Posts Tagged montreal blog

73 results.

What’s Missing From Your Look? It Might be a Habs Hat

by on June 9, 2017 at 10:37 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Montreal, Perspicacious Geek

Finishing TouchMontreal has a reputation for being a pretty fashionable city. We’ve got a lot of cool clothing stores, fancy barbershops and everyone has fancy socks and pocket squares. Sometimes they match. However, I got an email this morning that will straight up blow your mind. There is one accessory that even Montreal’s most fashionable males might be over looking. One thing that will complete any look.

That item? A Habs ballcap. It can take any look from “bore” to “score!”

How did I find this out? The Montreal Canadiens official online store dropped the hot tip on me this morning!

I don’t know about you but this is going to completely revolutionize my summer style.

Complete Your LookAfter all, if there’s one time where you want to be wearing a hat from a team that plays a winter sport, it’s the summer. That’s just Fashion 101.

So if you’re like me and you’ve been struggling with the perfect accessory to complete your look, the look is over.

Add the finishing touch to whatever outfit you’re wearing. Business, casual, formal. Nothing says “I’m a grown up and I take my appearance seriously” like a Habs hat. Available wherever hats are sold probably.

Don’t believe me? Look at these REAL men (not models) who are rocking this year’s hottest look:

Goes With AnythingI don’t know why I even wasted my time writing anything when all you need to know can be summed up in this gif:

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Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

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Helping You Vote For the Best of Montreal

by on April 4, 2017 at 12:05 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Montreal, Perspicacious Geek

BOM-2017-web-box-blueEvery year, we do a bit of campaigning for that “Best of Montreal” thing that do over at Cult MTL. The validation that comes from being voted as one of Montreal’s favorite anythings usually gives us the confidence boost necessary to do what we do for a little while longer.

Obviously we want you to vote for us in the appropriate categories (Best Podcast, Best Website, Best Artist, etc) but we also want to give some love to our friends.

In order for your votes to count, you need to fill out a minimum of 25 categories. So, if you’re not sure what to vote for, why not check out our list for some ideas? I mean, maybe you have your own favorite things but 25 categories is an awful lot and I think we can all agree that Starbucks doesn’t really need that recognition as “Best Coffee” in Montreal.

What are you waiting for? Vote now at Best of Montreal over at Cult MTL. Deadline is April 7th.

And, if you’re looking for how to vote to fill out your ballot, here’s how I voted:

4. Best Sports Personality / Meilleure vedette sportive

For some reason there isn’t a “Best Sports Team” or League or whatver category. So I voted for the entirey of Montreal Roller Derby’s New Skids on the Block as Best Sports Personality.

15. Best Radio Show / Meilleure émission de radio

We’ve got a lot of friends on the radio, but the fact that we had Danny Payne on the podcast gives him the vote (and that Heather B is no longer on the radio). Vote for The Pressure Drop on CJLO.

16. Best Radio Host / Meilleur animateur de radio

You know what? Even though she’s no longer on Montreal radio, she was for most of 2016. So give her the sendoff she deserves and vote Heather B for Best Radio Host of 2016.

22. Best Website / Meilleur site web

Duh, this one. 9to5.cc is the best DIY website in Montreal. We try to write comics, do podcasts and blog all without any sort of corporate shenanigans.

23. Best Twitter / Meilleur compte Twitter

Also us. @9to5cc on Twitter yo. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Did I Write This Week? – Finishing What You Started

by on February 7, 2017 at 4:53 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
20170102_172004

No context image, but somehow these Ghostbuster have their names Cyrillic script in a Canadian Walmart.

Did I Write This Week?

Yes! I did really and truly!

What’d Did I Write?

I wrote about half of the final part of my zombie story. The neverending stream of things to do with moving is finally slowing down, so the amount of time I’ve got for creativity is slowly returning back to normal. Did I mention I don’t have an internet connection at home yet? Well, I don’t. That’s kind of proven to be a blessing in disguise though since I’ve loaded up all the previous parts of “Fear and Loathing After the Bomb” onto a USB key and have been going over everything making little edits here and there that I’m going to use for the “definitive” edition when I release everyhing as an e-book.

All told it looks like it will be around 24,000 words. Or, about 1/3 of the first Harry Potter book. That’s not too shabby. And it only took me a little more than 5 years! At that rate maybe I’ll release my first book when I’m in my mid-50s! Hurray.

Shit.

To be fair to that timeline though there was a solid 3/1/2 years where I wrote literally nothing for the story (and was instead occupying my time by writing that blog that this blog eventually became). So, if I’m being optimistic, that means it took me around 2 years to write 24,000 words. That makes a somewhat more reasonable (but still incredibly daunting) 8 years to draft a 100,000 word manuscript.

Or, alternatively, if I manage to write 1000 words a week, 2 years.

I like the sound of that much better.

So What’s Next?

