Jeux vidéo en bibliothèques

Certaines bibliothèques de la ville de Montréal offraient déjà des jeux vidéos à leurs usagers. Toutefois, vendredi dernier, un communiqué de presse du Cabinet du maire et du comité exécutif de la ville nous annoncait que les collections de jeux vidéo des bibliothèques municipales seraient presque quintuplé grâce, entre autres, aux dons généreux de trois entreprises montréalaises dans le domaine de la conception de jeux vidéo.

Avec cette bonification des collections, plus de la moitié des bilbiothèques du réseau offriront à leurs usagers plus de 5 000 jeux vidéo. Une attention toute particulière sera apportée aux productions locales. Pour la liste des bibliothèques participantes ainsi que les conditions de prêts et autres détails, veuillez consulter le site des bibliothèques de Montréal.

Bravo! Quelle belle façon de continuer à diversifier les collections des bibliothèques tout en initiant les jeunes à la culture, au loisir et à la technologie. Sans oublier que c'est une excellente manière de faire augmenter les statistiques de prêts.

Solde de livres des ABM

Comme toutes les années le solde de livres des Amis des Bibliothèques de Montréal se tient à l’Aréna Étienne-Desmarteau du 28 avril au 6 mai, entre 13 h et 19 h.

Vous y trouverez toutes sortes de livres qui ont été retiré de la collection des bibliothèques de la ville de Montréal (histoire de faire de la place pour les nouveauté). C'est plus de 90 000 livres et revues offert à très bon prix (50 ¢ pour les livres jeunesse, revues et magazines, cassettes audio et disques; 1 $ pour les livres pour adultes et 2 $ pour les bandes dessinées et dictionnaires).

C'est non seulement une aubaine pour vous mais en achetant vous contribuez à financer les activités d’animation dans les Bibliothèques de Montréal. Tout le monde est gagnant!

Shōwa Day

Today, April 29, is Shōwa Day (昭和の日 / Shōwa no hi) in Japan. This holiday celebrates the birthday of the Shōwa Emperor (Hirohito, father of the current emperor, Akihito, who “ruled” over Japan from 1926 to 1989). Because of the emperor's role in the war and the fear it would be seen as glorifying the emperor himself, the holiday was controversial and ceased to be celebrated for a while (1989–2006). It was finally reinstated with the idea that it would rather “encourages public reflection” on the turbulent reign of the emperor.

Shōwa Day also marks the beginning of the Golden Week (ゴールデンウィーク), which is one of the three week-long holidays of the Japanese calendar. Besides Shōwa Day or the Emperor's Birthday (天皇誕生日 / Tennō tanjōbi), it also includes the Constitution Memorial Day (憲法記念日 / Kenpō kinenbi on May 3rd), the Greenery Day (みどりの日 / Midori no hi on May 4) and the Children's Day (こどもの日 / Kodomo no hi on May 5).

Biweekly Press Review (2012/04/24)

Not much important stuff in the news in the last couple of weeks. After a quick mind scan i can come up only with three things: Apple's eBook price-fixing suits, the first turn of the French presidential election and the local student strike (last two links in french, sorry). However, it doesn't means that nothing happened. I found lots of interesting news bits that I will share with you after the jump:

Dropbox drive

”Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. This means that any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website. Dropbox also makes it super easy to share with others (...)“

I use it constantly. It is very useful to keep files safe and mobile. If you have not already signed up for this free service, you should!

Join Dropbox thru this link and get an extra 500 Mb of free storage (on top of the initial 2 Gb)!

[And this will also give ME an extra 500 Mb of storage. Thanks for helping! And a special thanks to those who have already signed up!]

Osaka-style sushi

While watching “journeys in japan” today on NHK World, I discovered a new style of sushi that is amazing: the Osaka-style Boxed sushi or Hakozushi!

It's characterized by its flavoured rice which is pressed into a box with topping of cooked or cured ingredients (either eel, red snapper, omelet, shrimp, or, the most famous, mackerel aka battera or “portugese sushi”). When it is pushed out of its wooden mould it gives a perfectly square block of rice (or rectangular in the case of the battera) which is then cut into smaller square pieces. It literally looks like Rice Krispies squares with toppings!

It seems easier to make than regular sushi (mostly rolls or vinegared rice pieces shaped into the palm) which usually required a long apprenticeship. Also, since it has no raw meat (sashimi) like the Edo-style sushi, it is safer to eat and requires no dip sauce.

I found two receipes: one on Food Network and one on Yummly. I even found a how-to video for battera on YouTube:


Unfortunately, after a quick search, I couldn't find a Japanese restaurant in Montreal that serves that type of sushi (if you find one, let me know!). I guess it only leaves us to try making it ourselves!

