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The Montreal arrived because Alfa was asked to build a show car to represent the auto industry at Canada’s Expo ’67, often called the Montreal World’s Fair. Alfa's Montreal remains a steal Classics | Rare auto hard to find, but worth the hunt August 27, 2007 BY DAN JEDLICKA Sun-Times Auto Editor The 1971-75 Alfa Romeo Montreal coupe is among the most exotic, affordable sports cars, with a rakish show car body and a detuned Alfa V-8 race engine. It's valued at $18,900 if in good shape -- or the price of a mid-size Hyundai, for goodness sake. During a recent trip to Italy, I saw modern Alfas all over the place. The automaker plans a return to America in 2009, after leaving in 1995. It was Italy's most fabulous automaker in the 1920s and 1930s, developing the wildest race cars anyone had ever seen, besides sexy road cars. An Alfa sports car driven by Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film "The Graduate" made the automaker famous here with the general public for years. Alfa arrived decades before Enzo Ferrari started his auto company in 1946, following World War II. In fact, Ferrari long was intensely involved with Alfa before the war. Old Ferraris are selling for ridiculously high prices, but many old Alfa sports cars are reasonably priced. That's because Alfa discontinued racing on a full-time basis in 1951, while Ferrari never stopped competing and thus has maintained a racier image. It also doesn't help that Alfa isn't selling cars here now. Alfa concentrated mainly on producing small coupes and sedans in the early 1950s. However, just to keep its hand in, Alfa built a few winning race cars and some sexy sports cars. The Montreal arrived because Alfa was asked to build a show car to represent the auto industry at Canada's Expo '67, often called the Montreal World's Fair. Alfa thus built such a car with the help of Bertone, a master Italian auto design firm and appropriately named it the Montreal. Bertone came up with the show car body in only six months. The Montreal was based on Alfa's proven Giulia sports car chassis, but the Bertone fastback coupe body was radical. Low and sleek, the Montreal had a bunch of air slots behind each door, which suggested a mid-engine design, although its engine was up front. An unusual design touch was four headlights partly tucked behind slatted grilles reaching up into the car's nose. Most guessed that the show car was an Alfa prototype that might be produced. However, a production version wasn't shown until 1970. It also was called the Montreal and looked virtually the same as the show car, except for slight changes made to the nose and tail. The production Montreal had a front-engine/rear-wheel-drive layout, although it kept the show car's air slots for cockpit ventilation and semi-hooded headlights to provide a more distinctive look. As with the show car, the front end looked a little overstyled, with three separate openings: a center one shaped like the traditional Alfa shield flanked by two openings that surrounded the quad headlights. The production Montreal's engine was quite different than the show car's engine. The latter had a 1.6 Alfa Giulia sports car engine with 112 horsepower. That was far from being a supercar engine. But nobody really cared what was under the hood of the concept Montreal because it was meant to be looked at, not driven. Alfa had made its postwar reputation mostly with four- and six-cylinder cars, but the more-powerful Alfa six-cylinder was too long to fit under the Montreal's hood. Fortunately, it had on hand a new 2.6-liter aluminum, four-camshaft, fuel-injected V-8 that produced 230 horsepower at 6,500 rpm. The virtually hand-built V-8 was nothing less than a detuned version of Alfa's T33 race engine. Although exotic, which produced sounds auto buffs loved, the V-8 made the production Montreal a genuine supercar with a 136 mph top speed, although it was docile on the street. The Montreal used a five-speed ZF transmission that could handle the engine's power and torque. It had a beefy feeling shifter with short throws and a positive feel. The Montreal cost about $7,300 and was Alfa's top model. It only weighed 2,830 pounds and was as fast as a Porsche 911 -- its main price competitor. Other rivals included the new, far less sporty and costlier Mercedes-Benz 350SL 230-horsepower two-seat roadster and Jaguar XK-E V-12 coupe with 250-horsepower. The Montreal would have cost a lot more if Alfa hadn't given it many parts from its standard models, especially the popular Giulia sports car. For instance, it had Alfa trim pieces and manual recirculating-ball steering that lightened up once you got moving. The Montreal had a "live" rear axle, instead of a more elaborate independent rear suspension, but it was well-developed and helped give the car good handling. Four-wheel disc brakes provided strong stopping power. The roomy interior had sculpted bucket seats, a handsome wood-rim steering wheel and a large speedometer and tachometer in twin pods above highly stylized ancillary gauges you'd expect in a show car. It also had tiny back seats that were fine for groceries or children -- and for insurance companies, which charged lower premiums for any auto with rear seats. Alfa gave the Montreal little advertising or promotion. It considered the car a sideline, although it still sold 3,925 Montreals. The number would have been higher, but the Montreal was never certified for U.S. sale. Most were individually imported outside Alfa's normal factory distribution channels and "federalized" to make them meet U.S. safety and emissions standards. That can make a Montreal a little hard to find, but it's certainly worth a search. In fact, I know where one is being totally restored by some lucky guy at a suburban auto restoration shop.

