Morning Brew: April 28

The City is conducting a probe into our citizens' desire/need for public arts & cultural space... read more and learn how to do your part in supporting local creativity over at re:place.

Giant explosion of 'consistently vacant' home in Surrey: cause remains unknown. Hmmm... anyone wanna place bets on this one?

Joist Failure May Have Caused B.C. Church Floor Collapse: I'm pretty sure 'joist failure' is basically just another term for 'collapse'... not the cause. But, however tempting, when 40 people are injured... I don't throw around too many jokes. My best wishes to everyone involved.

Important news to know for fliers: Air Canada begins charging for a second bag. There's a fee for pillows now?!

"My Beautiful Mommy", introducing your preschooler to those newly augmented breasts; coming to a Yaletown bookstore near you soon?

OK... so 420 is 'painful' (most inappropriate adjective ever?)... and then I read about something like this. When was the last time you heard about a 'marijauna-fueled slashing'? Meanwhile, Molson becomes an official sponsor of the 2010 Olympics. I tell you what's painful: our society's inside-out drug laws.

Free walking tours of Vancouver on May 3 & 4, in support of a worthy cause. Then walk again to fight poverty on the 25th.

Vancouver is campaigning to be named UNESCO 'City of Literature.' Here's a list of local literary events that you can attend to make our scene look happenin'.

Correction: Turns out the Tyee story on Hot House tomatoes which we reported about last week originates from February 2007. Wow.

By 2021, the majority of Canadians will be ethnically hyphenated. A news story which offers me the perfect excuse to link to this brilliant piece of cultural coalescence: 'Smoke on the Water', Ancient Japanese style.

photo by tilo driessen of the BR flickr group