April: Las Vegas. I don’t know what it is about this place, but it attracts me like a magnet. This year, it’ll be for my brother’s 21st birthday. Of course, my buddies are joining in the fun too. I don’t plan on gambling much; I much rather check out some of the fine cuisine and go back to my favourite steak house, Les Artistes du Steak in the Paris hotel.

May: Japan. It’s been my lifelong dream to visit this country, and I think this year the time will be right. I’m actually flying for free, thanks to the Aeroplan I have been collecting for the past 2 years.

Soon: A few days in New York are also planned, but no dates specified. It’ll most likely be a road trip on a weekend, thinking of at least 3 nights minimum.

Summer: My friends and I are also planning to hit up Wildwood for some sun. We’re going to do a road trip and get into as much trouble as we can along the way.

Guys, before everyone dives into the Home Income kit free trial, you must understand what this product really does first. It may or may not be what you are looking for!

First of all, the Home Income kit (hereby referenced as  ”the kit”) is basically a set of tools that allow you to publish Adwords and Adsense links. Before we dive into what the kit does, I have to explain to you what the difference between Google Adwords and Google Adsense is.

Google Adsense allows publishers (website owners) to display advertising on their sites to generate and earn income. Almost anyone with an existing website can join. How much you make depends on the content of your site, your traffic, the number of clicks you receive on your ads and how much the advertiser on the other end is willing to [ay per click.

Google Adwords is a platform that allows advertisers (people with a product or service to sell) to bid for positions on ads displayed by Google Adsense. For example, as an advertiser, I will pay Google 1$ a click to show a specific ad of mine on their search engine rankings. I will bid for a specific keyword, e.g. “real estate”, so whenever someone searches for “real estate”, I will show up on the Search Engine Results Pages.

The kit shows you how to make websites optimized for Google Adsense. These are called MFA sites, or “Made For Adsense”. They are perfectly legal to make, and I will detail what exactly is happening with this setup.

First, you will find a niche marketing that you want to work with. It can be automotive insurance, real estate in Chicago, stereo equipment, mortgage loans, etc. You will then create a website that talks about this market. It can be a paragraph or two long, or several pages (depends how serious you are with this kit). Once the site is complete, you bid for specific keywords on Adwords (must do research into this area!). Once the traffic trickles in, and with some clever Adsense ads placements, you should be making quite a bit of money. The idea is you bid for a keyword for a bit less than the money you would be making with the Adsense ads. Let’s say “real estate” would bring in 1$ per click into your pocket if someone were to click on it. I would then bid for “real estate” at 50 cents and below. Understand? I spend 50 cents to make 1 dollar, and that would net in 50 cents in my pocket right away.

Now what if you create a couple dozen or hundreds of these types of websites? Do you see the bigger picture now? This is what the Home Income kit does for you: helps you setup sites like these.

The million dollar question: do you need to buy the kit to do all of the above?

Short answer: no, you don’t.

Long answer: it helps if you have the right tools and documentation to get this system up and running. The kit shows you the idea in motion, but in reality, it is offering you keyword lists, websites that help you with PPC tracking, keyword lookup tools, web scripts that help you out tremendously, website creators, very resourceful (and private) websites that teach you everything about affiliate marketing and real world examples of how the whole thing comes together.

In conclusion, you don’t need to purchase the Home Income Kit, but it will make your life easier by providing you the tools and resources you need to succeed online. If making money online is a dream of yours and you don’t know where to start, check out the kit and see how it works. Since there is a free trial going on right now, it’s the best time to try it out without spending a dime.

Basically, I will pay you 20$ CASH (or PayPal) per submission on reviews (and opinions) concerning bars, clubs, events, restaurants, sports, nightlife, the mayor, your local neighbourhood, poutine, Bill 101, your favourite shisha spot, the Canadiens, your favourite DJ, bartender, bouncer, promoters & teams, La Tour de l’Ile, the bums downtown, Hollywood, etc. There’s no set standard for these things, but your article must be coherent, properly formatted, typed in proper English, checked for grammar and actually be readable. I’m looking for 3-4 paragraphs of text, or 300-400 words per article. Your style can be laid-back, professional, satirical, cocky, rant-y or something else I can’t think of right now. You will receive full credit for the article (unless you oppose). Articles will be posted on Montrealing.com for everyone to see and read.

If you manage to submit an article every week, I will pay you more per article. We would like to hire consistent writers/journalists for the website. Montrealing.com is considered to be an alternative news and media outlet for the public. If you like going out, trying out new places and enjoy Montreal city, then this job is for you.

Please note that upon payment, your article will become the property of Montrealing.com.

Do you want to see examples? Check out this Upstairs review or one of Time Supperclub.