Bonjour a tous, I would like to know how 'easy' it is to do (arrondissement is ville-Marie). I called the city but they didn't give me much info. They sent me a guide but the guide simply states that 'at least 50% of occupants need to ask for it', but not much else. There must be more to it. FYI I'm not the one making the conversion. I am looking at a property that is Indivise and the promoter is 'assuring' me conversion will occur but I don't want to take his word for it. Was wondering if anyone here had experiences with this. merci

Via The Boston Globe : Montreal’s Little Burgundy, Mile Ex are getting hip artfully By Christopher Muther | GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 18, 2014 CHRISTOPHER MUTHER/GLOBE STAFF Canned vegetables were seen at Dinnette Triple Crown. Life was taking place behind glowing windows on this preternaturally balmy October night. On a walk in Montreal’s Little Burgundy neighborhood, the streets were quiet but inside restaurants were buzzing and the city’s jeunesse dorée were shoulder-to-stylish-shoulder at gallery openings. If it sounds like I’m romanticizing the scene, I am. I had struck travel pay dirt: a hot new neighborhood laid at my feet, and I had a night to aimlessly explore this turf called Little Burgundy. In my usual know-it-all fashion, I thought I had thoroughly chewed and digested the hot neighborhoods of Montreal years ago. As usual, I was wrong. I knew that the Mile End neighborhood was chockablock with the cool kids (genus Hipster). I was also aware that Old Montreal, the part of the city that was once jammed with tatty gift shops, is now very chic and grown-up. Not so long ago I came to Old Montreal with the intention of writing a story about how Old Montreal is the new Montreal. I was too lazy to write the story — please don’t tell my editor — but my theory was correct. The area is now known for its celebrity chef restaurants and art galleries. Which brings us back to this balmy October night in Little Burgundy. Until a few weeks ago, I thought Little Burgundy was an inexpensive red wine. Nope. It was once a working class neighborhood that has blossomed into a hamlet dotted with incredible restaurants and boutiques. For the sake of ease, I’m going to group Little Burgundy with the Saint-Henri and Griffintown neighborhoods. All are in the southwest part of the city and have a rough-around-the-edges, blue-collar history. The neighborhood volte-face began with the cleanup of the Lachine Canal. Artists scrambled for inexpensive studio space. This inevitably brought in the beginnings of gentrification and a rush of 20- and 30-somethings on the hunt for affordable housing. The scene is anchored by Atwater Market in Saint-Henri. Atwater, a mega farmer's market, is housed in a beautiful Art Deco tower. Set aside an hour or two to wander the aisles and check out the produce, much of it from farms around Quebec. I passed rows of passionate red raspberries and strawberries, but opted for locally made chocolates. We all know a man needs a little sugar to keep up his strength. When I began my Little Burgundy evening excursion, I started with restaurants from the pioneering chefs who rode covered wagons into this new frontier and set up shop. Joe Beef opened in 2005 and received a considerable boost when celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain dropped in. The English pub Burgundy Lion sits across the street. It’s part sports bar and part restaurant. I stayed long enough for a drink, but failed miserably when it came to discussing sports. I wanted to chat about the prosecco-scented soap I purchased earlier in the day at a boutique called Beige. The gent on the bar stool next to me wanted to talk about Canadian football. “Who do you think is going to take it?” he asked. “The Alouettes or the Redblacks?” The Alouettes sounded like an effete, all-male a cappella act, so I said the Redblacks. Naturally the Alouettes won. I needed a place where I felt slightly more comfortable discussing my prosecco-scented soap. The trouble was choosing. I passed Tuck Shop, Bitoque, Evvo, and the Drinkerie. All looked pretty wonderful. I stopped in at Code Ambiance, but felt woefully underdressed — and blasted my slovenly American ways! I walked a few doors down to a steak house called Grinder. Like a latter-day Goldilocks, I declared, “This one is just right!” I settled at the bar to start on an amazing meal. Not long after, an animated couple appeared at my side, eager to talk. I love talking to new people, particularly locals, when I’m on the road. But this conversation was making me nervous. It starting getting a bit salty for my liking (I’m not talking about the food), peppered with questions that left me blushing. One of the few French phrases I know, ménage à trois, felt like it was about to be introduced into the conversation. I came up with a hasty excuse to leave, paid the check, and rushed back to my hotel. I guess prosecco-scented soap is a bit of an aphrodisiac. You’ve been warned, people. Sufficiently frightened to go back to Little Burgundy, I met up with my friends Alexis and Julien at a Russian-themed cocktail bar called Kabinet (it’s connected to another Russian-themed bar called Datcha) the next night in Mile End. The conversation focused on Mile Ex, another of Montreal’s hottest new neighborhoods. Like Little Burgundy, I had never heard of Mile Ex. But Julien and Alexis said this once rough-hewn ’hood, which is less than a square mile squeezed between Little Italy and a highway, is also going through a resurgence. More condominiums are going in, and more restaurants are following suit. After cocktails and bowling at the charmingly divey Notre-Dame-des-Quilles (known as NDQ by locals), I drafted a Mile Ex plan for the next day. Mile Ex is very easy to walk (or bike), so I started exploring by going to Marché Jean-Talon on the edge of Little Italy and Mile Ex. Like Atwater Market, the place is mammoth and filled with incredible produce. Again, I skipped anything remotely healthy and jumped to the poutine booth. Bubu Restaurant Gringer One of the first restaurants to open in Mile Ex was Dinette Triple Crown, which didn’t arrive intending to be a forebear of great things to come; the owners say it was pure coincidence and good timing. It’s an unpretentious place where you can order Southern comfort food. Contrast that with Mile Ex’s latest eatery, le Ballpark, which specializes in meatballs. Yes, meatballs. For such a tiny area, there are some fantastic places here. My favorite (not that you asked) was Manitoba, which also opened this summer. “We wanted a taste of the forest in our plates, a taste of nature in our glasses,” reads the restaurant’s website. Much of the food was local and the look of the space was chic and rustic. Braver souls can sample deer heart and veal tongue. I played it safe with duck. I encountered more friendly Montrealers at Manitoba — thank you again prosecco-scented soap — who invited me to a very illegal party at an abandoned warehouse. Generally when I hear the words “illegal” and “party,” I don’t hesitate. It was one of those glorious nights where DJs ironically played music from 1990 to 2000 while revelers danced in a crumbling space that looked like a set from “The Walking Dead.” If you’ve never experienced Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam” in an abandoned Canadian warehouse, you don’t know what you’re missing. Even as I write these words I’m feeling guilty. I want to tell people about Little Burgundy and Mile Ex, but I don’t want to ruin these places by turning them into tourist destinations. I want to greedily keep them to myself. If the masses begin descending, will there be enough meatballs left for me at le Ballpark, poutine at Marche Jean Talon, warehouse dance parties, and swingers on the prowl at Grinder? OK, I’ll make a deal: You take the swingers, I’ll keep the poutine. PATRICK GARVIN/ GLOBE STAFF Christopher Muther can be reached at christopher.muther@globe.com.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/travel/exploremontreal/index.html montrealgazette.com series called Urban Villages, in which we look at Montreal's up-and-coming neighbourhoods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCv4UZHkAdo The car was wrong for driving up to the cycle box. But the cyclist was even more wrong for catching up to him and insulting him (called him a fucking prick). In the end, I think they both got what they deserve. Cyclist - A punch to the ground Driver - A nice shiny Audi to drive in :stirthepot:

