposed to hate cars. They pollute, they’re wildly inefficient at getting people where they need to go, and they cause major traffic snarls that impede everything using the road, including many forms of transit and bikes. Urban planning has ben car-centric for so long that we’re only starting to move away from the idea that massive highway interchanges in the middle of a city are a bad idea. And then there’s the whole SUV phenomenon.

So, adamantly not a fan of cars. Except that I love cars.

It probably all goes back to the huge stack of Road & Track issues my dad used to have, but even today I can point out most of the models on North American roads today (although Buick seems to have completely changed the names of all their models, if the latest ads are to be believed). I only recently stopped making the yearly pilgrimmage to the Canadian International Auto Show. And while I don’t get a huge kick out of amped-up Camaros and cool ground effects like some friends I know, I can still appreciate the beauty of a slick stealth Golf GTI.

If you really want to be a car nut, though, the right way to do it is to follow the lead of the British. There’s a fundamental difference in the way cars are treated here versus in Europe; just look at the car enthusiast media in North America and in the UK. Watching Motorweek (whether it’s the Speed Channel version or the good ol’ PBS edition) is downright depressing these days. It’s obvious the formula hasn’t changed very much in the past two decades: take one bland review of a car, throw in some good ol’ timey advice from Pat Goss, maybe throw a crappy Craig Singhaus nostalgia-fest, and then top it all off with “this week’s Motor News,” the show’s excuse to trot out the token female reporter of the month to recite Honda’s latest press release.

It’s a dreary experience if you don’t care about the 0-60 times for the Ford Exploderation or don’t feel like sitting through yet another segment on Route 66. And Motorweek isn’t the only show to make these cardinal mistakes. Everything from Autoweek in the U.S. to Motoring 2005 (or whatever year it happens to be when the show airs) in Canada is just as boring and lightweight. What’s more, there’s a distinct lack of enthusiasm and joy. Maybe these guys really do enjoy their cars, but you’d be hard-pressed to tell from the presenters.

Contrast this with two of Britain’s biggest car shows, Top Gear on the BBC and Fifth Gear on Channel Five. Having seen some episodes of Fifth Gear, I can only comment on Channel Five’s offering, but the team behind Fifth Gear used to work on Top Gear’s previous incarnation. The two shows are linked by a common pihlosophy, even if the two are very different beasts.

The first thing you notice is the team of presenters. These people love cars, and it shows. Everyone’s got a CV as long as a Maybach on the show, from Tiff Needell’s long Formula 1 career to Vicki Butler-Henderson’s many writing and racing stints. Oh, right, there’s another thing—if you’re looking for equal representation in automobile shows, the British are a lot better at it than the Americans are. Hell, Vicki can drive circles around anyone on the American shows.

But it’s not just the fact that these people know how to drive properly. It’s also the enthusiasm they bring to the job. Tom Ford is truly a catch; he’ll make you care about how that SUV handles on the road, even if you’ve no interest in ever driving one yourself. He’s funny yet informative, free to concentrate on how the car drives and fits into your life versus wondering how fast the stupid thing accelerates on a test course. What’s more, he actually gives you a sense not only of things like how much legroom’s in the car and other practical concerns, but he’ll also give you an impression of what it’ll be like to truly drive it. Does it handle well? Do you feel like you’re in control, or does the car feel sluggish and unresponsive? How does the real-wheel-drive pan out? Is the traction control a help or a hinderance? And most importantly, is it an enjoyable drive?

The entire show has an emphasis on whether a car is a joy or a downer, and it speaks to a whole different way of looking at cars. It’s also a perspective you’d think would be an American one, since Americans probably spend more time in their cars and would thus be a little more concerned about enjoying their time in them. But the British shows value a car’s ability to handle the back roads of the Isles, and yet still gives attention to whether the back seat folds down completely or not. The act of driving is a more holistic experience for the Brits, and I can’t say they’re really wrong to think that way.

And this philosophy doesn’t just apply to the Ferraris and Porsches they drive, either. Top Gear’s car of the year was the new Golf GTI, a vehicle that is practical yet exciting to drive. And while Motor Trend arguably has a better choice in the Toyota Prius, I’ll bet Top Gear made the better case. Car Magazine did a feature article on the new Ford Focus to see if it lived up to its predecessor. But here’s the thing—to North Americans, the Focus is a compact car of little consequence. Sure, it’s nice and (now) decently built, but what’s so exciting about a little hatchback that you can use to pick up the kids? Well, the Brits don’t see it that way—instead, they see a car that embodies some of the same driving principles Ford puts into its Focus rally car. Yeah, you heard me—the Focus rally car. To Europeans, the Focus isn’t a bog-standard midsize saloon like the Mondeo was (remember that car? It was the Contour here in the U.S.). It’s a vehicle on par with the Subaru Impreza, complete with its own racing heritage. And Car treats it as such.

It speaks volumes to me when magazines and television shows argue over the driving qualities of a tiny car like the Smart, or a mini-MPV like the Vauxhall Zafira. Driving for pleasure isn’t just something you do when you’ve got miles of country roads to cruise on a Sunday afternoon; it’s part and parcel of the car-owning experience. And while Fifth Gear’s review of the BMW 1-series claimed most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the BMW’s rear-drive capabilities and the standard front-drive chassis, they eventually gave the vehicle a thumbs-up. After all, there are people out there that wouldn’t mind being able to let the back out a little on those UK B-roads once in a while.

I have just discovered why CTV’s Sue Thomas, F.B.Eye has such a stupid name: the protagonist is a deaf detective. Well, I guess Canadians can make world-class television, too, if by “world-class television” you mean The Profiler.