Livejournal Montreal community

Checked the memories and tags to no avail. Maybe I'm blind.

Does anyone know where to find acai berries or its juice? There were a couple of people from Astro BioBest yogurt handing out samples near McGill last week, and it prompted this search. Downtown/Plateau/Mile-End preferred but anywhere accessible by metro is cool too.

Hello fellow montrealers,

I wanna buy an easel for the birthday of a friend and I cant seem to find anyone selling a used one.

Does anyone know someone who wanna get rid of one ?

Thanks a lot !

I'm looking for someone to share a ride with to Toronto (or towards Hamilton) this weekend for the May 24 holiday. I'll make a great travel companion and I don't take up much space! :-) Ideally I'd like to leave Saturday morning and return Monday.

Edit: I mean the Victoria Day holiday, which is this weekend, leaving the 17th and returning the 19th.

I'm curious if anyone has eaten at Da Emma? This is super last minute (for tomorrow night) but your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hello fellow gamers,

A while ago, I bought a modded Nintendo Wii, which got the wiifree chip I think. As most Wii gamers probably know by now, Nintendo found a way to "detect" modded wiis and an error message started to appear with Mario Galaxy and some others.

So my question is, what can I do ? I guess my options are to either buy the rela retail games or get a new chip or modify the existing chip. As for retail games, that would be my choice without hesitation but for the next year, my income wont allow it.

So it leaves two options and I got no idea where to look for, do any of you know someone who can install or modify a chip ?

Thanks !

Emru Townsend is a lifelong Montrealer and needs our help. He has Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, and he and his family are hoping a compatible bone marrow donor registers in the unrelated database. Please consider cross-posting to a relevant group or to your journal.

The person who is most likely to match Emru is someone with the same or similar ethnic background.

In the US, if you are one of the white patients and in need of a bone marrow transplant, 85 percent find a suitable donor. For black patients, that number falls to 60 percent.

In Canada, if you are one the patients of European descent and in need of a bone marrow transplant, 75 percent find a suitable donor. For everyone else, that number tumbles to 10-30% percent (I have not been able to find a breakdown by ethnicity for the latter group).

This includes people who receive transplants involving an international donor.

There are 500,000 registrants who identified as African-American in the US and if you think that this is large number of people, you are WRONG. They consider it a shortage. Because of the complexity of matching, hundreds of thousands of people are needed worldwide to find someone who is Emru's genetic twin in terms of their bone marrow. None of the 11 million people already in the worldwide database match Emru. He just needs to find one match somewhere who is registered.

If 30,000 people of African Caribbean descent registered in Canada, it would be a SHORTAGE. In Canada as of March 31, 2008, there are only 1633 black people of any background registered as unrelated potential donors.
Hema-Quebec is not actively getting the word out to educate people about the registry or lack of diversity of the registry. This lack of information puts everybody at risk.

CLARIFYING THE TRUTH ABOUT BONE MARROW COULD SAVE LIVES IF YOU TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY


What people don't know about bone marrow registration and donation could kill us. Here are common myths about the subject.

Most people think that - for the donor - donation takes a long time, it is dangerous, it always requires surgery, a piece of bone is required, and it is very, very painful. In fact, these are all FALSE.

Anonymous donation is never done if there is an elevated risk to the donor. It is usually done as a procedure that might include surgery where you go in for a day. The actual procedure is measured in a few hours, not days or weeks. Most people are discharged on the same day.

70% of donation: after receiving injections in the days preceding the procedure to harvest the stem cells, blood is extracted from the arm in a process called apheresis.

30% of donations: a bone marrow fluid is extracted during surgery from within the back of the pelvic bone under anaesthesia. An epidural (in the pelvic bone, NOT the spine) can be used in surgery. You may be sore, but you won't be in excruciating pain.

Up to 5% of bone marrow is used, less if you donate to a child, and it is replaced completely in the body in a few weeks.

For the RECIPIENT, the transplant is risky, lengthy and is usually the last resort for survival. The RECIPIENT is prone to infection, the transplanted tissue attacking the body, and the body attacking the healthy marrow. They also have a lengthy hospital stay, to keep them from gettting an infection while their body is so weak.


The idea that the donor is most likely to match someone in their family is FALSE.

While the chance of matching a sibling is 25% and some people match a cousin, the other 70% require an unrelated donor on the bone marrow registry.

The idea that you need to donate bone marrow to be on the registry is FALSE.

It only requires a blood sample in Quebec, the UK and France, and a cheek swab in the rest of Canada and in the US.

You need to get a form by calling Hema Quebec or go to their website and download a consent form. It takes 5 minutes to fill in and you will get a call in a week to arrange the collection of a blood sample. In the rest of Canada, you can do it without even leaving home because you can order a mouth swab kit from OneMatch. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes, to fill in a questionnaire to make sure you understand your commitment. t's free to register in Canada.

In the US, order a kit from the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) or DKMS Americas online, or find a bone marrow drive or donor center near you. Typing costs between $52 to $65 depending on who does it, but there are methods to get free typing. Keep in mind, even if you don't pay, someone else has made a donation so you could register, so give what you can, if possible.