On vient de me recommander ce livre; sûrement qu'il y en aura ici qui seront intéressés... The Endless City At the turn of the twenty-first century, the world is faced with an unprecedented challenge. It must address a fundamental shift in the world’s population towards the cities, and away from mankind’s rural roots.Over the course of two years, a group of internationally renowned professionals from a variety of different disciplines and backgrounds gathered together in six world cities to take stock of the new urban condition and to offer an approach to dealing with it. The Urban Age conferences – organised by the London School of Economics and Political Science and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society – centred on six very different cities. In Shanghai and Mexico City, the urban population is experiencing rapid growth and change,while Berlin is coming to terms with shrinking expectations.The result was a sometimes passionate, always challenging and informed debate on how architects, urbanists, politicians and policy makers can constructively plan the infrastructure and development of the endless city, to promote a better social and economic life for its citizens. 34 contributors from across Europe, South America, China, Africa and the U.S. set the agenda for the city – detailing its successes as well as its failures. Authoritatively edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, The Endless City presents the outcome of this pioneering initiative on the future of cities. It has a follow-up volume called Living in the Endless City (2011). http://lsecities.net/publications/books/the-endless-city/

Le projet de luminothératpie de cette année à la Place des festivals via The Gazette Luminothérapie's field of swaying stems Place des festivals will be filled with glinting lights and moving melodies for this year’s Luminothérapie installation BY SUSAN SEMENAK, THE GAZETTE NOVEMBER 22, 2013 The designers of Entre les rangs, led by the Montreal architecture firm KANVA, were inspired by the long narrow parcels of land set out in New France. The installation at Luminothérapie features music to give the impression of wind in a wheat field. MONTREAL - For all its summertime verve, Place des festivals can be downright desolate come winter. Without late sunsets, lingering festival crowds or lineups for food trucks, the concrete quadrangle adjacent to Place des Arts is cold and windswept. In a few weeks, though, it will become a twinkling, swaying wheat field. On Dec. 11, the interactive multimedia show called Entre les rangs, which means “between the rows,” opens as part of the fourth annual Luminothérapie design competition organized by the people who run the Quartier des spectacles as an antidote to Montreal’s long grey winters and a way to showcase the creativity of Montreal designers. It was an idea that came to Montreal architect Rami Bebawi and his team at Kanva Architecture one frigid end-of-winter day last March when they bundled up and headed over to take stock of the site. To find the “soul” of the place, he says, they listened to the wind. And then they enlisted designers in a host of other fields, among them the indie musician Patrick Watson and the local landscape design firm Côté Jardin, to help create magic using light and sound. “The space is just so big. It’s like an open lot surrounded by buildings in the middle of a dense urban environment,” Bebawi said, pouring espresso in the firm’s sunny St-Laurent Blvd. loft while taking a break from the preparations for the show’s opening. “Stand back, though, or look at it from above, and what you see is a long narrow parcel of land with Mount Royal to the north and the St. Lawrence River to the south, a site that rises and then dips, with many levels in between.” Its rectangular shape, the designers noticed, is reminiscent of the long, narrow tracts of farmland that have characterized rural Quebec ever since the seigneurial system of New France. “We started to play around with this shape, and with the idea of history and weather and the natural cycle of the seasons,” Bebawi said, doodling his vision on a notepad as he spoke. Before they knew it, the team had conjured a large-scale urban metaphor for a wheat field in rural Quebec, one made of more than 28,000 plastic rods topped with simple white bicycle reflectors. In the winter wind, bathed in reflected light, the stylized stems will sway as they would in a blustery wheat field. The stems vary in height from 3½- to 5-feet-tall, set tightly together and anchored in recycled plastic posts. Each of them is topped with a simple old-fashioned bicycle reflector that will catch the light emitted from overhead coloured lamps, the colours moving with the wind as music plays. With the sound emanating from speakers hidden at street level all around the site that is louder when the wind picks up, it gives the impression of a moving melody. The most successful public art installations, Bebawi says, create a collective experience. The Entre les rangs field is laid out in a series of slightly curved lines with breaks every now and then for people to cross through. Entre les rangs’ 6-foot-wide aisles are perfect for strolling side by side or for walking through alone. The Entre les rangs exhibition is one of two installations chosen from among 44 submissions for this year’s Luminothérapie competition, which promotes new ways of using public spaces as open-air galleries. The competition runs from Dec. 11 to Feb. 2, 2014. The other exhibit is a playful series of projections called Trouve Bob, a kind of high-tech version of Where’s Waldo that will be projected on the façades of the buildings surrounding Place des Festivals. It invites visitors to play a game in which the character Bob hides in a psychedelic world of unusual characters, all of them hiding out in the architecture of the projection surfaces. It was designed by a Montreal multimedia collective called Champlagne Club Sandwich. For more information: http://www.quartierdesspectacles.com ssemenak@montrealgazette.com © Copyright © The Montreal Gazette

I am currently in Caracas (actually a nearby city called Los Teques, which is sometimes considered part of Greater Caracas). In the city center of Caracas there is a very new (about 5 years old) office building called "Torre David" or sometimes "Torre Confinanzas" which was occupied by people from nearby slums during its last stages of construction. The government then proceeded to pay the developer for the building so they didn't have to take them out. Here are some photos of the building, which is 190 meters tall (that's 623 feet), making it the third tallest building in Venezuela (the first two being the twin towers of Parque Central): The one on the left is one of the twin towers of Parque Central, the tallest buildings in Venezuela (221m). The one on the right is the slum I'm talking about. The orange bricks seen in the close-ups were put there by the current occupants. I wonder if this is the tallest slum in the world.

