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What a shock to see this in the window of a thrift store on Cambie, better known for second-hand maternity, and baby clothing. I couldn't stop to go in and ask after the firepower; perhaps it's in keeping with the store's regular wares -- "Baby's first Kill-o-zap gun", or something. I'm betting, though, it's a prop from one of the many sci-fi TV series which have been, or are being, filmed here in so-called "Hollywood North."

I don't consider myself a gun fancier in the slightest, though I remember a visit in the very early 1990s to a gun shop located incongruously below Byte Computers, an Apple Computer reseller. I remember because I nearly drooled on some of the firearms -- apparently I'm kind of "easy"when it comes to good, industrial design. Byte Computers was more interesting -- they were the most expensive place in town to buy Apple wares, but they were the best. They had a computer in the middle of their showroom, loaded with Mac programs, and files. This was before I, or anyone I knew, was online, or had even heard of the Internet. Anyone could come in to Byte with their own floppy disks, and take their fill. I bought my first modem after discovering the joys of "freeware," and "shareware" at Byte Computers. They've been gone for a long time. Click the images to enlarge them.

This fine little Japanese-style sticker graffiti has just appeared on a newspaper box outside the Waves Coffee shop on West Broadway at Spruce. I like it, and I'm sure it's appreciated by the Japanese, and Korean ESL students camped in there in the evenings. Click the images to enlarge them.

Good luck with that, I say. This one actually looks better small. Click on it to enlarge it, if you must.

Look at those eyes! So intelligent. If only it could speak, what might it say? Click the image above to enlarge it.

Difficult to take photos of starry night skies in a big city -- all that ambient light bouncing around. More so if you have a camera out of the dumpster with little rhinestones stuck around the lens. But, as they say, I'm trying -- very trying, so last night I saw my opportunity, and took it.

It's an interesting fact. though, not very interesting, that 40, even 30 years ago, if you said "apple," people assumed you meant the kind that grows on trees. Now, there's a better-than-even chance you mean the kind that grows in a Foxconn plant in China. Click the image to see the vintage fruit box label enlarged.

The above photo was taken on the rooftop parking lot of the Toys-R-Us on West Broadway. My dumpster camera doesn't do panoramas, so this is a manual composite of three photos. We get poor slices of sunset in Fairview. English Bay, in Vancouver's West End, is one of the best places to see sunsets -- and Japan, if the sky is extra clear. Click the images to enlarge them.

One evening this week, I saw a city sanding dump truck rushing Eastward along West Broadway Avenue; it was the really big kind with the snow plow on the front -- Eeeeeeeek!

News the next day that the first snow of the year fell at the nearby Whistler Blackcomb ski resort, quite a bit earlier than usual. No one cares to guess if we're in for a mild or severe winter. Regardless of the snowy, or warm, extremes we might have, the "median" Vancouver winter can be seen in the very moving image above, across the street from the bottle depot at Ontario Street, and 7th Avenue. The rain was light to start with, so as to acclimatize a city still basking in memories of dry, sunny, summer days. By the time I was in the bottle depot, it was hitting it's stride. I heard a kind of woosh at one point, and turned to look out the loading bay-size entrance, and the rain had suddenly throttled-up to waterfall-mode; it didn't last, by the time I took the video above, it was just a bit above average. Soon though, when it starts, it won't stop for days, and days.

[caption id="attachment_5918" align="alignnone" width="497"] If you can't read the bottom two lines it's because you haven't had enough to drink yet.[/caption]

The Anza Club has been operating in Vancouver since 1935, but has been best known as a fixture in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood since the 1960s when they purchased their present club house at 8th Avenue, and Ontario Street. This is just one street "up" (South) from the Go Green bottle depot, so I see it a lot. In the 1990s and early 2000s, I attended events there with friends. Once upon a time -- perhaps still -- Mensa International's Vancouver chapter met there, and I attended a few meetings with a Mensan friend. Whether, or not I qualified for Mensa, I've never been a club-joiner.  Just like Groucho Marx, I refuse to join any club which will have me as a member -- I have my standards.

