Supremely smart or supremely silly?

As many of you will have noticed, J and I love posting about nuances that highlight the differences between Canada and the U.S. Some days I'm delighted by the differences, other days I shake my head in dismay. Today, I have had both reactions to two separate rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada.

In one ruling, they have declared that people who are "functionally disabled by obesity" have the right to two seats on an airplane. In this case, I'm decidedly pro-business - if you need two seats, you should purchase two seats.

In the other ruling, they have declared that businesses are accountable to their communities for the environmental damage they cause, even if the damage is within legal limits. This level of accountability ensures that the limits for what damages are acceptable are dynamic (rather than being slowly updated by public boards) and that corporations are directly responsible to their communities. Bravo! (Or should I say Brava! to our female Chief Justice?)

What do you think? Should obese people be entitled to two airline seats? And should companies be held to an environmental standard that is beyond the letter of the law?

Yet another reason to live north of the border

Some of dear readers in the good old U.S. of A. are probably grateful that their bank deposits are insured. In Canada, we have no such fear.

Not Canada.

And have we mentioned Quebec's paternity benefits program?

Another introduction

When considering starting a family, many couples get a cat or a dog to try out the responsibility of having a dependent. After the past summer of taking care of Fiorella, J and I have begun the journey toward having more responsibility together...


Profile shot


Check out those big, beautiful lips

A couple more photos can be found on our Flickr account, which we'll be updating shortly with some more photos of us.

After getting opinions from many friends, we decided to leave the sex of the baby a surprise. Since J and I have had names picked out since we were dating, we're enjoying the mystery of not knowing whether we're having a boy or a girl. We're also getting a big kick out of signing the little one up on daycare waitlists under the nom de plume, "Bébé Powers." Go ahead and say it with a French accent - I bet that it will make you giggle, too.

Have a guess for the baby's birthdate and sex? We'll find a suitable prize for the person who leaves a comment with the correct guess for gender and the closest guess for birth date and time. (Bébé Powers is scheduled to arrive on 28 February.)

Introducing Fiorella

Goodness, are there people that still read this blog? Thank you for not giving up on us.

While J has been gallivanting around Europe, I've been tooling around Montreal more fashionably than ever.

Introducing Fiorella.

Fiorella is a dragon red Vespa LX 50. She gets up to about 55 kmph going downhill, a gazillion kilometers to the liter, and lots of looks and stares as we drive through Montreal. I bought her from a delightful woman in Toronto who had won her in a contest and wasn't interested in keeping her. After the big adventure of getting her back to Montreal with me, it was time to name her. She needed have an Italian name, and Fiorella (which means little flower) won.

And, if Fio isn't cute enough for you, J and I even got matching helmets...

Don't make me hit the horn. You won't like the sound of my horn.

We have two helmets, so that you can take a spin with us when you come to visit. Just make sure to work on your obligatory shoulder shimmies in advance...

Play it. You know you want to.

Don't mess with Canada

U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls Clinton and Obama have been sparring about NAFTA lately as they each try to gain ground in Ohio. Both parties have suggested the possibility of "renegotiating NAFTA" to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes US elected officials, like all USians, I suppose, seem to forget that the rest of the world has ears. And newspapers. And oil.

Wouldn't you know it? The US's largest supplier of oil isn't Saudi Arabia--it's Canada. Care to guess what kind of import taxes we levy in Canadian oil? That's right: zero. Care to guess why? That's right: NAFTA. If the US starts messing with NAFTA, don't be surprised if Canada starts talking about China's virtues as a trading partner.

Oh, and incidentally, every time you fill up your tank, you contribute to the scourging of Canada. Calgary may get richer for a while off this stuff, but the sheer scale of the environmental catastrophe unfolding in Alberta's oil patch beggars the imagination.

Each truck: 3369.99 hp, 380 ton capacity, 47' x 30' x 21': roughly the size of 1-bedroom apartment.

Maple syrup nation

Being somewhat more travel-prone than your average bloggers, we TruffleWarreners absolutely love maps.

