Lydia and me in the photobooth

There’s a hell of a lot of decisions to make when organizing a wedding, and for most of the important ones I had nothing to do with them for mine.  Probably the best decision made for our wedding, apart from the actual getting married bit, was hiring Photobooth Vancouver [pbv] for two hours of photobooth services.

Lydia had found them at a indie bride event at the same venue we were getting married, the Heritage Hall, and decided that they were the coolest thing she’d ever seen.  So for $300 an hour we had two hours of photoboothing for our friends and family to enjoy.

The guests loved it, and as with your traditional photobooths they all got their own photos to take and keep at no charge to them.  Then about two weeks later we got a disc full of all of the photos that had been taken through out the night so that we had a new and fairly novel way of remembering our wedding and those people who were there.

Granted I personally don’t look particularly good in any of the photos, having swelled to the fattest point in my life just in case I needed some extra padding for the wedding, but they’re still great to look at.  And trust me, the photobooth is about the only thing that anyone remembers about the wedding.

So if you’re organizing any kind of party or event I’d give serious consideration to having Photobooth Vancouver there.  It’s great fun, and it’ll be a great way to have a unique souvenier of the event.

It’s understandable that the news of the death of Sir Bobby Robson, a legand of a footballer (soccer player) in England and a manager that ran some of the world’s top football clubs in Barcelona, PSV Eindhoven and Newcastle United as well as the English national team, would not make much of a splash in Vancouver.  Sure we love our Whitecaps and most people could probably pick David Beckham out of a police lineup, but aside from that it’s not our sport.

What I didn’t realize until today was that Robson, who passed away today after a long public bout with cancer [lg], had been a player-manager for the first year the Vancouver Royals [wp] played in the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1968.  From managing the team that preceded the Whitecaps, he went onto run Fulham in the English First Division and later England and Barcelona.

While neither the Royals nor the Whitecaps ever really had the star power of fellow NASL team the New York Cosmos [wp], football in North America and Vancouver were drawing big name talent well before Beckham arrived in LA.

As with most things football, the Guardian has the best coverage on their football site [lg].

Late game push by the Timbers

The Vancouver Whitecaps recorded their win of the still young 2009 United Soccer Leagues (USL) season last night with a one – nil win over the Portland Timbers.  The only goal of the game coming from a 63rd minute strike early in the second half from Whitecaps captain Martin Nash.

With the Whitecaps looking forward to the 2011 promotion to Major League Soccer (MLS) [mbv], they’re looking to build up the momentum of a few strong seasons in a row to help carry them up to the top North American league.  The chance of playing in the MLS if they can prove themselves now, is an extra motivating factor for the Whitecaps players.

Wes Knight is surrounded by Timbers players.

Early on however it seemed more likely that the Timbers would be doing the scoring.  With one of the largest, and most vocal, traveling supporters groups I’ve ever seen at Swangard Stadium they had the best of the early going and after the first 45 resumed controlling the game.  Pinned back into their own zone the Whitecaps rode their luck a little until Nash’s goal eased the pressure off of them.

The Timbers kept pressing, with goalkeeper Steve Cronin joining the attack in the dying minutes as they searched for an equalizer.  However the Whitecaps defense managed to hold on for the victory.

Having missed the first game due to attending a wedding in Victoria, I was glad to be there for the Whitecaps first win.  With the team set to change both league and venue in 2011, it would be easy to start getting nostalgic for Swangard.  However it would be nice to see more turnout for the games.  With the Whitecaps setting a new MLS record for season ticket deposits for their major league debut season having sold 5,000 in 48 hours, seeing Swangard packed would ease any lingering concerns I have over the forthcoming change.

Having said that it was a great night, and a great game.

A totally real photo of me Jeffery Simpson the famous blogger.

Link via Beyond Robson [br].

To be filed in the “completely too ironic interview” catagory, is this article on local internet celebrities, including Jennifer Lowther.  I’m not quite sure if Lowther knew how oddly clueless this was going to come off when she was talking to the Vancouver Sun [vs].  I don’t know her, I’ve never met her so it’s hard for me to judge exactly what she was thinking when she agreed to talk about how famous she is because of being on the internet.

