Amazing BC Wildlife!

Dan and I are constantly amazed at the remarkable wildlife you can see here in BC. Last week, me, Dan, mum and I went for a drive about an hour away from Vancouver to this renowned wildlife spotting area and I took my crappy camera in case we spotted a slug or something. But we were totally amazed. Seriously, it was incredible...the fact that you can find these sorts of animals just roaming, every day of the year, here. Wow.

Couldn't believe we actually saw a buck with horns!

We'd heard there were also foxes, from one of the locals. A sign nearby said to watch for them, so we poked into some of the more off-the-beaten path areas and totally chanced upon this fella: But the best, most awe-inspiring? My dream of finally seeing a grizzly (from a safe distance of course) was realized. We'd heard from another pair of hikers that there was this bear-watching platform and bears were down by the creek, coming out early and looking for salmon. The couple had seen one there and so we hotfooted it over there. Cannot believe we saw her:

It was completely breathtaking to see these BC icons....

....I've now seen elk, eagles, seals, otters....it's really remarkable here....

....Oh alright then.....

.....I confess.....

....Last week, we were really at.....

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.....wait for it....
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....the Greater Vancouver Zoo! It's a funny, rundown, pikey zoo outside of town I'd been meaning to check out, that was actually quite fun its own overpriced, under-maintained sort of way. It's got this mad collection of animals, and is really odd. But the best bit? Hardly anyone there off-season means you can get rather up close to the animals!

And perhaps, even, make a few friends:

Hee hee.

My Friend Dean Wareham...

...singer with seminal indie rock bands Galaxie 500 and Luna (and now the mellow-lounge stylings of Dean & Britta) was in town this weekend for the PuSH International Performing Arts Festival. I've known Dean for 16 years. He used to call me the Donut Girl because we had this running joke in Toronto when I used to bring the band beignets, back in the 90s.

Anyway, the Andy Warhol Museum commissioned Dean to write some music for some silent, B&W screentests Warhol did in the late 60s and so, he and Britta (his wife/bandmate) put together The 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests. Dean put me on the guest list for the Van perf, and so me and the lovely Anita tarted ourselves up in our finest boho-chic (hanging out with the arts crowd, don't you know) and went off to the Vogue Theatre.

It was a welcome distraction from recent shit. And an utterly commanding performance, actually. Considering Dean & Britta's gig at Richard's last year nearly put Dan, Joy and Julie to sleep, I was pleased Anita got into it. I urge you to check the 13 out if they tour your town. V. cool. And remember, Britta used to be the singing voice for the cartoon Jem (as in her of The Holograms).

Was also chuffed because Dean had sent me an email earlier in the day. Complained he was ill but that they were likely going to be playing a secret, midnight show on Granville Island after their Warhol thing, so of course, we went along. I was psychically exhausted but as Dean & Britta's stuff is far from taxing, it became a perfect soundtrack to my trampled mood.

The next day, I got even more Dean action. He did a book reading and short acoustic gig at the fabulous indie record store, Zulu. Afterward, we chatted earlier, then I stood in line, waiting to get him to sign my uncorrected galley review copy of the book, Black Postcards.

I said: "I know it's weird cos I've known you this long to get you to sign this, but you know me, always a collector and fan..."
Dreamy Dean smiled, and said (signing my book without asking me to spell my name): "I'd put 'to the Donut Lady', but I think we're far beyond that now." :-)

Comme j'ai dit, a welcome distraction. Read my Dean Wareham interviews, if you fancy.

(And sorry for the delay in blogging. Life's been, uh interesting, for us. More news as it happens.)

Today's Message Brought to You By...

We're an TV-advertising-free household. So today we decided to go to the local cinema to watch the World's Best Commericals. I kept thinking: "when is the movie going to start?" ;-)

Some were really excellent and reminded us that good advertising is indeed an artform and should be appreciated other media. I'd forgotten about good ads. There are seemingly so few of them. And it was a weird realization in a world far too inundated with marketing messages.

