Îles de la Madeleine Videos

Îles de la Madeleine Cruise - 8-15 July 2011 from Luigino on Vimeo.

   Hello everyone. It has been some time since the last post, I will blame it on writers block, and also on not being certain what direction to take this blog in. I have a feeling that it will become more of a video and picture blog, but I have not decided yet.

  For today it will be a video blog as I am posting some vacation videos. They are videos from our trip to les Îles de la Madeleine.

  We took a cruise from Montréal and we spent three days on the islands. It was a fun way to visit the province, as we got to see the Gaspe area and the north shore as well.

  I hope you enjoy the videos

Smaller Îles de la Madeleine Film Taken With Cell Phone from Luigino on Vimeo.

Waves @ Beach Cap Aux Meules, Îles de la Madeleine from Luigino on Vimeo.

Port Area Cap Aux Meules from Luigino on Vimeo.

Rainy Evening On The Ship from Luigino on Vimeo.

Herring Smokehouse Tour- Acadian accent from Luigino on Vimeo.

CTMA Vacancier Docked At Chandler Gaspe from Luigino on Vimeo.

Video Montage Mexico

Riviera Maya juillet 2010 from Luigino on Vimeo.

I have also posted a few videos to the right, please see Montague Photos or follow this link.

Barcelona

See the post below.

Summer Time

Ah Summer Time

       It has been some time, I will not make any excuses, I am just in a lazy pre-vacation summertime mood and I have not felt like writing.  Today I said why not and was inspired to write by a video that I came across last night. More on that later, let me do a small recap about what has been on lately in some politics and current events.

  Politico

  The political scene is very quiet and there is not really much going on. As summer begins, most polticians have gone fishing or something, haha. When there are elections , politics are definitely more fun. We are basically stuck with Mr Harper, Mr Charest , and Mr Tremblay for a few more years it seems.

     There are two problems that cause us being stuck with the same old gang of politicians. First is that no one else wants the job. Politics is a tough job, and some of these politicians work many hours and really do care but they are underpaid. I am sure that some readers will say what did this guy put in his coffee today, but it is true that politics is an ungrateful job and it pays little in comparison to some other jobs.

    We pay actors and sports stars, ten and  twenty times what we pay the prime minister, it does not make sense at all. When was the last time you heard someone say , when I grow up I want be a politcian.

   The other reason why we stuck with the same old crowd is the low level of voter turn out here. Many people take the time to complain, and say stuff like our governement this and our government that, but these same people probably did not go vote.  As a result of this, the same old gang gets re-elected. 

     Our problems with the same old politcos are not easy to solve, but at the least people should go vote I think.
  
  Current Events

    I am not sure what is going on with all those flags on the cars, lately, is it flag month or something. Just kidding here, it is the World Cup of soccer, when people all support their home teams. I am not the biggest sports fan, but I was still supporting the Italian team. ( For those of you that are unaware, Montague is of Italian background.)

     I say still in the previous sentence, because Italy was eliminated yesterday, they did not even make it out of the first round and finished last in their group.

       What happened to the 2006 champions I am not sure, like I said earlier I am not the a huge sports fan. For some analysis click here. Let me just say that it did not go well, and that yesterday was a sad day in Little Italy.

    What else is going on, it is summer so there is always some festival going on, last week the Francolies ended, today the MTL Jazz Fest begins, and there are many others throughout the summer.

   Musica

   Let me get to the video that inspired me to write a blog last night. It is the first video for the song "Je Sais " from the new CD by MTL singer/songwriter Anik Jean . Miss Jean just released her third CD about 6 weeks ago and this song is the first video that has been released.  The video is an original style done entirely on handheld cameras and is filmed in Barcelona. Besides being a nice video with good imagery, the song is really good as well.

      Miss Jean has really come into her own style with this CD. The first two albums were largely influenced by her collaborators and the co-writers of some her songs. This  album is mostly all Anik Jean, it is self produced by her as well, and is just called Anik Jean.

