Hour — Page 4

No one tops Gilles Vigneault

December 16, 2000 by Michael Boyle

, really, at describing Quebec. “Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays c’est l’hiver” is how he put it – roughly – my country isn’t a country, it’s winter.

We had over a foot of snow dump on us in the last week, today it’s warm and it might rain – leading to whispered concerns that we might have another ice storm like the great verglas of 1998.

And yet, and yet… things go on. Cheerfully. The pubs on St-Laurent were packed last night. Christmas shopping continues apace, amidst 24-hour-a-day snow removal that messes with parking, walking, driving – everything.

I really couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but here.

Yesterday I observed

December 2, 2000 by Michael Boyle

the Day Without Weblogs. Today I’m getting out of the city for 48 hours. Back with more next week!

Thanks to two people

November 13, 2000 by Michael Boyle

, Peter Merholz and Meg Hourihan, for pointing out this map of the US election results by county. The additional level of granularity yields some really interesting information – particularly concerning the urban/rural split in US politics.

The same thing exists in Canadian politics as well, with the ruling Liberals electing MPs in most major cities while the upstart Reform/Alliance has otherwise swept the West and is threatening a breakthrough in outlying parts of Ontario. Likewise, in Quebec the Bloc is predominant except in Montreal, and didn’t sweep Quebec City either. An important difference between Canada and the US is that Canada is slightly more urban than the US – though it’s only marginally so.

I found this link

November 8, 2000 by Michael Boyle

to the Palm Beach County ballot through Meg Hourihan‘s site, Megnut. It is pretty obvious that it’s extremely confusing, which is just crazy. Not much can be done about it now, but I was a little surprised that such an issue is there in the first place. Shouldn’t all ballots (at least in a state) be identical in design and layout?

And now it’s 2:15

November 2, 2000 by Michael Boyle

and it’s all weird. I wasn’t at home to change my clocks, so they’re all an hour slow, and anyhow I’m 3 hrs behind due to this wonderful Canadian invention, the Time Zone. I did find it interesting to note down which websites I visited first – this being my first look at any weblogs in a few days. I looked at mostly serious issues-oriented sites first – PeterMe, Zeldman (to whom I’ve neglected to send my condolences), CamWorld, and Evhead. Next were Montrealers – Ed’s nicely redesigned Calebos.org, Aaron’s site, and David’s. Last were honourary/former Montrealer Heather’s Harrumph and Derek Powazek‘s site. And now to bed. Because I have a very big meeting tomorrow with a man who might win a Nobel Prize for medicine soon – a huge figure we’re doing some work with. Nope, not intimidated at all.