There was a buzz on the Metroblogging network when this story first broke, and our sister site in Boston site jumped right on it.

Earlier today several of ’suspicious looking electronic devices’ in public places caused a city wide shut down in Boston, MA. Hysteria ensued as the city went on high alert.

The only problem? It’s not a terrorist threat. It’s an advertising campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Apparently, the Bomb Squad has had to close down major roads and cordon off entire sections of the city to deal with the Mysterious Mooninite Devices. The traffic grid in Boston? Absolute chaos. And up until an hour ago, Adult Swim (through Turner Broadcast) hadn’t even bothered to inform the city where all of the Mooninite bundles were located….

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I don’t understand Tinseltown Mall.

Tinseltown has some great anchor tenants: the movie theatre, food court and the T&T supermarket (not technically in the same building, but a close enough neighbor that it ought to bring in some pedestrian traffic).

It is near the heart of the downtown eastside, but far enough away from the chaos of Hastings and Main that it really shouldn’t be an issue. Besides, multiple condo developments in the neighborhood have brought potentially thousands of customers to its doorstep. Boutique retail outlets on nearby Water Street have transformed Gastown from a deserted assortment of carpet stores and gift shops into a cool kind of place where fashionistas and urban professionals wander.

But the mall stands empty.
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Being pro-crow, I was disgusted to read about another person complaining about the birds in the Burnaby News Leader. Barbara Watt, some fish inspecting twit, had little compassion for the birds and their use of the Still Creek area for their nightly roosting. It seems that, while the Burnaby roost hasn’t changed, the trees the roosting crows once used were cut down six months ago, forcing the birds to encroach into the office district.

“If you want a volunteer with a pellet gun, I’m in,” she says, offering two lame reasons for wanting to get rid of the birds: the excrement on the soles of her shoes and, most especially, because the birds make her wash her car.*

Let’s see, humans - a pestilential species - can flush their shit down the toilet with impunity, not really giving any thought into whose backyard it goes, yet they can cut down the crows’ habitat and then complain when the birds land a poop in our territories.

Along with the whiners who live on our clearcut mountainsides and freak out when a bear gobbles up their shih tzu, it’s obvious Vancouverites are liars when they say they live here for the nature. What? You only want the bald eagles and the killer whales?

*Birds shitting on your car is good luck, in Romanian superstition. Canadians really should learn to appreciate this fact.

They were shiney and new with little stop request buttons at waist heigh, oooh! We had finally caught up to 1995 transit technology where buses are concerned and now the plug er.. cable has been pulled on our new fleet of trolley buses.

TransLink has confirmed 39 of the brand new trolley buses have been pulled from service because of power steering problems…

..diesel buses have been brought in to help on those routes affected. The new trolley buses are under warranty and mechanics are working on the problem [News1130]

The problem should be resolved within the next few days, but until then, that 7:45am bus that you’re used to catching at 7:56 will now be arriving around 8:12.

(Photo Credit: nep on Flickr)

Seems like everyone in Canada knows what ‘hockey’ means to them. Getting up at 3am, stinky gear bags, watching on TV, going to games or even not caring what the heck Don Cherry has to spew from his mouth this Saturday.

We participated in Hockey Day in Canada a few weeks ago, watching CBC coverage and attending a game at GM Place. We also watched as they continued to try and sell the game in Dallas, with their red-carpet All Stars. My husband suggests that they’re trying a ’shock & awe’ campaign in the States to get more viewers, meanwhile in Canada it’s not about the glitz and glamour, it’s about the sport and the tradition.

One longstanding tradition is community hockey. You’ve seen the Sidney Crosby Tim Bit hockey commercials, and maybe you are even a hockey mom/dad/ beer leaguer or plain ol’ supporter of local participation in the sport. Recently, something threatened a big piece of that in Vancouver: the 2010 Olympic Games.

The city wanted to close two rinks (Killarney & Trout Lake) at the same time to make upgrades and renovations for the games. Local hockey tots and parents were outraged. In a meeting last night, some compromises were made…
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White Caps seating

Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

Today I renewed my season tickets for the Vancouver Whitecaps [vwc]. I’ve had ticket packs for the Canucks in previous years, but I’ve always found that pound for pound the Whitecaps are by far the best bang for the buck in terms of local sports. Oh sure a good case could be made for the Giants or the Baseballs, but I really enjoyed last season and am looking forward for the new one.