There is, of course, a directory of clubs, lounges, bars and restaurants… but it doesn’t stop there. At Montrealing, you’ll be able to find a list of famous Montrealers, talk show and radio hosts, bartenders, bouncers, local DJs and news about local University and CEGEP teams. Oh yes, you’ll find plenty of editorials on the Habs too. For the tourists, there’s a compiled list of landmarks, hot spots and other fun facts about Montreal.

For anyone that’s curious, the dramatic song/track that plays in the background while the character picks up the “Computer Brain Interface” device is called “Monsters Are Such Interesting People” by Michael Giacchino from the Lost television show soundtrack. It really adds some awesome suspense to the film.

Here’s the video in all its glory. High Definition also available here.

Here’s what you have to do to get it working. Please note that this is for people who have a data plan (e.g. 500 MB, 1 GB, 6 GB, etc.) and not the Vision/on-device WAP browsing plans. For those types of connections, you will have to substitute the APNs for something else.

Step 1: Create the Rogers Internet connection

1. Go to Start -> Settings
2. Connections tab
3. Click on Connections
4. Click “Add a new modem connection” under My ISP (or whatever you have it named)
5. Enter the following settings:
   • Name: Rogers Internet
   • Modem type: Cellular Line (GPRS, 3G)
   • Access point name: internet.com
   • Username: wapuser1
   • Password: wap
   • Leave Domain empty, and don’t touch anything in Advanced. Just click Finish.
6. Press the Ok button and save your settings. You’re done for this section.

Step 2: Switch over to PAP Authentication

Rogers does not work with CHAP authentication, so let’s go ahead and switch over to PAP.

1. Go to Start -> Settings
2. Connections tab
3. Click on Advanced Network
4. First tab, simply choose “Enable HSDPA only”
5. In GPRS tab, select “PAP authentication”
6. In SMS Service tab, select “GSM only”

Step 3: Remove the hidden proxy

Download and run this file on your Fuze. This will now disable and remove the hidden proxy that comes shipped with the HTC Fuze. Opera at this point will not work as far as I have tested, but Internet Explorer and everything else will work just fine, including weather updates on the TouchFLO 3D interface. The fix for Opera is below, keep reading!

Step 4: Soft reset the device

Reset the device by turning it on and off.

Step 5: Enable Data Connections

1. Go To Start -> Settings
2. Connections tab
3. Click on Comm Manager
4. Scroll all the way at the bottom and click on Data Connection to turn it on.
5. Click Exit.

Step 6: Test with Internet Explorer

Launch Internet Explorer and test your connection. It should work at this point if I haven’t forgotten to mention anything. Try going to Google or any other fast loading site, and try doing a search just to be safe that you’re not loading the pages through cache.

Step 7: Remove and reinstall Opera 9.5 (stock)

Basically, the version that comes with the HTC Fuze contains the proxy settings hard-coded into it. Even though you disable the proxy in IE, it still remains in Opera. The only fix I know for this without modifying registry or configurations files is to remove Opera through Add/Remove programs and reinstall it from the official Opera Mobile website. After doing this step, you’re ready to surf the web on your Fuze. Enjoy!

Taken starts off slow, but that’s the beauty of it as we must first introduce the characters and give a bit of background to the hero of the story. Bryan Mills (the father) is an ex-CIA agent who was divorced due to his job (lack of time spent with family I guess). His hot daughter Kim now lives with Bryan’s ex-wife, Lenore (who’s also hot) and the new husband, Stuart, who’s apparently loaded judging from the house and the horse he buys for Kim’s birthday. Seriously, who buys a horse as a birthday present? That is definitely something a wealthy person would do. Regardless, Bryan only cares for his daughter and wants to make up for the lost time he didn’t spend with her while overseas working.

To make some extra cash on the side, Bryan partakes in a small job of safeguarding a famous singer with his buddies from the CIA. We get a small glimpse of Bryan laying down the law on an assailant with a knife. Now we know that he’s not an old goof-ball but rather an ass-kicking machine that can use his hands and get dirty. While I’m not sure what the attacker wanted to do in the first place, it seems that he should have brought a gun instead of a butter-knife.

In the background is Bryan and the hot singer he's taking to safety. In the foreground is the guy who's ass is about to get handed to him.

Fast forward a bit, it seems that Kim and her best friend Amanda want to go to Europe to follow U2 around like a bunch of groupies. I would have much rather preferred they followed Pantera around instead, but I then realized that they don’t play anymore and that the drummer was shot a few years ago, which totally sucks. Anyway, the two hot chicks get captured by an Albanian criminal organization who drug girls into prostitution & slaves and then sell them off around the globe to various wealthy clients. So far, we’ve got a nice list of ingredients to make this movie worthwhile: ex-CIA father, hot daughter, hand-to-hand combat, city of Paris, knives, Liam Neeson, Albanian human traffickers, Audi automobiles, kidnapping, drugs, prostitutes and vengeance. Also, this hot Swiss chick makes an appearance.