Proving that not all chair-throwing, plate-breaking, glass-smashing restaurant brawls occur in the United States, a wild New Year’s Eve melee at a Canadian eatery was filmed--and, of course, uploaded to YouTube--by a Montreal patron. It is unclear what prompted the wild fight filmed by Shawn Turnbull, who titled his above video “Chinese vs Blacks.” The ruckus, which occurred at New Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant in downtown Montreal, apparently resulted in significant damage to the business. A Montreal Police Service spokesperson told TSG she was unaware of the video, but would seek to determine whether cops were called to the scene of the melee. In an e-mail, Turnbull told TSG that Montreal cops and paramedics arrived after the fight and “two black guys were getting their wounds treated while Police were kind of asking around. I dont think arrests were made that night because the Asians fled the scene before police arrived.” http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/viral-video/montreal-restaurant-brawl-756092

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4154160,00.html There is also video clips if you click the link, don't worry the video clips are in english and not hebrew.

(Courtesy of Global Post) Read more by clicking the link above. So is Canada now going to be the new promise land of prosperity and freedom for the world, like what the US was decades ago? So it will now be called the Canadian dream? White picket fence, et al. All the best to the ones that get jobs here. Plus didn't Canada change immigration laws back in July?

Not sure if this really counts as a renovation of sorts. Cineplex is planning on fixing up one or more cinemas with their UltraAVX. Plus the larger seats are supposedly in pleather. Whats funny that Montreal and Canada are finally making the cinema experience more upscale. In Mexico and Thailand certain cinemas have been like this for years. Especially the ones in Bangkok at the mall called: Siam Paragon (massive mall). The Paragon Cineplex in the mall has 15 screens. 1 of them only for members called: Enigma. One of them in Ontario or something is open to people only 19+ because they serve alcohol in one of the cinemas also they have food delivery to the seats.

November 09, 2010 8:43 AM by Staff & Wire Reports http://www.gamingtoday.com/articles/...SOP_main_event Canadian poker professional Jonathan Duhamel won the World Series of Poker main event title and $8.94 million on Monday night after keeping a stranglehold on his chips and pressuring his opponent. Duhamel took the last of Florida pro John Racener's chips in the no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament with an ace high after 43 hands where Racener was no better than a 4-1 underdog in chips. Duhamel pushed Racener all-in and the Floridian called with a suited king-eight of diamonds. But Duhamel had an unsuited ace-jack for the lead. A flop of two fours and a nine helped neither player; and Racener didn't improve with a six on the turn and a five on the river. "It's a dream come true right now," Duhamel told the crowd at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino as confetti fell from a theater ceiling. "It's like the most beautiful day of my life." "Come join the party," he said, flanked by some 200 friends and family who rooted him on while wearing Montreal Canadiens jerseys. Duhamel, an online cash game player who said poker has been his primary income for about two years, had his third cash at this year's series. But the money he won Monday night dwarfs the $43,000 he won after entering 17 earlier tournaments at the 57-event series this year. "I love playing poker so much, so I mean I'm going to be playing all those big tournaments and try to make other big scores," he said. "I'll be there next year in the World Series and try to do my best again." Duhamel, a French and English speaker who left the Universite du Quebec a Montreal during his second year studying finance, worked a series of odd jobs before playing poker full-time. He said he played for $5 and $10 minimums before the series. Now he plans to play in the world's biggest tournaments -- and buy Canadiens season tickets. "I didn't expect that at all," he said. Racener won $5.55 million for second place, never finding real traction in the biggest heads-up card match of his life. Racener said his only good hand was pocket queens and he didn't pick up anything besides that better than an ace-deuce. "I could never get anything going," said Racener, 24, of Port Richey, Fla. "It was unfortunate and he played it well." Duhamel came into the heads-up match with a significant chip lead and kept Racener from gaining much ground in a session that lasted just over an hour. Duhamel had nearly 90 percent of all the chips in play when players took a 10-minute break after 36 hands. The Boucherville, Quebec native intensified the pressure after that, pushing all in on three straight hands and dropping Racener's stack to just above 16 million chips. When Duhamel pushed again, Racener unsuccessfully tried to make a stand. Racener doubled his chips 10 hands into the session, after Duhamel had whittled his stack early on. An 11-1 underdog in chips, Racener called Duhamel's all-in wager with pocket queens and they held against Duhamel's king-four. The hand came just after minimum bets rose and gave Racener 36.9 million chips -- but he was back to his original stack less than 20 hands later. Racener began the session a 6-1 underdog in chips, with just 26 big blinds in his stack at 30.75 million. He spent most of the final table that started Saturday on the sidelines, watching as his opponents aggressively ate at each other's chip stacks. He didn't risk all his chips until he called a bluff by Filippo Candio with three queens, and doubled up twice more before watching as Duhamel withstood a high-pressure challenge from third-place finisher Joseph Cheong. The hand brought Duhamel back where he started the final table -- with a big chip lead. Chips have no monetary value in the tournament, and Racener had to lose all his chips to be eliminated. The tournament started in July with 7,319 players paying $10,000 each to enter.

