City bids farewell to O Zone
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Ok, i've read a lot of crazy shit these past couple weeks but seriously, this takes the cake! :haha:
This guy is an "Emmy-award winning INVESTIGATIVE journalist" for Oprah.com and a bunch of other US networks. Gold-Medal Vancouver Vacation Tips By Peter Greenberg Expert Content | January 19, 2010 Whether you're traveling to Canada for the upcoming 2010 Olympics or going to soak up the post-Games vibe, Vancouver remains one of my favorite cities. It's a vibrant, eclectic community that really does have something for everyone—laid-back fish shacks, high-end sushi, designer fashion, funky thrift shops, a world-class art museum and offbeat downtown galleries. What's particularly attractive is that Vancouver is an incredibly navigable city. It's walkable in its busy downtown area and is well connected by three rapid transit lines both above and underground. Now, while I'm a fan of Vancouver as a destination, I do have one big warning for anyone traveling to Canada in the next several weeks. Following the attempted bombing of a Northwest flight on Christmas Day, Canadian authorities have enacted a ridiculous and draconian security rule for those flying home from Canada: no carry-on bags allowed. That means no briefcases or backpacks. Just a small laptop bag that can carry just…a laptop. Or a small purse. That's it. * Not a single security authority has been able to logically explain this new rule to me. But they're out there, earnestly enforcing it. Recently, when I flew home from Vancouver, the security lines meant about a two-hour wait, not counting the additional time it took for folks to start repacking all their stuff into check-in bags at the terminals. And I was no exception. I was denied boarding (along with hundreds of other passengers) because they said my briefcase was too big. This is the same briefcase that has logged more than 1.5 million air miles carrying my laptop, wallet, airline tickets and notebook. Note to Canada: If you want me to come to the Olympics, please employ common sense and remove the ridiculous one carry-on bag rule. http://www.oprah.com/world/Vancouver...n-Travel-Guide As we all know, it's the US Dept. of Homeland security that imposed these ridiculous rules.... Not canada. But wow - what's going on in world of "investigative" journalism?? :haha: |
Actually, that was Transport Canada's doing. Well after all other countries had relaxed that new restriction that came into place at the request of the US, it stayed in Canada for quite some time..
In any case, the no carry on thing is long gone now anyway as of January 19th: http://www.catsa-acsta.gc.ca/Page.as...cabine&lang=en |
All of the country houses would have had tons more visitors if they had larger venues and let more people in. I would have gone to tons of them, but waiting in line for 3 hours just for a chance to *maybe* get in is not my idea of fun.
Now that I think of it, I only actually got into Saxony house...the rest of the place I went to were regular bars/pubs because of the ridiculous lineups for Irish/Heineken/German. I stood in line for 30 mins to an hour in each, and the line barely moved. |
Yeah, I agree. I didn't go to ANY houses. And I don't regret it.
You should see the blisters on my feet just from walking to GM Place and back a couple of times per day! It's a 40 minute walk, 20 there, 20 back. I felt like I was in Las Vegas :P |
I took this on Feb 27th.. spot the fail!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2800/...3361e35c_b.jpg My picture on Flickr |
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Last I heard, Vanco Computers went bankrupt way back...
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On Saturday 20 I headed down the the Heineken House got there around 7:30. But they had closed it off to the public. So I head back downtown to see what the lineup at the German house was like. I get down there and the line up was long. After waiting for about 2 mins found out it would be 2 hours. Thought well it would be just past 10 pm by then so I figured I would wait as I really didn't have anything else to do. Waited another minute or so and these two women came up behind me asked how long I had been waiting and I told them. Then this guy comes along and says he has these tickets to get in. I noticed the a "30" on them and figured they are probably $30 or more if he wants to make some money. So I ask him "how much". He said "Just take them" So I take one and the two girls behind me take one. I jump out of the line and walk up to the front and ask the woman if this ticket gets me in. She immediatly with a german accent asks "Is it yours" "Yes" I say. And then she tagged me and I walked straight in. Like I said I fluked out. |
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The next day the responses were "she's b*tching about rude AMERICAN border guards, and Long AMERICAN border lineups, and ill treatment by AMERICAN border guards. If she's unable to figure that out on her own, stay home so you don't have to be harassed by your own AMERICAN border guards ever again!" |
she probably realized that and knew they were US guards
I know some Americans who don't want to leave the US for the same reason - getting back into their country is too much for them to deal with and they know they are dealing with US border people etc they say its easy to leave the country but coming back is a pain |
Another day, another British media outlet trashing our Olympics. This time, it's The Economist calling us "jingoistic" and taking some pleasure in the financial plight of the athletes village.
