Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Lapierre

How sweet it is to see a guy like Max Lapierre who's been grinding his way up there score a hat trick last night still grinding in a game over stealing a puck from that fat McCabe fuck(can feel the old T.O. rivalry here ;) to score in an open net. Gave me goosebumps.

New apartment Paris 11e



It all started with JR craziness of the moment to tear his place down to make a loft and to show a beautiful rock wall that was hiding out there. Then he decided he was moving to Vietnam so has we became like brothers he offered me his place. So now I live in this nice little apartment which I contributed to, feels good to live somewhere you helped building up a little. So much went on in here, its a little weird at first but I will get use to it. My landlords are now his parents, they helped me move here and are just too cool with me. That ancient antique wardrobe you can see is like 150 years old and belonged to JR parents great grand-parents. Took us 3 ours to put it back together. Plus, I use my 2 first months of rent to buy furniture(1600Euros), can't wait to put the place together... thanks buddy, good work! Enjoy yourself in Nam.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Ripple Effect

There is a man. He lives in a village. He has one stallion. He uses it for work. One day the horse runs away. Everyone in the village comes to him and says “Oh, we are so sorry for you. Now you are so poor”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

The next day the horse returns and brings 20 mares with it. All the people in the village say ”Praise God. You are the richest man in the village. You must be so happy”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

The next day his son rides the stallion, and he falls from it. He is paralyzed. And all people in the village come and say ”We are so so sorry. You are the poorest man now. It’s a horrible thing that happened to your son”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

The next day a war breaks out, and all children from the village are called to go to war. But his son stays behind because he is paralyzed. People in the village say ” You must be so happy. You got to keep your son, and all our sons had to go to war”. And the man says ”Maybe. Maybe not”.

Life is guiding us to something...

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Automakers Bailout

Coping with a Genetically Engineered Environment : "The Future of Food" Documentary

You've all heard about Monsanto genetically engineered seed and its unethical patent infringement lawsuits against farmers that happen to have their crop contaminated with the unwanted and intrusive GE seeds. It's pathetic to see how the economical greed of Mega Corporations can have catastrophic biological consequences, which some fear, might even become a treat to existence of life by eliminating diversity.

What is so scary is that mankind doesn't fully understand the consequences of these genetic modifications yet. The scientific community is currently very concerned by the genetic engineering technique consisting of inserting an antibiotic marker gene in the insertion package to then be able to test if that same insertion package was successfully attached. The medical community is terrified at the concept of loosing that antibiotic because it is suspected that the antibiotic gene markers might lead to an increase of the numbers of bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic.

As Ignacio Chapela said in the documentary, "This is probably the largest biological experiment humanity has ever entered into" and we are not testing on rats but on earth's population.

I recommend everyone to take the time to view this documentary to be able to put what you eat in perspective. See the entire documentary on youtube with the following playlist, it consists of 9 parts of 10 minutes

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Slideshare and Twitter

Calendrier du Pinna
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.


I started to use 2 new free online information sharing applications last week and both are pretty good in what they do.

  • Slideshare. To view and post and keep track of slide shows.
  • Twitter. After all the hype around it, I decided to give it a try my account. I think if your friends start using it it can be very convenient instead of all these instant messages and emails to huge lists of people... lets see.
  • Finally going to Mont Blanc

    The first week of riding for this season is now booked for January 13th in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains / Mont Blanc We'll have a big house for the week with the Sophia-Antipolis crew, the Chilenos and Max, should be a good one.

    Then I'll probably have a week with Max and Benny Blanco in Max's friends apartment in Chambéry in February.

    To top that, we are in the process of booking the second week of march in Austria/Switzerland with mates from Montreal, Germany and France.

    Can't wait to wax the board and hit the POWDA....

    Monday, December 15, 2008

    Thursday, December 11, 2008

    Théatre "Elle t'attend finale" -- Leatitia Casta

    Last week, Benny Blanco sent a mail saying there was this play with his friend Magali, opening the link of the play the main character was Leatitia Casta, famous Corsican model considered by many and myself like the most beautiful model/women in the world in the 90's. So I said I would join the crew, we had tickets in the front balcony 2 meters from the stage with a surreal view. Since it was the last representation, there was a nice champagne soirée with the actors, that followed witch was easy to enjoy. Good Paris night out tonight that I'll remember for a long time....

