adam's guide to vancouver

I haven't been keeping this thing up very well at all. I don't have a great excuse. I've been busy with school, but not THAT busy.

Anyway...the reason I'm back is that dear Sam in London-town's colleague is visiting Vancouver in the not too distant future and Sam asked if I had any suggestions for him. I did! I started writing said suggestions on Sam's wall and realized that I had too many to reasonably put in a wall post. So here I go...

The stuff I already covered:

The only decent museum in Vancouver is the Museum Of Anthropology at UBC. It's in a really nice building, in a beautiful setting, and has like, totem poles and stuff. And totem poles are totally cool. They have other stuff too (arrowheads, etc.) but the real draw is the carvings.

While at UBC, if you're lucky enough to have sun (which is actually a matter of luck unfortunately) you've GOT to go to Wreck Beach. There's really nothing like it that I've ever seen. It's a real schlep down all those stairs (and even worse coming up) but a warm day on Wreck drinking "sexy cocktails" and eating "wacky cookies" or indulging in a "chinese mushroom bun...coconut bun" is really what Vancouver is all about if you ask me. The point is (for the uninitiated) that it's a big nude beach with a bunch of crazy hippies selling everything (illicit) you would ever want. You don't have to get naked, but it is appreciated. Get stoned, have a beer, gawk at nudies, have a good time. Get out before the sun goes down though. The atmosphere changes completely the moment the sun disappears over the horizon.

Also while in Vancouver, you should eat a lot of sushi. Sushi restaurants are abundant and cheap and generally of good quality (though though there are some glaring exceptions to this generalization).

Make sure to watch the sunset at Sunset Beach at least once. That's the beach down at the end of Davie St (which I'll get to in a minute). This is generally a stonerish scene too, but a lot of Vancouver's charm is that it's not unusual for people to be stoned all the time. Grab a coffee at Delaney's (just around the corner) before heading over. That place is always full of yuppie-ish fags who are always fun to watch.

Speaking of gays...Davie St. is where they all hang out. I don't really have a lot more to say about it actually. It's worth the walk from Granville to Denman to get to the beach.

Commercial Dr. is another street you've got to check out. You can get on the SkyTrain (which is the adorable, conductor-less, space age-ey public transport) from any downtown stop, get off at Broadway and you're there. This is the "bohemian" area of the city. There are like, some head shops, a bunch of good restaurants, too many coffee shops (the best being JJ bean, that one that's all white who's name i've forgotten but isn't far from JJ bean, and Turks. that's in the order you'll encounter them on the street.)

Vancouver is a really great city to go out for breakfast too. I've found it lamentably difficult to get breakfast at whatever hour I damn well please in DC. Not in Vancouver though. They're everywhere. If you care to go a bit out of your way, Bon's is a trip. It's at Nanaimo and Broadway. For five bucks (including tip) you get two eggs, potatoes, and meat or tomatoes and toast. But they let you make like, any crazy substitution you can think of. And if you're lucky the coffee cowboy will be working. He'll fill your cup and give you a "hey therrrrrre" and you WILL smile. The rest of the staff is great too. Also the decor is random tacky movie paraphernalia. Be warned though...it's some greasy stuff.

As far as drinking...well I don't know what the kids are up to these days but I would suggest going to the Cambie. It's just a really big divey pub and they have huge tables and it's really easy to meet people there. Also the beer is cheap and the food is...well the food is fine. Everyone in the city has done their time at the Cambie and a lot of people swear it off eventually, but it is a pretty unique atmosphere. Oh and they have a cheap hostel above it, but I've heard mixed reviews about that.

This is getting long eh? One more thing though. Chinatown. You gotta go. Everyone says the only one in North America that's bigger is San Francisco's but honestly New York's has got to be bigger. That's besides the point though. Go get a steam bun, buy some cheap plastic stuff, smell the dried fish, take your time. During the summer they have a night market on weekends and that can be fun. I mean it's just a bunch of cheap chinese plastic crap for sale really, but occasionally some really incredible gems sneak in there.

Anyone else got suggestions?...

teh truth is out there

Just read this thing from wonkette. They link to the whole article, but I think they summarize it quite nicely

http://wonkette.com/372975/mulder--scully-crack-911+condi-conspiracy

weird science

Is there anything more exciting than the elusive giant squid? I don't think so. And the more I learn about them, the more fascinating they become. For instance, did you know, they have like, MASSIVE penises? Like, really massive. And that they dispense their precious fluids from said member with the force of "a fire-hose"?

Just read the story.

http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e050925.html

girls lookin hot wearin less than bikinis

I'm gonna try and keep it brief here.

Points of interest in Miami:

Halo on Lincoln Road. It looks a lot like the Halo here! It's all white and lit with pink hued lights. We really just popped our heads in to see, didn't even have a drink because we were on our way to meet Rick at...

Bill's Filling Station. Holy fuck. This place was utterly full of man mountains. It was all shoulders and arms and Bud lites and MATTHEW RUSH! HA! I honestly don't think he's that hot (especially in a room full of men who were uncomfortably attractive) but he's a famous porn star and he was standing right next to me and everyone seemed very impressed that he was there. Not Matt though who was all, "yawn!". He's met Mr. Rush before. At Wet of course.

