Lots of discussion on this entry, which is good. I would just like to point out something about what my intentions were in that entry. I wanted to show how people might perceive us outside of Quebec and Canada. I remember speaking to American clients and somehow sign laws came up in conversation. When I mentioned the restrictions that are placed on English here, I could hear the sharp intake of breath. They said things like, "You aren't allowed to have signs in English?" or "There are fines?" "You are forced to give one language preference?" Now I didn't say that you couldn't have signs in English, they came up with that on their own by twisting my words. But you get the idea. International perspectives may be reasonably concerned.
Local/Provincial: June 2005 Archives
From Overheard in New York:
Tourist guy: Why are all the signs in Chinese?
New York guy: Because we're in Chinatown.
Tourist guy: But shouldn't they have to advertise in English?
New York guy: New York isn't Quebec.
Tourist guy: What?
New York guy: Dude, you don't even know the difference between Chinese and Korean, you'll never understand a reference to Quebecois French.
"New York isn't Quebec". There's an undertone there and although I am being dramatically sensitive, it's doesn't mean it's not true. He meant to say, "New York isn't fascist Quebec". "We're not a bunch of uptight pricks shoving a weird language down people's throats." No, he didn't actually say these things, but he meant them.*
*The tongue is in the cheek.
Last night, while Rose and I were eating dinner, we looked out the window to see some cops and a group of about 80 people that seemed to be "against" something. Everyone in that whole end of the restaurant was looking at them. Then one of them pulled out a sign that said something about being against the Formula One weekend and against capitalism. They began walking down the street peacefully.
We walked around the neighbourhood a little, if you can call downtown a "neighbourhood" as such, and stopped by to talk to procrasto for a few minutes. (Rose thinks you're a pretty nice guy, by the way.) We got into the metro on the orange line. I didn't notice at first, but there was commotion at this station. We ended up stopped there for a while. People were screaming in excitement. I didn't pay it much heed; I figured that they were a bunch of revelers enjoying the Formula One weekend. But after about five minutes of waiting at the station, I decided to poke my head out.
It was chaos. There must have been about 10 cops and 50 of the people we saw at the restaurant fighting. The cops had their batons out, and I saw about five or six people getting hammered with it. It was a scene from the news in one of those unfortunate fucked-up countries that we only hear about, like Rwanda, or the United States. I think a good number of them escaped, into the metro system, though, as at the next station we saw a large number of similar people (white, wearing mostly black, young, hippie protester-like) getting off at the next station.
If any of you locals heard anything about a bunch of yahoos getting their asses handed to them by the cops yesterday, drop me a line here. I'd like to know what happened, and if these are the same people that we saw at the restaurant.
There was a murder right outside my work this morning. Two weeks ago someon tried to rob the bank downstairs. I love downtown.
Of course, I didn't hear any shots. This story isn't nearly as interesting as this one, but I'll take my excitement where I can get it, if by "excitement" you mean a murder occurring just feet from my work, just a few hours earlier.
Anyway, the guy was shot as he left the infamous Super Sexe last night. Serves him right, the fucking perv. That was God's wrath, that was. Actually, it was likely some criminal's wrath, as the victim was known to police. And even more surprisingly, I've never been there.
UPDATE: There's a huge pile of blood nearby that they couldn't clean up. Don't miss it!
