Damn you, Mom...

So as hilarious at it can be, it turns out that I am color blind.
Those who wonder about the title, it's because the gene is on the X chromosome on the leg missing on the Y, so if a boy gets it, it's because of his mom (and girls have less chances of being colorblind).
I have none it for a long time now, I discovered it when I was 18, and something I have never understood is why they are not testing it sooner at school. It's cheap to check so why not discovering it as soon as possible.

Anyway, every one knows the dot numbers test, but there is another, more subtle, test and I ran into a online version here http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77
Upon completion you get a rating, 0 being the best, and a map of you color deficiency.

You can check my results on flickr

failblog.org

Or why I am a failure...
So a couple of weeks ago I went to Ottawa, to see the Ron Mueck Expo, and have a change of scenery.
Arriving there, I realized that the expo wasn't located in Ottawa per se but we Shawinigan, more than 200 miles away and on the other side from Montreal.
See the museum from Ottawa owns a gallery in Shawinigan...
So last week end, a friend and I set off to Shawinigan.
The expo was so-so. There wasn't a lot of piece from Mueck, some of them I had already seen. The best part was probably a documentary on how he creates his pieces.
There was another artist exposing but I didn't get it... I like the ostrich.
We also went to the Festival de la Poutine (a culinary specialty from Quebec), which mixed music and Poutine...
Awesome.

O Noir

This is a specially dedicated to Liz...
So last night, to thank my friend for hosting me until I get a place (next week) and putting up with me, we went to ONoir, a restaurant in Montreal.
What makes this restaurant so special is that all the waiters are blind, and you eat in complete darkness.
There was something similar in Paris, but it was seasonal and I never got the opportunity to go.
So for a couple of hours, you get to live like a blind person, which made me realize several things:
- I would rather be mute/deaf.
- The feeling of not seeing is weird, I wanted to close my eyes, but I didn't feel comfortable with my eye lids closed.
- Most people are insanely loud in complete darkness.
- I didn't know what veal tasted like.
- I didn't feel obligated to finish my plates.

I took their surprise menu, where you don't know what you're going to eat. I guess the best to try this would be to go with someone, tell him what you don't like. He can check with the staff.
It's really hard to locate the food in your plate and to seize how big you are cutting your chunks.

The main thing that spoiled the experience for me was the noise. I expected to spend a quiet diner but it was the complete opposite. First, it seems because people can't see the person their talking to they immediately speak louder. The other thing is that next to us was a table of girls having their night out and they were fucking loud and obnoxious. To the point where I almost left midway through the main course. Who the fuck thing it's a great idea to go in that kind of place for a party anyway? This add another issue has the waiters rely on talking between themselves in order to navigate without bumping into each other.
I asked the one of them and they told me it was more quiet during the week so I will go back but on a week night.

La France en Amerique du Nord...

I have long said that Montreal was full of France French.... Too many of them...
So many in fact that the otherwise mellow Montreal folk are turning into angry mobbing people, just like people from Paris.
A couple of night ago, a 18 year old guy has been shot dead by a cop, who was trying to control him. That guy was playing dices in a park, the cop wanted to control him, I don't know what happened, the cop drew his gun, the kid is dead.
Since then a neighborhood in Montreal north is burning. Riot in the streets, a dozen of car burned down, special police units in the streets at night, etc...
It saddens me, I liked the quiet Montreal. I hope it's going to be a one off and everything is going to go back to normal.

Ron Mueck...

I recently discovered that the sculptor Ron Mueck had an exhibition at the National Gallery in Ottawa.
For those who wonder who he might be, he is the guy making some hyper realistic sculptures of people.
The first time I saw one, it was a giant 6ft tall baby head... Scary. The details are amazing and it could almost be taken for a real one.
I really dig his work.
I will probably go spend a week end to Ottawa.

Added bonus is "Maman" a sculpture from the Louise Bourgeois who also made the spider on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. I really like her work as well. The two sculptures are really dynamic.

La stupidite des quotas...

I need to speak about something probably unknown in the US, it's content quotas.
It came to me last week when I was scanning the radio spectrum to find a replacement for the radio I used to listen to in San Francisco, KITS Live 105.
In some country or states (France, Quebec,...) government have voted law to insure a minimum ratio of content in the native language for TV or radio.
For example, in Quebec, radios are forced to play at least 60% of french songs.
I really don't like this.
What happens if a specific music style is under represented in a given language? To tell the truth then it doesn't exist in that country. Let's take indie rock, there isn't a lot of indie rock in French, much less good one. The law makes it impossible for a specialty radio to survive because of the lack of content in French. It's the same for metal, or blues...
Instead we get a flood of crappy radio with shitty commercial pop songs, because no matter what crappy commercial pop exist in every language.
I think it's nice to try to save your culture and language, but shouldn't it be by proposing quality content instead of force feeding...
I am going to buy a satellite radio or an HD radio, KITS has a channel on it.

pas bavard...

I have not been really chatty lately...
It comes from the fact that I am pretty stressed right now.
Montreal is not as fun as I expected or wanted. My friends are almost all busy. Most of them are deep into their relationship so they are not going out... It sucks.

