Let's hear it for the other candidates!

With a municipal election pending in Vancouver, there has been much talk of increased homelessness on the Down Town East Side, the lack of social housing in the city and cost overruns on Olympic venues. Media coverage and the rabble at street level have focused on the proposed strategies of NPA candidate Peter Ladner and Vision candidate Gregor Robertson. Who we haven't heard a lot about, are the thirteen other candidates running for Vancouver's top job. And my friends, there are some real gems among them.





















Take Patrick Britten (top Left) from the Nude Garden Party, a self described healthy recycler, businessman, janitor, ratepayer, green thumb, and ecumenical ecdysiast (look those two words up if you don't know them- you will not be disappointed.) The rest of his profile, as you might imagine, is totally unintelligible aside from the bit about an aerobic civilization optimizing in biomass; that part was totally clear.

R.H. Maxwell N. Bur (top middle) is running on a campaign of no "gay parade" and no illegal drugs in Vancouver. This guy is clearly off his rocker. What would Vancouver be without illegal drugs and gays?

Then you have Betty Krawcyzk (top right) from The Work Less Party, who may or may not show up to work if we elect her.

Golok Buday (bottom left) would bring to the mayoral position a wealth of experience in 'joking, philosophizing, auditioning as a child actor and online pamphlateering.' I am not sure what online pamphlateering is, but it sounds annoying and I would like him to stop. His profile goes on to say that he comes from a long line of "active artists, humanists, and entertainers; also scientists and possible athletes." Possible athletes?

All I can say about Mike Hansen is nice hair dude. Fuckin' right on!

And then there is Joe Hatoum (bottom right) who received permission from his mum to stay up late on election night.

Surprisingly, if photos are anything to judge a mayoral candidate by (as clearly they are,) the only marginal candidate that doesn't come across as a total wack-job is the guru of ganja, the principal proponent of pot, Marc Emery. He photographs well for someone recently released from a US penitentiary.

Shout out to my home boy: You remember when we partied on Parliament Hill?!? Word!

Hipster Olympics

This video should explain a lot for those of you living in rural Canada and other areas spared from the hipster movement.

Suspicious Cyclist in the Nexus of Irony?

Originally I sat down to write about being refused entry to a bank because I was wearing a suspicious bicycle helmet (I kid you not, I was told my bicycle helmet was suspicious and that I couldn't enter until I removed it) but I have been distracted by my current location in what I believe to be the nexus of irony, the focal point of hip in Vancouver.

I am in a coffee shop in the triangular block north of Broadway, between Kingsway and Main. To my right is a young woman knitting, of all things, a brown doily. She is wearing a blue sweater with silver pearls spaced evenly apart in a grid pattern across her chest. She is in her mid 20's. To my left is a guy wearing another sweater (hipsters love ironic sweaters.) His is bunchy and brown with a crocheted horse on the back. He is wearing skinny jeans, tired baby blue converse sneakers and his ironic facial hair just made me throw up in my mouth a little.

Yeah, I am being a total snob. But you know they are judging me for typing on a PC. I counted five Macs in here at one point and only one PC, my own. This is most definitely the nexus of irony and all things hip.

For more analysis of hipsters and their ironic movement, see Enid's post on March 1st 2008.

Moments of Zen: If Jon Stewart has them, why can't I?

I recently dropped out of Facebook (again) and Plenty of Fish (for the first time, but I will probably rejoin and then drop out again, in a process of realization that there are no decent men to be had in real life or on the internet - more on my enviable love life later, much later and defitely outside of this parenthesis) in an effort to create more free time. Got that? I've got lots of time because I am no longer oogling other people's photos. Hence my recent blogyness.

But about moments of zen, I'd like to think that they could become a ongoing feature of this blog, much like uglyness is an ongoing feature of J's face. But we'll see; J's face is a consistent act to follow. Moments of zen are documentations of the things that make me stop and take notice.

I had a moment of zen the first time I noticed the quadrilingual election placards of the NDP in my riding. I know I am not supposed to be impressed by this kind of thing, I live in Canada and I have all my life, but I still think things like this are cool.

Crown Mtn.

