A Devine Media Service site for and about Barrie

Peter Pan takes flight to TIFT

May 16, 2012

The world’s most reluctant adult-in-waiting brings a revised tale of forever young to Barrie this month in a production that will bring the curtain down on Talk is Free Theatre’s 10th anniversary.
Parkdale Peter Pan, based on J M Barrie’s classic Peter Pan, opens June 1 at the Mady Centre for Performing Arts, with a preview scheduled for May 31. Although it was initially scheduled to run until June 9, it was subsequently extended until June 16.
The story of the boy without the slightest interest in growing up is universally known, and has even spawned a condition called the ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ to label men who refuse to take on adult responsibilities and expectations. Many a movie has been based on this premise.
Although Parkdale Peter Pan deals with childhood, it’s not in itself a child’s story. However, it is said to be suitable for families and children 10 and older.
Aleksandar Lukac will direct the production. It will star David Dosley as Wendy, Colin Doyle as Peter Pan, and TIFT veteran Milosh Rodic as Captain Hook. Each actor will also play a number of other characters.
For more information on this flight to Neverland, call (705) 792-1949 or drop by suite 20, 230 Bayview Drive, for tickets.

Police seek missing Barrie man

May 9, 2012

Barrie police are asking for the public’s help in locating Hal Gerrald Raymond Forrest, a Barrie man last seen by his family on Feb. 28, 2005.

Police rendition of what Forrest might look like today

Police report that Forrest returned to Barrie in February, 2005, from the University of Waterloo where he was enrolled. On Feb, 28, say police, Forrest drove his mother to work, telling her he was going to look for employment. He told her he would be back at the end of her shift, but failed to show.
When she returned home, Forrest’s mother, say police, found a note stating he was “going to find himself.” He hasn’t been seen since, but his family believe he may be residing in the Vancouver area under a new identity, but that has not been confirmed.
The most recent description police have of him is a caucasian male with a fair complexion, a slim build, 170 cms, 63 kgs, with brown wavy hair and brown eyes. Police have released a rendition of what he might look like today.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Det. Const. Chris Castonguay, #3058, at the Barrie Police Service Criminal Investigations Division, 705-725-7025, ext: 2125, local police detachments or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS. Callers are asked to refer to Barrie Police Occurrence BA07035002 to outside agencies.

Zelda: 25 Years of the Legend

May 8, 2012

Chapter 3: Zelda III builds on game’s initial success

• Adam Wilson is a senior student at Innisdale Secondary School. He became a fan of The Legend of Zelda 11 years ago when he first played the fifth game in the series, Ocarina of Time. Though he has been writing for many years, he only began writing professionally in May 2009. Adam is writing this retrospective of The Legend of Zelda for his co-op at City Scene Barrie, combining his two passions of writing and Zelda. Check back often for Adam’s pieces looking back at the history of the Legend of Zelda series.

By Adam Wilson

Hello and welcome back to Zelda: 25 Years of the Legend. Last time, I discussed the second entry in the series as well as its first foray into the use of magic power and side-scrolling gameplay, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. While the second game in the series had not enjoyed widespread acclaim or sales comparable to the original, it still received decent praise and many features looked as though they’d be right at home in future Zelda titles.
When, one year after the release of The Adventure of Link, work began on a new Zelda game, elements from both preceding games were considered for use in hope that Nintendo could make the third game, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the definitive and best entry in the series so far.

A Link to the Past saw the return of Shigeru Miyamoto, the series creator and producer of the past two games, as producer and, while Takashi Tezuka took over as the game’s director, the third entry in the Zelda franchise was the first game in the series he didn’t write. When selecting the third game’s perspective, the development team returned to the top-down style from the first game.

However, the team also sought to improve on the control aspects introduced in both games. While controlling Link in the first game had worked well for the time, things had to be altered for A Link to the Past. In the first and second game, a push of the attack button would prompt Link to make a simple forward stabbing motion. This was changed in the third game that had a tap of the attack button make Link broadly swing his sword in front of him, both showing off Link’s left-handedness for the first time in the series and making it easier for the player to hit oncoming opponents.
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Barrie police auction moves online

May 8, 2012

A police auction has long been a reliable way of getting a good bicycle, or other item, at a good price. Now, those looking for such things can browse online as the Barrie Police Service is moving to a web-based service to auction unclaimed goods.
Police auction items seized in criminal investigations, as well as unclaimed property. Those items will be available for purchase through Police Auctions Canada, a website that operates similarly to eBay.
Moving to an online auction is expected to save the service storage space, money and time. The shift puts the service in line with other services moving online for such things.