Old maps of Montréal.


Taoist maps of the human body.


Silly maps of the internet.

Give us an adjective, we've got a map to match. Try us. We dare you. And if you think we aren't ready for you, just chew on this: we've even got a maple syrup map. Well, actually it's a food traditions map, but, well... just look for yourself:

The maple syrup nation self-evidently has a manifest destiny to engulf the continent.

In all honesty, I had never really thought of maple syrup as the basis of a food culture. H assures me that it is--but then, H argues with some earnest that maple syrup qualifies as its own food group. Moi, je suis sceptique. After all, the same authority from which we're deriving the very concept of the maple syrup nation also indicates the existence of a clambake nation and a pinyon nut nation. So count me skeptical... but tickled.

Super Tuesday

For better or for worse, J and I aren't the greatest about timely blog posting. If anything, we pre-date a number of posts to fit properly in within our adventure calendar. But I read a very interesting thing in the Montreal Gazette today:

Most Canadians would back Hillary Clinton in this year's United States presidential race, and nearly one in six would forfeit their right to vote in the next federal election for a chance to sway the result across the border, polls indicated yesterday.

There are approximately 30 million Canadians, so that is 5 million Canadians who would rather vote in this U.S. election than vote for Stephen Harper's successor. When I mentioned this to J, he said it was like Americans wanting to vote in China because of their size and growing global influence. But then, there are Chinese that are voting in the U.S., too, and they need a bit of help to get the candidate's names right.

Most Canadians would opt for "Tired Forest," while I would support "Profound Horse."

May the best woman, man, or horse win!

Carpe diem, travellers!

H and I know that most of you out there are daring and imaginative adventurers. Sometimes, though, even the daring and imaginative among us needs a little inspiration. If the travel bug is nibbling you, but you're quite sure exactly where to go to scratch that itch, try browsing 1000 Places to See Before You Die. (Apparently, the website represents an adjunct to the book of the same title, which started the whole 1000-before-you-die phenomenon.)

To be completely honest, I've never even heard of the book, let alone the "phenomenon," but the website contains scads of great travel ideas. Talk about spectacular destinations... You're sure to find inspiration--if not a complete itinerary--here.

We humbly submit that a sojourn in Alsace , dividing your time between Strasbourg and the route du vin, is worthy of before-you-die attention.


And you're just kidding yourself if Prague isn't on your list.

I'm a little embarrassed (on their behalf) to have to report that they're still working up the whole user interactivity thing. If I'm behind on travel book trends, at least I'm not suffering from severe lag when it comes to internet trends. But, even if your own suggestions as to which places are visiting before you die won't get screen time, you can at least still profit from theirs.

The city's hall speaks

Contemporary North American city dwellers, though we have more than enough to feed our stomachs, have precious little upon which to feast our eyes. Generally accustomed to the banal concrete, glass, and steel designs which constitute the unintended legacy the Bauhaus's so-called "International Style," we have limited experience with cityscapes which evoke simple delight and honest pleasure.

Which is reason number 24 gazillion why we're lucky to live in Montréal. Certainly the city has its share of BSSs; it also its share of the good stuff. Imagine, if you will, that this is your City Hall.

Now, if that doesn't say "Cradle of Liberty," I don't know what does.

Whoops! Sorry! That's Boston's City Hall. Not exactly what I was intending, but while the photo's up there, I might as well make use of it. Officially, Boston's City Hall is in the brutalist style (yes, there really is an architectural style called brutalism--technically derived from the French for concrete: béton brute). Personally, however, I've always thought that a more accurate description of the building's style would be man-the-battlements-the-citizens-are-approaching!--but maybe that's a bit bombastic. Whatever we call it, doesn't it just make your inner architect swoon? (On the other hand, maybe your inner architect is just suffering from another bout of who-the-hell-authorizes-this-stuff. Your mileage may vary.)

But back to Montréal. As I was saying: Imagine, if you will, that this is your City Hall.