Well, now’s the fun part (well, I’m assuming that if you’re reading this you’ve got an interest in seeing the fruits of my labour). If everything goes as planned I will be completing “Fear and Loathing After the Bomb” tonight. And that means that after a nearly 3 year hiatus the final 6 parts of the story will be released starting the Friday. I’ll be spending the next 5 or 6 weeks editing and polishing the entire thing and then converting it into a free-to-download ebook.

I’ve decided that the versions that are published on the website will stay “as is” as of today (I’ve actually gone back and made a few edits here and there over the past few months) so that if you’re so inclined you’ll be able to compare the raw versions and the final form.

I’m excited.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

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Review of January 2017 “Origins” Loot Crate – Look At All My Sh*t

by on February 1, 2017 at 12:30 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Disclaimer: I totally had this written and ready to go yesterday as a Tuesday post. However, without internet I couldn’t risk tethering my phone for all the photo uploads due to data consumption (especially since I’ll be doing just that tonight for tomorrow’s podcast). Sorry friends.

Hey! I’m back! I mean, I never really left, I was still blabbering away on Go Plug Yourself and 9ES but my writing ground down to an absolute halt over the course of the last month or so as I sorted out moving from my apartment into the condo that Sarah and I just bought. I’ll spare you the details of everything involved and everything that went wrong, but now the “shit to do” list has dwindled down to a manageable 4 or 5 things.LootJan1

In all the hubbub I managed to not only stop blogging, I entirely forgot to to talk about December’s “REVOLUTION” crate (it was pretty great in my opinion). I also basically forgot that I was even subscribed to Loot Crate (and the box got sent to my old address). But hey, I finally got my hands on January’s “ORIGINS” crate so now I’m going to review it! I had no idea what franchises were going to get repped this month so it was kind of cool to have a total surprise with each item I pulled. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Writing Comics is Different – The Perspicacious Geek

by on December 20, 2016 at 10:29 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
workstation

Man, I can’t wait until I have a better put together office. You know, better put together than all my stuff out on the coffee table.

On a totally unrelated note, every single time I write the word “Perspicacious” I think I’m going to mess up the spelling, but I think I’ve got it nailed.

Did I Write This Week?

Yes! Not what I was originally planning on writing, but writing happened all the same. But I didn’t finish off the zombie story as I had planned. Still, I managed to find time to write a little bit creatively. Sophie’s turn as head-writer over on 9to5 (illustrated) is coming to a close and I’m next in line, so that meant for the first time in a very long time, it was my turn to helm the strip for a while.

I looked it up, my last run as head writer was my “True-Er Detective” story that we published back in January of 2015. Which means I probably wrote them around November or December 2014. Wow. It’s been 2 years.

I was a little rusty. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Coping With Broader Themes – Perspicacious Geeks

by on December 13, 2016 at 7:19 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
Hurr hurr hurr, winter is coming.

Hurr hurr hurr, winter is coming.

Let’s get this show on the road, it’s almost 7:00 pm as I write this and I just finished editing this week’s episode of Go Plug Yourself and contemplating, as ever, why I do any of this when I could have just come home and played video games. Especially considering I’m fighting off a cold because there’s nothing more cliché than battling a cold right before your winter holidays. It’s like a very special 9to5 (dot cc) Holiday Special trope or something.

Did I Write This Week?

Yes! I laid out the second to last part of the zombie story, which means I am almost certainly on track to have it completed by the end of the year. Now, I know that I said I was going to start releasing it when I got close to completion. But, if you’re among the 3 people who read this column who actually care about when it gets released, I will reveal to you why that’s not the case. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Did I Write This Week? – Perspicacious Geek

by on November 22, 2016 at 7:12 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

e48e58282cca6cd61a9ecde44b5d32f3_crop_northNope.

Why Not?

Because I’m super busy that’s why.

I figure though that if Brock Lesnar and Goldberg can get paid a whole lot of dollars for about 90 seconds of work, I can just phone this blog in too.

Look at those two dudes, screaming angrily in front of some sort of electrical fire store or something. They’re surely about to embark into a personal hell crafted by each for the other. Titans among men, doing battle for the ages.

Nope, 90 seconds.

Honestly, I’ve already put more time into writing this shitpost than these two did in their Survivor Series match.

Anyhow, another busy week ahead, I’ve got no idea how I’m going to find the time to write.

Sorry friends, I know you’re counting on me.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

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Did I Write This Week? – Perspicacious Geek

by on November 2, 2016 at 8:23 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

write3Listen here world, I know that it’s Wednesday and I usually publish these things on Tuesdays but guess what? I was in bed sick all day yesterday and also part of today. So there’s that. I was debating blowing off this week’s entry altogether, but that would defeat the whole point of this thing. Which is to keep me honest about writing.

So this is going to be short.

Did I Write This Week?

You would think that with two weeks of lead time since last week I wrote about Loot Crate I would have more to show this week, but I don’t. If I’m being honest (and that’s the point) I maybe found about 30 minutes in the last two weeks to do anything, and with that time I finished up another section of my ole Zombie Story. So only 3 parts remain before I start sharing with you.

So there’s that.

