playgrounds that suck...

as a parent of young children I have many occasion to be in a park with my kids (less so now as we enter the monsoon season). It astounds me how poorly equipped Vancouver parks are with leisure equipment and playgrounds. Some parks have invested in 3 or 4 pieces of what should be much larger jungle gym systems. I caught a glance of such an example a couple of weeks back while i was in seattle, and took the kids to a park in bellevue while my wife shopped.

this park had the same brand of jungle gym that many of our parks have, but with many many more options, activities and amusements. i mean even my 4 year old was shocked.

also, while i am bitching about parks, why the fuck doesn't stanley park have a huge public icerink - central park style??? i mean seriously we live in canada, we have a huge amazing park right in the center of our city what better way to bring people into the park to enjoy it in winter than to have an ice rink there???

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....