After Canada's Olympics Golden glow Sporting success and brash patriotism Mar 4th 2010 | VANCOUVER | From The Economist print edition http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15612374 CANADIANS used to think of themselves as being quiet, modest and unassertive. No longer. After their athletes topped the medals table with 14 golds at the winter Olympic games, some 100,000 flag-waving locals took to the streets of Vancouver and the nearby ski resort of Whistler, deliriously singing the national anthem. The crowning triumph had come with victory over the United States in the men’s ice-hockey final. Even though this mood of brash patriotism had been building steadily both before and during the games, it took outsiders and even some Canadians by surprise. The Vancouver Olympics got off to a dreadful start. Early on the opening day, a Georgian athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili, was killed during a practice run when his luge flipped over, throwing him into a steel pole and raising questions about the track’s safety. Foreign journalists pounced on a series of glitches. The Olympic torch did not burn properly during the opening ceremony, an ice-making machine broke down as did several buses, and unseasonably mild weather caused events to be postponed. Visitors to Vancouver were frustrated that the outdoor Olympic flame was cordoned off behind a chain-link fence (it was quickly opened up). “The worst games ever,” wrote a columnist in The Guardian, a British newspaper, much to the annoyance of Canadians. They weren’t. And they got better and better, especially for home fans. At the previous two Olympics held on their soil, Canadians had failed to win a single gold medal. Their success this time stemmed from a programme to finance athletes’ preparation and training, called “Own the Podium” and organised by the Canadian Olympic Committee five years ago. It had a budget of C$117m ($104m), raised from government and business, and it worked—although the Americans finished first in the overall medal count. This hard-nosed approach irritated some foreign athletes, who had less chance to practise at the facilities than did their Canadian rivals. The jingoistic mood may have added to the pressure on Canadian athletes, but Canadian success created an infectious public enthusiasm for the games on the streets of Vancouver, which impressed visiting officials from the 2012 London Olympics. Canadian success also inspired an outpouring of national pride that is unusual in a fissiparous country often seemingly racked by self-doubt. Whether the games have succeeded in rebranding Canada as a modern, youthful sporting power, as some of the organisers apparently hoped, remains to be seen. Now the bills will fall due. Last year Vancouver city council bailed out the developers building the Olympic village, because the softening of the property market made it hard to sell flats there. The Canadian Olympic Committee faces a $22m shortfall for “Own the Podium”, and the federal government has declined to stump up more. Two decades ago 50% of Canadian adults took part in sport of some kind. Now the figure is only 30%, and obesity rates are rising. Perhaps Canada was just renting the podium. |
From an empire who saw its best days some 400 years ago, it must suck to see an offspring actually good at something.
Did we get our love for losers from the British? It's now wrong to win and celebrate? Would they have liked a participation trophy for 2010? By the way, 33% of Brits are overweight or obese, and the number is steadily rising. And their point is? The UK can't even afford the rent on the podium. I hope they finish outside of the top 5 in 2012 :P Oh, and, their own government through UK Sport is spending 261 million pounds ($400 million CAD) to try to "own the podium" in 2012. http://www.uksport.gov.uk/pages/summ...-_london_2012/ |
^ 25-million pounds for swimming and athletics...each.
