BeyondRobson | Posts by Duran

Truant The Rest Of Vancouver Was

Duran — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:20:16 PDT

The Force was not strong at eight sharp on Sunday night. The Vancouver Art Gallery square, on Georgia Street, should have been the setting for ten minutes of utter zaniness, with a flashmob of Star Wars fanatics gracefully slashing away at each other with fake lightsabers. Regrettably, the flashmob event, organized by Aaron Morris (photographed in grey), brought out only five lightsaber wielding participants, which included himself.

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FUSE Goes Off at the VAG Tomorrow

Duran — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:33:19 PDT

Art. Wine. Tuange. Theatre. And hot bodies.

FUSE is back once again. And for the second time in my memory of the VAG, the partay won't stop until the early 'morn. Six in the 'morn to be exact. Come see some KRAZY! DragonballZ-infused anime, mixed in with the art of female Canadian modernists. Arowbe will be holdin' it down too along with July Fourth Toilet in the music department (loving the 'stache). And the nifty-est event of the night in my honest opinion will be the 12_Hour Comic Draw, where a comic book will be conceived from start to finish over the entire event by the talent of local artists. This among a plethora of other entertaining performances guaranteed to at least make you think "WTF".

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Morning Brew: June 26, 2008

Duran — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:48:18 PDT

And so the MB blogging stick has been passed on to me. Another short one until it's passed back to the experts.

Bummer for Mr. Bumstead on Denman. His son was bloodied up, on his b-day, gasp! Perhaps the shirtless Mantique shopper was having a fit of 'roid rage?

Hope those roving cops ATVs don't become taser trigger happy, or human BBQs on Kits Beach may become a common occurrence. Now here's a choice quote: "The Taser has become a tool of convenience...'Drop the beer!' No? Zap!"

Gas prices this, gas prices that. I'm personally pro-carbon tax, but of course, my opinion is affected by the commuting options available to me in the area where I've chosen to live. Put me in the middle of the 'burbs, and my opinion may change. Or better yet, put me in an opposition party. But why drive, when I can get my dose of endorphins while being a happy cyclist. With the blood flowing, perhaps some ideas will flow on how to spend the cool hundy that's in the mail.

Speaking of money in da bank, how much do I need before I'll think about dropping my jay-oh-bee? News1130 with a special investigative report on why a lotto 6/49 jackpot won't do shit for you in this city. How much does a person need?"Probably like $5-million, then it would give you time to travel and you could go back to school and upgrade your skills and that and not be stressed about your financial situation. For a million dollars you could barely buy a condo in Vancouver." Wow. How messed up are our views on money. Better get started and study the lottery guide.

Everyone's favourite predecessor to Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, Ed the Sock, has been tossed in the washer. So I guess Simi Sara finally filed a harassment suit. Hope she's using Larry "the Sledge" Rosen.

"'[Vancouver] seems like a beautiful city but it has an ugly heart,' said one friend. 'It has mountains and shiny sky scrapers, but doesn't take care of its own people. It's about looking good not being good.'" How about looking scary? A strange closing line on a Tyee article about the scariest place on Earth.

Photo by Duran Cheung.

Pictures from the Pool: Riding

Duran — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:21:02 PDT

So here we are with another edition of Pictures from the Pool, where this time, I feature a couple of neat fast shutter speed photos from the seemingly endless BR Flickr Group. Coincidentally, both feature people riding things, and both (completely unintentionally) are taken near my old 'hood of East Van.

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Morning Brew: June 6th

Duran — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:17:57 PDT

So I'm sad to report that Jon and Sean have both been simultaneously obliterated by asteroids. Shame. Most of you may be sad (some I'm certain are celebratory), but Morning Brew must continue! So I guess this will be my inaugural Brew, booyah. Some big shoes to fill. Seeing as how I now have the supreme power of the interconnected network of tubes in my shiny new Kits digs, it's time to get crackin' son.

Speaking of my new pad, it's amazing that I was able to find a place to rent among the throngs of other renters on the market, without encountering any notorious Craiglist scammers. Now, all I need to worry about are these folks. (Thanks to Darryl for that last link. Let's just hope your 360 overheats on them at least. Plus, last laugh's on them when those HD-DVDs depreciate like a rock!)

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Pictures from the Pool: Main Street - Science World

Duran — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:20:04 PDT

It's been a while since we last featured picks from the plethora of superlative photos available in our Beyond Robson Flickr Pool. So let's go with a couple complementary pictures that have been taken in an area that used to be under water.