I will say however that if you’re going to sit for an interview where you basically complain about the troubles of being “famous” thanks to your blog, Twitter and so forth aren’t you kind of asking for it?  Especially when you let the newspaper, which let’s face it still has a print run that rivals any local blogs, post a picture of you?

It’s a very meta-picture, because you can see the cameraman in reflection, it’s like a comment on how ‘net celebs get cyber.. not stalked.  But you know have people who follow them on Twitter.

And please someone explain to me this from Rob Cottingham talking about being a celebrity within your own circle, “”More interesting than the people who become instant celebrities are the people who become famous in a particular niche or within their own social networks. When you are able to rise to a level of prominence but just among the people you know.”   So when you become so famous that people who already knew you, know you, that’s real fame?

Back to Lowther, “People can know a ton about your life and you have no idea who they are.”

I really wish that emoticons were a respetable manner of conveying yourself in blog posts, rather than something used by tweens on Jonas Brothers’ fan boards.  If they were I’d use one of those smiley faces that shows deadpan blinking.

Is this really the stuff of newspaper articles in 2009?  I mean in 1999 I would have thought that this was all self-evident.  If you write a lot about yourself online then sometimes people are going to read it.  If you write a lot about yourself in the stalls of public toliets, some people are going to read it.

Now I’d blame this on the article’s writer Gillian Shaw, but from the (very few) conversations I’ve ever had with her (on Twitter / shock / horror) she doesn’t seem like she’s completely out to lunch.  Having written for tech for a daily city newspaper myself, not in Vancouver don’t bother guessing which, I have to say that this is probably not her fault.  By the time something filters up (or down) to the people who assign and approve stories often as a tech writer you kind of know that the world has moved onto something else but money is money.  Especially in this economy.

Now excuse me I have to go out wearing dress slacks and a pair of Crocs.  Oh my God, I hope nobody tweets about it.  Don’t worry, I only wrote it on this blog not in a bathroom stall.

If you missed it yesterday Major League Soccer is coming to Vancouver in 2011 [mbv], and you can reserve your right to be the first in line for seasons tickets starting tomorrow at the official site of Vancouver’s embryo of an MLS team [vm11].  Meanwhile the Seattle Sounders, who last year played in the United Soccer Leagues (USL) first division with the Whitecaps, played their first game in the MLS having made the jump to the big leagues this year.

They beat the New York Red Bulls, though I haven’t been able to figure out whether or not former Arsenal winger and Calvin Klein underwear model Freddie Ljungberg played for them [av].  He’s been nursing an injury, and basically has spent the last few years of his career in various states of injury.  Arsenal fans will remember him fondly, especially for this great goal in the FA Cup against Chelsea [yt].  Here’s another video of it and this one includes Ray Parlour’s goal [yt] and some nice shots of Tony Adams being Tony Adams and thus awesome.

Hmm… sorry wrong blog for that sort of thing.

After years of rumours [mbv] it seems like Vancouver is going to get an Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise.  Granted it’s at a slightly low point for the MLS, after the David Beckham experiment which was meant to prove that soccer in America was on its way to becoming as much of a force as it is in Europe has failed.  Beckham’s decided he prefers playing in the semi-retirement league that is Series A in Italy and is paying out of his own pocket to stay there.

 Meanwhile what this means for the Whitecaps we’re not sure.  The ownership group of the new team is largely the same as that of the Whitecaps with owner Greg Kerfoot heading the group that paid the $35 million dollar fee for an MLS franchise, but it seems like it’s not a sure thing that the new team will be called the Whitecaps and there’s clearly not enough soccer support to keep the two teams going in Vancouver. 

The new team will play in BC Place as opposed to Swangard, because if you can’t sell out Swangard you’re might as well go big and not sell out  BC Place.

The example of Toronto FC [mbv] shows that a Canadian city can support professional soccer, but the population and demographics are a lot different in Toronto than they are Vancouver.  The success of the new MLS team is hardly a sure thing, on or off the pitch.