*gasp* |
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We are not the first country to pay and help our athletes to train. Nor will we be the last. |
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Mayor is no fan of Olympic politics
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It has been very amusing to read these articles trying and put a negative spin on people having a good time and being patriotic. We really can't win. These are all opinion pieces designed to provoke reactions and are starting to smack of jealously, they wanted the games to fail, they didn't.. Sticks and stones and all that.... |
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Don't take it to heart. Vancouver is a beautiful part of the world and i feel very fortunate to have been allowed to live here. Sure, there are some things that need addressing, but there appears to be real desire to improve and grow here. It's very exciting to be in such a youthful place that is still finding its way. A failing of Brits is their constant ability to find fault, moan and poke fun. It makes them overlook the UK's problems, which are many. I'll gladly put up with the expensive cheese! http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=56 |
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FOR THE THIRD TIME, the British Press aren't the British people. Their opinions aren't the opinions of the majority here, and shouldn't be taken as such. How many times do I have to say this, or do you take as much pleasure as some of our journalists in gross and sorry generalisations? It certainly seems that way reading some of the posts in this thread. A handful of British journalists writing some bad articles seems to some to be a great excuse to slag off a whole nation, making your opinion as worthy and helpful as the journalists in question. Well done. Furthermore, there have been many positive articles in our press about Vancouver; I think I saw two or three yesterday, but none of them are in this thread weirdly. Either people like Rusty Gull have, coincidentally, only come across the bad ones, or they're searching for British articles on the Olympics until they find a negative one to post. A shit-stirrer in other words. Maybe I should take Chris Shaw's opinion as indicative of every Canadadians'. |
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Perhaps you should post the good ones for us to offer a balanced view. |
I don't actually think anything I said was a generalization :P I actually looked up statistics and provided reference.
A generalization would be assuming your dental care is non-existent, and you all can't cook. But I understand what you are saying, and I heard you the first two times. I have even made the same point in other threads. I know how trashy your media is :( |
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Anyway Corrigan is such a big whiner. blah blah spreading venues out to other communities. he's so full of crap. |
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He's definitely still bitter...he put on a huge scene when VANOC officially announced it would be moved in Richmond. As well, building a venue at UBC plus replacing an aging community centre at Queen Elizabeth Park...I really don't know how you can complain about that. |
I can't imagine why the City of Burnaby didn't see any financial benefits from the Olympics. I mean, Live City Burnaby was such a success, right?
Oh right, Corrigan totally refused to participate! |
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...“If you really want a fiscal problem, look at the U.K.,” said Mark Schofield, a fixed-income strategist at Citigroup. “In Europe, the average deficit is about 6 per cent of GDP and in the U.K. it's 12 per cent. It is only just beginning.” Since the Labour government's intense fiscal intervention in 2008 and 2009, yields on British government debt have soared to among the highest in Europe. And on a broader scale, which includes the borrowing of households and companies, the overall level of debt in Britain is the second-largest in the world, after Japan's, at 380 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, according to a recent report by the consulting company McKinsey... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...rticle1488285/ |
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I also used to have a lot of respect for the Guardian, but their coverage of these Games was beyond irresponsible. I mean, having Lawrence Donegan, a golf correspondent as their chief Olympics writer, was a brutal judgement call. Is is still the "Worst Games Ever", Lawrence? And then they hire a bunch of dim-witted, left-wing, anti-Games activist freelancers from Vancouver to write the other articles. At least the Times redeemed itself with some proper journalism at the conclusion of the Games...(and I apologize if this article has already been posted) London can learn much from wonderful Winter Olympics in Vancouver Matthew Pinsent, Commentary Vancouver has not been hard to judge for me. It has been wonderful, and while that judgment is not without reservation, I feel that it is accurate. Let’s start at the beginning and the general sorrow that descended on the Games after the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili in the bobsleighing. The media inferno that consumed the first day and a half after the tragedy had to be seen to be believed: the press were remorseless in their hunt for someone to blame and some reports incorrectly pointed to Own The Podium, Canada’s sports-funding programme. But Own The Podium had nothing to do with the rules that allow a host nation to limit ice time for foreign competitors, rules that previous hosts used to their advantage and surely must be changed now. It had nothing to do with designing a track that was purposely difficult and it certainly had nothing to do with the standards that Kumaritashvili had to clear to represent his country. The organisers shoulder some of the blame for the Georgian’s death, but to apportion all of it to them is just wrong. However, Own The Podium can be blamed for an