Oscar feedback shuts city server Calgary Herald Saturday, March 29, 2003 Page: B3 Section: City & Region Byline: Nick Lewis Minutes after Michael Moore accepted the best documentary Oscar for his film Bowling For Columbine, his Web site was inundated with e-mails from angry viewers. When close to 20 million people logged on to www.michaelmoore.com last Sunday night, the Calgary-based server that hosts the site had to shut down because of the deluge of traffic. "We live in fictitious times," a charged-up Moore said to a televised audience of 33 million. "We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts. "We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush....
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The people in your simulated neighbourhood: Role-playing on the Internet gets friendly Calgary Herald Saturday, February 1, 2003 Page: ES04 Section: Arts & Style Byline: Nick Lewis Source: Calgary Herald The best-selling computer game of all time doesn't require you to kill people, rob them or defeat them in any way. It requires you to treat them nicely. More than that, it requires you to micro-manage their lives down to the finest minutiae -- toilet training, cooking lessons, dressing the kids for school and selecting the right coffee table. Since its release in December, The Sims Online, an online role-playing game, has been attracting millions of citizens to its cyber cities, allowing players to interact with their virtual personas, called avatars in the lingo of computer gaming. It is one of many titles in a new genre the computer world is calling Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). Shooting...
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Published in The Calgary Herald on Dec. 31, 2002. Rapper and actor DMX, whose concert Monday at the Stampede Corral was cancelled suddenly, was refused entry to Canada on Saturday and detained overnight in a holding cell by Immigration Canada, said the concert promoter. "The version we got from Immigration Canada was vague because of their confidentiality and privacy laws," said Stephen Deere of Alliance Soundcrew. "DMX and his entourage arrived Saturday at 10 p.m. from Chicago. Every member of his entourage was allowed in except him. All the paperwork was fine. "DMX felt he was waiting too long. He got aggravated," Deere said. "He started acting up and was aggressive towards the immigration officer and he was detained and put under watch. Then he was shipped out at noon on Sunday." Deere said he thought DMX might have been denied entry into Canada because a criminal charge was laid...
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Geldof survives 'unsayable' pain Calgary Herald Saturday, November 30, 2002 Page: B9 Section: Arts & Style Byline: Nick Lewis Bob Geldof is pacing his Battersea, London, apartment, where much of his latest record, Sex, Age & Death, was conceived. "The whole record is loss, pain, grief, emptiness, aridity, despair, anger, bitterness . . . but not apathy," the 48-year-old growls into the phone. "Apathy is nowhere present." This is Geldof's first record since 1993 and his most harrowing to date. It is also his first disc since his highly publicized divorce from broadcaster Paula Yates, her marriage to INXS singer Michael Hutchence and their tragic deaths. He is speaking to the press to promote a concert that airs tonight on Bravo! He hasn't said much to the media in recent years about what he calls "the other thing," and has chosen 10 songs on this record to speak about "the...
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Vice City's violence hooks 'em Calgary Herald Sunday, November 10, 2002 Page: D1 / FRONT Section: Arts & Style Byline: NICK LEWIS Source: Calgary Herald Last night Jeremy Hartman scored some cocaine, enjoyed a hooker's services in a back alley, carjacked a Buick and bludgeoned a cop. Hartman has spent barely a week roaming Vice City, but he's loved every moment. He can do anything he ever wanted in this video-game metropolis -- steal cars, blow up a mall, hook up with biker gangs, run an adult film studio, rob a bank or drive his car over pedestrians. "There's nothing like it out there," the 27-year old graphic design student says. "A lot of games don't go all the way. This one does." Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has been the most eagerly anticipated video-game title of the year. Its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto III, has sold 8 million copies...
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Bryan Adams: How a Canadian blue-collar rocker became a stylish Euro jet-7setter Calgary Herald Sunday, November 9, 2003 Page: E1 / FRONT Section: Arts & Style Byline: Nick Lewis Some say the turn came in 1992, around the time the Canadian government decided Bryan Adams wasn't very Canadian. All 15 songs on his 11-million-seller, Waking Up The Neighbours album had been declared un-Canadian by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which meant they could only enjoy limited airplay on Canadian FM radio stations. It was because the Kingston-born singer's songs had been co-written with his British producer, the future Mr. Shania Twain, Mutt Lange. Adams lashed out, saying the Canadian content rules, which demand that 30 per cent of content be Canadian, breed mediocrity by giving young acts profiles they don't deserve. "So Bryan Adams, who is Canadian, has a Canadian passport and pays taxes in Canada is not...
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Free-spirit Fonda doesn't look back: Remastered directorial debut a glimpse of actor's early rebellious days Calgary Herald Thursday, October 3, 2002 Page: E7 Section: Arts & Style Byline: Nick Lewis The black sheep of the Fonda clan answers the phone in his hotel room with his mouth full of pasta, and between the wet sounds of smacking lips, mumbles something incomprehensible when asked if this is a bad time to talk. Fifteen minutes later, he is a more able conversationalist, although on this afternoon, Peter Fonda sounds very much like Captain America, his stoner-hippie-biker character from 1969's Easy Rider. "Understated?" he'll slur a little later in the interview. "The critics liked my incredibly understated performance in (1997's) Ulee's Gold? I remember thinking, where were they when I did Easy Rider? I mean, you want to talk understated? "This is my dialogue from Easy Rider: 'Wow, man. I mean, that's far...
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