Category Archives: Fun

| Fun, Montreal

Flashmob freeze planned for Saturday

Inspired by Improv Everywhere’s freezing-in-Grand-Central prank, as well as the group’s new worldwide social networking site (whose Montreal subgroup now has 50 members), it looks like the first truly IE-inspired event here might take place this weekend.

The usual caveats apply: It’s being loosely organized by random people, publicized almost entirely through social networks, and with very little notice. It might be wildly successful with hundreds of participants, or there might be three people there who decide it’s not worth it embarrassing themselves alone.

Nevertheless, here’s the skinny:

Saturday, February 23, 5:30pm at Parc Émilie-Gamelin (a.k.a. Berri Square, at Berri and Ste-Catherine, just outside the Ste-Catherine exit to Berri-UQAM). A re-enactment of the Grand Central freeze, in which participants suddenly stop in mid-step (or mid-kiss, mid-puff, mid-fall, etc.) for a few minutes, attracting the curious glares of passers-by.

(Since this would be the first such event for most of the participants, I imagine they won’t be as strict about having people hide their cameras, which means passers-by will quickly conclude it’s some sort of public exhibition.)

For more details, see the Facebook group page or the Improv Everywhere social network forum.

| Fun, Montreal, My articles

The underground city scavenger hunt

Underground City scavenger hunt participants

I have to admit, part of me totally expected last weekend’s underground city scavenger hunt to be a complete dud. It’s happened before with these organized-on-Facebook just-for-fun events. Facebook had 35 people attending, but those numbers are always hyperinflated due to the way Facebook works.

As it turns out, there were 39 participants, and that was way more than was needed to have fun.

For my article in today’s Gazette, I spoke to organizer Robin Friedman while boyfriend-and-co-organizer Jody McIntyre was registering people. I then followed a team through the two-hour hunt.

Photos, the list and more after the jump below.

Continue reading →

| Fun, Montreal

Flashmobbing is cool

Improv Everywhere, the New York City-based scene-causer, has another mission up, which involved dozens of people freezing in place at Grand Central Station for exactly five minutes. They’ve also started up a social network for people from elsewhere in the world to connect. Here’s the Montreal group, which so far only has three members.

Speaking of this kind of unauthorized fun in public places, a scavenger hunt is being planned in the underground city next weekend. Facebook has over a dozen participants confirmed.

For those of you with moral objections to that site, here’s the details:

Saturday, Feb. 9, 3pm-5pm
Top cloor (Niveau Cinéma) of the Eaton Centre, McGill metro
Sign in when you arrive at the checkpoint with your team name and members (up to three)
This is a free, all ages event

Rules:

  • Do not leave the underground city. You are using the honor system.
  • You will need:
    • a bag
    • a bit of money (no more than 5$)
    • something to take pictures with (a camera phone is OK)
    • something to tell time with
  • Time – You have from when we release you until 5:10 on the judges’ timepiece (official time). If your entire team is not back by then, only what has arrived will be counted.
  • Points will be awarded once per team for each item on the list brought to the finish.
  • Judges’ decisions are final
| Fun, Media

Newspaper puzzles are taken very seriously

One of the things that surprised me talking to people about newspapers is how many of them see the crossword as its most important part. Take out the news, sports, classified, even the front page flag and they’ll live with it. But touch their New York Times crossword and there’s hell to pay.

The Gazette is considering adding Deducto to its puzzles page. Deducto is a symbol-based deductive reasoning puzzle much like Sudoku, but its rules make little sense and there’s no challenge to it.

Initial response from select readers about the idea has so far been skewed negative. They’re happy with their crossword (or their Sudoku), and this puzzle’s instructions seem too complicated and uninteresting to bother learning.

Feel free to make your jokes here: Gazette readers can’t do deductive reasoning; Gazette readers can’t read; Gazette readers are allergic to new ideas.

Would you like to see this game added to your newspaper? It’s a moot point with me since I get my paper electronically and I’m not about to write on my screen.

