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Usually this sort of sign is three feet by five feet, with three inch high black letters on a fluorescent orange background. How's that old expression go -- "Walk softly, and carry a big stick?" Geez, Louise, those must be big dogs!

Linux distributions seem to unfurl, and fold like sheets at a laundromat. Now, another Linux distro I liked is gone. Fuduntu was discontinued in April, just as people were saying it was the best new Linux in years.

Fuduntu was created in late 2011, by Andrew Wyatt as a fork of Fedora Linux -- a sort of Fedora for the Ubuntu desktop crowd, tweaked for netbooks, and laptops. It came with an up-to-the-minute Linux kernel, apps like Chromium, Adobe Flash and Fluendo MP3 codecs, Thunderbird, Pidgin, and VLC. It used the Gnome 2 desktop, Fedora's YUM package manager, and it was a rolling release.

By early 2013, with version 2013.1, the Fuduntu team seemed to have a winning distro -- reviewers were loving it. I kind of loved it too. But it's repositories didn't include Synapse -- You just couldn't beat Ubuntu for software choices; and I was loathe to throw away all that time I'd invested memorizing how to spell "sudo." But, Fuduntu was definitely one to watch. By March, into April, Fuduntu version 2013.2 had Netflix and Steam in the repositories, and reviewers were having to dig deep into their reserve of superlatives. Then at the end of April, on the 28th, The Fuduntu website announced that the distribution was dead. The team was starting a new distribution, based on openSUSE, initially called FUse Linux, but now renamed Cloverleaf Linux (In Canada, Cloverleaf means canned tuna, for better or worse).

What seems to have killed Fuduntu, and I don't want to get too technical here (no chance of that), wasn't the Gnome 2 Desktop Environment as I originally wrote -- and as many others have written -- but rather it was underlying code libraries, including GTK. Another factor was Systemd, a new system services manager, adopted by Fedora in 2011. Andrew Wyatt explains here ►. Wyatt actually says of the Gnome 2 DE:

We had no issue with our GNOME 2 code base; it was mature and functional, and we had no problem supporting GNOME 2 itself at-all.

Interesting post about the future of Fuduntu, now that it's not Fuduntu ►
Oh FUD! Another look at the death of Fuduntu ►

Hmm. What's a London taxi doing parked in a back alley, in the Vancouver, B.C., neighbourhood of Kitsilano? Oh well, who cares? A cab's a cab. Hope the driver gets back soon, I've gotta get downtown. Click the image to enlarge.

Another neat classic car mural ►

[caption id="attachment_3539" align="alignnone" width="497"] Hot, hot, hot! I did steal this graphic though. Click the image to go to the original source.[/caption]

I wonder if a laptop is stolen every half-hour in Vancouver, or once every five minutes, or maybe one-per-minute -- I have no idea. But I know all-too-well they get stolen, along with iPads, cell phones, and everything else that isn't nailed down, and people naturally look for culprits among the poorest people they see -- the homeless. Understandable, but a bit ironic, as the homeless are frequently themselves victims of theft: Their loaded shopping carts are walked-off with while they cash in bottles at supermarkets; their bikes are stolen for lack of a good lock; their sleeping gear is taken from a stash spot in bushes. I've had a loaded backpack stolen at a library while I dozed off, while other patrons watched ("your friend came and took your bag"). I've had bags of bottles yanked off my trailer while I was in McDonalds getting a coffee, and I've even had people steal the empty garbage bags.

So, speaking of stolen laptops -- in the Waves coffee shop on West Broadway at Spruce, day before yesterday -- I overheard a man at the counter asking an employee to keep a lookout for any homeless person with a MacBook Pro computer, or, any rubby who didn't look like they should have anything that nice -- boy. That got my undivided attention! He went on to say that someone had broken in to his office through a security-barred window, and made off with a "plate full of change, two X-boxes, and a MacBook Pro."

