An Annex institution is no more. Mel’s Montreal Delicatessen, a late night spot on Bloor both loved and reviled by residents of this city, has closed its doors. Or rather, had its doors locked by the landlord after reportedly failing to pay rent that was months in arrears.
It started so full of promise and slid into a miasma of laziness, rudeness, incompetence and debt (rather like my deadbeat ex-housemate, now that I think of it). When it opened ten years ago in Pizzadelic’s old location, the food and service were decent; over the years, it became the Amy Winehouse of restaurants: looking bad for its age, barely functioning, somehow clinging to life after all the self-inflicted harm and willing to let just about anyone work in it.
Out of respect for the city of Montreal, that “Taste of Montreal” sign should be taken down as quickly as possible. Montreal doesn’t taste like failure.
I gave up on Mel’s after a streak of incredibly bad service ending with a visit where Wendy, Dave and I sat in their empty restaurant for ten minutes, in full view of the staff, without even being approached. They were lost in their own world, and as I wrote in a blog entry back in 2006, “I’ve seen bathroom mould with more ambition.”
Whether you’re part of the local tech community or a visitor from out of town who’s come in for the FutureRuby conference, you’re invited to the Developer Lunch taking place today at noon at Sky Dragon restaurant in Dragon City Mall.
This is going to be the 14th developer lunch organized by local developer and video-chronicler of local geekdom, Kristan “Krispy” Uccello. They’re not formal at all – there’s no agenda, set discussion topic or presentations – it’s just people who like writing software or who aspire to write software getting together to enjoy a nice dim sum lunch.
For those of you not familiar with Chinatown, here’s what Dragon City Mall looks like:
Use the elevator or stairs in the circular tower part of the building to go to the mall’s top floor, which is where the restaurant is located. We expect that we’ll be a big crowd, so they might put us in one of the private rooms in the back – if you don’t see a bunch of geeks in the restaurant, ask the waitstaff for the large group of computer programmers and they’ll lead you to us.
It’s dim sum, which means the food will be tasty, cheap and plentiful. Everybody pitches in equally towards the final bill and it’s typically $12/person including tip.
If you were at last year’s FailCamp, you might remember the best story of FAIL of the evening, which involved warming up some “body lube” in the microwave oven for a little too long, after which hilarity ensued.
Here’s how Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs, the originators of FailCamp, describe their vision of the event:
We believe that it’s time to give our personal fail some tough love and talk it out over beer!
Join us for a brief, rousing introduction followed by camaraderie, beer, and show-and-tell. We’ll present a little about failure through the ages, mining your personal suck, maybe some science, pithy quotes from people you may or may not respect, and share some failure stories of our own.
Then it’ll be your turn. If all goes to plan, you may even win in our friendly “race to the bottom” for the most public, most expensive, or most ridiculous Story of Fail.
FailCamp returns next Thursday, July 9th and once again, it’s the warm-up act for Unspace’s Ruby programmer conference (going by the name “FutureRuby” this year), which takes place on the weekend of July 10th through 12th. Just like last year, FailCamp will once again provide a forum for you to share your greatest and most pathetic stories of FAIL, and hopefully how that failure taught you some important lessons and made you a better, wiser, more-careful-with-the-lube person.
Me, presenting at last year’s FailCamp.
Once again, I will be hosting FailCamp. I’ll start the evening with a couple of stories of failure, including a couple of Keyboard Cat-worthy ones of my own, after which I’ll open up the floor to you, the audience, to share your own stories of FAIL. Once we’re all thoroughly embarrassed, DJ Barbi will spin the wheels of steel and we’ll dance our shame away.
There are some tickets left as of this writing:
For FutureRuby attendees, there are 4 free tickets to FailCamp remaining.
For those of you who are not attending FutureRuby but would like to catch FailCamp, there are 19 “Pay What You Can” tickets left.
If you want ‘em, go to the FailCamp registration page and get them before they disappear!
FailCamp will take place at the Queen City Yacht Club on the Toronto Islands (Algonquin Island, to be precise). Your printed ticket stub is good for a free ferry ride from the Toronto docks to the Yacht Club, where we’ll have some finger food, the Yacht club’s kitchen and cash bar will be open, and the evening should be full of surprises.
What better way to close an article about FailCamp than the Keyboard Cat video starring “Pinky, Pet of the Week”?
This is what ten dollars got you at Thursday’s Pride Week barbecue at University of Toronto’s Hart House:
It was quite a meal: one beef kebab, one piece of chicken, 4 pork ribs, a slice of bread, roast potatoes, steamed vegetables and salad, all prepared quite well. The Ginger Ninja and I enjoyed it.
I no longer live in Accordion City’sQueen/Spadina neighbourhood and therefore don’t play there very often anymore. Luckily that doesn’t mean that they’re lacking for the accordion: there was a guy playing a fine little red number there earlier this afternoon:
Me, presenting at last year’s FailCamp.
My one-slide summary of 
