Happy Birthday George...

A GREAT BIG Strombo Show Chat Happy Birthday to George..

Now.. we had a great card.. but couldn't get it scanned to get up here.. We'll save it for next year we guess.. so this download-able and color-able pirate flag seemed just the thing instead. And just a note.. we found some wicked Halloween stuff for you for this year while searching...
We'll save that for October & one of our key collective's birthday's!

So... Yes it is a bit belated getting up.. and we back-dated this post
(to 8/16/10; 8:16am.. as no idea what time George was born.. likely not this early.. but it seemed nice to reflect the date & time thing).

We were unfortunately dealing with some "issues", but we'll address that in a different post.. we choose to not really post or deal with any of that nastiness today out of respect for G's & his b-day.. (However.. it will be dealt with at a later date and post!)

Needless to say some things prevented us from posting this sooner.. (which is no doubt the kind of disruption intended by this person/persons...)

Anyway.. this is about George and his day..

IN case you aren't aware.. George was born on a fine August day..
(or we're assuming it was) 38 years ago (no old man jokes now.. except those us older or born in the same year.. it's special exemption)..

That was August 16, 1972 to be exact... a Wednesday if those "day you were born" calculators are correct.

We think we can skip the reference to the "Monday's Child poem" here... as Wednesday was apparently NOT a good day. We think however, George has managed to get over it.. ;)

He clearly does have his Wednesday Addams kinda days/influences/something going on there though..

SO... maybe *this* explains ALL the black?!

Ok.. back to the story.. we can't say much more as we weren't there..
BUT what we do know... we mostly read on George's Wikipedia.. as can you..

The highlights tho... his Mom - Mary.. is well.. awesome.. as aside from the whole giving birth part... the woman picks some pretty incredible music when she makes a guest appearance on the show. You can see the dates George called her for requests under the "George's Mom" tag in the labels list above!

So.. we know that Mary is.. (was) a nurse, I think that's what G said one time on The Hour... and she's Ukrainian. Little is known about George's Dad... except that he left when George was young.. we think we recall ~7-ish (don't quote us on that, we have no idea where we heard that or why that #'s in our head), but what we do know is that of course G's Dad is Greek.. giving us this wonderful, somewhat unpronounceable, a joy to spell (except backwards.. we'll explain this later as we're too tired to find the link), more vowels in one place than you can possibly imagine... last name.. the infamous.. Stroumboulopoulos!

We spelt that right.. right? we spell it so often on this blog, etc.. that sometimes we start to second guess ourselves.

That is actually George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos to be precise.

Holy middle names Batman. Like his name wasn't long enough to begin with.. wow. Impressive.

And his initials.. GMPS seem to stand for absolutely nothing in most abbreviations/acronym finders.. but... if you're up on your Organic Chemistry/Enzymology/Neurochemistry.. you might find this an interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMP_synthase

So according to the wonderful & lovely Wikipedia, George was born in Malton, Ontario (Canada, Earth.. Not Middle Earth.. Just Earth. In case you need to get really specific) AND... he grew up there. Other bits & pieces we've gleaned over the years from comments he's made on the show. It seems he went to some sort of religious school.. We're guessing for most of his elementary & junior high years.. no clue on the whole high school experience.. he rares seems to mention it. Probably b/c like most of us, high school is better left alone & forgotten...

Wikipedia skips straight over all that.. and lands us in 2000 with George at the ripe age of 28.. 10 yrs ago to be exact.. where his days at MuchMusic started. We must admit.. we don't recall much (haha.. pun intended ;) of George from that time. Most of our collective didn't watch a ton of Much back then..

But the lovely George clearly had a love of the music as various incarnations of The Strombo Show (link to Strombo.com) have been around for quite some time...

As we know.. "The show moved to CBC Radio 2 on November 8, 2009." And lead down a long and winding path that even contributed to the eventual creation of this blog.. but that is for another story, another day. The writing of the history of the Strombo Show Chat is in progress.. as we speak to old fans (and perhaps even George or the show producers one day) about the origins, the path, the growth, and the wonder of The Strombo Show.. and it's kinda cute & adorable host.. Mr. Strombo.

Hope you've enjoyed the story.. perhaps even some of it is true. Well.. the Happy Birthday part is for sure!

From all your faithful fans and followers over here at the Strombo Show Chat (& Blog).. We are wishing you a wonderful, special, enjoyable, healthy, and everything you could ever wish for HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Keep rocking it.. and we know we'll keep enjoying it!
All the best!




Yours in musical awesome-ness and awe!
~(now former) StromboShowChat Collective