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I am tired and have a bunch of readings to do. So I'll just post a few pictures and will wait until tomorrow to tell you a little about my great job...



The Sir Georges-Étienne Cartier monument in front of the Mount-Royal and its cross.



Parts of the old Angus factories that became a parking for a huge Loblaws supermarket.



This guy was talking to himself on the streets. Loneliness...



Getting ready for a high school footbal game in the Jeanne-Mance park, in the shadows of the Mount-Royal.



Saturday Night Lights.



One of the thousands of restaurants of the city of Montréal(Second only to New York city in North America for the amount of restaurants). A typical small junk food place.

Time to go read on interculturalism.

Dawson College Shootings

There's not much more I want to say, all has been said and the medias sometimes actually abused the subject as a cash cow.

My thoughts are going to the victim's, but also to the shooter's families. As one comment at Dawson College reads: "For the victim who died on september 13th 2006, and the shooter that died long before."

A girl in one of my classes had a friend whose sister was injured during the events. They couldn't reach the parents, so the girl was always calling her friend, not knowing what to do.

I'm quite pissed at the medias, TVA mostly (The damn Quebecor Media empire and its news trinity: Sex, Sports, Blood, the three S' in french: Sexe, Sports et Sang). Their anchors almost sounded like they were proud that the news went worldwide and that their helicopter got exclusive images.

Motherfuckers. I HATE TVA! Seriously. Populist TV at his dumbest.

And then, I have to say I'm sad that the shooter couldn't go over his grief and anger that probably resulted from his teenage years. We all go through a lot of shit during those years and most of us get stronger and wiser from those experiences. Some, sadly, for various reasons, don't actually recover from this stage of their life. It seems that their problems become so big that they cannot see the world around them without seeing it in relation to themselves. It becomes all about them. They stop caring about others. They disregard other human lives . It's "them" as a undistinctive whole against "me".

And then, reality blends with nightmares, with projections, with the revenge they always dreamt about. Feeling good could happen only if they actually do the worst-case scenario. It becomes their only way out of their sufferings.

On Trekweb, I asked why it always happen in school (The three major shootings in Montreal in the last 20 years were all in colleges....) and I got an interesting answer:

BellaOxmyx said:

You ask why is it always the schools? I suspect it's because schools are fundamentally a hopeful place. You're getting an education to advance your future prospects in life or just better yourself. And there's a big social aspect to school as well. If you feel there's no hope for you and that society has been cruel to you, then I suppose you'd be drawn to the school to inflict pain on all those who have it better than you do.

Here's a few more pictures from downtown. They were taken a block away from Dawson College, one day prior to the shootings.



The old Montréal Forum, ancient home of the Montréal Canadiens. It is now a huge AMC theater and shopping center. Disgusting.



A girl crossing the street towards Atwater metro. The following day, people would come running in the same direction, from the right of this picture



Oblivious





Laundromat. I used to go there whan I was living with Amy.



A sex shop, Sexe Cité, which in french means both "Sex City" and "to get aroused". I just like the colours...Okay, I also like sex!



Back east, the Place Ville-Marie main building.



Same building, reflected in another one.

Everyone is Doing Something...

...me too, I'm taking pictures of them doing stuff.

An afternoon in downtown Montréal. Here's a few of my favourites pictures from today's "expedition". The rest can be found here, but I'm not done uploading them. I'll probably post a few more in the next days.




The 1000 de la Gauchetière building behind the Mary, Queen of the World Basilica.(A downsized model of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome)



I'll let this guy, on the right, explain his story. See below.:



Giving the crowd and the money in his basket, I think he'll succeed. I wish him well!



The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth, famous for John Lennon and Yoko Ono's recording "Give Peace a Chance" there, during their second bed-in.



I don't know why I like this picture.



A real biker.



I can tell you instantly that those three girls are 18 years-old students just arriving in Montréal. They are english-speaking, probably from Ontario and they just went on a shopping frenzy, loading their parents' credit cards. And they'll say they finally are free here!



Well, this is not one of the best but it's too good. Montréal is probably the only city in the world where you'll have a maternity store located below a strip-club...The Place Ville-Marie building can be seen in the background.



Among the flying rats



A homeless and a tie sharing the same sun, but almost nothing else...

So that's it for tonight. I'm tired, it's 3AM and I have to wake up early to go to work tomorrow. And I just learned minutes ago that my brother (and roommate) will need the car tomorrow morning, meaning I'll have to endure an hour-long métro ride to the suburbs. Damn it!

Time to go strangle my brother with his guitar chords...Don't worry, I'll use his broken ones.

