Remember when the future was hurtling toward us at breakneck speed? Um, you mean that whole time when you had your fingers in your ears? That whole time you were slandering those wacky eco-zealots? Those communist thugs in Seattle and Genoa? Yeah, I remember.

No swimming alert issued for False Creek. Wait, people swim in False Creek? Are they okay?

Police looking for psychiatric patient. Um, did they try the Downtown Eastside? Because I think I saw someone who matched the description...

More reason to hate the flames...

A new reason to love the Ducks...

While Naslund saves us from the buyers' market. But who is going to save us from buyers?

photo (cropped) by Ryan Wltr Wagner in the Beyond Robson Flickr photo pool.

False Creek 'fecal coliform counts' (already added to my list of potential band names...) are through the roof, with bacteria counts fifteen times higher than safe swimming levels. Apparently, it can be traced back to sewage malfunctions at the Olympic Village and Canada Line construction zones. If I were a jerk I'd say something about this being the first dribblings of the giant shit that the Olympic Beast is gonna take on our city. Keep your heads above the water from now on, kids.

The city will start cracking down on hookah bars. While shisha may be just as bad (if not worse) for your lungs. I'm pretty sure anyone who willfully enters a hookah bar is prepared to accept the bronchial consequences. I haven't been to one for maybe five years, but even this small-scale bureaucratic bullshit really pisses me off...

Weird milky soft drinks: Japan vs Iran.

Harper has upped his lawsuit against the liberals by $1 Million for 'misappropriation of personality'. Ummmm... I guess now he's definitely too lame to take my vote for most mediocre Canadian. I really like this random but wonderful blog post I found while searching for 'Harper + idiot'. Oh, and he's gonna pay for this lawsuit himself, right?

Bob Russell has a good editorial up on why the carbon tax isn't really about the environment, how Campbell botched it big time, and why the opponents still need to shut up.

The Vancouver police crack down on biking without a helmet. Nobody in bike-mad Amsterdam wears one, but c'mon, we all know you drive safer stoned. Here in Vancouver, you may be blitzed behind the one-speed... but the self absorbed dude behind the SUV probably isn't. To be honest, I can't really understand not wearing one. Aside: anyone know what the fine looks like for riding completely naked? [NSFW]

Looks like we may be swapping one overpriced Swedish meatball (too cold?) for another, as Sundin could join the Canucks while Naslund leaves for New York...

The Mohawk: two-storey box with 'hair' on top. City hall spawned weird new housing form. Just a sort of nice, gentle, extra fuck you to all the homeless natives in the DTES.

THE DISH: RESTAURANT REVIEW: THE REVEL ROOM.
"Stop at this funky boîte for a late-night nosh". Yeah you totally should, if of course, you are someone who calls restaurants funky, uses the word boîte, and goes for late-night noshes. In other words, if you are a piece of shit.

A Canada Day resolution: Don't let the politicians do your thinking for you. Same thing applies to jocks-cum-journalists.

Everyone have a good Canada Day? Beautiful weather, the possibility of public inebriation at noon under the guise of patriotism, spandexed biking and fireworks! Maybe a hot dog? You couldn't ask for a better setting to shrug off the new carbon tax. It was fun watching fuel costs progressively drop as we drove to Calgary last week, and the difference will just become that much more pronounced, as the price of gas has apparently shot up to $1.52 a liter in Metro Vancouver.

Tuesday wasn't just Canada day, it also marked the 150th anniversary of Darwin's theory of natural selection. And while I'm on the topic, this should always be in the back of everyone's mind: what will things look like around here if & when the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt? Facts always seem a little more convincing when done up in map form... thanks Richard. And relatedly, I'd highly recommend reading Alan Weisman's The World Without Us.

The Canucks offer Sundin a two-year $20 million dollar contract. 'ed best' on the comment roll pretty much sums it up:

Supposing he were to average 24 minutes every game for the entire season, that would be a tad under $5000 a minute. In other words, every 5 minutes Sundin plays, he will make more than Rocket Richard ever made for an entire season. How high can you raise the price of tiny seats (that make airlines seem generous), diluted beer and cheap hotdogs before the bubble bursts?

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.

Baby high heels latest fashion accessory. Babies in high heels on the front page? Really, Province, really? "It looks like it's trying to make a six-month-old look like a 20-year-old." Next thing you know, R. Kelly will be using these to prove that he is innocent.

