Looking for a fight eh ?

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

A recent survey showed that Canadia is considered a “universal popular country” by the rest of the world. Canadia cheered and did a little victory dance singing “we are the champions”, but most certainly also “those are the losers” whilst excessively pointing at their southern neighbours. The cheerfulness lasted a while but eventually the Canadians scratched themselves on their head and wondered “but why, eh?”.

As it turned out, no one had a clue what Canadia is all aboot. Since they kinda look American, talk like an American, but unlike America they don't invade countries when the politicians feel like it, the rest of the world probably thought “meh, then they must be a'right”.

The Canadians must have felt like it was time they ended that “friendly quiet” image and show the world what Canadia stands for. It was time the world acknowledged Canadian Power, time to show the world Canadia has teeth and isn't afraid to use it... and last Saturday was that day.

My Saturday began around 11:00 AM in a pub. A pub filled with English football fans trying to yell their country to a victory over the Israelites ... and three Scots cheering whenever the Israelites did something that looked like it could mean trouble for the English. The match was so good, large amounts of beer were necessary to keep the spirits of the fans up. Not entirely against expectations, it ended in a solid 0 – 0 draw, enough reason for more beer.

Maybe we should have joined the ritual of celebrating a lousy game. Instead, on the way back, my English companion and myself ended up in the Demonstration of Canadian Power.

It was slaughter, it was violent, it showed exactly what Canadia at its worst is capable of... and I didn't bring any recording device to share what it witnessed there. Luckily we're living in the Web 2.0 world and sure enough not long after I found a accurate report on YouTube.

Before you hit 'play', I do wish to point out that I take no responsibility for the contents shown.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)

Oneliners and other things that may make you smile

On the void that binds us

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

This blog could discuss my ski – trip up Grouse Mountain, just 37.43 minutes outside Vancouver

advertised view from Grouse Mountain

It could, I mean it was a great trip. We were skiing like true pros, or so our instructor told us, and naturally we believed him. Going up and down the slopes of the mountain like skiing was all we ever did. Sadly, unlike the aforementioned promotional picture from the top of the mountain, our view was more like this:

representative shot from the lifts of Grouse Mountain

Besides the dense fog, we had to deal with other funky weather issues. The weather report, as ever, managed to live up to its worldwide reputation: they expected less rain... and sure enough, it ended up raining nonstop.

To my occasional Dutch reader: And you think the Dutch rain is wet ?!? The Canardian Rain is Wetter. The wetness goes straight through your front “waterproof”(!= wetproof) clothing, your body, and exits through the back of your “waterproof” clothing. Hence our activities consisted of an innovative mashup of scuba diving and sliding down the hill.

Because of the lack of accurate or interesting photo material, I will postpone the skiing reports until a later date... Say when I am capable to actually ski down the hill with a camera and not break my neck. Suffice to say we had lots of fun and we're considering moving out of the game development and into professional skiing.

But, as said, my ski trip is not what this blog is about.

This blog could also discuss the new words I learned this week. I mean it just could, given the weight of these words. One of these words comes from the same person who accompanied me on (and arranged) the ski trip: co-worker and full time Brit in Canada, Steve. One of these words is “Merkin”. I invite you to click on the link, read it and wonder how we came to discuss this word. All I can say, because I don't clearly remember how, is that it involves a couple of guys and beer(s). The other word of great weight was "Gunt". I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.As you can I see, I'm getting educated in the more refined aspects of the Anglo Saxon derived culture.

Since I expect the reader of this blog to be a slightly above this level of male beer talk, this Blog won't be about newly learned words either.

In fact my original idea for this week was a common ground, a shared Dutch Canardian value, a shared source of information, quality news, the Metro.

The concept was to collect an entire week's worth of Metros (*) to give you people an accurate impression of what's playing in the Vancouverian scene. I guess one could say "i tried"... alas, the result is far from impressive. Here's the meager reapings of what I managed to extract:

• The upcoming (2010) Winter Olympics are coming to Vancouver. This happening has locals running wild and about in the spirit of pre-fun all over: if the Olympics are having a bad day, it makes news, if the Olympics sneeze, it's a breakthrough, if the Olympics fart, it's cause for a news flash update. You get the picture. Tuesday's front page news featured an anti Olympic demonstration. In unrelated news: Britney Spears got a couple of lines of paper space as well.
  
  

• On Wednesday the Metro congratulated itself, on the front page, with it's second anniversary. The age fits the maturity of the content. No gossip on Britney today.
  
  

• After leaving the Olympics alone for a day, Thursday brought the Olympics back to the front space, personified by Paralympian (physically challenged Olympic Athlete) Jeff Adams. Jeff rebuked Monday's demonstration, by stating the Olympics also bring good things (such as an overheated housing market). Britney found love in the rehab ?
  
  

• Friday's episode is called the Weekend episode. That's a bit of a stretch as one only needs five minutes or less to go through all the “news”. “Premier meets Governator” is the most important news fact according to the Metro Editors. It's not that much, but luckily there's some news on Britney Spears being very demanding and obnoxious in rehab.
  
