Sunday

Montreal is Bananas

My plan now is to gather each and every morning at 8am, gather my pots and pans, with whomever will join me, and walk through the neighbourhoods of Montreal clanging and banging my pots to wake up all the fuckers who are walking around late at night clanging their pots and pans.
What are you protesting? Sleep? Quiet? All you are doing at this point is disrupting your neighbours and fellow citizens.
Last night I saw parents, grandparents and little kids. What are you teaching your children? Do you even know? What about the so-called student protesters?
Montreal and the pot bangers

Keep banging those pots. Keep intimidating the police officers.

Our exhausted police force. The same police officers that come to your place after a break-in, the same police officers that take a statement when you are attacked, the same police force that investigates murderers and rapists.

Montreal Police Doing Their Job
The overtaxed police department will be over budget. Where will the municipal and provincial governments get this money to pay the salaries and overtime? From your salaries. Or should they make some cuts from social spending?

Clanging your pots. I picture a little kid. A little kid that knows they shouldn't make noise. But the child bangs his toys together. The little boy bangs his blocks together over and over. He bangs the blocks together because, they make a big noise, and because nobody has yet told him to stop. So this mischievous child keeps banging because he knows it is wrong but for now he is getting away with it.
The children, the aged, the students, the middle aged who are now supporting the protesters, or protesting something obscure of their own, with their pot banging, are just these same little children, who are clanging pots - just because they can. and just because they can get away with it.

Montreal is going Bananas
Are they protesting bill 78 that clamped down on the lawlessness created by the protesters?. Has the Liberal government done a proper job to deal with the earlier protests? No. Does that make the increase to tuition wrong? Absolutely not. Does it make the protesters right? Absolutely not.
Both sides approached the negotiations in poor faith. But in the end, the laws and the government must win. This does not mean the protesters should not at least gain some of their demands. Through negotiation only they should.
Anarchy can absolutely not win. Lawlessness must absolutely lose.

You liked it here in the 80s and 90s did you? With all those vacant stores? When you could find parking everywhere? Where rent was under $500? Disaster begets disaster. Put enough pressure on your fellow citizens, create enough havoc and this city will fall into the biggest recession it has seen in years.
Abuse of your fellow citizens, whether keeping them awake at night or taking away their livelihood, to the extent of taking food off their tables cannot be tolerated.

Blocking the downtown streets will prevent businesses from earning revenue, which will create layoffs, and businesses will shut down. The only way this may not effect you is if you chose to live off the grid.

You are bankrupting the businesses downtown and around the city. You are forcing the cancellation of travel plans of thousands of tourists. The spin-off from touristic events and festivals in Montreal and Quebec runs in the billions. Cut off this source of revenue and the already fragile economy of the Greater Montreal area will hit rock bottom.

Are you one of those protesters? You are taking money from your fellow protesters' pockets. Living, working, going to school downtown? Don't shit in your own back yard. This is your city. You are damaging its economy. You are damaging its reputation. And don't forget, higher unemployment means higher school enrolment. The bulk of the Montreal and Quebec population condemn the violence and the continuous damage to the city's reputation, and condemn the continued lawlessness. Have you heard enough people publicly stepping up to say any of these things are wrong?

The Last Stand: Dead Zone

The Last Stand: Dead Zone is the latest edition to The Last Stand series of epic zombie games. The games  are a product of renowned game designer ConArtist. The latest, Dead Zone uses some features from Union City and is the most daring and boldest of the series. Currently in its Beta version and only available through Facebook, The Last Stand: Dead Zone is a fun, challenging and a real time waster if you let it. And I mean that in a good way.
TLS and TLS2 were third-person shooter zombie games and featured a shoot 'em up to defend your camp. The third, Union City, was an adventure-travel through the mean streets, looking for survivors, weapons and food. 
The Last Stand: Dead Zone - City Map. Yes, my character's name is StubbornFool Com.
There are a couple drawbacks to the game, I will get to that later. Overall it is a blast. The idea in The Last Stand: Dead Zone is to grow your compound. DZ is a mix of role playing, logic, and adventure and is as much different, as it is more advanced than its predecessors. Instead of running and escaping you are building a home, scavenging for tools and food for survival. You characters will build, gather scraps to build a home and compound and new society all the while shooting and pummelling zombies.
What the programmers need to do is to take this out of real time and speed up game play. There are some free options to to speed up play by up to five minutes. Otherwise you can pay real cash.

TLS: Dead Zone - Mission
The length of certain missions prevents you from playing continuously throughout the day. You will need to take at least fifteen minute breaks as the game progresses, and up to two hours, as your team returns from their more advanced missions. This too can be sped up if you are willing to spend some real cash. Options are there for community play, whether attacking or helping other players. Otherwise you are smashing AI driven zombies and invading homes set up by the system.
And now the negatives. It's has the potential to be a money grab. Real time needlessly extends the game. The concept of a real time game is to ensure the gamer comes back. It extends playtime over days and even months. It also frustrates those amongst us who want to see a conclusion to their game. I finally gave up on Mafia Wars after realizing there was no end in sight. Just as you are approaching the finish line, it would be moved back 100 metres and your sprint would become a marathon.

You can play for free, pay as little a a couple of bucks (dollars, pounds or Euros, hey it's Facebook, all money is taken equally) in real money to buy fuel which will help you complete your tasks. Again, let me restate, you can play for free without any setbacks.
If you have an older computer or a slow video  card you may experience slow play. Make sure that your video card is supported at Stage3D unsupported chipsets. Just like any game with a good following, you can check out the Wiki here. Walkthroughs are available. And as it is a Facebook game, you won't have much luck finding game cheats. The Last Stand: Dead Zone is violent, creative and fun for any zombie enthusiast and the adventure - RPG gamer. If you like Mafia Wars or The Walking Dead, The Last Stand: Dead Zone can be considered a combination of the two.


