And how was your day?

Montreal is HUNGRYYYYYYY!

Adventures in Montreal: Angell Woods

Baroo?

Hullo. Ziggy here. I'm the fuzzy little brother of the family.

The other day I went with mum and dad and my big sister N31 for a walk in a mysterious new place called Angell Woods. Since it was such a pretty day I thought other dogs would be there but I only saw one white Labradoodle. It saw me too, but didn't come over to say hi. How rude!

Big sister led me into the woods since mum and dad are bad with maps. It was a wild forest and felt like we were walking on a river bed. The trail we took was cut short too because they closed off a part of it. But that's OK. We took the new path and found a pile of sticks someone tried to make a tipi out of. All those sticks would have been better for me to chew on and eat! But then big sister would probably get mad at me and spray me with water. I don't like that...

Then we took the back end of the trail we wanted to go on 'cause mum saw something stuck in the forest ground. It was some old 1950s car and I have no idea how it got there. Mysterious! But people shouldn't dump their old junk in a protected forest.


We then saw some old stone wall, but dad was complaining about the heat so we went back and walked through a field to go to the car. The forest was pretty hot but a nice breeze cut through the field. There were big crickets jumping away from me too!

Then we went to the ice cream place in Pointe-Claire Village where they had watermelon slushies and I had a bowl of water. I didn't really like their doggy ice cream last time. Besides, I have to watch my weight.

After big sister got some cupcakes and I smelt a bunch of soap in a soap shop we went home. I slept on the sofa until it was time for supper!

That was my Saturday. Did you have a good Saturday too? Woof!

Fieldtrip: Habs Hall of Fame

It was supposed to be a family outing. You know, mom always makes plans for us and drags us to various museums, concerts and various other things even when we don't feel like going but when I want to plan something naturally they spontaneously decide they have something better to do (ie. shopping). So it was just my brother and I today, as we had tickets that came with our playoff fan pack. Frankly I don't think the visit is worth $10 but considering the Habs, like the Leafs, are practically proping up the rest of the NHL I understand they gotta make money somewhere.

I've never been to the Hockey Hall of Fame, actually...


It's a strange collection of historical items and stuff people found to donate. The lady at the door told us we could take as many pictures as we wanted, we just couldn't film anything which seems like a weird request. But wandering around all the old items was awesome. They got Joliat's cap and sweater, Morenz's crutches, contracts, loved the old goalie gear (Dryden's got big feet) and sitting in a replica of the 70s dressing room where I found it odd that Cournoyer had his own bench area by the door. Guess the smallest man in the room needed the most space.


The new guys gave in some stuff too. Pacioretty's USHL All-Star jersey, Cammy's Team Canada jersey and medal, Price's Team Canada mask and stick, Darche gave in his McGill jersey, Gio has his little NCAA skates there (omg they're tiny!), Jaro's WJC Team Slovakia jersey, Gorges' helmet from his Memorial Cup win with the Rockets... Missing his helmet that has the puck indented into it though.

If I were in charge of this thing, I would have closed the AMC theatre (useless movie theatre anyway) and turned the Old Forum that has center ice still in there, kept the original dressing rooms and turned that into the Habs Hall of Fame. Too late now, though.

You can view all the photos on my Flickr page.

Oh and you can pose with Pricey and the gang in victory. Not sure I understand the 5-4 OT win over Boston on the old scoreboard though... If it's supposed to be the Centennial game, well, we know the score was way better than that!

Woo!

Adventures in Montreal: I has a garden

This is the extent of my backyard and my 2x4 garden. It felt like I planted these cherry tomatoes and green peppers eons ago... And with the crap summer we had I thought they would never do anything. Frankly those tomatoes have been little green balls for a month now, waiting for some hint of sun. And the green peppers? They had little flowers, and tiny tiny tiny peppers...but then they would just fall off.

Finally, summer has hit our area. And though I would love for this humidity to take a fucking hike and allow me to live without wanting to fall over dizzy and sick, my veggies have grown! It's also nice that I have a balcony with a glass panel that protects the plants from the dust of the busy road and traps the heat of the sun (I'm on the sunny side of the building). Since this is my first summer in my new place, I had no idea if this was going to work... But voila! Lots of tomatoes turning red, one pepper is growing and more are budding!


I ate them with my supper, and they were delicious.

Adventures in Montreal: Montreal is cool

OK well I work only a few blocks from this place, and I've never seen it because I don't normally go over there. It's near Place des Arts though, which isn't too far from the rather questionable section of St-Catherine Street that is soon to be reinvented with a lot of funding. (It's actually pretty facinating how sudden that street goes from "ew" to "woo" to "cool" to "oh my god did we cross the tracks?"). I personally don't really hang around that area much unless I were heading for St-Laurent to find my mysteriously disappearing record store (yes, vinyl) or searching for those weird retro clothes stores.

But it's so bloody cool!

