West Coast Grill | 850 Douglas Street | Victoria

Update: I'm sad to report that the West Coast Grill has now closed it's doors.

So many things in life would be easier if they were dealt with honestly.  Dating, for example, would be simpler if, when you walked into the bar, men and women alike came out with what was really on their mind.  When the peroxide blonde with the washboard stomach dancing on top of some speakers caught your eye she would say, “Keep moving, droopy.  I’m drunk, not the Make-a-Wish Foundation.”  When a sculpted Adonis in his finest Tommy Bahama shirt put down his Jagerbomb to make time with the shy brunette in the red dress he’d say, “You seem vulnerable.  Can I help you get drunk enough to make a mistake that I can tell my friends about at brunch tomorrow?” 

Every Man a King, Part II - On Getting Shot in the Face During Breakfast

The taxi driver was an elderly black man with a closely-cropped head of gray hair and whose deeply-lined face betrayed very little expression aside from boredom. I gave him the name of my hotel, the Chateau Dupre, and he nodded his head slowly: “Mmmmhmmm. Da Dupre. Mmmmhmmm.” He signalled and slowly pulled into traffic. “I had planned on walking”, I said for no reason in particular, and after just enough time to think I was being ignored he said back, “Hmmmmmmm.....why you wanna do a thing like that. Too hot to be walkin’ ‘round. Mmmhmmmm.” Thrilled to have my laziness validated, I settled back into a seat that smelled of Old Spice and older cigarettes and watched the Crescent City roll by.

Paul's Place Omelettery | 2211 Granville Street | Vancouver

The English language is in trouble, dear reader.  Not grammar - that arcane set of incomprehensible rules governing the architecture of speech is just as disregarded now as it has ever been.  The foul odour of corruption is wafting to us from the building blocks of the language itself: words.  Made up solely of Latin, German and things Marlon Brando said in his sleep, English was, for years, as comforting and rigid as religion, with the dictionary as its bible.  Just like that good book, once upon a time the dictionary was seen as the final word; if Merriam and/or Webster said that something was so then it could be used anywhere, be it in Scrabble or the blazing put-down of another man's mother.  For a brief, shining season the glory of the word was like devouring fire on the top of the mount.  Then we began to stray; popular usage superseded common sense and soon the peasantry thought they could just make up words without the help of Heintje, Caesar or Marlon.