Being the outgoing, friendly person I am, I waited till he took his drip coffee to the condiment station -- which was happily near where I was sitting -- leaned towards him, and caught his attention: "Excuse me. I heard what you said at the counter. I'm homeless, and this is my laptop," I said, waving his gaze towards my satisfyingly glossy black HP tanktop, which lumbered quietly on the little marble table in front of me.

His reply started something like "Bhu, bhu ...," but we settled into a chat ranging from homeless folk I know, who all have laptops they didn't steal, to the sad fact I'd had my MacBook Pro stolen in the very coffee shop we were sitting in. "Then you know how I feel," he said. Sure I did. Though it turned out it hadn't been his MacBook, but his friend's -- he had his with him.

I mentioned his friend might consider getting a webcam security app for his next MacBook. He thought Macs had that built in. I mentioned MacKeeper off the top of my head, but I see it is quite controversial.

I thought about how some of us let our Web browser "remember" our passwords, so I also suggested his friend consider changing passwords to any Web-based services, like Gmail. He called his friend, and asked him if he'd kept any lists of passwords on his laptop. He went on to tell me his office was in the Downtown Eastside, and he'd gone to all the places where you might find a stolen laptop in that area, with no luck -- I found this statement curious to say the least -- Was the theft there, or here, in Fairview? How would he know all the places?. And not once did he say anything about reporting the theft to the police. Whatever. theft is wrong, unless it's food to feed your family.

My laptop runs the Ubuntu version of the Linux operating system. When I install Ubuntu, I choose the option to encrypt my Home folder. So, assuming a thief can't crack my password ("pudding" -- all lowercase) then, if they boot my laptop using, say an Ubuntu live DVD, and they don't have the long encryption key, they should only see gobbledy-gook in the place of my personal content. And I think, in a future install, that I should look at password-protecting the boot loader itself, which should stop thieves from being able to boot from a live image.

Prey is an impressive looking opensource anti-theft application for Linux, Apple, Windows, Android, and iOS. Here's Lifehacker's review and feature walk-through.

Password protecting Ubuntu's boot loader ►

This Mini Cooper and New Beetle have been cohabiting, or "keeping house" as the saying goes, in a Fairview parking lot for months now. I think they were made for each other. Click the image to enlarge it.

I found this a while ago. Some hoser in Fairview was moving, and just left it beside a dumpster, with a pile of other stuff they didn't want to take with them. It was just starting to rain, so I was lucky to see it when I did, which is funny, because I didn't -- and don't -- have any real use for it -- I just couldn't leave it to get soaked in the rain. That would've been, I dunno, unpatriotic. After all we're talking about Bob and Doug McKenzie, the iconic, beer-drinking Canadian brothers from SCTV.

[caption id="attachment_3511" align="alignnone" width="497"] Don't mean to be a wine snob, but, I read that in Africa, bush meat, e.g. monkey, is often paired with palm wine, which is technically a white wine. Click the image to enlarge.[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_3504" align="alignnone" width="497"] You can tell it's from Vancouver, B.C. because he looks like he's smoking a joint. Artwork reproduced by kind permission of E. Rosion.[/caption]

This is not -- I repeat, NOT, a sign I've booked passage on the crazy train. There's nothing wrong with your seeing faces on dumpsters -- I've been seeing faces on container bins for years. No. The time to worry is when the faces on dumpsters start talking to you, and there's no chance of that here -- he doesn't talk to the likes of binners. Click the images to enlarge them.

Painting on canvas was a great technological step forward for art. One of the more under-valued virtues of the technique is how it keeps the mess off the floors and walls, and when the creative fervour passes, and you come back to your senses, you can take it out to the dumpster and pretend it never happened. Click the images to enlarge.

[caption id="attachment_3485" align="alignnone" width="497"] All downhill from here. Frame from Murray Siple's NFB documentary Carts of Darkness (2008)[/caption]

Stand in downtown Vancouver, or farther South on the steeper parts of Fairview Heights, and look North, across the waters of the Burrard Inlet -- you are looking at the North Shore, aka, North Vancouver, a steep slope covered with rich homes, and mansions, which catch the sunlight, and glitter like gems, all in settings of natural greenery, These properties all run along, and are connected together by, steep, and winding, streets and avenues. Naturally, there are binners who collect bottles and cans on this well-to-do slope. Some of these fellows have been righteously crazy dudes, who turned bottle collecting with supermarket shopping carts with no brakes on steep, winding roads, with names like "Mountain Avenue," into a kind of extreme sport.