Here are a few photos from a hike I did yesterday with Rachel (Graeme's girlfriend, whom we all really like and hope he doesn't ef it up with.) The hike up Crown Mountain starts on the north shore of Vancouver at the Grouse Mountain parking lot, then winds its way up beyond the resort. The view from the top is incredible, with a panoramic view of Vancouver Island, the entire greater Vancouver area and south to Point Roberts, in the United States. We made a late start and consequently a late finish, hiking out just as the sun sank behind the horizon.

On the way down we came across a grizzly bear, chilling by a stream.

Luckily he was enclosed behind an electric fence and was well fed by resort staff.

The Sandwich

This is the much hailed sandwich I ate post hospitalization. You will remember I was hospitalized for self eating and thus, in order to stave off a re-occurrence of metabolic cannibalism, I proceeded to eat a lot. This sandwich, with 18 layers of meat at it's thickest point (yes, we counted,) is a prime example of my self prescribed therapy.

I have been very careful not to make any unintended double entendres when talking about the thickness of this meat, but I also can't resist a crass play on words.

My body started to consume itself...

The last two weeks of my vacation have been marred by medical misfortune. In order to understand how I got into the sorry state pictured above, it helps to look at my journal entry of Aug 4th from Blazen Creek Rest Stop, 30km west of Creston, BC. It reads as follows:

7:30pm
Today was the most physically demanding day of my life. I climbed what may well be the highest mountain pass in BC. I cried twice on the way up and once when I got to the top. I must have gotten too much sun too because I have a massive headache and I just threw up my dinner. I am not a particularly happy camper tonight.

11:30pm
Still puking. I slept for an hour or so before I woke up. When I did, I checked my blood sugar and it was at 4.1 so I drank the last drops of juice I had made up. Then I rose to get my glucose gel and drink crystals from the bear cache. As I descended the cache from the tree I felt suddenly woozy. I lay down and threw up.

I have to keep sneaking juice into my stomach. I need the calories to prevent a low blood sugar. The thought of seeking medical attention has crossed my mind but I am too far from Creston to bike in the dark and I have no cell reception.

When I was writing those entries I remember thinking 'at least there will be a record of what happened, should anything go seriously wrong...' Clearly Into the Wild has had an exaggerated effect on my psyche but I was in rough shape.

The next day I rode into Creston and pushed my bike up the hill to the nearest hotel. I checked myself in and slept for about an hour before dragging myself into town. I had no appetite and no energy to do much more than assess the town from various sitting and lying positions. My visit to Bountiful was definitely going to have to wait.

That night I made myself a pizza. When I pulled it out of the oven I just starred at it; there was no way I was going to eat any of it. That's when I knew something was seriously wrong (I can only remember a few times in my life when I have not been hungry, at all other times I am ravenous.) So, after calling the nurses hot-line, I made trip to Creston's emergency room. The doctor there told me I probably was suffering from exposure to the sun and from drinking backcountry water. His recommendation was to drink lots of fluids and get some rest. I did and the next day I continued up the road to Nelson along the eastern shore of Kootenay Lake.


I never quite got my appetite and energy back though, and I was happy to be headed home by bus when I got to Nelson.

Back in Vancouver, my health got progressively worse. I spent five days lying on my bed, watching movies and feeling very sorry for myself. I couldn't eat and I had little energy to get myself around the city. However, as soon as I got to the doctor's office and got some antibiotics into my system I started to feel a lot better. By Friday my appetite was back, just in time to be in full eating form for mum's kitchen in Campbell River.

I spent a couple of good days in The River before the shit really hit the fan and I was admitted to hospital with chest pains. I woke up early Sunday morning with extreme pain and tightness just under my breast plate. The pain only lasted a couple of minutes but the tightness didn't go away. They hooked my up to all sorts of machines and inserted an IV. They drugged me up and put me to sleep for the night.

The next day I was scheduled to have an Echocardiogram and a stress test on a treadmill to see how my heart reacted to exercise. The Echocardiogram didn't reveal anything, but the stress test couldn't happen because they ran out of paper (I know, right!?) Originally they were going to keep me in hospital for another night but some assurance that I was feeling fine and a few tears got me discharged so I could spend the night at home.

The next morning I ran on the treadmill for the cardiologist but he couldn't find anything wrong with my heart. His diagnosis was Diabetic Ketoacidosis caused by that climb on August 4th, which was, for the record, the highest paved road in Canada. Apparently I was eating and drinking enough (possibly due to a stomach infection) and my body started to consume it's own muscles. Yikes!

I am in fine form now, but it has been a rough couple of weeks.