    Sunday, December 07, 2008

    ICON A5 Sport plane

    This plane is insane, for 140K you get this toy instead of a Mazaratti. Once you get your hands on one you just need to get your new FAA sport liscence (FAA's Sport Pilot Certificate / Light Sport Aircraft Category - LSA) and your ready to go. The first planes will be ready in 2010.

    Check out the Amphibious model flying tests and ICON's website

    Saturday, December 06, 2008

    Money As Debt - How banks create money

    Simple informative video describing the power of the banking system, the incoherence of its fundamentals in creating money that does not exist and the impacts it has on society.

    "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in.

    But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." -- Sir Josiah Stamp

    Thursday, December 04, 2008

    Bruno Blanchet made my day

    Bruno Blanchet - Le pauvre petit Bonhomme pas de cou

    This video is monstrous, those will be my moves for the next night out.

    Wednesday, December 03, 2008

    3 must see Movies


    Mulholland Drive
    Is a David Linch masterpiece you probably all know of. A mistery film exhibiting some film noir and surrealism perspectives, a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality, that will leave you out of words and with no certainty on whats going on.

    Ripple Effect
    Is a good LA movie with a spiritual awakening plot, the way it was shot is great and the message is one I believe in.

    RedBelt
    Is a Indie Jujitsu movie I saw on the plane coming back from Montreal and is a good picture, shows good attitude, lots of deceptions and how to prevail. I love Jujitsu.

    Sunday, November 30, 2008

    Moving Paris 11e arrondissement

    A few months ago my buddy JR decided to take all the walls of his apartment down to make a loft of it, lots of work and now the loft is taking place. JR also decided to move to Vietnam next month on a venture to expand his business, which leads to me moving in the loft when its ready, should be exciting.

    I have been living for almost 2 years in a beautiful 27m2 apartment rue Francois Miron in Paris 4e arrondissement. The location is perfect and I am a little sad to move out, losing all my little St-Paul shops and restaurant just beside my door but I'm doubling in size and I have a good decoration budget. Let's do it...

    Wednesday, November 26, 2008

    Neige et Ski sur la Cote d'azur ce week-end?


    jipp: t'es la ce we?
    max: je vais skier!
    jipp: what the fuck? tu va en suede ou quoi?
    Max: Nice baby!
    Y'avait 10 cm de neige dans les rues d'Antibes lundi soir.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/27272993@N06/sets/72157610012416146/
    Je dois aller a Sophia pour une reunion vendredi. Je ramene le char pourri d'Adrien dimanche et je ski samedi.

    C'est zarebi de voir le vieux port d'Antibes sous la neige!

    Sunday, November 23, 2008

    Sabourin NHL #1 GAA

    How surreal to open the NHL.com stats page and see one of your long time best mates line up there in the #1 spot. He's been having the the best goal against average and save percentage for a little while but before yesterday's game, hadn't played enough games to be in the leader position. Good job buddy, and good pic, look like a bad ass!

    Wednesday, November 05, 2008

    Ideal, Scandinavie, Quebec, Video

    Petit video envoye par une pot Quebecoise qui habite a Stockhom que j'ai croise lors de ma derniere visite la bas dans un port...


    L'Idéal
    envoyé par muvmedia

    Tuesday, November 04, 2008

    Greece 2008

    Greece October 2008


    Sweet 6 day getaway with the Thibault cousins in Athens and the Islands. Slept 2 nights in Spetses where we were the only tourists! Beautiful sunny weather, the sea was not too cold, the retsina very good ... not too shabby!

    Les Justiciers masqués, Think big...

    "Le piège des Justiciers masqués tendu à Sarah Palin a obtenu 30% de plus de volume de couverture dans le monde que les élections canadienne" Article cyberpresse
    Truc de fou! Bravo! When same!
    Pour ceux qui n'aurait pas entendu le desormais celebre prank, suivez ce lien.

