Weekend's Highlights!

I had quite the weekend! Which means another link-heavy post (It doesn't mean it was expensive and that I had to buy a shitload, just that I did a lot. More on the price later)

Went to the Festival Montréal en Lumières / Montreal Highlights Festival main and closing event this Saturday; La Nuit Blanche (The All-Nighter in English). Here's a brief story of my night:

-7PM: Dinner at a Veggie Thai restaurant, the Chu Chai.

-10PM: Visit at the Planetarium, where we could see the Southern Hemisphere skies.

-11:30PM: We went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts for the The Luxury and Enlightenment of Catherine The Great exposition. It was stunning! The accumulation of wealth, palaces, art and litterature Catherine accumulated was amazing, despite being vulgar: Her people was suffering and still one foot, if not both in the middle-ages. It has been more than a year since my last visit to the museum. I used to live a block away when I was with Amy. I missed the Vodka shooters though!

-2AM: Comedy time at the Club Soda cabaret for a show with students and recent alumnis of Québec's National School of Humour (Yes, we have a comedy school in Montréal, showing the place humour have in Québec's showbusiness!). We were there for the last show, a "speed-dating" style stand-up where the comedians had 3 minutes to "seduce" the ladies in the crowd...Hilarious! I guess the late hour helped! The host, Stéphane Fallu was really good, as usual.

-3:30AM: Tea tasting at the Camellia Sinensis tea house. We had an incredible Chai up there! Too bad it was crowded, but I promised myself to go back there!

-4:30AM: Still awake? Why not a little Salsa lesson at the San Tropez dance school? We had a great time there, and I learned a few dance moves too!

-6AM: Nothing better than a Convivial Breakfast at the Complexe Desjardins to finish the exhausting night with a full stomach!

As you can see in the All-Nighter program, there is a lot of stuff we missed, we had planned to do more but it was simply impossible if we wanted to truly enjoy the activities. There was nothing in that night I didn't enjoy and I have to say the free shuttle service between the various activities spread over Montréal's downtown was efficient, a good thing since it was quite a cold night (About -30 celsius with windchill)!

Cost of the night: $35 for two meals at the restaurant, $7.50 for the museum, $10 for two beers. Everything else was free. Total for 12 hours of great times: $52.50!!!
It's cheaper than a dinner for two and a night at the movies, which usually last 4 hours at most!

Of course, I was not alone, I went there with a date, Jessica, introduced to me by Jee and his girlfriend Cynthia. We had lots of fun, laughs and great discussions. The girl is great, but I have a lingering feeling that I shouldn't get into a relationship. When she was about to kiss me, after I drove her home, I was able to kiss her subtly (I say that, maybe it wasn't at all!) on both cheeks instead. I feel shitty about it, but it might be a blend of the fact that I don't want a relationship, I'm not ready for one and that I'm happy as a single. As Jee said though, you don't meet a girl fitting so much with you every day! True, but I can't force it upon myself if I don't feel it! I guess if a girl would really be THE one, I wouldn't hesitate, right? I'm a little fucked up...

And I learned and promised myself not to hurt a girl anymore, so instead of doing things I don't want to do or would regret, and later hurt the girl, I prefer taking my time and not lead the girl on false pretenses and/or hopes. I did nothing bad, I didn't go too far. Let's see where it'll lead!

As for my Sunday, didn't sleep too much (finally went to bed at 10AM, woke up at 2PM) and went to play Hockey Cosom (Hockey in a Gymnasium) with friends that needed replacement in their league. We were only six in our team, the "Bruns Poudres" (the Powder Browns) and had to play four against four (plus the goalie), so we didn't have a lot of guys taking a break on the bench (One, actually)! The other team was the other extreme. They had more than two lines, meaning about 6 guys on the bench...Guess it kept them cold because we won the game 5-3! Vive les Bruns Poudres!

after the game, I stopped in a pub to see a few friends I met in Banff and didn't see in months. First time I went to the St-Ciboire (The name is playing with the fact that a lot of pubs in that area have Saints names, as per old french-canadian customs, but it's actually a swear word) and I have to say it looks like a place to look out for, great atmosphere!

Had more stuff to talk about, but it's been a long enough post and the other stuff can wait 'til tomorrow.

Time to go wait 'til tomorrow...

