As far as places to visit, I would think that an insane asylum would be rather low on anyone’s list. I mean, if you had to choose between Las Vegas, Hawaii or Shutter Island, I doubt anyone would select the latter. I mean, I’m uncomfortable even watching a movie about this place let alone going anywhere near one so I thought Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo were morons to head to the title location for something as small as a missing patient among the crazies. But that’s how Shutter Island makes you feel from the get go. The look of the film, the creepy music, the way everything just appears a little bit…off, it’s all part of Martin Scorsese’s plan to make you feel all the more uncomfortable with the movie. Shutter Island is a sort of weird film noir where even if you see it in front of you, you can’t really be sure what is going on.

To be honest, I didn’t really have high expectations for Shutter Island. Some of my friends were going on about how they wanted to watch it after seeing the trailer but I was more in the “Meh.” camp. I mean, if you’ve seen the trailer, I’m sure you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s happening and what is going to happen. You’re not wrong. A lot of what you’re expecting is part of the movie but at the same time, it messes with your brain, making you wonder if you’re not going a little mad yourself after the twists and turns.

DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a U.S. marshal sent to Shutter Island, a prison for nutjobs who are too dangerous for regular asylums and too crazy for regular prisons, after the disappearance of Rachel Solando, a patient who drowned her three children. If that isn’t creepy enough for you, we’re greeted early on by Teddy’s ongoing flashbacks, mostly of his role in WWII as part of the force that liberated the Dachau concentration camp. We also meet his wife (Michelle Williams), who died after the building where she and Teddy lived was set aflame by an arsonist. To say any more about Teddy, I’m afraid, would be giving too much away.

As I mentioned before, the movie just oozes atmosphere. It’s not like a horror movie where everything’s dark. In fact, most scene’s are well lit but the light seems to shy away from the camera. It caresses the ground through windows, spills from unseen sources over rusted staircases and even the sunlight drips through thick clouds, making settings unsaturated like a old photograph. Only once did I think that the cinematography could’ve been better. There’s a scene where Teddy speaks to an inmate in his cell block, lit only using matches but for us, the scene is perfectly visible. If the match lighting was the only thing actually lighting the scene (and yes, I understand why that probably isn’t a good idea for filming), I probably would’ve wet may pants.

The strange thing is…the movie isn’t scary. Not in the way that a scary movie is. It is much more about messing with your head, making you see things you’re not sure you really saw and hear things you aren’t sure you actually heard. DiCaprio does an excellent job on his part although initially I wouldn’t know this movie was set in 1954 other than the fact that his pants are so far up his chest. The rest of the cast is very good as well and the inmates are particularly well cast (and made up) as they look the part. The principle actors apart from DiCaprio are good but not quite noticeable in their roles. Nothing that stands out. They whisper when they should. They scream unexpectedly.

Overall, Shutter Island is a good movie. It could’ve been a great one, though with a very good script, a fantastic cast and the direction of Martin Scorsese draping the entire movie in atmosphere. My complaint is that the movie never begins at any point of normalcy. There’s no downward spiral. Five minutes in and the movie is already messed up. I only moves from one type of messed up to a slightly different variety of messed up. I guess one can’t expect anything else from a movie set in an insane asylum but I feel it would’ve benefited from a slightly different pacing. That and the trailer, since that takes a lot of the suspense regarding the plot out of the equation. Again, a good movie but it could’ve been been better…and there might be better ones to watch in theaters now or soon. This is a rental so enjoy it on your couch rather than for $20 at the theater.

Verdict: 7.0 out of 10

If you’re a nightowl in Vancouver like me, you will inevitably have experienced the same problem. You’re up at 3am, hungry and there isn’t anything to cook at home or you simply don’t feel like putting in the effort. Unlike other major cities in the world that seem to never sleep, Vancouver seems to sleep early. Most restaurants closed at 9pm (and just about everything else is closed at 6pm on most days) and even the latest are done by 10pm. That leaves your late night dining options between that one 24-hour Chinese restaurant and the multitudes of gross fast food places. Those are fine and dandy when you need some grub after a long night of drinking at the club and such but there has to be better options out there. This sort of inspired me to see what happens in Vancouver (mostly food-wise…) when the streets are empty and when seemingly everyone is asleep but me in a series of posts I’ll call Vancouver After Hours.

My search for 24-hour restaurants in the city of Vancouver has come up with very few establishments that aren’t named Denny’s and McDonald’s so I’ll probably go give all of them a try at some time or another.

Apparently Calhoun’s is a common hangout for University of British Columbia students due to being open round the clock, the free Wi-Fi and the close proximity to the main campus so it was a good place to study outside of your dorm room. As a UBC alumni, I can say I’ve never been here but that’s probably because I didn’t live on campus and…well, I didn’t do much studying anyways. I arrived at around 3am on a night when it was starting to snow, which made it even more difficult to spot Calhoun’s from my car. The outside is rather dimly lit so you’d never know it was open if you weren’t aware of the fact already.