Back in 2008 a former snowboarder, turned documentary filmmaker named Murray Siple, made the documentary about this North Shore binning culture, called Carts of Darkness, for the National Film Board of Canada. I've only just noticed that the NFB posted the entire documentary on YouTube -- embedded below. I think this is a great bit of documentary filmmaking, whether you care a whit about binning or not.  It's also an interesting look at binning in Vancouver. While, I've never collected containers on the North Shore, it looks nearly identical to areas I do bin, particularly parts of the Arbutus Ridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sGyq5l-dfI

I like how Fairview residents sometimes do the hard-sell on their unwanted stuff -- notes on blenders, lipstick on the screen of old TVs, big, and little signs propped, taped, or hung on the things they don't want, bur hope someone else will. They usually write pretty prosaic stuff like: "Free," "It Works!." "Take me home I'm yours." Sometime, like this dresser, the message is bright, and funny. Sometimes it's as cracked as what they're throwing out. Click the image to enlarge it.

What a great song that is -- Gates of Steel, I mean, by Devo. But the gates, or gate, of steel we're looking at above, however, is not a song. Although, with an estimated weight over two tons, it does qualify as heavy metal. And it most certainly wasn't made for a song. The people behind the design, and construction, Maca Studio Art Metals, describe themselves as a Vancouver, BC-based "bespoke designer and manufacturer of goods that are distinguished by the combination of aesthetic strength, function and quality craftsmanship" -- if you need to ask what any of that means, you can't afford what they make -- so look, but please do not touch.

This is coolest security gate I've ever seen. Whoever commissioned it is getting their money's worth. The very original conception of making the gate halves look like one shattered piece of metal, has been masterfully executed, using a special steel alloy called COR-TEN steel (often just Corten, without the hyphen), which is probably why I can see it. Maca has deliberately left it outside, because the Corten family of steel alloys are designed to rust -- the first layer of rust, which takes a few years to form, acts as a stable surface  which protects the steel from any further corrosion -- which sounds like the initial oxidisation layer on aluminium, or like a coat of paint, only better. Corten is meant for very utilitarian construction, such as bridges, marine shipping containers, and outdoor sculptures. Increasingly architects are taking note of it's rusty "charm." The Endo Shuhei Architect Institute has designed a number of buildings employing Corten steel in their construction, notably the Looptecture Fukura Tsunami Disaster Preventive Control Centre, located in Minamiawaji-city, Hyogo prefecture, Japan.

[caption id="attachment_3455" align="alignnone" width="497"] Oh crap! Abbotsford already needs to update their new city logo. Click the image to enlarge.[/caption]

Reports last month that City of Abbotsford workers had deliberately spread chicken manure on a homeless person's camp brought a veritable poo-nami of criticism down on Abby officials, from the mainstream media, homeless advocates, and even bloggers. The City action occurred June 4th across from the Salvation Army building on Gladys Avenue. Hours after it became news, and the sh*t hit the fan, city manager George Murray publicly took responsibility for the action, and apologized. Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman also apologized. Two days later, city staff removed the manure.

The impression was of an ill-thought-out, knee-jerk reaction to some public complaints, by one lone city official. Well, the sh*t continues to fan out; several news organizations have obtained internal emails showing the manure dump on the homeless encampment was, in fact, a team effort, coordinated between several Abbotsford City Managers, as shown by this item in The Province newspaper.

According to this post on the CBC Web site, internal emails obtained by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) through an access to information request show that managers from the city's bylaw, forestry and parks departments were all involved.