Those Bowling Sicilians!

I'm writing a script with friends, for an internet serial. It's promising. My friend Mat will be in charge of producing, Stéphane (I know, the same names are coming back often in my life...) will direct and I'm wrinting the teleplay, as well as playing a character.

I'll probably give more details on that later, we apparently already have a hosting website, and everybody seems to be into the project. It will be filmed in french, but I'm planning to translate and add optional subtitltes for a more widespread distribution. We'll see I guess.

The cool thing about the project is that it finally allowed me to focus on one idea at the time and practice my writing skills. I'm not dissatisfied with the progress until now. Of course, there is a lot of modifications to be done, but it goes well, I'm writing fast and it doesn't sound too bad! Can't wait to see where it will lead and the final result!

Next step, production meeting on wednesday. We'll have to finalize the script, edit and modify what doesn't work. Get the casting started and all. Exciting! I love that, and it just gave me a kick in the ass to get serious about my writing projects.

The only problem is that I never wasted so much time in fonrt of a computer! (Actually, for once, I'm not wasting time in front of the computer, and yes, I did waste much more time than that on a computer!)

Time to go eat some cereals, thanks to Jee and his subliminal messages

Changes

Well, actually, it should be "change", since there is only one.

I changed my montage pic, was a little tired of the old one and I thought a little warning wouldn't do any harm. As for the picture, well, I like it. If you're offended, I think there is something like 20 million other blogs on the web.

But if you just think it sucks, feel free to let me know...And I'll feel free to do nothing about it. ;op

Other news, I went to pay my admission fees at the Université de Montréal today. The weather was not helpful, took me three hours back and forth, for a trip that usually takes 35 minutes...Barely made it to the registrar offices, they were closing at 4:30, got there at 4:26. I still had time to pay, but it would have been frustrating to make the long trip for nothing. One thing done, just have to wait to see if I'm accepted.

I was reading Charlotte's blog and then side-tracked to David's old blog. The guy is often leaving comments on Charlotte's blog and he's also featured in her favourite blogs. The guy's blog became a problem when an "ex-friend" found out about it and basically broke havoc! David eventually started to post under a different address, but it shows the fine line one blogger must walk when blogging about his/her personal life. There is four ways of avoiding that situation:

1-Censor yourself. Don't post on everything, or don't post on the subjects you know might be controversial.

2-Don't tell your aquaintances, family and friends about the blog existence, or just don't tell it to everyone.

3-Don't give a fuck about who might read your shit and therefore, don't limit yourself...Then try to repair the damage when and if it happens by:

A)Telling the offended person to fuck off.
B)Issue an apology

4-Don't blog. If you need to confide, write in a journal with a little lock or buy a pet. I think you might try to talk to a friend too, but choose carefully.

As you might be aware, I chose option 3.

That's it, nothing else to report I want YOU to know.

Time to go lie...in my bed.

Single's Hell is Over

Just kidding, I couldn't care less. When I'm in a relationship, I enjoy Valentine's day, but when single, there is just nothing special. I'm not one of those sad people trying at any cost to do something on that night to forget their status nor am I eating a huge bucket of ice cream in front of the TV. For me, today was Tueasday. A pretty good, relaxing Tuesday I might add.

I was talking with my friend J-S today and realized that a funny, albeit quite loser way of celebrating Valentine's day would be at the stripers. There is plenty of choice in Montréal: On Ste-Catherine street alone, there is more strip clubs than in the whole city of Los Angeles! Anyway, don't see what I would do there, the only time I've been in one, it was to buy candies...Funny night!

So, I stayed home tonight, a rare occurence since I've been back. I took the opportunity to do my workout, been slacking on that upon my return. I also wrote a few texts, ideas for scipts, etc. I catched up with a few friends on MSN and finally, I played with my LEGOs, something I didn't have time to do for more than 30 minutes in a long, long time. Serious playing, the way I like it! Too bad I couldn't get high!

Since I lost most of my pictures older than 2 years old, I decided to do a web and MSN spaces search which allowed to me to find a few pics from ex-girlfriends or girls I dated(there is some missing, but it's quite hard to find pics of EVERYBODY on the web). Before anyone say a stupid comment about that folder being a hunting trophy wall or some shit like that. No! It's only nice to get a few pictures from the people who are or were in your life, and it includes the women that shared mine. To remind me of what I learned from them and those relationships, the mistakes I've made, the great times I (and I hope they too) had...to remember them. I guess that's the special thing I did for Valentine's day.

