New Village gets New Village Pillager.

I will miss "the Drive", even though I am really only moving a little ways away. I love my urban village. I have traded one for another, and they have equally cool aspects to them, but when you really get down to it, Main St. has an entirely different feel. To many folks, it may all just be the amorphous mass of Vancouver, but I feel my immersion in the village-within-the-city, makes me fairly sensitive to the character of certain areas. As well as how they have changed in my time. Anyone remember the German/European neighbourhood of Victoria and 33rd? I do.

find your happy place (of travaillez)

It's crazy- people are now leaving their jobs at my former employer who started working there after I left. Things are that abysmal there. I left mid november.

It used to be a place that you could stay for a few years and gain experience and then move on. Now it's a place to stay a couple of months until the other job leads pan out. How sad for them, they took a loyal base of employees and drove them all out. Thank god for the vibrant job market right now, or people might be trapped there. I should have left 2 years before I did. What can I say, I got comfortable. I learned my lesson there. I'm much more well-adjusted now.

My new desk is still a cubicle, but it's bigger than a high-school study carrell and I have a Herman Miller desk and Aeron Chair.

Seal(ing) of the Dominion of Canada

I couldn't agree more with one of my neighbours about Sir Paul and Queen Brigitte coming over here to tell us colonials to leave the cute furry seals alone. It's not that I feel I should support small remote East Coast fishing town residents ( though I do) , so much as I think they are misguided rich upper-class activists who should lend their fame for a better cause. In Europe. I despise animal activism solely based on cuteness, not on science.


1-the furs are going to rich europeans, so protest it there in the fur shops of Paris and London if you are going to protest it at all.
2-there are plenty of seals, but there are less cute species that could use help, go where you are needed.
3-there are plenty of worthy issues in your home countries. look in your own backyard.
4-we have a problem with the former colonialists of Canada coming to tell us what to do. think about this.
5-seals are cute, but not endangered.
6-if the sole reason for protesting this is the cruelty of the manner of harvesting, why not take on the meat industry? Their methods are equally brutal and far more animals meet their fate this way. What about the British upper crust's foxhunt, Sir Paul?



PS What the hell was Lady Paul doing petting a wild marine mammal? We have laws about harassing marine mammals in Canada. Why wasn't she charged. Fluffy nearly kept her hand though, which amused me greatly.

This morning, as I made my cup of Murchie's Prince Charles Blend tea, I thought about the famous "Bonnie Prince Charlie" of history and wondered, what other famous figures from history had nicknames that would never translate.

I mean, did the Italians have a "Neat-o Prince Vito"?

By the afternoon, this had bugged me to the point that I needed to settle the "Ich bin EIN Berliner" debate once and for all. I mean, was JFK a Jelly Donut or not?

This was a sensitive subject for some Berliners. Many Berliners really have a soft spot for Kennedy for what they see as firmly defending them from Soviet annexation, so they are bound to be forgiving.

Here is a synposis:

A common urban legend asserts that Kennedy made an embarrassing grammatical error by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a common pastry.

The legend stems from a play on words with Berliner, the name given to a doughnut variant filled with jam or plum sauce that is thought to have originated in Berlin. While this "jelly doughnut" is indeed common to Berlin, it is only known as Pfannkuchen (pan cake) in the city and nearby regions. Other parts of Germany picked up the pastry under the name of Berliner Pfannkuchen, shortened to Berliner.

According to the legend, Kennedy should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to mean "I am a person from Berlin." By adding the indefinite article ein, it is claimed, his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus "I am a jelly doughnut." In the legend, the statement was followed by uproarious laughter. Those retelling the legend will often claim to know someone who knows a German who misunderstood the statement due to its grammatical error.

When you start splitting grammatical hairs, however, the story doesn't quite as good. As a German speaker myself, I know you do not say "Ich bin EIN anything" when you are referring to yourself, but apparently you can say "Ich bin ein Brandenburger" or 'Ich bin ein Arzt". Indefinite articles can be used from emphasis. For example to say "Er ist ein Schauspieler", means not so much that someone is an actor by trade, but that they are acting like they are an actor.

Here is a German teacher' s take on it.

Now one Berliner I talked to about this had a story along the lines of: Kennedy's quote has been truncated. He really sadi something like "Ich bin ein Berliner Staatsburger" or something like that, which makes more sense, but the historical record has cut him short to poke fun. This appears to be untrue. Full speech.