I'll concede that it resembles Vincent Price if you'll concede that there are worse architectural muses.

Not that it's perfect, but it would be hard to argue that Montréal's Hôtel de Ville isn't impressive, dramatic, and even beautiful in its overwrought way. Basically, then, H and I moved from a city where the municipal government hunkers in a brutalist fortress with Soviet overtones to a city where the municipal government cavorts in a Second Empire wedding cake with drama-queen lighting. It's not like this is the only domain in which Montréal surpasses Boston, but it's definitely one of the most spectacular.

Hours of superpowers

H and I believe--good optimists that we are--that every person possesses at least one superpower. Our friends JD and JB, for example, are able to throw epic parties at will. Our friend CE bakes the world's best bread--without a recipe. Even I have a superpower: I can seduce women more superpowerful than myself at will. I can even get them to marry me.

Of all H's superpowers--and I assure you that she has many--my favorite is unusual in that it seems to require study. Not that H isn't innately talented, but I caught her reading up on how to enhance her already impressive abilities during our weekly trip to the library.

It won't be long before companies start paying her to use their products.

Watch out Hetty Green!

Cultures, colors, and cross-coordination

The Basilique Notre-Dame is not only one of Montréal's architectural jewels, it's a venerable bastion of Québecois Catholicism.

Talk about an unexpected place for a blue-light special...

It therefore came as little surprise to see that its keepers have chosen the official colors of Québec for the church's lighting scheme. "What are the official colors of Québec?" you ask.

A pleasant, if somewhat unoriginal, color combination.

So, when actually stop and reflect upon it for a moment, the whole blue light thing makes sense. But to be completely honest, "Vive le Québec!" wasn't exactly the first thing that popped into our minds when we we first set eyes upon the Basilique's lighting scheme. I mean, think about it for a second. Blue and white holiday lights adorning a religious building in the winter time...

Yep. That's right.

Yes, you too can be the life of every Hanukkah party you attend with your very own menorah hat (only $24.95 plus S&H).

I guess you could say our first thought was something like, "Happy Hanukkah, Montréal!" Not what the decorators intended, I suppose, but still a seasonal sentiment. Nothing like cultural cross-pollination for a good chuckle.

Bonne Nouvelle Année !

Happy New Year, one and all! Our warmest wishes to all of you, our dear readers. May 2008 see you happy, healthy, and hearty. Indeed, may this year be the one in which your wildest dreams come true... except maybe for that one where you showed up at school naked.

Wow. Impressively wild. So... where do you carry your trig homework in that getup?

H and I are enjoying a quiet evening together, watching a few good films and reminiscing a little. Despite all the adventure, we're not all that sorry to see 2007 recede into the past. We look forward with great hope and intense anticipation to 2008. May it be our--and your--most adventuresome year yet!

Joyeux Noël !

A Merry Christmas to one and all! We're down in Cape Cod for a few days, enjoying the company of some of our dearest Boston-area friends. We'll let you know if we happen to see any Real Bearded Santas in our neighborhood--and you should keep a lookout chez vous. They've been known to congregate in unexpected places...

Would you believe me if I told you this photo was not taken at the North Pole?

Give it an inch...

H and I were delighted when snow finally arrived here in Montréal. Since we don't own a car, we were entirely unintimidated to learn that we were living through a record-breaking snowstorm. Heck, we even giggled with giddiness, watching it all come down. It's hard to faze Canadians with snow--even 40+ centimeters of it.

Even the potted plants in Montréal just shrugged and got on with it.

At the end, though, we had so much snow that the politicians started talking about how much it would cost to remove all of it. Care to guess how much? Nope. More. Nope. Even more. Try...

"I will keep your city snowbound unless you give me...

...$20 million Canadian dollars."

Yup. And that was just the first of the December storms. It's since snowed again. And we've heard tell that it will snow at least once more before 2007 ends. We also hear, however, that things may warm up, so we're probably looking at peak snow accumulation here--and let me tell you, if Tom Thumb were a ski-freak, he'd be in heaven in our jardin.

