The Wild Winter That Was 2008.

You know, Montreal really does roll the winners as far as winters go. Who can forget the savage seven day stretch of -30 temps in January 89? How about the viciousness of the Icestorm of 1998? It's now the 10th of April 2008 and I still have over three feet of snow in my f@#king backyard.
We should have known that with the mild November and start to December that we would have to pay for it on the other end. The city really did its best to keep on top of the snow removal,at least our section of the city, but the sheer amount of snow dumped by four major ( 30cm plus) storms caused lengthy disruptions to traffic, life and living in Montreal this Winter.

There is an old Cucumber Rock song that goes ' don't know what you got till it's gone'. I came to learn just how true that is this winter. The whole point of living in a lower apartment is having the backyard for the dogs. Space for them to play in and call their own. When your four and five foot fences disappear they think they own the whole damn block. Let them out for a quick pee before bed and it turns into a T shirt & shorts chase down the alley in minus double digits yelling at two retarded jailbirds who can't quite pull together an organized getaway. Murray, the Samoyed mix used to be real good at it. Gone for days, till we could find out which pound he was at. I think the whole concept of leaving the general vicinity of the food dish was a little confusing to Nalin, and she was slowing him down. At one point we were having to tie the fluffy one up if he was going out. That didn't work for him at all. What's important in the end is that there were no major incidents and both of them made it through the winter safe and healthy.
The great thing about a cold brutal winter like we had was the lack of flu season. The warmer temperatures of the last few years bred virus on top of virus. Not this year. I've already got my fingers crossed and bought a new shovel for next year.

Raffle winner saves giant lobster
By Les Perreaux



Click here to find out more!

MONTREAL — Goliath the giant lobster was hours away from a scalding, steamy end at a Boston-area Super Bowl party when Marlene Casciano looked deep into his beady eyes.

Casciano bought a raffle ticket, won the 20-pound New England bar prize and set off a rescue mission that will land the large crustacean in a Montreal aquarium.

“I really wanted this after seeing the lobster, just the sheer size of him was incredible,” said Casciano, who says she normally eats lobster like “a good New Englander.”

“People were explaining to me that he would have to be really old to get to that size. It just seemed to me he deserved to live rather than end up in a boiling pot.”

Casciano was with friends at a bar called Steamers in Taunton, Mass., when she caught a glimpse of the lobster, likely aged somewhere between 30 and 50 years, with a crusher claw the size of her forearm.

“I was actually holding the tickets and started praying so we could rescue him,” said Casciano, who works at a Boston executive training firm.

“I was so excited.”

After winning the draw, she named the beast Goliath for his obvious girth as well as in honour of the Super Bowl champion New York Giants.

As a diehard fan of the defeated New England Patriots, it seemed fitting to toss her own Giant into the ocean from a Cape Cod beach.

“The bar owner got such a kick out of me,” she said. “He started explaining, ‘No, you can’t just dump him on the beach, you need a boat, it would have to go deep in the ocean.’ It wasn’t as simple as I was thinking.”

Goliath went back into the bar’s lobster tank for the night, and the next day Casciano started calling wildlife experts, including the New England Aquarium in Boston.

It turned out the Montreal Biodome had just been in touch about acquiring a giant lobster, should one fall on the doorstep of the Boston aquarium.

Serge Pepin, the Biodome’s curator of animal collections, says he was looking for a large specimen for his aquarium’s 2.5-million-litre tank.

“Large lobsters are pretty rare and pretty impressive for the public,” Pepin said.

“American lobster is a key species of our collection plan for the St. Lawrence ecosystem. We have smaller specimens that are not so easily seen, so this specimen will be wonderful.”

The day after the Super Bowl, Casciano swaddled Goliath in towels soaking in salt water and ice packs, and bundled him into her car for the hour-long drive to the Boston aquarium.

The rubber band immobilizing his finger-snapping claw fell off.

“So there he was, alone in the car with me, with his crusher claw free,” she said. “It was a bit nerve-racking, but he didn’t move around at all.”

Goliath is doing well in a quarantine tank at the New England Aquarium, brandishing his claws at anyone who comes near. He is expected to move to Canada once paperwork is completed early next month. He will likely go on display a few weeks later.