    Thursday, October 23, 2008

    Mac OS X 10.5.5 Combo Updater - DAVKit.framework issue

    MBP Core Duo running 10.5.4 using the Mac OS X 10.5.5 Combo Updater.
    After that the Finder kept crashing and generating CrashReporter errors about DavKit.framework.
    Thank to this apple forum post, a simple replacement of the DAVKit.framwork System library I was able to save my leopard :)

    Radar automatiques Paris: Changements, attention motos!!

    Certains radars automatiques de Paris qui étaient de face ont récemment changer de sens pour être de derrière. Je me suis presque fait prendre à celui Porte de Passy Mardi soir, merci au motard qui roulait devant moi de m'avoir rallenti devant le radar :) Voir le site radars-auto

    Tuesday, October 21, 2008

    First game in 08-09

    As unhappy I was Sabou didn't get the start on the Sunday night game in Stockholm, so amazing was it to watch him rock monday night on his season debut when I came back from Athens. Late night it is to watch hockey in Paris though ....
    Sabou what up with the hair? Feels good to have no more, maybe I should use the clipper also :) Giddy up!

    Wednesday, October 15, 2008

    Greece meteo for the next few days ....

    How happy am I today to hop on that plane for 6 days in Greece, especially when its sad and rainy in Paris :)

    Tuesday, October 14, 2008

    Volatility / Opportunity

    Friday, I started looking on buying back back my stocks that had the hardest beat up but didn't get a chance to buy them before the bell. Nortel at 1,25$ and Bombardier at 3,50$ (which I sold at 6$ a few weeks back) looked pretty attractive and 2 indexes from ishares iShares CDN S&P/TSX Energy Sector Index and (poundered 60 % down in the bear run last month) and the iShares CDN S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund.

    When learning about the 1700 Billion bailout plan from the Euro Zone I was really pissed I didn't step in on Friday but still tought there would be some opportunity on tuesday morning when TSX opens up after 3 days of non trading, but I was left a little perplex when I saw the bids before the opening. I guess I'll wait a little for the speculation craziness to settle down before I get in. These days I just wish I could trade all day. I want to get in the energy iShare index before the end of the day if it falls bellow 15.

    Saturday, October 11, 2008

    Afghanistan



    A cousin of mine just got sent to Afghanistan for the Canadian army to fight a war that isn't ours. Looks like he's enjoying the experience and wish him all the best. Got in touch with him on Facebook and got to see some pretty cool pictures. Keep safe little man .... feels like you were just a boy last time I saw you.

    Stockholm NHL Hockey Premiere

    Stockholm hockey Premiere

    October 4th and 5th, the Pittsburgh Penguins were playing the Ottawa Senators for NHL season opener in Stockholm Sweden. Living in France, hockey is definitely one of those things that makes you miss home, so I was not going to miss the opportunity to visit Stockholm and to meet-up with my best childhood buddy Dany Sabourin who plays for Pittsburgh. Last time we saw was last month at my cottage in Val d'Or where we had the best fishing I had in years and we found it pretty cool to say "hey mate, see you in Stockholm!" for pics of the fishing results, follow this link

    3 weeks ago Sabou confirmed he had 4 tickets for me for both game and we(J, Milot, TBo) booked flights + 2 rooms at Sheraton where the Pens were sleeping.

    Highlights:
    - Stockholm is an incredible city, its beautiful, people or so so cool, kind and helpful(after an hour of hard work I was able to recover my bran new 800Euros SLR camera that I had forgotten in a cab:)
    - 2 great hockey games with the best seats in the arena just a few meters from Mario Lemieux
    - seeing Sabou and being able to spend some time with him in Stockholm
    - partying up in a private party with the players and pounding 6 bottles of Pommery
    - Falling face to face with Mario Lemieux and the players all week-end and having a chat with Lemieux after a morning coffee.
    - Travelling there from Paris with some of my best buddies

    Ah man, hard to be back in Paris and go to work ..... thanks Bou for the ticks

    Thursday, October 09, 2008

    The Beehive I once belonged too





    ''Oracle Beehive delivers the only complete and open platform for secure communications and integrated collaboration. Oracle Beehive provides a complete range of collaboration services including conferencing, instant messaging, email, calendar, and team workspaces that can be deployed either on premise or through Oracle On Demand. Its cross-platform, open standards based architecture supports familiar clients like Microsoft Outlook and can coexist with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. Oracle Beehive delivers the next generation of collaboration through an integrated user experience and unified administration that leverages the enterprise capabilities built into Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Database, and Oracle Applications.''



