Archive for September, 2010

My mom always told me that video games were like drugs, but I never really believed her until a few weeks ago when I spotted this at the Richmond Night Market…

Some of the best literary advice I ever got from my years studying books came from a wily poetry professor. He told our eager classroom, “Poetry collections belong in the washroom… that’s all the time you need to enjoy a good poem”. I’ve taken that to heart and one of my new favourite magazines, Poetry Is Dead, is now a staple washroom reader (not to get too graphic, folks).

You can tell by the name of the magazine that Poetry Is Dead does things a little differently and it’s their refreshing approach that has people so excited. For their second issue, themed “TV, Beer and Video Games”, the PID team continues to mix things up. Contributors to the magazine are challenged to spend five minutes in front of a microphone doing anything except read poetry. The line-up includes Billeh Nickerson, Donato Mancini, Dina Del Bucchia, Karlene Harvey, Jordan Abel and VIA’s queen of East Van Cats, Nikki Reimer.

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It’s another video from our friends at The Peak 100.5 FM’s Peak Performance Project! This one’s of their September 23rd showcase at the Red Room where 41st and Home, Ben Sigston, Adaline and Christina Maria played. Tamara, James, Laurie and Carmen (do you guys ever take a night off?!) interview the bands, Mother Mother, and one of the judges about the project.

Steph Macpherson, Christopher Arruda, Behind Sapphire and Vancouver’s “Best Local Band – Unsigned” (according to the Straight’s BEST OF 2010!) Said the Whale will all be playing the Red Room for the next Peak Performance Project Showcase happening on September 30th. Don’t miss it!

In case you’re not trolling the FREE section of Craigslist Vancouver, here’s a little taste of what you’re missing today. You might want to make a move on those stumps, they’re not gonna be around forever you know.

Two Tickets to Pecha Kucha Night Vancouver!

The debate on how exactly you pronounce P___ K___ Night has raged on Vancouver is Awesome in the past (check out some great comments HERE and HERE). I have no answer to that question but I can tell you that P___ K___ Night is an interesting, inspiring evening that is entirely powered by the minds of people you want to know about and listen to. If you haven’t been you ought to check it out and if you have been then you are probably making a return visit this Friday at the Vogue Theatre. For ticket information go HERE.

Also very cool – Zaac Pick! He is the evening’s opening act. Check out his site and see a video of him at the Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival HERE.

Have you ever been to a P___ K___ Night? Which speaker impressed you and why? …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Remember the DOXA film festival earlier this year? We partnered with them to help get the word out about a Vancouver produced documentary film about punk rock music directed by Susanne Tabata and entitled Bloodied But Unbowed. The film was informative, entertaining, nostalgic and… well… totally punk rock and it was so popular that they scheduled a second screening for it. In case you didn’t make it out to either of those, or if you did and you just can’t get enough, tune in to Knowledge this Tuesday at 10PM and you can watch their 55 minute cut of it! Info HERE, below is a webisode with some outtakes about recording/releasing your own music…

Here’s some posts we made about Bloodied But Unbowed:
The Trailer
The limited edition Skull Skates commemorative board
The interview with director, Susanne Tabata

Nicholson Road is part of a daily photo project aimed at sharing and celebrating the different communities in Metro Vancouver. Each week Vancouver Is Awesome will be featuring one of the most engaging photos from the project in order to draw your attention a little bit outside of the hyper-focus that we usually have on the city of Vancouver. Metro Vancouver Is Awesome, and you should get out and explore it!

Looking south from one of the City Pointe towers along the skytrain line to Central City, in City Centre/Whalley, Surrey. Did you know the BC Lions practice field is just to the left of the train in this shot?

More from Nicholson Road can be found HERE.

In last year’s Georgia Straight BEST OF awards we took home an editor’s pick for “Best Navel Gazing Web Site“, and while our non-profit organization that supports our web site (Vancouver Is Awesome, Inc) is focused on celebrating all of the awesome things that make up our city one of those things is it’s proximity to other awesome places. In this new series of features entitled Super, Neighbours in British Columbia we’ll be taking you on adventures to other BC locales that we think you should check out. For this first multi-part edition my wife and I visited one of the most amazing places on earth: the Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino. We spent a relaxing 3 days there and we will certainly be visiting Tofino again to do another another installment of Super, Neighbours but this first one is specifically about “The Wick” as the locals call it, and a few of our favourite offerings that it boasts. Explore this amazing place for yourself on their WEB SITE, then step into Super, Neighbours…

In this fourth part I’m bringing you… a bear! We actually saw 9 of them on an afternoon bear watching tour courtesy of Jamie’s Whale Station and I know I promised you all-Wick-all-the-time but what I learned from a breakfast with Charles Mcdiarmid, co-founder of the Inn, was that when they first built the place they made a conscious decision not to offer fishing charters, tours, or other stuff like that which already existed in Tofino because they figured it would serve the local economy better if they simply referred business and made connections between their guests and people offering these sorts of services. Monopolys aren’t good for anybody, especially small communities like Tofino, so they lined up this boat watching tour for us courtesy of Jamie’s so we could get a sample of the awesomeness that’s a stone’s throw from the resort.

On our tour (which set out specifically to look at bears) we had a bit of a slow start in the boat but we were super lucky in that we came upon some orcas that the captain chased (and by “chased” I mean that he turned the boat around slowly when he saw them and kept a safe distance as to not disturb them, but to give us a great view) for a bit. He also took us to see some harbour seals, an eagle’s nest, fish were jumping all over the place and eventually the bears started coming out of the bush at the edge of the water everywhere we went. It was amazing to see them, at one point there was a mother bear with two cubs that were bumbling up and down a tree half foraging and half just looking really cute. I’ve seen bears in the wild before but 9 in a couple hours? What an experience.

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