As I sort of expected due to the weather, the place was almost empty save for a couple of tables of students on their laptops. A friend told me later that you could probably expect Calhoun’s to be at least half full at that ungodly hour. The emptiness also applied to the staff as I stood at the counter for about ten minutes, watching Sportcenter, until a cashier popped out from the back.

Looking through the refrigerated glass displays, there were quite a few appetizing, homestyle dishes available including bowls of chicken curry on rice ($7.75), a gigantic sheppard’s pie (a steal at $7.25 considering it’s huge), slices of chicken pizza ($3.25 each), and various paninis and wraps. You could also get a freshly made sandwich for about five to seven bucks and thankfully for any student, they have plenty of beers on tap and in bottles.

I got a dish of perogies ($6.75) since they looked rather good and I haven’t had perogies in forever. You get eight perogies covered in crispy bacon and caramelized onions, served with a cup of sour cream. I should probably let you know that they’re reheated. This is a cafe, not really a restaurant so you can expect most of the food to be reheated rather than made fresh.

My perogies weren’t bad. The cheese and potato filling was nice and you can’t argue with bacon and caramelized onions. As far as microwave food goes, it’s rather good but I probably wouldn’t order them again. If you’re a college student and you don’t know how to cook, then they’re probably amazing but for the rest of us, they’re just okay.

I do, however, hear good things about the avocado and shrimp sandwich so I’ll probably be back to try it. I had a lot of shrimp sandwiches when I was over in England, something we don’t often get here in Vancouver sandwich shops. It’s an interesting combination.

The atmosphere here is warm and comfortable. I imagine it’s entertaining during the day when a bunch of UBC students come for a beer or three but at night, it’s like being in a log cabin. If you’re looking for a comfortable place with Wi-Fi and a decent bite to eat…especially in the middle of the night, give Calhoun’s a look.

I didn’t really imagine Leo Laporte being a super fun dude ever since he bailed on us at his own party years ago. However, this video taken at the live Diggnation this week at SXSW, Leo took part in one of the awesomest activities man can engage in: crowd surfing. I recently had a bad run in with crowd surfing during the Olympics but it looks like Leo is having a hell of a time…and live streaming during it all.

I can’t believe I’m late to the party for something as monumental as this considering how I believe Nickleback is the worst thing to ever come from Canada. I recently saw this on the latest episode of Diggnation. Although the worst band in the world is still Creed, Nickelback is a close second.

Exhibit A: a pickle recently got more fans on Facebook (1,559,795 and counting as of March 11th) than Nickelback (which has 1,452,389 fans). What’s more? Nickelback’s singer Chad Kroeger went on the pickle’s fan page…where he was epically burned.

Again, world, we are sorry about Nickelback…

If you’ve ever seen a king crab in a supermarket fish tank or on Deadliest Catch, they are freaky looking buggers, especially when they tip the scales at ten pounds or more. On the other hand, regardless of how they look, they’re delicious. Actually, that seems to be the case with quite a few weird looking members of the animal kingdom. So when my family told me they wanted to go out for king crab because at $10 a pound, they’re roughly half what they normally cost, I decided to tag along.

Empire Seafood Restaurant (7997 Westminster Hwy, (604)249-0080) is located on No. 3 Road in Richmond, next to London Drugs. It is perpetually busy so you’ll want to make reservations and don’t be surprised if you don’t get slotted into the time that you initially choose, especially when there are special deals going on If you like dim sum, Empire Seafood offers 20% off on everything for early morning dim sum, which means you put in all your orders before 11am but again, good luck getting a seat. There was at least two or three tables waiting the entire time I was there and we already got there quite early for dinner at 630pm. There are all kinds of different dishes available including a number of different exotic seafood dishes. We ordered off a set menu, which is $168 for six people and includes eight courses.

First course is a soup. This is a thick, clear broth with crab meat, prawns, and fish maw, which is the air bubble in fish that controls their buoyancy. Yes, that sounds strange but I love this stuff. I might even like it better than shark fin as it has a great crunchy texture and mild flavor.

The soup is delicious with big chunks of crab and prawns. The serving is also generous as the bowl was large enough for everyone to get a second serving.

This is fried king crab with salt and hot peppers, which is probably my favorite way to eat crab. It’s not too oily and the batter isn’t too thick. If you can’t handle the spicy, though, you might want to brush off some of the hot peppers beforehand as they don’t skimp on the hotness.

The main event is this, steamed king crab legs with minced garlic.

Each piece is just brimming with garlic and maybe a little too much of it. There are a few pieces with less meat than I would like but overall, there’s lots to love here. The crab is sweet and tender. Just don’t breathe in anyone’s face afterwards.

This is a bean curd with bak choy. I assume this is a sort of cleansing vegetarian dish after the onslaught of spice and garlic. Not bad…not really my thing though. The bean curd is actually not bad and has some texture rather than being too soft and falling apart.

Next is a roast duck, two ways. First we have Peking duck, wrapping the crispy skin and top layer of the meat with some hoisin sauce, green onion and cuccumber in some thin flour crepes. Duck can be incredibly fatty sometimes but this one was rather lean with just a small layer of fat between the crispy skin and meat. Hoisin, green onion and duck is just a delicious combination.

