Original Joe's | 2525 Cambie Street | Vancouver

UPDATE, January 2011: There is now an Original Joe's in Langford. Since Langford fills me with the same kind of malaise as watching soap opera re-runs at my grandmother's house I have never bothered to go.

By the time they reach adulthood most people have given up on things like magic. The notion of conjuring something from nothing is relegated to the worlds of fantasy and conservative economic policy. Yet I, in the midst of all this doubt, am a living example of magic’s possibilities. I can, through my mere presence, bring rain to any region of the world simply by appearing there without a coat or umbrella. My most recent trip to Vancouver came at the end of weeks of sunshine, and so I foolishly felt safe in bringing only the essentials: socks, underwear, undershirts, shoe shine kit. The collection of umbrellas I have accumulated by making this mistake time and time again hung, unused, in my office at home. True to form, the skies opened, and my plan to walk downtown for dinner disappeared into the rain like Rutger Hauer’s tears. Instead, I decided to keep close to my room at the Plaza and Original Joe’s pub, a place I had been to a few times, fit the bill perfectly.

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  Then we began to stray; popular usage superseded common sense and soon the peasantry thought they could just make up words without the help of Heintje, Caesar or Marlon. 

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.

Rhythm is a (Bus) Dancer

The experience of public transit is very much like that of life itself; interminable right up until the end at which point it seems to have only just begun.  Unless you're very lucky you're likely to face conditions that are crowded and unpleasant and the whole time you'll be forced to endure the company of a great many people you would rather have avoided.