It's a bit last-minute, but a metro party is being planned on Halloween night (tonight).
The plan is to get on the last car at the Côte-Vertu metro at 9pm, in costume, and rock on all the way to Montmorency, 48 minutes away. (Don't worry, you can get back free as long as you don't leave through the turnstiles.)
Those of you interested can check out the Facebook page.
And if you have no idea what a "metro party" is, check out my recap of the one that happened in March.
Don't expect this one to be as popular though, since it's organized last-minute and a lot of people (including me) will be busy doing other things.
UPDATE: Looks like it went pretty well, judging from this photo by Alex D:
The sister party on the Toronto subway also seems to have been well-attended.
Let's hope the next one will be soon.
UPDATE (Nov. 22): A video of the party.
TQS, the least-favourite of Quebec's three french-language TV networks, is cutting 40 jobs across the province to get costs under control. With about 600 employees, that represents about 7% of their workforce.
It's the same old story: Mainstream media, stocked up on vice-presidents and lots of overhead for journalistic operations, respond to their escalating costs by cutting journalists. The quality drops significantly, people tune out, and the spiral continues.
In TQS's case, the network was losing quite a bit of money (CP says $1.5 million loss on media operations, which also include Rhythme FM radio stations), and now its owner Cogeco (which is swimming in profits from cable operations, by the way) is trying to figure out what to do with the network by getting CIBC to do a "strategic review"
CTV News (CTVglobemedia owns 40% of TQS, Cogeco owns the other 60%) has speculated that "a decision could be made to sell TQS".
Anyone want to buy?
October 30, 2007 – 4:57 pm
|
Posted in Media
Regret the Error's Craig Silverman goes on an extended rant about the quality of mainstream media (mostly newspapers) now that their newsrooms have been slashed and journalists are overworked.
It's a must-read for anyone in the newspaper business who thinks that firing editors and forcing extra work onto untrained journalists is the way to survive in this Internet world. People care about quality, they're annoyed by typos and factual errors, and eventually there will be a tipping point (some argue we're already well past it) where people will realize that newspapers aren't worth their rising subscription fees.
Guy Bertrand, the lovable lawyer and rabble-rouser, has finally shown his face in front of The Commission, and shown what a hero he is by clearing up once and for all what the greatest threat is to the French language and Québécois culture:
Saku Koivu.
You see, because the Finnish player who happens to be the captain of the Montreal Canadiens has trouble with his third language, he's violating our rights by not allowing hockey fans to be served in French.
When Koivu is inevitably found guilty in a court of law for crimes against humanity, should we subject him to lethal injection, the electric chair or just force him to be a panelist on Tout le monde en parle?
UPDATE (Nov. 1): Gazette letter-writers come to their captain's defence and let Bertrand have it. La Presse's André Pratte points out that anglophones, not francophones, are in linguistic danger in Quebec, and François Gagnon has some good insight into the matter.
October 30, 2007 – 12:10 am
|
Posted in Montreal
McGill has a bug up its butt.
The university, whose name has apparently been left unprotected for almost 200 years, has begun clamping down on the use of the name "McGill" by organizations on campus. It started with CKUT, which was blackmailed into dropping "McGill" from its name last month. Now they're reviewing all student-run groups, forcing them into mounds of paperwork to justify using the McGill name in theirs.
Concordia University has had a similar policy (PDF) since 2001, with one significant difference: Concordia's policy grandfathered existing student groups, and as far as I can tell they don't sweat the small stuff: Only for-profit enterprises and large groups bother with approval.
McGill's move is just silly. Well-intentioned, but silly. A student club devoted to stamp-collecting at McGill is obviously going to call itself the McGill Stamp-Collecting Club or something similar, just for clarity's sake. The name implies only that it is at McGill, not that it is run by McGill's administration. Requiring such a complicated process as board approval will only create unnecessary work for volunteers and discourage students from creating social clubs on campus.
McGill says they're "reviewing" the policy. Let's hope they come up with some sane guidelines that have more to do with encouraging a vibrant and active student populace than it does with over-regulation and paperwork.
