Category Archives: Fun

Bored this weekend? Get your geek on at the Geek Fest

March 6, 2010 – 1:12 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal

It hasn't gotten a lot of attention in the anglophone community (I guess that's my fault?), but geeks from around town are converging this weekend for LAN parties, code fests, role-playing games and all sorts of other stuff at the Montreal Geek Festival.

Tickets are $12 for the weekend or $8 a day. The fun is at 752 Sherbrooke W.

And if you're into board games and other non-computerized geekiness, there's also the monthly Geek Outs at Burritoville on Bishop St. The next one is March 20 at 2pm. Attendance is free.

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Christmas hugs

December 25, 2009 – 3:51 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal, photos

On Wednesday, two days before Christmas (and as I was rushing to get the last of my shopping done before a shift at work), I passed by this trio of happiness-peddlers at the McGill metro station, advertising free hugs for everyone who passed by.

Though their signs were in English only (one can only imagine what the OQLF would have done), the oral pitches were bilingual. In fact, they didn't even speak English all that well. Or French. But all they needed was "Free hugs! Câlins gratuits!" and some outstretched arms to get their message across.

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Montreal SantaCon 2009

December 10, 2009 – 12:00 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal

Robin Friedman and Jody McIntyre have been organizing a lot of fun activities around town over the past few years. Metro parties, underground city scavenger hunts, pillow fights, no-pants subway rides, bubble battles, and, when the original organizers couldn't do it anymore, manhunt.

Friedman has logically decided to formalize this in the creation of Red Zebra Labs, which will announce future events on its website.

The first one coming up is SantaCon, Saturday the 12th, starting at 4pm at McKibbin's Irish Pub on Bishop St. (See the Facebook event page).

It's basically a pub crawl with everyone dressed as Santa. Wikipedia explains more.

Not yet convinced how fun this could be? You can see photos from the 2007 and 2008 events on Flickr.

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All you need is fun

September 22, 2009 – 1:52 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal
Your humble correspondent dances disco-style at the beginning of the Love Mob

Your humble correspondent dances disco-style at the beginning of the Love Mob (photo from the Facebook group)

I do like fun. And as long as an event has that as its primary goal, I'm all for it. Even if it's a tired formula like a choreographed dance or a lip dub.

On Sunday, I played hookey from PodCamp to participate in an event called "Love Mob Montreal". Not crazy about the name, but maybe that's just because I'm not in touch with my emotional side. As I mentioned in the previous post, it was an MP3 experiment that made sense to everyone with headphones but no sense to all the bystanders without.

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Montreal’s MP3 experiment

September 20, 2009 – 2:21 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal

UPDATE: Read about how this event went.

It's called "Love Mob Montreal", which sounds kind of weird, but it's actually a Montreal version of Improv Everywhere's famous MP3 Experiments (Improv Everywhere prefers people not use their names for independently-organized events, to avoid confusion).

The idea is that all the participants download an MP3 audio file to their iPod or other portable media player. They gather in a common place, and at a specified time they all press play simultaneously. The audio file contains instructions for what the participants should do. Since bystanders can't hear the audio, the experiment gives a sort of surreal image of a bunch of people doing crazy things in unison.

The Montreal event, organized by a "flash mob" group with some pretty poor web design skills, takes place today (Sunday) at Place des Arts, at what appears to be 3:30pm (the event lists the time as 3:30pm in English and "13h30" in French, but it had previously been established as 3:30/15h30).

Unfortunately, that puts it squarely in conflict with the Day 2 afternoon sessions of PodCamp Montreal. At first I figured the events would be related because they were on the same weekend and I had heard about the Love Mob from someone involved with both. But that's not the case, and I'll have to ditch at least two PodCamp seminars in order to participate.

The MP3 files themselves have just been put online: English, French (UPDATE: Links fixed, sorry). Participants are asked not to listen to them before the event. Instead, remember to bring a watch or other timing device that's accurate to the second, a media player with the MP3 loaded, and a white, red or pink T-shirt, and be at Place des Arts for 3:15pm.

Facebook has over 400 people "confirmed", which means about 40-50 will actually show up, give or take 200.

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Foam war

August 17, 2009 – 2:52 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal, photos
Pillow fight at Parc Lafontaine, Aug. 15

Pillow fight at Parc Lafontaine, Aug. 15

It was quite a bit more dry than my last pillow fight, but just as fun.

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Last chance for fireworks tonight

August 15, 2009 – 6:00 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal, photos
Australian fireworks on July 4

Australian fireworks presentation on July 4

The annual fireworks festival has its closing ceremony tonight at 10 p.m., which will be your last chance to see these amazing shows until next summer.

