Jean Lalonde de Am�lioraction, annonce la cr�ation tr�s prochaine d’un nouveau carnet consacr� au pourriel: www.pourriel.ca

Jean explique:
Le carnet Pourriel.ca rendra compte des efforts pour erradiquer le pourriel. Deux grands axes seront surveill�s: l’aspect technique qui vise � emp�cher le pourriel d’atteindre votre ordinateur et le dossier l�gal qui, on l’esp�re, contribuera � contrer le pourriel � la source. Aussi, Pourriel.ca s’int�ressera aux initiatives visant � promouvoir l’utilisation �thique du courriel par les entreprises pour communiquer avec leurs clients actuels ou potentiels.

Belle initiative!

Funny timing: Lisa decided to make a list of the worst movies she wouldn’t even sit through while on my end I was thinking up a post about the best “small” movies to rent. The weather sucks! It’s perfect for movie rental.

The following list of movies are not necessarily part of my top ten movies of all times (though a few of them are). I chose to make a list of movies that did not get a lot of exposure and that you might have missed. They are also not obvious choices, which means that you are most likely to walk right past them at the video store (if your video store even has them). Most of them had small budgets and handle “intimate” themes, so they might not be good if you feel like testing your new home cinema sound system. Still, they are little gems that should not be missed. They’re all the kind of scripts I would love to write!

Calendar
My favorite Atom Egoyan movie and one of my all times favorites. Tiny budget, short shoot, powerful results. Minimalist yet riveting. And funny, even though you get to watch a couple come apart over the course of 12 months.

Proof
Another one of my all times favorites. I have a thing for movies with trios (it was the subject of my master’s thesis, by the way). Plus, you get to watch Russell Crowe before he was known in the U.S. (and boy, was he cute and sweet, nothing like the guy we know now). Agent Smith/Hugo Weaving is the central character. Don’t miss this one if you haven’t seen it yet! After they saw the movie (and before I saw it), 3 of my friends called me and said: “This is the kind of movie you would write”. Once I saw the movie, I realized they had made me an incredible compliment. This is definitely the kind of film I would like to write.

Two Girls and a Guy
Another trio! I told you it was my favorite movie structure! This huit clos offers fabulous performances from the 3 actors. Who could resist Robert Downey Jr. and/or Heather Graham in a very hot sex scene?

Yi Yi
I was enchanted when I left the movie theater, and no, it wasn’t because that long movie was over! I felt like I had lived in a Taiwanese family for a week and I absolutely fell in love with the little boy, when I usually hate children actors. It’s one of the few DVDs I own. What is Edward Yang doing now? Does anybody know? I can’t wait for his next film.

The Anniversary Party
You can think I’m crazy, but I like Jennifer Jason Leigh, and she did a great job at cowriting and codirecting this movie. A bunch of actors/friends got together in a stylish LA house to shoot this movie and you can sense the fun they had while working together. There’s a pretty funny ecstasy scene as well. I own the very cool soundtrack and listen to it regularly. And it’s great to see Jennifer Beals and Phoebe Cates again!

You Can Count on Me
Once again, small budget, great script, good actors. I hope Laura Linney gets the recognition she deserves. She’s one of the best actresses of her generation (in the U.S., of course).

Girlfight
I love movies about women who kick ass, and Michelle Rodriguez can surely do that! A girl trains as a boxer behind her violent father’s back. It’s a great first film on the part of filmmaker Karyn Kusama and it’s no Rocky!

Velvet Goldmine
I hate movies in which people sing but I’ve seen this Todd Haynes movie twice (I rarely see movies twice) and I enjoyed it very much both times. How could I not? It’s got a very naked Ewan McGregor all over it, full frontal and everything. I completely believed in his interpretation of Curt Cobain. A very good and surprising movie treat for music lovers.

Marie-Jo et ses deux amours
Spend two hours in Marseille without having to buy a plane ticket. See a great movie that does not oversimplify infidelity. I don’t know if a subtitled version will be available, but you shouldn’t miss this one when it comes out on video (I haven’t seen it in rental stores yet in Montreal).

Se souvenir des belles choses
American movies about memory loss are either clich�s or stylish thrillers (Memento). This one is about the real thing: memory loss as a disease as it slowly strikes a beautiful young woman. Instead of making you feel depressed about it, the movie manages to be both funny and touching, with a poetic flair that never bores you. It makes you think about what’s important to you and the memories you are truly attached to. The final scene is very powerful. (Once again, I don’t know if it is available with subtitles.)

