It looks like MarinaGrill, formerly Viva’s, formerly Eddie’s Lunch, has closed. At least there’s a “For Rent” sign in the window, and it doesn’t seem to open any longer.

Longtime readers will recall that much of Oliver’s body is made up of raw materials that originated in cheeseburgers, french fries and chicken shwarmas from the various restaurant incarnations of the King-Prince corner, as Catherine and I ate most of our meals there after moving into the neighbourhood the summer she was pregnant. Before that, when we lived at 50 Great George St., around the corner, Eddie’s was our local corner store; those were the days of the Callbeck government, and Eddie’s served, at least for some on the Liberal side, as a sort of Prince St. office.

If you’ve always had the hankering to run a neighbourhood joint, perhaps you should give the space a thought: with the right people at the helm and a good menu, you’ve got a ready-made neighbourhood customer base.

I am a confirmed poetry agnostic. I don’t read it in The New Yorker. I don’t go to poetry readings. And I give the “chapbook” section of bookstores a wide berth. I know this is wrong. I know that I’m missing out. But me and poetry don’t grok each other, and I’m not sure there’s anything to be done about it.

While I’m fairly sure that it won’t bring me over to the poetry dark side, it is worthy of note that Shauna McCabe’s first book of poetry is being launched this Friday. You may remember Shauna from earlier episodes of the weblog like Charlottetown Remixed and Plazes Comes to Charlottetown.

Of the aesthetes in town, Shauna’s work has always struck me as being the most “relatable to,” — although she can trade in the language of “deconstructionist allegory memes” and “stunning Rabelaisian bio-quirks” with the best of them, the works she curates at the Confederation Centre always seem to have elements that “everyday people” (like me) can jump into. As such, there’s a remote chance that I might even appreciate Shauna’s poetry. A remote chance.

Today’s another important day in Charlottetown transit history: all four of the initial bus routes are now in service. I’ve updated the Interactive Transit Map and moved it to a new URL:

Update: Just got off the phone with Mike Cassidy from Trius Tours, operators of the transit system. Mike says they’re making lots of little adjustments to the service as they get feedback from riders — things like running Route #4 over to the Charlottetown Mall. They’re still keeping to the printed schedules (which is what I used for the map app); they’re going to release a formal new schedule and route maps towards the end of October or into early November.

After remaining high much later in the season than I recall from previous years, Air Canada’s international fares have taken a dip, with the Halifax to London (England) fare now at $418 CDN, which is as low as it’s been in a long, long time. Even Halifax to Delhi, at $1600 CDN return, and Halifax to Sydney (Australia) at $1698 CDN return are deals. From the complicated terms and conditions statement, it looks like these fares are good for travel up to December 8, 2005.

Tim Piper has been, by times, my roommate, my bandmate, my travelmate, my confidant, and my friend. It’s largely due to the efforts of Tim and his former consort Diane Gallagher that I met Catherine those many years ago (14 at last count). Tim is both a great storyteller, and someone to whom great stories happen (that several of those great stories happened with me along for the ride is something I’m grateful for).

As Tim recounts here in some detail, his first girlfriend our mutual friend Yvonne, was from Saskatoon. And all of us from those days remember the time that Tim disappeared off to Saskatchewan with Yvonne for a time; our friend Stephen Southall used to say “Pip’s in Sask” when people asked.

Now Tim has a weblog. And an RSS feed. Enjoy.

For all the “CSS is great because it splits off form from content” talk from the web intelligensia, from here in the Formosa Tea House, where my window on the web is my tiny-screened Zaurus, the everything is still pretty chaotic. There’s a lot of “could be” in the promises of the multi-style web, and if my experience is any guide, not a lot of “is.”

I did manage to get a Google map on my phone yesterday and it was even kind of useful. But even on the relatively bigger Zaurus screen it’s obvious that few designers (myself included) have given any thought at all to people surfing with tiny screens. Or with no screens at all.

