Francos

Quick note before I go shopping.. cause this is important!!!

I have a friend (Mui, the black cadillac :P) who sings... I mean REALLY sings! Last night at Francos she tried the karaoke.. and of course she rocked... even though we had screamed like mad at Anonymus just before.

Her performance is great, but she can be even better when you give her some Janis.. or any actual good song ;)

So go and vote for her!!!! vote HERE (you click on the little yellow stars under the video.. make sure all 5 are yellow! :P)

In the news these days

A couple of good/fun facts that I gathered from the papers in the last few days...

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has gathered enough signatures to submit his idea to popular vote come Fall : to rename a wastewater (sewage) treatment plant "The George W Bush Sewage Plant"...

They feel it's important to honor political leaders in a historically accurate context, and since the Us will still be cleaning W's mess in 10-20 years from now...

The republican party is not amused... I wonder why ;)

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For your parties, BBQs, picnics and other gatherings involving lots of food but no time to clean... here's a very nice way NOT to use evil Styrofoam or plastic plates/cups.

Plates made of sugar cane fibers:
"completely disposable, compostable and biodegradable plates made from 100% bagasse, the sugarcane fiber that remains after extracting the juice from the sugarcane. Sugarcane is not only a readily renewable resource, but the sugarcane fiber can be turned into products normally made from plastic and paper and prevents the pollution from the normal burning of sugarcane waste after juice extraction."

they're CHEAP!!! and eco-friendly... get cooking people!

You can find them, in Montreal, at Coop La Maison Verte or order them on the net HERE for the rest of North America (don't know about Europe, but if you google "sugar cane plates" you should find a place easily)

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An oil tycoon is building the biggest wind farm of the Us near his ranch in Texas... and has proposed a multi-billion dollars project to reduce by a third Usa's oil importation in the next 5-10 years. The project involves the construction of wind farms from Texas to North Dakota, a corridor he calls "the Saudi Arabia of wind".
for more infos about this less than typical Texan google T Boone Pickens.

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(if you don't get what follows you need to update your Hollywood musicals database)

Last but not least... The Von Trapp Manor, in Salzbourg, Austria, has opened to the public. It is now an hotel-museum, where you can stay for 100 euros a night (not too bad a price to be able to sing "the hills are alive" in context :P). They even serve cakes made from an original recipe of Fraulein Maria!!!

But the real kicker is that the hotel will host a traditional Austrian Summer Ball every year, starting in 2009. (I have to go to one!!!!!!!!!!! a real ball!!!!!!!!! in Austria!!!!!!!! waltzing in the garden like the captain and Maria!!!!!!!!!!! HMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the hard part will be to find a guy willing to go with me :S)

Disclaimer to prevent disappointment : all scenes inside the manor were filmed in Hollywood studios' sets that didn't look at all like the real one...

grasping at feeble straws
wishing for peace of mind
another day wasted in rain
another night wasted in vain

and again it's raining... today was the Jamaican festival at Parc Jean-Drapeau, from noon to 11pm... it was a beautiful sunny day until 1pm.. now it's one thunderstorm after another
*insert, yet again, liberal amount of swearing here*

I wanted to go danciiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!! :(

holy shit now it's hail and howling winds! can't even see my neighbors house anymore!

Even if it's stops storming this evening, what are the odds that there will be more than 2 people there? ... or that any of the stands will still be up? ...

That's the result of about 5 brush strokes on the back of my puppy... next summer you are so gonna get shaved! I'm thinking of keeping the hair to make a pillow (or another dog) with it :P

TA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA! BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!

that's all I have to say... if I spoil any surprises I'm gonna get murdered by my friends who haven't seen it yet...
but ho shit man... the joker?! WOW!!! S-C-A-R-Y dude... a true free electron scaryscaryscary!!!!

et les BB au Francos etait drole en maudit.. ah the good ol' days ♪ "Pourquoi t'es dans la lu-ne? pourquoi t'as salé ton café?"♪ hehehe :P

... and I just sliced my finger open with my chef's knife... ok that's it, I'm going to bed! >:/

is this a joke?

