Though Sam Sullivan has been out of office for a week now, he’s been in our hearts and minds.  Well maybe he’s not been in either of those, but I presume his wife still loves him so that’s one person.  He was one of Vancouver’s most controversial mayors of recent years, from the manner of his election victory to his controversial decision to invade Iraq…

Wait that was the other guy.

Though there is no one defining photo-op of Sam Sullivan’s time as Mayor, no pile of rubble for him to pose atop or banner to pose under, there have been moments that have come close.  Accepting the Olympic flag on behalf of Vancouver in Torino, a clear symbol of the diverse and accepting makeup of our city was probably the high point.  It can’t be easy to be sandwiched in between a Mayor who had a television franchise based off his life, and a fruit juice magnet.

But yet there’s on indelible image I think that all Vancouverites are going to have of Sam Sullivan’s time in office.  One thing we’re all going to remember him for.

Roll clip.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJaDoTigvEI[/youtube]

With city council about to spend half a million dollars on new software that will cut down on gang violence and after hours bar incidents [cbc].  While software might stop people being drunk assholes, World of Warcraft stopped me from having a social life for about six months, it’s hardly going to cut down on gang activity at places that aren’t clubs or bars where most of the shootings have occurred.

Here are five other things we could be spending our money on:

5. Turning Robson Street into a Pedestrian Mall ::The Fremont Street Experience is one of the major tourist draws in Las Vegas [wp].  What would be better for the Olympic tourists than being able to experience the same thing on Robson Street?  Granted it would cost more than half a million, but boy would the tourists love it. 

4. Robots, Zombies, Pirates, Ninjas, and Sad Feist ::What just randomly using those words isn’t funny as of itself?  Dammit.  Ah well, at least our SEO went up like 2000%.

3. Destroy Beyond Robson :: Let’s face it Beyond Robson [br] is not only unpatriotic they’re probably all some sort of communists.  I’d say they’re zombies or pirates on top of that, but I’ve already been to that comedy well once today.  Either way I’m sure City Council would be far happier if they bought BR and put someone really really really excited about Vancouver in charge.  Someone uncritical who doesn’t really notice the homeless issue.  Someone like Kent Hurl [tv]. 

2. Buy the Cancuks a goal scorer :: Years, and years go by and we always are short a goal scorer once we get in the playoffs.  Why they figured it would be different this year I have no idea, unless the plan was simply not making the playoffs in which case we’re on track.

1. Inter-dimensional portal technology ::I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and there’s an episode at the start of the third season where she runs away from home and lives in LA where an evil demon dimension is grabbing homeless and directionless youth off the streets of LA and using them as slave labour in their demon dimension.  I would bet good money that Sam Sullivan is trying to find an evil Wiccan right now to start teleporting the Downtown East Side residents to said dimension.  Sound far fetched?  Well now explain how Mayor Wilkins Sullivan got elected again [wp]?

Well that ended up being far more super nerdy than I had hoped.