Adults who meet eligibility requirements can register, but you should check them before ordering a kit. If you order a free kit from and cannot use it, someone has already paid for it. You can find out your eligibility by checking with the website of your registry or calling them. Please note, Emru and his family are aware there are restrictions in place in many countries for gay or bisexual male registrants, and it is not usually the registry, but the countries' goverment that has decided this. Do not assume the registry set the regulation in place. Even if you are not eligible to give for this reason, you are still eligible to receive a transplant. There are many ways to help if you are ineligible.

People registered in any country can match another person who is waiting for a donor. Doctors search within the family, then nationally, then globally. You do not have to leave your area to make the donation.

Lastly, people think it isn't hard to find a match. This is SO FALSE.

If you've played the 6/49, you have an idea of the millions of combinations you can have even if millions of people buy a ticket. Some weeks, no one wins. In fact, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people are required in any specific donor pool to afford someone a chance at finding a compatible person with the same combination of ten genetic markers on their cells to theirs to perform a life-saving procedure, like bone marrow donation or kidney donation.

The most likely donor is someone of the same or similar ethnicity, because you inherit the antigens from your mother and your father, and there is less genetic variance within a particular ethnicity. The number required for a healthy donor pool in Canada is 78 000 people of African descent. For Emru, the number of black registrants in Canada, people with a similar ethnic profile, total 1633 people as of the end of March 2008. There are 11 million people registered worldwide and people still cannot find matches.

Due to genetic variance, 1 in 500 people of European descent should be on the registry. For the same reasons, the number of people of African descent is 1 in 10. So many people are required.


Are these facts news to you? Then don't assume your friends and family know about it and TELL THEM. If you need more information, ask me. You can use comments, go to my Livejournal profile, or send me a message. This is my brother, but we have already met others in the same situation and know there are many others who we will never meet. If you know this information now, it will be easier for them later.

Does anyone want to recommend me a clean cozy B and B not too far away from the Theatre du Nouveau Monde? Perhaps one that's moderately priced?

Hi All,

Just wondering if there are any services similar to Vancouver's Dinner Works in Montreal?

Dinner Works is a place where you can go into their kitchen, prepare a number of different meals by assembling all their pre-cut and prepared ingredients for a set price, then you throw everything into a few freezer bags, take it home, throw it in the freezer and you have a few meals ready to go, just have to pull them out, defrost, cook and serve.

Thanks!

i'm going to be in montreal in a couple of days and staying for 4 days total.

i'd like to know if there's a reasonably priced place at the airport to rent a cellphone/buy SIM cards.

i'm not a heavy cell phone user (i don't own one) and i'm not really planning on making it a habit...so i'm pretty green when it comes to this sort of thing.

i only plan to use the phone to keep in touch with other people in montreal while i'm there.

any insight on the best and cheapest way to handle this is greatly appreciated!

many thanks!

p.s.: if i happen to have an unlocked cell phone device, does it have to be a gsm device for me to buy a prepaid SIM card to use it?

p.p.s.: should i just go to virgin, get a prepaid phone deal thingy and be done with it?

Sorry guys, but does anyone knwo what this parade was about? Sometime religious, obviously, and I assume portugese..... but .... what??

Hello! This is a bit of a weird question but: I'm thinking I'd like to wean myself off my car and start bussing myself to work downtown. The 420 express bus seems to go where I need to but I've read a lot of STM horror stories here so I figured I'd check and see if anyone takes it in the mornings so I can get a few details on its behavior. Specifically:

-Does it tend to come on time/late/not at all (disappearing buses seem to be common here)?
-Does it tend to get stuck in traffic (especially since it seems to go on the highway)?

Thanks!

Hi!!

My friend and I want to go to Montreal for the Victoria holiday weekend and we're wondering if anyone know of cheap hotels or motels near downtown Montreal?  We are also considering hostels since we're students with limited funds. 

Any help would be great!  Thanks!

The dreaded time has come for me to learn to drive. I've been putting it off for five years now. Can anyone recommend a good driving school downtown that doesn't have atrocious fees?

Thanks.

i want to buy a kaleidoscope or a teleidoscope, but i don't know where i could find one that's pretty-looking. i thought you'd know.
thanks a lot!

Hi,
I'm looking for recommendation for a good place/spa for facial treatments. Somewhere in the plateau/downtown preferable... i know it'll tend to get expensive, but I'm hoping to find something that's no more than $80, also someone's experience (whether it's actually good for your skin, etc...). thanks!

When I moved here from the States I brought with me a bunch of Bon Ami cleanser/polishing powder (like Comet but without dyes, perfumes, etc., so much more eco-friendly) but am now running out. So far I haven't been able to find it anywhere, not even Canadian online shops. Here's the info link: Bon Ami I'd prefer to buy within Canada (US mail order duty?)

Hey Montreal!

There was a march by young people (CEGEP- and high school-age) just now along Cherrier and up Avenue Parc Lafontaine. I am terrible at guessing numbers but there were easily more than 500 people. I couldn't really read what's on the signs from my window, so I hope someone here knows of the demonstration and can let me know who organized it, and why. Thanks!

So what places other than FutureShop are worth looking at when it comes to buying a new TV? Any good/bad experiences?

I found a pair of prescription eyeglasses and a steam iron (?) on a park bench in Westmount's Stayner Park earlier this week. Both were still there when I passed by the next day, after a rainfall. I took both into my possession and posted a 'FOUND' note. If they belong to you, contact me with a description of both and I can arrange to get them back to you.