Je ne crois pas que ça soit une bonne idée de faire un édifice de cette taille et aussi massif que cela tout près de l'empire state building. Cela gacherait la silhouette du skyline de New York. Cela me rappel Philadelphie ou il y avait 2 ou 3 beaux édifices avec des formes similaires, les one liberty place et two liberty place, qui composaient le skyline de laville et maintenant, depuis quelques années, un ''mastodonte'' plus haut et plus massif que les autres est venu gaché le tout. Comme quoi ce n"est pas que la hauteur qui compte.

CIBC on St Jacques moved into Quebecor-Videotron and now RBC on St Jacques is planning on moving into the "Stock Exchange Tower" near Square Victoria in 2012. I am quite surprised to get a letter from RBC this morning saying they were moving. It was such a wonderful location. I guess the rent was getting to high for them. Seeing in the letter, they were only occupying about 20% of the building now. Interesting thing is about the RBC building, its owned and managed by a company that operates out of Halifax, but the head guy runs a business in New York called "Time Equities Inc". The company in Halifax is called "360 St Jacques Nova Scotia Inc" or something like that. Whats more interesting is, the head office is in a building called "Bank of Montreal Tower". One of the owners/members/chairs part of "360 St Jacques Nova Scotia" is Montreal's own George Coulombe that over sees 360 St Jacques (RBC building) here in Montreal. One thing that was interesting in the letter was that RBC actually sold the building back in the 60s. Anyways I just wonder who will take up the space at CIBC and RBC now.

Are there any authentic German pubs or eateries in Montreal? I'm aware that there was the Vieux-Munich which closed quite a while ago. Not sure if there is anywhere else? I know there was a German place on Sherbrooke in NDG called Bratwurst that was pretty good. I used to like their sauerkraut in particular. It has since become a Middle-Eastern establishment. Danke sehr!

I just noticed on Fedex.com, my package is being shipped to somewhere with no address. I called up Fedex the person there was like please call BrightPoint. I did call BrightPoint, which transferred me to HTC, which told me to call Fedex back. Fedex again tried to change the address but couldn't and told me to contact BrightPoint to send them a fax for a change of address. I called BrightPoint and they said they can't do that seeing the product in transit. Called up Fedex again to tell them what was going on. One person said I need a utility bill to pick up the package in Burlington, VT which doesn't make sense the package has no address. Another person said I can pick it up with my Passport even if I am Canadian and another person said it might just go back to BrightPoint thats in Indiana. Again I called up HTC which they tried to resolve the issue and another issue came up, they can't access my order. Plus I also called up CIBC Visa. They can't do anything about lost packages other than they can refund me for the cost of the package. All this in 2 hours. Funny thing is... I asked for ground delivery and they gave me ground delivery home service, even though I am delivering it to a business. Even if they had the address on the package, they would be trying to deliver it to a business on Saturday thats not open. Thing is I some how managed to find out what trailer my package is on So I guess can try and hijack the Fedex trailer

Looks like they get some nicer (and taller) architecture in Halifax than we do in Montreal these days.

May 22, 2009 By IAN AUSTEN OTTAWA — Arthur Erickson, who was widely viewed as Canada’s pre-eminent Modernist architect, died in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Wednesday. He was 84. Phyllis Lambert, the chairwoman of the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, said Mr. Erickson, a friend, had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Erickson established an international reputation for designing innovative complexes and buildings, often to critical acclaim. Among them are the San Diego Convention Center; Napp Laboratories in Cambridge, England; the Kuwait Oil Sector Complex in Kuwait City; and Kunlun Apartment Hotel Development in Beijing. He designed the Canadian pavilion, an inverted pyramid, at Expo 67, the world’s fair in Montreal; Canada’s embassy in Washington; and, with the firm of Mathers and Haldenby, the Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto’s main concert hall, a circular, futuristic building that tapers to a flat top. But Mr. Erickson is perhaps best known for providing Vancouver, his hometown, with many of its architectural signatures, the most successful of which he integrated with their surrounding landscapes, avoiding ornamentation and favoring concrete (which he called “the marble of our time”). Among his notable buildings there is the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. “His work always came out of the earth,” Ms. Lambert said. “He didn’t start the way most architects started. He actually started off with the earth, the landscape, and made something that inhabited the land.” Mr. Erickson also campaigned for buildings that strove to maintain a human scale. In 1972 he persuaded the province of British Columbia to abandon plans for a 55-story office and court complex in downtown Vancouver. Mr. Erickson’s replacement design effectively turned the tower on its side. He created a relatively low, three-block-long complex with a steel and glass truss roof and a complex concrete structure softened with trees, gardens and waterfalls. It was another Vancouver commission, however, that first brought Mr. Erickson fame. Much to his surprise, he and his architectural partner at the time, Geoffrey Massey, won a competition in 1965 to design the campus of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver. Its wide, low buildings mirror the mountains surrounding the city. Arthur Charles Erickson was born on June 14, 1924. His parents were influential promoters of the arts in Vancouver as the city began to grow rapidly in the early 20th century, and they encouraged Arthur and his brother to study the arts. Prominent Canadian artists in Vancouver became Mr. Erickson’s mentors, notably the landscape painter Lawren S. Harris. After serving with the Canadian Army in Asia as a commando and intelligence officer during World War II, Mr. Erickson began his university studies with the hope of becoming a diplomat. But in his autobiography, “The Architecture of Arthur Erickson,” he wrote that he changed his mind in 1947 after seeing, in Fortune magazine, photographs of Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Modernist and environmentally sensitive house built in the desert in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Suddenly, it was clear to me,” Mr. Erickson wrote. “If such a magical realm was the province of an architect, I would become one.” He moved to Montreal to study architecture at McGill University. After his success with the Simon Fraser commission, Mr. Erickson was awarded other prestigious projects, including the Canadian Expo pavilion. That work raised his public profile, and Mr. Erickson used it to promote environmentalism and corporate responsibility. Mr. Erickson’s commission to design a new embassy in Washington generated some controversy when Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, a friend, awarded it to Mr. Erickson without any public process. The building, which opened in 1989, is on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the Capitol. Paul Goldberger, the chief architecture critic of The New York Times at the time, called it one of Mr. Erickson’s less-successful works. Over the years Mr. Erickson’s firm — today it is called the Arthur Erickson Corporation — opened branches in Toronto, Los Angeles, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Information about his survivors was not available. Il étudie à Montréal, mais aucune oeuvre ici? In 1992, Mr. Erickson, millions of dollars in debt, was forced to declare bankruptcy. But he continued to practice, producing work like the Museum of Glass, in Tacoma, Wash. He also continued to champion Modernism and decried a postmodern trend that emphasized ornamentation and decoration. “After 1980, you never heard reference to space again,” he said in a speech at McGill in 2000. “Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design,” and, he added, “space the essence of architectural expression at its highest level, disappeared.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/arts/22erickson.html?scp=1&sq=montreal&st=cse

