Car Thief Starter Kit program announced.

VANCOUVER: The city today announced a new program for up and coming car thieves. The program aims to provide entrants into this busy job market with the skills to work and a tool kit to help them get established.

Mayor Gregor Robertson was quoted as saying "it's a tough market. these kids have got to worry about the police, bait car programs and on top of that vehicle that are increasingly difficult to steal with complicated alarms and engine immobilizers."

The city says this will help some of the nearly 1500 kids a year who try to get their foot in the door, and that it would help get kids off the street, pay for their drug habits and provide a nice boost to the provincial  insurance coffers. "It's a win win" Mayor Gregor continued, "this is something we have a reputation for being the best in North America at, and I don't want to see that change."

Canucks vs Ducks fan fight more entertaining than game...

i guess it goes hand in hand with the hockey culture, but this fight captured at a hockey game this week between a canucks fan and a ducks fan was entirely more entertaining than the hockey game itself. it's always good fun to put 2 idiots together, add alcohol and ensure they support different teams or ideologies. many wars have no doubt started the same way. this clash however ended a little more amicably with event security intervening. for those of you who care, the canucks fan beat the shit out of the ducks fan.

Junkies - licence to steal?

how is it, that if you or I walked into a supermarket and walked out with $300 worth of goods without paying we'd be arrested and prosecuted, however every single junkie in town is permitted to steal shopping trolleys at will and walk around with them without any fear of prosecution?

Degenerate Gamblers celebrate!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/03/26/bc-vancouver-casino-bc-place.html

Degenerate gamblers and addicts in vancouver now have cause for even more celebration. The government has just announced it has approved a $450M casino development at the site of the Edgewater Casino. Most of you would be familiar with the edgewater, that fucking monstrosity on our water front which is surrounded by parking lots, filled with the dull glare of BC's inner city gambling drones, drawn to the lure of poker machines and endless ways to piss away your hard earned welfare check.

it stands to reason that if we are going to give people welfare, we should establish a business which caters to their particular needs and habits. what will we do with the millions of dollars we suck from the community? funnel it back into the disaffected children whose parents left them locked in the carpark while sitting for hours at a blackjack table? maybe we'll use it to provide free crack to those children who will almost certainly have chemical dependencies by time they are in highschool. perhaps we'll use it to help vancouver's fastest growing demographic, our much prized homeless population. who have yet another place to piss away money they don't have (no problem of course because the judiciary have given them permission to steal our cars, ipods and bikes for drugs - why not poker machines?).

ahhhh good news day.

opening ceremony - moments of spectacular with alot of yawn...

ok, first the good. the whales, swimming through the stadium - holy shit that was amazing....BUT what the fuck was that tap dancing moron doing? as ever, it's annoying being forced to listen to everything in french, and seriously, who are we kidding, the people in quebec can get by with english.the olympic IOC president, jacques rogges - complete asshole, and what a stiff, the guy has no personality. what else??

then there was the epic failure of the hydrolic lift on the cauldron, what a spectacular fuck up of canadian engineering. jesus, i hope the moron who designed that thing lost their job.and the awkward look on everyones face as they waited for this thing to come, that never would. ouch.

oh yeah all the first nation stuff, ok that was necessary but a little obligatory and then the performances...well they were just ok. brian adams and nelly furtado looked about as comfortable together as a match and a box of TNT, and KD Langs hallelujah was not uplifting or appropriate at all, it was somber and sad.

when all was said and done at the end i was "is that it?" like having sex with a girl you've wanted to fuck for a long time, and realizing that it wasn't everything you thought it would be so too are the olympic opening ceremonies. and like the long time to find your pants, and get dressed, look for your keys and then the awkward goodbye after the lay...so too was the idiotic ending which saw wayne gretzky walk out of the stadium and then drive through the streets of vancouver on the back of a truck, in the pouring rain and light another cauldron - this time a functioning one.

olympics make their contribution to global warming...

As we speak, trucks are bringing snow from Manning Park, (more than 200KM east of Vancouver), to deposit on Cypress Mountain for the 2010 olympic games. Once the trucks dump the snow, helicopters will place it on location on the mountain, thats right, helicopters...furthermore pipes have been laid throughout the olympic course and dry ice will be pumped through those pipes in an effort to keep the mountain cold enough for the snow to remain...can you imagine how much fuel, electricity and energy all this effort involves?

all of this will make for at best poor to average conditions on the mountain, but at what cost will it come to to the environment, and ironically, further contribute to the very reason the weather is warmer in the first place!

The real stink of it...2 hours to the north lies Whistler Blackcomb, with some of the best skiing conditions in North America, and plenty of alpine snow.

Show me a good sandwich joint in this city...please for the love of god

with the exception of ethnic food, this cities eateries are nothing short of atrocious. I've made many gripes on this blog about the quality of food in vancouver, and this time i want to get more specific. While you can go out at any given time and find fantastic japanese, chinese, malay, thai, indian even iranian food. it's near impossible to go anywhere and get a great sandwich.

my personal favorite is a chicken salad sandwich, new york style. nice thick crispy fresh bread, with a generous portion of chicken or any meat for that matter. the sandwiches here suck! period. fresh bread is the first problem, most sandwich joints use sliced bread, and then basic sandwich preparation skills are the second. there's an art to a good sandwich, knowing the right proportions, knowing how much content you can push into it, knowing the right condiments. needless to say very disappointed, if anyone has good suggestions please let me know.

