Remember when Hits FM ran that controversial find the 9 contest last year? It wasn’t long before it was revealed that, after a month of clues about its supposed location, when the 9 was finally discovered in the back of some pick up truck it had only been placed there that day.

The whole thing sounded scam-ola and a lot of people felt like they’d been taken for a ride.

But it turns out it’s even worse than that. Hits FM weren’t scamming people per se. They were just being completely inept and irresponsible. Totally different!

The original hiding place of the 9 was a private storage locker. Right off the bat, that seems pretty ridiculous to me, but let’s continue.

After weeks of crappy clues on the radio about the 9 being in this storage locker, the gang at Hits found out that (duh) their storage locker was an impenetrable fortress, making the act of someone retrieving it from there impossible.

Rather than owning up to their blunder and trying to make things right, they decided to improvise and put the 9 in the back of a truck parked outside the gates of the storage locker facility, as if this proximity to the original hiding place would somehow still validate all the previous clues.

After a thorough investigation into the incident, the Canadian Broadcasts Standards Council brought the hammer down on Hits FM. Unfortunately, it looks to be of those novelty inflatable hammers that squeaks when you bash it harmlessly against things.

According to the CBSC, Hits FM violated Clause 12 of their Code of Ethics, and as such they must admit to this on the radio twice.

Here’s what you may or may not ever hear them say:

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has found that CKIX-FM (99.1 Hits FM) has violated Clause 12 of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics.  In its Missing 9 contest of September and October 2008, Hits FM felt obliged to change the location of the missing 9 from inside a private storage facility to the back of a truck on the street outside the facility.  Consequently, Hits FM did not ensure that the location of the missing 9 on the final day of the contest was accessible to listeners from the very beginning of the contest.  This violated Clause 12 of the CAB Code of Ethics, which requires that contests be conducted fairly.

[image via]

Just when you thought it wasn’t safe whatsoever to ride your bike on the streets of Sin City, it was announced yesterday that phase one of the St. John’s Cycling Master Plan is a go, to the tune of $1.5 million dollars in funding from the Newfoundland and Labrador Green Fund.

Phase One of the project will consist of 43 kilometres of on-road painted bike lanes, installation of signs on an additional 73 kilometres of roadway to designate roads without painted bike lanes as bike routes, the installation of 20 bicycle parking facilities throughout the city, and the installation of bike racks on the fleet of 53 Metrobuses.

The other phases have to do with a promotion and information campaign (cyclists: be safe, motorists: be nice, etc.) and the maintenance of the new system.

No word in the press release on exactly when construction will start or finish, but I’d like to think that by the time the salt has washed away next year and they start painting the lines again, the new cycling lines will be included.

Hopefully, over time, cycling in St. John’s will really catch on as a mode of transportation. Hopefully enough that we’ll eventually get in on the Bixi action.

Bixi is a phenominal bicycle renting service that allows you to take a bike from any of a number of automated stations and drop it off at any other station when you’re done. Montreal has Bixi, and the number of stations available makes Starbucks look Mom & Pop.

That’s them in red.

The price is pretty sweet, too. You can have full access to Bixi for 24 hours for just five bucks. For less than $80, you can ride with Bixi for an entire year.

Bixi is designed for A to B style commuting. As long as you’re only 30 minutes or less between stations then there’s no additional charge. But if you feel like joy riding then they start to bill you for the extra time.

These are durable, well made bikes that require no maintenence from you whatsoever — not even a bike lock.

Bixi is probably a long ways away from coming to St. John’s, if ever. But some incarnation of it might be worth considering as a possible phase five or nine or whathaveyou in the future.

Either way, yesterday’s St. John’s Cycling Master Plan phase one announcement gives us all something to look forward to: a greener St. John’s and some leaner city streets.

Meanwhile, the Tour de France is here to offer us a little two-wheeled inspiration.

[photo by Jean Gangon / Attribution ShareAlike 3.0]

Grand Falls-Windsor native Chris Feener gives us a face melting rendition of Ode to Newfoundland, mixed in with some Salt Water Joys and The Mummers Song for good metal measure, that you may just feel like thrashing out to.

I mean it’s Friday, right?

Yes!!!

And I quite like that awkward bit of acoustic there near the end, too.

Nice work, Chris.

The water level in our city’s largest reservoir, Bay Bulls-Big Pond, is almost as low as it was in 2004 when council banned everything from watering your lawn to certain kinds of crying (doing so out of sadness was ok, but tears of joy were considered wasteful).