The second duck dish is the remaining meat is pan fried with some water chestnuts, onion, and celery. This is wrapped in iceberg lettuce leaves with a little hoisin. It tastes fantastic but I was a little disappointed by the serving size. Flavor-wise it was good but we didn’t really get enough of it.

The last savory course was some egg noodles with bean sprouts. I totally forgot to get a picture of it but it didn’t look particularly special in the first place and it wasn’t very good. There was an overwhelming garlic flavor that drowned out anything else. I’m a big fan of garlic but this basically tasted like I was biting into a couple cloves of it.

We also got a hot red bean dessert which was pretty good despite the fact that I don’t really like this sort of thing. Not too sweet.

Service was prompt to say the least as I’m sure they wanted us to eat quickly and get out so they can get more table turnover. Our dishes arrived extremely quickly and for a short period of time, we had very little room on our table. I’m sure that some of it is prepared ahead of time to meet demand but everything was still piping hot and well cooked when it arrived. Other aspects of service were a bit spotty, though. Our tea was empty for a long period of time and one time, our waiter swapped half our plates and forgot the rest. I also have a bit of a problem with how they try to cram as many tables in the restaurant as possible. We got a pretty good spot but one unfortunate party was seated right next to the door…where all the people waiting for a table were standing around…standing above them watching them eat. That just seems like it shouldn’t happen…not to mention they probably got blasted with cold air and rain every time the door was opened.

Overall, a rather good meal. One might consider the price a bit steep but ingredients like king crab isn’t cheap. Ours was an eight pound crab so that accounted for about half the cost of the meal. It’s unfortunate that they’re so busy all the time and that compromises the experience a little bit but then again, do you really want to go to a restaurant that’s dead quiet? If you want to eat one of these giant crustaceans, give Empire Seafood Restaurant a go while the going is hot.

The previous two weeks have been so incredibly awesome that it’s been difficult for me and thousands of others to get back to normal. I mean, if you took a look at Twitter lately, you’ll probably see a lot of tweets reminiscing about and lamenting the fact that the Olympics have come and gone. John is far too old to have experienced anything but the tamest parts of the Olympics festivities but for those of us who lived through something as awesome as THIS, it’s no surprise we’ve got Olympic hangovers.

This week, we go to the happiest place on earth, Happy Pho, where we meet the president of Blenz Coffee, George Moen and I tell him that if he opens a place right outside my house, I would probably never have to leave. Conveniently, a coffee shop recently vacated a location on my street. Of course, I’d like a section just for me that’s fenced off by velvet rope or a cool VIP card…preferably one made from a solid piece of aluminum so it leaves a nice CLANK when you set it down on the counter.

Joining us this week is Aaron Koo, Michael Yurechko, Marilyn Anderson, Bonnie Sainsbury and Wolfgang. Apart from the Olympic hangover, I also tell of how I got my ass kicked at a concert and we order some all new items at Happy Pho.

Hang out with me long enough and you’ll realize that one of my biggest pet peeves is lining up. Queuing for anything regardless of what is just something I can’t stand doing for more than a couple minutes which is probably one of the reasons I didn’t try Kintaro until last week. As one of Vancouver’s most popular noodle places or heck, one of Vancouver’s most popular restaurants in general, the line-up outside the tiny establishment is ever-present. I love a good bowl of ramen but I don’t love it enough to stand behind a bunch of other people for an hour.

It might also have something to do with the fact that I’ve been to some of the best ramen places in Japan and in my mind, there is little that could stack up against the spectacular bowls of noodles that I’ve had in Tokyo and beyond.

The circumstances for my visit were rather perfect, actually. After standing out in the rain photographing the Olympic celebrations in and around downtown Vancouver, I was soaking wet, cold and craving something hot and soupy while I dried off. However, it was about 10:30pm and I didn’t expect much to be open since that’s generally the way things are in Vancouver. You’d be lucky to find something that isn’t McDonald’s open past 8. I usually took Denman to avoid all the road closures and in doing so, I stumbled upon the neon OPEN sign in front of Kintaro. I thought someone just left it on by accident but parking right outside, I could see that there were people inside and that the place didn’t close til 11pm!

I don’t like dropping in on restaurants that close to closing but I was starving. I was greeted by three extremely cheerful waitresses and two ramen chefs behind the counter as soon as I walked in, a good sign since that was the norm everywhere in Japan. A quick scan of the menu and the one dish that jumped out at me was the Miso Ramen, which had everything short of a boiled egg and, well, how can you not order something that so boldly states that it is “Kintaro’s BEST!!”

My waitress asked me whether I wanted it with light, medium or rich broth as well as lean or fat pork. Previous experiences with fat pork have me a bit scared of it since I’ve gotten pork that is literally just a big chunk of pig fat so I decided to play it safe with the lean pork and medium broth. This is, by all accounts, a mistake since after looking at pictures from other folks, the fat pork is still meat rather than all fat (and looks delicious).

