Tag Archives: Canada

Canadian music suffers

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Ringo Star & Justin Bieber

In the past, Canada has put forward a lot of great musicians like Celine Dion, David Foster, Alanis Morrissette, Bryan Adams, k.d. lang, Luba, Leonard Cohen, Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Tragically Hip, Neil Young, Ashley MacIsaac, Randy and Tal Bachman, and the list goes on and on. Click the link above to visit the Wikipedia list. It’s pretty amazing.

Today, we present the modern equivalent. Justin Bieber.

What’s a Justin Bieber? You ask? He’s a 16 year old kid from Stratford, Ontario (read: nowhere) and he taught himself how to play the piano, drums, guitar, and trumpet. In 2007 his mom started whoring him out posting videos on YouTube of him performing songs by Usher, Justin Timberlake and Stevie Wonder.

He’s a tiny little boy who’s talent will probably only last until he hits puberty, but for the time being he’s making teenage girls “swoon” (we’ll call it that for the sake of propriety) all over the place. Ok, I admit, I think he’s relatively adorable, but that swoop of hair across his face is annoyingly cutsie and I just find him generally annoying.

Sadly, this is the current state of Canadian musical talent export. Feel free to check him out at his official site if you wanna be “current” in Canadian “music.”

Dear America. Back-atcha. Canada.

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Maybe I need an intervention

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Starbucks logo
Image via Wikipedia

Anybody who knows me even a bit knows I’ve got a Starbucks addiction, but I’m trying to kick it.

In Downtown Vancouver, there is a Starbucks location within a few (read 2) blocks of just about everywhere. In the last 3 places I/We have lived, there’s been one within a block. And there is one within a block of my office.

Seriously, I didn’t plan it, but I think Starbucks did.

A few years ago I went to Yuma, Arizona for Christmas to visit my dad and step-mother and was tired most of the time I was there. I came up with my Starbucks Conspiracy Theory. Basically, the reason I was tired wasn’t that I wasn’t drinking coffee but rather, in Vancouver the air is so saturated with caffeine from one coffee shop or another (Starbucks, Blendz, Cafe D’Artigiano, etc) that you live in an artificially caffeinated state whether you like it or not.

So, this past weekend Starbucks finally released a store locator app for the iPhone into the Canadian iTunes store!

For me, it’s not about locating a store in Vancouver, it’s about remembering which stores are good (clean bathrooms, friendly staff) among the 100s there seem to be downtown.

And of course it will come in handy when we’re out of our comfort zone and I need a fix.

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I want to watch curling

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Canadian Flag on Georgia Street
Canadian Flag on Georgia Street

Downtown Vancouver is rapidly becoming Olympic central as you would expect with the games roughly two months away at this point.

One of the features is GIANT, building sized posters or banners or flags or whatever you want to call them. On the building opposite the VAG is a giant Canada flag, which I think Chris has a picture of, but I don’t. I’ll post it one day. Ok, here it is, I got Chris to email it to me. We do love our tech.

On the Hudson’s Bay building there are a series of giant pictures of Canada’s winter Olympic athletes, which is a great way to promote them, make the Bay building look good (nobody will be able to recognize it as the place they shot Blade 3).

The biggest reason I like this particular promotion is because the very first photo I saw was of Olympic cutie Carter Rycroft. I know, I’m a shallow, shallow, looks obsessed person for this and I’m sure I’ll be toasting in hell at some point.

Hey, I’m not saying I don’t think he’s a tremendous athlete or that any non-cute athletes don’t get my support, I’m a big athletic supporter – hey wait…  but it sure helps hold my interest in what they’re up to when they’re adorable at the same time.

I like the whole hot-men-in-speedos aspect of swimming and diving during the summer Olympics, but have you seen Michael Phelps? His face isn’t exactly model quality so I don’t care about it so much.

Anyway, in the mean time. I have a new interest in Canada’s men’s curling team and hope to find some time to watch it over the 2 weeks that Vancouver will become a complete zoo in February 2010. Best of luck Carter. Oh, and everyone else.

Carter Rycroft, Olympic curler
Carter Rycroft, Olympic curler
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