    Before I came down to France I spent 3 and 1/2 years at Oracle and most of it working on an R&D project called Beehive. My surroundings during that experience were truly some of the best professionals there are. An amazing little Time management company from Montreal called Steltor founded by Montreal locals and former McGill graduates Peter Egyed and Andre Courtemanche that was later bought by Oracle. That little family environment from Steltor survived inside that huge Oracle Corporation and part of the Beehive project. I had to leave the team to pursue some personal objectives I had set for myself and it was really the hardest and awkwardness professional move I had to do. Today I look at this product that I work hard developing and feel nostalgic I couldn't stick till the end but I am very proud to have been part of it. Having experienced Lotus Notes 8 for the past year I must tell I truly believe Beehive can get down there and get some good market share from IBM and Microsoft Exchange. Being open to protocols such as CaldaV co-authored by my manager :) it has a huge advantage on competitors. Looking at my Oracle stocks today I'm not missing the stock options I had to forgo as much as I used too ... I wish Success to Beehive and Oracle.

    You can look at the demo here

    Friday, October 03, 2008

    The currency factor

    During my first employment experience in Montreal back in the days, I worked for the world leading website for precious metals information and trading Kitco.com. With Alex, we developed a pretty sophisticated chart generation framework which is used to generate the thousands of charts you can consult on the site in real time.

    Especially these days, I use these charts every day to analyze investment trends. Its cool to see some real life usage of what we work for.

    The coolest feature of the framework is the ability to compare the price of commodities in different currencies. On the chart bellow you can see that on 60 trialling spot the price of gold has increased in Euro and decreased in US dollars.

    Friday, September 26, 2008

    Greg against Borja in Finals of Les Internationnaux de France de Squash

    If your in Paris this week-end and want to discover an amazing sport, come down to Paris Univesite Club on Saturday night. Greg Gauthier, the 2nd ranked squash player in the world, Frenchmen and good friend will be battling for the title of the French Squash Open with Borja Golan the Spanish revelation of the tourney who brought his A game to Paris this week and caused 2 major upsets in two breathtaking matches. Greg has been on top of his game not loosing any game since the beginning of the tourney. Everything points to a clean win tomorrow but the Spanish fighter will be there playing every ball like it's for his life. You can look up site squash for more info.

    Sunday, August 24, 2008

    Fetes de bayonne 2008

    Last of this summer get-away was the week-end of my BDAY in Biaritz for les Fetes de Bayonne. We drove there during the night for the biggest traffic nightmare of the year in France. We thought we were wise driving by night but it dind't make a difference. The 7 hours drive ended up being 12 hours long in traffic jams. Getting there was all worth it thought finishing up with a chill day surfing some nice waves in Anglet.
    Fetes de Bayonne 2008

    Long week-end on the Cote d'Azur


    Last week-end was on long week-end. On the Wednesday before, me and Alex decided we weren't going to stay in Paris and booked a flight for Nice to meet up with max and the Antibes crew. Here are Alex pics on Flick

    So Max picked us up at the airport on Thursday, we went for diner on the beach in Juan Les Pins and payed 130 Euros for a bottle of wine, thanks to Alex for fucking that one up ;) Then we had Pisco at Claudios and finished the evening at MILK for a late nighter.
    On friday we drove to Hyères close to Toulon where there was a little fiesta in a house on the sea for Sandrine boyfriend anniversary. Nice and windy day on the Sea side. Saturday we played tennis on clay, went for a boat ride to finish up with unbelievable duck with giroles sauce and foie gras at Maria-Jose and Claudio's place. Better than the one at Brulot one of my favorite restaurants in Antibes We finished again at MILK to take the plane at 6am back to Paris. Great times.

    Friday, August 22, 2008

    I.O.U.S.A.

    America trying to wake up, the Oracle of Omaha himself is urging for action and supporting the documentary.

    Thursday, August 14, 2008

    Hockey night in .... Stockholm

    I wasn't able to attend the Stanley Cup Finals in Pittsburg last year but Sabou and the Penguins are coming to Sweden on October 4th and 5th to play the Sen's and you can be sure I'll be over there for some well diserved hockey time.