Footnote: One thing I disagree strongly with is that Berliner Pfannekuchen are not called "Berliners" in Berlin. They are. Berliners joke about "warme Berliner" being homosexual Berliners, rather than freshly baked pastries. My advice to you: don't declare "Ich bin warm" when you really mean temperature rather than orientation.

senators eat burgers too.

saw senator/mayor/former davinci Larry Campbell in the A&W lineup at Sinclair Centre. Didn't he have a heart bypass or something?

found this recent quote from our NDP feeder party member turned liberal:

Asked what he thinks of U.S. officials' stance that Emery is a major drug dealer, Canadian Senator Larry Campbell, a former drug officer, says: "If they consider that, then they have bigger problems than I can even imagine. There's simply no way he's a major anything."

work snack fun

Dear Sunnie,

I’m going to have to cut burritos entirely from my diet and not for the usual reason: The machine ate my money again and left me with a burrito dangling off the edge, almost ready to drop, mocking me from its precarious perch.

Buying another to try and force the first one out doesn’t work, as the machine is smart enough to know when a burrito is stuck in it, but not smart enough to deliver a burrito properly.

I had to settle for a chimichanga, so my hunger for food is sated, but not my hunger for justice to be served from the vending machine.

Stephen Harper's new cabinet: Old white guys and big hair.

Vancouver's real estate market: a bully's playground.

How was your weekend?

water, water, nowhere

You never notice how much you miss a simple luxury like running water until it is taken away.

My advice to someone who wants to start a revolution? Cut the water supply and people will be in the streets with homemade weapons by dinner time.

I think the guy in the white van who just pulled up is the plumber who is going to resolve the emergency water shut off for the entire co-op. Our entire future is in your hands, make us proud.

NYE=Not Your Event?

NYE events suck. They are usually blatant money-grabs that charge you an arm n' a leg, serve you warm champagne in a plastic cup and have the same entertainment you could expect any other lame club night. A lot of emphasis is placed on the turning of the Gregorian calendar. I think I'll ring in the new year w. a few friends, or find an event that doesn't smack of exploitation and line the pocket of some lame, egotistical and pompous amateur event promoter, like so many I've known.

Hey-sus is gonna...

Bodybuilder#: "who the hell is this guys doing the pelvic thrusts behind me?"

BB#2: "dunno man, says his name is Jesus, wants us to call him the son of man or something, just keep ignoring him, n' maybe he'll go away."

BB#1: "why does he keep talking how our wives must love our muscles, doesn't he realize we're gay?"

Jesus: "*censored*"

quotes from the DTES polls

"what's your name and I'll check if you are on the voter's list"
"fuck off!"
"is that your first name or your last name?"

"I don't vote, natives don't matter anyways."
"sure they do."
*slam*

"I moved here to get as far away from my family as possible, they are bureaucrats"

"I grew up as a ward of the state- not in foster care"

"It's good to see you here- I thought they'd forgotten about us"

"they are all a bunch of crooks anyways, why should I vote?"

"i've never voted in my life but I want to this time."

"this is real. this is what you get. this is a real honest neighbourhood, if you get in with people, someone's always got your back. some people do really well here, other's come here to disappear. Some people come here and die."

"i haven't got any time, i've got to go out and get a light"

Rockin' the vote in the DTES

I am registering people to vote in the DTES (Downtown Eastside) and in the next few days and weeks, I'll be posting some stories about getting Vancouver's poorest citizens to register for the polls. I've signed up a lot of people who have never voted, or not voted in decades. BC will make a difference this time and the election may be close. I have to remain painfully apolitical and non-partisan while doing this work.

When people have no home, the last thing on their mind is politics.

I picked up some work registering people in the Downtown Eastside to vote. I'm going into the SRO hotels and signing people up. I feel like one of those people who registered black voters in the south in the early 60s. I just started tonight and I have seen blood spatters on a door frame, countless doors that had been forced with prybars countless times and a real, genuine, small-caliber bullet hole in an interior window. I've seen bullet holes in buildings before, having seen many a structure that still exhibited WW2 damage and made a few bullet holes in things myself, growing up in a family with hunters. This was without question a bullet hole. I've never seen one inside before.

