Archive for February, 2010

If you are alive and reading this I don’t have to tell you that we won a gold medal in men’s hockey today, putting a cherry on the cake of an amazing, amazing, AMAZING 2010 Winter Games run (both in sport and experience) here in our beloved city.

NOTE: this is not an Olympic medal pictured above, nor is it intended to look like one. It’s a Canada Is Awesome badge of awesomeness!

The cats rule East Vancouver. They’re everywhere…sidewalks, roads, hiding in doorways, supervising stores, sprawled out anywhere to have a bath. The cats I meet while wandering through East Van are probably all house-pets but it’s not clear who ‘owns’ them. Cats are all about territory, but all space is public to them.

Stay tuned…When the project is finished I hope to have photographed every one of the East Van Cats!

Wow, insuring my little Yamaha BWS scooter right before the Olympics will go down as one of those “What would I ever have done if I hadn’t have done that?” ideas because it has seriously made my life so much easier and has allowed me to see a ton more Games related stuff around the city. Not only does it use less gas, take up less room on the road and cost less to insure than my car ($200 a YEAR is what it costs to insure!) but there is some sort of unwritten law in the city where you can park in front of or behind a line of cars… anywhere. Like, if there are ten cars all sitting in front of meters you can pull up behind the last one or in front of the first one and park there. I’ve done this for a year and a half and every time I ask a meter-person what the rule is they simply shrug and tell me that everybody does it and that nobody every gets ticketed for it.

This is a picture of my scooter parked in front of a car right outside of the Roundhouse, literally 20 steps from the front entrance to the insanely busy LiveCity Yaletown venue, and a few steps from the Roundhouse where I was going to see Dan Mangan. Parking spots like this have been the norm for me since the games started, I basically pull up right in front of wherever I’m going and park. Awesome. Thanks to TravelSmart 2010 for kicking my butt into planning ahead!!!

You can thank the internet for making it possible for you to bid against Jimmy Pattison (the current owner of Expo Ernie) on the actual podiums, medal trays and a ton of memorabilia from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics… without actually having to attend an auction. Bid on a bunch of stuff on the official Vancouver 2010 auction on Ebay. I’ve been watching it for a few days and new stuff keeps being added, likely a ton over the next coupla days…

Contrary to our original plan of simply gleaning peripheral stories here and there, we’ve actually got quite a bit of coverage of the 2010 Games planned now. We’ve got folks attending a bunch of Cultural Olympiad shows, we’re blogging from our Awesome Showcase at Shine delivering stories from out-of-towners and their experiences in our city and even though we’re not accredited to shoot any sporting events some of us are attending a couple as fans with point and shoot cameras. Plus you probably noticed that it just keeps coming in from all directions. Go figure.

All of that being said, I think what I’m most excited to report to you is that our DAILY FLICKR PICKR series of photos that we post from our Flickr pool will be all Olympics themed until the closing ceremonies. Every day we’ll be bringing a new image that one of you has uploaded to our pool that is somehow Games related, making our Olympic coverage your Olympic coverage!

So join our Flickr group and upload your photos!

Today’s DAILY FLICKR PICKR is a photo courtesy of Terry Power, and the title is “Canadian Gold”:

Okay, hold on a minute here… am I the only one who didn’t know that “FTW” in olympic/sports jargon doesn’t mean “F**k The world!” but actually is a celebratory “For The Win!”?

FTW, CANADA!

Well, I’m easily distracted BY THE BAZILLION GOLDS WE WON IN THE LAST TWO DAYS and forgot to blog the excitement of yesterday.

If you had stopped by today, you would have seen me jumping up and down on the couch at Shine when Jasey-Jay Anderson had the most amazing run in the PGS. I gave Travis Nicholson (who stopped by to see the work/say hello) high fives when the Men’s Team Pursuit speed skating beat out the Americans and then I sat and cheered/swore through the first 2 hours of the curling match.

To say it was a big day at the gallery doesn’t do it justice.

(photo by: Travis Nicholson)

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We had quite a few people pop by and check out the art/Olympics and many compliments on the wonderful work on the walls.

Tomorrow we open up for our last day of the show…at Noon. Know what else is at noon? The CANADA vs USA hockey game! Come hang out and watch the game with us in Gastown!

Canada won 4 more medals in the 2010 Winter Games today! One in men’s curling, one in men’s parallel slalom snowboarding, one in men’s four man bobsleigh and one in men’s team pursuit speed skating. This brings our medal count up to a whopping 25, the most any hosting country has ever won!

NOTE: these are not Olympic medals pictured above, nor are they intended to look like them. They’re Canada Is Awesome badges of awesomeness!

This is a great contrast to my cubicle, my minimalism is due to my complete lack of interest, Aaron Harowitz’s is by design, it looks much better.

Send us your pics of your workspace and you surfin’ VIA to choy@vancouverisawesome.com and we’ll post ‘em to show at least for that moment, like me, you’re : Hardly Workin’

Tonight its time for another edition of EASY NOW our local once in awhile fun neighborhood rap party! each month we have a different theme and tonight’s theme is EPMD so come join us at The Astoria – 769 E. Hastings st. Its 5 bucks and rightly priced drinks too! Also tonight we will be hosting the after party for the skate premier of Share The Air so go see that then come see us!


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Contrary to our original plan of simply gleaning peripheral stories here and there, we’ve actually got quite a bit of coverage of the 2010 Games planned now. We’ve got folks attending a bunch of Cultural Olympiad shows, we’re blogging from our Awesome Showcase at Shine delivering stories from out-of-towners and their experiences in our city and even though we’re not accredited to shoot any sporting events some of us are attending a couple as fans with point and shoot cameras. Plus you probably noticed that it just keeps coming in from all directions. Go figure.

All of that being said, I think what I’m most excited to report to you is that our DAILY FLICKR PICKR series of photos that we post from our Flickr pool will be all Olympics themed until the closing ceremonies. Every day we’ll be bringing a new image that one of you has uploaded to our pool that is somehow Games related, making our Olympic coverage your Olympic coverage!

So join our Flickr group and upload your photos!

Today’s DAILY FLICKR PICKR is a photo courtesy of Bob Lai, and the title is “Bobby Lu”:

It’s official: I’ve got Olympic fever. It’s making me sweat just thinking about the end of these amazing times in our city (and on our televisions) but I’m taking solace in the fact that the Games will be back. They won’t ever be in our city again but having them hosted here has given me a huge new appreciation for them and I look forward to following them more closely in the future, if not saving my pennies for trips to the host cities to witness the magic and get a piece of the energy they are certain to bring wherever they may be.

The next Winter Olympics go down in Sochi, Russia in 2014 and in case you didn’t notice over the past two weeks they’ve presently taken over Science World and turned it into the Russky Dom! This fuzzy little guy is one of the mascot hopefuls, they haven’t announced who their official mascots will be (and they won’t be until 2011) but they got this costume made and they’re selling t-shirts with this guy on it so I think we know who has a decent chance at being the Quatchi of 2014.

photo: luis camargo