“He’s very alert, and being very aggressive about defending his territory,” said aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse.

LaCasse said there is an important conservation element to Casciano’s good deed. Biologists and fishery authorities in Canada and the United States try to discourage feasting on large lobsters.

The reproduction rates of lobsters over five pounds are exponentially higher than those of the one-pound lobster more often found on plates.

In parts of Canada and Maine, which produces 80 per cent of the U.S. lobster supply, anything more than five pounds must be thrown back.

LaCasse says large lobsters make up a small market share, and are often desired more for the spectacle than the meat.

The big ones don’t even taste very good, Pepin adds.

“It’s not so good to eat, the flesh is tough, it’s really not so interesting.”


I am so there at the Biodome as soon as this bad boy shows up. What a great story. He is gonna so rock the St Lawrence tank. Snapping at the 6 foot Sturgeon and Arctic Char. A great excuse to go back soon.

Holy Trustfunds, Batman!

ELLWOOD CITY, Pa. - Holy collectibles, Batman!

A near-mint copy of Detective Comics No. 27, a pre-Second World War comic featuring Batman's debut, was recently found in an attic and sold to a local collector.

The comic is considered to be the second-most valuable available and can fetch up to US$500,000. The only comic considered more valuable is Action Comics No. 1, in which Superman makes his first appearance.

Collector Todd McDevitt said the Batman issue he bought is worth about $250,000, but he won't say exactly how much he paid or who sold it to him.

"It was a typical story of someone cleaning up junk in their attic and finding an old comic book and wondering if this was one of those ones that was worth a lot of money," McDevitt told the Beaver County Times.

McDevitt, owner of the Pittsburgh region's five New Dimension Comics stores, said he has been saving money since 1986 so that he could buy a valuable comic when it appeared.

When the seller walked in with the Batman issue, "my eyes almost popped out of my head," McDevitt said.

"I guess I should have been more reserved, but I'm not a very good poker player," he said.

Experts estimate there are between 20 and a few hundred copies of the Batman debut.

McDevitt's comic now sits safely in an airtight bag in a bank vault. On occasion, he takes it out to show friends and customers.

"I've been toying with the idea of reading it, but I haven't yet," he said. "I'm going to savour it.


No matter who you are, when you see one of these stories of a comic book selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars,it has to freak you out. The guy has been saving money since 1986 in the hopes of one day... wait for it.... buying a comic. I know that collectors are collectors and its a type of mania that will someday rank up there with pedophiles and necrophiliacs( some would say they are already combined thanks to you sick beanie baby lot!) on the can't help themselves scale. Being an enthusiast is cool, that's what keeps the industries going. But when you see dudes with tons of money making crazy bids on things and hoarding them just to stroke their own ego and POSSESS, you have to kind of sit back and go - is this 70 year old, mint condition, ground breaking comic of which there will probably not be more copies ever found in this condition - worth 5 to 10 years salary of an average working class Joe? I would be really interested in knowing what the people who found the comic end up doing with the $200,000.They've probably always had their eye on those Royal Dalton figurines of Wayne and Garth on Ebay......

A Strange Dream I Had

I had a strange dream the other night.I was at a show in a small town. This was obvious by the fact that the band was playing on an outdoor,screened in veranda. The band reminded me of Berurier Noir, wearing clockwork orange gear, but with Chi Pig singing. Very serious stuff. Then there came a song where the band just stopped in the middle of the song and calmly set down their instruments and slowly start to file out of the porch into the night. Chi stays there, frozen in space, staring down the crowd with his best solo era Rollins gaze. As if on cue the crowd starts to leave too. After a couple of minutes every one is gone except me. I've had a couple and I've got a full one, very comfortable perched on the picnic table. Minutes pass and I realize that his eyes are on me staring me down so hard his eyebrows look like they are about to slam shut like a bear trap. I begin to become aware of someone to the side behind me. This petite woman in glasses and all kinds of tats ,approaches me and tells me I have to leave. I ask why.S he says that its the artists usual grand finale, representing each persons solitary fight against madness. Once he has stared down every one of his "demons" he can exit through the back of the hall and everyone will be allowed to re enter the club. I tell her that its the loopiest thing I've ever heard of. She insists that I have to leave to conclude the performance. I ask her if closing and covering my eyes while he made his escape would do. Finally she tells me shes willing to give me an autographed copy of a book written about Chi. I start to laugh and tell her that I'll give in and leave. As I exit through the front door the crowd has formed a wide arc and begin applauding. Confused I look for a escape route through the throng. They advance and begin to slap me on the back and rub my head. An acquaintance I don't recognize but somehow feel comfortable with,tells me I have set a new best time at 6:38 ...and I awake to this time on the clock.

