BT Calgary Blogs

On the set of Jeopardy!

Sony pulled out the wild card for CES bringing Jeopardy! to the show floor. 10 episodes for the Tournament of Champions were taped during the week including a special celebrity match. I had the opportunity to sit in on one of the tapings! Okay, working in TV takes away a bit of the magic but it was still kind of cool to see all the behind the scenes moments.

The show is taped almost in real time. Breaks are taken every 10 minutes or so for commercials. What happens during those breaks? Well Alex Trebek goes into the crowd and answers questions. It’s quick and dirty. He doesn’t go into much detail, keeping most answers to 4 or 5 words. He’s all business.

Yes Alex Trebek does make mistakes. When he screws up the producer asks him to “reread” the questions again and the new audio is simply dubbed into the show. This is why everything is “perfect” when it goes to air. Not exactly live TV here folks

Apparently "Mike" is one smart contestant

You’ll notice there are no pictures of Alex Trebek here. We were asked specifically not to take any. At least not while the show was being taped. Camera flashes can damage the studio cameras so no one was allowed to take pictures while the show was being taped. Oh well, you’ll just have to take my word he was there! The show I was at is supposed to air the week of March 21st. Oh my gosh! Maybe I’ll be on TV! Gasp!

Outside the Las Vegas Convention Centre

Time to get the constant ringing of slot machines out of my ears and head to the Las Vegas Convention Centre for CES. 4 days of the latest and greatest offerings from the tech world!

More than 100 thousand people are expected to attend this  and while the crowd is a bit smaller this year, there is plenty to see. In the first 5 hours we have already seen Wireless HDTV’s, plenty of new cell phones, MP3 players, and got a hands on demo of Windows 7. Don’t worry, of course I’ll be bringing some of the newer devices on Breakfast television in the weeks to come!

Jimmy Fallon checks out the tech toys at CES

There are also a few celebs here. I spotted Jimmy Fallon checking out gear in the Pioneer booth. Of course he was accompanied by a camera crew as he was taping a segment. Alex Trebek is also at the show. In fact I will be at a live taping of Jeopardy on the show floor Saturday night. Yup, the Tournament of Champions is being taped here! Should be fun.

Greetings !!!!

My first entry for 2009….and let me tell you….I was planning on writing about my New Year’s Resolution….problem is – I still can’t come up with one !   Now,  I am certainly not going to be one of “those people” who says:  “My Resolution is to not make a resolution” – what a complete pile of garbage.  A simple “I don’t make resolutions” would fit just fine, thank-you very much.

In my case, I most certainly want to make one — I just want to be sure that it is somewhat attainable !!

So….here goes….my New Year’s Resolution is to come up with one before the end of January.

Wish me luck, and Happy New Year.

-A

I’ve decided my resolution this year is to blog on a regular basis.

Yes I watched an advanced screener and this season is full of girls who are bananas for Jason.  It is going to be some kind of entertainment.  Seriously some of the women put it ALL out there.  Tuesday morning on BT I will review the show with Dave and Sus so tune in around 8:30am to check it.  Andy S is also a HUGE fan so I imagine he’ll have a few things to say.

Things to watch for:

our Alberta girl Jillian gives Jason the hot dog test and…

my personal favorite quote so far this season, “You have really nice teeth”.  Wow. 

See you in the morning!

CES 2009 is just around the corner and I will be heading down to Vegas to see check out what’s going to be hot this year in the tech and gadget world. In case you’re not familiar with CES, it is the world’s largest electronic trade show . The show floor is more than 5 football fields big! Last year my photographer Jeff and I spent 3 full days on the floor and only managed to see about 80% of it. Ya…it’s that big.

So what can we expect to see this year? Expect plenty of buzz around 3DTV. We saw a few prototypes on the show floor last year. We’ve heard more companies have jumped on board and will be showing off displays. It also appears most will not require the 3D glasses (a few did last year).

Of course there was the 150 inch Plasma from Panasonic last year. Will someone come out with a bigger and better one this year? Probably.

We should also see more wireless HDTVs. There are the TVs that allow you to have all your home theatre components across the room and they will beam video and audio to your TV…no wires! The first units were supposed to be out in 2008, only to get pushed back to 2009. We can expect to hear more about this technology this year and get a better idea on release date.

Of course this is only a snippet of what I will see down there. From cell phones, and computers, to stereos and GPS systems…man it’s going to be a busy week!

Are there any products you’re excited to hear more about? Let me know! I’ll do my best to get the details for you!