UPDATE (March 25): The Gazette has apparently scrapped the idea after receiving a very unenthusiastic response (PDF).

| Fun, Media, Montreal

Bid for a date with Patrick Lagacé

Some holiday charity schemes expect you to give away your money with only pride in return. They think you’ll be happy just knowing you’re a good person. But La Presse has a better idea. They’re offering this:

Patrick Lagacé = hot date

Up for auction are 10 lunch dates with their most popular journalists, including cartoonist Serge Chapleau, sports columnist Réjean Tremblay and teen heartthrob Patrick Lagacé (seen above with semi-exposed chest).

Though the auction is far from over, it kind of disturbs me that Lagacé and this woman:

Marie-Claude Lortie

(food columnist Marie-Claude Lortie) are bidding far below this guy:

Pierre Foglia

Pierre Foglia.

What does this say about our society?

The auction continues until Dec. 6. Proceeds go to Sun Youth, the Société Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and Moisson Montréal.

So far the leading bidder for a date with Lagacé is “R. Martineau“. Surely you can do better than his paltry $550.

UPDATE (Dec. 6): The auction’s over, and despite his incessant pleading on his blog, Lagacé brought in the least of the lots, only $1,900. (Foglia brought in $4,500.) He’s still a winner in our book though.

| Fun, Montreal, Video

Frothing at the mouth

I’m not a coffee drinker, so when someone tells me that Starbucks coffee is disgusting, or that Tim Horton’s is addictive, I have to take their word for it. I have never tasted these things, and don’t particularly plan to.

But I can appreciate good art. Like the art you get with a carefully poured cup of latté. Apparently latté art is very popular, with all sorts of guides on how to do it.

If you just want to see the art in practice, you can head over to Caffè Art Java (837 Mount Royal Ave. E.), where through a combination of pouring and etching the baristas can create a dragon, a woman’s face, a skull, a cat, a tulip, and all sorts of other intricate patterns.

Or, like me, you can waste your day watching the YouTube videos I just linked to.

| Fun, Montreal

Santa parade, zombies on Saturday

The “First Annual Zombie Walk“, which has been rescheduled at least twice by my count (I first talked about it in September), looks like it’s finally going to happen this Saturday, a few blocks away from the Santa Claus parade.

The zombies are to meet up outside the de Maisonneuve entrance to Dawson College (3040 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., metro Atwater) at noon. From there, they’ll take an unannounced course and walk zombily around downtown. There are currently no plans to interfere directly with the parade, though there are bound to be some crowd overlaps.

The parade, meanwhile, takes the Standard Downtown Parade Route, starting at Fort and Ste. Catherine and going east until St. Urbain. The parade starts at 11 a.m. and is expected to run until about 2 p.m.

Santa Parade and zombies

For an example of what a zombie walk looks like, you can check out this video of a similar walk in Trois-Rivières in September.

The zombie walk has a goal of promoting environmentalism, and has gotten form letters of support from the office of Al Gore and David Suzuki (though the latter wrote his brief letter by hand). It’s still unclear how zombies are going to help the environment.

At least one after party is already planned, though its location is being kept secret.

For more information on the Zombie walk, consult its Facebook page. (Or, if you have moral objections to Facebook, just ask me and I’ll see if I can find out.)

| Fun, Montreal, Public transit

Metro party tonight

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:

Metro party

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.

| Fun, Montreal, On the Net, Sports

Out of the way!

I’ve always thought it would be fun to do some sort of street luge on one of Montreal’s steepest streets. Peel, Mountain, St. Jacques, any street in southern Outremont…

This weekend some people fulfilled that fantasy on Camilien Houde. Though the speeds they reached weren’t exactly super-sonic, the view from inches above the ground is a lot different at 100 kph. It’s all part of Top Challenge, an annual Bud Light-sponsored (Bud Light? Ick!) gravity-powered street race. (The video of last year’s race gives a good idea what’s going on)

The results are here, and photos on Flickr.

If the popularity of this increases, we’ll probably be seeing more videos like this of people doing this on their own.