Gronk! Hulk Smash! Ugh! Grunt!

The real destruction began this morning with sledgehammers smashing the exterior walls at 7AM. In murphy's law fashion, they began outside the bedroom and then worked their way to removing the last of the stucco around the doors around the time I was leaving for work, so I had to remove materials to open the door after realizing I'd been blocked inside the house.

shows in seattle

Many, many musicians worth seeing never, or rarely make it up to Canada. Some American artists can't, cause, well, they have "questionable character". Once upon a time, Paul Robeson was denied admission to Canada, for being too left-wing.

Today, artists are more likely to skip us, because we are more trouble than we are worth. So that means, Seattle is the closest place to see some shows that are worth seeing. A good friend of mine goes to shows in Seattle all the time and it's how he met his current girlfriend, who just escaped the land of George Bush to live with him here in Vancouver.

My friend is a music nut and I have to turn him on to the dark death-bluegrass of Gillian Welch, so that I have someone to see her with in Seattle. My friend's taste in music runs more to bands with names like: "Death Mullet".

You say FANNYPACK and I say Pants!

...let's call the whole thing off.

Apparently to British ears, the term "fannypack" sounds obscene. To my sensitive North American ears, "bumbag" sounds obsc...not right, anyways. My Quebecois coworker wears a black leather fannypack, if only he knew the awful truth.

The phrase i really, really want to steal from the Brits is "pants". Trousers are pants, so pants are something you wear beneath your pants-er, I mean, trousers. UNDERpants. I get it now. Some thing that is bad or ridiculous is pants.

I want to import that: "What? That is just PANTS! The most PANTS thing I ever heard! This place is the PANTS! Awwww, PANTS!

Let the PANTS begin!

Sincerely,

Mr. Pants

creepy, creeping, creepily

The security guard on duty last night was seriously creeping me out. I understand their job is to lurk, but everywhere I was, this guy was there. It was like he was expecting me to do something illegal.

Now maybe I have a guilty conscience, but I made it clear to him during our first encounter (right outside my home) that I live here, this is my bike and I am not the suspicious cyclist from earlier this evening. My housemates were right inside the window behind me, it was hardly suspicious to be heading to return a video at 8PM. Anyways at this point, he should have marked me as "friendly". He's not the regular guy, but he can figure out that I live there and he's not hired to watch people who live there.

Then I went to water the trees transplanted from my wrecked courtyard on the other side of the complex. There he was. He watched me water the trees. He followed me onto the sidewalk of the busy road in front of the complex were the trees were now and stood there, watching me work.

Then Chelsea knocked on my door to get me to sign something. I shut the front door to keep her cat (which follows her everywhere) outside and mine inside, since they were threatening to scrap. As we stood outside speaking, there he was at the bottom of my stairs, standing, watching us...watching...

I hurried back inside to avoid his prying eyes. I hope he's not there tonight.

True adventure can be had in your own backyard.

Cycling to Surrey.
National Geographic, Sept 2005

The first question one asks when contemplating a ride from Vancouver to Surrey is: why? There is a perfectly good rapid transit system in place which now allows you to bring your bike along. You could pack your bike into a train and ride to somewhere nice from the end of the line. Truth be told, sometimes one has to experience the urban jungle close up. Riding through the wilds of Metrotown with barely in control drivers swirling about you, one gets a chance to feel really alive that tamer places simply cannot provide. Between here and the mean streets of Surrey, there is an urban jungle into which only the most adventurous cyclists dare venture.

The next question to ask is: how to get there? The crumbling, ancient path put down by a long-gone Socred civilization that knew Grace McCarthy as Transportation Minister? Too broken up and meandering to be much use to the urban cycle warrior. A path strewn liberally with dog walkers and their feral pets, as well as treacherous hidden road crossings between the hidden temples and Mayan pyramids. Danger lurks around every corner on that path. It is far too dangerous for even this writer.

In the interests of saving time (the society grant won't last forever), the choice of simplicity has to be made. To run with the herds along the most direct route possible: Kingsway. To ride with the armoured carriages of bulbous steel, the rhino herds of motorists galloping to and from the malls and the suburbs. To experience danger firsthand, return from the shadow of death in one piece and live to tell the tale.

Continued in installment #2.

Kiss my ass, SpamBots

Word verification for comments has been switched on. That means anonymous comments can still happen, but require a real person to read a word from an image and interpret that into text. Simple for people, difficult for automated applications. Until someone writes an OCR-Bot. Hmmm...

It's amazing how much computer processing power it can take to do something people take for granted every day.

I could smell the bog fire smoke today. Hope it rains. Here's some musings on the labour conflicts happening in Vancouver right now:

In the CBC and Telus strikes we have seen corporations position themselves in an extremely advantageously long before removal of labour has occurred. At the very first inklings of labour unrest at Telus, "managers" were hired to fill positions that are typically shop-floor positions, such as installation and repair. These are the guys who wear toolbelts and come to your house to fix your phone wiring. Not a job typically done by a member of management. This in an already top-to-middle heavy corporation swelled the erranks of management. These workers were integrated into the labour force within the last year, accepted their jobs which were likely an improvement over what they were working at previously and, being used to the new economy, accepted what they got, knowing that even though they were being deliberately shut out of the union, they'd gotten themselves a better job. Most of these people probably had no idea that they would be called upon to scab during a strike and not given a choice, as they were technically management. Such an unfair position to place people in.

Scab- such an old economy, old-labour term isn't it? Like something out of an old Marlon Brando or gangster movie. Surely in this new workplace, this enterprenurial environment that is the new economy, where no one can expect the jib security and workplace solidarity of the past, "scabbing" doesn't really exist? These are just people deliberately shut out of the union organization by a company bent on saving dollars and contracting out, not people who are betraying their former coworkers, aren't they?