In Canada, it sometimes snows so damn hard you lose your chair.

Having paid my share of the $20 million it took to clear the streets, I'm just wondering how much the city's economy loses per snow day. Is it really worth it to remove all that snow absolutely ASAP?

Google to the rescue. Montréal apparently manages to produce a paltry CAD $96 billion or so of rough economic value per year (that's the 2006 figure). Since there are approximately 250 business days in a calendar year, we can estimate that each of those days is worth about CAD $384 million of rough-and-ready productivity. Now, some of that value doesn't depend on the weather (web-based, residential utilities, etc.), but plenty does. So, I suppose it is worth it.

Even though I checked my math thrice (and H checked it after that), I could hardly believe that Montréal produces CAD $384 million per day. It just seemed like too much. But... Canada's 2006 GDP clocked in at CAD $1.4 trillion. Their 2001 census claims 14,695,130 workers (excluding unemployed) in the country. That divides out to an average annual productivity of CAD $95,270 per worker. (The equivalent figure in the US is USD $91,389.) Bottom line: if you're working and making less than $90k a year (in whatever currency), you're not even making the average. So, I suppose Montréal's numbers make sense after all, given the relative (in)justice of our current economic system. Perfect sense.

Even Canada is becoming wary

It's not often that the New York Times publishes an article which defends (however grudgingly) Canada when it disparages the US. Usually, even the most cosmopolitan Americans chalk up Canadian grousing to Canada's supposed inferiority complex. Sometimes it's enough to make you think that maybe the chip is on the southern shoulder.

Evidently, the various policies of Our Glorious Leader (and I'm assuming you know the ones I mean) have now been in effect long enough that the tissue of international agreements which forms the legal foundation of our fast-globalizing society is beginning to fray at the edges. And I'm not talking about maybe-more-important but definitely-more-fuzzy issues of perception and trust. I mean real, current legal decisions are being taken which are changing the rules by which the game of global political-economy is being played. And there's a definite trend to these decisions--a trend which suggests that American children can look forward to a tougher future than the one we've enjoyed. Welcome to life as a rogue nation.

I'll admit that Canada has its quirks, but somehow the air just seems fresher up here. Weirder, sometimes. But fresher. (And on second thought, maybe not that weird after all...)

One of these men is an eccentric yokel; the other is petting a moose.

Welcome, snow!

H and I are enjoying the snowstorm today. Neither of us particularly minds the cold, but long winters aren't much fun without snow. They're predicting 35cm for this storm. Yay!

In Canada, it sometimes snows so damn hard that even the snow has to sit down to take a breather.

If the snow looks perhaps a bit too comfortable in that photo, don't worry. We couldn't be snugger--not even if we were bugs in a rug.

Dining in the dark

It's long after my birthday--nearly a month in fact--but we finally made it out to my birthday dinner. This year, instead of going with predictably scrumptious (say, L'Express, or Au Pied de Cochon, or Toqué), I decided to go with damn, that's novel. O.Noir ("It's better in the dark!") offers diners the novel experience of dining in utter darkness.

The b-day dinner crew gets ready to raise a ruckus.

When you enter the restaurant, you find yourself in a small foyer, where you read the menu, place your order, and wait for your waiter to guide your party to your table. The menu always features a "surprise" dish for each course. Your waiter--the entire service staff is blind--leads you to your table, and then... it gets interesting.

I wrote a review of the experience for my friend EP, which I think pretty well captures the experience of the evening:

O.Noir was at once a thrilling and a disappointing experience. Our party included me, two MBAs (my wife being one of them), two architects, and a psychologist. We talked a great deal about the design of the space, the design of the experience, and the experience's business proposition.