I've switched back to the HP Pavilion dv6000; the loveable lugable laptop. It took me about three months to find the right AC adapter, which meant there were software updates in the pipeline for the dv6k's Linux operating system: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I sat through the updates yesterday. The Update Manager had quite a list. The first download failed, and I dutifully changed the download server, which is accessed In "Update Manager" window > "Settings" button, bottom left corner > "Ubuntu Software" tab > "Software Sources." Here you have a "Download from:" pull down menu.

[caption id="attachment_3428" align="alignnone" width="497"] Zhaleh Moulaei has her hands full, not just with the hoops, but also with all the questions about what she's doing from passersby. Click the image to enlarge it.
[/caption]

For several days, two artists have been doing strange, and eye-catching things with, and to, pink and blue hula hoops -- hundreds of them! On the Columbia Street, and 8th Avenue corner of Jonathan Rogers Park, Zhaleh Moulaei and Byron Chiang have been building their HULA! art installation, which will be featured in front of Pacific Centre this August as part of the City of Vancouver's Viva Vancouver 2013. Here's a visualization of HULA! from a February proposal. Here's the HULA! Facebook page.



The two artists are up to their ***'s in hoops. Note the working model -- the Mateus bottle represents Pacific Centre, I think. Click the images to enlarge them.

[caption id="attachment_3434" align="alignnone" width="497"] Byron Chiang is making art, one hula hoop at a time.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3421" align="alignnone" width="497"] Westside Return-It Centre, open, but not for long. Image from Google Maps.[/caption]

NOTE: This article is outdated. See a more recent update on the Westside Return-It Centre.

The tiny little Westside bottle depot, improbably located nearly right in the high-rent heart of Kitsilano, on West Broadway Avenue, at Blenheim Street, is closing at the end of the month, not to return -- to that location at least -- according to Encorp Pacific, the industry stewardship group behind the Return-It program. Encorp's Westside Web page is now headlined:

Westside Return-It Centre **Temporary closure starting July 31, re-opening pending relocation.

Binners and a bottle depot owner have been telling me for two weeks now that Kitsilano's only bottle depot, the Westside Return-It Centre, would be closing; that the depot's owner wasn't able to get a new lease from the building's landlord. The question of when seems to have been answered. This will be welcome news for local area business, but bad news for binners in Kitsilano who have relied on this depot for years. Westside is truly a "store-front" bottle depot, with no parking of it's own. It's clientèle has pretty much always been walk-in local residents, and the "traditional" binners, whether homeless, and pushing a shopping cart, or riding a bike, or marginally housed in shelters, or Downtown Eastside Single Room Occupancy hotels.

The well-housed, and fed, car binners have never really taken their bottles to Westside. In fact, a lot of the so-called "traditional" binner-types, myself included, have avoided Westside unless we had no other choice; principally because they shave three cents off the ten cent deposit value of "domestic" beer bottles and beer cans. So where a dozen should earn a binner $1.20 CAN, Westside pays out only 90 cents, and hold back 30 cents. Many other Encorp depots do not give full deposit on domestic beer bottles, and beer cans -- Go Green pays eight cents each, or $1-a-dozen, but Westside also earned a bit of a reputation, among binners, for "sharp" accounting.

I will be impressed, and a bit amazed if the Westside's owner figures out a way to set up shop anywhere in Kitsilano, or farther West in Dunbar-Southlands -- it's all very pricey real estate -- residents in these upscale neighbourhoods look at binners much the same way Romans in ancient Italy looked at invading Visigoths. So, barring miracles, all the next-closest bottle depots, three of them: Go Green, United We Can, and Regional Recycling,  will be deliberately bunched up in a so-called "recycling hub," or perhaps more accurately, a binner's ghetto, on the Western edge of East Vancouver.

Encorp bottle depots accept beer bottles on behalf of Brewers Distributor Ltd. (the industry stewardship group for beer). I'd thought -- and originally written -- that BDL paid the Encorp depots the full deposit on each beer bottle plus a small handling fee. I was wrong. Anthony, of the Encorp bottle depot Go Green, says BDL only pays Encorp depots the full deposit, and nothing more. So Encorp  depots accept beer bottles as a courtesy, and convenience to their customers. Depots that don't pay full deposit on domestic beer are doing so to offset handling costs, and depots which do, are using it as a loss leader to attract customers to bring in all their containers, beer, and otherwise.

