Random shit about the 'Couve

We are now experts on The Left Coast. Here's what I've learned so far:

1. Half the buses in Vancouver are electric. Bus drivers will wait for you if you run for the bus. They will also stop, once started to pull out, if they see someone else running for the bus. They will ask you how you are doing. You will yell 'thank you' from the back steps when they stop at your stop. They will yell 'Your Welcome' back. They will even spend up to 10 minutes in rush hour, with a half a busload of people, to help you with your broken umbrella, then let you on anyway and despite the fact that they have rule about not allowing people with open umbrellas on their bus. FACT.

2. Nevermind the crack-addicted Yerba Mate latte fiends who carry their plastic coffee totes everywhere, every third-and-a-half person here owns a dog. I know, I've seen them all. Sometimes the same dogs, more than once a week. I've even seen the world's BIGGEST dog - a Beethoven stylee beast that weighed 240 pounds. I know, I asked the owner. 3. The dogs here have coats. Not just ridiculously coiffed stupid fur coats (like the Poo-Hound - Poodle-WolfHound cross - I saw the other day which looked really gay and had a curled tail) BUT COATS. I'm talking about pink coats. Yellow Coats. Coats with Hoods. Coats with Hoods and Booties. Coats with pockets so they can carry their own Snausages. I've also seen a pure white dog near my work, wearing a clear raincoat. With a hood. And I saw the coolest thing EVER in the history of the universe the other day: a rad looking Asian dude in leathers and shades, on a souped-up red 1940s-style motorbike, with a sidecar. In the sidecar? A meaty looking dog. Wearing a leather coat. AND GOGGLES. Awesome!

4. Even on a dual carriageway with cars zooming in both directions traffic will stop if you look purposefully as if you're going to cross the street. The Pedestrian is generally King here, even though all drivers are fugging defensive. This caused Dan and I some confusion as we were used to being run over in London. Remember this, my tourist brethren, if you plan on renting wheels here.

5. Men in tights. Spindly legs abound as everyone bikes to work in some form of neoprene. I shall not be doing that. Although my awesome new bike is now in my possession. More later.

6. There are no black people in Vancouver. Well, I saw the same guy twice in one week. Not with a dog though. But cool dreads.

7. It kinda does rain every day. This is a truth. However the rains seems to check in and out, like Fred Flinstone at the gravel pit, sometime after 5am and usually stops either a) three minutes after your alarm's gone off or b) 10 minutes before you leave for work. Result? Not much use for Mr. Brolly on your way in. Nice!

8. Waitresses give you their real estate agent's information, you know, for when you enter the house market.

9. People actually live in the centre of town. I mean, loads of people. Normal people. If you were King Kong, Vancouver would be like taking candy from a baby - plenty of highrises on EVERY corner to smoosh.

10. It is okay to smoke pot in the morning on your way to work. Well, it is for Stoner Office Lady who I smell every morning at the bus stop, toking away. She then goes the through the following ritual: 1) stand at least three metres from bus stop so no-one can smell you even though everyone does. 2) Finish spliff, disguised as cigarette 3) Swig water bottle 4) Quickly brush hair and do the flip thing with her bangs 5) Blow nose 6) Spray herself with perfume. Every other day she does this. I like to stare at her to make her paranoid.

So, when are you coming to visit?

xM

ps, the Dogblog is dedicated to barky bark Molly - our 'house dog' Abby's daughter and dog of Jessica, Judy's daughter. Molly chased after a coyote (yep they have those here, too) the other week and found herself caught in the headlights. RIP, Mollster.

Valentine's Day Ruined!

Howdy, Lovers!

This year has to have been the most disastrous Valentine's Day of them all. "Why?" I hear you ask. Read on. If you dare...

Due to recent budgetary cut-backs, Mikala and I decided to do Valentine's Day on the cheap (or "Sur le cheap" as they say in Quebec). And as it usually falls to me to sort out the festivities, I decided it was only fair that, this year, Mikala arrange our evening of romance. That was my first mistake...