A1A (beach front avenue!!!): We of course did the obligatory cruise on Ocean Drive (which I realize isn't A1A) as the sun was setting, with our Sebring's top down. OOOWWWW!!! I had prepared a play list especially for this. It was a tough choice, but ultimately we cruised to the new Janet Jackson song,

Janet-Rock With U

which I totally love incidentally. It was very gauche and very Miami and very fun.

We drove to Key West after a couple nights in/around Ft. Lauderdale. I really wanted to get going early so we could see the Key Deer at the Key Deer reserve. They're endangered! And adorable! In fact, the Key Deer were a major reason I wanted to go back to Key West because I didn't get to see them the first time. Well the Key Deer and the generally hedonistic, nudie, drunken exploits. I had two reasons.

Well we didn't get to see them. First off, there was a bit of a party in the hot tub outside our room the night before we checked out. I'm not saying the noise kept us awake or anything. I'm saying we were having a party in the hot tub outside our room. So that delayed us a bit. Then I wanted to go to a department store for some shorts and socks. I found what I needed in about fifteen minutes, but Matt went crazy with the Speedos (we actually both got one) and those plaid frat boy shorts, and god knows what-else. So we bought some clothes.

Then I needed a book for when Matt was working and I was all alone at the pool (never happened). So I bought a book. It was called Matter and it was by Iain M Banks and I was intensely curious to read it. This one was a sci-fi thing which is what he's become semi-famous for (it was actually really great if you're into that kind of stuff) but I was so curious because I'd read his first novel (not sci-fi) years ago. One of those British coke-heads I hung out with while I was in Mexico gave it to me. It's called the Wasp Factory and it blew my adolescent mind. I don't remember it changing my life or anything, but I remember laughing really hard, being really grossed out, and feeling really shocked at the end. I passed it on to friends who passed it on to friends and I now have no idea who else it has left unalterably disturbed in it's wake.

The point is that we didn't leave Miami in time for the Key Deer. And we didn't leave Key West in time for the Key Deer either! I didn't get to see the Key Deer.

One more of these posts. That's it. I promise.

deer, antelope etc.

this is pretty cool. from boingboing. no great revelations or anything, and it's kind of a fallacy to believe that everyone could live even this way sustainably (in a lot of ways density is best) but it's a start

show me the dollar first

Matt and I went on Spring Break. We're both a little old for it (some more than others), and Matt hasn't even been in school for more than a decade, but who's gonna pass up an opportunity to get a tan and not worry about anything but a hangover for a week?

We flew to Ft. Lauderdale on a Thursday evening. I brought my math book and I actually did some integration problems on the flight. I was being optimistic that while Matt was working (he didn't actually tell his work that he was leaving town and would be talking conference calls and emails during the first few days of our trip) that I would be studiously doing calculus problems by the pool. Fat chance. I never got up much before noon, made it to the pool around 1:30, and happy hour was at three. I wasn't about to turn down free banana daquiris in favour of fucking L'Hopital's rule.

Anyway, we landed, got our luxurious, blue Chrysler Sebring convertible (South Florida's official car, if you can't afford a yellow Lambourghini) and checked into our trips first (but not last) clothing-optional gay resort. It was called Elysium, it was very nice and I don't have tonnes more to say about it.

But...

That night we went to meet one of Matt's friend's who recently moved to Lauderdale from Boston. He told us to meet him at a place called Georgie's Alibi because it was long island ice tea night. Ugh. The fact that we were going to long island ice tea night caused rise in attitude that was not abated by the fact that when we got to the bar I saw that it was in a strip mall. Florida. Class all the way. The long island ice teas themselves did manage to sunny up my mood a bit though. They were electric blue, served in gigantic mason jars and they cost three dollars. Three dollars! Apparently there's no law in Ft. Lauderdale preventing you to from serving two liters of alcohol at a time, or from taking said beverage outside to smoke.

So there I was, a cartoonishly large mason jar full of windex-coloured hooch, cigarette dangling from my mouth, wandering around a strip mall parking lot. That's when I ran into our flight attendant. He was wasted (as I would soon be after only my second three-dollar monstrosity) but pleasant and we all had a good laugh at how gay a profession attending flights is.

This is already getting long eh? And I've only covered the first night. I'll try a whittle it down to two more installments; tomorrow and the next day.

Never as tired as when I'm waking up.

This post is really just to let anyone who might be reading this know that I do intend on keeping this up. Last week was spring-break and I'd be kind of a sorry loser if I couldn't have fun in Key West without immediately blogging about it (but I was SUPER tempted to hook Matt's phone into his laptop and live-blog our first time at Halo Miami to report on any potential racial disparity I may or may not have witnessed while there).

I posted some photos from the week at my Facebook page, so have a look there if you're interested. I have a couple more funny ones that this guy we met down there just emailed to Matt, and I might put them up (but most of them are NSFW to put it mildly).

Also I'll do a story time post about our trip but I'm kind of hesitant to do so. Here's why: I was drinking a beer and talking to Lisa on the phone, and I asked if she'd read my post about my Comcast-On-Demand personal. She said that she hadn't, and that I better just tell-her-about-it-or-else because she'd recently been talking to another friend of hers who'd said that she'd just had the worst week ever and when Lisa asked what was so bad about it her friend instructed Lisa to "just read my blog."

I don't wanna be telling people to "just read my blog"

So that's one part of why I've been gone for so long. The other is that I'm lazy. I'll post more regularly now. Promise.