I seem to have picked up a tendency to use teenager-speak (“this is, like, totally cool” or my recent “best patio, like, ever!”) and I am sure my friends find it kind of cute. Anyhow, this stage will soon be over, but I want to be able to say that Commercial Drive is like, totally underrated.
I have had the pleasure of helping Copper Lioness pack some of her stuff to send out to the Old Continent and therefore, have spent the past few days hanging around Commercial Drive. Let me just mention a few of the gems I walked by each day.
Addis Cafe and Harambe. — Ethiopian food. Amazing food that you eat with your fingers. Enough said.
Wazubee – Cool bar to have a drink and hang out with your buddies.
Cafe Deux Soleil and Cafe Du Soleil – Similar names, different target markets, both totally cool.
Continental – Best coffee, like, ever. Well, with the exception of Delaney’s.
Waves on Commercial Drive – Awesome place to use wireless.
Van East Cinema – the exterior may look crappy but it’s showing The Bourne Ultimatum. Sorry, that’s just too cool.
JJ Beans — Great patio and interesting customers
And a whole slew of other awesome places ….
The list is way too long. I was going to make notes but I’ve been so tired from all the packing and stuff that I just didn’t want to do it. But I promise I’ll be doing lots (and by lots, I mean LOTS) of restaurant and coffee place reviews. Commercial Drive, here I come!
I don’t think I ever reflected on dating in my teens or early twenties. I was too occupied with sports, arts, my studies and volunteering to have time to think about relationships. Love? What’s that? So you mean I actually have to consider loving someone in a romantic way?
It wasn’t until I moved to Canada, and started dating again that I actually thought about something that has recently struck me [yet again] as the process we follow to fall in love. It all starts (apparently) with getting to know someone.
I used to believe that people fell in love magically, that somehow sparks just flew between two individuals and voila! – now they’re in love! Through time, my own experiences and the privilege of witnessing other friends’ evolving romantic relationships, I have come to appreciate the value of getting to know people.
And this idea does not apply only to romantic relationships. It applies to all sorts of relationships. I pride myself in being a good friend and in having amazing friends as well. And if I have to reflect on how my great friends and I came together, I am pretty sure it all started with trying to get to know each other. It was the amazing process of discovering the person that I had met at a conference, at a friends’ party, in my dorm, at my school, through another friend, over the internet (yay Facebook, MySpace and blogs!), etc.
And now that I do know these people in a more personal way, I am amazed at the fact that this idea (the value of getting to know someone, regardless of whether you want to date them or just be friends) was so neat. To my loved ones (friends and family), thank you for giving me the privilege of getting to know you.
Sometimes I wonder if humanity will actually ever reach a point of high maturity. It only took us what, two thousands years to realize that we can indeed reduce our impact on the environment? Duh!
As a single male who loves to cook (and shop) I have always tried to find ways to reduce my shopping bag consumption. So I recently found out that two of my favorite Canadian stores have recycled shopping bags to help reduce usage of plastic bags when buying groceries. It was SO hard to find information on the web regarding Safeway’s recycled shopping bag. However, on Superstore’s website I did find a wealth of information on different products they have to help reduce our impact on the environment.
I have recycled shopping bags from both stores as I often shop in both of them (for different products). Great idea! And apparently, SuperValue also has them? I’d appreciate any information from my readers on other green bag providers. Thanks!
The Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP) is an international competition for students between the ages of 15 to 20 to encourage them to work on water problems and devise ingenious solutions to these. The 2007 SJWP went to Adriana Alcántara-Ruiz, Dalia Graciela Díaz-Gómez, and Carlos Hernández-Mejía from Mexico. Congratulations!!!! [Of course and not surprisingly, not many Mexican media outlets have made a fuss about this… why am I not surprised? Although I am happy that sources like Proceso, La Jornada and Reforma actually did pick on it.]