It was strange that we paid money to see advertisers' attemps to take more of our money, but hey ho. It was a worthy excercise and a film excursion devoid of superheros, aliens, lesbians, ninjas, car-chases or robots. You know, our usual preferred fare.

Anyway, we had a few faves, I thought we'd share. And even though I HATE HATE HATE CG'd talking babies (in any media), the acting and script save this entirely. And makes it genius.

And we really want to shop here....(note our actual bed is in this clip too):


What about you guys? Any faves recently?

Snow-Motion

Merry Christmas to all from snowstormy Vancouver. This pic was taken Christmas Eve, 3.35pm. In the past 12 hours, another 10-20cm has fallen. Most unusual, but also, kinda nice and white! Happy holidays everyone! And from our friend Hubert as well (who used to have arms and a hat, but we were worried about him losing them).

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

This week Vancouver has been hit with an unprecedented amount of snow and a cold snap that, by Ontario standards, is perfectly normal (-12 degrees-ish), but by Vancouver, IS THE COLDEST EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! No, seriously, it was actually the coldest temperature on record.

It was nippy yesterday when Dan and I went on our search to Granville Island market for the Baby Cheesus (for our cheese board on Christmas).And last night, the white stuff came dumping down and hasn't stopped. So we got hammered, had our mate Gregg over and watched ELF.

Anyways, Happy Solstice everyone - methinks we'll skip going out to the Solstice celebrations in town because it's a mite frigid. Plan now is to stay in, drink mead, hover round my witchy cauldron and celebrate the first day of winter and the longer days. From inside.

Cool Runnings and 'Ting

It's not often you're waiting at the airport to pick up your mum when you hear something like this coming over the tannoy: "Would everyone joining the Jamaican Bob Sled Team event, please make their way over to carousel number 6."

So you go over, curious, 'cos really, wtf? The Jamaican Bob Sled Team? They're like stars, mon! They had a film made about them! It's not like it's some lame Khazakstanian Women's Curling team (no offense), but JAMAICANS. WHO ARE BOBSLEDDERS. Awesome much?

So being a consummate professional/snoop, I got chatting with the welcoming committee - a mostly Pembertonian crowd, some Jamaican fans and a few airport staff waiving dem flags. Pemberton is close to Whistler, where the boys are, apparently, training for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Keeeewl.
Wearing my offical BC jacket, we started talking tourism, natch. I met with a consultant for Pemberton's economic development and the owners of the town's Copper Dome Lodge, Ian and Michelle Porter. They're hosting the team during their pre-training and were pretty excited about their arrival - that and the fact I told them I would update Hellobc.com with this crucial bit of trivia, of course. ;-) They even invited my team up to stay or use their lodge for our meetings when we got round to doing our Pemberton visit as part of the community content project I'm spearheading for Hellobc.com. Nice folks. I hope they wave flags when we arrive.

Anyway.... I dispatched Dan to fetch madda (hmmmm, Mother v. Athletic Jamaican Guys Who Wear Lycra. Whom to greet first? Decisions!) while I hung around. Shameful, I know. But in the end, we collected mum, all her bags, and headed back to carousel 6. We had made it back in time for the arrival of the fittest.

Rrrrree-spec'!

The Puck Stops Here.

A few weeks ago, Dan and I put in a single request for one pair of tickets to a 2010 Olympics event. Sure, it's just the Men's Ice Hockey Qualification Playoff, but it's one step below bronze and a big step above the prelims.

And it's MEN'S HOCKEY. Anyway, I figured we'd have a better chance at getting tickets in the ginormo national lottery for the lesser-prio games as only 4,000 tickets were made available for the men's gold game (last count: 170,000 ticket requests were made). Plus, those were stoopid expensive.

Today, we won our little piece of the lottery. We're going to an Olympics hockey game. Of course, it'll probably be a playoff between Outer Mongolia and Khazakstan or something, but still. Dan and I figured that if we're going to be living in the hometown of an Olympics, we should *gulp* Share the Excitement. So we are. We are stupidly excited. And just had to share. ;-)