85,000 people took to the streets Monday, suffering hour long line-ups to be one of the first to try Vancouver’s new, expensive, Japanese rush-hour simulator – the Canada Line. I got to try the Expo line with everyone else at Expo – that was neat. Hopefully everyone that got to try the Canada Line – AKA “The path of least resistance to YVR or Richmond” – yesterday had a similar experience.

The Tuesday morning numbers were far lower, said Translink, which I’m assuming means it was merely a sane amount of travelers, and not 100 thousand gawkers. Translink however seems to think the numbers will increase in September, as the now redundant B-line buses are shut down or re-routed (mainly, the 98 B-line.)

For a flickr slideshow of people’s photos of the big day, click here.

What’s going on here? I’ve lost count on how many shootings the Lower Mainland has had over the past month. Shootings happening in shopping centres, in broad daylight, directly in front of a four year old boy…

Some say it has to do with a certain family with gang ties, others say it’s a series of revenge killings between the UN and Red Scorpion gangs. Some others say that it has more to do with silencing certain people before they go to the cops.

Why can these groups have free reign to spread such fear? How did it get to this point where these groups are left unchecked? Where are the laws that are supposed to protect us from these groups? Where are the deterrents? Are there deterrents? Why are those who deal drugs or commit gun crimes given such light sentences? I understand that there was legislation to impose maximum sentencing for crimes involving guns, but that it’s currently being held up by the senate.

Just a little frustrated… I’d like to know your opinion.

I remember when the circumstances that helped create Pink Shirt Day first happened – it was one of the notable stories of the week, September of 2007. It had a John Hughes film quality to it – a new student attends his first day of classes at a rural high-school in Nova Scotia, wearing a pink Polo shirt. Fair enough – Polo is always a solid choice and in 2007, I think pink was supposed to be the new black.

No problem there, not counting the high-school bullies.

Surprising to nobody that’s ever attended high-school, they went to work on the new kid, verbally beating him down with the bluntest instrument in the vocabulary of teenage boys everywhere; homo.

The surprising, almost unbelievable part of the story is that two Grade 12 students took offence on behalf of the younger Grade 9 classmate, and using their own money, a discount clothing store, and online social networking, they bought 50 pink t-shirts and handed them out at the school door the next day. And the 50 was supplemented by even more students that wore their own pink apparel. It seems like an obvious twofer – get an awesome excuse to wear that pink sweater AND stick it to the thuggish common denominator at the same time.

Anyhow, happy ending – the new student’s confidence is restored, two grade 12 students are national heroes (Go Canada!), and the bullies are doing whatever it is bullies do when they don’t get their way. Smoking, carving things into desks, and punching one another in the arm, one would imagine.

But it doesn’t end there – an anecdote this perfect has, inevitably, become the focus of an new, annual campaign to take a stand against school bullying – the literally named Pink Shirt Day [PSD] on February 25th (yeah, I’m not sure why it’s not September either – I’m assuming there’s an awareness calendar and September was full.)

Most of us aren’t in high-school any more, but we were all there once. And at least in some small way, the kids around us aspire to be us – independant and critical thinkers. And to be honest, we’re all better looking people now anyhow. Plus black and pink looks awesome, hipsters. So, why not show a little support on Feb. 25th? Pull on some pink, and wherever possible, pass this along to your friends. The perfect Hollywood ending for this story is if the actions of two clever young men trigger and annual, international event.

So the various municipal police forces in BC will be pulling tasers from service to make sure they’re outputting the correct voltage.  However this only applies to any tasers they have acquired prior to 2006.

About time right?!

You’d think they do something like this after the question of whether a suspect died as a result of being tasered?

Well at least this is is headed in a better direction.  Testing has shown that the voltage occasionally exceeds the specs.  In addition to police, this includes corrections officers, sherriff’s services, and transit officials.

More details over at CTV

I’ll be quick since I’m posting from my janky phone’s browser.