“Previously, we would hold onto these items for up to a year, waiting for our annual auction,’’ says Property Unit Sergeant Linda Moorhouse. “Now, we can ship out these items every three or four months and not worry about the storage build up.’’

A link to the auction website will be posted on the service’s website once items are posted.

Man speeds to impaired charges

May 8, 2012

A Barrie man drew attention to himself by travelling at a high rate of speed on Highway 400, say police.
And when action met reaction, police say the driver, 35, was arrested for being impaired behind the wheel, later providing two breath samples resulting in readings twice the legal limit.
He was charged with impaired driving and over 80 mgs, and his license was suspended. He faces a future court date on the charges.

In other police news:

• A Barrie boy, 15, was arrested for theft after his mother reported that he had stolen and pawned his sister’s video game remotes. The youth was on probation for an unrelated charge. Police took him to the station and held him pending a bail hearing.

• Barrie police are investigating a break and enter at a Patterson Road address, in which a window was smashed to gain entry and several items were stolen. Anyone with information is asked to contact investigating officer Const. Rogers, #6180, at 705-725-7025. ext: #2510. or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).

Barrie gets piece of research project

April 10, 2012

A new IBM data centre is coming to Barrie, part of a new research and development initiative launched by seven Ontario universities in partnership with the provincial and federal governments.
The research and development initiative is a $210 million public/private investment, a significant part of which will come to Barrie, says Mayor Jeff Lehman.
“It is a huge honour for Barrie to be selected as the city to host a key component of the new IBM Canada Research and Development Centre’s high-performance environment. The fact that IBM chose Barrie over many other cities demonstrates to the global economy all Barrie has to offer and our competitive advantage.
“We also have the proven ability to help grow new sectors of the economy, with two major, branded data-processing centres (BMO and TD) already established here in Barrie.”
Barrie was picked by IBM for a number of reasons, which included reliable sources of hydro and water, says Hany Kirolos, the city’s director of economic development.

“We competed against 15 other cities, were short-listed and continued to aggressively highlight Barrie’s many benefits to IBM, their real estate broker and other stakeholders to ensure our success.”

The 10,170-square-metre LEED-certified centre is to be built on Bayview Drive. The project is expected to create 145 full-time research and development positions, however the exact number coming to Barrie is unknown at this time. It’s also expected that construction will indirectly create about 100 jobs.
The president of IBM Canada, John Lutz, says the initiative will further Canada’s “competitiveness in the global digital economy, both now and in the future.
“Together with our government, academic and industry partners, we will apply new, collaborative approaches to Canada’s productivity and competitiveness challenges by more fully leveraging IBM’s 100-year legacy of research and development leadership here in Ontario.”
Universities involved are: the University of Toronto, Western University, McMaster University, Queen’s University, the University of Ottawa, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and the University of Waterloo.
The initiative will see the consortium of universities employ high performance and cloud computing infrastructure to research solutions to global concerns, such as resource management, urban infrastructure, and neurological disorders, according to a press release by MP Patrick Brown.
The federal and provincial governments are each contributing up to $20 million to the project.
“Our government is bringing key players together to give researchers and businesses in southern Ontario a competitive advantage in the world’s rapidly changing economy,” said Brown.
The use of super-computing will enhance the ability to “manage the staggering volume of digital data society creates on a daily basis,” said Western president, Dr. Amit Chakma.
“From neuroscience to our environment and industrial applications, super-computing holds tremendous promise for helping us make complex research decisions more quickly, while mining data for better answers.”
Canada needs knowledge-based initiatives like the IBM Canada Research and Development Centre to diversify the economy, while closing the “identified innovation gap,” says Dr. David Naylor, president of the University of Toronto.
“The (centre) takes direct aim at these issues by creating modern research networks that bring advanced computing capacity to bear on important issues such as: water monitoring, management and distribution; energy monitoring and management; urban planning and traffic management for intelligent cities; and the cross-walk of brain science with artificial intelligence.”
The initiative is expected to generate new skills in data management and analysis, bringing software engineering and production to southern Ontario.

