I’ve found two really good apartments in the past week, only to have both visits cancelled within hours of the appointed times because the places had been rented out.

Seriously bummed.

Wondering what to do this weekend? Check out this listing of the nastiest, tackiest dives in and around Montreal. You have to see the picture of La Cachette, and Les Princesses. And what to say of Les Courtisanes… I was actually at a party right above that place when my car burned down… but that’s another story.

Actual descriptions found on the site:

“Trois serveuses (nues):
- Une fille toute menue que nous évaluons avoir 12 ans est entièrement nue et trouve tous les prétextes pour se pencher;
- Une femme d’expérience (ça veut dire entre 40 et 60, faites vos jeux);
- Une maganée tatouée qui s’assoit sur les clients.”

“Un archétype de LONGUEUIL que nous avons unanimement élu sur notre équipe étoile… et nous nommons: Steeve: Jeans blancs, un T-Shirt CKOI, une chaînette dans le cou, une moustache en duvet et l’éternelle coupe Longueuil. Il danse sur les tables”

Seriously, it’s a fascinating social study, really cleverly written and funny. I haven’t been able to look away… hours of fun for everyone.

(Merci T… à soir on sort!)

I am looking for an apartment. At least two bedrooms, 1000$ max, near metro (preferably orange line), anytime between May and August. We have excellent references.

I haven’t played this videogame, but I was very entertained by this review of it, by T.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!!!!!!!

I bought MOO3 yesterday…

Man, that’s one ugly piece of crap! It’s sad, really. MOO2 looked better. In fact, MOO1 looked much nicer! MOO3 is to MOO1 what Superman 4 was to Supe 1. It looks bad and it’s not even funny. And the gameplay… God. Thank you for ruining one of my all time favorite franchises! The game is just plain boring. The UI is awful. The graphics are lame.

I wasn’t expecting much, but it still is a HUGE disapointement. Not only is it not innovative in any way, but it’s not even fun. Let’s illustrate by an example.

MY FIRST SPACE COMBAT, by T.

Orion Sector, Turn 24. The SitRep tells me my forces have engaged in a space battle against… someone but I can’t find whom. Whatever. I choose to watch the combat. My three scouts are fighting one enemy scout. The “beautiful real-time combat simulation” turns out to be four dots on a black background. Since nobody has any weapons, the spaceships are just moving around, more or less randomly. I can’t abort the combat, or retreat or anything. I can’t escape. I can’t flee. In fact, there’s NOTHING I can do but wait for the ten-minute countdown to end. And it’s a draw! How cool is that? Thanks for nothing!

On the bright side, the SitRep cheerfully reports that “Alien performers have been performing all over the empire. Their performances have decreased our citizen unrest”.

Well, MOO3: you suck, and it sucks that you suck that much cause you know: I’d like you not to suck.

LSC’s note: in all fairness, Bill’s consort says once you’ve learned to play with it (after, like, twenty hours), it gets pretty good.

Now, before you say it, I know the Oscars don’t represent merit as much as good marketing (although they sometimes just happen to also represent merit). However, they entertain me nonetheless, and I never miss them. At the very least they allow me to relive and discuss the movies of the past year, and I love to talk about movies.

Here are some of my picks. I have yet to see The Pianist and Road to Perdition (probably this weekend for both), so I still reserve the right to change my mind.

* denotes a movie I haven’t seen
italics denotes my pick

Actor in a leading role
*Adrien Brody
Nicolas Cage
*Jack Nicholson
*Michael Caine
Daniel Day-Lewis. His performance was by far the best thing about Gangs of New York.

Actor in a supporting role
Chris Cooper. As the smart redneck in Adaptation, he truly transformed himself and was brilliant.
Ed Harris. I’d love to see him get an Oscar nod (this is his third nomination), but this wasn’t his most challenging role and Cooper deserves it more.
*Paul Newman
John C. Reilly
Christopher Walken. Chris is the coolest guy around, but his performance was simply adequate, and I didn’t think very challenging.

Actress in a leading role
Salma Hayek. She was great and gosh-darnit, I like her.
Nicole Kidman. She did all right.
*Diane Lane
*Julianne Moore
Renée Zellweger. She did all right too.

Actress in a supporting role
*Kathy Bates
Julianne Moore. Good for her. A challenging role, and she availed herself of it quite well. She might win, too.
*Queen Latifah
Meryl Streep. Should have been nominated, if anything, for the Hours, not Adaptation.
Catherine Zeta-Jones. I thought she did a better job than Zellweger.