I found an apartment but it's not all that I wanted. It is on the small size (800 sq. ft.) and I have to buy all the appliances. It doesn't have a garage so I won't be able to work on the Nova. I don't like that I am leaving just above the landlord and they won't allow to have pets (here goes my kitten).
I thought I could stay at my friend's until I found something ideal, but after 3 days where we have been arguing almost every night, I decided it was time to get find something asap. The place will be free on Sept. 1st though, so in the meantime I am going to suck it up. The place is super nice though and I love the area. It's the kind of area where it's not busy, it's really residential, but you still have a couple of nice mellow restaurants to go out to. Simple places with no fuss and good food. I am 10 mins away from a permanent farmers market and also 10 mins away from 2 subway stations.

Other news, I went to see more movies at Fantasia and I would really recommend No mercy for the rude and to a lesser extent Seven Days.
Seven days is a classic cop movie. It was good but predictable.
No mercy is really cool. The characters are deep and atypical.

I am also a little bummed out, because I just ripped the rear quarter panel on the Nova. It's going to need a replacement, but since it's not just a bolt on (there is welding involved where it meet the roof) I won't be able to fix this until I find a garage of some sort. It's prompting me to buy instead of renting. I am going to be on the lookout for a house or a condo with an private garage...

Recherche appart desesperement

What's going on...
nothing much really. At the same time it seems I don't have a minute for me.
Life is getting pretty stressful. I took the resolution of not talking about work so I will just say I got some news at work that stressed me out (basically, they have really high expectation for me, and I feel I am going to have a huge amount of work).
Aside from this, I am looking for an apartment and at the same time I am looking into buying. Deciding between renting and buying is really hard.
For me getting into a mortgage seems terrible.
I am looking for both I will probably take the first thing that I like, be it renting or buying.

Another thing stressing me out is my car situation. I have to put the Subaru up to conformity and the transporter ripped the nova exhaust. So I am driving the nova open exhaust and it's not really good. I went to a shop but they can't get the part, too old. I will probably store it until I find a garage where I can replace the exhaust on my own.

Aside from that, I got my climbing accreditation in a gym, which means I can start climbing again. So that's pretty good. I also picked up training at the gym at work and training is relaxing.

One of the good thing is the Fantasia Festival. I am really happy about the movies I have seen so far Beautiful Sunday and Adrift in Tokyo.

Condition Physique...

So I had my evaluation for the gym.
Basically, they test how I perform and how fat I am and they compare this to the average Joe in my age bracket and they get a good laugh.
I really like my trainer, she's fun.
So they started by taking my pressure and my weight and figure what: I am fat.
Then push up, abs stuff and jumping.
After that she made me run for a while. I stopped a little bit out of boredom.

I am in a somewhat OK shape, but I need to shape up, son. Specially if I want to run a marathon at some point, though I might not be able to because of work.

btw, I decided from now on to have my titles in French because on my French blog they're mostly in English.

Man, that post was boring...

Festivals...

So the festival season is kicking here.
It started a couple of weeks ago with the Main street fair. It's kind of the Union street fair, except longer and with less booze.
I have actually a pretty funny story about this festival.
It's called in French "le festival de la Main". French word main, spelled the same as main mean the hand (and a couple of years ago they had a hand on their flyer). I vaguely heard of a masturboton, so for the longuest time I though it was a masturbation festival until one day I was talking to a friend about it and I felt really, really dumb.


Then the famous Montreal Jazz Festival kicked in. It's just a clusterfuck with some of the main streets closed at night. I didn't go because it's not really my thing.
Today I saw them preparing for the "Just for Laughs" festival, which never made me laugh. It's stand up/comic festival which is again blocking some of the majors streets.
Since we are on the topic, today is moving day. For some reason, lease in Montreal (perhaps even the whole Quebec) usually run from July 1st to June 30th. So on July 1st, car rentals jack up the price of trucks, gas stations jack up the price of gas and people move.

Aside from all those high profile festivals, there is more underground one I missed very much which is starting in 2 days: fantasia. It started as asian film festival and expanded to include horror/quirky movies/cheap local production... It's awesome because it's the occasion of seeing movies which won't make it to the official theaters. It's also awesome for people who love B to Z movies (some are really bad). Some are also surprisingly good like Mermories of Murder or Running on Kharma, two movies I discovered there and got me into Korean movies.

Anyway if you are in the area, or you like asian culture/movies check out the site and try to see the movies they have selected.

What's up...

Not much...
My cars have been delivered in pure Sam style: The transporter called at 6pm to deliver at midnight. I succeeded in getting the cars delivered the next morning around 8am.
I don't know how they did it, but they ripped the exhaust pipe just n front of the muffler in two on the Nova...
So now I have to call them to try to get a reimbursement or something. I sent a couple of email but they never came back at me... Funny... They were calling me every 3hours when they were waiting for their payment.

On another note, I went climbing in a gym close to my hotel. It sucked. It's more expensive than the one I was going to in SF and they are a 1/3 of the size. The bouldering area is tiny (like 12 routes) and they are fucking hard.
There is another gym I am going to try next Sunday.

