The relatively new Montreal chapter of the Pecha-Kucha event took place last night at the SAT, on lower St. Laurent. A Japanese term meaning “the sound of conversation” Pecha-Kucha is very, very cool event where people get together to share their ideas, dreams and inventions. At each event, about 20 people prepare a presentation on their project(s) and present it in a slide-show format. The restriction is simple: 20 slides for 20 seconds each, where each presentation does not exceed 6 minutes and 40 seconds. This format encourages presenters to keep things concise and is an exercise in conveying as much interesting information in the allotted time span.
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Oh yeah, now this is good news. I’m always for getting rid of wires, cabled and whatever else that can entangle.

The basics: 5 Mbps connection for less than $30/month.

It’s there’s no download/upload bandwidth limit, I’m definitely in. No, it’s not about downloading illegal softwares and movies and stuff. It’s about all those videos on the web, youtube, facebook, video blogs, podcasts, etc.

Let’s start with definitions.
Incident: An event that has caused or has the potential to cause damage.
Accident: This is the bad stuff.

Remember this accident I had? Well.. of course you don’t and I don’t care if you do, but I think about it every day. It makes me more conscious, but I don’t change the way I ride nonetheless.

This morning, it almost happened again. In fact, I would have hit that door if I was any slower. As I passed by the car door, I heard the door starting to open. No one was harmed, so it didn’t matter to me, but I was glad to notice that it was a man. The last two accidents of that kind that I had were caused by involved women, so the joke about women being bad drivers wasn’t a joke anymore. But this time, I might consider men and women as equals again. This was only incident number 1 involving a car.
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Le Festival Eurêka est un événement gratuit organisé par le Centre des sciences de Montréal au Vieux-Port au niveau du boulevard Saint-Laurent. Passer une fin de semaine scientifique avec plus de 50 activités.

Did this event get advertised at all? I wouldn’t have known about it if I didn’t see them set things up every morning on my way to work.

Hi Metrobloggers, My name’s Darren Barefoot and I’m a blogger and a marketer. I’m working with the folks at Canada Place in Vancouver, helping to promote their make-your-own video contest, and hoped it might of interest to your video-enabled readership. Here’s the schtick: Contestants make a one-minute video answering the question “What does the Canadian Experience mean to you?” and submit it here.

The contest closes on June 19 (apologies for the short notice–I only got this news on Friday–And I only saw the suggested story this morning-Andre), and winners will be notified on June 22. The winner gets a trip for two to Vancouver (from anywhere in Canada), two nights hotel accommodation and $500 in spending money. There are two runners-up, and they get $250 in cash and $50 in Canada Place merchandise.

Here’s a sample video for your perusal. Frankly, all of the video bloggers I know could do better than this. Complete rules and contest details are here.

Any questions, let me know. Cheers. DB.

With the lock-out in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetary entering its second month, the lack of landscaping is becoming more and more evident. While some are bemoaning it’s unkept appearance, I have to admit that Mother Nature’s take on the city’s largest burial ground is not without a certain charm.

Do try to be respectful however. Although we’re supposed to check with the management if you want to take pictures, my own request to post these images went unanswered and there are already tons of images on Flickr and elsewhere. At the very least, make sure that the names of the deceased aren’t visible.

And one more thing, don’t forget to take some allergy medicine if you’re sensitive to hay fever.

It is summer in Montreal, which means long evenings spent on terrasses, an endless succession of street fairs, and the 17th annual Fringe Festival, which runs until Sunday. For less than the price of a movie ticket, you can take in one of 99 different shows at 21 venues, all of which are conveniently listed here.

Yes, but how do you decide which shows to see? Well, you can check out the reviews on the festival’s Net Buzz page, on Midnight Poutine, and on Indyish. Or, if you’re pressed for time and looking for a hot Fringe tip, you can head straight to the exquisitely written absurdist comedy The Works at Théâtre Ste-Catherine. Seriously, go now.

People who know me, know that I HATE the heat.. Give me -30c over +30c anytime. Yes, I know, I sound nuts but I get Uber cranky when the heat kicks in. That’s because when it gets hot in this city, it gets humid. Except, this week. This weather, is very rare IMHO. It’s so rare that it’s hot and not humid.

It’s that sticky, icky, I think I’m gonna barf humidity that gets me.. You know the kind when you wake up at 3am and you feel like you slept in a vat of ooze ?

I have a friend of mine who is in town who lives in Bogata. She told me that where she lives, it rarely goes above 20c.

Oh to dream.

So for now, I’m on alert, but I’m not complaining. This heat is OK, as long as it doesn’t get sticky. The best way to determine the sticky levels, is to watch the Dew Point. Environment Canada and Meteo Media both report it. Anything over 17c as a dew point and I start complaining.

This website, which is a amateur website for weather nutters in Quebec shows the various models that will predict dew point for the coming days. Go down to the section that says “Official and model forecasts (GEM data comes from EC) :” and look for “météog” and there you will see the various predictions for various lengths of time.. When you open the chart, look for dew point.

But if you don’t care anywhere near as much as I do, it looks like the sticky factor will stay low for at least the next 5 days.

Phew!

I’ve known René Lapalme from Une vie en musique for a little more than a year but I really “met him” at the December Yulblog when he interviewed me for his show on Radio Centre-Ville. By a funny coincidence, he published the interview on my birthday.

In late February, he announced that he was taking a break because he was feeling tired all the time. He posted a couple more shows but on his return to blogging on March 31st it was becoming obvious that things were not getting better. His blog is still online so you can follow the rest of the story (I just don’t have the heart to relate the rest of it). Unfortunately it doesn’t end well.

This afternoon, I heard from Martine that Rene passed away last Saturday at the young age of 42. From his symptoms and the rapid progression of the disease, I’d guess that it was pancreatic cancer, one of the least survivable kind.

This is coming at a time when another one of our own is going through his first round of chemotherapy. Hopefully we’ll have enough good vibes to spare.

[update] Radio Centre-Ville 102,3 CINQ-FM will be commerating his many contributions between 6 and 8 tonight. The podcast will subsequently be available at radiocentreville.com.

As André’s post mentionned, one of the highlights of this weekend’s F1 GP was Kubica’s crash. But really the whole weekend was amazing!

On Thursday I enjoyed the Open Pits day at the track. It’s an amazing chance to see mechanics work on the cars and get ready for the weekend. It’s also possible to see some of the drivers, for example we spotted Heidfeld, Sato, Albers and Sutil! On Friday it was the Free Practice day with two sessions. On Saturday the qualifications were exciting! Hamilton getting the pole made lots of fans happy. On Sunday the race! Full of excitement! Crashes, Safety Cars outing (the fourth of which was booed by the crowd in the grandstands), Black Flags for two drivers, etc. Really entertaining race.

F1 with Montreal city view, photo by Christelle.

Apart from the action on the track there was also lots of other activities! The Budweiser area with a concert stage and “babes”, the Honda World area where Asimo the robot came out to say hello…

Also I salute the work of everyone who make the race possible… For example the doctors who were amazing with Kubica, the police cadets working on the Cosmos bridge for the safety of the pedestrians, and so on.

See you all next year!