November 2013 - Still no new Kits depot but there are rumours ►

[caption id="attachment_3408" align="alignnone" width="497"] Memorial in Vancouver. Photo by REUTERS. Click the image to go to the original Telegraph item.[/caption]

The bull-headedness of Albertans in general, and Calgarians in particular, cuts both ways; praiseworthy when Calgary Stampede organizers didn't let the recent severe flooding of their fair city stand in the way of holding their world-famous rodeo on time, "come hell, or high water.". And downright blameworthy the way Calgary Herald writer, Licia Corbella didn't let facts stand in the way of of her assertion, in a recent newspaper column, that Vancouver's permissive drug culture helped kill Glee actor, and singer, Cory Monteith. On July 13, 2013, the 31-year-old Calgary-born actor was found dead in his hotel room at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in downtown Vancouver. On July 15, the B.C. Coroner’s autopsy report stated Monteith died from "a mixed drug toxicity" consisting of heroin and alcohol. Monteith had reportedly struggled with addiction for a decade.

In a Friday, July 19 column in the Calgary Herald -- widely syndicated --, Licia Corbella bluntly asserted the actor got the drugs from Insite, the supervised, safe injection site, located in the Downtown Eastside, about 1.4 km from Monteith's hotel, as the crow flies.

This seriously modded late-1940s to early-1950s GMC pickup truck really catches the eye. The paint job looks almost like lacquered primer undercoat. The building it's  parked in front of is a relatively recent building that used the shell of the existing historic brick apartment building as part of the new design. It's an example of the kind of Vancouver development which sucks up old bricks from demolitions ►.

[caption id="attachment_3377" align="alignnone" width="497"] I'd already seen the Windows 8 icon on the bottom of the laptop, but seeing the Metro Start screen was still a shock.[/caption]

The woman said it didn't work -- the HP Pavilion G6 pictured above -- that it was only good for parts. The yellow-tipped AC adapter was what caught my eye -- it looked right for the HP tank top. I told the woman if I did get it working, I'd wipe it clean, that I didn't care about her files, that I ran a different operating system. She had pretty, light hazel eyes that did "deer in headlight" beautifully. He boyfriend came out, having heard the salient points, and declared she didn't have anything on the laptop worth worrying about.

Every evening, before I go to bed, in my cosy parkade, I tuck in my bike and trailer. The trailer gets a bed of newsprint, to catch drips from the, hopefully, massive load of returnable bottles, and cans, neatly bagged, and tied on the trailer -- it's just good manners, it's not my property, after all.

This evening, the last broadsheet, to go in the most important, potentially drippiest, place, turned out to be a double-truck ad from Apple, saying how the "Designed by Apple in Cupertino" statement, branding all their products, is the signature of all the engineers, and artists, and people at the company, and how it means everything (the fact the stuff's made in China means nothing).The ad copy also explains that they design their stuff to enhance "each life it touches" -- it's so true! You don't even need to have an Apple product for the wizards in Cupertino to make your life better! Thanks Apple. Cllick on the images to enlarge them.

Very hot day in the old town; you might eve say it's equatorial. Mimi's Blue and Gold Macaw, named Archie, might just feel right at home -- he seems to like the heat -- Mimi, not so much. So I snapped some photos fast, while she looked for shade. She's had Archie for six years. These Macaws, a type of Neotropical parrot, are quite intelligent, and are popular for how closely they bond to their owners, as well as their ability to speak. Archie was silent until I crossed the street back to my bike, at which point the bird let loose with a stream of words which, though I couldn't quite make them out, sounded quite colourful. Macaws are also known for their long life spans, so Mimi can look forward to enjoying Archie's conversation for decades to come. Click the images to enlarge them.

