Posted by Skrud at Thursday, December 8th 2005 at 9:53am
As if to mock me, when I finally did get back online after my adventure in the previous post and looked up Île-sans-fil hotspots for future reference, I noticed that on Ste-Catherine right near the corner of McKay, next door to La Belle Province was Café Vienne. Not only does this place have free wireless internet access, but it also has some damn good coffee.
So if you’re looking for me during these stressful exam times, you know where I’ll be - laptop unfurled and textbook in hand.
Tags: random | 6 comments
Posted by Skrud at Thursday, December 8th 2005 at 9:17am
I’m always looking for good coffee around Concordia. It seems that despite the proximity to university, there is very little in the way of choice when it comes to coffee. You have the large chains: Second Cup, Starbucks, Tim Hortons and the smaller yet atmospheric Java U - which I usually go to out of convenience. I have no shortage of rants about the coffee at these places.
Another thing I look for in coffee shops is free internet. Ultimately if I’m going to be sitting there having some coffee, it’s usually because I need to be doing something, which is why I often end up at Java U in the Hall building to take advantage of Concordia’s wireless services – even though their coffee sucks.
A couple of mornings ago Concordia’s wireless network was mysteriously non-functional, so Michel and I ended up wandering around the city looking for a free hotspot. We’re lucky enough to live in a city with a fantastic volunteer-based free hotspot service, Île-sans-fil, that finding free hotspots is usually not a problem. They have a large list of hotspots all over the downtown area, concentrated mostly around the plateau. There’s even a list of the hotspots surrounding Concordia in the ECA Agenda this year. Unfortunately, between the two of us we didn’t have one – I even looked around the ECA office for one, too – and since the wireless network was down, we couldn’t just look up the hotspot map online.
We walked from McKay to St-Laurent, and couldn’t find a single free wireless hotspot. It seems Second Cup has signed up with HotPoint or something that charges a good $7/some hrs for Internet, while many other coffee shops use Eye-In which charges something like $7/4 hrs or $34.95/mo for subscription access. Which is disgusting, because broadband internet connection at home doesn’t even cost so much.
I think Île-sans-fil should start putting up posters around the downtown Montreal area showing hotspots within the area. It would be some good advertising, and I know it would help out hapless people like myself. It’s difficult to look up local hotspots online when you’re not online to look them up!
Tags: concordia, random, rants | 4 comments
Posted by Skrud at Tuesday, November 22nd 2005 at 7:22pm
So there was that time I got really, really drunk at the Halloween party & after party & after after party, where I’m told I was playing Symphony of Destruction on Mike’s guitar while chugging moonshine.
Download the mp3 (1.9 MB)
I think all you can really hear is the drunken rambling, and me missing some strings when Chris started pouring the wine into my mouth. That stuff was powerful. I wonder who was singing - I hope it wasn’t me.
(Thanks to Mike for finally sending me the clip he recorded on his crappy computer microphone)
Tags: random | 1 comment
Posted by Skrud at Tuesday, November 15th 2005 at 1:21pm
This is the only city in the world where a weather forecast could potentially look like this, with a high of 18 and a low of -3, in the middle of November.
(This is also the first time I’ve ever seen the snowy graphic in the Dashboard Weather applet)
As Harley pointed out, the hail graphic is prettier:
Tags: random | 12 comments
Posted by Skrud at Friday, November 11th 2005 at 11:00am
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row and row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Tags: random | 3 comments