On the left is a exquisite shot titled "An Intro to Spring", taken by BR Flickr Pool member kennylouie. Being a huge fan of cityscape shots that balance the available luminance of the sky and city lights, I can safely say that kennylouie's nailed it in this wonderful example of perfect timing. Reflections, clouds, colours and shapes are all themes in this unique capture of Vancouver's world-famous skyline. Kenny uses a Canon 20D and has quite the collection of beautiful high dynamic range (HDR) photographs.

And over on the right side is a photograph deftly shot by bluechameleon named "silhouettes on main street". The black and white emphasizes the fantastic composition and framing of both the humans waiting in the station and the birds resting on the tree. Also note the excellent juxtaposition between the geometric lines of the girders and the haphazardly pointed tree branches. Keep in mind, she shot this and many others with a simple Canon A640, proving it's not what you have, but how you use it.

The talent I've seen in this pool seems absolutely limitless. Keep them coming people! Thanks again to all the members of the BR Flickr pool - we'll try our best to keep these photo posts going. In the meantime, if you haven't done so already, visit Ami's Flickr game!

Beirut Makes Audience Sway Like A Slinky Attached To A Violently Pulsating Ceiling

Duran — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:08:42 PDT

Zach Condon, the baby faced bandleader of Beirut, untucked his rotary valve trumpet from under his arm during the sold out show this past Thursday at the Commodore Ballroom. Our casual maestro deftly conducted his players with a flick of the wrist here and a sideways wave of the hand there. Between songs, Condon would huddle with his band mates while the crowd deliriously applauded each tight picture-perfect performance.

Whatever strategy was spoken in the huddles, it was absolutely sound. The Eastern European vibe came through in unbreakable fashion along with Beirut's genuinely happy aura. Take your pick, the musical arsenal was large: accordion, violin, ukulele, mandolin, clarinet, baritone sax, French horn, trumpet, drums and the kitchen sink. Beirut immediately jump started the crowd with "Nantes" from their latest LP, The Flying Club Cup. Condon crooned gracefully while his troop energetically pumped out the mini-orchestral glee. There were about eight members in all that night, but they milled around with bursting liveliness that didn't lend well to counting.

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Gateway Crasher

Duran — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:51:34 PDT

If you build it, they will come.

That's precisely the theory that many active opponents of the Gateway Project are putting forth to warn BC residents of the impending failure of the proposed $3 billion road expansion plan if it goes through. They prophesize that the additional road capacity will simply become congested soon after completion due to new commuters being attracted to the shiny new pavement. At a time where gas prices are the topic of choice at a water cooler near you, this issue and many others relating to our transportation infrastructure have all become paramount to Vancouverites as of late.

Recent SFU Communications grad Ryan Longoz has chosen to tackle this controversial topic and has tied it in nicely with a little bit of economics 101 in a compact nine-minute video. Instead of putting the blame for traffic congestion squarely on the government and (get ready for the "c"-word) corporations, he goes a step further, and essentially points the finger at every single one of us iPod-using, gas-guzzling, fashion-wearing consumers. He mentions that "we are all complicit, because we are all complacent" (my favourite quote from the clip) when referring to our transportation and consumption habits.

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Emily Carr Undergradu-Art

Duran — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:44:27 PDT

I have a confession to make.

I secretly long to be a student at Emily Carr.

And although I love my job as a happily-employed engineer, there are times where my creativity lacks a certain outlet. I mean, just think about it, instead of performing complex Fourier transforms and utilizing Bernoulli's equation in ways I couldn't care less about, I could have been making great profound art or designing the next big sustainable thing-a-majigger at a fantastic institution. Many of my friends, who have attended or are attending the newly-minted university have always done such cool and funky shit.

Attending Saturday's Emily Carr Undergrad Exhibition definitely reaffirmed these beliefs of mine. To say it was an overcrowded zoo would be a serious understatement - it was uber-busy. But that was just indicative of how popular this yearly show has become. The $3 wine and beer made it all the better too... From a sock ball a gynecologist could only love, to massive sized sugar cubes (I confirmed that it was indeed sucrose) strategically placed in a symbolic pattern, to a sod patch complete with boxing gloves - it was all there.

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Emily Carr Undergrad Exhibition Opens This Saturday!

Duran — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:22:31 PDT

Just a quick note that this Saturday on May 3rd, the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design... ahem, I mean Emily Carr University of Art and Design, will be having their annual opening night gala complete with snacks and the usual wheat and grape-based beverages. I highly recommend this event to anyone with any interest in the arts, cinema, animation or design!

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The Sum of All Dims

Duran — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:38:39 PDT

My friends and I have a checklist. And on this checklist we have items that we need to do together sometime in the near future. Hikes, good movies, restaurants... they're all on there. But the more we try to whittle this list down, the larger it grows, as ideas always get tossed in the mix every single time we all meet.

