The Best Meteorologist In Canada

Poor judgement? Probably.

Poor taste? Possibly.

Hilarious? Not quite, but almost. (or, as proven in the video, yes, if you know the guy):

Unicorns are people, too.

Death In Vegas

I was in Las Vegas a month ago when the Paris attacks took place.

And this week, fellow Quebecers were in an accident on the strip where I spent most of my time there:



Those interviewed keep asking ''why''? The same was said about what happened in Paris, and in Beirut.

But there is no why. This one was a distressed woman. Terrorists have a cause. People need to realize many things, chief among them the fact that even if we cure everyone and every ill, one dissatisfied customer can take things to the extreme and crack - and kill.

That's life.

Another part of life is that we all die.

At birth, at one year old, at ten, at twenty-five, at fifty, at eighty-three, at one hundred years of age. Natural causes, AIDS, cancer, accident, murder - no one walking the earth's surface survives, ever.

Who the fuck cares how you die. Live for the moment. LIVE. Because Life hangs by a thread, and a tiny one that no one can see most times.

That Downward Spiral Called Rob Ford

''Elect me as mayor, and I will clean this city up like you wouldn't believe.'' That was the attitude Rob Ford put forth just a couple of years ago, running to take over Canada's biggest economic center.

Like a true used car salesman, his first order of business was to eliminate bike lanes, and his second was to get as drunk as possible in as many public events as possible, a political Chris Farley if you will, without the visible and audible threat of ending up living in that van down by the river, yet you could tell just by looking at him that that was exactly where he was headed, probably in the near future.

Then came rumours about drug use - and not just marijuana, no: straight-up crack. And there could even be video footage... a video people have already died for.

After denying it - and the existence of the tape - for the better part of 2013, Ford has now admitted to having smoked crack, but he did so with his usual sense of grandeur:

"Yes I have smoked crack cocaine. But I am not an addict," he said in a stunning admission. "Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors," he said, adding that he may have smoked it approximately one year ago.

Oh yeah - one of his drunken stupors. Makes sense. What else did he do in his (frequent) drunken stupors, kill a hooker? Waste taxpayers' money? Eat tons of donuts?

As if hearing that the police had found the video - and another one, rumoured to be a sex tape with an alleged minor - recovered from a erased hard drive (that's right, kids, hitting 'delete' is not a guarantee) wasn't enough, the mayor's boat is leaking from everywhere, and reports are coming out that he and his team hired a crack team (sorry) of hackers to erase the recording from online storage spaces.

Didn't work.

Now, I know it's never over until the fat lady sings, but I'm guessing that's merely one or two drunken stupors away from happening...

My Friends Are So Distressed

Our friendship started in late 1990, except it wasn't exactly friendship at first: we were sharing a dormitory with 100 other 7th-graders, and his bunk was next to mine. And that fucking Alexandre Paul, known to his friends as Po Paul, was a heck of a snorer. So eventually, I started throwing water at him when he snored - I fought fire with... water.

Maybe the water was an omen.

Anyhow, before the school year was over, we were inseparable buddies, part of a group of like-minded music aficionados, with a tendency bent towards hard rock. Sure, we had our differences - he preferred Nirvana and solo Ozzy Osbourne, I loved Pearl Jam and the first Black Sabbath line-up. Ultimately, though, we could agree on the important things: Guns N' Roses kicked ass.

We also got along outside of school, spending most of our weekends walking day-long treks from my house in the Western part of Montréal, through downtown with countless stops at HMV, Burger King, Sam The Record Man's and Labyrinthe, all the way to his folks' place, in the East end. If the night included a sleepover, we'd watch Saturday Night Live together.

The son of a fireman whose nickname he inherited, Po Paul always wanted to do whatever he could to help ensure he and we would be able to live in a better, fairer, safer, cleaner world, and so it was a match made in heaven when he joined Greenpeace some 15 years ago. From door-to-door canvasser to supervisor to rider of the sea, his ascension throughout their ranks is exceptional.

Then again, he's a pretty awesome guy to begin with.

I'm often asked why Montréal is home to so many activists and great artists, and my answer is usually two-fold and quite simple: it's an awesome place full of utopian potential, yet it was led to being a complete shithole by profiteers who took advantage of the people's good hearts. And so many are fighting to make it - or the rest of the world - a better place.

Po Paul's journey was put on pause recently when he and 11 other activists were arrested in Russia on charges of piracy, for attempting to board an oil rig; they were denied bail and the investigation will last 60 days, though they have yet to actually be charged with anything.

Greenpeace is protesting and appealing, but as we've seen with the Pussy Riot trials and the recent ''anti-gay-propaganda'' extravaganza, Russia - like Russians - couldn't care less about political or outside pressure; they beat to their own drum, and they drum loudly.

Which is the main reason why Po Paul's mom is freaking out, seeing as he's facing a possible 15 years of gulag jail time if he is indeed found guilty. For trying to make a difference, and almost standing in the way of Big Oil.

We'll know in a couple of months whether this farce will taste like Justice or Abuse Of Power, but there are lots of reasons to be scared.

Godspeed, my friend, and best of luck. You've been in our thoughts all week, and we're keeping you there front and center.

P.K. Subban And The Weather

Everyone in Montréal - except for hockey journalists - loves P.K. Subban (he's already one of my favourite Habs, along with Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Markov). The camera love him even more - and he loves it back.

A recent example of this was last Tuesday, when he presented the weather for CTV News:

Cops In Flight, Don't Know Why

How stupid is this? An Alabama police department just found out they have two drones - man-less planes used both for surveillance and military missions - and don't know why. And have never used.

I've been interested in drones for years, and even more so when I found out the U.S. now use them along the Canadian border. And I thought it was the largest non-defended border in the world; I guess not.

And now there are over 1000 drone permits issued in Canada, mostly to police but also rescue and government departments - but no one knows for sure how many are actually patrolling over our heads, which is even more shocking than actually having them there. Which is still awe-inspiring, considering we're a country of barely 30 million people over the second largest piece of land on the planet, most of which are concentrated in 6 urban areas.

Big Brother is watching, for sure.