This piece of stenciled street art appeared a month-or-so ago in the East lane off Granville Street, between 10th, and 11th Avenue. As for the idea being conveyed -- many Fairview residents do just what is shown -- put their pets on a pedestal. Beyond the idea, it's an example of the effort that goes into making a stencil graffiti. The simple animation below shows how it might've been done using two stencils, two colours of spay paint -- white and gold, and a chisel-tip black marker. After it was finished, I talked to a binner who saw the piece being put up. The white background, and the black lines were both done using brushes. Click the above photo to enlarge it.

[caption id="attachment_5887" align="alignleft" width="150"] 1995 U.S. postal stamp.[/caption]

Google -- celebrating it's 15th birthday today -- was not named after a comic strip character. The official history is that when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided, in 1997, to ditch the original name -- "BackRub" -- they chose "Google" as a play on “googol,” a number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. They did not name it after the famous cartoon character Barney Google. One blog wonders about this.

The above classic Jeep, seen in Kitsilano, on the other hand, probably was named after a comic strip character: Eugene the Jeep, a go-anywhere, do-anything, little critter, who debuted March 16, 1936, in Elzie Segar's Thimble Theatre newspaper comic strip, now called Popeye, after it's star. The Willys MB U.S. Army utility vehicle was introduced five years later in 1941. The theory is that soldiers were so impressed with the new vehicles that they informally named it after the character in the Popeye strip which was "small, able to move between dimensions and could solve seemingly impossible problems." This isn't the only origin story for the name, but it's the one I heard growing up as a rabid comic fan!  Click the images to enlarge them.

Selection of great pre-Popeye Thimble Theatre comic strips ►
search on the phrase “Google in 1998” ►

This is a beautiful motorcycle-sidecar combination. I knew there was another motorcycle-with-sidecar in the same area, but it didn't look anything like this one. Or so I thought. But check this one out first.

[caption id="attachment_5821" align="alignnone" width="497"] The Ridge Theatre is open, but not for business.[/caption]

The Ridge Centre at 16th Avenue, and Arbutus Street, has been subjected to slow motion demolition for some weeks now, but the ordeal is nearly over.

At  the time of my first post on the fate of the Ridge Centre, back on May 7, it was almost business as usual, with only the theatre shuttered, by my September 2 post, the Centre was closed, and the demolition process was already underway inside.

The block-long, 1950s era, shopping centre is clearly coming down. The three store fronts on the North-side of the Ridge Theatre are gone -- reduced to ruble and trucked wherever such construction debris goes. The giant bowling pin which stood on top of the North-most shop, the Ridge Garden Restaurant, was not destroyed. A worker today told me someone took it away intact. The entire front face of the theatre is gone -- cleanly sheared off -- leaving an open box. Strange effect. More than three-quarters of the structure appears to remain, but it's largely an empty shell; the time up till now has been spent gutting the structure. I would expect knocking down the remaining facade would be quick work. Click the images to enlarge them, except for the animated GIF.

[caption id="attachment_5822" align="alignnone" width="497"] A big mess! As it looked today. spliced together from three photos,[/caption]

Almost all gone, but not quite ►

"Know what I don't like about alleys?
The way people come out of them crazy fast!"

Overheard at the intersection of an alley at Manitoba Street, on the North side of West Broadway. A duo I assumed to be mother and son were walking along Manitoba, and approaching the mouth of the alley. I was in the alley; already at a full stop at the intersection, waiting for them to walk by, when the mother uttered the above comment. I waited until they were in front of me, and said loudly, "not always!" For whatever reason, they ran the rest of the way to the next corner, and disappeared around it. So hard to make new friends.

