After a patriotic week of carefree afternoons and sunny days it’s back to the event circuit next week and as usual, it seems like Vancouver’s meetup darlings all decide to come out within the same three-day span. I’ll have a full tech event recap on my Sunday night Techvibes column but until then here are two events of note.
On Monday I’ll be sponsoring the Vancouver Real Estate Technology Meetup event over at Ceili’s on Granville. They have a guest speaker scheduled and I’ll be cranking out the live blog over here for all those who cannot attend, and those who go and want to see notes and links afterward. This will be running in tandem with the Vancouver Young Professionals Meetup event.
My friend and Surrey brother DaveO [of happyfrog and Raincity] is spearheading the next NetTuesday Meetup over at Workspace. He’ll be leading a panel about Podcasting for Change with talent such as Rob Cottingham, Roland Tanglao, and John Bollwitt. Dave’s even put together a promo video to get everyone excited about the event.
I’ll be liveblogging both days stop by and say hi if you see me (Raul will be there too) or follow along online.
New York took the Stanley Cup from under our noses in 1994, our beloved Captain Canuck went to the Islanders in 1998 and as of this afternoon the Rangers have scooped up our free agent captain, Markus Naslund.
Markus Naslund signed a two-year deal with the New York Rangers today—New York being pretty much as far as one can get from Vancouver without actually swimming in the sea or hanging out in Miami. And I don’t blame him one bit. [CanucksAndBeyond]
We sort of knew something like this would happen, as Alanah goes on to point out in her post “Keep Vigneault = Lose Naslund”. We knew his playing style didn’t match Viggy’s plan and that he just wasn’t having those great seasons like when we saw him shine in the early 2000’s or as a part of the West Coast Express. When he’s on top of his game, Naslund is tough to beat when it comes to pure finesse and scoring ability although what’s to come of the captain-less Canucks now?
From Waiting for Stanley, the Canucks have so far:
… signed Nolan Baumgartner to a contract
… re-signed RFA Alexandre Bolduc
… signed Curtis Sanford
… the Blues matched the Canucks’ offer on David Backes
… signed forward Ryan Johnson
… (in the draft) selected Cody Hodgson
… drafted Prab Rai
… claim Kyle Wellwood off waivers
There is some moving and shaking going on at GM Place during this off season, I haven’t even touched on the fact that PPV coverage alumnus Ryan Walter will be behind the bench on the coaching staff as well. But I think what many people want to know is if the Sundin rumour mill will keep spinning and come September, who will be wearing the “C” for our Vancouver boys.
I’m a big fan of local brews and this city has a wonderfully blended history when it comes to beer (even the girl in the wet suit knows that).
In 2005 the folks at Just Here For the Beer decided it was time to put Vancouver on Canada’s beer festival map and they began hosting the Canada Cup of Beer.
Taking place this Saturday at Thunderbird Stadium (UBC) festivities will include fan-favourite voting in such categories as Favourite Canadian Lager, Favourite Microbrew Beer, Best Booth Display, Friendliest Servers, and Best Beer Name (to name a few).
In addition to the over 30 vendors and 150 beers to sample, there will be several brewmasters attending this year’s festival including:
Stefan Tobler – Okanagan Spring Brewery
Vern Lambourne – Granville Island Brewery
Derrick Smith & Tony Dewald – Dead Frog Brewery
Dave Vargas – Red Truck Beer Company
Peter Haupenthel – Dockside Brewing
The Canada Cup of Beer starts at 1:00pm and runs until 7:00pm, tickets are $20 and are available online (until Friday). You can also get them at the door ($25). This includes 5 sample tokens (1 token equals 1, 4-ounce sample, some specialty items are 2 tokens or available in 2-ounce pours). You can also attend a special movie event at the Ridge Theatre tomorrow with a combo ticket (movie event plus Canada Cup of Beer) for $25 total.
I figured I would let everyone else do the blogging about the iPhone 3G coming to Canada and all the Rogers hate going around so I’ll pick up my iPhone chatter while continuing my girlie series.
I’ve been getting a lot of funny looks with my bedazzled iPhone, wrapped in a case I bought for a laugh at Bellis Fair a few months ago. I had a really cool pink silicone cover but I thought I would try out a hard case for a change. With the new Apple store in town and the iPhone officially coming to Canada I thought I would look around a bit more at case options (even though most of these are only available for purchase online).
– Starting off with a bang, there’s the Louis Vuitton luxury iPhone case:
(from The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
– There are also hand-stitched leather cases with screen protectors (something other cases omit):
(from Orbino)
Both of these cases (above) are featured as being one of the Top 10 Luxury iPhone Cases. Cases featured on that list range from $35 – $20,000 in price. Yeowsa!
– Via GeekSugar, there’s the Bond Street iPhone holster:
(from MyIncipio)
– There are printed designs like the Cherry Blossom case as seen on somagirls.tv:
– Not to be outdone by Louis, Juicy Couture offers up a fancy pink leather case as well:
(from ShinyShiny.tv)
– For something a little more plain, from Apple itself the Agent 18 Eco Shield:
– Lastly, Gizmodo calls this the “worst iPhone case ever” due in part to its “lady mirror” on the inside:
I admit a “lady mirror” isn’t really something I was looking for in a case. Honestly out of all the ones I mentioned above, the one by Apple seems the most appealing as I don’t really need something for my iPhone that could double as a carry bag for a snack dog.
I think Dave’s wood case is pretty darn sharp and I have recently switched back to my pink silicone from John Biehler. However, now that the iPhone will be here in just over a week I’m wondering where I’ll be able to find a sleek, functional and affordable case. I’m sure they will become more available around town and since the Rogers offers are so atrocious that might just leave more cases on the shelves for me to browse.
I have to start off my last post about Surrey’s Canada Day celebration by saying it was one of the smoothest-run events we’ve ever attended. Folks could setup their tents, umbrellas, and chairs on the lawn in anticipation of the concerts meanwhile the midway was busy spinning away and the booths drew in thousands. Everyone was having a great time; there was laughter, cheering and spontaneous renditions of Happy Birthday Canada.
Here are some sights (sounds coming soon) as captured by John because well, he’s the one with the camera in our family and he knows how to use it. You can view more in his Flickr set.
Artist: Wil
Artist: Rymes with Orange
Artist: The Payola$ (Bob Rock and Paul Hyde)
From a media perspective, John and I had no issues getting where we needed to be in order to cover the event and were able to enjoy all it had to offer. Big thanks to the City of Surrey for having us out and I can’t wait until the Surrey Fusion Festival that is coming up July 18-20th in Holland Park (note the new sponsored badge in my sidebar). I’ll have three full days of coverage of that event so look for us out there that weekend.
