Breaking ground

Despite my besmirching of their reputation on this public internet forum, the workers got down to business nice and early today and the scheduled first day of work on the replacement aqueduct and sewage system.

I've made a little map of our street, indicating where each of the pictures was taken, so you can get an overall sense of the work being done. The blue line shows the beginning of the temporary water supply, which is connected to the fire hydrant on the other side of Villeneuve.



Today's work appears to be on cutting the sidewalk and getting a temporary water source hooked up. You can see in the pictures below (2 and 3 on the map) where they have attached a pipe to a fire hydrant which is on the opposite side of Villeneuve. This temporary pipe then goes into a ditch they are still digging which will run alongside the gutter and, I believe, hook into all the houses to provide them water.




So far, cars are still allowed to park along the western side of the street, which suggests to me that they are going to start only doing one side at a time. But that could be simply for the placement of the temporary water pipe. The big pipes are right in the middle of the street, so they are going to have to tear the whole thing up anyways.

You can see below (picture 4) how they open up the street so they can put down the temporary pipe. The cutter goes up about two feet from the gutter, cutting a narrow line deep into the road surface. Then the machine comes by (big bulldozer thing) with the penetrating, hammering attachment poking holes inside the line. Then they put on the scoop shovel (a relatively narrow one) and pull the surface off, dump it into the dump truck and then the rest of the dirt underneath.



Here's the dude on the big concrete cutter (picture 5). He went the entire length of the block along the eastern side, making little right angle detours onto the sidewalk (as he is doing here) to get access to the pipes leading into the residences.



Sometimes, they leave the machine running, with it tilted back so the blade isn't making any contact. But it's still spinning. Makes me think of all the metal things I couldn't cut in the past that I would love to run over there and chop up. Don't really have anything pressing to cut right now, though it would also make a great action movie fight scene hazard. Has anybody ever been forced under one of those sidewalk cutters in a movie?

So so far, so good. The workers are clearly quite used to people showing interest as there was an older gentleman hanging out and just watching them work. He seemed to be quite well informed, telling me they are going to go as deep as 8 metres. They also didn't seem surprised or weirded out seeing me hanging around taking pictures. One guy made a joke about the paparazzi. Personally, I'm quite looking forward to the whole process!

What's an Aqueduct?

A week or so ago, the city hung some flyers on our doorknobs, alerting us to future construction work that was going to take place on our block. Yesterday, we got a more detailed memo. I'll translate the crucial paragraph for you:

The Department of Infrastructure, Transport and the Environment of the City of Montreal informs you of the beginning of reconstruction work on the drainways dating from 1907 and the aqueduct dating from 1931 on your street.

The work will begin September 28th and finish in the month of December.

During the construction period, a temporary aqueduct network will be put in place. The quality of the potable water will not be affected by the work; you can drink it with no risk.

The memo refers to two elements that are going to replaced: "la conduite d'égout" and "la conduite d'aqueduc". I think the former is the system that takes the waste waters out via pipe (conduite means pipe and égout means sewer or gutter) and the latter is the one that brings the freshwater in. In neither english or french could I find a definition for aqueduct that distinguishes it as being dedicated to fresh water (it simply is something that transports water), but I think that is the distinction that is made in the memo.

I won't translate the second part, but it's the best. The street is going to be closed the entire time to all traffic and parking. I know this is going to be quite a hassle for some of my neighbours who own cars and will probably cause some noise and disturbance for me and my lovely new bride. But I have to admit that my schadenfraude is quite stimulated by this news as I know there are several people who live on our block who own cars and drive to work regularly, yet they work near a metro station. I also know that a lot of people drive into our neighbourhood for either work or partying and a lot of them have access to public transit. So I will rejoice in their annoyance and frustration over the next several months.

The sidewalk will not be blocked off or worked on, so foot passage should be unperturbed.

Personally, I'm very psyched to see the work. They've been replacing these pipes all over Montreal this summer and it's a pretty big job. It seems to depend on the block, but in some places they have dug up the entire road to a depth of over 20 feet. I quite enjoy seeing the old tunnels, support structures, pipes and other bits and pieces that were put in the ground decades (even possibly a century ago, if the city's dates are correct). I always enjoy a good construction project, so it will be great to have front row seats.

On the other hand, the quality of public works in Montreal, especially these kinds of municipal projects, is particularly poor. At the base level of productivity, I imagine most of the time I'll be watching a big open hole and a bunch of parked machinery. The city is riddled with corruption and powerful unions and the combination does not light a fire under the asses of the workers and their bosses. I've also seen some of the finished roads and it's some piss-poor work. Instead of properly finishing the roads or the sidewalks they've broken open with concrete, they have used a ton of asphalt to patch it up, leaving ugly inconsistencies between the sidewalk and road (and rendering the gutters less free-flowing).

