New Media » Vancouver

Rocky Balboa in the Locker Room with the Vancouver Canucks

jnarvey — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:50:44 +0000

No excuses. Let’s play to win, Canucks.

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Al Pacino Gives a Pep Talk to the Vancouver Canucks

jnarvey — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:47:44 +0000

Good luck tonight, boys. We believe.

My Favorite Tweets From The #Canucks #Riot Vancouver may have had the most well-documented riot in the...
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Call Your Next Cab in Vancouver with a Text

jnarvey — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:39:45 +0000

Texting feels like it’s been around forever — years, anyway. In retrospect, it seems odd that until now, no cab company in big-city Vancouver (or in British Columbia, for that matter) had thought of letting their customers text them to get a pickup. Finally, the oldest cab company in the city (established 1911), MacLure’s Cabs, is the first to embrace the technology of texting for your ride.

By simply sending a text to “222 222”, including the riders name, pick up location and destination, a cab will be sent as quickly as possible. “This effectively takes out the dispatcher conversation” continues Mr. Poonia. Once a text is received by MacLure’s, an auto reply is sent confirming receipt and when to expect the cab to arrive.

“There are often times where it would be impolite to make a phone call, or even impossible due to too much background noise,” explains Mr. Poonia “This solution is fast, inexpensive and can be done virtually anywhere.” No phone call also means not having to wait on hold for a dispatcher, meaning the passenger has more time to do their own thing.

I suspect this will catch on pretty quickly, like how we already instinctively use our smartphones to pay for parking or check for the fastest route wherever we’re going. Works for me. Thanks, MacLure’s.

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The Dancing Leaf

jnarvey — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:22:28 +0000

A video I made a little while ago of one of nature’s wonders in my Vancouver neighborhood of Mount Pleasant.

The leaf is hanging off a very thin spider web, in case you were wondering.

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What’s the Deal with Vancouver’s Population?

jnarvey — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:29:06 +0000

Vancouver-based journalist, blogger and city-watcher Frances Bula has some good questions following the release of new census data. Best question of the bunch:

I’d like to hear some explanation from the data nerds on why the city of Vancouver’s population is only 603,000 when all the provincial projections have been pegging it at around 630,000 for the last couple of years. Were the projections based on the numbers of units built and, in fact, those units are not occupied by people counted in the census?

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A Little Vancouver Maritime History

jnarvey — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:59:24 +0000

Here’s a photo I took a little while back of the mural outside the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Neat perspective.

Video. The Neighborhood of Hastings Sunrise A neat video tour of the East Vancouver neighborhood of...
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The Creepiest House In Vancouver

jnarvey — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:08:13 +0000

Anyone know what the story is behind this decrepit house on Main Street where they keep mannequin heads in the window?

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Disband the First Nations Reserves. Start with Attawapiskat

jnarvey — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:36:32 +0000

Imagine you’re the slumlord owner of a rent-controlled bedbug-infested hotel in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. You’ve pocketed big bucks over the years from the government that was supposed to pay for essential renovations. Your welfare-dependent tenants usually don’t complain too loudly about the mold or the rats or the lack of working toilets, for fear of being tossed out on the street.

But this time, they couldn’t help themselves, when a wall fell down, exposing several families to the elements and the shocked stares of onlookers from Hastings Street. They spilled the beans. Reporters from all over the country started talking about the deplorable crisis. It’s downright embarrassing.

An independent auditor comes knocking to go over your financials. He wants to find out what you’ve done with the millions of dollars that you were supposed to use to fix the leaky plumbing and the crumbling brickwork and rotten wood and broken windows. You tell him to take a hike. When he objects, you physically throw him out.

Then you get an epiphany. Oh, this is brilliant. You file a grievance with the United Nations over your ill treatment.

How do you think this story ends? With you keeping your hotel? With the United Nations giving you a badge of honor? With your long-suffering tenants patting you on the back for your courageous stand? With you not going to jail?

No.

No, no, no, no.

The crisis of Attawapiskat has thankfully helped put the entire system of First Nations reserves under more scrutiny. Band leaders on many (most?) reserves operate with impunity and an explicit rejection of democracy. The nepotism, corruption and wastefulness not merely of money but of human beings is something that people in the rest of the country would never stand for.

I’ve been ambivalent about this problem over the years because I don’t live next to it. I see the conditions on reserves in the news from time to time. The places do look awful. But that’s not the fault of the government shoveling cash into these places. No amount of cash can paper over this perpetual horror show. Not with band leaders demanding 280 new houses at $250,000 a pop, according to the NDP — houses in the middle of nowhere that are just going to fall apart again after a few years because under the rules on reserves, no one actually owns the property.

Think about that figure again: $250,000 per house. That’s just to build a house, since the land has no value. This is a house that will stand in an isolated community with no jobs, no schools, no hospital, no reason to live there at all. Why does it cost that much to build a house there? Because that’s what the band council says it costs… for houses that are going to end up as firewood.

This problem needs to be solved yesterday.

The solution? Simple. Stop the flow of money. There are some examples of well-run, prosperous reserves that are closer in development to Whistler than Attawapiskat. They will survive, maybe even thrive. But those reserves like Attawapiskat that cannot survive without massive infusions of funds (or fail even with such generous support) need to be dismantled. Let the people living on those reserves migrate to places with education, jobs and a hope for a future.

No more money. No more reserves.

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BC Lions Win Grey Cup

jnarvey — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:07:08 +0000

We rule!

That is all.

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Anonymous Political Bloggers Are Cowards

jnarvey — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:30:48 +0000

Yup. That’s my opinion. Anonymous political bloggers are cowards who don’t have the guts to stand by their own words.

This blog post is an open thread. Bring the debate, people. Comments are open.

Mind you, anonymous commenters are cowards, too, IMO.

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