Of course now this also means that there’s no way that we’ll ever get any sort of media accreditation for the Whitecaps.  While the team is great at calling me back to renew my season tickets, they’ve never once returned an email or a call about press accreditation for covering the Whitecaps games.  Any of the photos for the posts on the team I’ve taken have been with a camera that I’ve learned how to smuggle into games.

As a former (damn economy) season ticket owner I hope the new team succeeds.  I do think Vancouver hast the potential to support another major league sports franchise in town, and this will certainly be less of a fiasco than the Grizzlies were, and I am very eager for some higher level soccer to be played in town.  Even if there will be no David Beckham.  Even if I have to assemble my camera in a washroom stall so that I can cover the games.

 With the fate of General Motors in doubt [nyt] the Vancouver Canucks’ home ice may soon be needing a new sponsor, or at least a new name.  Here are a few ideas for what we may be calling GM Place next season.

1. Money Mart Place: In this economy Money Mart might be the only business with cash to spare. 
2. Fat City Arena: See this eariler Vancouver Five for explanation [mbv].
3. Rogers Place: There was a well fairly decent rumour that Rogers tried to buy the naming rights to BC Place, but the city would not let them change the roof’s colour to Rogers’ red.  But hey they need to do something with all that iPhone money.
4. Happy Planet Juice Centre: I think the founder of that company might have some pull with city council [wp].  Plus wouldn’t that just please the pants off the rest of Canada who see us all as hippies anyway?
5. Trevor Linden Memorial Rink: In the future when Trevor Linden signle handedly fixes the economy before leading the negotiations that see our alien invaders surrender, we’ll be quite happy to name the Canucks’ home ice after him.

So if you’re a regular reader of Metroblogging Vancouver, or someone whose looking to make a splash in the local blog scene, then we’re looking at you and for you. We’re looking at you through your monitor right now, so don’t do anything weird or alarming.

What we’re peering out at the world for is for additional authors, the brave women and men who are willing and able to write about Vancouver three or more times a week. Whether you want to write about the great sandwich shop you found, or that political issue that’s been bugging you we’re offering you a platform and an audience.

So if you’re interested in writing for Metroblogging Vancouver then email me at jefferysimpson at mac dot com and let me know. Once you’ve passed our very official tests, which consists of giving me your email address and promising not to just use us to advertise your porn site, you’ll be an official Metroblogging Vancouver author.

Act now, don’t delay and remember this offer is not valid in the Province of Quebec or in conjunction with any other sale, offer or coupon.

Vancouver has a fairly deep history of protests, we’re the ones who made being pepper sprayed cool way before those posers in Seattle were doing it, but the question is how effective is it actually? I mean when we’re talking about real things and not keeping Star Trek on the television for another season or bitching about the price of cellular telephone plans, do protests actually make a difference?

Yesterday Robson Street was flooded with protests angry at the ongoing violence in Sri Lanka [th]. To which I’d like to know, what the Hell this has to do with us? I think everyone in Vancouver is well aware that there’s shittier places to live around the world and that we’re lucky not to live in a place where government violence and civil unrest put our lives in danger on an ongoing basis, but what exactly are we going to do about it?

I understand the effectiveness of say a protest against abortion, or fur or something where a graphic photo and some passionate langauge can convince the odd person to keep that baby or not buy that coat made of seal fur, but how is a protest in Vancouver meant to change what’s happening in Sri Lanka, Tibet, Iraq or Iran? The regular protests against the government of Iran that are held outside the Vancouver Art Gallery also puzzle me, what am I meant to do go invade Iran? Will I be greeted as a liberator if I do?

It’s not to say that these people do not have a right to protest however they choose, but frankly I’m sure there’s at least a half dozen more effective ways of using the manpower that was on hand last night. Shouting into megaphones at confused Canadians just is not going to solve the problem.

No matter what your beliefs, or as in my case lack of, please have a very good holidays from all of us. And be safe in all this holiday themed weather.