Irony

Just as I've been of a mind to bitch about leftover contract work I've been getting calls from old clients and headhunters. A couple days ago one of my old clients contacted me about doing some work which I turned down. Yesterday the recruiters that got me the contract with the Horrible Slimy Banking Corporation called me about a contract. I got another call just now from a different recuiter, presumably for the same contract. If you happen to know any Vancouver-based Lotus Domino programmers interested in two weeks work in the $80 - $90/hr range...

Birthday Plans

OK, I turn 36 in a week. Here's the plan. On the actual day-of the best girlfriend ever is going to take me out to dinner and we'll probably hit Rebel-Rebel afterwords. The "official" birthday fête will be Saturday, August the 9th, bundled with our pre-Sin party, followed of course by Sin City since I am the poster boy for August (BTW, I'll be restoring the Sin City pictures that Saturday).

And, not that I expect anything, but because Elaine wanted me to, here are my Amazon wishlists:

• Amazon.ca
• Amazon.com

Yes, this is Manhattan

Ft. Tryon Park, overlooking the Hudson River above the intersection of Margaret Corbin Dr. and the Henry Hudson Parkway. Compiled from two different exposures of the same scene, with other Photoshopping to adjust hue, saturation, histogram levels and focus.

Reposted Rant from Van-Goth

[Discussing the upcoming Indy race]
> The race is one of the few things left
> in this city...

It's not something that's "left". It's not a unique part of Vancouver. It is another mass-marketed, corporate sponsored, "gee-ain't-we-'world class'?", lame knock-off event that has no soul and no basis in local history that was plunked here in recent years like a cow-pie in a field of flowers. *Indy* FFS, as in *Indianapolis*: there is no history of auto manufacture or racing here. This is a city that has its roots in forestry and fishing. What the hell happened to the Sea Festival? The bathtub races? No, can't have anything home-grown here, we simply *must* copy-cat things that grew up out of the distinct cultures of other cities, all in the name of luring tourists from other cities to spend money to benefit the sponsors that are headquartered in other cities, all for the sake of appearing "world class" to other cities. We didn't have fireworks on *Canada Day* this year for fear of unruly crowds, yet we'll pack the beer-swilling yahoos in to watch the fast cars go vroom. I don't see the fireworks being sponsored by the Hong-Kong/Singapore Bank (based in London, England) being cancelled. What about those crowds? Oh, that's right, were not sucking the IOC's ass the day after those. It's a fucking joke! Events like Indy, Expo, the Olympics, don't do anything but entrench a provincial service-industry culture, dependent on sucking up to those places that generate the real wealth, while we try to weasel a barmaid's tip from them. We're building a city of branch offices and franchise stores. Would you like fries with that? Would you like whip cream on your Frappuccino™?

There are two million people in Greater Vancouver. Do we really need to draw people in from out of town to make money? When New York was this size they were building the grandest monuments in the entire history of the world to date. Jazz came into being in New Orleans when they were half this size and not nearly as ethnically diverse as Vancouver. When London was this this size they were out founding nations. At its peak ancient Rome had fewer people. Golden Age Athens was a tenth the size.

Behind us, in those oh-so-pretty mountains that loom over the city is more *real* wealth than almost any area in the world, but we don't exploit it because we don't want to scare the tourists away with unsightly factories and foundries. But where to the tourists come from? Places that buy our primary resources cheap and make something useful out of them that we *could* make ourselves, and have local people making decent money instead of selling souveniers and lattés for minimum wage. We serve them with a smile so we can barely afford to buy the furniture they made with our wood, the cars made from our iron, the electronics wired with our copper and gold...

Fuck Indy. Fuck the tourist "industry". We need *real* industry and to get our heads out of our colonial ass.