TRONtonians got TRONsformed by George

 This past week George has been tweeting up a storm about something cool happening Thursday.

His public tweets on Dec 6th to people like Amber Mac, Carlos Diaz and broadcaster Jim Richards promised something cool for TRONtonians that he was working on that would happen Thursday and ask everyone to be ready for it! The word spread and these teases continued until the Big reveal Thursday the 9th in the early evening.

 in this picture Jim Richards, Strombo, Carlos Diaz and Amber Mac + Tron

 We've TRONsformed Toronto for the @TronLegacy tweetup screening at the CN Tower. Be here by 7:30! yfrog.com/5s7euz

George Stroumboulopoulos along with Disney and the CN Tower presented the world wide premier of the movie Tron's Legacy.The first people to show up for the tweetup at the CN Tower got to be the first to see Tron's Legacy inside the CN tower's theater. Included in this fun, free evening is a ride up to the top for an amazing photo op!
I was not there but I heard back from people who went that they loved Tron, Jeff Bridges' acting and the music by Daft Punk. They had a great time! More pictures can be found here

Goes to show you don't need the film's stars to have a world premier. 

A few dates

September 9th George should be at the TIFF opening film Score: A Hockey Musical This is just one of the TIFF films George appears in.  I can't keep track of them all... If you plan to attend TIFF just don't be surprised if you spot Strombo on the screen of that Chinese historical drama you managed to win or buy tickets for.
TIFF runs from September 9th to the 19th.   You can follow TIFF on twitter


The Live Your Legacy fund-raising gala
It's the 20th anniversary of the David Suzuki Foundation and they are celebrating and fund raising on September 10th at the Four Season in Toronto.
George Stroumboulopoulos and comedian Russel Peters are co-hosting this event. Special guests include Stephen Lewis, Ed Begley Jr, Andrew Ference, Adam Van Koeverdon and Gordon Lightfoot. 
This will not be televised.
For more information and tickets click this.  
  

Another important date with George in September is the 20th. It's the date he named to start the season of the yet to be renamed The Hour. 

George was talking about it on Q today. He mentioned the show will be taping TIFF related interviews and then the show begins broadcasting September 20th in it's new 'length' with the same core values. There will be the interview and the look at the news and some great changes. New set, some new staff, we will see new faces.

George Stroumboulopoulos can be followed on Twitter here and he has a  new consolidated Facebook page he would like you to join here 

The man stays busy

The Hour will start taping again on April 26th. The studio is dark for a week and a half while The Hour continues to get preempted from it's regular air time for the NHL playoffs, but George Stromboulopoulos never rests.
Here are a few highlights of his time off...

April 14th he was throwing out the first pitch at the Blue Jays game.


Here are his tweets: Wearing my George Bell powder blues. Throwing out first pitch.Jays consider it ceremonial I'm thinking of it as a tryout #11
Getting ready to let it rip. Jays and White Sox.

Between watching the Blue Jays and watching The Habs and prepping for The Strombo Show George spent the weekend at Shannonville earning his racing stripes. Or whatever one earns when learning to race motorcycles.


Here are his tweets on that:

In the riders meeting at Shannonville. Working on Race Procedures.

Checking out the front straight at Shannonville. Memorizing the fastest lines.

Besides the concerns about how the Habs are doing against Washington George is concerned about his carbon footprint this "Earth Week".

Another Earth Week site. Check out your carbon footprint. I live like there's 3 planets. Time to change!

April 22 Earth Day

Actress Rachel McAdams is giving me tips to reduce my footprint. Check out her site: www.greenissexy.org. #EarthDay

NYC this morning. Halifax this afternoon. Filming scene for a film. Rutger Hauer just rode in on a bicycle. Badass and earth day. #ladyhawke

Note:

I did a little research to see what film Rutger Hauer is working on in Halifax and Hobo With a Shotgun fits the bill. It's a film by first time director Jason Eisener.

Hobo With A Shotgun started out as a fake trailer connection to the film Grindhouse.

Not clear what role George may play in this production.

April 24

Strombo should be back in Toronto for the weekend because his team the Chart Attack Hack is having a hockey playoffs game of their own on Saturday night.

Back The Hack!

April 25

Making a fresh Strombo Show for Sunday night.

Then back to work for George and the crew of The Hour on Monday April 26th.

New Shows however, are not scheduled to air until the following Monday. I will post the scheduled best of shows for this coming week this Sunday.

Michael Seater Challenges Strombo

Strombo & actor Michael Seater of
18 to Life race for followers.

George has his shoes ready for the run
but the race is on Twitter


So when a Twitter War is declared
a Twitter War Song is inevitable.

George tweets a tune and we blip it to the blog

George likes to share a few songs from his day and he posts a song title or two on Twitter.
I am going to select one of his choices and use blip.fm so you can hear what he want's to share.
THE SHIRELLES-WILL U STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW

Shared via AddThis

Bags and boxes of books?

If you follow George Stroumboulopoulos on Twitter or are a facebook friend of his, you may have noticed his recent tweet/status.

George Stroumboulopoulos "Where's the best place to donate a bunch of books in Toronto? Wide variety. Never done this before. Thoughts? #freebooks #springcleaning"

This question elicited a flurry of responses. Library, Books for Charity, Hospitals, Shelters, Schools, Prisons, Churches, Freecycle, Goodwill and other charities.
Even Rick Mercer made a comment of George's status:

Rick Mercer at 9:57pm May 17

Why must you encourage reading. Do you want TV to fail?

It's open for discussion.

What do you do when you read your book, and want to pass it forward?

My thoughts... There is no shame in selling it to a second hand book store. It offers other readers a reduced price book, keeps the shopkeeper employed and you get a little lunch money. Win win! One other idea that is popular in my circles is to put your initials in the book once you read it and put it a bag and everyone brings a bag of books to the friends house when they gather and offer it up for everyone. Like a pot luck reading feast!

I think all these suggestions can work for communities across the country. People replied very quickly to George's initial inquiry with a lot of great ideas and this got me thinking. If we all know where to give our used books to, why are they still in boxes in our storage room? Or maybe that's just me...?
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Here is an inspirational story about going big with the idea of donating books.
One man donated 30,000 books
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Do you think George's main source for books might be from the Authors that he has researched and interviewed over the years? Probably many books from many authors he is never going to interview... what are you keeping George, and what are you giving away?
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On the topic of great authors on The Hour. The Hour's own forum has a lively discussion about them in the Offical Booklist here.