So to all the girls and women who shared a moment with me and from whom I learned everything. Thank you! To those I hurt. Sorry, deeply! To those I loved. I will always do.

Time to go stop being cute. ;op

Shut Up!!!

The title was intented for my use only...Okay, some people would probably need the suggestion too, but I was talking to myself.

This might be a problem. When I post, I usually write to myself. Yes, I know some friends are reading, I usually write thinking there is somebody reading (After all, I wouldn't have to explain things as much, since I'd understand)...but I never put a face on who's reading my shit other than myself(A "myself" a few years in the future would be the best image coming to my mind. Hello "me" from the future!). I usually write stuff because I have fun doing it and I bother people enough in my life as it is, so here, I try to bother myself, and bothering other people is on a voluntary basis, since they have to visit my blog to get bothered.

My point is, I sometimes write stuff that end up offending people. Sometimes, it's a little surprising because I didn't know those people were even reading, knowing the address or even knowing I was blogging. It's the case with something I wrote yesterday. Me and the person (Jee, don't laugh) talked about something and I thought we reached a conclusion, but it might still have been premature for me to write on the subject. Anyway, I felt like I had to write something about it, but I should have seek more closure on the topic with the person before posting. Here's my apology. Sorry.

Yesterday, I saw my longest-standing friend, Mat (more than 17 years now Mat!). Picture please? Nope, not anymore. Sorry, but my friend wins over one anonymous internet blog reader every year.

So we met at his place and he showed me a few videos he made, edited with great skills and really entertaining. We smoked a little bit of hash and then went on getting more ideas for movies we'll do this summer. Around 10:30PM, he told me that one of my brother's childhood friends, Jonathan, who became Mat's friend, was bartending for the first time in a downtown pub, the Sir Winston Churchill. So we got there, Mat got pretty drunk and we also met two girls. One of them, the world being so small, knew one of my Banff friends since they were both from the same eastern Québec town, Sept-Îles. So, Stéphane (hope you'll remember that), when you'll see Mélissa, just ask her if she remembers Mylène Maltais, she's the sister of Nicolas. She says hi, and I say she's cute!

So the girls invited us to go to another bar, a mostly "hip-pop"(it's a blend of pop and hip-hop, you know, that kind of Top 40 clubs...) club. We said we might join them later, since I was still busy drinking my free water-pitcher (I was driving) and Mat, his Xth alcoholic beverage. We then decided to go to the club, the Vatican. The cover was quite high for a Sunday, $12, but Mat being generous (and drunk as hell) paid for both covers (I paid back later in drinks). The girls were not in, the cover might have been too high, and instead went to their other option, the Tokyo Bar (all evidently not the kind of places I usually hang at...I first recommended the Café Chaos , but the girls were quite frightened at the prospect...)

So we stayed at the Vatican because the world got smaller...again! One of the barmen was Anthony, a guy who went to Banff 3 years ago with his friend Rémi. Both of them met Mat there. In april, a week before leaving for treeplanting, I met Rémi and trained him to replace me as houseman (it was a failure) but we were both wondering at how much the world is small when we realized we both knew Mat. Upon my return to Banff, if you've been reading me for a while (or if you're me from the future!), you'll know that Rémi, along with Stéphane was one of my closest friends there and one of the three infamous supervisors. So you can imagine when we all realized we knew related people...again! We got a shitload of free drinks, along with others we properly paid for and Mat was by then completely wasted. I got away with only a few half-drinks, nicely customized for my needs by Anthony...and of course a lot of water! When we got out of the bar, at 2:15AM, I still had the intention of going to the Tokyo bar, but judging Mat's state, I decided to call it quit and drive him home. He was quite succesful at making no sense, with the exception of "stop the car", which I understood...just in time for him to puke through the opened door of the car. Nice!

I dropped him home, helped him upstairs and to his room, took a few paper towels to wipe the "liquid" off my mom's door and then realized I lost my iTrip, my iPods radio emitter...it sucks, but I guess I'll have to buy a new one later. Fucking gadgets!

So that's it for today, time to go look for a job!

Brick People

So, this a long overdue post. Again, where to start?

