When it comes to Apple-related news you really have to be quick on the keyboard. Once I got home from work I only had 15 minutes to eat before running off to a dentist appointment. During that short time, with a sandwich in one hand and my laptop in the other, I check out Apple Insider and wowza! Downtown is getting a new Apple Store, a Flagship Apple Store mind you. These high-profile stores have had a major impact on projecting the Apple brand and, after being essentially ignored for so many years, we’re finally deemed cool enough to warrant a good one.

Of course, once I get back home a couple hours later, I notice on my RSS feed that everybody is already talking about it. Bah!

Apparemment, c'est tout ce que les Couche Tard vendent maintenant: des gros gâteaux. Un Super Jos Louis est un repas en soi. C'est aussi gros qu'un Big Mac qui est d'ailleurs plus nutritif (qui aurait cru qu'un jour je dirais une chose pareille). Un Super Jos Louis, c'est un Big Mac plein de sucre. J'ai mal au ventre juste à écrire ça, alors je vais arrêter.

I can’t take it anymore. If I see that annoying Uniprix commercial one more time I WILL END UP ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE JOURNAL DE MONTREAL!

You know which one I’m talking about, the one where the tall geek is going all gaga over the Uniprix girl. Either that guy is the world’s worst actor or he’s actually trying to sound like a maniacal stalker. I’ve taught my girls that if anybody ever accost them like that, they should kick him in the nuts and run as fast as they can.

Now that we’ve got this car, I’ve used it a couple of times to go downtown. And though some areas have the old style insert-the-coin parking meters, the downtown core has had them largely replaced by pay kiosks located on each block. There have been a couple of surprises with this new method. One good and one bad. First the bad. When I stopped to make a deposit at the bank, I paid for 15 minutes at the kiosk and went inside. Seeing that the line was very long, I decided I might need thirty minutes and returned to the kiosk to pay another dollar. But when I looked at my ticket, I realized I had just paid for the same 15 minutes again! Sure enough right on the kiosk it says “Each transaction is handled separately from previous ones”. (Imagine if this was the case with the old style meters – that each time you added money, it started again from zero!)
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J’ai passé la fin de semaine au Parc National d’Oka. C’était la première fois que j’y mettais les pieds et je dois admettre que je partais avec une certaine appréhension. “Camper à deux pas de la région métropolitaine, ce n’est pas normal, c’est même un peu ringard”, me disais-je.

Mais j’ai été agréablement surpris. J’ai eu beaucoup de plaisir. La température, la bonne bouffe et la compagnie de trois jolies jeunes femmes aidant. Le site de camping était décent, la proximité avec nos voisins (une famille plutôt bruyante) nous rappelait cependant un peu trop les joies de la vie urbaine.
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So we decided after dinner last night to head up St. Laurent to Little Italy and catch the festivities of Italian Week. What a great time we had strolling along the street browsing the stalls, people watching, listening to Italian music, and enjoying our granitas. I only had my cell phone camera with me so excuse the poor picture quality but here’s a photo where you can just make out a lineup of Italian cars on display. Last night there was a fashion show on the main stage and the street was lively, filled with families, balloons, and typical Montreal joie de vivre…in Italian! The festival ends tonight so if you’re looking for something to do to cap off the weekend, enjoy! Ciao!

I’ve been racing bikes now for over ten years. I like to think that I have a pretty good understanding of the racing scene here in Quebec. Two weekends ago, I attended a track race at the velodrome in Bromont, Quebec. At your average track race, we’ll usually attract 30-40 racers.

When I pulled up to the track, the parking lot was PACKED with cars. Outside there was a huge BBQ being prepared and people and bikes all over.

“They can’t possibly be here to race”, I thought.

Ben non! They were going to ride Le Mondial Cyclotour Some 250 bike riders riding through the Eastern Townships.

Man, I was jealous. We’d kill for a turn out like that in any of our races. I took a quick little tour around the parking lot in between my races and whoa, the bikes these people ride! Full carbon everything that costs in excess of $4000! There’s very few of us guys who race who would dare race on something that expensive. Wheels alone on some of these bikes were $2500+.

But Cyclosport in Quebec is very popular. More and more baby boomers are choosing biking over golf. A recent article in La Presse discussed how “business rides” are being formed whereby business people ride together and share business cards.. This was the kind of thing that was exclusive to golf only.

There are many, many clubs in Montreal the Montreal area whereby riders of all skills and levels get together on a weekly basis to ride.

One of the biggest events of the year is quickly approaching and I heard they will attract something like 800+ cyclists.

Last June, I wrote about my neighbor’s expanding efforts at transforming her backyard into a cat refuge. Unfortunately for her, some of my other neighbors didn’t fancy the tall fence, cat cages and roaming felines. Around dinner time a couple of cops and city safety officers decided to pay her a visit and take pictures of her yard and house. From what we could hear through the open window, she has until Wednesday to get rid of half of her cats, all of the cages and the wire mesh above her fence. Failure to comply will cost her $250 in fines plus $150 for every subsequent day.

Anybody out there wants to adopt a cat? Some of them are really nice and cute.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all, as I was writing up this entry, the girls started screaming when they saw one of them take a dump in the middle of my backyard.

Details are still coming in but the city of Laval has “temporarily” closed the Viau Bridge (the one between Highways 15 and 19) after new cracks (or a 15 cm hole, depending on reports) were detected on the bus lane.

This isn’t the first time, last December this 50-year-old bridge had to be closed for 5 hours following the loss of some of its metal concrete-reinforcement rods.

CBC News is reporting the closure of Highway 19 but they may have been mistaken as it is served by the Papineau-Leblanc Bridge.