Heavy in the rain

It felt like I hadn't walked for a long time and my legs were getting antsy. The weather outside sucked though. It was kinda cool but it rained a little and it was super humid to a point where if felt like all your clothes just stuck on you. I grabbed my jacket and umbrella and hopped real quick in the metro and headed downtown to Place des Arts to climb up Saint-Laurent again. I hate taking the metro in the summer because it gets so hot and humid in there. You see, our underground transportation system cannot have air conditioning because it't too deep underground, so all we can have are crappy vents that blow more hot air on the riders. Anyway, at least we have a subway system to travel underground and avoid traffic, when it works.

When I got off at Place des Arts, I noticed the fences and gates. Some sort of event was happening and when I saw the sign I became depressed. It was the Francofolies festival. The worst festival of the year. Why is it so bad you ask? Have you ever listened to Quebec French Canadian music? If you think Céline Dion is bad, wait til you hear Jean Leloup or the worst of them all, Éric Lapointe. Except for some very few exceptions, I loathe the French music from Québec. There were a few artists playing on some stages so I decided to not waste any time and just run up the hill to get the hell out of there.

Oh god, my ears are bleeding!

This is what the gates of hell must look like.

A bad omen.

One of the main torturing areas of the festival.

As I reached Saint-Laurent I stopped in front of the Montreal Pool Room to take a picture. This place has been best known for serving the best hot dogs and fries in town and they have been open since 1912, that's 100 years old! Ain't that amazing for a cheap greasy spoon in a city full of fancy cafés and expensive bistros? I should stop by to have dinner there sometime and finally try their legendary hot dogs and let you all know about it. Tonight I was in a hurry to get away from the ungodly sounds emanating from the Francofolies so I kept on running north.

When I reached Sherbrooke street I couldn't hear any of them anymore so I stopped. A little while later I saw a Scion TC. Toyota has developed this new brand to appeal to a younger generation of drivers. And I gotta admit, the TC does have a mean looking profile and really does look appealing. The standard equipment is also pretty good for the price. The only problem is they have a poor selection of colors. Speaking of which, the one I saw on the street was yellow. But, not just any kind of yellow. No! It was a disgusting color that reminded me of a grilled cheese.

This car was built from a single giant block of cheddar.

I mean seriously? What kind of sick bastard would go and pick a car that's the same color as a slice of freakin' Kraft Singles processed cheese? I think whoever bought this car had too much Kraft Mac n Cheese.

Seriously, who would look at this and think it looks good and is a good color for a car?

So my ears were bleeding, and now my eyes. On top of that the rain was this kind of pissy mist where you look like a pussy with your umbrella but if you don't use it you get your hair all wet and dripping in your face. And it just seemed like the weather just made me feel so heavy. I had trouble dragging my body forward and my muscles in my back and stomach were in pain from the humidity.

I eventually reached Mont-Royal, then Saint-Denis and came back down and headed back to Place des Arts to complete my usual course. The music had stopped so it was a good sign. Then I saw on the Ford stand, they had a miniature RC version of Ken Block's car! And they had a small obstacle course and everything!

Ken's miniature version of his Ford Fiesta. With AWD!

Here's a contestant trying to do a slalom in the cones.

The challenge was to complete the course in under one minute and a half. You had to first set the car in a parking spot, then do a slalom around the cones, do a 360, reach the end of the course then drive in a straight line and back to the start. Most people that were there did it in 2minutes, 2 and a half, maybe 1 minute 20 seconds at best. The course was wet and super slippery and nobody could control the car straight because they all smashed the gas button all the way in and the car would spin out of control. Maybe 5 contestants had played with it before me and they all sucked at controlling the car. Then I grabbed the wheel (or the remote control) and I did the challenge in 33 seconds! Hells yeah! Everybody was impressed. Then I dropped the remote on the ground and said "That's how it's done, bitches!", turned around and left like a true boss. Well, actually no, I didn't do that, but I wish I did because that would've been seriously epic. But, I did leave with my pride all pumped up. So I went in the metro station with my head held high and headed home.

So this bad evening with crappy weather, crappy music and ugly cars ended up pretty good.