Heads up for an upcoming event this weekend called “I See The Light” in promotion of a new cd compilation and limited edition t-shirt collection with local artists, also featuring live DJ’s and painting. It’s free and sounds like fun.

The details:
When: Saturday, August 30th, from 12-5 pm
Where: Simon’s downtown store, 977 Ste-Catherine W.

Download the PDF press kit here

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Walking along Sherbrooke around Parc yesterday evening, my senses were suddenly assaulted by crowds of youths in ill-fitting, white tank tops markered up with cheeky smut. They shrieked excitedly, chanted cute obscenities in unison and carried placards as they marched giddily through the streets.

Yup, watch out, Frosh has been turned loose on the town.

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If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

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When a friend of mine called me up to invite me to go to an all-girls roller derby final championship game at a convenient plateau arena where cheap beer and raging girls with attitude on rollerblades were to be featured, it sounded too ridiculous to say no.

Indeed, we lined up yesterday evening at the St. Louis arena on St. Dominique just north of St. Viateur, paid our $12 entrance fee, paid for our 2 for $5 beers (or $3 for one, but who only gets one?) and made our way down into the hockey area. Having the foresight to bring pillows, we settled down in prime parterre seating (at your own peril) and cracked open our first cans of a truly horrible-but-good American brew “Pabst” and the Roller Derby championships between the two Montreal teams La Racaille and Les Contrabanditas began. Hosted by the fabulous Plastic Patrick and some other dude, we were quickly launched into screaming, cheering fans as the first half started.

What fun! I highly encourage you to check this sport out. Teams of mouthguard wearing, fishnet sporting women racing around a hockey arena in a violent, jostling, strategic, competitive and action-packed activity, it’s fun for the whole family. (There were a significant amount of kids there, actually). With player names like Wrath Poutine, Ashley Thudd, Iron Wench and Georgia W. Tush, how can you not go?

(Next game happens at Arena St. Louis on August 13, between Montreal’s New Skids on the Block and the Long Island Roller Rebels).

Official site: http://www.mtlrollerderby.com/
An informative Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bubbabrown/sets/72157606154552557/

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Writing for Metblogs has the potential to be the most rewarding experience in your entire life. It’ll make you rich, famous, good looking, will help you lose weight, make your clothes fit better, and get you a super good deal on a new car. It will make you the most well known person on the entire planet. Yes, each and every one of you. Really.

OK maybe not. Actually those are all lies, but it’s fun at least. The truth is Metblogs is the largest network of locally focused blogs on the web, covering almost 60 cities around the world and we’re looking to add a few new bloggers/writters/authors to this fine site. If you wanna know more about us check out this wikipedia entry but it’s kinda boring so I won’t waste time repeating it all here again. If you wanna write for us, here’s the scoop:

• All author positions are volunteer. That means you don’t get paid.
• You must live in (or very near) the city you plan to write about.
• Anything you post must relate to the city somehow. That means you shouldn’t post a movie review, but talking about going to see a movie at a local theater is fine.
• There’s no requirement for how much you can or should write, but we ask that if we set you up as an author you make about 3 posts a week.
• You can post about things you love, you can post about things you hate. It’s entirely up to you

Additionally, because of our global network, there’s plenty of options for things you write to be read by people all over the world. Interested? Want more details? Post a comment and we’ll be in touch!

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The new bike path on deMaisonneuve running through downtown is all very well, but there are some surefire hazards. As a véloïste, I’m getting used to the concrete median between road and bike path though I’m not sure it has been the best of ideas. Let me tell you, it’s absolutely horrible when it comes to pedestrians. Pedestrians downtown still need to learn that they cannot loiter in the bike path oblivious to bike traffic, with their backs to oncoming speeding cyclists. Also, they need to learn that they cannot take up the entire width of the path by using it as a sidewalk. They need to learn faster. I have nearly sliced pedestrians in two with my bicycle several times this season, giving myself and hopefully the pedestrian a proper heart attack. It is rare when cars are less hazardous to cyclists than pedestrians, but that is the case in this city right now, especially where the bike path is newest. All I can say is that they are darned lucky I tuned up my brakes this year.

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La Saint-Jean approche à grands pas et il faut bien fêter quelque part. Voici une liste avec pleins d’endroits où faire la fête!

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I was stopped yesterday by policeman on a bike at the mouth of the pedestrian area of Prince Arthur and St. Laurent. I had just biked through that area wondering ever so slightly if what I was doing was indeed 100% legal. Apparently, it wasn’t.