The evening started out innocuously enough. Cocktails at Afterglow. You know the place - cool concoctions, Soho ambiance without the bullshit, cute waitress who Corey Haim fancied. All coming back? Good. We shot the breeze, whispered sweet nothings and knocked back a few exotic Martinis. An hour or so later Mikala lead me to the night's first (for there were to be more than one) mystery destination where we were to enjoy our seductive, candle-lit repast. Imagine my surprise when we arrived at...

EL FURNITURE WAREHOUSE!

Located on Granville Street between the comic shop and Templeton Diner (home of the "Big Ass Breakfast") this delightfully shitty bar is so relaxed they couldn't even be bothered to think of a name that made sense. When you walk through the door you are greeted by a hodge-podge of Mexican paraphernalia, fake palm trees, biplane parts, bras hanging from the ceiling (God knows how they got there) and the barrel o' nuts - more on that later.

"Happy Commercial Exploitation of Romance Day!" chirped Mikala to the barman.

"If you're gonna be gay about it then I'm gonna have to ask you to leave." he replied, equally cheerfully.

Back to the nuts - they work like this:

1) Grab a handful of nuts from the barrel.
2) Take your seat.
3) Crack the nuts' shells and munch on the insides.
4) Chuck nuts on floor.

Now, being British and all that, I didn't quite follow the last step and after we'd amassed a small mountain of shells on the table the nice waitress came over and chucked them on the floor for us. You can't beat service like that... The food was pretty good too! A plate of crunchy Jalapeno Poppers and a delicious steak fajita. Yum! All washed down with lashings of healthy beer. To be fair to the romantic trappings of El Warehouse the lighting was low. Probably more to hide the insalubrious looks of the regular clientele than for any seductive allusions. Awesome though this place is (we will definitely be back) the next destination was a whole lot... sexier.

I would imagine there are a fair few Elvis impersonators in the world today, but few of them have the style and panache of the Mexican Elvis: "El Vez". This immaculately suited gentleman was the host for the second half of our Valentoon's misadventure. Which happened to be a visit to Chaz Royale's world-renowned burlesque show. Mmmmmmmmm, burlesque.

We lounged arm-in-arm as we quaffed cheap champagne and marveled at the wibbley delights of Farrah Moans, Shanghai Pearl and Miss Goody Goody (to name but three). The foxy ladies mesmerised the audience as they wiggled their stuff dressed as secretaries, baby-dolls and general hotties of no particular discrimination. There was also a foxy man by the name of "Teddy Smooth", but we'll gloss over that for the sake of brevity... still, hats off to him - I can only imagine that he gets more than his fair share of aftershow nookie with the dancers.

The show was totally stolen by an awesome belly dancer whose (stage) name escapes me. I was too busy looking at her, well... belly. According to Mikala she was the physical embodiment of the letter "S". Hmmm, I don't imagine we'll be seeing that one on Sesame Street any time soon. On a stranger-than-fiction note I could swear that one of the dancers works in the same building as me at EA. Unfortunately my Burnaby Studio induction seminar covered a lengthy session on how stalking my colleagues would get me sacked. And maybe imprisoned.

Bum.

After the first wave of voluptuous vixens, El Vez, in his third suit of the evening, descended into the audience to recruit contestants for his shimmy contest. The wife and I decided that this would be a good time to beat the rush for a taxi, and made tracks for the snugly comfort of our boudoir, safe in the knowledge that we would shortly pass out entwined...

So why was Valentine's Day ruined?

Isn't it obvious?

Can you not work it out for yourselves?

Next year there is no way I could possibly top the cocktails-warehouse-burlesque combo! Damn you, Mikala T. Damn your romantic awesomeness.

Love,
Dan.

Curse of the Sun God...and other tales

Pretty shitty blog posters, we are.
But considering we've been staring down the barrel of the Colt 45 of the virus world (along with pretty much the rest of Vancouver), you can't blame us for preferring endless, back-to-back catchups of Series 1 of Prison Break to spending another minute sitting upright. But anyway.

So, I started work last week. And check me out, woooooeeee, I'm a bonafidey editor type who gets to write hapless new scribes and tell them that their work sucks. Or that theyyy can't spelle. Or that they've plagiarised something. Ah, work. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness.

You know.