Well, for the Banff people, whether still there or back home. We talked about this before and laughed at the idea. I hope you guys will laugh at the result too:



Real Mistey



LEGO Mistey!


Overheard in the bus and in bus stations while in transit from Banff, Alberta to Montréal, Québec:

Dealer:"Do you need pot?"
Me:"No."
Dealer:"Are you sure?"
Me:"I got what I need (mistake!)"
Dealer:"You smoke?"
Me:"Yep, but..."
Dealer:"Need pot, shrooms?"
Me:"No, thanks"
Dealer:"20 bucks"
Me:"No...thanks, I have what I need"
Dealer:"Got what you need? Shrooms?"
Me(getting there): "No...man...thanks!"
Dealer(finally getting it)"Allright..."


"Hope the next one will be a girl"
-A 40-something guy with a racing jacket(probably bought at Zellers, about the next passenger to sit beside him.

"Shoot the people! That's it, you won't play again!"
-A travelling mom, while her two kids (about 3 and 5 years old) were playing an outdated arcade game. She was the strange equivalent of a Hockey Dad to her kids, who obviously didn't understand how to play the violent game.

"Hahahaha...hihihihi..."
-The teengae girl who was the next passenger to sit besides "Zellers racing jacket guy.

Read in the men's washroom in Sault Ste.Marie's downtown Tim Hortons:

"Jesus leads to glory"

My answer: If you want Jesus to give you glory, you missed the point man! (I know it might not be as litteral as that, the huy's intention might have been that following Jesus will lead to the glory of God or something, but that's beside my point: I'm sick of religious zealots rethoric and propaganda!)

And now, I'm back in Montréal, probably one of the 4 best cities in North America! I've been quite busy since I've been back, between ex-ex-girlfriend Carolyne, who long ago became best friend (And was usually a best friend in between our three failures as a couple) and the lobbying for us to get back together (No...it can't work), family (divorced parents, thus doubling the amount of family obligations) and friends (different groups of friends who can't be merged together...I tried), I also started to get ready for a new temporary job and for my plan of beeing a tree deliverer this spring at treeplanting.

The tree delivery process is quite complicated: I have to get a driving licence from Ontario, the province in which I'll work, so it means getting an address there (a friend is helping me out with that), getting a ministry of transportation(MTO) medical form to be filled by my M.D., a driver's manual to be read, a written test to be passed in an Ontarian location (2 hours drive to Ontario) and then, a month later, a test-drive to be passed in Burlington, not the closest place for a Montrealer (7-hours drive, like going to NYC), but not too far from ex-girlfriend's Amy's home.

the worst is, one of the management guy responsible for training management like tree runners and crewbosses was in Montreal invited me, with a three hours notice, to a restaurant along with other management people. I couldn't make it, but was ready to meet him, as he offered, the following day for a test-drive. He never wrote back for a location to go to nor I never recieved the documents I had to fill prior to the drive that were supposed to be sent by another guy. Quite disappointed with the higher management, but I'm not done trying getting the job!

My friend Jee is trying to hook me up with one of his girlfriend's friends. Not sure about that, I don't like to be hooked up, it never lead quite far...We'll see. But him and me had a great time, again, when we smoked a little dose of "Bovril" (that's code-talking for pot guys, do I have to explain everything?) and decided to go laugh our ass off in a restaurant, waiting for our Poutines and Burgers...Great times, doing our favourite thing: lengthy discussions about useless stuff (Pizza jokes, being a "person", the first guy who shouted "niaiseux"(dumbass) at a Quebec Nordiques game...I won't even try to explain that, but I'm sure Jee will laugh just reading this)

Okay, my food is ready (thanks mom), time to go eat. More on everything later.

Things are going fast

Back in Montréal!!! I don't really have time to blog. I've been seeing friends and family for the last few days...I have a shitload of things going on, job-related and all, don't have time to blog right now, but I'll let you guys know later about everything.

Time to go become an Ontarian resident (I'll explain that later)

Will I ever leave?

Was supposed to leave Banff on February 2nd, at 9:05PM. Val wanted to cook me a dinner and we were almost running out of time. The others also wanted me to go out one last time to the Aurora. They convinced me, I decided to leave at 4:15AM the next morning instead, which allowed me to taste the great stuff Val cooked and go get wasted one last time...again. What can I say, they guys love me too much!