Switzerland has the best girls and cheese.

Throughout the course of the movie, Bryan manages to track down the criminals clue by clue, since he’s a former CIA agent after all. He’s got all the tools and skills necessary to accomplish such a feat. This movie reinforces the fact that you should never fuck with government agents. God forbid you accidentally rear-end their car, forget to water their plants while they’re on vacation or you don’t have their favourite breakfast cereal in stock at your grocery store they shop at: these agents will use whatever they can to find you, and they will kill you.

Liam Neeson delivers justice with Charley horses.

Taken does not disappoint when it comes to action: Liam Neeson does a terrific job portraying a paranoid father and an ass-kicking expert who manages to take down groups of terrorists down in a single sitting. Every step he takes results in the death of a mobster. Slowly, he creeps into the whole organization’s efforts to traffic humans worldwide by visiting every base they have and taking them down several bullets at a time. The body-count of this movie must total over fifty if I’m not mistaken. While it’s not a lot (compared to Commando, for example) every shot he takes and necks he breaks quenches the thirst of violence a viewer may have. The way Neeson works is smart, as in he takes cover when appropriate and does not just fire random shots into the air.

Bryan having some coffee with the Albanians before he busts some colons.

The sound effects in this movie are well done. Every shot fired, grunt and scream is well placed and executed to add onto the already gritty feeling of the movie. One scene has Bryan taking out an entire base of Albanians, and the shots fired are pleasant to the ear; they had this loud thud noise that had an amazing impact. The music was also pretty good, with the last scene of the movie having a nice fast-paced electronic beat to get the blood going.

Each time a shot is fired, someone definitely dies at the mercy of Bryan.

Every action movie out there has to have a memorable moment for the viewer to walk away remembering. This results in the viewer then re-watching the movie at a future point or buying the DVD when it comes out because of a certain scene that stuck in their head. For example, a popular action movie is Rambo 2, and the one scene that stands out is when Stallone takes out the entire army base through covert means (the waterfall camouflage comes to mind for me). Taken has several of these scenes which are all memorable, and in my opinion an action movie should be this way: memorable scenes one right after the other to please the senses non-stop. The worst action movies are the ones where a hero must chase the enemy through a series of mazes in the dark, in hopes of catching him in time before he’s gone forever. This movie does away with all that crap and puts Neeson into the hot seat of a Formula 1 vehicle, with the car’s bumper replaced with knives & weapons and the accelerator glued to the floor.

Bryan and nails. You will not forget this scene.

There’s only a select few movies of this caliber out there in the world, and sad to say, I can count them on one hand right now: Transporter, Dawn of the Dead, The Bourne Identity and District B13 are on the same level of quality and action. If I’m not mistaken, all of these movies except Dawn of the Dead are made by European directors and companies, and are all based in European cities. It’s time for Hollywood to stop making their shitty action movies and learn from the pros for once. Taken is a prime example that an action movie can have several scenes (car chases, gun fights, martial arts, boats, explosions, social engineering, hostage rescuing, torture, etc.) stitched together in a logical flow that add value to the overall feel of the film. I predict the movie to be a great hit when it comes out next week. Go see it!

I have noticed that my lower back has gotten really weak as of late, and my abs are almost non-existent. Since I am tight on space in my basement, I wanted a machine that could do both jobs. A roman chair with an adjustable hyper-extension unit was just the thing. Luckily, Powertec has a model dubbed the P-HC. I headed over to Fitness Nutrition to see if they had this model in stock and see if I could get a deal. Unfortunately, they didn’t, but they promised me that they would have it in within two to three weeks. I paid a 50$ deposit using my credit card and left, patiently waiting for the exercise machine to come in. Total price was 350.00$ CDN plus taxes.

Fast forward three weeks, the unit is in. I went over to the store and picked up this rather medium-sized box. I drove home rather excited to put this thing together and work out on it, as my lower back has been killing me on the other exercises (notable the squat and rows…). Once home, I rushed downstairs, ripped open the box and assembled the unit within forty-five minutes using my trusty Mastercraft tools. Finally assembled, this thing takes up quite a bit of space! I didn’t know how I was going to fit it in with the rest of my equipment in the storage room, but I somehow managed to squeeze it next to the rack.

