This sight struck me as poignant as I walked along Notre Dame street the other day near Peel. A new set of Prevel Lowney lofts sits patiently in half-construction with a cheerfully lit Christmas tree up top.

Happy New Year to all!

Despite all kinds of reports, today’s snowstorm made me immensely happy. It took me double the amount of time to trudge into work, and at lunch I battled a furious western wind that made a point of hurtling sheets of snow crystals painfully into my eyes. I was ecstatic. Nothing stokes the spirit like the Montreal elements, I say.

On the way home, I passed many neighbours digging, shoveling and snow-blowing their way through the snow, remarkably all with gleaming smiles on their faces. The most heartening sight was a father taking a break from shoveling his sloping driveway to drag his gleeful toddler up in her toboggan as the older daughter squealingly sleighed her way down the hill. I paused and thought: despite global warming, it is still possible for today’s kids to encounter those ridiculous snowfalls of my childhood again. Thank goodness.

Better enjoy it while we can, we’ll all be complaining non-stop about the “frickin’ weather” come February.

Last weekend, I said to spouse, “I want to have a real Thanksgiving this year.” He looked at me quizzically and said, “We don’t do that here.” As if I couldn’t have figured that out over the past seven years. I said that I missed that (clearly anglo) tradition and would it be alright if I invited his folks over for dinner Monday. He reiterated the fact that Quebecers don’t really celebrate the day. Then I asked him, “Give me one reason why you would refuse a turkey dinner? I’ll make everything.” And he acquiesced. After all, I’m doing all the work. I said, “Will this be your first Thanksgiving truly celebrated in Quebec?” And he said, indeed it would be. I’m sure Quebecers are full of thanks too, so I’m a little confused as to why the holiday never caught on here. (Or is it more commonly celebrated than I’m led to believe?)

No matter, the markets had everything on sale this week to prepare for the feast. I got a nice big bird for $1.50 a pound, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, yams and everything for the secret family recipe: green bean casserole. Then I get to eat turkey sandwiches for lunch all week. Youpi!

Celebrating or not, I wish all of you a gratitude filled day. Happy Thanksgiving!

One might have hoped that the Célébrations Canada website would help us all get into the party spirit. However as Kate McDonnell says its coy design and programming make it nearly impossible to find a simple listing of events.

With a city with so many talented web designers, it’s a shame to see such a poor example of User Experience In Montreal.

Nevertheless a Happy Canada Day to all our readers.

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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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!

Howdy!

Glen LeMesurier makes a bunch of people in Mile End happy. Go make him happy by seeing the new sculptures he made at Van Horne and Saint Urbain tonight from 6 pm.

I was lucky enough to go on a three days fishing trip to the Mastigouche Nature Research with my father and brothers. It’s only a 3.5 hrs drive (accounting for the horrendous Friday afternoon traffic) and yet it’s a completely different world:

• In Mastigouche, going out for sushi involves using a row boat.

• Montrealers who complain about potholes have obviously never driven there. I have never been so happy to own a small four-wheel drive.

• Consequently, we rarely exceeded 45 km/h. What’s your average speed on residential streets?

• In Mastigouche, it is socially acceptable, and even expected, for you to get drunk every evening.

• You can actually see the stars up there. Fortunately I was out during the few weeks of the year where we can do that without losing extremities to frostbite or bodily fluids to thousands of blood suckers.

• If you thinks that rents are bad, you haven’t been paying $284 a night for a 4 bed log cabin.

• No depanneurs, we drove 43 km each way for for some potatoes, bread and mushrooms.

• Montreal has pigeons and seagulls, Mastigouche has quails and loons. At least you can eat one and buy food with the other.

• Cells phone won’t work up there. Come to think of it, there are a lot of places on the island where they don’t work either.

• No electricity, which means that the dominant smell in the cabin is propane…I’m sure that for some places this would be an improvement.

• And for now, neither has decent public transport.

Howdy!

As some of you might know there is an annual popularity contest run by the Montreal Mirror, called The Best of Montreal. Since you need to have a minimum of 25 entries for your ballot to count, I figured I might make some suggestions in some categories so as to help people fill it out.

For the record, I have deliberately left the Best Blog category blank, because I am fairly certain that everyone who reads this has an opinion. Also, in case you didn’t know, I run Zeke’s Gallery, and the three artists that I suggested for best art exhibit all had their exhibits here, and a bunch of the musians have played here as well. Lisa Hunter (best author auggestion) is a Metroblogger as well.

And if you do fill out a ballot, the format for the telephone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, all hypens, no parenthesis.
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This just in, one of my favourite, favourite restaurants in this city has announced its closing in today’s Gazette. I am not happy about this.