When Miami Ink started airing on TLC it became a ‘regular’ series for John and I, the skill and talent the tattoo artists possess is pretty out of this world. My favourite personalities on the reality series were Kat Von D and Chris Garver but after some end of season drama, Kat was ousted from the shop and now has her own business and series called L.A. Ink.

Kat opened High Voltage Tattoo in Hollywood recently and caters to a clientele of tourists, walk-ins and celebrities alike.

She’s put together a super team of artists such as Hannah Aitchison, Corey Miller, Kim Saigh, and her best pal “Pixie” who is the shop manager. They are all so talented, producing emotional depictions with any palette, lifelike, heartbreaking and passionate works of art for their clients. The TV shows have been such a hit that there seems to be a newfound romance with the art of tattoos everywhere you look today.

A friend of ours works at the Surrey Museum, where they currently have an exhibition called: “Tattoos: Tribal to Trend”, which is running from September 1 to October 27th.

Take a visual journey through human history and see how tattoos have evolved from Polynesian tribal markings, to facial identity clues to sideshow performance art and contemporary body decoration. “Tattoos: Tribal to Trend” explores how tattoos have provided magical protection, declared victory, signaled group identity, and depicted spiritual belief or personal independence. [Surrey Museum Exhibitions]

Tomorrow, Saturday the 22nd, there will be a special panel called “Behind the Ink”.

Join a panel of tattoo experts and “collectors” to hear the stories behind the ink and see live tattoo art. Filmmaker Vince Hemingson will share his experiences receiving a traditional hand-tapped tattoo and filming the Iban peoples of Borneo for the documentary “The Vanishing Tattoo”. [Surrey Museum Events]

Vince also has a blog, with an amusing post featuring the top finger and knuckle tattoos.

The session is $5 to attend and goes from 2:00pm to 3:00pm, pre-registration online is required.

Visitors to the museum are also welcome to have their own tattoos photographed for the Surrey Ink’d wall. [Surrey Leader]

The Surrey Museum is located at 17710 – 56A Avenue (Hwy 10) in Cloverdale [Google Map].

The annual issue of the Georgia Straight, “Best of Vancouver”, is now available in stores street corner boxes. This free weekly newspaper takes a poll every year where readers can voice their choices for the best spots in town for any kind of activity or lack thereof. I have yet to get a print copy to see if there’s a side column about blogs but I’m reading the online results right now.

Here are a couple of the ‘winners’.

City Life:

Media/Arts/Culture:

Style:

Travel:

Mind/Body/Soul:

Sports and Recreation:

Lifestyle:

Food and Drink:

These are just a few of the results, pick up a copy of the Georgia Straight for more results or check it out online.

Update: Just picked up my copy and there are columns about things that don’t fit into the actual award categories. Such as: Best Way to Get Rid of Styrofoam Peanuts is by going to Vancouver Reuses, and The Most Flagrant Waste of Precious Urban Space goes to the concrete park on the corner of Mainland and Nelson in Yaletown. Also included is the Best Place to Eat Before a Canucks Game, which is Costco mmm warehouse hot dogs. Unfortunately Best Canucks Talk does not include a mention of The Crazy Canucks Podcast BUT the Best Reason to Get up in the Morning goes to Gastown’s own Workspace and the Vancouver Graffiti Flickr Group also won for Best Graffiti Gallery.

We saw a skunk sifting through garbage in the back alley the other day, I think they are doing shift work while the raccoons sleeping, it struck me as sorta strange. When the strike first started (remember way back when? even during the fireworks?) people were like “oh you can’t even tell!” At this point, you can tell, and you can smell, and you probably have a fruit fly whizzing around you right now that you’re trying to smack, but just can’t because damn those things are fast.

Photo credit: Sean Orr on Flickr from his Garbage Strike 2007 set

Thanks to the growing piles of garbage, pest-control experts say mice and rat calls are up 50%, and the fruit-fly population has more than doubled! [News1130]

Jeffrey made a post on Metblogs about fruit flies and people left comments about how to build a better fly trap. Even at the Canucks game Monday night there were fruit flies and I don’t think they were there to see the Stanley Cup champions play.