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/7725979.stm Published: 2008/11/13 09:47:01 GMT © BBC MMVIII

Ooh La La Kelly Ripa finds romance in Montreal. By Joseph Guinto. Photograph by Robert Ascroft. Kelly Ripa has talked to every single living celebrity in America. Twice. Maybe even more. I have not verified this fact, per se, but she’s served alongside TV legend Regis Philbin for almost seven years as cohost of Live with Regis and Kelly, so it must be true. Or close to it. And yet, Ripa — plenty famous in her own right, known for acting on All My Children and in sitcoms as well as for playing the role of TV talker — is still genuinely interested in the vaporing of the vainglorious, the gabbing of the glitterati. You know, the stuff that famous people talk about. She Said… Here’s where Kelly Ripa parle français in Montreal. LODGING Hôtel le St-James, very expensive, (514) 841-3111, http://www.hotellestjames.com Hotel St-Paul, expensive, (514) 380-2222, http://www.hotelstpaul.com DINING Eggspectation, inexpensive, (514) 282-0119, http://www.eggspectation.ca Ferreira Café, moderate to expensive, (514) 848-0988, http://www.ferreiracafe.com Olive & Gourmando, inexpensive to moderate, (514) 350-1083, http://www.oliveetgourmando.com NIGHTLIFE Vauvert, expensive, (514) 876-2823, http://www.restaurantvauvert.com THINGS TO SEE AND TO DO IN *MONTREAL Formula One Grand Prix du Canada, http://www.formula1.com Just for Laughs Comedy Tour, (514) 845-2322, http://www.justforlaughs.ca Montreal International Jazz Festival, (514) 871-1881, http://www.montrealjazzfest.com Old Montreal, http://www.vieux.montreal.qc.ca Spa Diva, (514) 985-9859, http://www.spadiva.ca SHOPPING Les Cours Mont-Royal, (514) 842-7777, http://www.lcmr.ca “I’m a pop-culture junkie,” she says from her office inside ABC’s Manhattan headquarters, where Live is produced. “I never get tired of it. There’s always something they haven’t revealed, something that you’ve never heard anywhere else. I really find it fascinating.” Then again, not everything the famous and rich say and do is fascinating. And, to be sure, some things are simply better left unrevealed. To wit, do you really want to know that Britney Spears had a number-three value meal with a Coke at McDonald’s last night? Probably not. But many of us — or at least I — still manage to obtain this type of knowledge on a daily basis. It would be wrong to blame Ripa for that. She’s certainly never grabbed a camera and followed a pop star to a fast-food restaurant. (I have not verified this fact, per se, though surely it is true.) But Ripa, 37, does regularly open her own life to the other pop-culture junkies in the world, right down to discussing what she had for dinner last night. Each weekday morning on Live, she and Philbin, 76, engage in 20 minutes of remarkably unscripted banter that touches on everything from their noshing habits to the day’s news (well, celebrity news, anyway) to where babies come from — specifically, where Ripa’s babies come from, in at least one case. I had somehow forgotten about this when Ripa and I recently chatted. We were talking about Montreal, her favorite romantic getaway and a place that she and her husband, fellow All My Children alum Mark Consuelos, visit nearly every year sans the kids (Michael, 10; Lola, 6; and Joaquin, 4). But then, exactly 10 minutes and 34 seconds into our conversation, Ripa reminds me that she keeps few secrets from the public. “One of our children was conceived in Montreal, actually,” she says, quite unprompted. “Mark and I went for our anniversary one year, and Joaquin was our souvenir.” This is one of those things that we — okay, maybe it’s just me — actually don’t want to know. Or maybe it’s just something that we — or again, maybe it’s just me — don’t know how to react to. Regis would likely come up with something witty or wacky to say in reply. The best I can do is, “Oh, so Joaquin came right out speaking French, eh?” I am no Regis. Thankfully, since Ripa talks for a living, she bails me out. “That’s why we gave Joaquin the exotic name,” she says. “I was going to name him Jean Pierre. But I thought that was too much. Jean Pierre Consuelos doesn’t really go together.” Jean Pierre. It’s probably just a joke. But still, I hadn’t heard that before. It’s funny — and, sure, fascinating. You know what else is fascinating? Montreal. Especially Kelly Ripa’s Montreal. Here are the things you do want to know about. We Said… Here’s where we allons in Montreal. LODGING Novotel Montréal Centre, moderate, (514) 861-6000, http://www.novotelmontreal.com. The Canadian dollar is no longer a bargain, but the Novotel still is. Its budget-friendly digs are comfortable and convenient, and it’s near the intersection of Rue Sainte-Catherine and Rue Crescent, where clubs, restaurants, and shops abound. Opus Hotel Montreal, moderate to expensive, (514) 843-6000, http://www.opushotel.com. If you were a touring rocker with a touch of fame, you’d probably stay at this slick, modern downtown hotel. It would be a smart move. The Opus offers its style at a discount, compared with prices at Montreal’s other sleek digs. DINING Au Pied de Cochon, moderate to expensive, (514) 281-1114, http://www.restaurantaupieddecochon.ca. You will be fighting for a reservation with foodies from around the world at this simply decorated eatery, where pork and foie gras are the main attractions. Yes, they cook them together. Banquise, inexpensive, (514) 525-2415. Located in the Plateau neighborhood, largely a French-speaking area of town, this diner-style restaurant serves more than a dozen different kinds of poutine. That’s a Quebec specialty featuring, when at its most basic, french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. C’est magnifique! Le Réservoir, inexpensive to moderate, (514) 849-7779. This neighborhood joint is just off what Montrealers call the Main — Boulevard Saint-Laurent, the old dividing line between the French- and English-speaking sides of town. Celebrate the détente with international snacks, and drink house-brewed beers until the last call, at three a.m. NIGHTLIFE Casa del Popolo, (514) 284-0122, http://www.casadelpopolo.com. Maybe you’ll get lucky and catch the next Arcade Fire performance at this venue, which is popular with the indie-rock set. Les Deux Pierrots, (514) 861-1270, http://www.lespierrots.com. Does sitting in a brick-walled bar in Montreal’s oldest neighborhood while singing along to French and English cabaret songs sound silly? Well, then, it’s time to get silly. SHOPPING Marché Bonsecours, (514) 872-7730, http://www.marchebonsecours.qc.ca. Unfortunately, they’re no longer selling fresh vegetables at this European-style marketplace. But they are selling locally made crafts, so that’s nice. ATTRACTIONS La Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal, (514) 842-2925, http://www.basilique nddm.org. Is the interior of this scaled-down, nineteenth-century replica of Paris’s Notre-Dame more dramatic than the original’s? That depends on how you feel about the stunning use of the color blue. Le Mont Royal, (514) 843-8240, http://www.lemontroyal.qc.ca. Frederick Law Olmsted, who laid out New York’s Central Park, also designed this sprawling space. It’s filled with hiking and biking trails and is capped by a 98-foot-high cross, which honors Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, the city’s founder. About Montreal: There are more than 3.6 million people in Montreal and its immediate urban area. That’s nearly half the population of the province of Quebec. Some 70 percent of those people are native French speakers, making Montreal the second-largest francophone city in the world, after Paris. Plus, Montreal is in Canada. About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “My husband has friends who live in Montreal,” Ripa says, “and he’d been raving about it for years, telling me how wonderful it is and that we just had to go and that I would love it. The first time I went, I think, was for our fourth or fifth wedding anniversary. When we landed, everyone at the airport was speaking French. So I turned to Mark, and I said quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever said in my life. I said, ‘You’re right; it’s so romantic and wonderful. It’s just like being in another country.’ He said, ‘I hate to burst your bubble, but we are in another country.’ ” About Montreal: The city has seen a boom in swank boutique hotels in recent years, especially in Old Montreal, a neighborhood with narrow, cobblestoned streets that dates back to the founding of the city, in 1642. Plus, Montreal smells nice. About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “The St-James in Old Montreal is a wonderful hotel,” Ripa says. “It is simply luxurious. Also, the St-Paul Hotel is very boutiquey and kind of rock and roll. They give you these wonderful colognes that you can take with you when you leave. I sometimes call the hotel and ask them to send me some because they smell so good.” About Montreal: The city claims to have more restaurants per resident than any other city in North America. It is famous for café au lait, smoked meats, and game-based Quebecois cuisine. Plus, some of the restaurants serve breakfast even at lunchtime. About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “Mark and I go there without our kids,” Ripa explains. “It’s the only place we go without our kids. I mean, I know it’s wonderful for children, but it’s just been our romantic-getaway place. So we usually get up and have breakfast at lunchtime — which, you have to *understand, with three kids, that’s such a luxury for us to not have to get up early. So we usually go to Eggspectation. It’s a very good sort of diner-breakfast place. There’s also a specialty place called Olive & Gourmando in Old Montreal. It has café au lait and croissants and beautiful breads. Unfortunately, I don’t know the street it’s on. Mark and I just sort of wander around there.” About Montreal: The city has thriving live jazz and rock scenes — the noted indie act Arcade Fire is just one rock band to emerge from Montreal. And the city is packed with watering holes. There are, on average, 9.5 bars per square kilometer. Plus, there are lots of restaurants and music venues (which can also be called watering holes). About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “If you [can], go to Old Montreal. There are these little cobblestone streets, and every place is a jamming supper club or an amazing jazz bar,” Ripa says. “I just think it’s magic. “You have dinner very late there. It’s very European in that way. Then a lot of these restaurants that start out serving food will turn into nightclubs. All of a sudden, the tables vanish and a DJ comes out. “They have this place called Vauvert in the St. Paul. You can have dinner, and then right after dinner, the DJ comes in. They call it diabolique when the DJ is there on Saturday nights. It’s like a big party. So you eat dinner, and then you dance. It’s one-stop shopping. Plus, the people are gorgeous, and the waitresses have designer uniforms. It’s all very sleek and very elegant.” About Montreal: More than half the Canadian fashion industry’s workers are employed in Montreal. It’s no surprise, then, that the city is home to numerous fashion designers and boutiques. Plus, there are spas. About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “For shopping, I like to go to the Cours Mont-Royal,” Ripa says. “It’s kind of like a mall, but there are a lot of small boutiques in there. I mean, you have to buy something when you travel. You have to at least get the kids something. You’re leaving them. ‘Bye! We’ll be back in two days. Have fun with Grandma and Papa!’ Also, I really love Spa Diva, which is in the Cours Mont-Royal. It’s very relaxing.” About Montreal: Despite the fact that Montreal is known for its French speakers and French heritage, one in four Montrealers is an immigrant, and the city is surprisingly diverse, supporting its own Chinatown and Little Italy. There’s also a slice of Portugal. About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “There’s a wonderful place called Ferreira Café, which Mark took me to for my birthday one year,” Ripa says. “It’s Portuguese food and is just fabulous. Mark kidnapped me. I’m not kidding. He flew me blindfolded to Montreal and took me to Ferreira. Well, I was allowed to take the blindfold off when we landed. I didn’t have to eat blindfolded. He had me home in time for the show the next day.” About Montreal: Winters are long and can be stingingly cold, which explains why the city loves its warm-weather festivals. It hosts international mega-gatherings to celebrate jazz, comedy, and film. It also has really fast car races. About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “Mark loves the Formula One race,” Ripa says. “He goes every year if he can. That’s in June. They also have the jazz festival. That’s great; it’s in July. But the comedy festival, for me, is the most special. You see the most amazing performers. You just know that any day now, a sitcom is going to come out of one of the great performances you just saw on the stage.” About Montreal: The city is the site of a semi-risqué routine performed at the aforementioned Just for Laughs comedy festival by a certain American star named Kelly Ripa. It included some, ah, other performers. About Kelly Ripa’s Montreal: “Yeah, thanks for noticing that I did that,” Ripa says. “It was amazing fun. The joke was that we hired all these drag queens to do a burlesque striptease with me. I had just had a baby, and they all looked much more like women than I did. So people were like, ‘Oh, look at these beautiful women … and Kelly.’ Then the audience figured out that they were all men … and Kelly.” Career Questions Kelly Ripa explains what she does when she’s not relaxing in Montreal. Did you set out to be an actor/talk-show host? No. My whole career has been a series of accidents. I accidentally got into acting because my friends were doing it. They were doing extra work, and they were making good money. So I was like, Hey, why not? That led to the soap [All My Children], which led to the talk show, which led to the sitcom, which led to the production company. What production company? Mark and I have a TV production company together now. We sold a scripted show that did not get picked up this past fall, and we just sold a pilot to the History Channel for an interesting show called Wild Gourmet. It’s about a man who is a trained chef and an anthropology major. He takes you through a culture’s hunting and eating of a specific animal. Why production? You can’t be on camera forever. Very few people can. So I’m one of those people who would eventually like to work behind the camera. Wait — hasn’t Regis been on camera forever? He’s the one in a million. He’s always relevant. He’s always charming. He’s always gorgeous. [Laughs] I don’t see it turning out that way for me. Speaking of Regis, I’ve heard people say he’s quitting when his contract is up. True? I don’t believe that. I’ve been hearing that since I got here. He loves it. I love it. It’s a great place to work. It’s a fun, sort of easy schedule for people like us, who really just want to be on vacation all the time. You did voice work for two animated movies that are coming out soon. What was that like? I don’t even remember. You do these things, and then for, like, the next seven years or something, they animate the film. It’s all that computer animation. I had almost forgotten that I did them. One of them, Fly Me to the Moon, my son is also in. I play a fly, and my son plays the friend of one of my maggots. It’s very cute. http://www.americanwaymag.com/tabid/2855/tabidext/3465/default.aspx

