Evans Above

Tom Shales talks about Congress, Howard Stern and the FCC.

Q: What’s a visit to L.A. without a Hilton sister sighting? A: A good one.

While shopping at the Beverly Center yesterday, we spotted Paris’ lil’ sister Nicky hitting an ATM to continue her shopping. Maybe she was buying a camera so she can shoot her own video.

First full day in LA as we get ready for the SAG Awards and the Oscars. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain so hard in LA…I can’t remember the last time I had to use an umbrella. Picked up the SAG credentials. They’re just like passport photos in that the planets have to be aligned properly to get a good shot. Oh well, I only have to wear it for one day.

As a Torontonian, I have to say I hate the audiences that are attending the Late Night with Conan O’Brien tapings in Toronto.

There’s a ton of intelligent people in this city, but the audience seems to come from the same shallow genetic wading pool that produces the idiots who drive up and down Yonge Street honking their horns and yelling every time the Toronto Maple leafs win a frickin’ playoff game.

I recently filed a health violation complaint against the Yonge & Eglinton Burger King in Toronto. The employees were using the cups that they were serving the drinks in to scoop the ice, instead of using the nearby ice scoop. This is a health hazard as their hands can come in contact with the ice.

After filing a complaint with Toronto’s DineSafe program, I also filed a customer service complaint with the head office of Burger King in Canada. I received a swift response apologizing for the incident and thanking me for bringing it to their attention. I was told that the regional manager and the restaurant would discuss the incident. As thanks for my part in the “education process” they sent me a couple of coupons for a free Whopper meal.

A week had passed. In this day and age a week is more than enough time to call/email/fax the restaurant manager and make sure that the staff are informed about proper procedures. Taking my coupon, I decided to visit the Yonge & Eglinton location again. I handed in the coupon and ordered my meal.

The employee grabbed my drink cup and scooped up the ice. I was amazed at the irony. I asked to see the manager. It turns out the person serving me was the manager. I informed her of her error. She didn’t apologize or react when I mentioned why I had been given the coupons.

I guess she didn’t get the memo. Perhaps I should buy the Burger King folks a copy of the Cluetrain Manifesto.

When something like this happens to you, be an empowered consumer. Use the tools you have to alert others to the situation and get it corrected.

Unless you’re in a cave in Afghanistan and really can’t get CNN, you probably have heard about, read about, watched the video or looked at photos of Janet Jackson’s bare breast from Sunday night’s Super Bowl XXXVIII MTV-produced half-time show. Heck, you might have even voted in a poll on the subject.

Everybody involved claims that it was an accident, or as Justin Timberlake put it, “a wardrobe malfunction”.

Right.

It’s not like Janet (Miss Jackson if you’re nasty) needs the publicity. Why would she need to do something that would knock her bro, Michael Jackson, from the headlines? It’s not like she has a new CD dropping in March and her label rushed her new single out early today to capitalize on the press.

Justin? Well, Justin did have a nasty break-up from Britney Spears. It’s not like he’d like to knock the MTV Video Awards girl-on-girl kiss between his poor-recent-album-sales ex and the poor-recent-album-sales pop icon, Madonna, out of the collective memory.

The FCC is planning an investigation that could end in hefty fines for CBS and its stations. For Justin and Janet, however, the mantra that “no publicity is bad publicity” drones on.

Special thanks to the folks at Yahoo! Movies for featuring us in their 76th Academy Awards coverage.

It appears the CBS web folks have fixed the Leno issue by replacing him with a photo of Dave.

On Sunday night, we covered the 30th Annual People’s Choice Awards, a yearly kudofest that is completely lacking in surprise. The winners are notified beforehand and therefore if you take a look at the opening credits or audience you know who the winners are.

Monday night, PCA nominee David Letterman explained the process further. He described how the People’s Choice Awards contact the nominees and let them know that if they don’t hear from them in a week they haven’t won.

He then pointed out that the People’s Choice Awards aired on CBS. He showed a screenshot of CBS’ People’s Choice Awards web page. It featured photos of the Everybody Loves Raymond cast, Bill Cosby and NBC’s Tonight Show host, Jay Leno. Though he was having some fun with it, Letterman was obviously ticked that they would put up a photo of his late night rival. “They could have used Oprah,” he complained.

Obviously CBS could use a lesson in cross-promotion.

Clear Channel has a huge electronic billboard at Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas corner. As thousands of pedestrians and cars went by on Sunday night, the sign sat there display a huge alert window for an Internet Explorer scripting error.

Not exactly the best advertising for Microsoft.