Those who know Powertec will whole-heartedly agree that they are absolute quality: the P-HC is made of pure carbon steel, and it’s a rock solid piece of machinery. The equipment once assembled, can’t be budged that easily, which is a good thing as I don’t want the machine to topple over or senselessly shake while I do my exercises on it!

I did some hypers and crunches on the PH-C today, and I’m happy to report that it does the job with no problems. The unit is well-built and solid, with no budging or rattles whatsoever.

For anyone looking for a great piece of equipment at a decent price, the Powertech P-HC is the way to go. American customers can order it from Amazon for 300.00$ USD + shipping.

Montreal's M Logo

The logo’s cost? 487,000$ CDN. An additional 200,000$ will be spent to market the thing. There are so many things that are wrong here besides how the logo looks, but I don’t know where to begin. Half a million dollars are being spent on a graphic… did anyone recently take a look at the market we are currently living in?

The Gazette (newspaper) had some humorous comments today. One I will remember the most is some guy saying we can get 2/3 of our money back by selling the logo to Winnipeg and Edmonton by flipping the image around (a W and an E). Classic.

In all honesty, the stylized M looks nice, but the colours really throw it off. If we were to stick to 2 colours (ones that weren’t quite fruity) the logo would definitely look a lot better. See an example with blue:

Montreal's M Logo in a Blue Gradient

See? An improvement already. I’ll be sending my bill to the city shortly for collection.

First, let’s get the less important matter out of the way: the graphics. All I’m going to say is “Wow”… the wastelands, characters and the whole post-nuclear environment never looked so great. I am running the game at the highest quality settings, and it’s a real treat. The 8800 GT 512MB I bought a few months back is really paying it off right now.

Now that the graphics topic is out of the way, time to move on what the game is really about: gameplay. I consider the game’s predecessor, Fallout 2, to be my all-time favourite game. If there’s one game I’d like to have on a desert island, it would be Fallout 2. The gameplay, multiple scenarios and story were what stood out in the original. How does Fallout 3 compare, you may ask? Let’s find out.

Just so you know, I have only played the game for about 3 hours now, so I don’t know what awaits further down the game. I could, however, tell you that it looks quite promising as the developers, Bethesda Game Studios, really hit the nail on the head with the first few levels and quests. The interactivity, character development, weapons, skill system, perks… it’s all there and well done. You can definitely tell the developers sat down and played Fallout 1 and 2 from scratch to make this game. When you first start selecting your character’s stats, the way they presented it really got me laughing (you have to play the game to see). They make it really easy and fun, just the way a game is supposed to be.

In my game, I managed to venture out into the wastelands and get some combat action with some raiders. Fallout 3 is not just a FPS — I’d like to think that’s its a bit more evolved. You can’t just run around shooting and wasting bullets on your targets: you’re limited on ammo and if you take your time to use the V.A.T.S., you can do a lot more damage and become a more efficient marksman. However, I must say that using VATS is a bit too easy and almost cheating-like, as you get to pause the game, analyze your enemy’s weak points and shoot efficiently. I guess the developers added this feature to please the turn-based action crowd. I, for one, am not complaining about this mode as it’s crazy fun to see your character do some serious damage in slow-motion.

Finally, the game’s player controls and overall user-interoperability: moving around the wastelands is easy as pie and plays like any other first-person shooter (keyboard and mouse). There’s not much to say here, as a company can’t really screw up player controls these days. If there’s one gripe here, it would be the weapon selection process. In your basic FPS, you can use the scroll wheel to cycle through your weapons. In Fallout 3, you must go through your Pip-Boy and select the weapon you wish to arm yourself with. I don’t think I can really argue about this aspect of the game, since I don’t see Fallout 3 as a first-person shooter. Going through the PB3000 pauses the game mind you, so this function of the game is tolerable.

If I have one more complaint about this game, it would be the following: I noticed Bethesda crammed every aspect of the game into the Pip-Boy 3000, which I find can be a pain sometimes to navigate through. I find the Pip-Boy screen is a bit too small for inventory management, and there’s a lot of stealth menus and buttons that the player must figure out to click on.

If I were to develop a Fallout game in 3D, Fallout 3 would be it. Bethesda managed to do an excellent job at recreating the post-nuclear environment in all its eye-candy glory. I honestly don’t know what the general public and hardcore fans think of this game, but I’m pretty sure there will be the ones that hate it and ones that love it. You can’t always please everyone of course. One must realize that Fallout 3 is NOT Fallout 2, and that’s a good thing. Fallout 3 isn’t even considered a sequel to the two previous games. What we have here is an excellent alternative in the Fallout universe, giving us a look at what happened on the eastern side of North America.

I believe this game is going to kill my social life for a while. I suggest you snag yourself a copy if you want to hide under a rock for a while.