Wednesday

To: Montreal student rioters. Re: You have a brain disorder


Some points of interest for those self-righteous, indignant, clueless, angst-ridden, striking fuck-tards ruining the university experience for the 2/3rds of Quebec students who still believe an education is a privilege you earn and not a right owed to you...
  1. As far as I know, Quebec already has the lowest university tuition rates in North America.
  2. Keep this up, and Montreal will soon see soldiers in the streets, and deservedly so.
  3. I was once a university student in Montreal. I had issues with "authority" but I took my anger out on many a video game machine at the various arcades downtown at the time. (Yeah, I'm dating myself, I don't care.) And I always, ALWAYS, remembered that I was one lucky s.o.b. to be able to receive a university education at bargain-basement prices compared to the Ivy League schools in the states and elsewhere.
  4. Who the fuck do you think you guys and gals are? Oh wait, I know. You're no one. That's why you're all so pissed at the system and capitalism and imperialism and, perhaps, mercantilism and numerous other "isms" that don't fall into your neat, neo-communist, insecure worldview of equality for all; as long as that equality means descent into mob rule and the elimination of societal progress.
  5. Karl Marx has been proven wrong so many times, it's scary.
  6. You've made Montreal into a joke of a city. 

Karl Marx, in repentance

I mean, seriously, you idiots, if you all put half as much effort into either working part-time jobs to pay for your courses – in order to one day work at better-paying jobs and the fulfilling careers of your choice – or protesting some real problems, say like noisily demonstrating in front of the Syrian or Iranian embassies, you could probably achieve some good.

Instead, you're all choosing to act like mindless animals. Did your high school classmates tease you so mercilessly that this is the only way to get revenge? Or, maybe the majority of you are being used as "useful idiots" (if you don't know the term, look it up; it's something you learn in university) by a cadre of sociopathic, keffiyeh-wearing, professional agitators who've made it their life-quests to stir up shit, just because. Really, these guys exist. Their sole purpose is to become irrationally outraged by a flavour-of-the-month cause and go at it like a dog on a bone, usually sweeping up gullible youth along the way.

Quebec: Now with more Middle East
People, the world is not out to screw you. The world is sometimes an unfair place. Always has been, always will be. But the answer is not to smash windows, intimidate your peers and cause havoc in major metropolitan centres. The answer is to work hard, bear down in your studies, humble yourselves and stop believing you're owed the whole world on a platter just because you're a precious soul.

Suck it up. Get the hell back to your desks and better yourselves. Because one day, when history looks back on your actions, the only one hurt by all this, will be you. And when that time comes, I'll have fries with that, thanks. Now where's my change?

And to you, dear Premier Charest: What are you doing capitulating to these clowns?!? My god man! Remind me never to hire you as a SWAT negotiator or seek advice from you should terrorists demand endless concessions from the province. You spineless twit.


MAY 20th UPDATE:
--------------------------

Yup. Bill 78 now in force. Meaning: Police now using more force. Gives both hot-headed police and the above-mentioned idiot rioters more motivation to cause bodily harm. Yeah, this'll go well.





Stubborn Fool is Everywhere


Free  fill up with every follow on StubbornFool.com. Deli will cost you a bundle though. Is that Schwartz's?

This is a $200 question.

Yeah. Well, they tried. 

Just as long as you don't drink and drive. That's why I drink at home.

Cheapest rental truck. I need a truck that big to carry my ego.

They welcome me. And then show me to the door.

In Memory


People die. We cannot do anything to stop death. Medical science has enabled us to prolong life. I am not talking of eating better. I'm speaking in more general terms. I have tried to approach the topic of death more than once since I started my blog. I wrote about my uncle and aunt but beyond this was not able to put my thoughts together.

We do not dwell on death but, your own mortal existence comes into focus with shocking speed when someone your own ago dies. In senior year high school a classmate was killed in a car accident. Two years following graduation, a former classmate was shot by a police officer. A few years back my cousin, an Israeli army veteran, died on the operating table during what was supposed to be minor surgery. Two colleagues and friends died from cancer, Joel in 2002, Patrick, who was also a mentor, in 2006.

These events, when they happen, are eye opening and can shake you from an otherwise peaceful existence that we, for the most part take for granted.

An old friend, Ian, died last week. he was 43 years old. He died suddenly, leaving behind two children, a wife, a brother, parents and a lot of friends wondering why and how. As I write this I do not know the cause of death. the obituary reads "suddenly".

We all leave legacies and imprints. And as I ponder his loss I say, he left behind children as part of his legacy. At least that.

I've seen more, done more than most people I know. But those are the things you take with you to the grave. What do you leave behind? Family, children, teachings and memories. And then I think again to my own life and consider what my legacy will be. I am not done yet. Too many things to do. A wife, and a child are priorities. In small part, let this be added to your legacy... Derrick, Joel, Patrick, Ian.

Saturday

Razzle Dazzle Show

Rod Hull and Emu

As I flipped TV channels this morning while drinking my coffee I grew nostalgic over the long gone television shows of my youth. Saturday morning TV has changed drastically. What happened to Saturday morning cartoons and kids' shows? One show that stands out in my mind is The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show.

The Razzle Dazzle Show aired from 1974 to 1975 and although it was only on for one year. was a staple of Saturday morning viewing. An eclectic, zany and colourful show, Razzle Dazzle was filled with comedy sketches and musical performances. And don't forget Rod Hull and Emu, and The Bear. And of course Bill, Mark and Brett Hudson.


Hudson Brothers