Mexicans have also made a presence in Stockholm in the past. Andrea Biswas-Tortajada won an honorable mention in the 2005 Best Poster Award competition for her poster on “Impact of Global Mega-Conferences on Water” (see pag. 14 of Stockholm Waterfront September 2005). Also, Itzel Garcia-Silva and Liliana Vargas-Meneses from Mexico were also awarded Diplomas of Excellence in the 2005 SJWP competition (see pag. 20 of Stockholm Waterfront September 2005). Congratulations to them too!
There are many reasons to love Mexico and Mexican culture. It is sometimes frustrating that soccer football (traditionally the national sport) receives so much attention, and that so many negative things are said about Mexico (more so by some Mexican natives). As I often tell my friends, there are many good things about Mexico and not everything is negative (although I am keenly aware of those negative aspects). It saddens me thus to only hear the complaints and not to hear praise for Mexican people who work really hard.
One such great Mexican representative is Lorena Ochoa. A 25-yr old golfer, Ochoa just recently won the Women’s Golf Canadian Open and the Women’s British Open. She is currently the world’s top ranked female golfer, which in and of itself should make all Mexicans proud. But we see the flags waving when Mexico wins two rounds of the World Soccer Cup. I want to ask those who live in Mexico now whether there is a national outburst of pride with Lorena Ochoa’s accomplishments. I doubt that there is such collective hysteria as when the Mexican national team wins one or two rounds, but I just want to take this opportunity to congratulate Lorena for her achievements. Well done!
Ok, so I am a fan of Matt Damon, I’ll confess. I like the guy. He is a good actor, and he’s done great work. But I am not 100% sure I am in love with The Bourne Ultimatum. I really had a great time hanging out with B, J, H, K, M, B and J (how funny – two of the couples within my group of friends have the same initials — hehehe I just clued in). We went to Sodas for dinner and then the Dunbar Theatre to watch a late show of The Bourne Ultimatum. Now, pointer in case you want to do dinner and a movie. If you show your ticket stub from the Dunbar Theatre at Sodas you can get 10% discount on your bill, which is pretty damn cool. This particular group of friends is really fun to hang out with.
Anyhow, basically The Bourne Ultimatum is the story of how Jason Bourne finds out what happened to him and how he became a trained assassin. Lots of action (IMHO not enough, I wanted to see more ultimate-killer type of martial arts ) and fairly good acting on the part of Joan Allen, Matt Damon and Julia Stiles. Would recent viewers say that the plot lines get resolved? I don’t think so, personally.
I normally avoid movies that depict gay and lesbian issues in ways that perpetuate long-standing clichés (such as the idea that all hair stylists and florists are gay) like the plague. Nevertheless, this is an excellent and heart-warming movie that, while using some stereotypes, still tries to bring across an important message: everyone (regardless of sexual orientation) has the same rights.
In Wedding Wars, John Stamos portrays the gay brother of Eric Dane. Stamos’ character (Shel) is planning Ben’s wedding to the daughter of a Conservative governor (this movie is set in the US). So when Shel finds out that Ben is opposed to gay marriage (as is Ben’s future father-in-law) he goes on strike. His efforts soon gather national support and thus frustrate his brother’s impending nuptials. You can rent it at pretty much any video store, worth watching. It’s heart-warming and makes the point quite well.
I confess that I’m always two or three generations behind insofar electronics goes. I got a laptop years after everyone else already had one. I did not own a cell phone until 2005 and I had never switched on my TV until May 2007. So the past few months, it’s been all about getting new equipment.
My very good friend A gave me a 27″ TV, which actually does talk to my DVD player (generously given to me by my brother). When J was setting it up, he said a phrase that made me laugh and stuck to my head, so I thought I’d share it with you…”well, you are now in three-remote territory“.
After the laughter I actually realized that I am indeed in the land of three remotes. I do not own a universal remote. And it does make things complicated. But to be fair, now I can invite good friends over to watch movies instead of having to use my laptop for movie shows (which was annoying because sometimes my laptop would malfunction right in the middle of a great movie).