I'm sure you are all as excited as I am, so be happy to know that I'm going to be keeping a running log of the work, with pictures and commentary.

Quebec Car-troversies: a study in stupidity and outrage

Okay, a terrible pun for a title, I admit.

Here's what's the hot topic in Quebec this week. First, another stupid person died car surfing over the weekend. It's the second one in Quebec this year. The first was a guy in his late 30's. This time it was a teenage girl. It is truly sad for the family and all that, but holy shit, how fucking stupid can you get! I mean you really think you're going to be hanging on to the roof of a car while it's driving fast? It's a testimony to how pampered and unrealistic our lives are becoming in the first world. Our youth have even less common sense than ever. I know the youths are stupid anyways, it's part of that phase of life and all that, but I really think that we are becoming more and more protected from the realities of physical danger to the point where these kids don't really have a sense of what real danger is.

The second hot topic is the 7-year old kid whose parents let him drive the car and put it up on youtube. First of all, shame on the fucking CBC for making this a news story at all. It was on the National! This is absolutely not a national news story and was brought on simply to incite emotion and reaction from the audience. The CBC has sunken so low. They have really lost any high ground they might have had over the local newscasts. Second, all the outraged losers freaking out about this kid driving. Yes, it's stupid and dangerous (he really should have been wearing a seatbelt), but it's on empty country roads and at least the kid is learning how to drive. I can't really argue that it's a good move, but I'm just sick of the moral reaction coming from the public. It's this kind of constant fear and moral surveillance and approval of others that has made us such a lame and soft society. And the media cater to it, feeding and nurturing it. When I see that this is a news story, I have a reaction similar to MrTonyVachon's' comments on youtube "lol osti de trou de cul de tete caré a marde du canada, mange un osti de char de marde haha c vous autres les criss de looser LOL Ontario suck!!!!"

Fantasia is ovah!

Well Fantasia just wrapped up this Wednesday. Fantasia is North America's largest (and best) genre film festival. It features a wide range of horror, martial arts, giant monster and other international movie craziness. It lasts about 3 weeks in the middle of the summer here in Montreal and basically takes over my life during that time. The first two years I was here, I did 30 movies. This year, I only made it to 20. A big part of that was because I was out of town for the first long weekend and missed a couple crucial Hong Kong movies as well as some others that I will have to wait to come out on DVD.

One of the best parts of Fantasia is the audience. They are totally into it. The people are already pretty hyped at the beginning of the movie, but if it's good, they go crazy. You can risk missing some chunks of dialogue due to laughter or cheering (like when a particularly nasty bad guy gets offed). I always think it must be so amazing to be a director or an actor and be present when your film is screened at Fantasia. A lot of these movies are very low-budget, quite obscure and probably can't hope to do better than maybe get a small DVD distribution. So when you get a packed house of people laughing and cheering at your work and then you get to come up afterwards for a Q&A, you must be so totally psyched.

And the audiences are the best for the midnight showings. They always have one on Friday and Saturday night, usually following one of the more popular films. A lot of people are there for both, but you also get some more trendy members who aren't such hardcore film geeks but have heard about the film through the local media. People are dressed a bit more styley, sometimes tricked out in whatever is the genre of the movie (goths or anime fans, for instance). You can also tell that some people have been partaking their recreational drug of choice (and I often bring my handy flask).

The midnight shows tend to be the crazy over-the-top movies (like a screening this year of Troll 2 or Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl) or something really freaky and hardcore that may be too much for the evening audience. Three years ago, someone passed out during a particularly gory moment in Neighborhood Watch. After it was over, when Mitch Davis was introducing the Q&A with the director, he explained what the kerfluffle was about and the audience exploded in cheers. We all felt quite proud.

Unfortunately, I wasn't so happy with this year's midnight selections. Plus, I was taking it easier in general. So I didn't get to experience a really zany midnight showing. I did have a wonderful festival overall. There were at least 4 films that I would say were outright excellent. Of them, I would strongly recommend that you check out Private Eye, a Korean movie about a private detective who joins up with a young medical intern in pre-WWI Seoul to hunt down a murderer of high-ranking officials. Well-written, with excellent direction and acting, it just captured a real sense of adventure and escapism.

The other movie, that will probably make it to an arthouse circuit was Terribly Happy, a Danish neo-noir about a cop who makes a mistake and gets sent to be the sheriff of a small town in Jutland. Shit gets weird. This movie strongly reminded me of one of my all-time favorites, the Coen Brothers Blood Simple. Really satisfying and well done. Talk about creepy rednecks. We North Americans don't think they have them in Scandinavia. This movie will disabuse you of that notion.

And my hats off to Mitch Davis. He is one of the main programmers and he works hard all year to bring the best stuff to us. He only does about a dozen write-ups or so in the program (of something like 120 films) but those are the movies you should seek out. Thanks, dude!