The bottom line (at least for this particular dine-in-the-dark restaurant--there are others): the food was completely unremarkable in both taste and texture. We had hoped for intense odors, unexpected shapes and textures, and so forth. The design of the space was disappointing in that it didn't seem to harbor any serious ambitions to capitalize on the fact that we couldn't see. Why not playful changes in flooring and wall textures. And the design of the objects we used (plates, glasses, forks, chairs, etc.) was also dull, dull, dull. The flatware could have been shaped differently; the glasses heavier in the base to prevent spills; the chairs at different heights; etc. etc. It was also very, very loud. High ceilings, hard surfaces, and no sound mitigation strategies.

BUT... the possibilities were extremely exciting. Our culture is so focused on vision that we often forget the importance of our other senses. During dinner, we talked about how thoughtful, creative design could have provided a magnificently rich experience. Someone--I can't remember who--suggested "eating gloves," which would be a fantastic design challenge.

As it was, cutting food was ridiculously difficult, so most of us ended up eating with our hands. We speculated that applying the east Asian principle of knifeless eating (all cutting done in the kitchen) might have been appropriate. We talked about adopting a culinary approach more sensitive to senses other than sight: using more aromatic seasonings (e.g., lavender, cumin, and mint), ingredients and dishes which have a auditory component (fizzy water, breads that need tearing, crunchy appetizers, etc.), and texturally engaging finger foods. Out impression was that management wasn't fully engaging the possibilities--for the interior designers and the chef, it was basically just a gimmick.

In all, we essentially paid $55 a head to eat mediocre food during a power outage. A novel experience which provides great grist for a stimulating conversation about innovation and design, but not somewhere I'd spend money a second time.

Hope your birthday dinner causes as much thinking as mine did!

She made it!

Ladies and gentlemen, by the power invested in McGill University by the province of Québec, I now announce that HLMP is officially a Master of Business Administration!

Hide your business plans! Lock away your financial statements!

H loves few things as much as a good ceremony, especially when there's a bagpiper involved. (She is Scottish, after all.)

Yep. There he is. Second from the right in the first row. Can't miss the kilt.

And of course, it's always more fun to do these sorts of things as a group. There really is nothing like a crowd for generating a little energy and excitement. Especially afterwards, when you get to speculate as to where your new wings might take you.

H and friend ML prepare for takeoff.

Congrats, H. You really did earn your wings. We can't wait to see you soar.

The wonder of Stevie

You may not have known, but H's favorite musical artist is Joni Mitchell. Well, to be perfectly accurate, it's Joni Mitchell except for when it's Stevie Wonder. And Stevie Wonder it is tonight, for H has secured orchestra-level seating for the Stevie Wonder concert tonight.

Tix to the hottest show en ville, and I got them at 75% of list price. You may kiss me now.

Rest assured: the concert will rock. And we will be there to rock with it.

UPDATE (26 Oct. 2007): Stevie rocked, we rocked. Assurance rested.

Lookah at the Hookah!

To celebrate the occasion of my acceptance of an excellent job offer, J and I were accompanied by our friends JPhB and AP to a local shisha bar, Cafe Gitano. I admit that I had been eying the lovely pipes in the window since we moved to Montreal, but had never ventured in. The time had come for some deliciously flavoured tobacco shared amongst friends.

JPhB and AP savour every last trickle of Double Apple smoke.

Apparently, the up-tick in hookah bars is not just a local phenomenon, and is being reported by one of the U.S.'s trashiest broadsheets. The hookah (Hindi), also known as a shisha (Arabic), is a water pipe device for smoking, and originated in India but has gained a great deal of popularity in the Arab world. Unsurprising then that there are a number of shisha bars in Montreal, since roughly 2% of Montreal's population is Arabic. According to a very friendly taxi driver of ours, Arabic is the third most spoken language in Montreal (after French and English, of course).

But let's get back to our celebration. I have been a rather vehement non-smoker since, at the age of five, I convinced my mother to stop smoking. However, I have turned a blind-eye to the fact that smoking shisha is indeed smoking. It's tasty, and it's fun...

J on sensory overload from the delicious apple-y magic.


I can stop whenever I want. Really. I can.