Unfortunately I didn’t speak any French so I didn’t understood what they were saying, but I can’t imagine it being too pleasant. At one point they switched to English and were chanting “Fuck the police.” But it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that they were probably doing the same in French.

Regardless, the protest was peaceful, for the most part, people walked along the roads around downtown Montreal, the Molson brewery, the CBC building, the old Montreal, up Sherbrooke, down Saint Catherine. Funny how people think these students are terrorists. Some were putting up red stickers all over town, and I remember seeing one student depositing the sticker covers in the garbage, kinda ironic, thought these hardened criminals would litter the streets instead of using the garbage cans.

One thing I realized is that the income tax in Quebec is higher, if I made 80k a year, I would pay 6k more in Quebec than in Ontario. Also, as such, I would say the low tuition should be justified. The raise would make it more expensive to study in Quebecers because the value of the dollar is higher for them due to a high income tax.

What I did realize is that, there are almost no Asians in that group, I felt really out of the place walking with the group. But then I also realized that most of these students are probably in liberal arts, and the older group that are walking are either parents paying for an university student or carry somewhat of a financial burden.

Do I agree with the cost of education rising? No. I do agree that the parents and students have a right to peaceful demonstration, what I don’t agree with:

- Blocking off traffic from major roads and highway
- Certain subset of the protesters actively prevented people from attending classes
- Violence, and destruction of properties

Pictures from last night:

Pretty epic, with people shouting and setting fire crackers off, hopefully, I will get to see them on the streets one day.

The pictures are not too great, I had to take them with my room’s lights off, and had to use a telephoto lens, but you can see the scale. This was from about near the end of the line of people.

There is a picture where you can see the “red squares” pinned on these people.

I am glad that you are charging people convince fees for purchasing tickets online. I was going to purchase tickets to two shows, but now I decide to spend my money else where, perhaps, a museum, or a nice steak dinner.

It makes me want to laugh that it cost $9.50 for me to be lazy and order tickets online. Well I decided that instead of buying those tickets, I would be spending it elsewhere.

To add insult to injury, you are going to charge me 5 dollars for me to print out my own tickets using my own printer? Let me guess

$> mail -r [addresshere] | ticketgen -format pdf -order [order number]?

But you know what I will do? Download the DVD/CD illegally :)

Cheers
I now will be visiting a museum and have a nice steak dinner than to pay a “rip me off more” fee.

PS: go fuck yourself.

I’m sure you are smart enough to know of a city called Montreal (just in case, it is in a province [hint, province, not states, so it must be in Canada] called Quebec), it is about 600Kmish away from Waterloo. It is a LARGE city. Large enough that a lot of people in North America would know it, also, it is large enough to be ranked as the second LARGEST city in Canada, it is also large enough to have over 7 Universities, and a number of colleges. It is big enough that probably quite a few University of Waterloo students are here for coop or internships.

But, it is large enough for you, to NOT have a distance education exam centre here? What is this?

You have an exam centre in Ottawa’s Algonquin college, but not a single exam centre in the SECOND LARGEST CITY in Canada?

And both of my elective courses require that I pass the exam to pass the course. If that wasn’t the case, I would probably skip the 25% finals, because you don’t have a fucking exam centre here.

Would it be that hard to rent a room in a college building and hire 2 proctors?

Well this is just stupid.

Thanks
Bill

Hide your computers!

Hide EVERYTHING!

Quebec’s students are running wild!

No wait… Sorry…

Quebec’s arts students are running wild! While the Engineering, Mathematics, Insert Money Making Majors Here are getting fucked over. Because schools are closing down, and people can’t get to classes.

I wonder the distribution of arts majors from the protests. It is amazing how the students think if they bitch, cry, block the traffic, smoke weed in a circle in front of some government building will get what they want. I see they are putting the skills they’ve learned as a kid while sucking their mother’s tit to good use.

Quebec have the lowest tuition of all Canada. The proposed increase over the period of 5 years will cost less than a cup of coffee a day. But nope, must protest! must demonstrate! must smoke bomb the subway! must block a bridge.

Free education is nice, but someone has to pay for it. There are three options:

1. CHARGE EVIL CORPORATIONS HIGHER TAXES! Cool, you now have your free education, now you get a job, and gets paid almost nothing, hey after all you are being noble and supporting the next generation of University students.

2. Make the Canadian income tax 75% or higher! You know what they say, the higher, the bigger the better! Hurah! Don’t we all want more income taxes? Starting tomorrow, everyone’s tax will be calculated with a logarithmic function proportion to their income. Of course, in about 5 years, Canada will be a ghost country, because all the professionals will move down to the States, where income tax is even lower than Canada.

3. The government can print money, STOP and DROP! It is Seigniorage time! Here have your free education, (make sure to take a few macroeconomics class.) Cool, you graduated from your arts degree. You inflated the Canadian dollars. You can now get a job! But your pay is so shitty that you decide to protest more!

The mugshots of the subway smoke bombers are released, so I don’t need to say more. But here is a possible solution, eugenics is unfortunately illegal, but why don’t we send all the stupid people to the Sun? or the nearest black hole? Oh wait, like one of my friend said, (I forgot who) we need the stupid people, because who else are we going to charge 100+ dollars/h to write a piece of code?

But honestly, if you are out there because you are bored, or you are a troll, or you want to cause mischief, then props to you. But if you are really out there to protest over the tuition increase then… I don’t even… must be an arties, the only solution for you: switching to Engineering or Mathematics, oh wait… sorry, never mind!

TL;DR

• The first level of the popular PC video game Diablo 3 and the latter’s score multiplied by 10.
• The unholiest number in Diablo 3.