[caption id="attachment_3338" align="alignnone" width="497"] The American Jaeger Gypsy Caravan playing hide-and-seek with a Kaiju in Hong Kong.[/caption]

Pacific Rim, if you haven't heard, is a recently-released, would-be Summer blockbuster film, directed by Guillermo del Toro, starring almost no one you've heard of, and released by Legendary Pictures. It tells a science fiction, action-adventure story built around two Japanese genres: mecha (Japanese for "kids in giant robots") and kaiju (Japanese for "guys in rubber monster suits"). Based on the trailer, and the track record of previous American efforts with anime, I was sceptical ►, and so, apparently, have been North American movie audiences ►. I've finally seen the movie -- three times.

To be blunt, the actual movie didn't really start for me until about 20 minutes into the running time: The anti-kaiju wall is breached in Sydney, Australia. We get an exciting snippet of the Aussie Jaeger whupping a Kaiju in broad daylight!

When I say it starts, I don't mean it starts cleanly. This obviously finely crafted machine has been left in low gear too long, so it coughs, and sputters a bit as it revs up. When the Jaeger program boss Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) is trying, gruffly, to woo the American, former Jaeger pilot, Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) back into the Jaeger program, he caps his sales pitch with: "Haven't You heard? The World is comming to an end! Where would you rather die: Here, or in a Jaeger?" I thought dying in my seat at that low point would've been a mercy.

But then, The Marshall's personal assistant, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) finally arrives -- only 23 minutes late -- the gang's all here, and the movie begins to show real signs of life. The Jaeger program has it's back to the wall; all that's left has been garthered up in Hong Kong -- that's only four Jaegers -- the elegant Chinese Grab Hand, the very, old-school Russian Bucket Head, the macho Australian Rocket-Chest (Bustgunner was taken), and the swaggering American Gypsy Moth. Everything, and everyone connected with the Jaeger program is cooped up in something called the Shatterdome, which includes two wacky Kaiju researchers, a so-called "Kaiju-groupie," (Charlie Day), and his very pent-up boss, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman). I din't warm up to Charlie Day immediately, but Burn Gorman, Owen Harper from Torchwood, among other things, was a treat to watch from his first scene. The pair's interplay is good comic relief from all the histrionics.



Giant robots need dysfunctional people -- we know this, and with so many of them together under one roof, we get real emotional fireworks, and not-so-pent-up physical aggression, and several helpings of back-story trauma, until the movie finally, fully, roars to life with an incredible scene where Mako Mori relives her chilhood encounter with a Kaiju (played poignantly by Mana Ashida). The difference with Mako the child, is that Mako the adult is in a Jaeger with her finger on a plasma cannon -- wow!

The rest of the movie pretty much just rocks. It moves fast enough that you no longer have time to ponder the flaws and inconsistencies. The emotional intensity, and the scale of the visuals are finally in synch. The movie just flies. The final battle scenes -- progressing from bay, to port, to downtown Hong Kong are relentless, and breathtaking. One scene, in the city battle, which is already famous, culminating in a Newton's Cradle on a desk, should leave you gasping at director Guillermo del Toroo's skill, and chutzpah. Oh, and a mecha finally uses a sword to dispatch a Kaiju.

The climactic ending, was satisfyingly explosive, allowed the audience to see Mako Mori in her shiny black plugsuit one more time, and left everything up in the air for a sequel. Great stuff! Click the Mako Mori stills to enlarge them.

Pacific Rim may also be starting slow at the box office. It seems obvious the film was built to succeed in the international market, but in large chunks of the world it still hasn't opened. It doesn't hit theatres in Japan, for instance, until August 5th.

◄ The fourth in a series of posts. Previously: Patlabor: The Movie

[caption id="attachment_3028" align="alignnone" width="497"] Nono, the starry-eyed girl, is on fire![/caption]

Title:		Aim for the Top 2! DieBuster
Studio:		Gainax
Air date:		October 3, 2004 – August 14, 2005
Episodes:		6

DieBuster is a six-episode OVA produced by Gainax to help mark their 20th anniversary as a studio -- it is a sequel to their ground-breaking 1988 six-episode OVA GunBuster (my review).