The season tickets run from $199 - $450 depending on where you’re sitting, with discounts for children and seniors. Last year I bought a bronze seat, but this year I stumped up the extra cash for silver seating. Though even the bronze seats give a good view of the field, since Swangard is so small. The only tickets that I probably wouldn’t buy is for the Southside, which is a traditional type of standing and watching football excercise as though you’re on the terraces of Anfield or Highbury. Still standing for a entire football game isn’t quite what I’m looking for.

If you like soccer/football or even played it in your youth, then I’d definitly check out at least one Whitecaps game this season. It’s good soccer (football) and as a die-hard English Premier League follower I’m surprised to say that.

Vancouver - Robson Street

Originally uploaded by Waqas Ahmed.

If you’ve been wanting to get into a car accident there are a number of traffic lights on Robson Street are currently not working and the Vancouver Police Department have not yet shown up wearing their white butler gloves to direct traffic, so this is an excellent time.

This could be especially useful if you’re wanting to get ICBC to buy you a new car.

It appears though that someone knew that this was going to happen because there’s temporary stop signs at Robson and Seymour. Stop signs which none of the traffic going down Robson is paying attention to much to the amusment of the traffic trying to transverse Seymour.

I’m hoping for violence, it’ll make the work day go so much quicker.

Update: As of about 2:30 in the afternoon the lights were back to fully operational. There were, at least at my little corner of Robson and Seymour, no accidents.

With the incidence of abnormal weather up, the housing market way up, construction-related traffic jams up, and the rental market up (or down, depending on who you ask), many Vancouverites have been wondering what will become of their fair city when the 2010 Olympics roll around. People have been asking the important questions, like “Will I be able to afford a house?” “Will traffic congestion become even more of an issue if people flock here to live?” and “Will Starbucks start enforcing a 20-minute seating rule?”

Fear not, sweet Vancouveraans, for below you will find all of the information you need, in handy chart form, about how our city will change when this ridiculously expensive 2.5 week party is over.

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, originally uploaded by Arezu.

- Darren Barefoot is getting some attention for his Get A First Life [gafl] including the Beeb’s World Service [db].

- Richard Eriksson made some bad predictions last year, and he fessed up this week [jagl].

- Kitsilano.ca has a story about the Georgia Straight’s favorite doggie daycare Urban Puppy being investigated by the SPCA and the Craigslist shit storm that surrounds it [kc].

- The Westender doesn’t have permalinks on their website so fuck them, they’re getting no link love.

- Wikipedia gives us the flux capacitor [wp].

Blame Canada

Originally uploaded by Paula Wirth.

We all know that Bill O’Reilly hates us [mm] but Fox’s film division might start to beat us with the legal stick soon because apparently people in Asian are getting recordings of major Hollywood films from Canadian theatres. This is of course complete nonsense, but more on that later. According to the Globe and Mail [gm]:

Bruce Snyder, Fox’s Hollywood-based president of domestic distribution, had spent the last few weeks steaming mad after his team pinpointed Canadian theatres — primarily in Montreal — as the source of illegal camcording of a steady stream of Fox blockbusters, including Borat, Eragon and Night at the Museum.

Snyder was sick of it. In the Nov. 30 letter, he warned Jacob, a friend and business associate for 20 years, to do something — or he would.

Then he threatened to do something unprecedented in Canadian distribution history: Fox could stop sending copies of all its films to Cineplex Entertainment’s 130 movie houses, with close to 1,300 screens. Or, Fox might decide to delay the Canadian release of popular films until a few weeks after their U.S. release.

The reason I say that this is mostly bullshit is that it’s more about Canada’s copyright laws than piracy. Most of the G&M article is about our copyright laws, and how Hollywood doesn’t like them. They’re using the fact that some pirated films come out of Canada as leverage in that debate. The fact is though that you can get DVD quality copies of most major Hollywood feature films in China before they’re released in theatres, which means that most pirated films are coming either from a lack of security at the DVD manufacturing plants or from DVD screeners sent out to critics, the media and members of the Academy.

All the pirated movies I’ve seen have had the writing indicating they were a screener for members of the Academy on them. Which means before Fox goes after Canada as the big bad, they maybe should take a look at their own. Still it’s one starts to think that it’s company policy over at Fox to blame Canada for everything.

Props to Metroblogging Montreal [mbm] for the heads up.