Valerie Marcoux and her partner are 10th after the Figure Skating - Pairs short program.

The women’s hockey team beat Italy 16-0. I have yet to find more detailed statistics, i.e. who scored all of those goals.

Found it: C. Ouelette had 3 goals while K. St-Pierre was the goalie.

And we have Jennifer’s gold medal.

Montreal resident Jennifer Heil has won the gold medal on the Moguls. Norwegian Kari Traa and Sandra Laoura of France go home with the silver and bronze respectively. It wasn’t even close, she won by more than a point.

A very good start.

I was wondering how many residents of the greater Montreal area were participating in the Torino Winter Olympic Games. I was able to use this search tool on the web page of the Canadian Olympic Committee to create this list of 25 athletes. I’ll try to keep you appraised of how they are doing.

Edit: My first search was flawed since it did not include residents who were not born in this province.

Laval certainly isn’t known for tasteful design but that is about to change in a big way. I just found out from MacSlash that Quebec’s first Apple Store will be opening at Carrefour Laval.

Mac geeks can click here to apply for a job. Do you have what it takes to be a Mac Genius? If not, you can still be a Back of House Specialist a.k.a. The Box Monkey.

I don’t know which news is worse for Jose Theodore:

He failed a doping test that was administered when he was being considered for the Olympic team.

Turns out its for Propecia which is used to prevent male pattern baldness, an affliction for which I am intimately familiar.

The only way he can redeem himself, and prove that he wasn’t taking it as a masking agent, is to let himself go bald and to lose his pretty-boy image.

A certain dear friend and photographer who appears regularly in The Smoking Section is having her first solo exhibition. Of course, you should go.

If you can’t make it out tonight, the exhibition runs until the end the month. And if you can, I’ll be the one in the red dress. :-)

Radio-Canada has now listed what they (and their listeners) consider to be the 21 wonders of Montreal. Now you get to vote for your favorite.

1- The Mont-Royal
2- The Bottanical Garden
3- The Jacques-Cartier bridge
4- The Olympic Stadium (maybe from far away)
5- The St-Joseph Oratory (nicer from the outside)
6- The Notre-Dame Basilica (nicer from the inside)
7- The old city (Rue de la Commune)
8- Place Ville-Marie (I would prefer the neighboring McGill College street)
9- L’Île de la Visitation (Le site des Moulins, parc de la Visitation)
10- The Jean-Talon Market
11- The view of Montreal at night from the middle of the Champlain Bridge (I love that view)
12- Les Montréalais…
13- The Biodôme
14- Habitat 67
15- The Underground (like we’re gonna vote for a mall)
16- La place Riopelle
17- The Biosphere of Richard Buckminster Fuller
18- The McGill University downtown campus (as long as they exclude the McIntyre)
19- The Lachine Canal
20- Saint-Laurent street and everything around it
21- The Pointe-à-Callière Museum

I’m moving… Soon! At the end of the month I’ll be leaving my current apartment and neighbourhood for a better apartment. It features a dishwasher, wood floors (I’ve got carpet now), a real balcony (I’ve got a fire exit now), central air conditioning (I’ve got a little airco unit now), a terrasse on the roof, etc. So it’ll surely be nicer!

But I’m also changing neighbourhood. I don’t know how I feel about that… I’m so used to my current supermarket I can shop with my eyes closed, my pharmacy was recently renovated and it’s now a pleasure to shop there, the little fruit and veggie market is awesome in the Summer, the local bakery with its fresh bread, the proximity of services (library, park with skating rink, metro station, bus that runs frequently, etc), there is a nice mix of cultures… It’s the dream neighbourhood! I don’t know my new neighbourhood that well… So I guess the unknown is a bit scary. I’m still looking forward to the move though!

Today I hired a moving company… After trying to book one they called me back saying they didn’t have space on the day I wanted afterall… So I tried to call a second one and there was no answer… And the third company worked! The guy was friendly. It seems to me all moving companies are similar (85-100$/hour for 3 men + 1 hour of travelling, a truck, insurance, protective blankets). So it was hard to choose which to go with!

I’ve also changed my current Videotron cable… I am now in the West so I get more English channels (yay) and I’m moving to the East of the island and on that side Videotron has less English channels in their classic cable! So I decided to switch to Illico and choose 20 channels ‘à la carte’. It’s a bit more expensive one time fee (150$ instead of 50$ because I have to buy a terminal plus pay the moving fee) but it’s worth it as after the monthly payments are similar! And I’ve called Bell to tell them I am moving and of course I can’t keep my current phone number. So I’ve also got a new phone number!

Moving is a lot of work! I’m usually pretty stable with my living arrangements. I’ve lived here at my current apartment for 3 years and 8 months. So I don’t have a lot of experience with moving like many Quebecers do each 1st July!

I had the pleasure of attending one of Montreal’s swing dance club this Friday: http://www.catscorner.ca/v3/French/Articles/WhatsNew/index.html
It was a great atmosphere with both young and old mingled together to dance. I particularly liked how they mingled people together and gave them a chance to know each other. The tutorial teaches you a few new moves and rotates your partners so that you can try the moves with new people.

Singles and couples can both go and enjoy since it’s more of a free for all dance with anyone atmosphere. It’s all about fun dancing with none of those groping going on in meat market type dance clubs.

The decors with brick wall sets the right mood for swing dancing while a lounge area with sofa lets you socialize while taking a break to take a breather between dances or wait for your favorite song to come on before you ask that stunning girl next to you for a dance.

Well if you were planning to go to La Fête des Neiges this weekend (February 4 and 5)… Forget about it! They cancelled it… It was kind of predictable… With the warm weather and rain we’ve been having the snow has melted. And a Fête des Neiges without snow isn’t really fun! I hope the rain stops soon. I hate rain during Winter time! Meteomedia does say the next week will be a bit colder… But for this weekend I’m staying in and doing homework!