Bing-Ring.com versus Google

Well for the first time, I accidently used Bing-Ring.com, Microsoft's newly branded website. I wanted to figure out how to turn off the pernicious automatic updates in Adobe Acrobat. I was using my boss's computer (trying to speed it up) and he unfortunately only had Internet Explorer installed. Bing is the default search engine in the little box in the upper right hand corner and I didn't realize that until it was too late. Here are the results:



As you can see, none of the links returned offer any direct solution to the problem. Possibly, in the first link I may find an answer in that thread in those adobe forums. Even weirder, the third link has nothing to do with Adobe at all and is specifically a windows-oriented site.

Here is Google's result:




Practically every single link there gives me the kind of answers I am looking for.

Obviously, this isn't a scientific test but it basically confirms what I had suspected. Microsoft's search engine sucks.

But let's talk about their marketing for a moment. Let's see, they have the biggest name in computing and instead of using it, they hire some retarded band of consultants who probably did a bunch of "brainstorming" and "market research" and "focus groups" and then came up with a generic sounding name with a bunch of arguments justifying why it will help catch eyeballs and attract people to the site.

Hey geniuses, how about "Microsoft Search"?

Note to the consultants: In Canada, a bing-ring is a vulgar term used most often by adolescent males. It refers to the ring of feces surrounding the base of the penis after that penis has performed an act of sodomy. Another job well done, Microsoft!

I ask you all from this day forwards, when referring to this mediocre search engine, to use the term bing-ring.com until Microsoft wakes up and takes it and its heinous ads off the market.

2 more signs of the oncoming apocalypse

I'm happy as a clam these last three weeks being thoroughly immersed in the best film festival in the world: Fantasia. My only complaint is that the blogging and reviews that are usually done while the festival is going on are really poor this year, especially in english. If I'd known Dread Central (who usually do a great job) was going to mail it in this year, I might have offered to do it myself as I have plenty to say about the festival and the 18 movies I've seen so far.

I'll talk about Fantasia later, I just wanted to take a moment to share a couple mini-rants with you today.

First of all, there is a new behaviour I've noticed at Fantasia and this is losers who show up for the show after the show has started and the house lights are down use their cellphones to light their way. I must use the greatest restraint not to spring from my seat and dash their cursed little toys over their head. I mean, c'mon, you are too fucking lame to let your eyes adjust to the darkness? I know part of this phenomenon is because someone thought it was a cute and clever re-application of the cellphone. Well it's not. It's weak and annoying. It's distracting to other moviegoers and infuriates those few men left in the world who have any balls left. If your night-vision is so poor that you can't see the stairs in a dark theatre, you need to stop leaving the house altogether. Better yet, please just kill yourself.

The other, far more disturbing thing I noticed is that it now appears to be impossible to buy underwear in any quantity. Now I'm sure this was always the case for homos, metrosexuals and Night At the Roxbury-types who buy designer underwear (just typing those two words together makes the bile rise in my throat), but now even Hanes and Fruit of the Loom brands come in friggin' two-packs! Two-packs! Who the fuck buys their underwear two at a time? I can not even imagine a scenario where a male would need to buy only two pairs of underwear, unless maybe you are on the road for a weekend business trip or something and forgot to pack your underwear (or soiled yourself getting too drunk with the clients). It's just another example of branding and commodification working its way down to every level of consumer good so that we have more packaging (and thus more waste) and an excess of false choice. Underwear should be sold in a minimum of 7 per pack, to make a solid week of having clean underwear. I even looked online (though I will look harder) and all the sites there sell only two-packs, with the occassional 4-pack of coloured underwear (which no man should wear unless they are boxers).

In New York, on Orchard street, you used to be able to get packs of mistake underwear for a really cheap price. They had some small error that made them not good enough to go into the main distribution channel, but I could never tell what those mistakes were. I don't know if those stores are still there, but does anybody from Montreal know if there are any places like that here? This used to be a shmata town, so possibly.

I love life, but fuck the world is a discouraging place when you are surrounded by untermenschian losers and an economic system that encourages their behaviour.

How to express "you should" versus "you must" in french

Learned an awesome and subtle new french tip today.

In english, we say "you should do something" which is a step down in severity from "you have to do something" or "you are supposed to do something".

In french, the verb for those two states is encompassed by "devoir".

You make the distinction with tenses!

For the case where you are suggesting something, you use the conditional tense.

For the case where you are demanding something, you use the present tense.

So the girlfriend of 2 months would say to you "tu devrais te trouver une job".

(you should get a job)

Whereas the girlfriend of two years would say "tu doit te trouver une job!"

(you must get a job!)

[Note: "une job" is not proper french. Worse, I just found out that in Québec it's "une job" and in France it's "un job"!!]