I don’t want to make excuses (but I will) but the last two weeks have involved buying a house, a lot of parties and then getting completely bed ridden with exhaustion. The kind of exhaustion that leaves you thinking you’re sick, but then it’s the kind of sick that doesn’t make any sense. Like, you’ve got a sore throat and kind of a fever, but then your nose doesn’t get stuffed up? You sleep all day and wake up feeling kind of better but you start to move around and realize you still don’t have any energy?

I’m not a doctor but I think this is what old people feel like all the time.

Maybe that’s it, maybe I’m just getting old.

I took two days off of work that were mostly spent sleeping and only now am I beginning to feel human again.

One of the other things that I’ve been terrible about is actually getting out of the house to write. I have this vision of getting together with some other people and just working on our creative stuff at a bar or cafe or something. I did it once with Marc and it was pretty great. Mostly just us sipping on pints of beer while we worked on our stuff. I was cutting together a short little video that you might see one day and Marc was working on a podcast that you might very well see in the next week or two.

It was great and I really want to do it again. There’s something pretty motivating about working alongside someone, even if it’s not expressly on the same thing.

Anyhow, I wrote a little this week, but I really feel like I have the itch to hammer out a lot in the next coming days.

Wish me luck I guess.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

 

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Did I Write This Week? – Perspicacious Geek

by on September 13, 2016 at 12:28 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
20160911_005714

I had taken a cool picture of my notebook up at the cottage but then my SD card crashed, so here’s a cool picture of the rain in NDG

Did I Write This Week? I sure did. Actually, quite a bit. Which is good because it’s been two weeks since I’ve written one of these so if I hadn’t, it would be extra shameful.

What Did I Write?

So this was an interesting little period for me since I got to do a couple of different little creative writing workouts.

Despite not being my turn up as “head writer” for our little comic strip, we’ve had a few sessions lately hammering out the next comics from Jon and Sophie. Everyone kind of has a different style of how we approach the comic-writing process, and in this case both Jon and Soph only had sort of vague ideas and a few punchlines. The four of us then sit around and think about how to structure it into 4 strips, each with its own joke, that also kind of tells a story and wraps up to some degree at the end of the final comic.

I really like the process, I like the immediate response of knowing whether or not a joke lands (even if it comes at the price of immediately seeing that something you think is hilarious falls totally flat to three other people) and I like being able to ask questions like “will people get this?” and having a group to figure it out, or to make it pop a little more. You can get stuck in your own head writing and it’s pretty easy to down on yourself. Writing in a group gives you a bit of validation for your good stuff and also lets you know what your bad stuff is almost immediately.

Really hope that with everyone’s new schedule we’ll be back up and rolling weekly again with the comics, since chilling with the gang and writing funnies is one of my favorite things to do.

I wrapped up another piece of Zombies and Loathing, which is turning out to be more and more of a chore as I get more excited to really start cutting into the supposed novel plan. It’s good though. My idea, as previously mentioned is to get the last parts finished up and then publish them to the site. I also want to test my hand and editing them so I’ll likely be going back to Part 1 and revising everything. After that, I think I will make it all available on Amazon for free or a penny or something. Whatever. It will be done and that is what will matter. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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A Perspicacious Change of Pace

by on August 16, 2016 at 4:38 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Keith2Hey there friends. Did you realize that I didn’t post a blog last week? You probably didn’t. That’s not your fault. I don’t blame you.

Here’s what’s been going on with me.

I’ve written this blog for just a little over 100 consecutive weeks, so for nearly 2 full years I’ve managed to churn out about 1000 words about whatever tickled my fancy every single week. That’s a lot of words. As I’ve stated a few times in the past, I’m obviously more proud of some entries than other but really, the whole “I’m going to write a blog” thing was always meant to be more of a challenge for myself than any sort of active attempt at cultivating a dedicated audience.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have turned down a dedicated audience but I’m also fully aware that I’m all over the place in terms of tone and subject. I’ve written about wrestling, monthly delivery services, movies, music, Montreal, boardgames and a host of other random topics over the last 2 years. Basically, this is a blog with a target audience of myself. Unless you’re me, you probably aren’t interested in all of the things that I’ve written about.

But at the end of the day I was like “wow, I’ve written over 100,000 words.” Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone is about 77,500 words total. Twilight is about 119,000 words total. The Hunger Games is about 99,750 words total. This averages to about 98,750 words per novel. (Source)

That means that if I was more focused and engaged I could’ve written a best selling book for teenagers over the last 2 years.

I know that’s not what it actually means, but I’m sure you get my point.

If you don’t, let me spell it out for you.

When we were in school, there was a heavy emphasis put on being well rounded. Particularly in elementary school. If I recall correctly, we had Language Arts, French and Math every day. We had Gym 2 or 3 times a day a week. We had multiple chunks of “free play” time in the form of Lunch breaks and Recess. We had Music classes twice a week and probably some other stuff too. This was all in addition to whatever time we spent playing video games and watching television after the school day was out. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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