Tens of thousands of years after the events of Aim for the Top! GunBuster, when the Human race desperately fought malevolent space monsters to a standstill, the Space Monsters are still out there; still a threat. Humans are restricted to the massively terraformed planets and moons of their solar system. When they look into their night skies, they see the wall of Space Monsters as the so-called Red Milky Way. The only thing keeping the Monsters at bay is a fraternity of psychically-gifted teenagers known as Topless, and the ancient, and awesome biomechanical Buster machines only they can pilot.

Really! Is this good marketing? Maybe. If the Montreal Canadiens are selling this -- I mean, haven't other NHL hockey teams been walking all over the Toronto Maple Leafs for years? True, historically, the second-greatest hockey team team ever -- 13 Stanley Cups -- but they won the last of those Cup in 1967. This year, the Leafs did make the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2004. I was excited, but it didn't last long. Click the image to enlarge it.

It'a a hot, sunny, sultry afternoon in Fairview. What do my ears hear as I ride through the back alleys in search of cans, and bottles? Well, let's listen -- cars, people, lawn mowers, birds -- and one viola. Surely Fairview is the only neighbourhood on Earth where you can bin for bottles to musical accompaniment!

Sure enough, in a back alley, a woman is standing in a parking lot, playfully plucking a viola. Nicole is getting some face time with the Sun, and practising for a gig next Tuesday, when she'll be joining friends on stage at a local bistro. Looks like she's just fiddling around, but Nicole is a professional musician -- "a versatile violinist, composer and singer," as she writes on her Web site. She's also teaches music. Through stringalliance.com. She offers "Progressive Music Instruction For All Ages and Levels ... Specializing in Violin and Fiddle." Click on the images to enlarge them.

Continuing my quest to photograph the wee animal life of Fairview, here is a bee, I think. Unlike the previously captured, incontinent chickadee, this one just appears to "bee" drowsy. The Green Man of story and song came by to see why I was flat on my tummy in someone's parking lot, and opined that he thought the bee was probably "just recharging it's WiFi."

[caption id="attachment_3222" align="alignnone" width="497"] A Monster Home, but not how I remember them. Click the image to enlarge it.[/caption]

Back in the day -- the days of the 1980s -- a controversial new home design popped up on lots across the suburban communities of Greater Vancouver (aka the Lower Mainland). The polite term for the new style was Vancouver Special, but it was commonly, and derisively called a Monster Home. Basically, it was just the biggest, cheapest, box shape (with a roof) you could legally put on a lot. It was stereotypically two-storeys, with brick facade fronting the outside ground floor. Inside it was ideally suited for the addition of illegal secondary rental suites. The design prompted zoning bylaw changes all over the Lower Mainland.

In front of Fairview's gracefully ageing apartment buildings, colourful, meticulous, landscaping abounds -- building managers really seem to be able to indulge their green thumbs. Fairview renters may get tiny apartments, for high monthly rents. But, they get to live in well maintained buildings, in a nice area. close to so much great shopping, and a vibrant night life (glug, glug. glug). And they get flowers.

"This'll be great honey.' No more laying awake at night, worrying about dumpster divers crawling through our garbage, trying to steal our identity. Fire this puppy up, will you, and I'll shred our Hydro bills, and cancelled cheques, and pay stubs, and --- Fluffy! No! It's not a litter box. Fluffy!! -- You stupid cat! -- Oh Fluffy, your tail! Quick. How do I turn it off? Pull the pl... Dear mother of God!! Oh my... Did you see that? ... Vooosh, and gone. Wow. Just like the box says, it didn't jam. Guess we can run these through a stack at a time."

[caption id="attachment_3204" align="alignnone" width="497"] The camera refused to focus on it's job. Mr. Cassel isn't this fuzzy in person.[/caption]

Here we see musician David Cassel, better known as The Ukulele Bandito, recording a song in his tricked-out Fairview garage. You can get more information about him, along with a taste of his music on his Web site, otherwise you can often find him busking somewhere on Granville Island. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Another cool garage workshop ►