Biweekly Press Review (2012/04/08)

Notable news this last couples of weeks are the 2012 Canadian federal budget (The Gazette, Canada.com, Yahoo, National Post), Videotron's announcement of an illico TV new generation (press release, link), the one-hundred years anniversary of the Titanic (Ottawa Citizen) and the return to TV of the Game of Thrones and The Borgias series. For the rest you can simply check my collected links after the jump:

Note syndicale: feedback

Quelques personnes m'ont fait des commentaires par courriels en rapport avec mon billet “Note syndicale.” Les détails après le saut de page:

Note syndicale

1. Quelques suggestions

Oups, le temps passe vite quand on travail trente-cinq heures (et quand on est préoccupé par le fait que le mouvement de sa permanence n'est toujours pas complété après près de deux mois) et voici déjà le moment du fameux colloque (reporté maintes fois) pour discuter d'un projet de convention collective. Désolé de ce billet de dernière minute!

Tout les détails après le saut de page:

Home Log (2012-03-26)

The work at the new library is finally becoming routine. The funny thing is that I often end up doing layout for flyers announcing the library's events and activities! However the full schedule and the long commuting (nearly three hours per day!) are really taking their toll: on my first day off this week-end I slept twelve hours! I am not getting any younger, I guess.

I finally got and watched the dvd of Ken Burns' documentary on Mark Twain. Quite an interesting character. I'll never get tired of watching Burns' documentaries: he's always very interesting and I am glad that I still have many of his works to watch.

The unusually warm temperature of last week made all the snow disappear but the melting also created lots of humidity in the basement. Consequently, in the last couple of weeks, I've experienced an invasion of woodlouse (in french: cloportes). Fortunately, those small creatures (Arthropodes are not insects but crustaceans) are inoffensive but, still, it's rather annoying. I'll really have to take care of this humidity problem. Those cute little things are definitely the inspiration behind the Ohmu in Miyazaki's Nausicaä of The Valley of the Wind, so I can't really hate them.

I wrote a little but not as much as I wanted (as usual, I came back from work too tired to do much). I talked (in french) about the fact that local libraries are now lending ebooks. I wrote (again, in french) about the fact that many of my assistant librarian collegues are often over-qualified and introduced two of them who are artists and are exposing their work in art galeries. Finally, I shared my weekly news scrapbooking and a funny anecdote brought me to reflect on freedom of religion.

I also kept reading from my old notebooks (some dating as far as the 70s) and I am still amazed (okay, it is not that good but it is nevertheless quite interesting). I really must use some of those texts here...

However, what I would have really liked to do is share comments about movies and books. That's the purpose of this cultural blog after all. I keep borrowing books and dvds from the library or receiving them from publishers and I am getting quite behind in commenting them. Spring and warmer weather seems to give me a little more energy so I'll definitely increase my writing output in the coming weeks and months (and I'll take some day off to work on it).

Reflection on freedom of religion

Earlier this week, as I was about to leave for work in the morning, the door bell rang. Opening the door, I discovered an old couple of missionaries (something like the Jehovah's witnesses) who were speaking only italian! Fortunately, I could understand most of what the old lady was saying. She wanted to give me some literatura about the life of Gesù. What makes the anecdote funny is that they seemed as puzzled as me by the fact that I couldn't (or rather wouldn't) speak italian. I must admit that there are lots of italians in my neighborhood and the previous owner of the house was italian, so I guess they had my address listed as “one of their own”.

This funny anecdote brought me to reflect on the principle of freedom of religion. Hit the jump the read more:

Weekly Press Review (2012/03/25)

After some extremely warm temperature for the season (last week the thermometer reached 26'C, the highest ever recorded for March), we are back with a more seasonal temperature (cold and windy) for early spring. The bad news of the week is the death of one of my favourite anime directors and founder of Artland studio, Noboru Ishiguro (Legend of Galactic Heroes, Megazone 23, Orguss, Macross The Movie, Yamato). I've also discovered that Casterman is releasing two new manga by Jiro Taniguchi (links in french): Furari (released in February and already available in libraries) and Enemigo (due late June in France). Beside that it was a slow news week, but you'll nevertheless find my collected links after the jump:

Artistes en bibliothèques

Ces dernières années j'ai travaillé dans de nombreuses bibliothèques et j'ai constaté que mes collègues aide-bibliothécaires venaient de toutes sortes de milieu. Bien sûr plusieurs d'entre eux/elles sont des étudiants du CEGEP ou de l'université qui travaillent à temps partiel afin de payer leurs études mais une grande majorité d'entre eux/elles ont en fait une formation et une culture qui va bien au-delà de ce qu'on pourrait s'attendre (ou même des exigences de l'emploi: un simple DES). Tout comme moi, ils/elles considèrent souvent ce travail comme une sorte de pré-retraite, une façon de gagner sa vie sans se la compliquer tout en continuant les activités qui leurs sont chères. J'ai rencontré des régisseur de plateau de télévision, des monteurs vidéo, des écrivains, des graphistes, des pressiers, des chercheurs, en fait des gens de toutes sortes (dont plusieurs avaient des diplômes d"études supérieures). J'ai aussi rencontré quelques artistes. Deux d'entre eux exposent actuellement leurs oeuvres et je vous invite à les visiter.

