For bedfull_o_books, who says she hurt herself laughing when I read this bit to her.

[randomness]

From Midnight Poutine, a Montreal blog:

Every Monday on my street, there is a parking ban from 9:30 - 10:30am. Ostensibly, during this hour the streets are cleaned. In reality, the chances of seeing a street cleaner on our street during that window of time is about as likely as seeing a dodo bird and unicorn filming a porno in front of our apartment. However, the chances of seeing a meter maid come by to dole out parking tickets during that time is about 110%. The city is great at fining people for not following parking signs; it's just not so great at using that revenue to follow through on the infrastructural purpose of those signs. Only Alanis Morrisette could sift through the multiple layers of irony.

Comments

[sea-bound.livejournal.com]

So, so true! And the reason why my car is safely parked outside the center of the city.

Do you want me to bring anything back from Montreal for you??

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I can't think of anything offhand, but how long will you be there? Maybe we could meet up.

[sea-bound.livejournal.com]

Montreal until the end of the week, Boston for 1 week, DC for 1 week, then Boston for 4 more weeks before I return to Amman. Can meet up anywhere along the way! I thought I'd be here until the 5th, but I may leave a bit early--let me know what dates you're thinking.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Ah, let me guess? There's no other way for Montreal to raise money. Like maybe there are legal restrictions on tax increases...

Berkeley, CA hit upon the finde system of removing all its parking regulation signs and replacing them with a system of painted curbs. This means that out-of-towners will get hit with fines. In my case, I had walked about 1 and 1/2 block (round trip) to discover the cop ticketing my car.