As usual, the best (free) spot to view them is in the parking lot where René Lévesque and Notre Dame meet (Papineau metro). Be sure to bring a radio (105.7FM) to listen to the music that goes with the display.

You can see detailed reports and photos of the previous presentations at the fan site montreal-fireworks.com.

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Pillow fight Saturday at 3

August 14, 2009 – 4:00 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal
Pillow fight on April 4

PILLOW FIGHT!

Over 100 people have "confirmed" on Facebook that they're attending a pillow fight Saturday at 3pm at Parc Lafontaine. That usually means that a dozen or two people will actually show up.

UPDATE: About 35 people showed up. Here's how it went.

Similarly, a zombie walk is planned for Saturday, Aug. 29 at the Papineau metro with similar numbers.

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Super soaked

August 5, 2009 – 11:56 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal, Video

Screw MJ. This is the kind of fun I'm taking about.

At the Mont-Royal metro station on Monday (via Ange-Aimée Woods)

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The Michael Jackson publicity stunt

July 27, 2009 – 7:48 pm| Posted in Fun, Media, Montreal, Opinion, Slow News Day, Video

Look, I don't want to make it seem like I'm anti-fun or something, because I really do enjoy it when people just go out and do something silly, if only for a few minutes.

But when you have an event involving a professional dance troupe that you've publicized to the media, when you have dozens of journalists present, when police and a government minister are taking part, can you really call that a "flash mob"? If so, the term has lost all meaning and should cease to be used.

No wonder groups so associated with the term, like Improv Everywhere and Newmindspace, have rejected it. I think it's time we all follow their lead if it's going to be commercialized like this.

Call it a publicity stunt, call it a public performance, call it street art, but don't call it a flash mob.

UPDATE (July 30): Similar thoughts from Patrick Dion, Jean-Philippe Rousseau and Le Détesteur, plus a defence from a participant.

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Scènes de l’Autre St-Jean

June 24, 2009 – 10:27 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal, photos

Crowd

I biked to Parc le Pélican last night to see l'Autre St-Jean (yeah, that l'Autre St-Jean). I got there after the anglo acts, but early enough to take some pictures of the party and hear some songs from Malajube before I left.

Here are the best of my pics:

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Pillow fight Friday at Fringe Fest

June 16, 2009 – 2:35 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal
Pillow fight on April 4

Pillow fight on April 4

The Fringe Festival includes a pillow fight scheduled to take place Friday at 5pm at the Parc des Amériques a St. Laurent and Rachel. You can signal your presence on the Facebook event page.

Bring your own pillow (no feathers please) and hope it doesn't rain like last time.

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They may take our lives, but they’ll never take OUR PILLOWS!

April 4, 2009 – 5:18 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal, photos

Rule No. 1 about outdoor pillow fights: don't hold them in the rain.

Pillow fight

Rule No. 2: There are ways around Rule No. 1.

Despite the annoying showers, the planned Montreal event on World Pillow Fight Day took place as scheduled, with about 30 participants whacking each other over the head with bags of foam (feathered pillows were banned as they create a mess) for about half an hour.

Much of the success came from the quick-thinking of organizers Robin Friedman and Jody McIntyre (the same people behind metro parties, bubble battles and pretty much everything else fun in the city over the past couple of years). They brought along clear plastic bags for people to put their pillows in so they wouldn't get wet.

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There’s no such thing as a flash mob

April 2, 2009 – 11:17 pm| Posted in Fun, Opinion

When I interviewed Newmindspace co-founder Kevin Bracken after Montreal's first metro party in 2007, the Torontonian told me he hated the term "flash mob", mainly because it was created in order to make fun of it.

After following various events that have been referred to as flash mobs in the media, it's hard not to concur, if only because the term has been used to define almost any public gathering of strangers organized online.

Most events of this nature can be split into one of two groups:

  1. the Improv Everywhere-style stunts in which people who may or may not know each other get together and pull a prank on unsuspecting bystanders in a public place
  2. public fun activities like metro parties or silent discos or snowball fights (such as the events Newmindspace organizes on a regular basis)

The latter more accurately fits the description, but is hardly worthy of the rather negative term "mob".

I bring this up because of an event that happened yesterday: a public spectacle at the Berri-UQAM metro station that the public was invited to participate in. It was described as a "flash mob" by its creator, but it was really just a PR stunt.

A PR stunt for cancer prevention, which I'm all for and everything, but a PR stunt nonetheless.

What bugs me most is that this was organized through a "flash mob" Facebook group which was taken over by a marketing company without its members' permission. I suppose it's not the end of the world. People can just remove themselves from the group if they don't like it. And who's going to oppose a public event for cancer awareness?

