Browsing “Local Business”

A couple of Sundays ago, Blim held their first monthly market at the Heritage Hall on Main Street. Upsizing from the smaller Cambrian Hall location a couple of blocks away in which they’d been running it in the past, the new space is perfect and not only allows for more vendors but a more wide open environment on a busier street.

For our table this month we decided to put our new button maker to use. Our incredibly kind friends at Six Cent Press were nice enough to provide us with a 1.25″ button press so we made up some blank circle templates and had people draw their own buttons, then we cut them out and pressed them for em in exchange for whatever kind of donation they wanted to drop into the box.

And how does that saying go? “Necessity is the father of invention”? I don’t like waiting around and I’m definitely not very good at sitting still, so to burn off some of my energy between people who wanted to draw buttons I decided to make a collection of my own. Lucky for me I had brought along books, the best being one that had a ton of the best images published in the National Enquirer over the years… and the mugshot series was born!

DETAIL SHOTS—–> Read more

White Rabbit Quarterly is looking for submissions to its Spring 2010 issue.

A new literary magazine is coming out in the Spring that will be edited, designed, and printed in East Vancouver, and open to writers everywhere. They’re looking for poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, drama, criticism, screenwriting, jokes… So if you’ve got anything good, or if you know anyone who reads or writes, send queries and submissions to whiterabbitquarterly@gmail.com. The best submission to the first issue will get a $100 prize and the option to help choose the content of a future issue.

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The first round of the 2010 Canadian skate magazine publishing season is upon us. Concrete just put out a free one, and issue 8.1 of Vancouver-based Color magazine should be available on newsstands very soon…

Cover: Toronto’s Lee Yankou power-boosts into a San Fran smith grind. Photo: Dan Zaslavsky

Produced locally, Concrete Skateboarding magazine’s March 2010 issue is up for grabs (and for free) at finer skateshops across Canada. This issue features Vancouver’s Spencer Hamilton and Paul Trep; Richmond’s Kevin Wu, and much more. Check out a few content previews right here before heading out to grab a copy.

Our friends at Lifetime Clothing (see their Home Grown feature HERE) have a pop-up shop in Gastown that’s open from now until the end of March! Located literally two doors down from Shine Nightclub and our Awesome Showcase on Water Street, maybe you want to make a day of checking out both of them?

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In case you haven’t seen em around town yet I wanted to let you know that Stay Local Maps’ first Vancouver City Guide is out! They’re distributing 30,000 copies in over 100 hotels, coffee shops, community centres, record shops and all of their partnered advertiser locations and the maps are all printed on recycled paper… in Canada! We’re the online media sponsor for Stay Local, check their site out HERE.

If you own a business and it’s not in there, get it in there for the next one!

A couple days back I SHARED the best place to buy the new Vancouver 2010 mascot figurines. This place is also, not coincidentally, the best place to buy a DIY Quatchi. The place is Voltage on Main Street, Vancouver’s best collectible vinyl toy store!

If you’re a collector of vinyl figurines and you live in this city then it’s no doubt you know that Voltage on Main Street is pretty much the ultimate. For those not in the know who simply want to find these figurines of the mascots, now you know the best place in town to get them! They sold out of these the day they got them in stock but have recently been re-stocked and have enough to go around.

Learn all about these figures on the Happy Worker web site (the Canadian company that brought them to life) then head to Voltage and pick up a set! They’re also available in singles, and the price/value is insane. I seriously can’t believe that you get all 4 for $35. MukMuk is a bonus with the set, and he has a removable red mitten AND foam finger. So awesome.

Photo: Andrew Koronovich

Born, raised and still residing in East Van (a definite rarity in ‘Couver), 21 year-old Desmond Hoostie grew up rolling in the teacup and tub at China Creek skatepark. He’s becoming widely recognized in Vancouver for his tech street skating skills, and was recently recruited as part of Adidas Canada’s exclusive skate program. Check out his web interview here. Desmond also appears in Wizard Smoke and he’s one of the opening skaters in the locally-produced TENS video, which can now be found online for mass consumption (along with some other archived gems) on Don’t Sleep Productions’ Vimeo page.

I was walking by the Granville Island Toy Company on Main the other day when I couldn’t help but notice this amazing Pac-Man pinball machine for midg… er, little people… in the window. I went inside and much to my surprise, the thing was only 50 bucks!!!

I’ve got to tell you that I’m no stranger to pinball. Growing up, my Dad had a classic Jolly Roger machine from the 60’s in our basement. I played it almost every day and got so good at it that I could wrap the score multiple times over (the reels only went to 9,999 but it was not easy to get them there). And I actually just found it on the IPDB (how awesome is it that there’s an IMDB site for pinball?), HERE.

This mini Pac-Man pinball machine isn’t something that you’ll be seeing in John’s Jukes in the future but I played it and it’s actually really good for the size and price. Definitely awesome and if you have a little guy to buy a birthday gift for then this just might be a good bet…
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How have we never made a post about Benny’s Market? If you live in Strathcona or you know people who do then you are more than likely familiar with this institution of Vancouver. This deli/sandwich spot/corner store has been in the same location for almost 90 years and serves up some of the best sandwiches in town, aloing with a bunch of imported sundries and other goodness. Originally this post was simply going to be about Janet’s batch of monster cookies that she baked up and I happened upon during a recent visit but I figured I should preface it with a little bit about the market itself. That’s Benny on the left there.

And here’s Janet’s batch of monster cookies, I had one and I must say it was quite delicious:
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Don’t Sleep Productions’ “Anti-Stress Warning” from TENS, a locally-produced and free skateboard video showcasing an extensive roster of rollers from Vancouver and across Canada, each with 10-trick sections.

As previously mentioned here, TENS has officially made its initial debut on the interweb. The first look can be seen exclusively over here all week.