For many Montreal Gazette readers, the most important part of the paper is the Comics. Indeed there is often more insight displayed there than in the rest of the paper. Any changes must be made carefully since readers really get attached to the most surprising strips.

So very carefully a new one, Baby Blues, is being tested at the moment. You can read all about this in what the Gazette calls a blog by Doug Sweet. The December 31, 2005 item was called, New comic strips getting a test spin.

Good and important reading. But it isn’t a blog, to my way of thinking. If you search for ‘Doug Sweet blog’ on the Canada.com website, you won’t turn it up. The Google Blogsearch doesn’t seem to know about either. It will probably disappear as Gazette items often do after a certain length of time. Hopefully Doug Sweet really does have a standard blog where we can see this for a much longer period. If I learn about it, I’ll certainly let you know.

Since no one found out, here’s the station in broad daylight.

I said in a previous post that Andy Riga’s Federal Election commentary could only be read by Gazette subscribers. I must apologize. He also has a blog on the Federal Election, which includes all that is in the paper. Sorry.

They say the federal election campaigns are going to get ugly. If you’d like to get something that’s easy on the eye, why not go for a Liberal Party Desktop Wallpaper for your computer. You can choose from Ruby Dhalla, Belinda Stronach, Marc Garneau, Paul Martin, or Paul Martin, or Paul Martin .. ..

Tip of the hat to Andy Riga of the Montreal Gazette, who says that Don Macpherson was the one who spotted this. I’ll give you the link to his e-file, but you’ll need a paid subscription to see it.

Concordia started renovations of it’s Hall Building on Maisonneuve Street. Sure… Some of the top floors look pretty good now with their modern redesign/furniture… But there are still LARGE annoyances! For example… I had a meeting up on the 12th floor. I thought… I’ll take the elevator! I get there… One of the 2 elevators is out of order. The second one is so tiny that once 6-8 students have entered with their backpacks it’s full. So I went to the escalators. The first one up to the Mezz was not functionning… Up 15 steps… The second escalator up to the second floor was also not functionning! Now this one is a lot more steps… Like 30 at least! Then the third escalator to the third floor also was not working! #@*&*@! I was getting angry… It’s a lot of steps and I’m in a hurry! So I go up these 15 steps… And then many more thankfully functionning escalators until I finally reached the 12th floor! Concordia should really do something about this in Hall building! The escalators get so much traffic they are constantly not functionning and the elevators are way too crowded!

This evening as I walked to my car I notice a car parked diagonally on the street while all the others were parallel parked. I thought to myself that the driver must not be very experienced since he couldn’t park like the others. There isn’t that much snow on the ground. So I get to my car, brush it off, and climb in. I eagerly did some back and forth moves to maneuver the car out of the space. Well, somehow I lodge the back corner into the snowbank against the sidewalk. So I grabbed the shovel, cleared out around the tires, cleared a path to the street, and gave it a go. Didn’t budge an inch. I repeated this a few times with absolutely no luck. I’ve gotten so used to weather here being cold enough for traction that I got careless and now I was stuck in half frozen slush spinning my wheels. Now who was Mr. Inexperience.

So a young guy walks over asks if I need some help. Now, I grew up in the city and learned to always be weary of people who come up to you. Especially unsolicited. Yes, I grew up helping push other people out around the neighborhood, but that openness to strangers eroded over the years. I couldn’t tell you whether it was my advancing in age or a change in the society around me. A part of me also wondered whether he was offering in order to get a quick buck. So I tentatively gave it another go with the shovel and the engine, but no movement as the guy stood there patiently. He then asked if I would like him to try pushing. I figured why not. We give it a couple goes again with no luck. And he was working quite a bit and breathing pretty hard. So another guy comes up and also offers. After three goes, it inched onto the street. I immediately stopped the car, jumped out, and thanked them. It has been a while since I had seen strangers earnestly give that kind of assistance.

The point of my story is that I continually get surprised at the generosity of the people here in Montreal. The openness that I see from people I am meeting for the first time really has taken me aback. I know there are exceptions, but the population as a whole shows a warmth that I had not seen in many years.

Last August I went public with my hateful feelings toward those flimsy, polluting, grocery plastic bags. Today I was very happy to read this long article in Cyberpresse in which I learned that the Metro grocery chain will completely eliminate plastic bags within the next 18-24 months. Instead they will be selling large canvas-like blue bags that are made of recycled plastic and can be reused for more than a year.

Of course there will certainly be cheapskates that will complain about the exorbitant cost of these bag ($1 each) as well as the fact that they actually like using grocery bags in their trash cans even though most of them have holes after a single use.

A magnitude 4.2 earthquake affected the region this morning at 10:30. The epicenter was located 22 km east of Huntingdon. I felt something while working in my office but I simply assumed that is was a truck or an unbalanced centrifuge.

Update (2241): it seems there was a lot of mistakes when i first wrote this. I hope it makes more sense now.

If Holidays are just dates to you, then you never had any Holidays, otherwise, congratulations, you’ll be happy for the rest of your life.

Tomorrow, kids will no longer be home, students will be back in school. To some, it’s back to pleasure and excitement, to elementary and high school kids, it’s just going back to prison and to others, it’s back to old or new deadlines that could easily be missed. Houses, apartments, lofts, ski resorts will be empty again. Coffee shops and libraries will fill up. Public transportation will be a mess again.

You probably all got fat from what you’ve been eating in the past two-three weeks. It’s time you do something about it. Ah, just the typical happy new year.

The Archaeological Institute of America has been holding its 107th annual meeting here in Montreal for the past few days. It’s a big deal since it’s the first time it’s been held in Montreal and only the second time in Canada. Jacques Perrault of the Universit