The bowl is significantly bigger than I expected and unlike certain pho places around town, it is not just all soup. In fact, it’s a rather huge serving that had a big eater like me quite full at the end although monsterous eaters like Stephen Fung might still find themselves a bit wanting. With the noodles and pork, you get a load of corn, green onions and what I believe are bamboo shoots, one of my favorite things to go with noodles. They’re crunchy and taste great.

The noodles are fantastic with a great bit of bounce to them. Ramen should never be to soft. There should always be a certain degree of chew to the noodles and the noodles at Kintaro are certainly well made, comparable to some of the stuff I had in Japan. The serving is plentiful but I still wished there was more noodles.

I’m not quite sure if this is the regular serving of pork everyone gets or if I just got more since they were getting near the end of the night but I got about five or six rather large slices of pork. Despite being the leaner cuts, the pork was still quite flavorful and only a bit less tender than I prefer. Not dry but it could’ve been better. I imagine the fat pork has even more flavor. Next time…

The broth…well, the broth is amazing and packed with flavor, made from a dozen different spices and a blend of soy pastes. I’m glad I got the medium broth since it was plenty rich already and I enjoyed a lot of it with the bits of corn and green onion even after all my pork and noodles were gone. I imagine that the rich broth might be a bit too much and slurping it afterward would just result in a food coma minutes later.

Is Kintaro worth lining up for? For me, no…but that’s only because I hate lining up. If you’re more…normal, I’m sure even if you had to wait for a half hour or so, you’d be very happy with the food. I enjoyed myself and probably would’ve loved it even more had I ordered the fat pork since the lean pork was a bit of a miss for me.

At first glance, one might think that $8 is a bit much for a bowl of noodles but considering the quality of the food, the large serving that you get and the fact that most regular pho places charge a similar amount anyways, Kintaro is a steal. There are more interesting (and more expensive) options on the menu that I intend to try some other time. Anyone else want to join me for round two? It would have to be late night though…to avoid the crowds.

All in all, if you want something hot, soupy and delicious during the chilly, wet winter months here in Vancouver, stop by Kintaro and decide if you want to queue up. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

These last two and a half weeks have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I’ve been to a lot of places and seen a lot of different things. I’ve lived in Japan. I’ve lived in London. I’ve been to a World Cup tournament. I’ve seen some of the world’s biggest bands on the world’s biggest stages. The Vancouver 2010 Olympics have been as awesome…if not more so and it all happened here…at home.

It didn’t start well. There was the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. A hydraulic malfunction left our cauldron incomplete. There were all kinds of problems with the weather, the accomodations, the long line-ups and soon, we realized that we wouldn’t meet our lofty expectations when it came to medals.

But something crazy happened. The city of Vancouver, which has never been the most exciting place in the world, came alive. The party started right after the opening ceremonies and never really stopped. In fact, it only got louder, crazier and more awesome as the days went by. I didn’t actually get tickets to see any of the events in person but regardless, my Olympic experience has been just as incredible. I watched events in the streets, in bars, at event venues on big screens with the thousands of Canadians pouring into the city. I laughed, cheered, cried (if you didn’t get a couple tears in these last couple weeks…) high-fived, hugged, and took pictures with people I didn’t actually know. It didn’t matter. If you wore a maple leaf or some red and white, we were family…bound by shared support for our athletes.

Thank you, Canada…for being the greatest place on the planet. Thank you, Vancouver. This has been the best party ever. I’m thankful I was part of it.

That isn’t to say that everyone from elsewhere wasn’t awesome as well. Everyone from around the world, you made the party so much greater bringing a little bit of your home to ours. The obvious hit for me was Heineken House, which was the site of the Dutch party for the last couple week. It felt so familiar after the first couple times there, as the Dutch are as friendly as they are awesome.

Whether it was getting smashed and singing along to Da Coronas’ smashing rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody or singing/dancing along to the best song ever for reasons I still don’t understand, Heineken House was always a good time. The things that happened were always epic…although I’m sure I REALLY shouldn’t be telling some of the stories.

There was fun to be had everywhere from the Saxony House out in Stanley Park, the Swiss House on Granville Island…or heck, just hanging out with out-of-towners who were gracious enough to have their picture taken with or of by the thousands of crazy Canadians.

Thank you, world…for coming to our home. I hope you’ve enjoyed the last two and a half weeks as much as I have.

But as great as the party was, this was about sport. There are those in the world that don’t see the value of sport. Sport, along with music, art, and other things of the sort have the power to bring people together. It has the power to inspire and digs at that part of our hearts that realizes there’s something much bigger than ourselves. The athletes know this. They weren’t just there to win for themselves. They were there to win for us. They were there to win for Canada. They know it even if others don’t…that we are all Team Canada.

Again, that doesn’t mean athletes from elsewhere didn’t also put on a great show. Those US hockey teams? Amazing…they played every bit as hard and could’ve won if the puck bounced slightly differently. They have nothing to hang their heads about and I think most Canadians saw it as well. I mean, I’ve never seen a largely Canadian crowd chant U-S-A! before and yet, it happened. That’s how good you guys were.

Yu-na Kim, my god, that routine was gorgeous enough to bring tears to a beer-drinking, loud and shouty hockey fan. Shaun White proved that a man can fly and you crazy Norwegians, I can’t imagine curling now without wearing those pants.