Montreal team makes HIV discovery Virus gets help from a cell protein. Finding is expected to help development of new class of drugs to combat the disease CHARLIE FIDELMAN, The Gazette Published: Saturday, July 14 Montreal researchers have identified a novel target that's an accomplice to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The virus doesn't work alone, but recruits a collaborator - a cell protein - in its mission to multiply and spread through the body, explained Eric Cohen, a professor of medicine at the UniversitE de MontrEal. Cohen and his team of researchers at the Institut de recherches cliniques de MontrEal yesterday published the findings in PLoS Pathogens, a peer- reviewed journal that is issued monthly by the Public Library of Science. Email to a friendPrinter friendly Font: * * * * Despite having transformed HIV/AIDS from a fatal disease to to a chronic one, scientists are still at a loss to explain how the human immunodeficiency virus causes illness and why it persists despite highly effective anti-retroviral drug therapy. The discovery by Cohen's team is expected to open the door to the development of a new class of drugs to combat the disease, Canada's top HIV experts stated yesterday. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) leads to AIDS by depleting essential immune cells called CD4+T lymphocytes in infected individuals. Key to this process is a small HIV protein, said Cohen, who identified the viral protein R (Vpr) a decade ago while at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge. Mass.. "The role of this protein, called E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, is likely to control the orderly division of cells," Cohen said. HIV uses this protein to weaken infected immune cells. The cells then stop dividing and die, he explained. Also, the protein helps sabotage immune cells so the virus can harness their resources for its own purposes - that is, to replicate and spread the infection. "The virus is creating an environment inside the cells where it can multiply better. Ultimately, the cells will die," said Cohen, who holds the Canada Research Chair in human retrovirology at the U de M. Although proud of his work and of the team effort in his laboratory, Cohen cautioned that new therapies will not be available for years to come. "As with all basic fundamental discoveries, it will not lead to new types of (drugs) for six or seven years," he said. But it's a very important finding, said Rafick-Pierre SEkaly, a U de M immunologist and AIDS expert who was not involved in this discovery. "We are always looking for new ways to neutralize the virus, so finding a new target is very appealing," SEkaly said. Cohen's work explains how the virus corrupts immune cells, said virologist Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill AIDS Centre at the Jewish General Hospital. Wainberg described Cohen's finding as "exactly the kind of discovery that will excite drug companies." cfidelman@ thegazette.canwest.com