Something about BlackBerry finally went up for a change -- yesterday, a Fairview apartment dweller, who I always exchange friendly words with, called down to me as I was riding by, and asked if I could toss them the BlackBerry battery they'd dropped. Usually, the BlackBerry phones I see have been relegated to the dumpster, mingled with the leftovers from an unboxed iPhone,

The buzzards are circling

It's dark days indeed for the Waterloo, Ontario Canada-based, not-so-smart phone maker -- few people want the phones, and fewer appear to want the company. The only creditable bid to buy BlackBerry Ltd. is coming from their largest shareholder, Fairfax Holdings Ltd, which holds 10% of the ailing company. The ink is barely dry on reports that a letter of intent had been signed so BlackBerry could sell itself for $4.7 billion USD to a group led by Fairfax. Now new reports say that two of the potential investors in Fairfax's consortium -- two of Canada's largest pension funds --  are only interested in carving out pieces of the fallen tech giant, not in backing the entire company. The Farfax deal is valued at $9 a share, significantly above some analysts' valuation. This Guardian report quotes Michael Genovese, of MKM Partners, as estimating BlackBerry's real value at only $7 a share, with the services division accounting for $5, and the operating system, and intellectual property, each worth only $1.

BlackBerry has now been fighting for it's life almost continually for eight years, since late 2005 when a so-called patent troll named NTP threatened to shut down the phone maker at the height of their success. NTP had demanded about $1 billion USD. Early the next year, BlackBerry  agreed to pay $612.5 million USD to the patent holding company. BlackBerry barely had time to catch their breath; the very next year, in 2007, Apple released the first generation iPhone, and, six years later, here we are.

[caption id="attachment_5800" align="alignnone" width="497"] Unless they're really good. Click the image to enlarge it.[/caption]

 

When I went to take some night photos of the red hatchback all stuck up with stickers, and crowned with plush toys, for this post, I knew where to find it, because I've never seen it anywhere else; certainly never on the road. But look at what I saw today, at the Waves Coffee House on West Broadway, I happened to look up from my Laptop, and there it was, in traffic, slightly obscured by that handsome bike and trailer. Click the image to enlarge it. 

[caption id="attachment_5782" align="alignnone" width="497"] Making up a lunch pail o' lovely junk -- the padlock being the loveliest of all.[/caption]

In my travels today, I happened upon a box of junk hardware. It was beside the garbage behind a house, but I still loitered until I could catch the attention of someone in the house. When I did, they confirmed it was garbage. I proceeded to root like a truffle-picking porker. There were hose clamps (yay!), and really old vice grips, engraved with someone's three initials -- "John... someone," the owner tried to remember. Knowing he had a "customer." he had brought out a second box-worth. He was Italian -- old, short, and stocky. He really looked like the kind of man who'd spent his life using the kind of tools, and stuff, he was now throwing out. It was more evidence of typecasting that he was so unsentimental about it. "Atsa old lock -- a good chunk a brass," he remarked when I singled out the thing which looked like a padlock, but didn't have a typical-looking key hole, just a thin, little slot on the left side of the case, at the top, by the shackle. The case bore the letters "WLS" in high relief. There was nothing that looked like a key to open it, so the only thing for it was a trip to a locksmith.

Sand must get in my eyes. This is the first time I've noticed this remarkable sand sculpture residing in a quiet part of Fairview, dominated by single-family homes. It certainly doesn't look brand new to me, and it's just off a back alley I ride down, if not every day, then several times a week -- in both directions. so it's mildly embarrassing that I've probably been riding right past it for, who knows how long. All I can do is hang my head in shame, promise to clean my glasses more often, and post some photos -- oh, and give you the link to the sculptor's Web page: delayne.com. Click the images to enlarge them.

With that big sky --  those onion domes, this could be... Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, but we're still in Vancouver. This is the Protection of Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church, completed in 1981. It dominates a two-square block compound of Ukrainian religion, culture, and cuisine. just a block from Cambie Street, at about 16th Avenue. I cut through here on my way to the bottle depot quite often.

[gallery columns="4" type="rectangular" ids="5745,5746,5747,5748,5749,5750,5751,5752"]

Give the U.S. Surgeon General some spraypaint, and get out of the way! Click the image to enlarge it.

Last Wednesday, September 18, delegates to the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, held here in Vancouver, voted down a much talked-about resolution put forward by  Sidney, B.C. to regulate motorized wheelchairs, and electric mobility scooters, in the interests of public safety. This Times-Colonist post on the UBCM meeting, says the rejection came despite an impassioned speech in support of the resolution by by Sidney Mayor Larry Cross. Sidney's final resolution was, in fact, a major climb-down from their original call to license motorized wheelchairs, and electric mobility scooters across the province. Mayor Cross compared his community, with its high proportion of seniors, to a canary in a coal mine, signalling the kinds of problems other municipalities can expect.