These poor unsuspecting pawns of the Telus conflict will likely be given the boot by their employer once this issue is resolved. Telus has been filling their war chest with capable workers for a while now, it looks like and when they get what they want, it's always the fat that gets trimmed. That's the new economy. Kind of makes you wish they could see it coming.

What's next, doctors are going to be replaced by hospital administrators trained to do surgery? Teachers forced to scrub the hallways of schools? The problem with threatening a strike these days is the bosses see it coming and damn well make sure the wheels are oiled and there's someone that knows how to make them turn.

So has the precedent been set that strikes are useless now? Hardly. But it does no benefit to the union movement to remove your labour only to see the company do far better than limp along. The media is always going to be less friendly to the union than the corporation, as cynical as it might sound. The corporate media thrives on conflict, angry faces on the picket lines make for good press. The police is there to make sure the picketers play nice. What the corporation is doing is sneaky, underhanded and as far as I am concerned, unethical, but technically legal. Not a pretty picture for the Canadian labour unions of tomorrow.

To steal an idea from a friend of mine, strikes are futile if you cannot shut the workplace down. Perhaps this is what needs to happen. Unions need to adapt to the new economy by hauling out some ideas from the old economy. Raise the level of radicalism, bring out the burning barrels and play the old economy game of shutting the place down. Totally. Doing things half-way only means people are going to lose their homes after their savings erode and strike pay no longer pays the rent or mortgage. Strike harder and shorter. At the very least, no one will be able to call unions ineffectual, bloated bureaucracies. What we are seeing today is the legalized form of early 1900s union busting, which was often violent, but now has become institutionalized. The cards are stacked in favour of the corporations more and more. It's time for a new radicalization in the union movement during this summer of labour unrest.

Fire in the Bog

To Quote David Zirin's political sports column, Edge of Sports:

"There is nothing “unnatural” about the disaster of New Orleans. When politicians smirk at global warming, when developers look at our wetlands and dream of mini malls, when billions are flushed in the name of war and tax-cuts, when issues of poverty and racism don’t even register in Presidential debates, all it takes is wind, albeit 145 mph wind, to expose a sturdy super power as a house of cards."
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It makes me think about our at times short-sighted land use planning right here in BC and the tragic consequences it could have. Burns Bog would be much less likely to burn regularly if it weren't being drained at it's edges by industry and berry farming. Richmond is a bad place to build high-rises if an earthquake happens...

If we were to allow Burns Bog to function as a natural system, like it is supposed to, and clooect water instead of slowly bleeding it out through it's edges, it would reduce the fire hazard. How simple. Now if we could only stop dumping garbage on it as well.

I've hiked through Burns Bog quite a bit and it is a truly wild place to be so close to a city. Parts of it are completely inaccessible, unless you have hip waders, ropes and maybe are an olympic pole vaulter ( a method Europeans use to traverse bog landscapes). But on a walk through this private land that should be a nature reserve, park or other protected area, the impacts of humanity are constantly there, albeit often partially sunken into the peat.

Blog Spam

I've been getting spammed through my blog. I am so livid about this. This is a public statement of my intense hatred of spammers.

This post will probably get me more spam. Eff'in great.

In Soviet Russia...

BCParisTopia

I am at work right now (still at Radiant) and it is a slow day here. I have been thinking about writing/editing lately on the side. Leigh picks up extra cash by copyediting in Brussels. I figure I can specialize in high-tech/engineering/IT manual copyediting, as I have a familiarity with the language. There are some copyediting and grammar courses at SFU to help refresh my grammar and teach me writing styles other than CP style.

I spent last weekend at Leigh's parents visiting him. They are in the process of completing a home on Bowen Island on a waterfront lot. It's nice. It's a pretty regular home, sort of a modern rendition of an arts and crafts home, but the location is great and kindo of historic, as it was part of the Union Steamship Company's picnic grounds on a big resort which covered most of the lower part of Bowen. They look out on a little bay, with a weir/bridge across a lagoon which is a good 60-70 years old. Old by BC standards, anyways.

Lisa, Leigh and I launched a canoe right next to the house and paddled up-island. A few bays over, we found a spot where we could paddle out into the channel between the mainland and Bowen Island and drift back into shore almost to the rocky shore, then paddle back. We had a good supply of dark German beer tins and lime-flavoured tortilla chips. Except fothe odd ferry wake and overzealous speedboater, we had a relaxing time.

Discussing the merits of European cities versus Western Canadian cities, we imagined taking Paris, and dropping it just about where Vancouver is now. Having the culture and food of Europe, with the view of green mountains and islands we had in front of us with Paris just a ferry ride away. Does a place like that exist?

Anyways, it was a great lazy afternoon, drifting about as much as paddling

may you live in interesting...places

Just learned that Vancouver was home to the first hybrid vehicle taxi. Apparently we are very friendly to alternative-fueled vehicles here and known for it throughout the world. Ironically, we are a place where the large SUV is quite popular as well.

Vancouver is like that: home of the richest and poorest postal codes in Vancouver, some of the most conservative and most looney-left politicos, basically on opposite ends of extremes sometimes.

More later, when I figure out a point to all this.

loot.

When black people do it, it's called "looting":


http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm10208301530

When white people do it, it's called "finding":

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/050830071810_shxwaoma_photo1


Why don't we pretend it's just "shopping"?

Update: Associate Press must have recieved flak for these photo captions, as I believe they removed the second one. Seems I wasn't the only one who has blogged about this.