On an unrelated note, sorry for not posting content over the weekend. Way too much socializing and very little time to write meaningful posts. I have prepared drafts on various topics, including the recently released study on diversity and social capital, movie review (“Wedding wars”), and updates on a socially-packed weekend. More coming soon…
Having a knack for languages (and being able to speak more than two) I’ve always enjoyed meeting people whose fluency goes beyond the usual “como esta?“. Two of my very best friends [S and A, both female] speak what would be considered native-level Spanish, and three of my nieces do as well. As I was thinking about what I could blog about in this regard, I found out that Gwyneth Paltrow is set to co-host a food show in Spain. In case you guys didn’t know, Paltrow is fluent in Spanish. I had the chance to hear a live interview with her and was quite impressed by her mastery of the language.
So if you happen to need some good help translating from English to Spanish and viceversa, you probably may want to go over to my very good friend Sara’s blog. Her blog is intended to showcase terminology for social movement activists, particularly in the South. Qué buena idea!
UPDATE .- Actually I forgot to mention that L also speaks excellent Español. L is now in South America, but she is going to come back to me soon!!!
I went to Mahony & Sons with my good friend JH who had just defended her Masters thesis. She’s super smart, super sweet and really fun to hang out, and we had to celebrate. Two colleagues joined for a bit and then it was just J and I, and we had a long nice chat over a jug of beer (which I am proud to say, we finished all by ourselves – and I still could walk home).
On to the review. Best patio, like, ever! [insert early twenties voice]. Excellent beer. Top notch service, the waitress was super attentive and really friendly. Yam fries rock. Would I recommend Mahony & Sons for a drink and some appetizers? Absolutely.
While I have to say that I am quite happy that the Vancouver civic strike has made people are now thinking again about another environmental issue other than climate change (hey, we do have other environmental problems, you know?), I can’t fathom why the Vancouver strike hasn’t settled yet. Well, actually I can… I know, it’s all about lack of consensus … *sigh* And you would believe that in a society where consensus-building is considered as such a big part of public policy-making, we would be able to settle strikes fast (as Delta, Richmond and other municipalities within the Greater Vancouver Regional District have already done).
Anyhow, this is actually part of a public announcement. Our fellow blogger @ Rant!Vancouver has requested that local Vancouver bloggers post a link to his website, as he recently found out that someone had driven to a park and dumped garbage there, so he is trying to find said driver.
In the mean time, please consider following the recycle hierarchy, compost, reduce garbage generation in each household and more importantly, please don’t forget that there are many other environmental problems that have synergistic negative effects, so if you are worried about climate change, please also think (and act) to reduce other potential sources of environmental deterioration (such as e-waste, excessive water consumption, etc.). Thanks.
This time I’m not blogging about the equipment I recently acquired (as I usually do) but about the equipment I should have acquired. A few weeks back, I saw what I thought was a really good backpack on sale, and I figured “hey I need a new backpack, why not“, went ahead and bought it. Well, I paid the price of a bad purchase.
I bought a couple of bottles of wine to bring to one of the parties I recently attended (one Chardonnay and one Cabernet-Sauvignon). You know, in case someone likes red and somebody likes white wine. So in an effort to be environmentally friendly (and given the current status of garbage collection in Vancouver), I refused to have the bottles packed in plastic bags and instead put them in said backpack.
No later than two minutes, my backpack straps got untied and the contents fell right off. Of course, as you can imagine, disaster ensued. Luckily, only the Chardonnay broke but obviously, the content of my backpack got totally soaked in white wine. And even luckier, it wasn’t the red wine that broke.
The part that really annoyed me is that some of my research notebooks got totally soaked, which doesn’t bode well for my notes. I haven’t even wanted to open them yet (I just let them dry off) but I am just bracing for the worst.
So the moral of the story? If you are going to buy a backpack, make sure it is a good one. I know for sure my next backpack will be a very good one. Not doing it again!
This week I had to go through it again. One of my best friends, Copper Lioness is moving to the Netherlands with her husband (Dutch Boy). This is one of the cutest couples I’ve ever come across. Sweet, smart, well-educated and with hearts of gold. They couldn’t have just one farewell party so they organized two. I went to both, of course. Hey, these are people that are near and dear to my heart! I can’t not show up.