Zelda: 25 Years of the Legend

April 4, 2012

Chapter 2: Zelda II builds on game’s initial success

• Adam Wilson is a senior student at Innisdale Secondary School.He became a fan of The Legend of Zelda 11 years ago when he first played the fifth game in the series, Ocarina of Time. Though he has been writing for many years, he only began writing professionally in May 2009. Adam is writing this retrospective of The Legend of Zelda for his co-op at City Scene Barrie, combining his two passions of writing and Zelda. Check back often for Adam’s pieces looking back at the history of the Legend of Zelda series.

By Adam Wilson

Hello and welcome back to Zelda: 25 Years of the Legend. Last time, I talked about the history of the franchise’s creator and about the first game in the series, The Legend of Zelda. With just one game, Zelda had already made its mark on the video game community.
It had opened the gates for non-linear gaming and its innovative saving feature had changed the video game industry forever. Despite not having the basic qualities of a role-playing game itself, Zelda still helped to lay the groundwork for many fantasy-based RPGs, including the famous Final Fantasy series. And while The Legend of Zelda had undeniably provided enough influence and technological enhancement to last any game a lifetime, Nintendo was not ready to bid Hyrule farewell yet.
Following the 1986 release and success of The Legend of Zelda in Japan, Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, producer and writer of the first game, began work on Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Not wanting a simple rehash of the first game, Miyamoto hired a different team to be in charge of the game’s development. Among the new creative team were Tadashi Sugiyama, who took over the director’s position from Miyamoto, and Akito Nakatsuka, who took over the position of composer from Koji Kondo.
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TIFT brings Great Expectations to Barrie

March 28, 2012

The Mady Centre for the Performing Arts launched last fall with great expectations, and now Talk is Free Theatre (TIFT) has a similar anticipation for its latest production.
TIFT is bringing Great Expectations, a musical adaptation by Richard Ouzounian, to town this week, with a preview scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday), opening on Friday and running until April 14.
The name of the production is no doubt familiar to fans of the classics, and others who may have heard the name but can’t perhaps link it with the work. Great Expectations, of course, sprang from the imagination of Charles Dickens, and tells the tale of young Pip, the hero of the story who meets his expectations, only to realize the great loss on the other side of the pendulum.
Not to give away the tale’s ending, but it is a great recital of expectations pursued and triumph over hardship and one’s expected place in society.
Those in attendance can expect a few novel changes to the story, which does stick to Dickens’ original text. The timeline, for instance, has been … extended, all the way up to modern times, 2012, although the narrative still starts in 1812. Backed by a soundtrack of various eras, the story winds through stages of English history, from Victorian days to the war years to the Occupy London movement.
Justin Goodhand stars as Pip, and will be joined onstage by Alicia Toner, Carson Nattrass, and Alex Poch-Goldin. The performance is to be directed by Richard Ouzounian with musical direction from James Smith.
Tickets are available at the theatre box office. Call 705-792-1949 for more information.

No charges in high-risk stop

March 15, 2012

A high-risk traffic stop by Barrie police on Wednesday ended with no arrests or charges.
Officers from the Barrie Police Investigations Division conducted a drug-related investigation involving two males, 19 and 22, both from Toronto. The older male was known to police, with priors including unauthorized use of a firearm, police report.
“Due to the nature of the investigation and the history of the males involved, the service’s Tactical Support Unit was utilized to arrest the individuals,” police report.
A high-risk traffic stop was conducted around 4 p.m. in the vicinity of Lakeshore and Victoria.
“Our tactical officers receive specialized training in these types of traffic stops as public, subject, and officer safety is paramount. The two males were taken into police custody without incident,” police report.
The vehicle was searched and no drugs found. The occupants were released without charges.
“Barrie police officers remain dedicated to investigating drug-related activity in our city and ensuring the safety of the community,” say police.