Art Direction
Chicago
Frida. Narrowly over The Two Towers.
Gangs of New York
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I loved the look of Edoras, the horsepeople’s city, but otherwise this installment wasn’t as strong as the first in terms of design.
*Road to Perdition

Cinematography
Chicago
Far from Heaven
Gangs of New York. Among the ones here, I’ll go for Gangs, but Frida should have been nominated and won.
*The Pianist
*Road to Perdition

Costume Design
Chicago
Frida, hands down over the other nominees.
Gangs of New York
The Hours
*The Pianist

Directing
Chicago
Gangs of New York
The Hours
*The Pianist
Talk to Her
Hmm. Usually this is highly correlated with the Best Picture award, which I guess is bad news for The Two Towers. I wasn’t highly impressed by any of these, but I’ll give it to Chicago… although I think its genius resided most in its editing.

Documentary Feature
Bowling for Columbine
*Daughter from Danang
*Prisoner of Paradise
*Spellbound
*Winged Migration
Okay, in all fairness I only saw Bowling, but I think it was an important film, even if overstated and slightly exploitative, and I hope it gets the award.

Editing
Chicago
Gangs of New York
The Hours
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
*The Pianist

Makeup
Frida
The Time Machine
Frankly, neither really impressed. There was just more of an effort made for TTM.

Music (Score)
Catch Me if You Can. The only one I noticed. I still think The Lord of the Rings score was great, but they won that last year. Obscenely perhaps, this is John Williams’ 42nd nomination.
*Far from Heaven
Frida
The Hours
*Road to Perdition

Best Picture
Chicago
Gangs of New York
The Hours
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
*The Pianist
Honestly, I don’t think either of the four I’ve seen deserved the Best Picture award, but then again, I can’t think of anything else in 2002 that did. However, I know the reason why I had misgivings about TTT was the liberties it took with the book. In all fairness, though, if you look at it as a movie, it was to me the most entertaining, epic and probably least forgettable of the nominees.

Animated Short
*The Cathedral
*The ChubbChubbs!
*Das Rad
Mike’s New Car
*Mt. Head
Lemme explain. I sincerely hope that Mike’s New Car does NOT get this award. It wasn’t any good. You know how whenever Stephen King writes anything, they make it into a movie? In the same way, whenever Pixar makes anything, it gets automatically nominated. This did not deserve a nomination, especially when you think of all the other animated shorts made with love and talent, by filmmakers who could truly benefit from an Oscar nod.

Visual Effects
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. One word: Gollum.
Spider-Man
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
About a Boy. This movie deserves so much more attention than just one Oscar nomination, but this is a good category.
Adaptation. Slightly clever, but self-satisfied, masturbatory and utterly annoying. But it’ll probably win.
Chicago
The Hours
*The Pianist

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Far from Heaven
Gangs of New York. Come on. Unidimensional guy loses dad. Unidimensional guy wants revenge. Unidimensional guy gets it. THREE HOURS FOR THAT?
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. A close runner-up.
Talk To Her
*Y Tu Mama También

I can’t stand the Q92 ads about and especially starring Aaron and Tasso. You know the ones they kept showing in movie theaters last year? Or the ones where they dress up like Faith Hill or the Backstreet Boys? Who can possibly be entertained by an unattractive man in drag writhing about in satin sheets? (don’t answer that)

I don’t know about you, but if I was a tv station, and there was an advertiser that caused viewers to immediately grab the remote and furiously turn the channel, and briefly consider throwing the tv out the window, I might think twice about running their ad. But that’s just me.

You know, I’m kinda glad our office moved and I now have to take the subway. Otherwise, I might have missed the guy who plays Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (no less) with a flute in each nostril.

Got a favorite freak?

Want some entertainment during your next meeting? Whenever you hear the buzzword Networking, Gap Analysis, Deliverable, Strategic, Action Item or Knowledge Base, cross it off your Bullshit Bingo card. Get five in a row and win.

Sad, but true.

Loft-dweller, Euro-trash, coffee connoisseur extraordinaire, IT genius and dear friend of mine Petergun, aka Captain Dramatic, aka Steph, has recently started his own blog. Your Mileage May Vary might sound like a blog about cars, but it’s not. Give him a visit and make him feel welcome in the local blogosphere, fellow bloggers.

Friday
Went over to Bill’s for movies and brownies, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood Paul. The mood was light due to her recent employment, and it was a happy, mellow time.

Saturday
Balanced my checkbook, went for a run, then met T for breakfast at our usual place. We then caught the movie Frida, then headed up north. Dined then slept in a noisy, brown motel in St-Sauveur.

Sunday
Went snowboarding for the second time ever, and had a great time. Took out a skier, but he was really nice about it. A lot nicer than I would have been - when I was a skier, I hated the erratic way in which snowboarders wove all over the slopes. Drove home in a storm, and realized that I’m getting sick. Wah. Spent the rest of the day cocooning.