The first one was awesome. I went with A to this one. A and I are extremely close and we treat each other like siblings, which is awesome. She’s also good friends with Copper Lioness. On Saturday, I went to the party with H, B and a friend of H. We met lots of fun people. This second going away party was just as fun as the previous one, with the difference that at this one I profusely demonstrated my capacity to be over-protective.
I will definitely visit Copper Lioness and Dutch Boy when I am in Europe next (potentially Paris trip in the next few weeks). But I’ll definitely miss them and it really does suck that I have to say good-bye yet again! 🙁
Moving to Canada meant for me a profound transformation of my musical tastes. I first started listening to groups such as matchbox twenty, The Tragically Hip and the Matthew Good Band and Muse. Admittedly, only Tragically Hip and Matthew Good Band are really Canadian, but these bands I mentioned have started to shape my taste for rock bands.
The lyrics of Downfall by matchbox twenty (actually most of any of their stuff I’ve heard) are somewhat annoying for me because I find them portraying co-dependent people (e.g. “Be my savior and I’ll be your downfall”). Excuse me? I’ll be your downfall“? No, no, no! I pride myself in not being co-dependent. That’s why I don’t like the vast majority of their lyrics. I have the same feeling with “Bent”.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I love their music. This is awesome rock. If I ever get a chance to sing with a live band, I want to sing this song. The version you can appreciate here is sung live. I can tell you this much: it sounds exactly like the version I have from their 2004 album. That’s really rare, that a band sounds the same live than non-live.
A large majority of my friends live in the South Granville/Kitsilano area. I lived there myself for almost 6 years before moving further east, and therefore I know where to eat in Kits if need be. K and L had wanted to try Browns Social House for brunch and I agreed, so off we went.
I want to imagine that this place is much better at night, but I can’t help but agree with the first comment I found on DineHere.ca on Browns Social House. The music was super loud, so I had to ask them to lower the volume. And, at best, their brunch food is mediocre. I ordered a basic brunch with eggs with sausage and toast which was overpriced at $ 9.00. I had to customize my order to have it with scrambled eggs (which are in no way close to Burgoo’s or Crave on Main’s scrambled eggs). My friends K and L requested a chicken salad that was totally drenched in dressing. Overall, not a nice experience.
Now, the staff is totally sweet and nice, but they really need to update their brunch-serving skills. There’s an art in how to serve brunch food. You need to offer sauces (hot sauce, HP sauce), refills on coffee and water, jam for your toast and ketchup. I had to request, well, pretty much everything. And the servers (again, totally sweet) looked almost puzzled that we were asking for “can you bring me some HP sauce, hot sauce, jam“?
I eat out a lot, and I am a loyal customer of a lot of different restaurants, from very fancy, high-end to holes-in-the-wall. But I can tell you this much: I am not coming back to Browns Social House. As we say in my family “debut y despedida” (debut and farewell). If I want awesome brunch, I can go to any of Crave on Main, The Nice Cafe, Sunset Grill, and the list goes on. Browns does not qualify in my books as the place to go for brunch. Maybe I’ll try it for dinner or drinks. But not any time soon.
UPDATE – I had to edit this entry because my very good friend L reminded me that it was incredible that we had to basically ask for scrambled eggs and that Browns’ scrambled eggs do not compare in any way, shape or form to Crave on Main or Burgoo’s. So if you want unbelievable scrambled eggs (and brunch, in general) – two of my favorite restaurants, Crave or Burgoo. I recently had brunch at The Nice Cafe and Rhizome, two of my other favorites.
I refused to own a cell phone for the longest time, up until 2005, when I found out that my work and personal life were both so inextricably linked to the use of a cell phone that I had to get one. I basically got it so that I could call my parents all the time from wherever I was (I’m a bit of a worry-wart, so I tend to worry about how they’re doing).
Now that I am back in Vancouver, I use my cell phone all the time, although I do have a land line. I use it because I have a pretty active social life and people love to call me. If I didn’t have a cell phone, I wouldn’t be able to organize my social calendar at all. Anyhow, a number of our friends were chatting about how there has been a shift from ‘dialing under the influence’ (DUI, the same acronym used for “driving under the influence” (although my friend A also calls it ‘don’t drink and dial’, similar to ‘don’t drink and drive’) to ‘texting under the influence’.