As such, the regional water committee on the northeast Avalon has recommended curbing water consumption in St. John’s this summer.

One of the main reasons for our low water levels has to do with this year’s mild winter (which was awesome, btw). The lack of snow lead to a lack of run off during the spring thaw (aka June).

That’s all fine and factual, but it does still kinda baffle me how somewhere like St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, can run low on water. It’s not like we’re some concrete jungle surrounded by other concrete jungles, all competing for the same far-away puddle. We are nestled in amongst a fairly pristine wilderness of trees, ponds, lakes and, ok, a lot of rocks.

If we can’t keep the water flowing freely for less than 200,000 people, surely the world, with a population of 6.77 billion people and rising, is doomed to be parched. Or at the very least have to deal with a lot of empty swimming pools.

[image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/fogonthedowns/ / CC BY 2.0]

UPDATE

It’s official, council has banned the use of outdoor water in St. John’s. Here’s their list of do’s and don’t's:

Effective immediately there will be a ban on:

(i) The watering of lawns at anytime (only exception is new lawns noted below)

(ii) The watering of flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, etc. (recommend save and use residents household water for this purpose).

(iii) The use of water for outdoor swimming pools

(iv) The washing of driveways and vehicles

(v) The pressure washing of windows and house siding

The only exceptions to this ban are as follows:

(i) Commercial Car Washes

(ii) Commercial Pressure Washing Companies

(iii) New lawns for 60 days. (5:00 am to 7:00 am and 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm daily). Residents who already have new lawns installed will be permitted to water them for 60 days. Residents with new lawns will be required to register with the City information such as address, date of installation, etc. by calling 311. It is recommended that residents who have not completed their landscaping as of today’s date defer such work until later this year.

(iv) Commercial Greenhouses and Nurseries within their premises only

So that’s that. Or is it?

I’d say it’s time we all started boning up on grey water.

First of all, this is awesome:

A fan-made ad for your beer that belongs on television. So why isn’t it? If this ad ran on TV, I guarantee you, QV, you would sell more beer.

Instead, your latest marketing move, pioneered by owner Dave Rees, has been to take out an ad in the Telegram complaining that non-local restaurants don’t serve local beer.

If you didn’t click the link above to read the CBC story, it ends with them explaining that the restaurants they contacted who say they do keep a little QV on hand find that there isn’t much of a demand for it, anyway.

How could there be? Your marketing presence in this province is next to non-existent.

I’m a 29 year old male who drinks at least a dozen beer a week and I can’t even spot you on my radar. I’m probably your best bet in terms of marketability: a young guy with a disposable income, a beer habit, and an appreciation for my home province. Yet you make no effort whatsoever to reach out to me.

Signal has given QV some love here in the past. This is the second time we’ve run that fan ad, and we gave your Cranberry Cloud cooler and Iceberg beer high praise.

And, by our request, QV sponsored our launch party by providing the first 50 guests with a free QV beer, which was really appreciated and got the night off to a great start.

So I hope you can see that what we’re doing here now comes from a loving place.

You need to reach out to your market more. For starters, you need to identify who your market is.

Hint: it’s the young folks.

We’re the most impressionable and we drink the most beer. Snag us and you won’t have to take out ads in the Telegram complaining that the restaurants don’t stock you. They’ll be taking out ads complaining that you don’t have enough stock to keep their fridges from running out.

Next, start to think about your focus. You put a lot of emphasis on the fact that you’re local, and you’ve complained that a lot of the beer people here drink, like Jockey, Dominion and Blue Star, are not local like they used to be — as if that’s why people drink them.

Believe me, it’s got less to do with whether or not people think these beers are local and more to do with their exclusivity in the local market.

A big part of the reason India is so popular with the kids (besides the fact that it’s delicious) is that they feel like they’re getting one up on the mainlanders who not only can’t get it, but are so out of the loop that they probably don’t even know it exists.

You need to be more than just a local beer, you need to be a best kept secret.

Finally, talk to everyone you know. Ask them what they would do. Find out who you know who’s got a kid that’s hot shit with a camera, eats graphic design for breakfast or edits video in their sleep. Get these people involved. If you’re so keen on being a local beer, start turning to the local talent around you to help focus and spread your word.

We want you to succeed, QV, but our will alone is not going to cut it. You need to start reaching out to your market, both as beer drinkers and marketing contributors.

For starters, take a good long look at that ad those fans made and ask yourself what has kept you from running it. Whatever the answer is, that’s the thing you’re going to have to change first.