Are we a real city yet? Vancouver Lands Top Orange Spot on Monopoly Board. Oh man, and our athletes are doing sooooo awesome!!! We're a major player! Who cares! We're like a city version of Stuart Smalley with a bad case of penis envy.

Slump in U.S. housing market helps drag B.C. economy to new low. But...but I thought BC was in a time of unheralded economic prosperity thanks to wise, fiscal decisions by the BC Libs?

Although not news to anyone who has eyes, B.C.'s mental health system fares poorly, national study finds.

Disabled man says he's forced to live at campground while Overcrowding forces hospital to stick senior in tub room. Yup, B.C's a major player all right.

When I passed Thunderbird on my way to work Tuesday morning, there was already a line-up outside its gates, which just goes to show that Radiohead has some pretty dedicated fans. I was considerably less eager, and ended up at the stadium just as Liars were wrapping up. Music bloggers were making a big deal about these guys opening, but I couldn't get into much of their music. And then, just as the stage was being set for the main act, the rain started. It quickly progressed from a drizzle to a shower, and didn't stop until much later in the night. The entirety of the sold-out concert was enjoyed by a really wet but excited crowd. It was the first time I was seeing Radiohead perform live and, on a whole, they put on a beautiful show and didn't disappoint.

They opened with "15 Steps," and during the concert played pretty much every song from In Rainbows. I was most impressed by hearing "House of Cards" live, for which this amazing video was recently made. They also interjected some to-be-expected older stuff ("Just", "Karma Police", "2+2=5") and a few tracks that were surprises ("Bangers n' Mash", "Exit Music [For a Film]", "Planet Telex"). It was great getting to dance along to "Bodysnatchers", and hearing a live version of "Talk Show Host", which is one of my Radiohead favorites.

It was difficult, the first week of the Beijing Summer Olympics, with Canada failing to capture any medals.

Anytime I'd listen to sports talk radio, the topic du jour was Canada's medal count--even Jim Rome and some of his dumbass clones took shots.

Fortunately, the dike broke and a flood of medals has come our way; 13 medals at last count.

Metblogs FTW: We're all tough behind the keyboard: "Sean Orr of Beyond Robson, whose life goal is to defeat poverty with sarcasm, called the people at new local blog Vancity Buzz cocks. The two sites have been going back and forth from there, mostly arguing over the fact that Orr is left wing and the pseudonomous bloggers at Vancity Buzz are either right wing. Or bar stars. Or both."

Urban Vancouver stole my blog. That's funny because Buzz Bishop stole my content for his newspaper article (attn lawyers, this is what is known as a joke. I am not actually accusing Buzz Bishop of plagiarism).

One way bus tickets for the homeless for 2010. But yeah, China's evil.

Federal health minister slams Insite injection site. Oh yeah? Well Dr. Buddy over there just slammed Clement: "Who do you want to believe? Do you want to believe published articles in the New England Journal or Lancet, do you want to believe the World Health Organization or do you want to believe Tony Clement? It's embarrassing."

Young artists emerge in east Vancouver. Wow! I thought East Vancouver was full of biker gangs and smoke filled, dimly lit tattoo parlors.

Stolen dog recovered.

image by Avenida Once.

Don't keep reading because there isn't anything else...

Somewhere between her graduation and her future, one of my favorite people is visiting Vancouver for a month. Tonight, she invited me to a poetry slam held at Cafe Deux Soleils on the Drive. I had never been to a poetry slam before, and although I had been meaning to check out some of the events Jon wrote about back in April, I never ended up doing so.

We got to the cafe early, and were able to get a table and dinner well before the 8:45 start. I don't want to make this a restaurant review, since the spoken word was far more spectacular than our burritos and chili. But I do want to mention that the food here is delicious and reasonably-priced, so I'll definitely be trying out more of it next time. During the course of dinner, more and more people began filing into the cafe, until finally the host announced that the house was full. He asked groups from the crowd to be judges for the competition, so the four of us agreed to take part. We weren't particularly qualified, and we called ourselves The Eastern Bloc. It was a good start.

I wasn't planning on this walk, which is the great thing about drifting, and I didn't take any psychogeograpic notes, but at 84 photographs I realized that this slideshow, one day's worth of snaps, is a good study on its own. Most of these photographs are on the south alley of Hastings, but I do cross over when I get to the train tracks at Raymur. The light lately has had an eery orange glow to it (did China use huge fans to blow all their pollution across the Pacific for the Olympics?), so the mood was enhanced. Also, there is about an hour missing (I was at Taxes rehearsal!), but you'd want to time so that you're walking back at about 8. Generally the walk offers a sampling of graffitti, drugs, prostitutes, incense, community gardens, shadows, slanting sheds, and the tranquility of light industry. Enjoy.