It's a pretty sweet job, actually. Not only am I responsible for the work of hundreds of new writers, I get to weigh in on all our major marketing plans and recruitment. I also get to go to the Waitrose-cum-Borough Food Market-cum-King's Road "Why Pay Less When You Can Pay More?" store, Urban Fare . I nearly greeted today's first venture there with tears - honestly, how is it possible that fruits and vegetables are so plentiful and polished?

I'm in this nice little office with Joy, my editor in chief. She's a gregarious (read: feisty and chatty) Gemini much like myself and we've hit it off nicely. Gossiping, sharing incredulous glances at Ugly Young Naked Guy who lives in the apartment across from us and sits at his desk in his underwear with the blinds open. Sweet.

So the job's good. And we got over our SARS long enough to actually have a pretty normal, fabulous Saturday night, this past weekend. Met up with my old friend (the man who started my fixation with drummers) Chris - and his lovely wife Tammy. I've known Chris since I was 18 - and anybody who knew me then knows that I was a massive fan of the band he was in, Grapes of Wrath. He's the dude flipping through the book at the end here . Anyway, nice to reestablish links with Mr. Hooper - even he is Mr Bitterness about Vancouver. We'll change that with our irrepressible sunshiney view of Van! Wheee!

Anyway, after thousands of beers including copious pints of something called Sun God (which a drunken Dan decided to rename ThunderGod, much to the ho-ho-ho waitress' chagrin) and a catch up with another friend of Chris's who I know, we headed back to Chris and Tam's apartment close by for some post-bar action. Bring on the Gin and tonics!

However, because poor Mr. Taylor had abstained from alcohol for the month of January, he was in no shape to, erm, sit up by 2am. So once Tammy'd passed out on the sofa and Dan curled up on the floor, Chris and I (who've shared many a late night at Irish Taverns back in the day) decide to scrape up our others and call an end to the evening. Lightweights. :-)))

But the whole incident was inspiring - Chris, Tammy, Dan and I hatched plans to go camping, surfing, to Saltspring Island to see his brother perform, to cook and plan parties. In fact, unbeknownst to us, Chris is a strangely MASSIVE Corey Haim fan. Would you believe he hosts annual Corey Haim tribute parties? No, us neither. But we're planning on trying to get our good friend, the Haimster, on the line for the next bash.

We miss you (hey, let's try something out - all you casual lurkers actually leave a message!), we love you and we hope you come visit us soon.

xM

Missing in Action

Howdy, folks!
Apologies for the lack of blogging this week - I have been at work (more about that later) and Mikala has been sick as a parrot. Or is that dog? Well she's been ill enough to cover a whole menagerie of various animals, anyway.

So there's this medieval cold going around town at the moment. Judy got it, Ninna got it the day after Mikala....and, as luck would have it, it likes to strike on the first day of your new job. Yes, I must have looked like a right retard introducing myself to my new co-workers with a nose full of mucus and a throat that felt like it had just been torn out with a rusty spoon. "Hebbo, I'b Dan. Bleased do meet oo." Not the first impression I'd hoped for. On top of that, the carpets at EA are brimming with static so every time I shook someones hand I got electrocuted. After the second greeting I started to flinch in anticipation every time somebody extended their right arm. "No, I'b dot mental really - id's the sdadic." Great...

OK, so I'm through my cold now, thank Christ, and my new job is pretty cool. I'm not sure how much I can discuss - we had a two hour lecture about information security on my first day - but I can tell you that it involves designing WWII combat scenarios. I've been using my hefty stack of Commando mags for reference. "Die you pathetic English Schweinhund!" "Gott in himmel!" "Achtung! Etc, etc..."


EA Fusion is a great place to work but they're already piling the pressure on and it looks like the stories about "EA Widows" may have a fairly firm basis. This would be a bad thing if the work wasn't so much fun - the other day I had to play two hours of video games in the name of research. It's a hard life...

Mikala is not having such a great week. She's been laid up in bed with the same nasty cold (which she blames me for giving to her) for five days straight. Being the clever one in our dynamic duo, she very reluctantly decided to call in sick - not brilliant for your first week at work... but better than giving all your new colleagues the lurgie, which is not a great way to make friends.

So that's why we haven't been as verbal as usual. Have no fear though, my stalwart companions, normal service will resume shortly...

Love,
Dan.