Best of Van, Worst of Straight

If for nothing else, I expected the Georgia Straight's Best of Vancouver issue to be worth its weight in gold for at least telling me who makes the best slice of pizza in Vancouver for under two bucks. Is that too much to ask? But no, I couldn't even get that. This over-inflated issue is bursting at the seams with so much trivial bullshit, that I wish I'd better spent my time reading Teen People.

It seems like a good idea: we live in a great city, and here's the cream of the cream. But no, someone's confused things with the Vancouver Yellow Pages. Do I need the Straight to tell me that the best kids clothing store is... Gap Kids? Or that the best furniture shop is... Ikea? Regardless of my own opinionated opinions about Ikea, how anyone can call this crap print-worthy is beyond me.

They got a crew of nineteen esteemed writers to think of all sorts of random trivial things they felt obligated to burden the rest of Vancouver with, and all they had to do was find a creative way to make up a Best Of category to toss it into. I admit that I haven't really read them all (and I tried, I really tried!), but the ones I did were so god awfully boring, I had to flip to Savage Love before my brain lapsed into coma state.

And who are these so-called writers anyhow? Do they represent the Vancouver people? I mean are they intentionally trying to grind their heels in our faces when they say that Bin 942 is their favourite "Cheap Eats" restaurant? Louise! Ok, enough already. Let's just hope that we'll soon be back to the Straight that we know and love with its predictable left-leaning politics and Canadian music reviews. Otherwise I'll have to switch exclusively to Terminal City, and I don't like the horoscopes there half as much. Thank god Best of Vancouver only rolls around once a year.