Ok, seriously, who did I piss off to get bad luck like that?! I rented Prison Break season 1, disk 1-2-3 Monday, I finally have time to watch it... and disk one's not there, it's #5 instead!!! WTF?!?! So now I can't start the serie, and the videoclub is closed so I can't go yell at them >:(
*insert liberal amount of swearing here*

screw this... I'll get cooking instead...

Miss meteo will burn in hell

Why why why is it still raining??? thunderstorms watch, gray and cold...
The FrancoFolies are opening tonight!!! Enough of this crappy weather! I want to go to Marco's show, outside, tonight and not end up soaking wet, freezing and sick... or pocked in the eye by an umbrella (even though I demonstrated last night that I function well in the dark... again, karma, NOT a reason for me to go blind ok?!)

grrr, who knows a good sun dance?

An evening in the dark

Group pic of the "wannabe" visually impaired, at our table, from left to right:
Sonia, Sam, me, Mui :P

The girls and me (plus Sam.. who kinda counts as a girl :P) tried the O.noir restaurant last night.
O.noir means "in darkness"...
The entrance is lit, so you can look at the menu and order food and drinks but after that, you go in the dining room... which is kept in total darkness. You place one hand on the left shoulder of the person preceding you (the waiter is going first), and you walk single file to your table, feel your chair and sit down.

The main point is to experience what it's like to be blind... to see (haha!) how it makes all your other senses more acute. I'd never realized how hard it is to use a fork and knife when you can't see where the food is on your plate! We ended up eating with our hands! Lucky that it's pitch black... no one could see our terrible table manners :P

Miraculously, none of us made a mess! No stain on the shirts, no trail of sauce of the arms... Sam dropped his napkin twice on his plate and got butter in his hair but that's it!

It really is great fun! The food is excellent and the experience, unique. I realized that I have a good sense of space (spacial memory?). After a short while I was able to reach for my glass of wine, fork and knife without thinking about it, and didn't knock anything over! I just remembered where it was by the movement I made to put it down before.

I'll definitely go back...

For more info about the place and its social vocation check the website here

Ho yeah, and I found my potato hanged in the bathroom... don't try to understand, it's a "you had to be there" thing... unless you know your summer camp scary stories very well, then you might get it if I say I thought it was a potato but turns out it was a turnip... nah, even with that you wont hehehe :P

A day at the movies

The super-heroes: Sonia, Mui, (not) me, Maya...
I don't qualify cause I think 3D is for real and get scared :P

There's so many good movies out this summer, we decided to try and keep up by doing a double feature yesterday, with Wall-E and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Wall-E is just too cute!!! The guys at Pixar must have had a blast making that movie! With barely a word, they convey a whole story... and all the references to 2001: a space odyssey were hilarious, considering that 2001 was one of the most boring movies I had to suffer through. (It was the price to pay for a degree in cinema and communications :P).

I was very impress by the quality of the 3D glasses we had for Center of the Earth! They must be expensive, because we couldn't keep them after, and they had an anti-theft detector at the exit to make sure we did give them back... go figure.

And the movie... wow!!! Really, really awesome! I love 3D!!! except that I get a bit carried away sometimes... I must have been a cat in another life, cause I can't resist trying to grab the things close by (like the little glow-in-the-dark bird... he escaped, so I surely can find him somewhere!!! no?). The freakin jumping fish almost gave me a heart attack! especially the one dead on the beach... godamnit... Maya will be laughing at me forever now :S

Special mention to Brendan Fraser...rrrrr... :P You've played in many crappy movies babe, but this one rocks!

Next on the list : Batman!!! (on Imax screen!!!), Hancock, HellBoy II, Wanted (hooo Angelina!!!) and Mama Mia (gotta have at least one chick flick in the mix!)

my head hurts

small update... sspro replied... all clients want a minimum of 20 hours offshore, and at least 1 trip offshore (meaning you've slept on the boat)... which is not a lot, actually it's a ridiculously low demand... that doesn't solve my problem the least bit :(

How can I get offshore hours if I need to have been offshore to go offshore? It's not a catch 22 anymore, it's a fuckin Sphinx riddle...

but on the bright side, they did say, "as soon as you have that please DO call us" ... so if I can pass the Sphinx I have a job... anybody seen Indiana Jones or Harry Potter recently? I have a question for them...