Old TechTV crew meetup in Toronto

That day was awesome. How do I know? I was there… (obviously)

I drove 600 kilometers from Montreal to Toronto that morning, which I manage to make it in less than 5 hours. Don’t ask me how. The restaurant-lounge was actually hard to find; although it’s officially located at 219 Duferin street, the bulding is facing Mowat avenue. Since I did not remembered the address (I thought « What the fuck!? I will recognized the place…» ), I lost a good half hour.

After waiting two hours or so, Kevin Rose showed up, followed by Dan Huard, Keith Harrison (A.K.A. as the switcherman) and Alex Albrecht. Alex was very locace just about every topic. The crew set everything up to shoot the next Diggnation #7, which include the funniest screwed story ever being shot! I met Matthew, another avid fan, that took many picutres as well.

Alex & Kevin, after the Diggnation shooting…

Afterwards, the whole Revision3 staff cool down upstairs – by that time, the place has been filled with about 50 people, including TechPhile’s Frank Linhares and OpenAlpha.tv’s Jenn Cutter. While talking to Kevin Rose, he confirmed to me that John C. Dvorak, who had mention building a MythTV himself recently during the last TWiT podcast, had in fact watched the very same episode of Systm, following Kevin’s instructions in building the box. Woah, qui oserait parler de «choc des générations»…

The whole G4TechTV Canada crew finally arrived around 7pm; featuring Leo Laporte, Amber MacArthur, Andy Walker, Mikey Lazazzera, Katya Diakow (director of Call for Help and Gadget & Gizmos), Matt Harris (associate director of Call for Help) and Hayden Mindell (program manager of G4TechTV Canada). I was impressed how friendly Leo was, even after he had shot 4 episodes of Call for Help on one day. But still, after recording the TechPhile podcasts, the « cranky old man»  inside of him sang the same depressive tune about Apple and iTunes :

« They never thought that podcasting would be so big. You know what they’re gonna do? They’re gonna find a way to put ADS on them [podcasts]. They’re going to fuck it up…» 

Well let’s hope they know better I think, but at the same time, I have no faith in what Apple is up to with the iTunes Music Store. But what about the Wayne’s World remark that Steve Jobs did? Is it THAT awfull? How would he describe Diggnation?

« Yeah, you’re right, it’s Wayne’s World. But he didn’t mean it THAT way – Believe me, I know Steve Jobs…» 

I totally agree with that statement. But I thought it was harsh to bring that Wayne’s World comment like a bad thing over and over… I mean, Diggnation is Wayne’s World, in a GOOD way…

Leo Laporte, with a real New York licence plate…

I also had a GREAT conversation about local independent music with Hayden. Unfortunately, I forgot about most of the bands he told me to look up… except for the Slint (I don’t know why I remembered that particular name).

No Regrets? I have at least one… I took too many pictures! I should have talked to the crew much more before the place got crowed. Once you put Leo in a place, suddently you need to manage a 250+ people crowd. Every important persons took off around 10:30, and so did I…

I immediatly drove back to Montreal. It was around 4 am when I got home. Valérie (my girlfriend) couldn’t sleep, I guess she [subconciously] missed me…