A little less than a week ago, I innocently left my bachelorette pad in the heart of the Plateau Mont-Royal in order to move into a suburban house with the two creatures you see on this photo. The three of us had already spent a fair amount of time together so I didn’t think things would feel very different.

Aside from a strange obsession with binder clips (which I will tell you about in a future post), the guy in the hat has not pulled any big surprise on me. It’s the redhead who turned from sweet angel to pure brat.

I left the house for an hour this morning and when I came back, our house alarm had gone off, ringing loudly throughout our quiet neighborhood. I ran into the house (not the smartest thing, I know), entered the code to turn off the alarm and heard a thump. I turned just in time to catch monsieur le chat Spiff jumping down from the kitchen counter. He had that look on his face that tells me he knows he’s in trouble.

After many of my friends became victims of thieves who ran away with their CD collection, I had my last apartment equipped with an alarm system. The house we moved into last week already had an alarm system so we decided to have it connected to a central. The alarm guy came over last week to change all the motion detection devices for “pet friendly” ones, meaning that any thief under 30 pounds can enter our house and leave with our CD collection without triggering the alarm.

The system was supposed to be cat proof, except of course, if the cat managed to climb all the way to the ceiling, right next to the motion detector. Nah, I thought. Spiff le chat is old, he won’t do that.

Well, I guess Spiff le chat is in better shape than I thought. He triggered the alarm today by trying to climb on our very tall range hood. Curiosity did not kill the cat but it nearly gave its master a heart attack.

Half an hour later, I got a call on my cell phone from my previous alarm company. They wanted to warn me that the fire alarm at my old place (which is still connected until the end of October) had gone off a few minutes before, and they were sending the firemen over to check out the place. I made a few calls and finally found out that the dust from the sanding of the floors, taking place in my empty apartment right now, triggered the alarm. I couldn’t blame that one on the cat but somehow I was still mad at him.

Poor kitty. I should take it easy on him. He just moved (yet again) to a new place and then he got one of those silly manicures… Check out the photo closely. Can you see that Spiff has blue nails? No, I haven’t turned into one of these silly cat ladies who dress up their animals. I’ll explain why his nails have turned blue as soon as I can figure out how to keep him from climbing on top of the cupboards. Isn’t my life exciting?

Tiens, je n’avais pas �A du tout en t�te quand on m’a propos� d’�crire un sc�nario se d�roulant dans le monde du football, mais j’avoue que �a me donne des id�es.

J’attends la prochaine journ�e de beau temps � plus de 10C pour “d�m�nager” mon scooter, rest� � mon ancien appart, jusqu’� notre nouvelle maison o� il sera remis� pour l’hiver. J’utiliserai probablement mon scooter un peu moins souvent maintenant que j’aurai un pont � traverser pour aller en ville et les balades dans les rues de Montr�al vont me manquer. J’adore rouler dans les rues �troites de la ville mais je suis toujours surprise de voir combien mon scooter peut �tre bruyant et je sais aussi que ces jolies petites machines sont plut�t polluantes. Le plaisir et la culpabilit�…

Il y a peut-�tre une solution. Une compagnie cor�enne fabrique maintenant des scooters �lectriques nomm�s Equinox et il para�t qu’ils sont incroyablement silencieux. Je ne sais pas si la compagnie a une entente avec Yamaha mais leur scooter �lectrique est une r�plique presque exacte de mon mod�le Vino, lui-m�me inspir� des classiques Vespa.
(lien via Darren Barefoot)

Je ne sais pas encore si le produit est vendu au Canada mais je vais faire quelques recherches. � suivre!

�a brasse beaucoup du c�t� de Radio-Canada ces jours-ci: changements � la direction, coupures de budget, recherche d’un auditoire et d’un style, etc. Rien de nouveau, me direz-vous? Peut-�tre bien, mais c’est une maigre consolation pour ceux qui travaillent � Radio-Canada et qui s’inqui�tent � la fois pour leur avenir mais aussi pour celui de la bo�te.

Que faire alors? Se croiser les bras et attendre un autre message obscur de la haute direction? Le journaliste Jean-Hugues Roy - mon ancien coll�gue de l’�mission Branch� qui avait cr�� le fameux carnet Blogue-Out pendant le lockout de 2002 � la SRC - a d�cid� de se d�croiser les bras et de solliciter les id�es de la “communaut� radio-canadienne”. Il a donc lanc� ce soir un tout nouveau blogue collaboratif: RadCanBlog.