“We’ve had a fatality in our community. We’ve had, in the last eight months, two serious rollovers — one of which resulted in a gentleman spending the summer in the hospital with a broken hip. Those accidents could have been avoided.”

The original proposal to license mobility scooters was met with charges of discrimination, and agism, but I think it was motivated by public safety concerns, and desire to get ahead of the curve,and begin laying the groundwork for regulating a future full of such mobility vehicles, exactly as happened with automobiles early in the 20th Century.

[caption id="attachment_5641" align="alignnone" width="497"] XP's polite way of telling you, your computer's hooped, your hard drive may be toast, in which case your files are history, and your computer never really liked you anyways![/caption]

Two days ago, I went from hero over breakfast to zero by dinnertime. After restoring the Wi-Fi in Henry's HP Pavilion dv6000 over breakfast, I later proved unequal to the task of pulling Jezi's Acer emachine back from the brink of Windows Registry Hell. I did, at least, show her all her files were intact, accessible, and therefore recoverable.

Yesterday did not go according to plan at all. My free time was completely eaten up by OPCPs -- Other People's Computer Problems. I wasn't able to fix the second OPCP: Jezzi's Acer, but I was able to solve the first one over breakfast.

OPCP number one: Henry's laptop gains Windows 7, but loses it's wireless

[caption id="attachment_5625" align="alignnone" width="497"] After the fix, Henry searches for "server pack," rather than "service pack."[/caption]

Homeless Henry had a nice Toshiba laptop, but by June, he hadn't. Something went wrong -- the laptop equivalent of shaken baby syndrome, I think. This week Henry found two working laptops in one evening: An HP Pavilion dv6000, and a Dell Inspiron. The Dell looked to be the better, newer, laptop, but had a password. The HP Pavilion, on the other hand, like a junker car, was completely unlocked. I saw both laptops the morning after Henry found them. The HP went online effortlessly, but Henry couldn't log onto his Facebook page -- the same problem we'd had with his Toshiba, for the same reason -- the HP "thought" the year was 2006, it's manufacture date. Fixing the date allowed Henry to get onto his Facebook page.

My so-called "tank-top" is also a dv6000, but not identical to Henry's, which seems older. It's product number is: rn914ua#abl. The HP Product Specifications for that number don't sound worse, but I subsequently pimped my dv6000's specs considerably.

The above has be stuck on a dumpster for as long as I can remember. It has gone undisturbed -- until now. Within the last two days, someone's been picking at it. I'm unhappy about that. It's a striking graphic. Very fraternity-ish. I thought perhaps it was the logo of the Elks benevolent order, but it's not.

Just as archaeologists used to fob off any object they couldn't understand as a "religious artifact," I was prepared to declare that this sticker had something to do with a snowboarding company, but I'm not so sure. I've found a few things like this deer antler and cross necklace. One was for Christian deer hunters. Click the image to enlarge it.

It's nothing big; a few feet of concrete sidewalk on the East side of Burrard St., South of 11th Ave. But it's 82-year-old concrete -- the year, "1931," is embossed on one edge. On the opposite edge is the name of the street: "Cedar St." They did that back then, embossed dates, street names, even block numbers in sidewalks -- nice touches; a bit labour-intens... Just a minute. ...

When the orange, and black things start popping up all over the place, that can only mean two things, okay, maybe three things -- The B.C. Lions, our Canadian Football League team, are in season; Halloween is just around the corner, and, more ominously, the Christmas season is coming.

Halloween's cool, but, It seems that no sooner do Halloween decorations come out -- and fireworks stores pop up like poisonous mushrooms -- than people start talking about the Christmas holidays. Look, even I'm doing it! Gahhh! It's not the Christmas lights (which some people never take down), or the fake holiday cheer, or the over-commercialization, which bothers me, it's how all the bad stuff gets rolled together, and triple-distilled as Christmas songs -- evil little audio slices of Christmas cake, forever re-gifted. I just have to be strong, is all. Click the images to enlarge.