Je vous ai déjà parlé de Karine Perron. Elle peint sur papier en utilisant diverses techniques : applications d'encres, déchirures et égratignures.

Comme tout les printemps elle expose ses oeuvres au troquet le Cep et le Houblon (situé au 2280, rue Bélanger à Montréal; Pour plus d'informations contactez le 514-727-3333).

L'exposition, cette fois intitulée “À tout vent,” se déroule du 2 au 30 mars 2012. Hâtez-vous de la visiter!

De plus, j'ai récemment découvert Louis Fortier, un sculpteur polyvalent (il utilise tant le plâtre, le ciment, la résine que la cire) dont le sujet de prédilection est la tête (souvent moulée à partir de son propre chef). Son oeuvre est intriguante (c'est une sorte de Dali du visage) et le curriculum de l'artiste est très impressionnant.

Il expose actuellement à la Galerie Donald Browne (située dans l'édifice Belgo au 372 Ste-Catherine Ouest, suite 528, à Montréal; pour plus d'information contactez le 514 380-3221, consultez leur pages web ou Facebook). L'exposition, intitulée “Métamorphoses,” se déroule du 25 février au 14 avril 2012 (la galerie est ouverte du Mercredi au Samedi, de 12h00 à 17h00, ou sur rendez-vous). Certainement à voir.


Crédit photo: Ivan Binet

Prêt de livrels en bibliothèque

Les Bibliothèques publiques de Montréal et la Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec ont récemment mis à la disposition de leurs usagers des livrels (ben oui: des eBooks en français, aussi appelés “livres numériques”) qui peuvent être emprunté de la même façon qu'on emprunte un livre-papier dans une bibliothèque. Voir les détails après le saut de page:

Home Log (2012-03-12)

Nothing much to report on the home front. I'm still adapting to the new job & schedule. The wife is back to work, so it gave me more time to catch up on the TV series that were accumulating on the PVR. I've binged on Alcatraz and Unforgettable (my two favourites this season), as well as NCIS, Hawaii 5-0 and Vampire Diaries (but I still have to watch Grey's Anatomy and The Walking Dead). But it's on my writing that I should be catching up. I have a pile of books to comment on and many ideas of blog entries that I would like to share with the blogosphere. (Read more of my daily adventures beyond the jump).

Weekly Press Review (2012/03/12)

My top three news of the week are: the death of Moebius, Apple announcing new devices and apps, as well as the one-year anniversary of Japan's tsunami. Of course, we must not forget the Republican primaries that keep polluting the news broadcast... As usual, you'll find the rest of my weekly scraplinking after the jump:

Weekly Press Review (2012/03/06)

In the news this couple of weeks: in the US the tornado season gets an early and strong start, an imminent Apple event will possibly announce a new iPad and aTV, and, frankly, the next series of Survivors should not be held on an island but on a cruise ship! You'll find much more news right after the jump:

Weekly Press Review (2012/02/20)

This week, the news were dominated by Whitney Houston death and funeral and Apple quiet announcement of their new operating system, Mountain Lion, due next summer. Beside that it was a rather slim pick but I've nevertheless gathered a few links (after the jump):

Life log (2012-02-20)

It was another busy but quiet week. I am settling in well into my new job, but the long commuting is a real drag and I remain quite tired once I come back home which leave me not much time to do anything (like we say in french: it's “metro-boulot-dodo”).

There's little notable events this week. Last monday my wife and I saw a small woodpecker in our front yard's tree. I was able to identify it as a female “downy woodpecker.” I guess it is a sign of an early spring which is not surprising since day-time temperature remained slightly above zero celcius for most of the week (I've heard that the cherry flowers are already blossoming in Washington DC!). So far in Montreal we've had only one real snow storm. Where is my winter?

Yesterday I tried some warm spiced wine like they used to drink in the middle ages (or even in ancient Greece and Rome) and I found it horrible. I guess it is an acquired taste. I spent most of my days off re-installing a functional copy of Windows on my Mac (not much use for it beside getting to know XP better for my work, but it's rather amusing).

I've also started reading Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood (after watching the movie I was curious to see how different it was from the novel; I'll probably eventually write a short comment on both), I've watched the Canadian TV series Bomb Girls as well as another Ken Burns documentary titled Horatio's Drive, America's first road trip (which was quite interesting and entertaining). And, of course, I've read news online.

Bomb Girls

“They work in munitions factories, building the arms that keep their overseas husbands, lovers, brothers and sons alive and fighting. For these women, the freedoms they're fighting for… come to include their own. While they're building bombs, women also find themselves flourishing with newfound freedom, discovering strengths they never before imagined. At the same time they're often woefully under-equipped for the new challenges they face. Amid propaganda and sexual harassment, crossing social and cultural boundaries, these remarkable women form a sisterhood never experienced before.”