    On some other hockey topic, I was looking at the habs roster this morning and the next year will be exiting. If Sundin can decide to play on the best offence line of the league with Kovy and Tanguay ..... BOUYAA

    Monday, August 11, 2008

    Freddy in Pekin going for gold


    Yesterday Fred pulled out of his single match in the middle of the second while he was winning against the 68th ranked player RDS article. Sound decision when your double's partner is Daniel Nestor who won the gold medal during the Sydney Olympics. Giddy up Freddy and bring that medal home ....

    Wednesday, July 30, 2008

    Praha with Pico Tours

    3rd week-end of July I flew to Prague to meet Vasco Pico, a good friend of mine that was borned in Czech Republic and know lives in Toronto. On Tuesday night before I called Jon a friend I knew from the days back in Montreal that just moved to Paris a few weeks ago and told him "Do you want to hit Prague on the week-end?", him to reply "Wich part of town is that club at?" I guess its unusual to get that kind of invitation when you just moved here.

    Praha


    So we had an amazing week-end staying at beautiful Hotel Kampa in the old Prague just beside Charles Bridge. Alot of walking and Pilsner drinking.

    Thursday, July 24, 2008

    Saturday, July 19, 2008

    Carlito's Way

    Carlito's way trailer
    "NEVER GIVE UP YOUR OWN FRIENDS"
    Watching over this classic, thought I'd post the ending/generic down here cause that movie is simply amazing. Pacino at his best, Penn, directed by De Palma, wow. Love that Joe Cocker song 'you are so beautiful' in the you tube video down here.

    Tuesday, July 15, 2008

    Corsica / Paradise

    2 weeks ago I went to one of the most astonishing places I've ever been to with Z team consisting of Benny Blanco, Maximo el grande Torso, Vasco Pico and Maggy May. The people, the chill attitude, the food, the authenticity, the sun, the mountains, the sea, the nature preserved by not selling land to strangers. You see all these little paradises in the world that have been destroyed by all the money and people flowing in, but Corsica is one of those places that fought during all its history to keep it together, to keep it natural, to keep it good, to keep it theirs.
    Ile Rousse International Squash Open 2008

    Day 0/1
    Ride from Paris to Lyon late. After a 4 hour siesta in Lyon, we jump back in the car at 7am to make it to the ferry in Nice for a beautiful ride direction Bastia Corsica. Then we drove to l’Ile Rousse where we picked up Pico and took possession of our amazing apartment by the port and the beach. We ended the night with the guys from PUC @ La Bodega where we had mojitos every night.

    Day 2
    We went to swim to Les Rochers, nice rocky spot to access the sea between Ile Rousse and Calvi. We all had a few bad cuts to the feet, good way to start the tourney. Had my first squash match in the evening, luckily enough I was able to end it in 3 sets. Then it was the opening night diner in San Ambrosio Miles Sabbords restaurant with all the squash crew. Mojitos to celebrate.

    Day 3
    Boat in Saint Florant to the beach of Lodo for a little 1 hour trek in the desert of Agriates to reach the magnificiant beach of Saleccia. Then we walked back on the sea shore to Lodo. Squash match in the evening, hurt my back again so the rest of the tourney was a pain. Mojitos to fix the pain .

    Day 4
    Went on the beach to Losa where there was a little bar on the beach. We went for diner with a few Corsican friends to La Vieille Cave in Acajola, to eat the baby lamb specialty. Mojitos to digest.

    Day 5
    Day @ the squash club, I lost, then a big match between Benny Blanco and Max with a lot of trash talking going into it, apero avec Bruno with some wine from his wineries in Burgundy.Tourney de petancle ending with Mojitos @ la bodega. Late night.

    Day 6
    We rented a boat to visit the UNESCO protected reserve of Scandola with Pacal from Squash that was kind enough to bring us around. So we left @ 8 in the morning, we saw dolphins, we caught some Urchins and ate them, we swam with the medusas, jumped cliffs, the sea was perfect for the boat ride that ended in Girolata. We then ate diner at the Villa the guys from Antibes rent every year, with all the Corse, great evening with many good wines and cheese …. We finished that crazy day in the club Acapulco close to Calvi.