Our latest attempt to check an item off on the list involved a popular style of Chinese food. My good friend, affectionately referred to as "C-Donk", has resided in Vancouver all his life, but yet surprisingly he's never tried the Chinese cuisine (more like religion) known as dim sum. So taking personal responsibility as a noble member of the Chinese community, I found the perfect restaurant to de-virginize him to the dim sum experience.

And so we ventured over to the "ghetto", East Van, to a somewhat isolated Chinese restaurant with a damn good reputation. Happy Valley Dim Sum Seafood Restaurant (I love Chinese restaurant naming conventions!). It's rated on Dinehere.ca as one of the best dim sum joints in our little corner of the Pacific Rim. This place was little bit off the beaten track, but well worth the journey. It's actually just up the hill and around the corner from the Rupert Skytrain station. It's too bad this place isn't immune to the long queues that plague the other traditional two-dollar dim sum institutions that we also frequent - you'll still need to line up after 10 a.m. on weekends if you haven't made reservations.

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Where's Waldo? Vancouver Edition

Duran — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:14:18 PDT

While others aim to spam Google Maps, Melanie Coles is instead using the popular online mapping application to graduate from school, relying on satellite imaging technology for her final project at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Dubbed "Where on Earth is Waldo", Coles has adopted the "go-big-or-go-home" attitude and has created a massive sixteen-meter version of the normally one-centimeter-tall Waldo on giant sheets of vinyl using the classic Renaissance grid method. To ensure her novelty-sized Waldo doesn't get blown away by our monsoon-like weather systems, Coles enlisted her friends for a little slave labour, "borrowing" sand from a local beach to fill small black sand bags for the outline of Waldo's lanky figure.

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Cherry Blossom Tranquility

Duran — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:59:46 PDT

Right around now spring is in the air - the birds flying, the bees buzzing, the dogs copulating, and pink stuff is falling from the sky. That's right, it's cherry blossom time...

Our city's love affair with this tree began in the early 1930s when the mayors of Yokohama and Kobe donated 500 trees in recognition of the Japanese Canadians who fought in the WWI. Now, it's evolved into an annual celebration of the city's beauty, diversity, and all the other feel-good stuff these festivals are supposed to celebrate. Checking out the map on the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival website however, I'm appalled, as the event organizers left out Vancouver's most sublime display of a pink paradise.

The 3100-block of Graveley Street is a pageant of the most magnificent Akebono trees this city has to offer. Traipsing down the middle of the road is like an epic walk through a tunnel of pink - there's no better way to describe it. The street provokes a few memories every time I lackadaisically stroll up or down the hill. My aunt, who lives on the block, was able to time her nuptials perfectly at the moment of full bloom about a decade back, so instead of rice or paper confetti, we used real deal: "organic" cherry blossom petals.

I highly suggest visiting this rather unknown block in the very near future. As of right now, petals are just starting to emerge from the hundreds of thousands of pink buds that are suspended above street level. Eventually, in about a week, you'll find the trees in full bloom, along with your fair share of burgeoning photographers. If you're driving through this block you should be patient, as it becomes much like San Francisco's Lombard Street at times. But it's definitely in your best interest to get out of your car (or off your bike), saunter about, and slowly take in the pink spectacle.

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Justice Served at the Commodore

Duran — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:45:01 PDT

The Parisian pair known as Justice rocked out with their socks out Tuesday night, performing in front of an impressively enthused crowd at the Commodore. I had the pleasure of attending a show I consider one of the most powerful performances I've seen come from that stage... powerful considering the French duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay were flanked by 18 massive Marshall cabinet speakers arranged in two symmetrical squares. This epic show was sold out months beforehand, and in retrospect I can clearly see why.

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Wally's Burgers Waves Goodbye

Duran — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:28:57 PDT

Situated along the former main point of entry into Terminal City, Wally's Burgers has been an institution for all of us. The smallish hut-like building with the haphazardly-lettered neon signpost has been mirroring the 2400 Motel's bright signage from across Kingsway since 1962. For over four decades, it's likely serviced over a kajillion hungry motorists but regrettably and almost expectedly, its doors are shutting at the end of March, as Vancouver real estate craze claims yet another victim. The current owner, Connor Kim, has done the simple math, and realizes that he can't raise the $6500 in monthly property taxes by selling $2 to $4 dollar beef injections. This little restaurant has had quite a history, having lived through countless car rallies and random grease fires. It was even the setting for an episode of 21 Jump Street complete with our former-resident Johnny Depp.

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