Home News Sports Schools Community Lifestyle Marketplace

Post your own Story Photo Event Listing Chalkboard Help

How to Post

Posting on West Island Gazette Plus is simple. Remember, only registered users can post stories, photos and listings. Click here for step-by-step instructions.

About this Site

The West Island Gazette Plus is the place to connect with your community. Post your own news stories, photos and event listings, side-by-side the latest regional headlines from The Gazette. For editorial inquiries, contact Alycia Ambroziak (aambroziak@ thegazette.canwest.com) or Brenda O'Farrell (ofarrell@thegazette. canwest.com). For advertising inquiries, please contact your Gazette sales representative. ©2008 The Gazette, a division of Canwest Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited. Terms and Conditions Privacy Statement

Blue Notes

Blue Notes

My Little GPS

Driving home from Sudbury last week we decided to have some fun with my Global Positioning System, or GPS. We found a function that would change the voice. We could pick an English, American or even an Australian voice. So we picked the Aussie and called her Sheila. It was fun listening to her directions. It was like having a new girlfriend.But like all foreigners she didn’t really know how to pronounce all our locations. So as we got close to home she said: “Leave highway...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

Ideas for the future are already here

Idea City is an annual Toronto event featuring exceptional people who present their ideas and experiences in a seminar style. It is the brainchild of ex-Montrealer Moses Znaimer.I say “ex-Montrealer” not lightly. Ex-Montrealers do make up a “nation” of influential people all across Canada and indeed throughout the world. They are another resource that was lost by the you-know-what of the last 30 years. Along with the other resources like money and power....
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in BOFarrell's blog

Blue Notes

Keep on rockin' on the West Island

A month ago on a quiet Sunday evening there was a big birthday bash at Bourbon Street West for Jerry Mercer. Jerry has been a legend among Montreal musicians for many years. ...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

Thoughts on seeing The National Civil Rights Museum

Last week I was in Memphis, Tennessee. While I was there, I saw the National Civil Rights Museum, built on the spot where Martin Luther King died. It is very moving. It tells the tale of an oppressed people who eventually achieve equal rights. As I flew back to Quebec I couldn’t help but notice similarities. One of the major hurdles to equal rights was segregated schools. Southern states didn’t allow blacks and whites to send their children to the same schools....
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

Gay marriage in California

While I was visiting California, recently, I met a friend at the Paradise Cove Café in Malibu. He let out a big sigh. "What's wrong?" I inquired. "It’s Proposition 8, the one banning gay marriage." "Oh yeah, you’re having a referendum. But what’s the big deal? So gay people want to get married, too? It's been legal up in Canada for years." "But why would they want to do that? That...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

Season Opener

For me, summer begins with the first soccer game: girl’s soccer, that is. ...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

Laugh ... or else

Craig Ferguson is a funny guy. If you are a night owl, you might already know this. The Scottish comedian has become the very popular new host of the CBS TV's Late Late Show. I remember him when he first came to Just for Laughs many years ago as “Bing Hitler.” He had chosen that name because it was a combination of the two most famous names he could think of. He was funny then, too. But I am sure he made the right choice going back to his real name before taking a run...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

Happy Mother's Day

This year I’ll celebrate Mother’s Day by visiting my mother. That’s not unusual, I know. The bad news is that my mother lives 3,000 miles away. The good news is that it is in sunny southern California. So I have traded in a pile of Aeroplan points. (I don’t call them “air-miles” any more because they are not, if they were “miles” I could go around the world with the “miles’ I traded in for this flight. Some might call them “air-kilometres” but...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

At last, real adult entertainment!

If you haven’t been to the multiplex recently because the absurd fantasy Hollywood churns out these days really doesn’t turn you on, here is some good news: Frost/Nixon. My 19-year-old has no interest in it whatsoever. That’s a good sign. It will leave the Red Bull drinking, video game playing, hip hop listening, hat-sidewise wearing generation cold. And I am sure it will also baffle those of arrested development who run the film industry. It is – my...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog

Blue Notes

Another hockey season comes to an end

One of the defining experiences any working musician has in Montreal is that of the supremacy of hockey. There is always a television on in the corner of any bar or pub you might play which will be kept on even during your set. And in the middle of one of your more soulful renderings of a favourite song suddenly a cheer will go up. We might think it is for you. But it is always because the Canadiens have just scored a goal. ...
» Continue reading this entry
» Read more in Rick Blue's blog