It may not be the same at being in the Bell Centre or La Cage aux Sports but Twitter certainly makes for a more enjoyable game. I felt like laurentlasalle, TanMcG, JohnnyCanuck, stephdau and JeromeParadis were right here with me.

• Game on!
• The Bruins are playing much much better than last time.
• The throwing of the puck behind the blue line, it displeases us.
• Now we are pleased. 1-0 Mtl.
• Don Cherry’s vest, it burns, it burns us!
• I like this second period much better that the first one. Now 2-0 Mtl.
• @laurentlasalle @JeromeParadis Price is certainly a prime candidate for the first star of the night.
• Gotta make sure that the families of our cherished Russian players remain gainfully employed…more vodka.
• Bad defensive play, they never should have had that return. 2-1 Mtl.
• Even though the Habs were one man down, Kovalev got some one-on-one quality time with the Bruin’s goalie…just before Boston tied it 2-2.
• Somebody slip some Valium to Kovalev, he almost caused us to miss out on another power play.
• Kostopoulos got hit on the face…and we have blood. At least we’ll end the game in a power play.
• We hit the goal post with 0.1 sec remaining…overtime!
• @laurentlasalle Nope, just saw the rerun, 0.1 sec.
• For those of you who can’t see the abomination that is Don Cherry’s vest.
• YYYEEEAAAHHHH! We win it 3-2. I just could not believe that we could spend 6 min in power play without nailing one.

Not much work got done Tuesday. Glued to our laptop screens, hitting the refresh buttons to the point of absurdity, chat windows opened up all over, including our Blackberries, us Hab fans sat, waiting.

As time ticked on, despair began to set in.

“That’s it?!?” One coworker who had tickets to Tuesday’s game said he didn’t feel like going.

Another who had tickets to Saturday’s game said he too felt like staying home. When I queried them for their tickets, their tune quickly changed..

Listening to CKAC and the radio show hosts predicting complete disaster. “Stop treating us like idiots when you say the Habs are a better team now, then before the trade deadline” I believe is how one put it.

Huge dissapointment from so many calling in.

Fast forward several days later and the Habs sit atop first place. All alone. Carey Price played spectacularly. Higgins is scoring goals again. Lapierre is back in excellent form. The team looks absolutely fantastic.

I tuned in again to CKAC. One thing is for sure, people who call, call-in shows after a win tend to be rather drunk. It was as if the Habs had won the Cup. Who would have thought the habs would be sitting atop alone in first place with how many weeks left in the season ?

What was that guy’s name again that the Penguins got and we didn’t ?

Les Chaise Longues at Crappy Tire are no longer reduced in price.

I see that Meteomedia is forecasting 20-25 centimeters of snow between now and tomorrow afternoon. It’s going to be nice to look at the city with a fresh winter shine. Have you changed your tires yet? I resisted and really wanted to believe that All season tires included winter. Thankfully, long time denizens and drivers here knocked some sense into me. You’re going to have an accident, they said. You’re going to get stuck, they warned. So I bit the bullet last week and got some brand new winter tires on the car. This will be my first winter behind the wheel, and I really don’t know what to expect. I feel pretty safe with my $500 tires, for that price, they better be. Any other tips you’d like to pass along to a rookie winter driver?

Canada’s finance minister bought himself a little prop yesterday: A Harry Potter Book The idea was to show how we as Canadians are paying too much when the exchange factor is taken into account.

With the Canadian dollar now higher then the American, we as Canadians are wondering what gives? Why are goods so much more expensive here then down there ?

Of course if you ask retailers, they will tell you that it’s the distributors. If you ask the distributors, they’ll tell you it’s the manufacturers if you ask them, they’ll say it’s their suppliers… And the game of Whack A Mole continues.

It’s a bit like trying to figure out why the price of gas is the same all over town.. You’re never going to find out.

I’ll tell you what the problem is, the problem is that we Canadians are stupid. We continue to buy all our goods here and complain about the pricing.

There is a company called Freeport Forwarding which is just over the US border that will accept all your packages. You purchase your goods in the US via the Web (including companies like Amazon.com which refuses to sell to Canada for some goods) and have it shipped to Freeport Fowarding and they will accept your goods (details on the website). One afternoon, you drive down, pick up your box, declare it at the border and voila. Instant savings.

A coworker does this regularly and figures he saved 50% on the recent purchase of snow tires, including tax and shipping.

Not too shabby. I’ve been ordering from the states via the Web now for a while but the kicker has always been the time that it takes to clear Canada Customs. It’s like a black hole! It goes in and one day, sometimes a week or two later, it comes out with taxes and service charge added.

This new option would definitely speed things up as you would clear your own packages..

So there are options to having to pay large Canadian price tags.

I wanted to buy a Mighty Mouse and who knew it would be so difficult! The obvious thing to do is go to the Apple Store in Laval, but I was in downtown. My options were Bureau en gros, Futureshop and Micro boutique which just opened in Eaton centre. That last store is almost all Mac!

None of them had the Mighty Mouse.

My next stop was at Coop informatique UQAM. The people are stupid there. They give an air of confidence when they talk, but when you ask them to do something, you wonder if they have more knowledge than the people at Futureshop. For the record, they do have more knowledge, they just have no clue how to use it.

