Video Games Live is coming to Vancouver for two performances next week presenting music from popular video games with choir performers, orchestras, exclusive video footage, and live action.

The world’s biggest video game concert (that set a Guinness World Record in 2008 for most video game performances in a single year) will be at the Centre for Performing Arts April 13th and 14th. This is the first stop on their Canadian tour and tickets are still available.

If you would like to attend, I have 3 pairs of tickets to give away to each of Wednesday and Thursday’s shows. Here’s how you can enter to win:

I will draw all 6 winners (3 for each date) at 12:00pm Monday, April 11th, 2011.

Update The winners are @bradpittlike, Stephen, Jon Jennings, Megan, Chris, Jessica Sarai (April 13th), and @brittriddell, @stv, Lyndsi (April 14th).

The Atlas Obscura, an online directory of bizarre, amusing, and curious attractions, once again presents Obscura Day this Saturday, April 9, 2011, around the world.

There are currently 103 cities participating with events from a meetup at the Owl House Museum in East Cape, South Africa, to Tinkertown tours in Sandia Park, Minnesota, and tours of Mary’s Gone Wild Folk Art and Baby Doll Museum in Supply, North Carolina.

On the map for Vancouver there are Vancouver Police Museum tours and Secrets of the Dr. Sun-Yat Sen Chinese Garden tours.

“A few weeks ago, we received a massive donation from a woman whose father was Vancouver’s first full-time forensic scientist,” Chris Mathieson, Executive Director of the Vancouver Police Museum, told me. “Detective Inspector Vance, often dubbed “Vancouver’s Sherlock Holmes”, was famous throughout North America for his exploits and innovations in scientific police work. He’s the reason our building (the original home to the VPD Bureau of Science) was built in 1932.”

The Police Museum will be participating in Obscura Day for the second time this year. “What makes these Obscura Day tours so special is that we’ll be opening some of those donated boxes for the first time; we’re not completely sure what’s in them, but there’s no doubt that it’ll be an exciting glimpse into the history of forensics in Vancouver.”

You can follow Atlas Obscura on Facebook or Twitter for information about unique attractions around the globe and their participating in Obscura Day 2011.

Last summer the City of Vancouver expanded its street food program to include over a dozen new mobile dining options. After a public survey and an application process, 19 new street food options (with a heavy lean on tacos) have been announced.

Cartel
Location: West side of 500 Dunsmuir
Type: Korean fusion; beef, pork, tofu Korean tacos.

Chawalla
Location: East side of 800 Howe
Type: Indian teas, sweet and savoury parantha

Didi’s Greek
Location: South side of 1700 Robson
Type: Meat and vegetable souvlaki, tzatsiki, spanakopita, Greek salad

Feastro the Rolling Bistro
Location: Thurlow at West Cordova
Type: Seafood taco, prawns, fish & chips, pork taco, chowder, bisque, yam/sweet potato fries Continue reading this post ⟩⟩

Over the last seven years I have published over 3,700 posts about our region, 229 of which have been specifically about Vancouver’s history and 22 so far for Vancouver125. As the City of Vancouver celebrates 125 years since incorporation today I’m almost at a loss for words so I figured a bit of a video tribute would be appropriate to start:

1946 – Advertisement for “Vancouver, City of Destiny” presented by Canadian Paramount News.
Archives Item#CVA 1184-2346. Photographer: Jack Lindsay

Old Vancouver Tourism Videos

1907 Streetcar Footage

1940s Parks Board (silent)

1962 “Since Yesterday” transportation film

1960’s “Vancouver Honeymoon” – hat tip to Darren Barefoot for this one

1986 – Expo86 Remembered

The Vancouver Art Gallery is hosting several special exhibits and events throughout the next few months in honor of Vancouver’s 125th birthday (which is tomorrow, April 6th).

Source: Vancouver Art Gallery

Exhibits
Until May 2011: WE: Vancouver 12 Manifestos for the City
This exhibition examines Vancouver through the extraordinary range of practices, actions and ideas that shape and activate it.

Until September 2011: Ken Lum
The most extensive survey of Ken Lum’s work to date, the exhibition features a number of works not previously exhibited in North America.

Until September 2011: from the collection UNREAL
From examinations of human vulnerability to the mining of the unconscious as a source of inspiration, to a conscious turn towards the strange and fantastic as a deliberate strategy to counter the cool rationality of conceptual art, this exhibition considers the diversity and innovation with which artists explore the many edges of reality.

East Van Cross by Ken Lum. Photo credit: rob.masefield on Flickr

Specials
To also celebrate VanCity Saving’s Credit Union’s 65th anniversary members are invited to the Vancouver Art Gallery April 12, 2011 to experience the WE: Vancouver 12 Manifestos for the City exhibit. Credit Union members will have free admission to the gallery from 10:00am until 9:00pm. Any members that cannot make it out on the 12th are invited to visit any Tuesday during the exhibit’s run for $6.50 off the price of their admission. Simply show your member card to redeem either of these offers.

Contest
I have the opportunity to give away two pairs of tickets to the Vancouver Art Gallery in honor of these milestones. Here’s how you can enter to win:

I will draw two winners at random April 8th, 2011 at 11:00am who will each receive a pass for themselves and a guest (to be used by May 27, 2011).

Update The winners are Laura Ellis (Facebook entry) and Jeff.