October 29, 2007 – 11:54 pm
|
Posted in Media
I picked up a copy of Hour sitting on a metro seat the other day and noticed that I'd completely missed the fact that Josey Vogels has been replaced as their sex columnist.
Vogels's final column (which took me about a half hour to find, thank you very much Hour's horrible navigation system) points out that it's been 13 years and 500 columns. Her career as a (professional) sex and relationships journalist began at Hour in 1994, after she was a Concordia student and Link editor.
To say that Vogels stopped her column (as is sort of implied) wouldn't be exactly accurate. Vogels has lived in Toronto for many years now and her column is syndicated in newspapers across the country. My Messy Bedroom lives on in other "alternative" newspapers and on her website, while her tamer relationships-but-no-icky-sex column Dating Girl appears in many mainstream newspapers including The Gazette.
I can only theorize at the reason behind the change. I hope it was more a matter of wanting editorial renewal with a younger, fresher and more local face than it was about wanting to cut costs by slashing an expensive syndicated column.
Either way, she's being replaced by Laura Roberts, Editor-in-Chief of local smut zine Black Heart Magazine and herself a former Link editor. How Roberts will do with the space is anyone's guess. Her debut column focuses on herself, and how she'll report on her boyfriends (an issue I have wondered about quite a bit myself thoughout the entire run of Sex and the City), and The Link has a brief interview with her.
One thing's for sure: Roberts is now about as old as Vogels was when she started her column. And the replacement will mean a huge loss in experience, which hopefully will be mitigated by a big increase in enthusiasm.
On Friday, Krispy Kreme closed its only location in Montreal, at Marché Central, giving its 50 employees only a few days' notice that they would be losing their jobs.
While some herald the closing as a victory for healthy eating, and others are pointing out that it's part of a larger restructuring, I think there's a simpler explanation for the location's failure:
It was built in the most pedestrial-unfriendly location for a store on the Island of Montreal.
Marché Central is one of the last great car malls in the centre of the city. Just above the Acadie Circle, the mall is barely accessible by public transit, has streets with no sidewalks, traffic lights with no provisions for pedestrians, and huge parking lots separating its buildings.
While this style works for Loblaws, Wal-Mart and Réno Dépôt, fresh Krispy Kreme is something that would appeal more to walk-in traffic downtown than a semi-suburban strip mall.
Open a location downtown, or at somewhere people walk a lot, and those donuts will sell like ... hotcakes.
Those of you who want your fix can find Krispy Kreme locations at Carrefour Laval and on Auguste Ave. in Greenfield Park.
Now that the impossible has happened for a second time in four years, perhaps it's time to reflect on how some of the media down south are recognizing this momentous achievement on their websites:
The Boston Globe's Boston.com:
The New York Post:
The New York Daily News:
Yeah.
It's also as good a time as any to delve into the vault and bring back this jewel of a fake ad from just after the 2004 series, which starts off asking Boston fans what they would give to have the Sox win it all. (Off the Comedy Network's website since Comedy Central blocks Canadians now. If it doesn't work, you can get it off YouTube here)
And if you're the more sentimental type, Nike's Red Sox Memories of Losing is here.
UPDATE: Never underestimate the Sox.
Craig Silverman's Regret the Error is back, with a redesign (read: left menu is now on the right) and info related to the book (including, naturally, its corrections).
How big is Craig Silverman? He's so big, his articles in the Globe and Mail are getting corrections featured on Regret the Error.
This week in the paper features a short story about people buying sexy Halloween costumes at sex shops instead of prefab Chinese plastic ones at Wal-Mart. After striking out at a few places (mostly because I stupidly tried researching this on a Sunday afternoon), I found a young lady at Il Bolero getting fitted for a costume. Surprisingly, she was very cooperative with my incessant questioning despite being half-naked standing on a small table. (Then again, considering the photos I've found of her on Facebook, I guess modesty isn't an issue!)
Also this week is a Bluffer's Guide on composting, which was prompted by the mayor's request for $1 billion to create a curbside organic waste collection program (among other initiatives).
UPDATE (Oct. 30): The Globe and Mail, always one step ahead of the curve, discusses some girls who are bucking the trend by going less sexy and more fabric-y.