Anyways, it was very simple when I got there. I saw the Mighty Mouse through a locked glass door, told the clerk to get it, paid for it, said “no bag”, got out and that’s it, that’s all. FYI, it costs less than the price advertise on the U.S. Apple Store! Go get one (or more) while quantity lasts ;)

I just wrote thrice as much as the above and deleted* it, because I realized that it was all a personal vendetta about how I hate UQAM and it all originates from the fact that they have recently installed air conditioning. Instead of bashing, I’ll say a good thing about them: their A.C. system feels really good.

* delete really means saving for the future.

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.

Where can you see a guy twirl a girl around his head while riding a unicycle? Or how about a juggler juggling 7 hoops while bouncing a ball on his forehead? How about a tightrope act involving 3 guys, 2 bicycles, and a chair, all stacked up pyramid style, and all done without safety nets or cables? These were a few of the amazing feats we witnessed at the Cirque du Soleil last night. It was an incredible performance and included a lot of humor, reminding me of the earlier incarnations of the show. But the most amazing “act” involved 3 girls on the floor. I swear they had spines made of rubber. How else to explaing their ability to lie on the floor, face down, and flip their body and legs up and over their heads so that their legs were completely horizontal with the floor. My back only bends one way - forward, but these girls seemed to do the impossible and fold their back - backward. Then they stacked themselves on top of each other in this position so they looked like a triple decker sandwich. Really bizarre! They had another amazing act that I can’t properly describe. It was like two gerbil wheels attached to either end of a pole that pivoted around vertically like some carnival thrill ride. And then the gymnasts got on this spinning contraption and did their thing. Breathtaking and heartstopping. If you ever get a chance, go see the new show Kooza, it’s well worth the ticket price. (Though I’d eat before going, a hotdog and a beer will set you back 12 bucks!)

The chaise longues that were on sale at Crappy Tire are now back at regular price. Spots along the parade route are starting to sell once again.

Speaking with a buddy of mine, ever the Habs optimist, told me weeks ago that I am much too pessimistic.. that this is far from over.

Depending on how things turn out in various other matches, the Habs are right on the cusp of being in a playoff position with less then two weeks to play. They have two relatively easy matches to play against the Caps and again the Bruins whom they beat tonight 1-0.

Halak played a second great game, producing his first NHL shutout match; making key saves to get those much coveted two points. Latendresse scored Montreal’s only goal.

Habs fans and sports journalists are famous for going back into the archives when speaking of young Dryden and Roy being introduced into the NHL just before the playoffs and carrying their new teams into the playoffs and onto a Stanley Cup.

Even better news, some reports have Huet coming back earlier then expected.. possibly before the playoffs.

It’s still way too early to say, but I won’t be buying a chaise longue for the parade route just yet.. not at those new prices anyhow.

In a phrase: they suck.

Lots of ink has been spilled over the fact that the Habs have fallen faster then the temps in February. Truth be told, the Habs were clinging to fourth for the past few weeks and it was only going to take a few losses in a row to have them plummet to what, sixth is it now? Seventh? I stopped looking.

Go ahead and flip back a few HWIR’s and you’ll read that what’s keeping this team afloat is goaltending (Huet) and a goal scrorer (Koivu). Both have stopped doing what they did. The end result ? Ya, the train wreck that you see before you.

So what’s a Hab fan to do ? Scream for Gainey to trade Samsonov for a bag of pucks and another mascot ? Call up Carey Price and hope he’s the next Roy ? No pressure there Price.. it’s not like we didn’t call you up to win us a cup like the last time we called up goalie with no NHL experience just before the playoffs.

No, we hang tight and hope to God Huet finds his Mojo and that Koivu finds that scoring touch. Then we hope that Kovalev realizes that it’s crunch time and puts on his playoff game face.

Until then, enjoy the free fall.

I’ve got a culinary fetish that I shouldn’t be proud of. I love foie gras. While other North American cities are banning this product (in response to animal rights activists) I’m glad this fervor has not spread to Quebec. Chicago was the latest big city to ban this delicacy. Now don’t get me wrong, I feel for the little guys, but every being has to die, and the “torture” of which the activists speak is relatively tame when you compare it to say, fishing. (Incidentally, research shows that fish DO feel pain and therefor catching them via a hook in their mouth is most decidedly torture. But I digress.)

Last night, we went out for spouse’s birthday to Restaurant Sasha. This is the newest tapas style restaurant that has opened in the Village. While Casa Tapas on the plateau is more traditional in its Spanish style tapas offerings, Sasha has applied the concept to continental cuisine. Imagine my delight to find foie gras on the menu. They served it with hot candied cranberries which were not only festive and holiday-like, but also an amazing taste combination. I highly recommend it.

Toque may be widely known for its foie gras (and it IS good), but Sasha does a great job competing (and at a better price I might add.)

Still, the best foie gras I’ve had in this city was at The Beaver Club in the Queen Elizabeth hotel. Get it with some ice wine and you can spend some time in culinary heaven.

Any other foie gras officionados out there? If so, where else should I be sinking my teeth into this delightful dish?