  

Concluding: the Metro is a waste of good trees. If it wasn't for the latest news on Britney's latest burp, there would absolutely be no reason to go through the effort of obtain a Metro from a metro dispenser and wasting five minutes (or less) of your life on it.

one of the many metro dispensers improving Vancouvers Scenery

So there it is, the topic of this week's blog. Not the ski trip, not the bar adventures in downtown Vancouver but an information void. Given my obvious talent in that area, I expect some offers from the said newspaper for the role of senior editor soon...

"After every attempt at being sarcastic ask questions, ‘Was that sarcastic?', ‘Did you think that my comment was clever?'. Learn from your mistakes, and do not be afraid to ask for help to further develop the comments that you find are not sarcastic."

Sarcasm: A Beginners guide
http://www.sarcasmsociety.com/howtobesarcastic/

(*) People who actually are not too lazy to count, will notice only four metros here. People who know a (work) week contains more than four days will realize one is missing. The missing one is the result of the complexity of the metro dispensers. On Monday I was figuring out how to get a metro from one of the dispensers as my bus arrived. I had to abandon that task. The next day however, I was more lucky as I was able to spot a native performing the trick.

Vancouver, T +1

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

Time goes by quickly, one week you're saying goodbye to everyone, next week you're the proud owner of a shiny new koe - mok... oh yeah and one year older.

cheers V&V !

This week was one of new experiences, introductions, challenges, wonders, highs and a few lows. Each of these resulted in new insights lessons and raving results. Overall Vancouver proves to be a great town... As for the infiltration mission, I'd like to report the following:

• Vancouver is a city of food. There's plenty of it. However, due to the variety of ethnic origins, it's sometime hard to judge whether something is a tasty experience or should be sent to the garbage bin without further delay.
  
  Luckily the Canadians are a friendly bunch, so they colourcode their food. Thus far, I managed to decipher one colour: brown. Brown implies shite in terms of looks, smell, taste, texture and the almost immediate result after being stupid enough to eat it anyway. Avoid brown food at all cost.
  
  
  yuck and yuck
  
  
  
• Canadian is an interesting little language. Their written expressions hang on to their British heritage (behaviour, harbour, colour) while at the same time they flirt with the cooler southern neighbours (initialize, verbalize, mooseize). To make sure everybody knows what they're talking about, they subtitle their language in Frog.
  
  
  Questions should always end in "eh ?".
  
  

• Everything and everybody is equal, in the end we all get wet by the same rain. This provides ample opportunity of all views, sides and kinds and results in a competitive yet friendly atmosphere. That no one, and I mean, no one is exempt from this philosophy is proven by finding this super being HQ (i.e. church) in the middle of the metropolis...
  
  ... right next to the HQ of an apparently somewhat more successful other super being
  
  
  

... and meanwhile the world wonders: 'teh 5uv0 pwnz', eh ?

Welcome to Vancoover

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

The first weekend in Vancoover is aboot to take its place in history. While waiting for inspiration to write a real blog, I'll take you on a short toor along some of the sights witnessed this first weekend.

Robson street as seen from my hotel, the Empire Landmark Hotel. There was nothing remarkable aboot this slightly aged hotel, except it had "Mark" in its name which warrants a visit. Robson street is (probably) the central (shopping) street of Vancoover.



A testimony to the old age of the hotel. It still used pigeons to send messages, in this case my wake up call. Nevermind that this is (1) not a pigeon, (2) I was already awake four hours thanks to the jet lag, (3) the stupid bird forgot its lines, but instead was still expecting a cookie.



I fear no fire as this cutesy firestation is located in my street, slightly across my building. Pay special attention to the tower overlooking Vancoover, checking for any sign of smoke or fire. Did I mention my tower and four other towers roughly ten times the size of that tower surroond the fire station. Oh well it's the thought that coonts I guess...


Vancoover is a Gay / Lesbian - friendly city, across town you'll find plenty of pubs, hotels and clubs waving the rainbow coloored flag. Vancooverian architects try to advertise this by using pink material in their buildings. I suspect no self - respecting gay individual with any sense of taste woold like to live there, but oh well... And no, I'm not going to rotate this picture, I respect its non-straightness.




A ten minute walk from my apartment brings you into Vancoover harboor which offers some amazing views on the surroonding moontain ridges. Those trees in the front of the moontains belong to Stanley park. I was told, this park was once the home to an impressive fortess intended to keep oot those nasty Americans in case they decided to Blame Canadia.


While enjoying a latte special on the rocks and a browny (they were out of blueberry muffins) at one of the many Starbucks, a certain pantsuited individual came sitting across me. I thooght this spectacular display of an extremely well developed case of uber anal compulsiveness deserved a picture. Please take a moment to appreciate the pecfect angels and order in which the owner marked his newfoond territory. What's missing here is his surprisingly tiny cup of expresso. I expected something huge to compensate for something small.




Stanley park is situated in the north of downtown Vancoover. This picture is taken from Burrard Bridge in the sooth of Vancoover. There are plenty of gorgeoos sites indeed in this fine city. Notice that white thingy at the bottom left of the photo. That is worlds most insignificant ferry. It cannot take more than two modestly sized passengers. Moreover it cannot hold more fuel enough to travel say for 30 metres, which is exactly the distance from one shore to the other.

In Holland one tries to make the lifes of car thieves not too easy by locking the car. In Canadia one takes his/her shovel and well...

Stay tuned for more pictures disclosed at an unspecified time.

Rethink music(s): http://www.matthewflorianz.com/