Adventures in Montreal: My First Home

If you've been wondering why I've been rather quiet here (other than a few nights of mad twitterchatter) it's because I'm now on my second hectic week of settling into my first home. Last January I plunked down 10k (with a few more Ks to follow) and bought a condo not all that far from my parents house. Walking distance, in fact. Spent 3 years to find this place. I scoured nearly the entire island, and even off island, for a place that was in my price range and met my tastes and needs. And when they ask you to pay 18k for a parking space downtown, you say "thanks but I can get that for free in the West Island".

The very first condo I saw in St-Laurent though was what I really wanted but it was too expensive at the time, and St-Laurent didn't demerge from Montreal, and you could wave at the pilots as they land their planes in Dorval (lovely). Too bad though because my heart is still set on that one. Another one in Lachine was absolutely gorgeous and right across from the water, but also too expensive for my budget. Now that newscaster on CTVnews has it (my dad's friends with his dad). One other that captured my heart was unfortunately in the heart of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve...with a truck depot for a neighbor (it was the Whippet cookie factory). Originally I saw the place I eventually bought when they had the first building, but I wasn't totally taken with it. Three years later and I get a steal on a pre-construction for their third building, after seeing pretty much EVERYTHING and realizing nothing was better. Also got to seriously expand my savings. (Thank god for ING, and Gameloft's stock options...yeah, I actually did manage to get something good out of those bastiches).

Spent my entire Christmas vacation painting until I couldn't move (I got lots of walls for a 1-bedroom apartment...big walls 'cause of the 9ft ceilings). Went hunting for deals for things I was missing (my kitchen chairs are from some office warehouse without a name that I happened to drive by on my way to get my TV from J Sonic). I swear I've raided Ikea, not that I didn't already have a bus load of Ikea stuff... And scored the most awesomest sofa (on sale) from Structube (sold to me by a guy who's friends with Max Talbot). Last night I survived spider hell to put a rubber snap-together-floor into my locker cage in the concrete bunker of a storage area. All that's left is boxes boxes boxes.

So far everything has been ok. I just hate my toilet... It's apparently made for giant asses and flushes weird. One day I'll change it.

Best part though? Building is still a bit empty (which is kind of creepy) but the people I've met are big Habs fans. Sounds like a party~!

Adventures in Montreal: Or How I Got Completely Lost Behind the Bell Centre

Today was a grand lesson in Montreal having a shitty infrastructure. Though it shouldn't come to any surprise to me, considering I was born here, it never ceases to amaze me. With Hurricane-Now-Depressed-Tropical-Storm Ike swinging through, our metro system got bogged down by the humidity that somehow got stuck in the tunnels--proof that ventilation is terrible down there. Luckily for me, I was stuck for two hours in my car so I missed out on the annoying waiting. Or is that unlucky? I don't know. Every road is under construction, and one of the weird things I passed was a truck stopped on the passing lane of the highway as two construction workers wrestle with construction signs on the shoulder that were blown over by the wind. Why they felt they had to block an important lane in rush hour to wiggle a sign over that wasn't in the way in the first place (and held down firmly by the weight on the bottom) is beyond my comprehension. But this was just the morning. Somehow I even managed to get into work at my usual 10am time anyway. (Flex time is awesome).

On the way home was a whole different story. The metro, again, was closed on my line for an unknown quantity of time so instead of waiting around in smelly Bonaventure station, I thought I'd just keep walking straight up through the Bell Centre tunnel 'cause there's gotta be a door close by so I could walk up to the Green Line and get to Lionel Groulx where I can get back on my line (because it was running from there up). Now, I'm usually good with directions, even when I have no clue where I am, but I really had no clue where I was. The tunnel walkways kept leading me towards the Phone Booth but nothing familiar popped up. I found myself walking around a hallway that was a mix of new drywall, fresh paint, and the ancient stone fortress-like walls from Windsor Station. This hallway had a photo by photo history of the building of the Bell Centre (then "The Keg" Molson Centre) over the tracks of old Windsor Station (which was moved over to the Lucien-L'allier metro next door). Finally I saw the insides of the Bell, which was closed obviously but a glass wall pointed up towards the train station. On the stairs, all alone, I passed a creepy drunken guy yelling at the wall who looked like Robert Lang if he were homeless and schizophrenic and thankfully I wasn't spontaneously stabbed or pushed down the stairs or something 'cause I would so be dead as I'd most likely be found the next morning. And yay, the courtyard of Windsor Station, home free, sort off... the glass tunnel had no door here so I had to take the long way out. But I finally got home at 8pm.

All in all, it probably wasn't a very fascinating story. And there's a full moon out right now. And the metro still wasn't working properly that evening (Orange and Green). But I wasn't killed by Schizo-Lang so I'll go to bed now. Hopefully this won't happen tomorrow. If you plan on walking the tunnels between Bonaventure and the Bell Centre, alone, bring a map.

On that note, Lang sounds like a really nice guy.