More isn't always More

ever been to antons? it's one of vancouver's most famous restaurants, and when i got here everyone told me - you have to go to antons. well 5 years later I finally get the chance, and let me just say what a joke. the whole deal with the place, is that they serve you what is essentially a double portion, so you get to take home another entire meal.

the catch is the pasta is sloppy crap. absolutely tasteless crap. but then what did you expect in this good food free zone we call vancouver.

Eat shit, or at least tread in it...

Well Vancouverites are definitely some of the most dog lovingess people on the face of the earth. Dogs are absolutely everywhere you go, everyone has them, and god help you if you dont like them. Let me start by stating that I like dogs. The love affair the people in this city have with dogs goes beyond normal however, and now its gotten to the point where it is beginning to take its toll on life in this city.

First of all, there are the morons who own massive dogs, and live in small apartments. There should be a law against this, some form of animal cruelty. Then there are the people who insist on owning the vicious kind of dogs, (such as the rock weiler and pit bulls) to which this city has still not taken the urgent steps of banning. Thankfully my strata has just banned these dogs along with a few other vicious breeds. Then there are the kind that constantly stink, because they are washed enough, and they parade through the apartment buildings stinking up the place.

Then, and these are the most annoying people, the ones who dont pick up after their pets. They believe for some reason that the rest of us enjoy walking around stepping in dog shit when we are playing in the park. When our kids want to play in the grass, even when we are walking on the sidewalk.

I urge all of you who along with me, dont have a problem with dogs, only inconsiderate idiotic owners who dont clean up after their animals, next time you witness an act of vandalism on our parks/sidewalks or streets to engage the owner and instruct them to clean up the mess their animal has made.

If you are walking through any of the many parks and sidewalks in this city with your children, or thinking of laying a picnic out in the grass, look out for the shit that is slowly turning our neighborhoods into animal sewer grounds....

South for Summer? Get in line.

Now i know a lot of people are going to say, the delays and lineups at the border aren't always or entirely the fault of the Canadians, and I agree, both parties are equally at fault for providing a service which is completely inadequate, however it is another anoying aspect of life in Vancouver, and thats what this blog is all about.

If you're in the US as much as I am, trying to avoid the crazy local prices here, or enjoy a decent restaurant, or find a cool bar to sit and chill in (thats right Seattles bars are so much cooler than Vancouvers), then you've problably been through the Peace Arch or Pacific Crossing at some point or other.

What an organizational fuckup. Unless you're there at some ungodly time of the morning or night, prepare yourself for a wait, in either direction. It seems now that the communication/co-operation between both sides is so limited that last weekend, they were unable to avoid doing roadworks on the US side at Pacific Crossing, and construction on the Canada side at Peace Arch, the result? Lineups and delays and waits of 2 or more hours.

With the Canadian dollar where it is right now more and more people are heading south to spend, only problem is, we the travellers are the only ones who have seemed to notice. There has been little in the way of additional resources put in place to deal with the summer traffic in either direction.

Victoria BC- not worth it - at all.

Took the family and some visitors from home to Victoria a week or 2 ago for a day trip. What a waste of a day and of money. I'm sorry but what a completely boring destination, there was absolutely nothing to do except walk along the front of the government building, along the pier, look at the hotel where the queen stays, have some food and go home.

Vancouver Island, for those of you who dont know is a huge island off the coast of BC, that is more than 400 km from north to south. There is a large population of people living there scattered across many towns/cities. Some of these places have even more crime than Vancouver believe it or not, nonetheless, at the bottom, closest to Vancouver is Victoria, which is unbelieably actually the capital of BC. Its positioned as a great tourist destination in itself.

The cost to get to this sh*thole at the end of Vancouver Island? This is the fun bit... one way its $37.75 per vehicle, and then a further $10.25 for each passenger!!! It cost us $78.00 plus taxes EACH WAY, thats $160 to visit Victoria on a day trip. Lets just imagine what else you could do with $160...

Needless to say we wont be back again, but it wasn;t like we weren't looking for other stuff to do. First of all we wanted to see the Titantic exhibition at the local museum, the signs were up, come on it we said. So we paid our money and went in. "Wheres the Titanic exhibition?" i said to the guard. "Oh that doesn't open until Monday" came the reply. I promptly turned around and went straight back to the cashier and demanded a refund, apparently it had been happening all day. Why did the sign not indicate when the Titanic exhibit opens? Why, can you imagine what % of people ask for their money back?

First on anyones list of things to do in Victoria is visit some gardens...sounds hilarious right? Well having been there these gardens are nice, they have been landscaped into some old mine or something. But how nice are gardens really, once you've been there for 10 -15 mins its like, OK its nice, can we go. But this is the main place that they tell you to see, so once you've finished here its all over. Do you know how much it costs to see the Bushart Gardens in Victoria - this is the kicker $25 per adult!!! Dont believe me have a look here on there own web page....http://www.butchartgardens.com/admission/rates.php
So for 4 adults to walk around some gardens, that were supposedly donated by the people who owned them back in 1800 and whenever, it costs $100. Are you fcuking serious???

Take my advice people, give this place a miss, especially for day trips. If you are planning on going further into Vancouver Island sure drive through and wave, but other than filling up with gas, i wouldn't waste anytime here, or money for that point.