People are friendly for the most part, but the hopelessness that is apparent in so many of them is hard to see. It does make me really want to try to get as many SRO residents out there voting as possible.

tookie is dead

I only recently learned about Stan "Tookie" Williams and the State of California has just executed him. The day I read his story was the day I signed the petition to save him.

Aside from the fact that revenge-killing is wrong, no matter who does it, this man was a changed man, who did work to create peace between rival LA gangs and was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. As much as I love California in some ways, the fact that a state controlled by Arnold Schwarzenegger killed a Nobel nominee is going to bug me for some time. America needs to change. It has become such a reprehensible nation, I don't even want to go there anymore.

look at the 2x4 in your own eye, before criticizing the splinter in anothers...

I love paraphrasing Jesus, fulfills my messianic zeal...

I think if someone is overly concerned with the lives of others, to the point of ignoring their own existence, that person is suppressing some major issues that they perceive in the life they have created for themselves.

Your life is your own, other people's lives are their own. That proverb has been repeated many a time and is true now as it ever has been. Make your life what you want it to be and don't worry so much about what others think of you. Also, don't worry so much about the lives of others unless it affects you directly.

That is all.

today's blog posting

will be a link to another blog posting. it strikes me as strange, that I've had so little time and inclination to update my blog lately, considering how much free time I have right now.

north-west germans have a Schwarzer Peter myth too and make of it what you will, the tradition will probably stay. there's a lot of unfairness in the world, isn't there? i do think that it is an oversimplification to say that S.P. represents a black man, but I do agree that over the years, he did attain some "moorish characteristics". but then again, if I showed you some of the german books i read as a little boy, with thumb-sucking children getting their thumbs lopped off by tailors with giant scissors, you'd probably be shocked.

Make sure it's the dec 5th 2005 entry you read.

I miss Amsterdam, I miss it, miss it, miss it!

so the bastards laid me off, due to restructuring. they went for the some of the most senior people first and laid off 10-12 people who had been around about 5 years. they saved more money that way, since we made a few thousand a year more than a new guy. what a smart move in a knowledge-based company- a large part of my job was answering questions, training new guys and showing people how to access documentation, system resources and configure devices that they need to do their jobs.

today i noticed a problem w. my home connection and msg'ed a former coworker. they were in the midst of a major outage and 5 guys were working, all of whom were green as freshly fertilized alfalfa. the automated trouble reporting system for our newest, most complicated product was automatically creating tickets and phone calls and no one was available to take them.

another great decision on the part of the board. hope that when they start to lose customers, they see their mistake.

I'm glad I'm a man.

Because if I was a woman, and I found out I was pregnant, the first thing I would want to do is pour myself a stiff drink. And I wouldn't be able to.

Congratulations, Wendy and Paul.

Wendy must now treat her body like a temple, not that she didn't before. In fact, treat it like a golden temple, The Golden Temple at Amritsar. Nothing but curries from now on for you, the spicier the better. Make sure to use ghee and have it all with lime pickle and chapatis and a side of pickles and ...ice cream and bacon and chocolate and... cheese! and...

og.

My wife and I are guilty of pet names, inside jokes and cuteness that would probably cause a pwetty liddle bunny wabbit to want to vomit. Or anyone we knew if we did this stuff outside the home. Fortunately for you, we keep it in private. Here is an example of digusting cuteness: an email written to lisa by my alter-ego, the primitive caveman known as "Og."

og sneak out few mins early he think.
try be liberry 6 clock.
grunt

the cities of Europe have burned before, and they may yet burn again.

Apostatewindbag tells me that in Saint Gilles, Brussels, that gritty (yet nice) little multicultural district I visited him in which saw 5 cars burned by rioters monday night doesn't have the racial divides seen in Paris. In Brussels, everyone was rioting together in a collective spirit of disenfranchisement: white, black, north african.

As much as North American media would have me believe that this is the work of islamic radical terrorist-wannabes, I'm not buying it. Seems to me it is a whole bunch of poor people pissed off about being poor, some of whom are tired about not being accepted by their adoptive homeland, or even place of their birth.

Check out Apostatewindbag's posts on the European media and their spin on recent internal events. Makes me wonder what kind of press the now-heroic 68ers got over here during their days of glory.

"Hippies who hate freedom, cause widespread mayhem in drug-induced hysteria, then grow up to become the forces of government oppression themselves."