Matt Galloway!

Yay!! Matt Galloway has been chosen to replace Andy Barrie when he retires from hosting Metro Morning next month. They announced it on air this morning. I'm so happy...such a great choice!

And like a lot of people commenting over here, I'm hoping for Kevin Sylvester to replace Matt on Here and Now in the afternoon. Fingers and toes crossed!

Andy Barrie

Today on my drive into work I was listening to Metro Morning just like always, when host Andy Barrie announced he will be retiring from the show on March 1st. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The announcement came without warning, just seconds after blowing out the candles on his birthday cake live on air.

I love Metro Morning and I can't even imagine the show without Andy. It's how I've been starting my weekdays ever since I moved to Toronto in 2002. Andy is a big reason why I love the show. He's such a fantastic interviewer, a really feisty guy, and so down-to-earth. He really connects with his audience. He's never been afraid to let the audience in on his personal life either. He's talked openly about dealing with Parkinson's and the death of his wife, Mary last year. He often talks about his daughter, his mom, and even his dog on air. It's like he's part of the family!

Four or five years ago, I heard on Metro Morning that Andy would be at Doors Open at the CBC building. It happened to fall on my birthday weekend. I remember Paul asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I said "I want to see Andy Barrie!"

When I met him I was so excited and nervous! He was so sweet and funny....he said something along the lines of, "Why so excited, I'm not Britney Spears!". When I nervously asked if I could get a picture with him, he gave me the biggest hug. And that's the picture you see up there. I'm so happy I have that.

I hope he has a wonderful retirement and enjoys sleeping in well past 4:00am for the first time in fifteen years. He certainly deserves it!

Toronto loves you, Andy!

new wave blues

sorry for the sporadic posting. my brand-new half-time job is keeping me full-time busy!

has anyone been watching these canadian music documentaries hosted by jian ghomeshi on cbc tv? they're shown on thursday nights and last week was about canadian music of the 70's. not my favourite era by any means but the documentary was strangely entertaining. this week was awesome...it was the 1st of two about canadian music of the 80's. i swear it was like being transported to 1983 all over again, except without all that hairspray. (that hole in the ozone over northern ontario? i'm so sorry for that.)

the highlight was the interview clip with a couple of the guys from the spoons and this video.



how can a song this old (28 years!?!) sound so delicious all these years later? perhaps it only sounds good to me because it brings back so many happy memories. in any case, i've added it to my 80's playlist on youtube so i can listen to it over and over again.

my only hope is that cbc found enough money to make a couple of episodes about the 90's. it just couldn't get any better than that.

i love the cbc

this is carla and i with our new bff's, steven and chris. hee hee (a girl can dream....) the truth is that carla & i went to see a taping of the steven & chris show at the cbc on friday. it was so much fun to see the "behind the scenes" at a live taping. i'm really bummed that the show has been put on hiatus, one of the sad casualties of the recent cbc cuts.

if i was a millionaire i would personally bail the cbc out of its financial woes myself...that's how much it means to me! but unfortunately i'm not a millionaire so i did what little i could do...i signed a petition started by avaaz.org asking the canadian government to help out cbc, especially if it's going to bail out mega-media corporations like ctv & canwest (as is rumoured...).

if you love the cbc as much as i do and are upset by the proposed 800 job cuts and major cuts to programming, then perhaps you'll want to sign the petition too.(almost 50 000 people have signed it in the last 72 hours!!)

ps: i don't think you don't need to be living in canada to sign the petition either.
you can find the petition here: www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_cbc/