But it's an example of grassroots fun being usurped by corporate interests. Instead of "flash mobs", they're now "street marketing" events. Yesterday, it was a yellow-scarfed song for cancer research. Will the next one be shilling for Doritos? Will commuters have to live in fear every day they go to work because they might be forced into some ill-conceived marketing stunt in which they've been made the sucker?

We'll see.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for non-corporate fun, Montreal's pillow fight is Saturday at 3pm at Phillips Square.

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Pillow fight April 4

March 24, 2009 – 12:29 am| Posted in Fun

Mark your calendars for World Pillow Fight Day on April 4. Montreal will be participating in the event with a pillow fight at Phillips Square, starting at 3pm. Participants are asked not to use messy feather pillows and to clean up after themselves, because cities are getting fed up at having to clean the streets afterward.

A similar event took place in Toronto on Saturday. Just look at that fun!

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Dialing, dialing, dialing: It’s like this thing

March 13, 2009 – 12:00 pm| Posted in Fun, Humour, Video

The lines are now open for the St. Patrick's Day Drunk Dial (1-888-734-1285), where your flawless inebriated logic can be archived and publicized forever. (via dups.ca, which also has the story behind the project)

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Nuit Blanche Part 2: Art Souterrain

March 5, 2009 – 3:55 am| Posted in Fun, Montreal, photos

Art Souterrain

I'm not an art critic. Or an art lover. Or really an art anything. So when I look through the guide to the Nuit Blanche, I glaze over all the art galleries, dance performances, films, plays, DJs or anything else of the sort. Instead, I concern myself with fun things in the Old Port or anything that's funny.

But something about this "Art Souterrain" project caused me to want to go there. It was free, it was in a heated environment, and you could walk through it all without waiting in lines, checking your coats or feeling guilty about leaving early. You could spend about 10 seconds at one installation and then move on to the next one. And that's pretty much what I did.

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Nuit Blanche Part 1: At the Old Port

March 3, 2009 – 11:48 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal, photos

Festival logo

Turns out I took over 100 photos during my few hours at the Nuit Blanche, so I'm splitting up the posts. Part 1 was my time around midnight at the Old Port.

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Nuit Blanche: Metro doesn’t close tonight

February 28, 2009 – 10:09 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal, Public transit

What, you were planning on sleeping tonight? What are you, crazy?

The city opens up with free exhibits, events and parties all across downtown from the Old Port to the Canadian Centre for Architecture for the Nuit Blanche all night (though most of the fun ends around 3am).

All-night metro

The STM, which runs free shuttles between locations, has agreed to keep the metro running all night long, and even has a contest going related to finding metro art at various stations throughout the night. Details and forms are available at the Berri-UQAM service centre or Nuit Blanche info kiosks.

The extension of service doesn't apply to buses though. Most day routes are timed to coincide with the last metro trains, which depart Berri at 1:30am on Saturday nights. If your trip home involves bus travel, you might want to be on that train.

Otherwise, the night bus network runs as normal, and because it's Saturday the busier routes (358 Sainte-Catherine and 361 Saint-Denis) run about every 10-15 minutes.

Stuff to see

I was going to give some suggestions for stuff to go to, but I'm not an art critic, so I'll leave it to these guys instead.

The official site (unfortunately) has been turned into a Facebook page, and the link to the official PDF is dead.

Here are some quick tips for tonight, for those still near a computer who are going out:

  • Go to the Old Port. Some of the best free stuff happens there and it's a fun atmosphere
  • Bring something to drink if you're planning on being out all night
  • Dress warmly, preferably in layers if you're spending time inside and out (or, like me, just ignore that and bring a big coat you can put on and take off)
  • Don't try to go to too many events, especially if they're far from each other. The shuttle system is efficient, but with all the people on them they're not terribly fast.

Finally, it seems my favourite event, the free 5am breakfast at Complexe Desjardins, isn't happening this year.

See you out there.

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Board games I’d like to play

February 3, 2009 – 11:35 pm| Posted in Fun, Montreal

Sure, there's Montreal-as-Boardwalk Monopoly, but how about some board games that are all-Montreal?

Metro

From metrodemontreal.com

From metrodemontreal.com

I have no clue how this game is supposed to work, but it looks fun. Spotted in a metrodemontreal.com forum post.

Montreal Risk

Montreal Risk

I played this at a Geek Montreal GeekOUT, and won. (Hint: Controlling the West Island is key.)

Sadly, I wish I could point you to somewhere to buy/download/copy these things, but my searches have come up empty. So just stare at the pictures and imagine the fun of some day conquering the Plateau.

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