“Come here often?” Mr. Policeman asked. I smiled and chuckled and said “Euh…”
“You want the correct answer? Not often.”
“Yes, not so often.”
“You see that sign behind you?” I turned and spotted a sign of a stick person walking their bike inside a green circle.
“Ah…”
“Now that you’ve seen it, you know you can’t ride your bike on this part anymore.”
“Right.”
“This is a warning, but next time it’s a ticket of $37.” Eek.
“Okay, merci!” I said and biked off on the legal part of the road.

So naturally, I’ve been biking around a little more carefully, since.

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No post here since May 3rd. That’s terrible. I must break that… whatever it can be called. Until this post, I have disappeared from the author list. And so has Andre, which is rather surprising to me. So few authors in Montreal.

Here’s a trivial subject: the weather! It’s been a terrible week of rain, clouds and low temperatures, well below what Montreal should get in May. Hopefully, it’s going to get back to normal next week.

On a personal level, I don’t have internet at home. It started as a nightmare, but I have come to appreciate Gmail’s filters which I use to forward messages to my phone. I’m also finding out WiFi around that city, that are way faster than what I used to have at home. I’m enjoying working in cafes and stealing people’s unprotected internet access. Last year, I discovered that the Old Port of Montreal offers free wireless internet access, I’ll have to go back down there at some point.

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    I’ve been talking with a few landlords over the past few weeks and they have all told me that this year, the phones are ringing less and people are taking their time in choosing.

My current landlord, who owns two other apartments, told me his phone barely rings at all for the 2 places he has for rent. And when they do arrive to visit, they say they like it, but will think about it.

He has the same apartments for rent last year and he claims the phone wrang off the hook. People were willing to sign right away. Some putting considerable pressure on my landlord to sign right then and there.

What he has also noticed is that the amount of scams has increased considerably.. The favorite of course being someone from Russia claiming to be moving to Canada. They send over first month’s rent but it’s a cheque for $10,000 and promptly claim they made a mistake and ‘would you please return the rest’… Of course the cheque then bounces.

If you are looking for an apartment for July 1, have you noticed that there is more choice and that you have more time in choosing ?

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The funeral march from Griffintown to City Hall took place this afternoon. Complete with dogs, babies, musicians, speakers and a coffin, the protest drew upwards of 150 people. Have a look through the Flickr album to see the townspeople in action. The decision is slated to be made at City Hall tomorrow evening, and hopefully, a glimmer of hope will dawn upon the evolution of our fair city.

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The Griffintown development issue sure is on everyone’s mind, these days. In brief, Griffintown is now a hot topic for Montreal. It’s a great up-and-coming area between University and Guy (some say all the way to Georges-Vanier) from Notre-Dame to the waterfront. Imagine a bustling and friendly new neighbourhood right south of the downtown core. Unfortunately developers have come in and are keen to make it into another short-sighted Dix30 eyesore, fraught with gigantic condo buildings and big-box stores, alienating residents. This decision was taken with no real public consultation whatsoever.

There will be a march to from Griffintown to the Hotel de Ville organized this Sunday April 27 at 3pm starting at the horse palace at 1220 Ottawa, down by the canal. I personally, have never been one to rally for causes, deferring to other more zealous individuals to fight for common beliefs. However, the Griffintown cause is one that affects all of us in this city, and more importantly, I’m convinced that the strength of the people actually might just make a difference. So if you’re interested in keeping Montreal beautiful with well-thought out urban planning and attention paid to those of us who love and live in this city, come join us on the march!

Sites of interest:
Save Griffintown
CSRG
Facebook event

Help support the cause!

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The police is asking for your help to identify the idiots who have sullied our city’s reputation all over the continent. Several movies and photographs of the rioters have been posted on the SPVM website along with contact information should you recognize any of them and are feeling in a vindictive mood.

After you’re done, check out Fagstein’s excellent listing of various Habs riot myths.

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Well… what a day! The Habs won last night. One step closer to the cup. So much joy and a great reason to celebrate, but of course, human nature dictates that people shouldn’t just feel joy and happiness, but they must also disturb everything around them through senseless riots. What’s wrong with tasers? Nothing. It’s just people.

Next, we have a possible shooter at the Cegep du Vieux-Montreal according to American authorities. The school is closed and the doors are locked. All measures for prevention seem to be paying off since nothing has happened yet and hopefully, nothing will happen.

Like I said, what a day!

Next game, Thursday!

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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.

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