Morning Brew: May 20, 2008

Canada lost the Worlds to Russia... whatever, it was hot out! Beach! Did you find a place among the throngs to enjoy the sun? Survive the shallowness? Pack the sunscreen? The doggles? Find somewhere to smoke weed away from children? Some place for the children away from the weed? Bring some alcohol that looks like an energy drink?

Who cares about hockey? I said it was sunny out... and BC dominates the cricket. I always forget people in Canada play this, but apparently we've been doing it for as long as hockey. Pffft... some old school Baggataway players would kill them all.

The BC campgrounds were more than lively this weekend: a shooting and a stabbing... expect extra security and tightened regulations this summer, and lots of media this week, no doubt.

The mayoral candidates offer answers to questions about public space; from parks to toilets to surveillance cameras. Two of those candidates are from Vision, who have gained record support in the last couple months.

A dash of extra anti-NMW sentiment; but this one is directed more at the fee they've been charging for tap water at some venues: "what, you want me to go drink from the toilet?" Am I just having bad luck, or is charging for water the new concert norm? Is this shit legal?? That's my question. I want free public water everywhere and an end to this nonstop plastic waste... how hard is it for our cities to make a change like that?

Despite the polls, the NDP still have a chance... though is looking to tag Campbell with Guinness World Records the most productive thing they could be doing?

The Tyee's got a good report on the government's failure to act on a bunch of regulations aimed at increasing voter turnout. I'm all about people being able to vote at a younger age; our citizens need to learn to be politically active, it's harder to 'pick up' anything after you're 20... politics included.

The bears were out in full force. Meanwhile, a B.C man recalls a bear attack in Bella Coola: "He's eating my gristle, he's eating my brain..."

Speaking of gristle, theres an interesting NYTtimes piece on wasting food: in America, "27 percent of food available for consumption" is thrown away. Also check out the Wasted Food blog. I can't imagine Canada is doing much other than contributing to this problem. The amount of food a place like Starbucks throws out is just a small, very obvious example...

Some steps towards getting those damn phone/cable companies to stop throttling our bandwidth.

And I'm officially part of the problem, as suck city hates on my review of 'Postal'. I posted a reply over at their site, but as per comments not showing up sometimes here at BR... we know and we're doing our best to fix the problem.

Finally, one for the Yaletown disaster survival-kits: chihuahua scuba gear...

And a Happy Birthday to Sean (watch out when singing that, turns out it's copyrighted), who I believe turned 30 over the weekend... tomorrow morning will tell if he survived the weekend. Update: lord Facebook tells me it was also Duran's. Cheers!

photo by BC Robyn of the BR flickr pool