Stéphane and Stéti showing love...

Or, was it a competition?



Marie-Michelle, Émilie, Val and Alexandra clearly winning the contest.



Me and Stéphanie

So we came back from the bar and I said bye to the guys (There is not a lot of people remaining at staff accom...) I had the plan of staying awake and take a cab at about 3:30AM, but I then went to say bye to Val and Marie-Michelle (they share a room) and I ended up laying down a little with Val...I woke up at 7AM, obviously a little late for the bus.

So, it's 5:10PM, went to cash my final paycheque and I'm now waiting for the 9:05PM bus that I'm not planning on missing. My friend Matt is already trying to convince me off staying until the Superbowl, since I'll now miss it and the friends reunion that was coming with it.

As for the previous night, the one that was supposed to be my "original" last night, we went to Bruno's to watch Eric play. As usual, he brought life to the place, the guy is a fantastic musician but mostly a wonderful entertainer! A few pics from that night:



Eric in his element



Eric, Stéph, me and Matt



Me, Simon and Pat



A pure stranger enjoying someone else's wine



Stéphane's scar from our drunken idiocy of burning each others with cigarettes and lighters on January 19th, after the hockey game.



Licking my wounds. Classy!



Cheers to a guy who was supposed to leave!

So now, time to go make sure I'll leave in time. Next post in Montreal, or maybe a small one on the way, but there is usually not a lot to say (since there is not a lot to do) about a 59-hours bus trip!

Where to start?

Well, I didn't go snowboarding at Lake Louise. We got too fucked yesterday and, yes, honestly, ski and snowboard just don't interest me. Been skiing before...mah. I guest it could have been different with snowboarding, mostly in Lake Louise, but I just preferred sleeping this morning...

So it didn't happen, nothing else to say about that.

But, it was a great day yesterday for two reasons:

-1.I'm officially done with working at the Banff Voyager Inn and Spruce Grove Inn!

-2.We did shrooms last night!

Before getting there though, I had a thought I want to write down before forgetting. We easily doubled our life-span in part thanks to the shitloads of chemicals and the medical technology we use, and we are affected by a shitload of other chemicals and nocive emissions of any kind in our daily lives. Then if we doubled our life-span, but are also absorbing at least twice the shit our ancestors were. And if we're a much higher number of humans on Earth than we ever were (Unless they prove Altanteans existed and they had a global civilization...What am I talking about? Back to the subject!). Then the human body itself, thanks to the sheer number of it and its high chemical content, is an incredible polluant! But then, you cant shout: "DEATH TO ALL HUMANS" because you'll pollute even more and nobody will be there to clean up (Unless Extra-Terrestrials do exist and they were around all these years waiting for that moment...What? Again?).

Then, what do you do? Humans, stop polluting yourselves!

Okay, time for a pictured account of yesterday! Last day at work:





WARNING: I got a little extreme on this pic, thanks to my 10-seconds delay and the fact I was closing the housekeeping department for the day. Discretion is advised, but it really should me mine...Can't believe I'm posting that!










(buffer zone)
















No comment, despite my wide-open mouth...(My god! I'll find myself even closer in searches for KIDS + ASS in hebrew...Don't know who's searching for that, I don't know the background and I hope it's a "lost in translation" thing , but you should probably STOP THAT NOW!!!)

Now, to the mushrooms trip pics. They were not very strong(the shrooms, not the pictures), but we laughed a lot!



We were starting to get into our trip when Matt got into the house, screaming, with this bear(arms fully articulated)



At first, it was intimidating



But then, we got along pretty well with it



It got completely wasted (we faked vomit with ketchup, salad dressing, parmesan cheese and it really smelled like REAL one!)



And then, it abused our hospitality(We wanted security to wake it up, but Matt left with it before)



Marie-Michelle enjoying a six-pack holder. She also loved the empty juice jug!!!



Bathroom party! We were all laughing at the bear puking!

So that's it for today, or actually yesterday. Tomorrow I'll come waste my last 45 minutes of internet cafe time and post one final Banff post.

Before leaving, here'sa final picture, for everybody that lived at the 426 cougar BVI staff accomodation. Here's what behind that famously locked door in the basement:




Time to go do stuff to talk about tomorrow.