Long talking about the weather and the price of gas is a pretty good sign that I need to pop up for a second. These last few days, my work hours have been filled with writing a very large research grant application while my home computer time has been dedicated to keywording and submitting my best images to several microstock sites. Half of the images have only been available for a day but it looks like I may be able to fund some of that expensive habit of mine. I’ve been at the keyboard so much that the tip of my fingers are hurting.

A few days ago, I suggested to my Metroblogging colleagues that we should all write an entry with the common theme “Love thy neighbor”. Although it is said that you can choose your friends but not your family your ability to choose the strange people that share our street/building is also limited but at least they make for interesting stories and they can’t write you out of the will.

Come back every morning for another installment of Love thy Montreal neighbor.

For a few days now, mornings, until about 10-11 A.M. have been sunny and fresh instead of humid and hot. The reward we get is horribly high gas prices. At this rate, it’s going to 2$/liter by 2006.

A Vancouver Canucks fan expresses his opinion on Rob Niedermayer, and he has nice things to say about our Montreal Canadiens’ GM, when he played in the NHL.

Bob Gainey, of course, was a great player, and not merely good. Ken Dryden once wrote that Bob’s contribution to the game was that he proved once and for all that a forward could be a genuine star without scoring a lot. Anatoli Tarasov called him the best player in the world depite the fact he did not score. Gainey was so good the NHL invented a trophy to give him even though the Selke was defined incorrectly.

I’ve spent many of my summer evenings in school in order to finish my degree, which has left little time for me to enjoy summer reading. My last class for the summer has just come to a close, and I now have three full weeks of summer left to enjoy some leisure reading before I have to go back to textbooks. So far, I have decided on Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre; it’s got great reviews and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into some good fiction. I will also take a gander at Saul and Patsy, by Charles Baxter (his book ‘Feast of Love’ was wonderful, read it!).
My question, for those inclined to answer is: what books have you read this summer?

Shortly after joining our jolly band of misfits, Heather has had to make the second most important decision of her life.

Congratulations and may it be as fruitful as the first.

Both Roddick and Hewitt are out of the Rogers Cup Tournament. All the players that I wanted to see are out except Nadal and Agassi. Wait a second, Nadal versus Agassi… that would be an incredible match up! Old guard versus young blood, flashy colours versus clam diggers, it was predestined! I can be hopeful, can’t I?

Montreal metblogs has been around since December 2004 and 8 months later, we hit the 300 posts mark. That’s about 35 posts a month. That’s not bad considering that Andre writes way more than any other Montreal metblogs bloggers.

Moving on to the next post…

We were on highway 10, at the Sutton/Granby exit, when the two black limousines merged in front of us. We knew they were ferrying somebody important since the back one contained what looked like four mounties/bodyguards and would occasionally activate its blue/red flashers.

They moved on to the left lane and stayed at the “unofficial” speed limit of 119 kph. In fact, they were so intent on staying under 120 that it took them a good 10 min to pass a couple of cars whose cruise controls appeared to be set at 118.9 kph. Needless to say, by the time they were done, there was quite the lineup behind us. The whole time, we were speculating on the identity of the passengers in the front car. The Canadian PM, Paul Martin, is known to have a cottage near Sutton while Sherbrooke, the home of Quebec PM Jean Charest, lies at the end of the highway.

We were on our way to Lake Lovering and the Magog exit was fast approaching. I got the speed up, passed the two limos, and saw an impeccably dressed man with a receding hairline, some curly grey hair and reading glasses. Unfortunately he was reading something, his face was down and we never got a good enough look.

To our surprise, both cars got out behind us at the Magog exit. The reason became obvious when we reached the village and saw it to be crawling with tourists. It was La travers

For those who don’t understand French, this article is about a disabled man who intended to travel accross Canada on his bicycle and he also planned to go all the way to Mexico. Unfortunately, while he was in a restaurant in Saskatoon, his bike got stolen and later on, someone stole his wallet as well. Now, his journey is over.

This little story reminded me of something one of my teachers said “People should not feel obligated to lock their bicycle”. If someone loses their bicycle, they shouldn’t be blamed for not locking it. It’s not their fault, it’s the thief’s fault.

I guess it’s part of human nature to be unable to resist certain temptations. That’s probably why the line “And lead us not into temptation” is included in The Lord’s Prayer.

Apparently, in one of the cities or countries in Europe, I don’t remember which one, there are red bikes in the streets that are free for people to use and at night, there are people who will scatter them around in strategic locations. I don’t know if it’s true, but it sounds good as long as no one steals them…

Stephen Harper actually has a good idea? Wow. Of course, he won’t get to make it law or anything, but at least the Libs may actually go forward with this idea. I don’t know why students get such a discount in Montreal, while the poor have to pay so much to use the metro. Just one of the reasons for the underground economy, I guess.

Last week, at the party’s national caucus meeting here, Harper embraced a long-overdue idea: Tax breaks for people who use public transit — and/or for businesses that encourage their employees to use it, for instance, by subsidizing GO train or TTC passes.

(via Nealenews)