So much content so little time so. Alanah and J.J. take the wheel for Episode #41 and interview the CBC’s Shanel Pratap.

In Episode #42 Dave gives us a great history of the Summit Series of 1972 and the modern-day Super Series. John produced these (as usual) meanwhile my only contribution is a snippet of a radio interview about the new beer cups at GM Place, which was a lot of fun. Check out the show notes for links and info, here are a few more details about each episode:

Shanel spent four days at Canucks training camp in Victoria, B.C. Our crew chats with him, gets inside his head a little, and look ahead at what we can expect by what he saw at training camp. [The Crazy Canucks – Episode #41 ]

DaveO chimes in with an editorial about the 2007 Super Series between Canada and Russia. He goes through a brief history of the 1972 Summit Series and relates it to the recent series, telling you why the hockey world should have payed more attention. [The Crazy Canucks – Episode #42

Speaking of podcasting, last night we met up with Mark Blevis from the Canadian Podcast Buffet for a Vancouver Podcast Meetup. He’ll be in town for the next week, should be at Third Tuesday tomorrow and sure knows his podcasting (from shows to gadgets).

And remember, if you have a favourite hockey blog be sure to let people know because the Georgia Straight’s perception that HFBoards is the best source for Canucks talk is pretty skewed (for a little help, I have a ‘hockey blogroll’ on my sidebar).

The annual “Best of Vancouver” issue of The Georgia Straight left me wanting more and had some of my readers saying wondering just what we’ve done to deserve Nickelback as a top band in our city? Because of this, I’ve decided to follow in the footsteps of the MaGoggy‘s and create my own awards, the Best of 604. These are not the things that are highest rated by Zagat or that have the most stars. These are people, places and things that I personally find enjoyable. With some help from John and my sister Jenny I hope to cover a different spectrum, all inclusive of the “604“.

The “Best of 604” will be an ongoing series, so watch for more posts in this category.

I wanted to touch on a ‘real’ demographic and ‘real’ places in and around Metro Vancouver. The first edition of the “Best of 604” is focused on family. Here are Jen’s recommendations.

• Best low-tourist, in-park, miniature train experience: Bear creek Park Train (in Surrey) – Really inexpensive and fun for the kids (especially at Halloween and Christmas)
• Best place to take energetic kids who have been cooped up on a rainy day: Go Banana’s (various location) – Cheap and the kids can run wild for hours and hours
• Most kid-friendly restaurant where your child’s screaming can be camouflaged by other children’s screams: Montana’s (in Langley) – Wicked kids menu, they can colour on the paper table cloths, tons of families and good grown up food too, really good place to take kids with super friendly staff
• Best park and playground you probably haven’t been to: Flight Path Park (in Richmond) – The kids love the park by the airport where you can see the planes taking off and landing, it’s free entertainment for hours and hours. There are a few little planes to pretend to fly on, mock runways they can run down and off course real-live jumbo jets flying overhead

Photo is property of True Colors Painting Ltd.

• Best park and playground you may have been to AND there’s ice cream: Rocky Point Park (in Port Moody) – Water park, playground, ice cream, fish and chips, walking trails, who could ask for anything more
• Best 1-day getaway from the city: Cultus Lake (in Chilliwack) – 1 hour drive East, lots of places to swim, nice picnic areas, nature trails to pick up sticks and discover bugs and stop at the dairy on the way home for some yummy ice cream (it’s all about the ice cream)

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.