Now the moral of this story might be don't take yourself or others too seriously. And the moral might be don't eat greasy shit before going to bed which my buddy Will blames strange dreams I remember on. Either way I wouldn't mind finding that club, nice fresh air, good beer and the smell of BBQ.

Attention!! The Beer Is Safe!! Attention!!

When the story broke a few months ago about the tampering with Stella Artois bottles two things came to mind right away. First was - why would someone spike bottles of beer randomly? The second was - wow! That's really going to affect those two old french codgers in Chicoutimi who actually drink Stella. Now see story below.


Brewer gets to bottom of tainted beer problem
CanWest News Service
TORONTO -- Labatt Breweries said Thursday they have discovered how some Stella Artois beer bottles, sold at Canadian bars earlier this summer, were filled with concentrated alcohol.
An investigation determined the affected bottles were intended for display purposes only and had been filled with concentrated alcohol as a replacement liquid, the brewer said in a prepared statement.
In July the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Labatt warned the public about the problem.
The CFIA was advised of six bottles suspected of being tampered with in which concentrated alcohol was put into 330 ml Stella Artois beer bottles.
These incidents occurred with beer sold at restaurants and bars in Toronto and Kamloops, B.C.
"It appears that in a few isolated incidents, a bottle was removed from a display, and then later inadvertently placed into the bar fridge and subsequently provided to a customer," the company said in a prepared statement. "The investigation clearly showed that the incidents were accidental and there was no intent to harm consumers in any way."
The brewer said it has undertaken two comprehensive reviews to identify and retrieve bottles associated with the displays.
Labatt has also implemented strict, new control procedures related to marketing displays.

© CanWest News Service 2007

OK, so my first question was answered. But more are created. Replacement liquid? why wouldn't you just put regular bottles out there for display. Was the concentrated alcohol way cheaper than beer? And why would a bar owner - any bar owner - not be expected to try and sell something that was given to him for free? I guess all the bad press dooms us to a couple more years of those retarded 'artsy' Stella ads on television to build the consumer base back up after this fiasco. I can't imagine the relief in Chicoutimi tonight.

Killer Riffs, Rolled Up Cuffs And Beer That Tastes Like Crematory Ashes.

A buddy of mine put me onto a band he knew a few months ago. These guys are a Psychobilly (rockabilly songwriting with Misfits/ghoulish lyrics and themes)band from Victoria called the Switchblade Valentines. I checked out their Myspace page and found that the music was good and the production was great for an independent.
Later I find out they are doing a Canadian tour and would be coming to Montreal in September. Great. I set about getting more info on the band and the whole sub - culture. Found an old web site for the band that had the whole first album online for listening. Fun stuff. Digging into Psycho leads me to find out that Montreal, Calgary, and southern BC seem to be the hotbeds for this retro fitted, hot rod loving, roller derby obsessed, but otherwise harmless lifestyle. I won't call it a fad. There have always been billy scenes in every city. The ones today are just a little more jaded with punk backgrounds.
The show is at a small bar on St. Laurent & St. Catherine. Good size crowd out front smoking. Five clams to get in and stamped. The bar is set up like an older apartment. Open area with the bar in front, long hallway to the back, and another open space in the back where the stage is. More ink in here than at the Globe & Mail. The smell of denim and leather hits me in the face the way smoke used to. With the people outside the crowd seems to be about sixty deep. Best that can be expected for a Tuesday night. I had a couple of drinks and six or seven beer before leaving home so I'm glowing. Pitchers are $9 and come with four shots. We take Apple Jacks.
The band hits the stage with a fury that flattens the twenty odd people who make their way to the back to check out the music. First song, broken strings, knocked over drum kit and I know I'm definitely gonna need more beer. My buddy motions me to the bar. We knock the shots and chase with the beer while returning to the action. Somethings not right the beer goes down like one of those halfers you grab on Sunday morning only to discover there are two smokes inside. At first I figure its just the taste of the Apple Jacks fuckin with the taste of the micro brew. Nah the beer is really off.