Power is out for most of Robson and a large section of downtown. This includes traffic lights, so avoid driving down here for the next while.

My office building was evacuated due a weid noxious black smoke coming from the side of the building. There are reports of smoke from at least one other office building a few blocks up.

The city has apparently said that power will be restored by 3pm.

Update:

Power still out. According to Twitter most downtown workers are part of an exodus back home as the work day is called on account opf rain… err… power oputage.

It’s kind of clever – diabolical even. Pick the one day everyone is outdoors walking around, pondering a hot dog and looking for the best spot to see fireworks, to launch the new provincial carbon tax on fuel sales! Brilliant! Oh sure, they’ll complain tomorrow, but day one will be buried under red and white flags, explosions in the sky, and photos of tots with ice-cream all over their faces (they may optionally also be looking at fireworks while holding tiny paper Canadian Flags.)

What does this mean to you? Do you have a car? If you’ve answered no, it means little to you, though in theory over time the tax will lessen personal and business taxes – time will tell on that. If you’ve answered yes, then it means from this day forward, you’re paying 2.4 cents per litre more for petrol – and that will increase another five and quarter cents per over the next four years, on top of wherever the price of oil takes us in the coming months.

Never has a hybrid looked so good, and the ZENN and Volt can’t go on sale fast enough! Save the petroleum for vital K-Way production, I say.

Come 2009, the museum that’s been situated at the water’s edge of Vanier Park at Kitsilano Point will be closing. This museum has been around for ages and it’s sad that another Vancouver cultural landmark is disappearing.

Right now they’re fighting to find a way to preserve the vast collection and safely transition it to a new location, which looks like it may make its way over to North Vancouver.

The biggest piece would be the St Roch which itself is actually a National Heritage Site.  The boat has been here since 1958 and I hope they find a safe way to move and keep it so many others can enjoy its history.  More information on the situation between the city and the Maritime Museum Society here.

You know it really wasn’t all that long ago that Oasis Airlines started offering great fares ferrying people back and forth between Vancouver and Hong Kong. In fact it caused much hoopla with it’s inaugural promotion of free flights.

It also wasn’t that long ago that Jetsgo our local discount airline went belly up. Now due to rising fuel costs, this discount airline to Hong Kong has also suddenly stopped service. Stranding many and leaving many with useless tickets.

I got caught up in that whole Jetsgo issue and luckily had paid for my ticket with my credit card where I was reimbursed. Hopefully the card companies will be equally accommodating to anyone who got stuck this time around with fares paid for with Oasis.

Cathay apparently will be increasing their flights to help pick up the slack as will Air Canada. More details are on the Oasis Site here.

The news can sometimes seem so anonymous.  Some of you may have heard about a missing Burnaby man, Kellen McElwee.  To me it has struck a little closer to home having personally met and hung out with Kellen on numerous occasions.  It’s with this strange disappearance that I reach out like so many other of his friends and family for any information that anyone may have that could possibly help

The police have been looking for him or the whereabouts of his vehicle. In case you missed out on the news coverage here’s a link to the Vancouver Province.   He’s 5′10 – 220 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes. He wears his hair in a slight mohawk and has a large black-and-white dragon tattoo below his left shoulder.  If you’d like to help out there has already been a facebook group started that will be posting flyers around town.  He drives an ‘06 Honda Civic that is bronze with the plates 959 HPB.  If you’ve seen this vehicle or might have info about his whereabouts or any clues please give the Burnaby RCMP a call @ 604-294-7922.

Who would’ve thought that there are everyday art thieves.  I mean don’t they pretty much only exist on film these days?

Thieving art, isn’t exactly like stealing tools, money, candy, or transit fare.  I’d imagine stolen art is pretty hard to get rid of. First of all art is pretty unique and hence traceable through sales quite  easily, especially if it’s famous art.  Art is also in the eye of the beholder, much like beauty. So finding someone who likes it would be hard too. (more…)