   This album also has some interesting collaborations as well, the one that stands out in particular, is a re-worked song done with Robert Smith. Yes the Robert Smith of The Cure.

    As always I will leave you with a few links to explore, the rocking style of Ms Jean (by the way she also plays a mean guitar), this link is to the song up above in case you forgot to click on it earlier, and this link is for her web site. where you can find more information and links to older videos. Play it loud and enjoy. 

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    As usual this turned into a long post, I hope you all enjoyed it. Well thats all for now, catch you next time. Come back here in a few weeks, I will try to put up some summer pictures.

Sigur Who

Place Royale
Originally uploaded by Montague4

      Without being too repetitive, it has been some time, but I did say that this was turning into a blog that would appear about once a month, and I am almost on time. It will be various subjects, and a little long. Enjoy.

Politico

    On the political scene, at all three levels of governments, one word summarizes what has been going on lately, and that word is scandal.

    The worst of the bunch is the provincial government that is being run by Jean Charest and the Liberal party. It is outrageous how many scandals they seem to be involved with. A day does not go by, that the journalists are not reporting on some scandal.

    It is almost unprecedented. I have always been someone that follows the news and I  do not remember ever hearing so much talk of scandals. Most of the scandals seem to involve his cabinet ministers. They are involved in some scandals concerning fund raising, and who is giving money to whom.

     Obviously  who is giving to politicians is important, because it affects who is pulling the strings when decisions need to be made by the government. There are rules for this setup in QC, but obviously many members of the Liberal party seem to not be aware of them, due to all the infractions that we are seeing.

      It all comes down to a question of who is actually running the province. Is it Jean Charest and the Liberals or is it big business and friends of the Liberal party ?

     I think that if Mr Charest wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do a major cabinet shuffle now and demote some ministers if he wants  to seem remotely credible. 
  
      Current Events
  
   Quite a few things have been going on lately, it is hard to mention them all here but I wll try to do a quick mention of some of them.

   First thing that deserves a mention is that Icelandic volcano that no one knows who to spell or pronounce that caused alot of trouble with air travel a few weeks ago. The question that was asked was did the European Union overeact in banning air travel for almost a week. It is hard to say, at times it is better to overeact and save lives.
  
   Another mention goes to that huge oil spill caused by that platform fire in the gulf of Mexico. When will we learn from these oil spills, where are the failsafes I ask myself. Is there not a quick action plan, in case of problems like these.

     Now they are getting ready to try to some farfetched plan that may or may not work. I really hope that they can do something to minimize the  environmental effects of all this.
 
    The last thing that I feel deserves a mention is the terrorist attack that failed in NYC. One word that comes to mind when I think about the attack is lucky. They were lucky that someone saw the smoke coming out of the van, that the person got involved and warned a police officer.  Luckily we had citizen vigilance here, because unfortunately too many of these attackers are still getting through the cracks.
  
Musica
  
   My musical interlude today is also from Iceland, this week I came across the first solo album by Jonsi Birgisson, who happens to be one of the members of Icelandic group Sigur Ros. I have known Sigur Ros for a few years now, and I can say that they are a very original band. Sigus Ros`s style can be best desrcibed as post-rock, with some electronic influences.

    What is post-rock you might ask yourself, I know I did and I looked it up. Well it is rock but played differently, with harmonies and melodies not usually associated with rock. A good example of this, is that  Mr Birgisson uses a cello bow on his electric guitar.

    As always I am leaving you with a few links so you can check out what is this post-rock he is talking about.  First link is for the Jonsi solo album, this one for Sigur Ros, and this one links to some Sigur Ros videos.  You may find them different, relaxing, and enjoyable depending on your mood.

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  Well that is all for now, see you next time. One more thing, I was in QC a few weeks ago, and have posted some pictures, for those of you that want to have a look , follow this link.