On the night of the finale of the HSBC Celebration of Lights, I was guilty of intexticating. This made-up word means ‘texting under the influence’. Yeah, I sent a drunken text message to someone I’m interested in. And another one to a very close friend of mine saying “miss you and wish you were here”. So, really, nothing to be ashamed of. But it’s funny how things shift.
So the lesson, my friends: don’t dial, text, email or blog under the influence. Bad things can happen! According to Wikipedia, drunk dialing often associated with booty calling 🙂 [but I plead the Fifth here]… Not that there’s anything wrong with booty calls, but I’m just saying …
About two weeks ago, a bunch of my good friends left town or were unable to meet with me. One was in San Francisco, one in Edmonton, one in Montreal (visiting with another very close friend of mine who just moved there), one was in Nunavut , one was in Chicago, one is in Africa on holiday, three (yes, you heard right) were in Calgary for the long weekend, three were busy with work, one is in Croatia, and the story goes on.
So in the end the Blogathon weekend was somewhat of a nightmare for me in terms of emotional support. I won’t deny that I did receive moral support (and generous donations), my out-of-town friends gave me a call as soon as they got back, and even my friends who were busy with work called me over the weekend to see how I was doing. I also had the the moral support of my monitor and Rebecca (Miss604), who also Blogathoned (in her case, for the Surrey Food Bank). But I was really unable to hang out in person with my close friends (something extremely rare for me). My weekends are usually booked solid because I love seeing people in person.
So last weekend, when I was having breakfast with B, H, and A, I complained [of course, jokingly!] that they had abandoned me. But this rare occurrence (so many of my friends either out of town or unable to hang out with me due to work/personal commitments) made me think about statistical improbabilities. How likely is it for someone like me, with such a strong and solid network of friends, to have a vast majority of my close friends unable to hang out?
I consider myself a quantitative person. I like data and I like making statistical inferences. But I just found this extremely funny, the fact that so many good friends were out of town or super busy. There is no way to make sense through statistics. I guess it’s summer 🙂 And for the love of God you guys, please don’t do this to me again!
For more obvious reasons than the fact that she hails from beautiful British Columbia, I really like Nelly Furtado’s music. Born in Victoria (as indicated by her Wikipedia biography), Nelly has a very broad variety of musical tastes and this is reflected in her creative song output. This is perhaps one of the songs that I like the most. Say It Right has amazing tones and Nelly’s voice really shines. This collaboration with Timbaland is considered “R&B” by Wikipedia, but I really don’t care much how it’s classified as much as how enjoyable it is. Whether working out, writing or reading, I can always listen to this tune. I found the video shown below.
So a few weeks back, I was reading an article by Agasel on Beyond Robson that promoted the use of a cute little button (see picture on BR’s link or Ok! Social website) that is intended to promote friendly behavior on our part. That is, if you see me wearing my Ok button, you should feel free to approach me and strike a conversation.
I am the kind of guy who would actually need to be looking for the Ok buttons, because I have a tendency to strike up conversations with strangers like there’s no tomorrow. And I tend to be a bit of a social butterfly, but the truth is, I enjoy the idea of the Ok button because I think Vancouver’s shell sometimes can be hard to crack (I have a post that I am preparing on Vancouver’s effect on people but I am not ready to post it yet).
It’s pretty hard to randomly speak to someone you do not know on the streets of Vancouver. Even in public spaces, without a personal reference or formal introduction, it just isn’t commonly done. Making small talk in the course of our daily lives contributes to a sense of community and well being. In addition, a chance conversation can lead to new friendships, adventures, and experiences.
The OK button
An OK button is handsome and functional. You wear it as you navigate your day. It tells people that you’re not only great to talk to, but you like the idea of a warmer and more open city. It’s an icon to let people know that it’s OK if they actually try and speak with you. That’s all there is to it.