John and I have been pretty good about reducing our garbage, but at least we take it downstairs for collection. I swear there’s some people in our building who are collecting their waste on the balcony because when we open the windows the bug problem gets worse. Yes, there still is garbage collection by private companies although wait times at transfer stations now have their schedules tightened.

The civic strike is the second longest in Vancouver’s history. A strike in 1981 lasted for 90 days. Vancouver’s outside workers walked off the job on July 20, halting residential garbage pickup. The inside workers joined the strike on July 23. The city’s library staff went on strike the same week, closing 22 library branches. [CBC]

But listen to me, talking about fruit flies and how annoying they must be meanwhile those less fortunate have been living with this problem in their face since July. If you don’t think it’s a huge problem that Vancouver city workers have been on strike since earlier this summer – take a look at some of the pics I’m peppering throughout this post.

Photo credit: Sean Orr on Flickr from his Garbage Strike 2007 set

There’s talk this morning of a proposed plan to remove dumpsters altogether as well, while increasing pickups of bagged garbage.

It can be hard to imagine walking through allies downtown and not seeing dumpsters filled with garbage, old mattresses and whatever else. But this new initiative would mean the end to that, and be replaced by a three times daily garbage bag pick up [News1130]

More exhaust from big trucks coming by several times daily but hey, at least there will be more parking in Yaletown because garbage is just ‘icky’.

“Yaletown, in particular, was quite excited about this because, of course, in Yaletown the lanes are very small, and there are so many different haulers that there were, you know, a dumpster for every car.” [CKNW]

Photo credit: Sean Orr on Flickr from his Garbage Strike 2007 set

Whatever resolution comes from mediated talks with civic workers, it can’t come soon enough. Honestly, our city is getting pretty grimey and again (seems like I’m saying this a lot lately) for such a ‘world class’ tourist-destination of a town, we sure are sweeping a lot under the rug.

When Buzz wants to hear about hockey and beer I’m super glad he thinks of me. This afternoon on 95 Crave, a local Vancouver radio station, Buzz gave me a call to talk about the ‘sippy cup beer‘ at GM Place this season. Here’s a little snippet from his Ustream – yes, he also Ustreams his shifts (3-7pm at 95.3 on your FM dial)

Click To Play

John scooped the full interview audio and he’ll include it in an upcoming episode of The Crazy Canucks Podcast. If you haven’t already, head over to Buzz’s BC Cancer Foundation Tour of Courage donation page and sponsor him in his ride this coming weekend.

The puck has dropped! Welcome to the pre-season and welcome back to The Crazy Canucks podcast. We tried to stay alive over the summer and are ramping up within the coming weeks so watch out!

Hockey is back! Well, we’re almost there, but the puck is dropping in pre-season action all around the NHL, and September 17, 2007 is when it started for the Canucks.

This episode ended up being a mix of content, mostly due to technical difficulties in the recording process. Everyone gathers online to discuss more of the jersey debate, but this is probably the last we’ll really hammer this topic. Then Dave and John hang out for a brief chit chat before the first game against Anaheim, and Rebecca ends this episode with a report on going to the game. [The Crazy Canucks – Episode #40]

Head over to the website to listen, for all the details about the podcast, show notes for this episode and to subscribe as this season is sure to be a good’er.

In case you forgot over the summer or are new to The Crazy Canucks here’s a bit of background information:

The Crazy Canucks is a roundtable podcast that focuses on our favorite NHL team, the Vancouver Canucks. We are a group of bloggers, podcasters and hockey enthusiasts from all over British Columbia, who, through the magic of Skype, come together once a week to cheer and rag on our beloved team.

Like you, we are Canucks fans first and foremost. We speak as Canucks fans; we feel as Canucks fans; we bleed Canucks blue like Canucks fans. Our passion goes beyond what other media outlets do. Our passion comes from being Canucks fans and this podcast is a product of that. [About – The Crazy Canucks]

The Crazy Canucks podcasters are Alanah (from Canucks and Beyond), JJ (from the Canucks Hockey Blog), Dave (from the Canucks Outsider Podcast), John (from the RadioZoom podcast), and yours truly of Miss604.