Dear Blizzard:

Thank you for the (soon to be determined whether or not it is amazing or not, since I couldn’t get in last night) game. We’ve waited 12+ years for it. Please for the love of that is all that is holy, not the number 37, update the game to use a queue. I now have my password permanently burned into my mind, I also now can calculate my RSA authenticator key by mental maths.

Thank you

Soon to be Diablo 3 player.

Note to anyone reading this, to visit the Notre Dame, you need to pay 5 dollars, which isn’t much, but they only take cash.

The Notre Dame immediately gives you that WOW feeling. The basilica was built in the 1600s, it is over 400+ years old. Once inside, you can’t help notice the wood carvings, and the magnificat decorations. The indoors are dimly light, bring the appropriate lenses for low light photography. Sadly, I didn’t, and will have to come back someday with the proper lenses, and a tripod.

After the Notre Dame, I accidentally stepped into Old Montreal. Well come and think about it, it was expected, seeing how it was *around* the Notre Dame. I have to say, the Byward market/Ottawa in general has nothing that would even compare to this, now I understand what my supervisor meant when he said Ottawa had no culture, and that he would much rather work in Montreal. This may sound silly, but the old Montreal gave me that “Hogsmeade” feeling, the old architectures, the crocked streets, horse carriages, the lack of street lights. But it is one of those must visit places.

The Old Montreal is right beside the Quay, which felt like Center Island in Toronto.

Walking around Montreal made me realize that it wouldn’t be so bad to live in Montreal, I don’t know how I will survive back in Kitchener/Waterloo. *LMAO*

After going though reviews comparing Canon against Nikon I decided to get a Canon T3i because compared to the Nikon counterpart, the Canon seemed to be able to take better, colourful, rich, warm pictures than the Nikon. (I saw side by side pictures from a review side, but then I guess I am biased, I do favour Canon cameras.)

Looking at Futureshop, they have a bundle of Canon T3i with the standard lens kit and a Canon 55-250mm IS II lens, for a total of $949.99 and change. However, Aden Camera has the same kit for a total of $809.99 and change, but the only difference is that Aden Camera’s bundle is a Canon 55-250mm IS I instead of the second version. I didn’t see this until I went into FutureShop, a salesman told me that he can’t price match it because it is a different version, then he tried me to get the bundle at Futureshop (hell he even offered me to throw in a half off memory card), and trying to convince me that the second version is better than the first version, that the extra $140 was worth the picture quality provided by the second version of the lens.

I, of course, went home, did a bit more research, oh guess what? They are the same, at least no one could tell the difference between (in terms of quality) of what the different versions provided.

Scumbag Futureshop employee. I am not sure if he think I am stupid, or that he is stupid. However, the oxymoron is that, he is a product expert on Futureshop’s fliers. Have a laugh.

Well Jonathan Livingstone, Digital Imagine Product Expert. Montreal, QC. The Saint Catherine store. Way to go, for being a scumbag.

Q: What are the specifications I should consider before buying a DSLR camera?

Jonathan Livingstone’s real answer: Look at the number, buy the one with the latest and best, and spend all your money at Futureshop.

But, of course, Jonathan is working on commission.

Update: Today I walked in to Futureshop to check out a 70-33mm lens from Canon, FS has it for 749.99 dollars, while Aden Camera (Authorized Canon dealer) has it for 604.99 dollars. I tried to price match, but “according to the manager” the best they can do is 650 dollars.

Scumbag Futureshop on Saint Catherines Montreal.

Update

So the coop advisor finally removed the coop status, and refunded the last study term’s coop fees. I AM FINALLY A REGULAR STUDENT.

A $1,625 increase in 5 years means:

$1,625/5 years = $325/year increase

$325/year/365 days/year = $0.89042 increase a day

For $0.89042 cents a day, less than a cup of coffee, just look at it as a bloody investment.

But of course, CBC made a good point…

“The truth is, the education they’re getting is overpriced at any cost. The protesters do not include accounting, science and engineering students, who have better things to do than hurl projectiles at police. They’re the sociology, anthropology, philosophy, arts, and victim-studies students, whose degrees are increasingly worthless in a world that increasingly demands hard skills. The world will not be kind to them. They’re the baristas of tomorrow and they don’t even know it, because the adults in their lives have sheltered them and encouraged their mass flight from reality.” – Quebec’s university students are in for a shock (Margaret Wente)

Well at least Margaret Wente used baristas rather than Maddox’s “That’s right asshole, bag my groceries!” article.

School for me is about 20k every 2 semesters. Usually takes 8 semesters to get a Bachelors of something. Which directly translates to about 80k for my entire education. From what I see, even if I make 20 dollars an hour, it would take me less than 5 years to pay off this debt. (But of course this is indexed at if I make 20 dollars an hour, had if that was 40 an hour, I would be looking at about 2 years.) Which is not too bad. But then again, those Art majors… The way I see it, education is an investment, and you have to make a good investment (major) because a bad investment won’t help you with getting a job in the future.

Also, recently I watched a documentary from BBC about Tony Blair. There was a scene of Blair talking with a bunch of students, one of the student made a comment similar to “I was told that after getting my BA, I would be guaranteed a job making 23000 pounds a year.” Well, needless to say, I bet she is an Arts major.

Cheers
The student who is doing a computer science degree, that:
-> Worked for over 24 months during school as a software developer
-> Minimal debt because of above
-> Not going to have too much trouble with finding a job after graduation
-> Got caught in the middle of the student protest multiple times, it happens when you live in Downtown Montreal and works late.