All the World is Green - A Walk on Victoria's Lochside Trail

The desert sits and ponders
how it will murder me.

I lay no claim to the title of Outdoorsman.   Some people, my good friends Scott & Rose, for example, are at home in the natural world.  They run for fun (for fun!) and voluntarily spend time sweating under that awful orange ball in the sky photographing savage, toothy things whereas I am most comfortable somewhere quiet and air-conditioned where the most savage thing I’m likely to encounter is a poorly-made daiquiri.

The most vivid memory I have of the hiking trip Scott & I made in Joshua Tree National Park last spring is the sound of a rattlesnake communicating his displeasure at my proximity.  Scott grew up in the desert and so being used to these kinds of things said only, “That’s a big snake”.  I am a child of the mountains, where the things that can kill you are much larger and more easily avoided so my response to standing directly over a predator was one that came naturally:  bowel-loosening panic. 

Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em - The 2010 Highland Games

2010 Highland Games or the
scenes to "2012"?

It's the May long weekend, and that of course means half the city has gone camping.  For those of us left there's no shortage of things to do: there's the Steampunk Convention, the Highland games and, of course, my favourite pastime, wondering how, with half the population hiding in the bushes huddled over portable ranges from MEC, there is still a thirty minute wait to get into the Blue Fox.  Last year was my third in the city and our first attending the Highland Games at Topaz Park.  Under a pitiless sun we drank beer while Nicky and our friend Joline drooled over men that looked and sounded like Shrek.   This year we'd planned on checking out the Steampunk Convention but last weekend's walk on the Lochside had left us a bit tanned and thus no longer pale enough to fit in amongst fans of Victorian England, alternate-reality or no.

Tom & Jerry's Restaurant | 2828 East Hastings Street | Vancouver

5 bacons + egg.  That's my
kind of math.

There’s something about a greasy spoon diner that speaks to me. I don’t know if it’s the waitress impatiently popping her gum because she’s got places to be or the diners who nurse their coffee for hours because they don’t or if it’s the food that manages to simultaneously take years off my life while provoking awkward stimulation in my marital area. Whatever the reason, I’m forever dragging my friends and family to places like the Grade A Restaurant on Granville, where seven dollars gets you bacon, eggs and hashbrowns, or, if you’re feeling continental, hashbrowns and an Eggo waffle fresh from the toaster. An extra dollar-fifty gets you a mug of coffee with a residual taste of bleach to prove that the tableware is scrupulously clean. When it’s time to go, the chef himself will ask you how you enjoyed your meal - he’s able to do this because he’s also the person handling the cash. Once your transaction is completed you can watch him skip over that handwashing nonsense and immediately return to work scooping handfuls of shredded potatoes onto the grill.  With his bare hands.

John's Noodle Village | 823 Bay Street | Victoria

Update - July 10, 2011:  John's Noodle Village has closed. 

In a line-up of the world’s major nations China tends to stand out.   Sure, Canada is bigger, meaning we get to swagger around the U.N. locker room proudly drawing attention to our Maritimes but would it topple the American economy if we sold our government bonds as revenge for allowing Kate Gosselin back on television?  I think not.  Russia is larger still and has an impressive stockpile of enormously powerful weapons that are in no way compensating for anything, but has their cuisine taken the western world by storm?  Not unless I missed an episode of The F Word where Gordon Ramsay shows you eighteen different ways to prepare potatoes, vodka and sadness.  So that makes China the world’s fourth largest country that has the third by the short hairs with a million-man army to make sure they don’t squirm too much and a government that has managed to keep out Richard Gere since the late nineties.  Sounds like a major player on the world stage to me.

Every Man a King, Part I - Seattle, New Orleans and Riding the Rails

(Author's note: This is the first of a series on my visit to New Orleans in Summer 2008. A restaurant review is coming, I promise.)

Union Station, Chicago

When I stepped off the train onto the platform at Chicago’s Union Station the first thing I said was “God it’s hot.” The humid afternoon air made my clothes fall limp, beads of sweat prickle across my forehead and my duffel bag felt thirty pounds heavier than when I had boarded in Seattle. I heard a laugh behind me and turned to see Ed, a jolly, potbellied auto mechanic I’d met in the dining car the night before. He was on his way home to Gary, Indiana from the Land of a Thousand Lakes and even in heavy work jeans and a t-shirt didn't look like the heat affected him one bit. “Hot, huh? And you’re going to New Orleans?” He removed the toothpick from his mouth, tossed it on the ground then shifted the strap of his backpack from one shoulder to another. He chuckled again, “Friend, you’re gonna die.”

Putting on the Dog

When I'm not working or trying to shoehorn jokes into what are supposed to be restaurant reviews I also sporadically write music reviews for the Technorati site Blogcritics. In the last two weeks the website for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer picked up two of my reviews, the first for Dethklok's The Dethalbum and the second for the White Zombie anthology Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, both via the Blogcritics RSS feed. They regularly carry BC content but this is the first time they've carried anything authored by yours truly. Click the album titles to read the reviews on the P.I. site (will open new windows).


The handful of other reviews I've written for BC can be found here.