Maybe it’s because I’m Canadian but our athletes transcended their sports. Our humble, gracious athletes showed us a part of themselves and shared with us their amazing stories. There’s Alex Bilodeau, the mogul of the moguls, inspired by his brother who is afflicted by cerebral palsy. Doctors told him he wouldn’t walk past the age of 10 but so many years later, he stands and cheers for Alex as loud as any Canadian.

There’s Joannie Rochette, who lost her mother just days before she was scheduled to skate. However, she found the courage to skate and win a bronze and a roaring ovation from the fans. I was at Holland Heineken House that night and despite the party atmosphere, the beer, and the raucous cheer that erupted for her, there were few dry eyes in the place.

There was Jon Montgomery, who injected fun into the games by just being awesome, chugging a pitcher of beer after he brought home Olympic gold and proudly waving our flag through the streets of Vancouver. He’s just one of many athletes that brought so much to the games by just being themselves, by just being Canadian. I mean, Maëlle Ricker was just being Maëlle Ricker and that giggle monster personality would’ve been awesome even if she wasn’t the first women to win gold in Canada.

There’s Olympic legend Clara Hughes, who is the only person to win multiple medals in both the summer and winter Olympics. However, more importantly, Hughes recognizes the importance of these games. A few days ago, she was quoted as saying something like if you measure the success here in medals, you’re crazy. Well, yes, the medals helped but this whole thing…it was about so much more than just winning.

There’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who’s great story of being partners since they were kids and how much they and their parents sacrificed to represent Canada made me want to watch figure skating. I can’t tell you how pumped I was to watch them skate, cheering as loud as I could in a sport where the fans are traditionally well behaved. It seemed like Scott agreed with me…cheering so hard that he shredded his flowers while waving the Canadian flag. However, he’s only second when it comes to celebrations…a spot occupied by Marianne St-Gelais, who cheered with such energy after watching boyfriend Charles Hamelin take gold after being shut out in his previous races.

And who could forget our amazing hockey teams. Our women’s team that showed us not only how to win but how to party. Personally, I had no doubt that our ladies would be taking home the gold as they have in the previous two Olympic games. They’re world class players and only the Americans have a team to rival them. After their victory, they caught a lot of flack from prudes and soccer moms saying they shouldn’t be drinking and smoking cigars. People, they won Olympic gold…they can do anything they want. It was amazing to see how many people come to their defense, drowning out the nutjobs.

Our men’s hockey team came into the tournament with monstrous expectation being, on paper, the best team in the tournament and perhaps in history. When they were a bit shaky in the round robin, you could hear the entire country groan. There wasn’t a single person in the country that wasn’t at least a little worried going into the gold medal game against the Americans after a nailbiter against a very good Slovakian team despite destroying the Russians just mere nights ago. I was among those slightly disappointed with Sidney Crosby for having a slightly disappointing tournament. But like all of our athletes, he and Team Canada rose to the occasion. They played their hearts out, played til they had nothing left. There’s nothing more we could ask of them.

The city erupted when we won that game…quite literally. I’m not kidding…there’s even a video taken from across the river downtown that proves my point. We let the world hear our pride. Despite some thinking we should maybe keep it down a bit, there was no way anyone was going to take anything away from the moment we’ve all been waiting for.

If that was a bit too long and you didn’t read, in short…thank you, Canadian athletes. We, your country, wanted you to be heroes. You…you were so much more. Thank you.

I decided to stay home tonight to recover from last night so I spent a few working on a new look. I’m trying out a new theme. It’s a work in progress so bear with me as I’m not exactly too handy when it comes to any sort of code or programming. It’s a lot of trial and error (mostly error) and adapting tips on the internet (that probably made a lot of sense to people writing them) to my useless understanding on the fly. Although I did like the old theme, I felt a lot of it was clutter…mostly my own doing so I’ve decided to go for clean, clean and more clean this time around.

Going with red this time around since the site has been blue for almost four years now and I’ve become a little bored with it. The red is a bit bolder with the white. I’ve also removed the cheesy looking chicklets for RSS and Twitter counts and I’ll be working on making the text versions look good.

By the way…can someone explain web-safe fonts to me? How come other sites have awesome looking fonts if they’re not web-safe?

In case you need a reminder, here’s what the site used to look like.

So let me know what you think. Like the new look? Hate it? Suggestions?

My body feels like it’s been run through a meat grinder so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m going to keep this short. Being right at the front of the crowd at tonight’s Girl Talk concert at LiveCity Yaletown, I took quite a beating. My lip is pretty busted from getting hit in the face by either crowd surfers or security bringing crowd surfers down and I’ve got a barrier-shaped bruise in my chest.

All worth it though because Gregg Gillis puts on an awesome show. In case you haven’t heard of him, Girl Talk is a mash-up DJ…combining two songs to make something completely different. Ever hear Biggie over a Miley Cyrus beat? Or Jay-Z over Radiohead? Some Queen with Cat Stevens? No? Didn’t think so.

Here’s a great video of what his shows are like live. Yes, there’s always a hundred random girls on stage shaking it to the craziness coming out of the speakers.