That’s why I’m sitting here tapping this post out on a tiny keyboard: until you’ve had the tinyweb inflicted on you, it’s hard to pay it any heed.

If you want to see how ugly your website looks here in the tinyosphere, drop me a line and I’ll post a screen shot.

Weeds, the new Mary-Louise Parker television series, has been running in the U.S. on the Showtime cable channel since August. It premiered here in Canada last week on the Showcase channel. It’s a very compelling show and is worth watching: Parker is excellent, backed by a strong supporting cast; the conceit of the show — newly widowed suburban woman becomes a drug dealer — isn’t as far fetched as you would think, and it’s a useful lens through which to look at middle-class America. Next episode is Wednesday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Johnny and Steve and I started off Sunday with a languid rise to action, leaving the house just before noon to launch an exciting day of shopping, eating and entertainment.

We landed on Ste. Catherine, grabbed coffee and tentative sandwiches at Indigo, and then split into squads so as to equitably distribute the shopping load. As is my wont in Montreal, I went shoe shopping (alas I discovered that shoe design has trended away from my tastes and I came away empty-handed).

We reconvened mid-afternoon for an invigorating coffee, and then split for a final shopping dash. I took this second opportunity to rediscover Metropolitan News (1109 Cypress St.): I’m sad to report that this newsstand has descended into decay and now contains little more than faded piles of old porn magazines and a morbiund collection of newspapers, the most exotic of which was a week-old copy of The Observer. Sigh.

At 5:30 p.m. we headed to Ex Centris for a screening of Good Night, and Good Luck. The film, a docu-drama concerning the coverage by CBS News of the McCarthy hearings, ultimately amounts to little more than a rehashing of the events, and adds little insight or understanding. George Clooney should just stop it with the black and white vanity projects.

It was in our search for a tasty last supper that we ran into real problems. We had a copy of Cheap Thrills: Great Montreal Meals for Under $15 in hand, and Johnny settled us on a place called Coq et Stock on Mont Royal. We made our way down Mont Royal looking for the giant chicken that Johnny was sure he’d seen earlier in the day only to find that it had been replaced by a Starbucks. Unable to take defeat easily, I got on the cell phone and called the number listed in the book; a confused sounding man answered, and when I questioned, in my proto-French, “c’est coq and stock?” he sounded even more confused, perhaps thinking that I was looking for some all-male action. Fortunately Steve was able to jump on the line and determine that there was no Coq to be had.

We ended up at Le Pistou, just up the street, and spent a plesant couple of hours dining on Mediterranean fare that reminded me of our time in France.

Exhausted from our day of shopping, eating and being pummelled by George Clooney’s direction, we made an early night of it watching the tail end of The Towering Inferno in French.

Today it’s back to the Island for Johnny and I on an afternoon jet; Steve is back at the CBC informing and enlightening Montrealers about local and regional issues.

Brother Steve, who has his finger on the pulse of Montreal culture, scored us tickets to Good Night, and Good Luck — the new George Clooney-directed film about Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy — for tomorrow night. The screening is part of the Montreal International Festival of Nouveau Cinema, running here in Montreal this week. Full report to follow.

We spent today running about the city in our rented Chevy Cobalt: started off in the crazy chaos of the Saturday morning fashion outlet craze on rue Chabanel, ate lunch at Boulangerie Andalos (the single best sandwich of my life, no exageration; thanks Elias Abboud!), made a quick trip to Ikea, and then drank multiple exotic coffees on St. Denis over an afternoon peppered with shopping for presents for the folks at home.

Tonight it’s a double header of exciting hockey action. I’m still trying to figure out why the “red line” is dashed rather than solid.

We’re here in Montpelier, Vermont. At an Exxon gas station with an attached variety store called “Champlain Farms.” They have free wifi, SSID “champlainfarms.” You rock, Vermont.

We just ate dinner at Rhapsody, a boho hippie vegetarian joint on the main street with dishes like “ginger infused sweet potatoes” and “garlic hinted dilled broccoli.” Now off to Montreal.