happy Montrealers at festival

In honor of the Festival of laughs , the popular travel guide called Montreal one of the 10 happiest places.

The popular Lonely Planet travel guide picked Montreal for its list of cheerful locales, noting that Canada’s second-largest city hosts one of the world’s biggest comedy events every July.

“Clean, welcoming and refreshingly multicultural, Montréal is happy enough year-round. Come July, though, it’s downright hilarious. Just For Laughs takes over the city in summer, packing venues with the best in both Anglo- and Francophone comedy. It’s one of the biggest comedy gatherings in the world, hosting many a top-drawer wisecracker. Shows sell out fast, as even the less known acts are virtually guaranteed to be a riot. But even if you can’t get a ticket you can giggle along – every night the city’s Latin Quarter is abuzz with street performers, parading puppets and a fantasia of fireworks.
First mention on the list went to the South Pacific island paradise of Vanuatu — which has the advantage of being considerably warmer than the next city listed, Montreal.

Lonely Planet’s list highlighted some lesser-known spots. Montreal is the only Canadian location selected, along with places in China, Japan, Colombia and Africa.

The selection was made in May but when it was picked up by the Huffington Post it caused a stir.

photo by Carre

Montreal has always been the city of festivals and the city of lovers of the outdoors
The world’s largest bike festival is slated take place between May 30th and June 6th.
Posted at ibackpackcanada.com/montreal-bike-fest-lighting-up-in-june-2/

Bicycle gear swap

A chance to buy and sell anything bikewise is scheduled this Sunday April 18th byCyclnordsud.
read more at montreal.blogspot.com

Established in September 2000, Casa Del Popolo (The House of the People) is Montréal’s only family-run neighborhood vegetarian hot-spot! Part fair-trade café, part music venue, part bar, and part art galleryhe 2010 edition of independent music festival Under the Snow is an innovative cultural event that promote independent music ranging from post-rock, electronic, shoegaze, experimental and more.

check out their site

http://www.underthesnow.ca/en/

Ignite Montreal Event

Ignite Montreal

March 2nd, 2010
7:30pm – midnight

Montreal will join 50+ cities around the world in hosting an event during the Ignite Global Week

At La Sala Rossa

http://www.ignitemontreal.com/

Montreal Juniors

A new initiative , sponsored by Pediapharm inc. will allow Big brothers Big sisters of greater Montreal to pursue their goal of decreasing the dropout rate in dozens of schools throughout the Lester B. Pearson School Board.The montreal Juniors Hockey Club releaed on monday, in the LaSalle Boulevard’s Crescendo restaurant in Verdun, the 2009 edition of the  “Score with School Edition” program.
On hand for the event was Mr. Sylvain Chrétien, president and CEO of Pediapharm inc., whose company reiterated its social commitment with a donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Montreal, represented by Mrs. Ginette Sauvé, the organization’s director general. Mrs. Sauvé also announced Mr. Pascal Vincent’s instatement as official francophone spokesperson of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Montreal. Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo serves as the organization’s anglophone counterpart, participating actively in recruiting English-speaking mentors. As of today, the organization can count on Pascal Vincent to do the same.

The Montreal Juniors and Pediapharm are thus affiliated to the Big Brothers Big Sisters in a mentoring program whose goal is to prevent dropouts at the elementary and secondary school levels by offering a tutoring service adapted to the needs of each child. The first step of the “Score with school!” program will begin with the support of the Lester B. Pearson School Board. Four season tickets will be distributed to each participating school, tickets that will then be given to students having achieved good grades or an improvement in their behaviour or academic results, and this, before each Montreal Juniors home game. Mr. Marcus Tabachnick, Chairman of the Board of the Lester B. Pearson School Board, Mr. Martin Routhier, president of the team, as well as the players and coaches of the Montreal Juniors Hockey Club were also present. This event was thus the first public outing of the 2009-2010 edition of the Montreal Juniors, now in their second season.

“We are extremely proud of this new association. Each party will welcome many young people who will appreciate the players’ performance. We would also like to thank Pediapharm, who has become involved with us in this project,” said Ginette Sauvé, director general of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Montreal. “I’m proud to see to see all these people involved in the success of our youth. The education and health of our children represent the future of our society. Pediapharm’s involvement is important and our clientele is composed of some of the Montreal Juniors’ biggest fans—the children. Thank you to the Montreal Juniors Hockey Club and Big Brothers Big Sisters,” added Mr. Sylvain Chrétien, president and CEO of Pediapharm inc.

posted at oursportcentral.com

checking out the new tricycles

Mayor Michael Applebaum and Councillor Marcel Tremblay test out new electric tricycles used by the cleanliness brigade.

Green Plan

In 2008 , the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Borough Council adopted the borough’s very first Green Plan. The borough’s goal with this plan is to rally all local economic and social development players around a common vision, to focus on the environment. The Green Plan is also intended to encourage projects and measures that will help enhance the environment and residents’ quality of life.

The Green Plan is the outcome of several months of work and consultations with borough residents, organizations, partners, employees and councillors. As a result, the Green Plan – covering the period from 2008 to 2012 – belongs to all borough residents.

Press Release at Ville dEMontreal

police robot

Montreal police have had a bomb disposal robot named Andros since 1995.

A much newer version is shown here.

The older version of Andros has a large control box with toggle switches and a tv screen.  The Montreal police department will be replacing Andros as he is getting old.

Andros has been used to x-ray packages and safely dismantle them.  One part of Andros is removable and the bomb squad kept misplacing it. So they wrote on it,If found, please call Montreal police bomb ..

By Chief Robot..Filed in Robot News….

Montreal's Bixi program offers 3,000 bikes for rent at 300 stations - Corinne Smith/CBC

BIXI — a coupling of the words “bicycle” and “taxi” — is the name of Montreal’s new public bike system, a first in Canada and a North American premiere in terms of its scale. Increasingly widespread in Europe — public bikes are a hit in Paris, Barcelona and Lyon — Montreal’s BIXI bike service is fully operational as of May 12, 2009 with 3,000 bicycles available for self-service at 300 stations across three boroughs: Ville-Marie, Plateau Mont-Royal and Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie.
$15-million Bixi program was officially launched Tuesday at city hall, where Mayor Gérald Tremblay took the first ride.

“It was conceived and fabricated in Montreal, in Quebec,” he told a crowd of onlookers gathered for the Bixi launch. “It’s a unique product that should make us proud.”

Three-thousand bikes are available for short-term rental around Montreal’s downtown core.

The bikes, which cost $2,000 apiece, are made of aluminum and are theft-proof, according to their designers.

The bikes contain a GPS chip, and if rented and not returned will “slow down, and the brakes will lock automatically,” explained Julian Joseph, a Montreal high school student who’s part of a team hired by the city to repair the bike fleet.

Some 300 stations have been set up to store and pick up bikes.

Cyclists can subscribe to the service at a cost of $78 for a year, $28 for a month or $5 for a day. The first 30 minutes of each rental are free.

Posted CBC with files from Canadian Press