Also, congrats to our latest Olympic medalists! Continuing the trend of Canadian female dominance, our women shut the Americans out and brought home hockey gold!

Don’t listen to what those prudes say, girls. I thought your celebrations were totally awesome.

both of our 2-man women’s bobsled teams got on the podium, with Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse taking gold plus Helen Upperton and Shelly-Ann Brown getting the silver. After some controversy with the Korean team, our women’s 3000m short track relay team of Kalyna Roberge, Jessica Gregg, Marianne St-Gelais, and Tania Vicent brought us a silver.

Joannie Rochette, who lost her mother just before her Olympics started, bravely continued with the competition and won a bronze in ladies’ figure skating. Earlier today, our women’s curling team (Cori Bartel, Carolyn Darbyshire, Susan O’Connor, Kristie Moore and Cheryl Bernard) won silver, just narrowly missing the gold.

Today, our men didn’t do too shabby either with Charles Hamelin winning the 500m short track and Francois-Louis Tremblay winning the bronze. They were both also on the 5000m relay team with Olivier Jean, Guillaume Bastille, and Francois Hamelin that won gold.

Congrats to all our latest Olympic medalists. You’ve made our country incredibly proud.

Even if you didn’t get tickets to any of the Olympic events or maybe all that’s on that day is curling and you’re not really into it (I wouldn’t know why because curling is AWESOME.), Vancouver is still an extremely fun place to be between all the great parties going on at the various houses, concerts at LiveCity and the Richmond O-Zone or just soaking up the great atmosphere in a city that traditionally doesn’t have a lot going on.

However, if you don’t want to wait in line for hours, there’s still a lot happening on the streets from all the various performers and there is a great open stage on Robson right next to the skating rink that features some great music at night.

I dropped by a few nights ago and caught a set by Alex*Cuba, who is apparently more popular than I thought since I got a number of responses on Twitter when I mentioned I was editing my photos of him. I guess I should’ve known since the crowd was pretty big and everyone was loving the party atmosphere and Latin sound.

During the day and weather permitting, there are a number of great acts along Robson Street (and sometimes Granville). These guys are the Now or Never crew, a group of Canadian b-boys that put on a gravity defying show that certainly attracts a huge crowd. I couldn’t make my way to the front the first time so I waited around at the end for them to start up again.

Also, congrats to our latest Olympic champion, Ashleigh McIvor, in ski-cross!

And I could never forget to mention Canadian hero Clara Hughes, who brought us a bronze in the 5000m this morning. Clara is the only person to ever win multiple medals in both the winter and summer Olympics. She’s in a class all by herself. Congrats to our Olympians!

Unfortunately, AJ failed at focusing when it came time for my picture with Maëlle (he will receive the beating of a lifetime later!) so that’s why it looks like this but I managed to get a couple of great shots of her and some autographs as well.

Watching perhaps the greatest group of hockey players ever assembled by my home country bring home our first hockey gold in fifty years, I couldn’t help but tear up in one of the only situations where it is okay for a man to do so. Heck, to this day when I even think about that moment, I have to hold back emotion. I cheered as loud as I could. No one else was home to hear me but it didn’t matter. There were 33 million people cheering with me. This is what Team Canada truly embarks on today. No offense to Norway or Switzerland as they gave us great efforts but the United States is the first real test of our strength.

So let’s show the world what this country is made of, Team Canada. Show them that they can’t come to our backyard and take this away from us. Hockey is our game. Sure, other countries have adopted it and made solid teams here and there but there is no other nation where hockey is as ingrained and essential to culture as it is here. No one loves hockey as we do. In this country, there is nothing greater. Nothing that brings more people together. Nothing that we take more pride in.

So your country asks of you, Team Canada…play every game as if it was your last. There is no tomorrow! A few great Canadians have already taken their place in history at these games. Bring us more! Fight for Canada’s honor. For pride. For glory. For your country. Go big or go home? We’re already at home…so we can only go big! Go big, Canada!

I was a Our Lady Peace fan back when they peaked about ten years ago but to be honest, they haven’t really put out anything I’ve been interested in for their last two albums. Regardless, given the chance to see them play live, I wasn’t exactly going to miss it even just to re-live some of my youth. Their music is interesting with thoughtful lyrics, arena rock riffs and Raine Maida’s signature erratic squawk.

They played some great old favorites like Somewhere Out There, Innocent, Superman’s Dead and 4 A.M., which really got the crowd going. They are a fantastic live band and there was all kinds of craziness around including a lot of crowd surfing! Unfortunately, there were several people in the crowd causing some trouble, leading security to get into the crowd and kick some ass. Lucky for me, I was right in front where all the folks around me were friendly and some were just massive OLP fans, making it extra fun to sing along to lyrics that I somehow remembered even though it’s been so long.

I was fortunate to be right up front against the barrier which gave me a great vantage point. More pictures are up on my Flickr.