    Day 7
    Chilling day, Pico departure back to Barcelona, and recovering the lack of sleep from the last few days, didn’t play my match in the morning to give a break to my craped back. Then I went on the beach at l’Ile Rousse since I hadn’t seen it and met the boys from le PUC to play ball on the beach. Then it was the squash finals and goodbye party @ the club to finish with Champagne and hitting Acapulco again.

    Day 8
    Packing, driving to Calvi for a litlle visit and catch the ferry back to Nice. Dinner with Charlotes family in sweet little house in the Nice backcountry before heading back to Paris in the night.

    Polaris - Poker bot beats human champs

    There's been a big hype on Polaris beating a few good poker players over a set of 4 X 500 hands of limit Texas Hold'em poker last week. They don't stress much the fact that its a limit game, which takes a he'll of a dimension away from the real game of Poker. Nothing against that amazing Artificial Intelligence piece of code these kids have programmed, but how will this Polaris Bot learn where to get balls to call an All-IN.

    "An unflinching, uncaring silicon machine beat several top poker champions during “Man versus Machine” match at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. The Polaris program developed by University of Alberta researchers was beaten last year, but managed to best the players this year with a 2 win, loss and 1 draw record. And don’t think the machine had it easy, three of the human competitors had more than $1 million in lifetime winnings each."

    Full article

    JULY 14th, France National Holiday

    JULY 14th 1789, the day the Bastille prison was stormed, has an iconic hold on the French imagination. Schoolchildren are taught that it is the republic’s founding moment. It is France’s national day and a public holiday. A military parade is held on the Champs Elysées, and fighter jets waking me up flying over my apartment, blazing a trail of red, white and blue, screech low over Paris.

    600,000 people gathered on les champs de mars to celebrate, watch a very disappointing concert, top it with a magnificent firework show. The first few minutes of the fireworks were even dedicated to the 400 years of our beautiful City of Quebec. The fireworks were presented with a great opera which made us feel as we were in Star Wars. This picture was taken by Milot on top of Tour MontParnasse while I was down there on les champs with the Descoteaux broters and a few friends for a picnic before the show.



    ©Mathieu Milot
    http://www.moonerboy.com/photoblog/

    Tuesday, June 17, 2008

    Istanbul

    The last trip of a series in the month of may with Mc. We flew from Paris down to Istanbul for a few days. We staid in the old Istanbul between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. We had a great little terasse with view on the Bosphore for breakfast. Then visited the palaces, the mosques, the orient express train station, a cruise on the Bosphore, shoped at the markets and then on the last day went to Asia crossing the Marmara sea to Yelova. Trip with amazing historic and cultural acquired knowledge.

    Istanbul

    Ari Gold baby

    Saw this little montage of Ari's amazing quotes and rage from Entourage.

    "Let's Hug it out bitch"

    Sunday, June 08, 2008

    Basque Country

    When Mc got to France a month ago, we left for a little road trip to les Pyrénées-Atlantiques. We booked a sweet little hotel in Bayonne while Ben crashed at a friend of his, owner of la Bogetta Chez Gilles.

    So we met many of Ben's entourage back in the day's when he was spending summers and holidays opening oysters in Biarritz. We visited Biarritz, Bayonne, Anglet, St-Jean-de-Luz on the France side and Handaye and San Sebastian on the Spanish side. We surfed in Anglet and climbed la Rhune with a great view on the Spain/France border. Great week-end that ended with dinner in Tour in the Loire department.
    Basque Country

    Saturday, May 31, 2008

    Hectic times since the end of march

    Haven't been home in Paris much lately and when I was, I had some visitors, so I haven't found the time to post much. Quick stop in Montreal and to the tour de force in Tremblant, then a week-end in Bourges for ''les prinptemps de Bourges', followed by a road trip to the beach in Normandy, a week-end surfing to les Pyrenees Atlantique in France and Spain, a squash tourney in Antibes on la Cote D'Azur to then move on for a 5 day trip to Istanbul mixed with work and party, I haven't slept much lately but now I'll have a little time to chill and write a few posts.