Monet painting fetches $80-million at London auction. See, aren't you glad that Vancouver has The Cheaper Show? $200 don't seem so bad in comparison.

If your watering hole of choice is anywhere outside the Granville Street brouhaha, you might want to speak up about Vancouver's archaic drinking laws. Do something without actually doing anything and join the Facebook group.

If you're not going to be away, on the beach, at a barbecue, or sleeping in this Saturday, you may want to check out some of the excellent papers being presented at UBC's Graduate Student Symposium.

The one with a new job around here is chef Rob Feenie. You've probably seen the new Cactus Club over at Burrard and Dunsmuir. It looks impressive, but we'll just have to wait for a taste test to see if it's as crappy and uninspired as all the other locations.

On the flipside, you may have heard that just about everyone has left Yahoo. Some dude created this fantastic DIY resignation letter.

Ooh la la. I didn't notice this in the Georgia Strait! Vancouver's own dating guide. Amidst a flurry of clichés ("the key is to be open to people"), dog walking and flea markets are also suggested.

Image courtesy of mordechai dangerfield in the BR Flickr Pool.

So a little bit of catch-up is in order, first of all. The sun was shining for at least a portion of the weekend, and there were two great excuses to soak it up: The Dragon Boat Festival, and Greek Days. Did anyone spot some tofulaki? I teach ESL and just went to Greece. I found some grass and a book.

There was also a machete-ing, and commentators at the CBC site are sick of Surrey slander:

Another classic CBC's, "lets bash Surrey so that Vancouver looks better". Have you gone to Hasting and Main? I drive by there every day and it stinks.

Holy shit! The Snoop Dog concert was cloaked in a haze of marijuana smoke! Meh, I guess it confirms we're at least cooler than Lethbridge. But cmon', even the upcoming Backstreet Boys concert will be cloaked in a haze of marijuana smoke.

How do you judge the quality of your Tequila? Well, when it leads to half of BC believing you might be the latest victim of a foot fetished Serial Killer, I'd say it's good enough. Nice to see you home, but get your own place before you take off without leaving a note. We get paranoid.

The Tyee on whether or not too many kids are going to University. Not really sure where I stand here, but since graduating from UBC, I've definitely been stripped of any delusions that the universities are a bastion of modern intelligence. Just another cog in the machine...

The four biggies: Foot DNA doesn't match up to that Quadra Island plane crash, the Senate approves a new anti-spanking bill, rewards are now being offered for those (other) missing men, and that guy who was put in the hospital by an RCMP officer with an oldschool 'nonlethal weapon' -- pepper spray -- has died. Spanking jokes are too easy, and missing or murdered individuals aren't things to be joked about.

Must view: shouting match in Parliament over the new consumer-spanking copyright bill (I'm sorry). While Prentice lacks both proper grammar and an argument, he does demonstrate some major skill with the acronym as he unloads this gem: "the comments about the USA, DMCA are NDP-BS". Sounds like a Wesley Willis song or something (final link NSFW).

The Atlantic tells us how the internet is destroying our brains (watch out, he quotes Nietzsche). Or, in more 'easily digestible' web-speak: You're all a bunch of lazy bastards. Are blog readers really "selfish, lazy, and ruthless?" When we spend so much time online, we obviously train our brain to read in a certain way; but that hardly means one can't stop to savor a novel or essay (with a whit of effort). I'll say that the internet is ineffably superior to television, but people still need to get into the habit of reading a helluva lot more literature, and leave it at that.

Oh, and there's ice on Mars. And the news broke on twitter. "We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" What ever happened to our image of the calm, collected, emotionally vacant astronaut? Ok, I'm not gonna slam the internet wholesale, but twitter is definitely killing our brains. "Daisy... Daisy..."

With those nicely outsourced Olympics and now the possibility of another iniquitous serial killer (and ohh, the food!), the word 'high-profile' only begins to describe our epitome of, um, 'livability'.

There'll be a major police crackdown, as Vancouver criminals are going straight to jail after... 30 convictions? I guess it's not that surprising:

Vancouver police inspector Rob Rothwell says for an addict to support a three quarter a day crack cocaine habit, they have to steal one-point -two-million dollars in property a year.

Those recommendations on Taser use have finally been made. Solicitor John van Dongen is staying positive: "I think it's important that it also uh, confirms, uh that it is a useful tool for police."

This article about the infiltration of Russian salmon into BC only barely offers an excuse to link to these insane Ukrainian mafia tombstones... but you'll forgive me.