At any rate, Steve from OkSocial.org was kind enough to send me my Ok buttons for free, which I really really appreciated (I live in Vancouver). But I just recently found out that he and his team are shipping them all over the world, so I’d recommend you to go and get your Ok button and start striking conversations! Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any weirdos that approach you whether you’re wearing your Ok button or not.
Everyone who knows me even if just a little bit knows that I am in love with the City of Light… Paris, France. I know the city like the palm of my hand and have been there longer and many more times than I care to remember. With all these internet memes, I always wondered if somebody had done a quiz of which city best represented you, or what city do you belong in. Well, somebody has already thought of that… and I have no idea how, but they are right!
You Belong in Paris
Stylish and expressive, you were meant for Paris. The art, the fashion, the wine! Whether you’re enjoying the cafe life or a beautiful park… You’ll love living in the most chic place on earth.
I know all too well the perils of posting a half-baked idea on the web for everyone to see. However, this is a question I have had in my mind for quite a while. Recently some people I care for (and some people I am starting to care about) have indicated that this city (beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia) is poison for them. The context being, that we are able to find wonderful friends but that finding steady, true, meaningful love in this city is not easy and that they’d be better off in other cities.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I am lucky enough that I have built a strong network of close friends and a large enough network of buddies/acquaintances in the city. My close friends always have my back and are always there when I need them. I am very fortunate in this regard. I have also fallen in love while living here (however ephemeral that relationship might have been). On the other hand, this is the city where I had my heart broken for the first (and so far only) time. I don’t really know if I will be able to find a mate here. Vancouver seems sometimes so… clique-ish.
So, having posed the context, my larger question is – is this phenomenon occurring to more people? Do you feel that Vancouver is not giving you what you need? Is it the city? Is it the folks living in the city? Or what is it? I am very curious to know, particularly because it’s not the first time someone has told me that they don’t feel at home here (and I am talking, some people who are born and raised in Vancouver!)
As I had indicated before, I rarely go to Richmond, unless I am visiting my good friends B and C. They suggested to do dinner at a new sushi place, Ebisu in Richmond, so off we went. The place in itself is neat and somewhat sophisticated. It was super busy, which made our wait to order rather long. And to be very frank, I do appreciate a short wait. Anyhow, we ordered our food, which was good although their specialty sushi rolls were (how do I say this nicely) strange. They looked very pretty but they tasted weird.
Prices are steep for specialty rolls (4 pieces for $6 CND?!) but overall the rolls are excellent. I ordered gyozas and they were super tasty (particularly with the sauce they brought). I also shared some of B and C’s BC rolls and California rolls, which were big and filling.
Would I go all the way to Richmond to eat at Ebisu? I probably wouldn’t since I live in Vancouver, but to be very fair, the place was packed. I am going to guess that these people live in Richmond and value a nice sushi place. And this is a nice place, with good food (albeit slightly expensive). Overall rating: good.
By now, everyone who is close to me knows that I am exercising like a maniac and undergoing a diet (which I have admit has had super fast results). These results have even made many good friends of mine say that they’re envious of how fast my body responds to exercise (although I am very sure that this is said in jest, because they do know this is important to me).
A very good friend of mine, L, was mentioning the other day that she wondered where the fairness was in the ability of some men to lose weight faster than women do. I am not 100% sure if this factoid is true, but according to some, women have more fat than men. If this is the case, there are two possible explanations for differences in weight loss speeds.
a) That women require to have more fat for their metabolic functions than men do.
b) That women start from a higher body fat percentage and thus it takes them longer.
Now, I would hazard a guess that, according to mass transfer laws, women *should* lose weight faster than men if it is true that women actually do have more body fat than men, since the gradient is higher. But this website argues for an evolutionary explanation (my understanding of their explanation is that men are hard-wired to be more athletic than women). What do you think?
I had been a fan of Michael Franti & Spearhead for the longest time, but now that I own an iPod, I’ve been listening to a lot of MF&S tunes. The one that made me dance while walking around the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood (if you saw a guy with a hoodie and shorts dancing around, yeah, that was me).
The one song that made me dance around while out and about for a walk was “Rock the Nation”. Funny how things go, I never found the exact version that made me dance. But I found the version shown below.