    I'll start here with a link to pictures taken during my road trip in Normandy with my Mom and our guide Mr. Pinna, the first warm and sunny week-end in April 2008 here in the North of France.
    Road Trip Normandie

    A day with GSP

    Sweet little video of a day training with GSP a great national ambassador for Quebec, keep it up boy

    Thursday, May 15, 2008

    Bodega chez Gilles Bayonne



    If you are looking for a good address to eat in Bayonne you should look out http://www.bodegachezgilles.com/

    Tuesday, April 15, 2008

    Crest Of Honor @ Metropolis April 29th

    El cousin Sébas will perform @ good old Metropolis. Would of been sweet to attend, but I cant make it back to Montreal for a few months. Link to Crest Of Honor MySpace

    Saturday, April 12, 2008

    La Plagne - WE Blue Connection

    Small 3 day trip in the Alpes after a good week of snow, sweeet ...

    La Plagne - IBM Blue Connection

    Tout est Parfait

    J'avais découvert Guillaume Vigneault avec ces 2 premiers livres que j'ai adoré.
    • Carnets de naufrage
    • Chercher le vent
    Il a dernièrement écrit le scénario de Tout est Parfait, film que j'ai pu voir a Montréal traitant du suicide et des personnes qui doivent vivre avec les conséquences de cet acte. Excellent film fort en émotion, coeur sensibles s'abstenir.

    Cat Power - Maybe Not

    De la trame sonore de Tout est parfait par Guillaume Vigneault

    Thursday, April 10, 2008

    Wednesday, March 19, 2008

    COMMUNIQUE

    COMMUNIQUE DU MINISTERE DE LA SANTE
    N'avalez pas vos Chewing-gum

    Saturday, March 15, 2008

    Chateaux Loire Valley

    A few weeks ago, I did a little road trip with Math, Ben and Olga to the Loire Valley to check out a few castles. Memorable day with good mates.

    A few of these shots were taken by math, see his blog on moonerboy.com

    Chateaux Loire Valley

    Z Austrian Riding Experience

    So the trip went exatly as planed in the previous post

    TUX was surreal, great montain with large backcountry where you can let go your imagination to hit the craziest lines. St. Anton was very disappointing.

    Great trip with Benny and JR.

    Z Austrian Riding Experience

    Thursday, March 06, 2008

    Autriche: Planning des prochains jours


    DAY 0: (Jeudi 6.03)
    vol pour Munich

    DAY 1: (Vendredi 7.03)
    Déjeuner chez ben dans la suite Munichoise

    départ en Audi pour l'Autriche

    Ski Welt Söll: http://www.bergfex.at/soell/

    Nuit à l'hotel Sonnenhof à Innsbruck: http://www.sonnenhof-igls.at/english/index.html

    DAY 2: (Samedi 8.03)
    Déjeuner à l'hotel.

    St-Anton in Arlberg: http://www.bergfex.at/stanton-stchristoph/

    Nuit à l'hotel Sonnenhof à Innsbruck

    DAY 3: (Dimanche 9.03)
    Déjeuner à l'hotel.

    HinterTux Glacier: http://www.bergfex.at/hintertux/

    Retour à Munich

    DAY 4: (Lundi 10.03)
    Repos à Munich
    Sauna Prinzregenten: http://www.swm.de/dokumente/swm/pdf/baeder/sauna-guide.pdf

    Wednesday, February 27, 2008

    Chinese steroid-laced chicken

    With China's phenomenal growth arise many important issues that will need to be addressed in the incoming years. I encountered a revealing
    article from the NY Times this morning.

    “We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.”

    Sunday, February 24, 2008

    Austria: Ramsau or St-Anton?

    In a few days I'll be flying to Munich to meet up with my Buddy Ben from Canada. We'l l crash at his place the first night and then we'll be heading towards Austria for a few days of riding powder, looking at the forecasts, with 50 cm of fresh powder on a 4 meter base, we are looking at a fantastic experience. Anyone has an opinion on witch mountain is better, I know the resort and nightlife is better in St-Anton but I'm looking riding wise, were are the best lines?

    8 days Snowboarding the Alpes

    Max was defending his PHD thesis in Antibes on Feb 5th and then we organized a little celebration week, 8 days riding the Alpes.