The Athens games once again reveal that events of such magnitude are almost always accompanied by human rights violations such as the forced eviction of whole communities in host cities.

Apparently, 96% of 18-24 year olds download copyrighted material, and the average teenager has 800 'illegal' songs on their iPod. According to those stats, under the new law almost every undergrad at UBC will owe the government about $400,000 (student loans not looking so bad now, eh?). I say we make that fine apply only to Dave Matthews Band, Sublime, and j-Pop tracks... that'll save the 5% of 'em who don't actually deserve it.

Greenpeace wants Canadian Supermarkets to axe upwards of 30% of the fish they're selling. Pescatarians are totally weaker than Vegans.

Is Vancouver's status as gay-marriage-tourism-capital of North America under threat?

If, like everyone else, you think the 2010 mascots are just a tad ridiculous, just be grateful they're not the 5 mascots of the apocalypse.

So Sunday was Car Free Day, with pedestrians and bikers taking over three different streets for 2008 (the above photo at Denman). I wasn't there, but 125,000 were. I guess it wouldn't be a Vancouver parade without some shirtless male Mantique shoppers and transvestites on stilts, eh. And while I tend to dislike people when they gather in such large numbers, those streets are still a lot more pleasant than these: Hanoi Traffic Flows.

Parading was a no-go for me; still recovering from jet-lag and busy stewing over the new Canadian copyright laws. I've always been a firm believer in supporting our artists (financially and beyond), and spend way more than I should on music. I also download a lot before dropping any cash. The current internet free-for-all situation is certainly a bit of a mess, but this ain't any solution. Brendan Canning and Michael Geist have some good responses. And you might as well join the Facebook group... since... you know, democracy has moved there too now.

I was blown over by the consistent quality of the graffiti in Greece (I'll drop a link to some pictures soon)... but it's hard to beat this great Vancity street art: taser eye surgery. And how about this wonderful little piece on the absurdity of BC taser politics.

Oh and cyclists are complaining about another bridge, this time the Second Narrows. Meh, I say be grateful you're not riding wooden bicycles.

While the fate of 14-30 year old dudes' iPod libraries nationwide may still be in limbo, Canada's old-man demographic is guaranteed to feel the copyright burn, as the only song they still care about will no longer accompany the crack of a can on Saturday night.

UNBC president quits over Victoria budget cuts. "Cozzetto could not be reached for comment, but Rix said he has sold his house and left Prince George." Yep, I'd use this as an excuse to leave Prince George too.

Vancouver is Canada's most fit city. Good news for when airline companies start doing this. As one of the comments reads: "I don't want to sit next to some guy in a speedo because he wants to save $4.50 from lessening his weight because he isn't wearing clothes to save money on his airfare."

Dion makes one misstep in bid to attract women's votes. Apparently, what I love about Dion is his awkwardness and vulnerability, and what I hate about Harper is his icy blue eyes. "Harper has made several women-friendly gestures, cutting the GST and doling out tax cuts for children in sports activities." Yeah, but we immediately withdrew our votes after we saw him wear this.

Peter Ladner beats Sam Sullivan in NPA race. To add insult to injury, instead of champagne being spouted by scantily clad tanorexics, Sullivan got this. Ahh, the Anti-Poverty Committee. What will they think of next?

Get ready for nasty weather: "If you've ever flown into Vancouver International Airport, you've probably never pictured, as the plane was setting down, what the tarmac would look like under two feet of sea water". Unless of course you are a fatalistic, misanthropic, pseudo existentialist who imagines disasters happening all the time. Like right now, I was just thinking about how fun its going to be when Vancouver gets smoked by a mega-thrust 9.0.

Yeah, free Mark Steyn, but what about Mordecai Briemberg? I guess Free Speech only matters when conservatives piss of visible minorities. What was that Bruce Allen? If they don't like it here they should go home?

Oh and just because this was such a fun topic on May 30th's Morning Brew, Commission begins work examining legacy of residential schools.

Vancouver tourism hopes to withstand future Canadian decline. By building a triple over-budget convention centre that nobody will come to? Brilliant. How about this: get some real culture first, some public washrooms, and maybe some homes for all those people with mental disabilities and addictions running around all over the place frightening the sheltered Americans.

Join the homeless in 2010 and get rich? Maybe not. Damn, now what am i going to with my half-million dollar loft during the Olympics? Hey, maybe I can rent it out as a communications centre to the official Vancouver 2010 Riot...