It's quite frightening, they have a lot of expectation for me. I am not sure I am going to be able to live up to them. But at the same time I want the fame and the glory of having pushed a project or something like that... Well I wanted the same on my last two projects and it never happened...
So we'll see.

I have a full rant on the public transportation, and a quick review of a game I am playing right now, but it's gonna have to wait. I have to wake up early tomorrow to do more paperwork with the health system (I don't get it, I am paying for an health insurance, but I still need to be under the equivalent of Medicare... Crazy...), so it's time to sleep.

Montreal IGDA chapter is wonderful...

I never realized how the Montreal IGDA chapter was vibrant and alive until I moved to San Francisco.
Last Thursday I went to their last gathering of the season, and it was awesome, even though I didn't win the PS3 at the raffle.
The event took place at the Montreal Spanish Social club. That club is awesome, it's a place where spanish people gather to feel at home. If I come back to SF, I will probably start a French Social Club.
We had a lot of Sangria and beer, I hanged with a group of people developping for mobile and it was really interesting to talk with them and see the difference in their approach compared to big houses on consoles or PC.
I hope the SF chapter is going to flourish again, as it is a really cool experience. Keep up the good work, Mr. T.
And all the kudos to Jason Della Rocca and the Montreal Chapter team for the organization...
Pictures here

Panicking...

So last Wednesday, my moving company sent me an email telling me they would deliver my stuff around July 4th.
I was like: "cool, I have time to shop for a place, a week before I can find a storage solution"
The next morning, I check my email (I can't check my email at work and I came home late that night) and I had an update telling me they would in fact deliver the next day. It's 2 weeks earlier than planned...
I had to run around that day to find a storage place. I finally found one late that afternoon. It's really conveniently placed, twenty minutes from my work and in a walking distance from a subway station. On Friday, I went to the customs (for some reason, Canadian customs require me to be there to clear my stuff).
Then I got a ride on the truck, a 75 ft long moving truck. It's 4m (12ft) high. It was really hard to get it in the docking bay at the storage facility. It took 4 people and 15/20 mins. We were lucky that the truck was equipped with air ride shocks and was able to lower itself because the door was 4m high.
The driver was alone to unload so I helped him. He is a really nice guy.

So now it's done. I still need to find a place and unfortunately the relocation specialist is not available on Monday, which would have been the best for me.

On the other hand, I still need to get some update from my cars. For all, I know they might be used for parts in Mexico.

Ranting is starting already...

So there is already a couple of things that are pissing me off...

I went back to the routine of taking the public transportation which I don't overly enjoy. It's crowded, smelly, always late but I can deal with that.

But I really miss the ergonomic desk and chair from LucasArts. Dushan is crazy not to love those chairs. I am ready to pay the freight to exchange chairs with the Dush...
I got a standard desk and a really crappy chair. It's rolling way too easily, there is no support for the back, and it's overall a really bad chair.

I already have back pains after only 3 days and I am thinking about shelling out for an Aeron for the job. The fully loaded goes for 1200$.

But I have to relate what happened today. I remember that the ergonomics guide told to set your monitor (did I say that my second monitor is an out of focus CRT... CRT are dead, we are in the 21st century) so that your eyes are roughly 1/3 down from the top of the screen. The top of my screen is level with my nose.
So I went to the company store and asked for a monitor stand, the plastic shit that cost 15$ at Staples. They told me I had to fill a form, a person would come to evaluate my workstation and then maybe I will get one. For a fucking 15$ piece of garbage...
I decided I will buy a crate of wine and use the crate as a stand.

Back in the game...

Tonight for the first time in 4 months I went back to running...
I was way out of shape, extra slow, but I made it.
It was my first time since I broke my collar bone, my previous attempts ended really quickly.

I ran 5km with a .5 km in the middle. My pace was fairly slow but it's a start.

I need to ramp up pretty quickly because I want to be able to run a half end of August/ early September and I am still determined to run a full mid October.
I hope my SF posse will be there to cheer me up/collect me at the finishing line.

I'll keep you updated with my progress.

Btw, I didn't puke and I didn't stretch...

Back in Montreal...

So yeah, for those of you who don't know already, I am back in Montreal...
It feels really weird being back there. Nothing has changed much and it is frightening me. I hoped people from Quebec would have become a little more open minded and ok with english speaking surrounding them but it seems the other way around...
Right now I live at the hotel but I don't really like the area where it is situated. but it's only temporary so no biggy....
It's fun to see my friend though... The newbie tour was hilarious because each room we would stop at someone would dart across the floor to hug me or shake my hand.
There is one thing that piss me off though, there is a Stephen Watson on my team so it's going to be confusing (actually it has already been when he joined last year since some friend though it was me coming back and, knowing them, he probably cried under the flood of emails). Plus I am Samuel Watson 2, probably because they kept my old account somewhere... Actually, my email didn't change so I am still receiving email from the old mailing lists I was part of.

Now I have to find a place to live, but I am a little worried about my stuff. I haven't had any update on where they're at. I am going to start by finding a storage place tomorrow and I should probably start by getting a phone number.

I'll keep you updated with what is happening...