    Sylvain has a house in Uriage, 30 minutes from Grenoble and 1 hour away from half a dozain world known resorts in the Rhone-Alpes region.

    So me and Ben left Paris by car to join the crew, making a few stops along the way. We first stopped in Dijon to buy mustard and eat fresh oysters with a good bottle of white Burgundy wine. We then followed our path driving 'la route des vins de Bourgogne". We did a little detour to Switzerland to visit Geneva for a few hours before driving back to France. We spent the night in Lyon at Ben's cousins. Next morning we picked up Brezina who was bringing me my new macbook pro from Montreal @ the airport in St-Exupery. We came back to Lyon to spend the afternoon and eat "un ptit bouchon Lyonais" before heading towards Grenoble. We finally got to destination, the weeks headquarters, a sweet little house in Uriage-les-Bains. During the week we rode 5 mountains, les Septs Laux, Les 2 Alpes, l'Alpe d'Huez, l'Alpe du Grand Cerf and Chamrousse.
    All mountains were impressive, but the backountry riding on the glacier aux 2 Alpes and on the South face of l'Alpe du Grand Cerf were the best. Great sunny chilling week, with some adrenalizing moments, not even shadowed by a stomach flu epidemic, an electric box fire, electricity shortcut ... and much more. Next riding destination, Austria in 2 weeks.
    PHD celebration riding the french alpes

    Friday, February 08, 2008

    UFC 83 Montreal : RUSH

    An historical night in Canadian Ultimate Fighting history will occur in my hometown Montreal on April 19th. Our boy Georges St-Pierre GSP will fight to get back his UFC welterweight title.

    Back in September when I was in Montreal, he was sitting next to me @ the Habs game at Bell Centre, on April 19th he'll be fighting in front of 21,000 home fans for the world title in that same building. Gives me Goosebumps just thinking about the fight ... I so want to be there, but I'll already be in Montreal @ the end of March, can't pull 2 roundtrips in less than a month.

    "Tickets for UFC 83: Serra vs. St. Pierre 2 are sold out the promotion today announced. UFC 83, which will be Canada’s first-ever UFC event, now ranks as the fastest sellout in UFC history.
    More than 21,000 fans will pack The Bell Centre on April 19th for the event which is headlined by a welterweight title clash between Canadian Georges St. Pierre and welterweight title-holder Matt Serra."


    Thursday, February 07, 2008

    Asian stock markets are closed today, its fireworks war in China

    Beijing 2008 New Year Fireworks

    A fond les ballons. Happy New Year.

    Rage Against the Machine a Bercy le 4 juin

    J'achete les billets demain, si qquns en veut lemme know.

    Monday, February 04, 2008

    blackle

    "If Google had a black screen, taking into account the huge number of times this search engine is used, 750 megawatts/hour of energy per year would be saved. In recognition of this fact, Google has created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version, but with lower energy consumption. Forward and make it your homepage rather than Google."

    Google is letting these guys live with that? Scam or not? Whatever, Ill be using it.

    blackle

    Saturday, February 02, 2008

    Unbeatable Patriots XLII


    How sweet was it Thursday night to come home in Paris from a tough squash league match, cook streak and noodle, sit in front of TV at 1am and screen "Sur la route du Super Bowl" on TV5. Especially having heard almost nothing about the season. Not being in America, you don't really give a fuck about American Football, in Europe it's all about the other Football(soccer).

    Watching on the resume of the NFL season, I realized how much I miss the sport, the Passion about it. This season looked particularly interesting:
    -Brady, Moss and the mystical touchdown setting the 2 passing and reception records + the perfect season on the last game against the team they will later meet at SuperBowl XLII.
    - Favre touchdown record passing Marino
    - Packers/Seahawks in the sick snow at lambo field for conference.
    - Packers/Giants at lambo field in the freaking cold! Sick field goal misted from 37 yards in NFC championship, everything was in place for history, for a Favre against Brady for Z match before Webster intercepted the ball in overtime to send the giants to the big game.
    - Maroney winning the game for the Pats on conference day against the chargers puts everything in place for the big game tomorrow.

    I predict a big game for Moss who has been silent lately. My 2 favorite players of the last decade reunited, Brady and Moss can only lead to a Championship. I am calling my bookie and putting all my money on this team.