Even if you weren’t lucky enough to score tickets to an Olympic event, there’s still lots and lots of fun to be had in Vancouver right now…far more than there usually is. To be honest, there isn’t much to do in the city on a regular basis and many of us Vancouver residents are lamenting going back to normal because the city has been on fire with entertainment for the last week. Going back to reality is going to be a pain so we’ve got to party hard while the Olympics are in town!

Robson Street is usually where it’s at regardless of what day or time it is in Vancouver so during the Olympics, the fun is multiplied. Each night there’s a laser/fireworks show on (I believe at 11pm) that’s pretty spectacular.

You might also want to head over to Science World where the Russians set up Sochi House, showing the world where the next Winter Olympics will be held in 2014. The line can get pretty long so try to not go at peak times.

Apart from the many corporate displays (overseen almost exclusively by gorgeous Russian women), there’s lots of live entertainment around.

I think I scared this clown…

There’s also quite a few hockey displays, like these jerseys you might recognize if you’re a hockey fan. There’s also a couple with relics from the 1972 Summit Series, including gear worn by legendary goalie Vladislav Tretiak.

If you just want to walk around the streets, there are a number of street performers downtown putting on shows for donations. I caught these two rather large men trying to escape from a straight-jacket and some seriously thick rope.

Of course, the best free entertainment in town? All the awesome free concerts going on. More on that later…or you might get some early looks on my Flickr.

Congrats to our latest Olympic champions, Christine Nesbitt in 1000m speedskating and Vancouver’s own Maëlle Ricker for snowboard cross!

The Olympics get better by the day. Go Canada go!!!

Amidst all the celebrations surrounding the Olympics around town these last few days, there have been several groups taking the opportunity to bring attention to their respective causes. After the violence and vandalism that erupted downtown on Saturday, it was difficult to take any of this seriously. When I got word that there would be an anti-war march happening last night, I thought it might be more of the same although it would be rather ironic if folks preaching about peace were the ones throwing things through windows.

However, none of that happened and it was a rather peaceful event. In fact, it was many of the bystanders being jerks with one old man in particular shouting (repeatedly) something about berqa. I am still rather pro-Olympics as I think sport and competition is awesome but I can respect a peaceful demonstration with something to say.

That being said, it seems that the protesters were rather disorganized, in my opinion. Several people I talked to had different messages than that being shouted on the megaphone. Heck, one of the guys on the megaphone was all over the place and didn’t really make any sense, confusing the crowd so much that they weren’t really cheering for him after awhile. A few others seemed to just be there and not taking it all that seriously.

There were a couple people that were rather rude and another seemingly trying to rile the protesters up to make some trouble but they were in the minority. This grey haired guy on the left was quite angry that all this was taking place and rushed up the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery wanting to take the megaphone, which resulted in Confusing Guy shouting expletives at him.

Most of them were friendly, including this adorable dog. How can you say no to cute pooch like this?

I followed from the start to the finish, which was at a makeshift tent shelter set up at a vacant lot near the Woodwards building. The area was populated with much of the Downtown Eastside’s homeless, surrounding flaming barrels with improvised chairs.

More pictures on my Flickr as I edit.

Obviously the biggest news of yesterday is that for the first time on home soil, we’ve got gold. A new Canadian hero is born in Alex Bilodeau, who took home gold in the men’s mogul, just one day after fellow mogul skier Jenn Heil came so very close. Canada is proud of you, Alex! You’ll now live forever in Canadian lore! I watched the interview shortly after he took home the gold and you’d struggle to find a better Canadian champion than Bilodeau, a humble 22-year old from Rosemere, Quebec who dedicated his run to his family including his older brother. Bilodeau credits his brother with being his inspiration as he suffers from cerebral palsy but refuses to let it limit him. I got a little teary as such an inspirational story unfolded on TV. We also picked up a bronze in the 3,000 women’s speedskating event as Kristina Groves held the 3rd spot at the Richmond Olympic Oval.

Watch out world. We’ve got our first gold medal of 2010…and it definitely won’t be our last!

As you can imagine, the city was in pandemonium shortly afterwards with large pockets of celebration happening all around the downtown area. The Granville area was the rowdiest with a large Canadian congregation bursting out into O Canada and proudly chanting our country’s name. The Canadian jerseys, flags and other various items of celebratory clothing were in full force.

Of course, in terms of hats, no one is going to compete with this guy!

I also came across CTV out in their booth doing the nightly news, including the always gorgeous Tamara Taggart.

Tomorrow’s events include another match for the Canadian women’s hockey team and the start of the snowboarding events!

With the first events of the 2010 Winter Olympics starting in mere hours, the Dot Com Pho crew gathered for a quick lunch to celebrate and what better place to celebrate than the happiest restaurant in the city? Strangely, though, Happy Brian was mostly absent today until we were almost done so I can only conclude that he was caught up in the Olympics as well, watching it in the back while his staff did most of the work for the day. I guess I would’ve done the same!

This week, we talk about the Olympic protesters, a dish at Happy Pho we’ve never, ever ordered or seen before, Google Buzz and we look ahead at what the Apple iPad will look like when it arrives in two months.