Jean-Hugues explique:
Ce site ne cherche pas � se substituer � qui que ce soit, ni � quelque institution que ce soit (syndicat ou division de Radio-Canada). C’est une d�marche individuelle, lucidement na�ve, mais authentiquement g�n�reuse. J’ose croire que d’offrir un espace d’�changes d’id�es et de d�bats � la communaut� radio-canadienne sera utile dans le contexte actuel, et que cette derni�re saura en tirer profit.

Il est � souhaiter que les patrons de Jean-Hugues et que la direction de la SRC seront d’accord avec son concept de la transparence. Ses coll�gues oseront-ils se prononcer? C’est � souhaiter.

Pamela Masik is a Vancouver-based artist who, for the past four days, has been living in an eight foot box. She’s got it rigged up with a toilet and bed, and the lights turn on and off at random intervals. She doesn’t have any communication with the outside world, and paints on the walls. You can watch her live here. (via Darren Barefoot)

That’s just like me! For the past week, I have been living surrounded by boxes, I don’t have any communication with the outside world (or barely any) and I paint the walls. I should have hooked a Web cam and called my move an art project!

I know this is completely silly, but one of the things that excites me the most when I think about our new house is the fact that there will be enough room for a ping-pong table. Woo-hoo! As a young teenager, I played ping-pong for hours at a time in the basement of our ground floor apartment with the boyfriends of my older sisters (that sounds kind of kinky, but it wasn’t, believe me). I also directed the ping-pong activity at the local community center. Most of the players were south east asian teenagers who had just immigrated to Quebec City. They were amazing players and my game improved with their help.

But my best memory of ping-pong was during a visit to a girlfriend who lived in New York City. We had been invited to a trendy loft party but after an hour we were bored to death. We met two guys, left the party with them and went to a pool hall in Hell’s Kitchen where they also had a few ping-pong tables. I hadn’t played in years but I kicked their asses! There’s nothing like picking up guys at a trendy party and killing them at the ping-pong table. I’m sure I made a great impression on these boys…

It’s been years now since I’ve touched one of those cute little paddles, so who knows what my skills will be like. YULBloggers beware! There should be a few ping-pong tournament invitations in the next few months!

Viens de me taper un fou rire incroyable: douleurs aux joues, crampe au ventre, difficult� � respirer, disparition de toute pens�e, larmes qui recouvrent le visage, perte de contr�le, corps pli� en deux. �a faisait longtemps. Le pire, c’est que je ne sais m�me plus ce qui a d�clench� notre long rire. Je sais cependant que je suis tr�s fatigu�e et �a, �a aide.

Ce n’�tait pas le cas cette fois-ci mais habituellement, ma partenaire de fou rire, c’est ma soeur, celle qui a 4 ans de plus que moi. Enfants, nous �tions tr�s diff�rentes mais nos sens de l’humour se rejoignaient et certaines situations nous faisaient tellement rire que nous n’arrivions plus � reprendre le contr�le. Ma m�re nous disait alors: “Arr�tez, vous allez pleurer!”. Je me calmais jusqu’� ce que je vois les �paules de ma soeur sursauter, tentant de contenir son rire, ce qui red�clenchait toujours le mien.

Maman avait raison. Souvent, sans que nous ne comprenions ce qui nous arrivait, nos fou rires tournaient en s�ance de larmes. Maman levait alors les yeux au ciel. Cette complicit� et cette folie la d�passaient. “Deux grandes filles comme vous autres”, qu’elle nous disait d’un air d�courag�. Ce genre de rire ne convenait pas aux personnes matures. Il fallait apprendre � se contr�ler.

J’ai toujours �t� fascin�e par cette familiarit� entre le rire et les larmes. Ils sont pour moi tr�s tr�s proches. “Est-ce que tu ris ou tu pleures?”, qu’il m’arrive de me faire demander… Je ris cependant plus facilement en public que je ne pleure. Au contraire des larmes, le rire a rarement besoin d’�tre justifi�.

Au cin�ma, j’appr�cie toujours les sc�nes o� l’on r�ussit � bien repr�senter les fou rires. Bien dirig� et avec une bonne complicit� entre les acteurs, �a peut �tre un moment de gr�ce incroyable. Mais je suis trop fatigu�e pour trouver des exemples!