Neighbourhood

A few pictures from my immediate neighbourhood.



The backstreet by the mexican restaurant at my street's corner.



Kids skating in front of the Hochelaga Arena.



The skatepark, parc Préfontaine.



A classical exemple of Montreal streets. Mine, rue St-Germain.

Oh yeah, I'm not sure I should brag about that, but my friend Mathieu Ouimet and I did a little movie saturday that you can find here. It had no pretentions, and I'm not sure what to think of it anymore (probably watched it too many times), but it gave me plenty of ideas, thus explaining why you can find it on YouTube.com.

Time to go...to sleep damn it!

Montréal Underground

Here's a few pictures from the Montréal Métro taken on my way to and from my classes at Université de Montréal.



My métro station: Préfontaine, on the green line.



A classical métro escalator at Préfontaine station.



Inside a wagon.



Another take.



Linoel-Groulx station, where I switch to the Orange line.



Floor pattern. Much of the métro network was built in the late 1960's, early 1970's. The design is therefore heavily influenced by this period.



Not in the métro, but from Préfontaine park beside my station and a block away from home. I love baseball and this little park has a lot of charm with majestic trees lined up all around it.

As for school. It's been pretty good until now. The professors seems to be interesting as well as their classes. I'm fairly excited about going back to university and hopefully it'll be a good semester. Some of my classes have not that many students, which is nice. An intimate atmosphere to create interaction. Look forward to it!

More on that later.

Time to go take more pics of Montréal.

Talking to Americans

Just found an old gem from the past. This is a TV special Rick Mercer did a few years ago called "Talking to Americans". Rick Mercer was the host of a show called This Hour Has 22 Minutes and used to be the English-Canadian equivalent of the Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Mercer now hosts The Mercer Report.

Here in Québec, we used to have a show called La Fin du Monde est à 7 Heures (The End of the World is at 7 O'Clock) and the tradition continues with Infoman. Those shows have all the same goal of lampooning stupidity in the medias and in politics and they all made it hilarious.

Now, back on Mercer's special. Okay, agreed, it's not all Americans that are that ignorant about the rest of the world and there is probably as much ignorant people north of the frontier. But still, this is hilarious. Mostly since Rick Mercer makes governors and university professors say completely stupid shit.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Time to go talk to Americans...

Why Won't You Post?

Not your fucking business!

I've been procrastinating.

Well, not anymore.

I got a job! And I'm starting school this week! But I must admit I've been quite lazy with my bloggings.

Mah.

So, I got a job. What is it? Well, I'm cleaning houses. Yep, I'm a housekeeper.
Again.

Right now, I'm mostly helping my mom with her customers but I'm starting to get customers of my own. The cool things: I get paid $15 an hour (no income taxes...), I choose my own schedule, I don't work weekends and evenings and I work on my own most of the time. The bad part: I have to endure my mom rants, mostly in the car in between clients, but it's not that bad.

Man, a schoolteacher and a student high school teacher cleaning houses...No further comments.

Anything else? Not really. Well, yes, there is, but it's been so log since I seriously posted about my life that it seems like it would take a long time to explain. Besides, I'm lazy.

Here's afew pictures from this summer. I'll try to do this for the next few days.



Cousin Dominic and his new wife Manon getting married (You would never have guessed, right?)



Dominic, Manon and their lovely kid. (I don't remember her name!!!)



The Notre-Dame-de-Varennes basilica in Varennes.



At Stéti's b-day party in his hometown of Montmagny (3 hours east of Montréal): Frank full of mustard, making a mess in Stéti's bedroom...



This was round one, with shaving cream. We're actually trying to help Frank: Shouldn't be falling asleep this early in a party, no matter how bad the sausage/girl ratio is.



Stéti, Frank (pissed to be awakened), Stéph and Pat.



A great poutine variation at the Bel-Air restaurant in Montmagny. Chicken salad and sweet peas, along with the regular fries, cheese and gravy. Loved it. Had two in a day and probably gained 10 pounds and lost 10 years of life expectancy...



Beautiful farmland on our way back from Montmagny. In the background, you can see the St-Lawrence River, Orléans Island and the Charlevoix mountain range.



Another one with one of the shitload of churches scattered around.



Narrow streets in Montmagny. This is the main street, the building on the left is not much wider than this. Some streets were so small, they wouldn't even be considered as backstreets elsewhere. We called them baby streets...

Okay, enough for today, next time I'll post pics from my little week away at a friend's cottage.

Time to go to bed...early...on a saturday...and I' looking forward to it!

Strange...I might be pregnant.