The second day of the 2010 Olympics started with quite a commotion as protesters resorted to violence and vandalism, trashing several stores on Georgia St. just before noon. Unfortunately, I wasn’t down there for photos since I was taking pictures downtown as well as on the Burrard St. bridge til almost 6am and I was still taking a nap. If you want to see pictures, check out Shot in Vancouver. From what I can see, several windows were smashed and there’s quite a few incidents involving scuffles between the police and the protesters. From folks on the ground near the action, I’m told that several protesters were intimidating pedestrians that were not involved and there may have been some conflicts between them and pro-Olympic crowds partying downtown.

I arrived downtown after today’s Dot Com Pho and by 2:30pm, all the damage done by the protesters had already been mostly repaired. Actually, all the newspaper boxes had been cleaned up and all windows were already fixed except one. The last was the window of The Bay, which was almost done by the time I got there. Of course, with such ridiculous antics from protesters earlier, it was no surprise that in general, people saw them extremely negatively. One lady was standing outside the broken Bay window with the following sign.

The best thing about all this is…for the most part, no one seems to know anything about the protesters’ agendas and issues. I find myself in the vast minority here since I know exactly what they’re on about. I mean, I have no interest in any of it but I know what’s going on. However, most people I spoke to and conversations I overheard in downtown Vancouver sounded roughly the same.

“Geez, what happened here? What were those guys protesting about anyways?

“No idea…but who cares? Only a bunch of idiots would do stuff like this.”

So there you have it, protesters. Your goal was to disrupt the games? You may have gotten a few more police officers downtown for an hour or two but in less than three, everything was cleaned up and looked like business as usual. Plus, everyone thinks you’re a bunch of jackasses and that VANOC was justified in spending that extra amount on event security.

Understandably, a lot of people are upset by this and I’ve heard rumors of people gathering the next time the protesters assemble for…well, less than peaceful conflict resolution. However, that’s probably just giving them the attention that they want. If you really want to shove it in their face, people of Vancouver…just ignore them. Put on your red mittens and party like you’ve never partied before! Show them that they can’t ruin our fun.

For more on the day’s events, check out local social media coverage at Miss604 and Duane Storey.

Of course, being the Olympics, there’s all sorts of awesomeness happening downtown. It didn’t start well, though…with my parking meter telling me I somehow failed at parking.

Myself and Darthchilli came across a flash crowd, dancing in the middle of Robson Street.

Will even managed to win a t-shirt from CTV…

…while I got some light up plastic noisemakers.

Oh, and earlier in the day, I was in the middle of the celebrations on Granville St. as well as checking out the lights from Burrard. Those pictures I’ll post later. At around 4:30am, I was at the site of the Olympic cauldron, which is mostly fenced off to the public for the time being. I imagine they will be for another couple days before they’re ready to open it up.

Lastly (but not least), congratulations to Jenn Heil for winning the silver in moguls, the first of Canada’s medals in 2010! Also congrats for great performances from Chloe Dufour-Lapointe (she’s only 18 and placed 5th!), Kristi Richards (that last jump was awesome!) as well as our athletes in the men’s 1500m speed skating, with Olivier Jean taking 4th.

I’ll be following the Olympics closely for the next two weeks so stay tuned!

Let me just say that these people by no means represent all of UBC. In fact, there was a crowd of thousands out on campus celebrating the start of the Olympic games. As a UBC alum myself, I can say they definitely do not represent my sentiments. If you follow me on Twitter, you’d probably know that I take a firm pro-Olympic stance. Unfortunately, not everyone in Vancouver feels the same about the Olympics and protesters have been coming out and disturbing various Olympic events surrounding the running of the torch this week.

On Thursday, they were at UBC where the torch was expected to arrive after a tour of the Vancouver area. Seriously, though, the time to protest was months or years ago. With a day to go before the game start, why bother? It’s not like the IOC or the government is going to say “Oh man, we better put a stop to the Olympics!” after seeing about fifty people shouting nonsensical chants and trying to prevent the torch from making it to its destination.

It was good to see much of the crowd ignore them. Heck, some of them even went and celebrated as the protesters were trying to block traffic, like this guy.

My biggest problems with the protesters are these. It’s quite evident that many of them are “professional” protesters, bringing up issues that have little or nothing to do with the Olympics, meaning they’re just using the games to get the issues they want into the spotlight. Secondly, it’s not like they’re going to ruin the game for the vast majority of people with what they’re doing but just today, when the torch had to reroute due to a protest march near Victory Square, that meant that a large number of veterans who had gathered to see the torch were passed by. What’s more…there were kids that were out there with the promise of seeing the Olympic flame. Those are the folks I feel for the most out of all this, especially the kids. They don’t know anything about any of these issues. All they know is that a bunch of jerks cheated them out of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take part in an Olympic event. That’s not exactly going to bring a positive light to any cause they’re supporting.

On a much more positive note, the UBC celebration was pretty awesome as well with a very large crowd (that drowned out any complaining from the small group of protesters). Thousands braved the heavy rain and carried candles as it got dark. Unfortunately, it was too dark for me to get any decent pictures…and I was soaked to the bone by the time the festivities were finishing up…but it was good to be back on campus, especially since I didn’t have to hit the books anymore!