This bunch of guys really kicks ass. I have never seen a drummer play standing up like that before. Well I have, but not while playing this fast. Too bad most of the crowd left when they started playing. Only about thirty people left in the whole place. Its the 25th of September, and we had an unusually hot day. The walls are melting in this little space and the singer isn't far behind. The boys are going breakneck now just trying to finish the set. They blaze through the last tune and run for smokes outside. I intercept the guitar player and chat for a minute ( he's from Hartland, down home, and a buddy told me to make sure to say Hi) and then make my way out and to the metro.
Good energy from the music and the crowd. Gonna make sure to check out more of the Psycho scene. Feel free to go check out the Switchblade Valentines at:
http://www.myspace.com/theswitchbladevalentines
and feel even freer to go check out any and all unsigned independent bands coming through your town. They are just hard working people like you and me that spend their vacations draggin' it across country to bring you the rock.

The Long %@&# Of The Law

I know this motif is tired , but go check this out and come back.

http://www.team4news.com/Global/story.asp?S=7007931


Now I don't know how things happen in your two or even three hot dog stand towns that you come from, but how did a story like this slide by in early September with no one asking all the obvious questions? I searched for a couple of weeks for follow up stories, then finally the other day, I found this.


Accused Texas Police Chief Is Fired
11 Sep 22, 2007 6:02 AM days ago)
AP
ALTON, Texas (Map, News) - The police chief in this southern Texas town has been fired weeks after he was accused of sexually assaulting two male employees.
Jose Luis Vela was suspended after his Aug 29. arrest on two charges of sexual assault. Three more current and former police department employees have since accused Vela of sexual harassment.
City Manager Jorge Arcaute fired Vela Friday for poor record keeping and possible theft of confiscated items. He said allegations surfaced accusing Vela of stealing alcohol confiscated by his department.
Vela said he never took confiscated beer, nor was he involved in logging items. He is out on bail and plans to plead not guilty to the charges.
Investigators have accused Vela of performing oral sex on a male employee after the man passed out drunk at a party about a year ago at Vela's home in Mission, according to court documents. Vela is also accused of violating a different male employee with an object while that man was passed out at a party in July, Sheriff Lupe Trevino said.
Alton is a town of about 4,400 residents, located 10 miles north of the Mexican border in the Rio Grande Valley.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Now on a further 10 second Google search of our dear sheriffs name this was produced.

http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/fraud/frpress.html
Texas Department of Insurance Issues Top Ten Fraud List
April 18, 2006

9. Jose Vega, a former Texas Peace Officer, filed a claim with his insurer for $7,790.50 in items stolen during a burglary of his residence. The burglary never happened and the items were not stolen. Vega received five years deferred adjudication, was ordered to complete 260 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay $7,790.50 in restitution. In addition Vega was ordered to surrender his peace officer license to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education.

So this guy, who had already lost his cushy state job, and was relegated to a two burro border town, likes to blow off some steam by getting drunk on Friday night and throw the lubbin'into his passed out deputies. Questions??? Damn right.

1) While these yahoos are partying and getting their freak on, how many people can be manning the fort in a town of 4,000
2) How many boxes of cracker jacks did this man have to buy to get another badge?
3) How exactly did it come up in casual office conversation that you had passed out and woke up with your boss wiping your goo off his chin. "Oh yeah? Me too!!".
4) Why didn't he just go and hang out at rest stops or airport washrooms like any normal, upstanding american.

So remember the next time your boss invites you over to his place for a party on Friday night, launch into your best crotch scratching fit and and tell him you would if you weren't dealing with alot of leakage from your burning haemorrhoids.