unrealistic heightening of the home expectation of athlete performance. The irony is that as the Games draw to a close, Canada have a chance of getting to the top in gold medal terms. They still have four great chances in the men’s and women’s ice hockey and curling. But the North Americans count all medals equally, so Canada need to find a near-impossible dozen more to get close to their own target, with fewer than 20 events to be decided. The challenge of hosting and winning lots of medals is something to which we have to pay close attention, with London next to light the Olympic flame. Most of the Canadians have performed to or above expectation, but some of the most high-profile and hyped athletes have slipped back. Our own gold medal-winner, Amy Williams, triumphed in the skeleton at the expense of Mellisa Hollingsworth, of Canada. The latter had every right to be considered a contender, but in the end she was a weeping wreck, apologising to viewers on television. Some Chinese athletes had a similar experience in Beijing and learnt that the expectations of the host nation can be overwhelming. We need to start planning carefully how we deal with athletes and external expectations in the weeks and months leading up to 2012. As ever, the reporting of the Games has been sharp and occasionally biting. The world’s press have descended on West Hastings Street, where Vancouver’s drug issues are arguably at their worst. It is testament to the hosts’ openness that they simply chose not to hide the issue. We have to expect the same rigorous investigation before the Olympics in London. What sets Vancouver apart for me is how carefully they examine criticism. I was very politely refused an interview by Donald Sutherland, the actor, with the advice to “please tell the Guardian newspaper that this is not the worst Games ever”. (Rusty's note: Donald, you rock!) Newspapers here have a daily game of “quote what the rest of the world is saying”. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to explain the difference between BBC Sport and the British papers. Canadians have touchingly thin skins — or perhaps we have evolved into rhinos when it comes to press coverage. Our own British sporting performance has been fine, no more. Williams’s deserved triumph has been offset by genuine disappointment elsewhere. The curling, bobsleighing and speed-skating teams will all have difficult meetings in the weeks to come. But what can we expect on the back of 2 per cent of the funding that our 2012 team is given? By that measure, the investment here looks good value. Team GB would have to win 50 medals in 2012 to provide the same return per pound spent. The sadness is that many of the winter sports are, in terms of development, a decade or more behind the most successful sports in our country. While there have been steps taken to close the gap, the sports in which we excel can still teach other disciplines how to win. The sporting seal for Canada has still to be decided — the men’s ice hockey final takes place a few hours before the closing ceremony. We are constantly reminded that “hockey is Canada’s game” and that the men’s players have had, more than all other home athletes, to perform under fan and media pressure. If they can display their best form in the final, then perhaps Canadians will at last believe that their Winter Olympics are what I’ve felt they have been all along — wonderful. |
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Maybe Richmond should help start a sports university attached to the Oval. That will give the Oval plenty of use to train our future athletes :)
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http://www.multisportcentreofexcelle...acilities.html I would love to see Burnaby Lake properly dredged so that we can use it for rowing, kayaking, canoeing, etc.... |
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Perhaps the Oval can be used for other kind of training though, such as track and field, badminton, or whatever other sports that is suitable for the Oval. |
Well, the Olympic critics were right. The games have devastated our economy and set human rights back a century.
Politicians to bask in Games' $400m profit, equality boost http://www.theprovince.com/sports/20...347/story.html Errrm. Nevermind. And yes, you two, I'm aware the numbers are preliminary, and probably just a Gordon Campbell / Stephen Harper conspiracy, and the NDP would have made it a $1 billion profit. :tup: |
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British Olympic team gives Vancouver charity all their equipment
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Nice!
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Slowly becoming California :P
Which would be super if they weren't passed bankruptcy. |
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With our turtle protectionism! Not that I'm anti-turtle. I quite like their teenage mutant variety.
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C'mon guys. You deplore the state of the natural environment of burnaby lake and state you'd like it cleaned but somehow you will dismiss the natural habitat of a turtle who lives in the lake and wanting to protect it as loopy.
What gives? :) |
Is Burnaby Lake natural or artificial?
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the royal canadian mint is moving to the Library
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I hope you mean the pavillion, because the libraries photocopiers aren't currency quality.:tup:
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I think it's more that all the protests and protesters we saw weren't even DTES people. It wasn't poor people protesting, it was local agitator white trash and people from across the continent that travel from place to place hoping to get in fights and break windows. As soon as the media saw that 99% of Vancouver's people were celebrating the games and the protests were not even authentic, it became a non-story.
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Yea, the story really was the 100 000 - 150 000 people that constantly had downtown Vancouver alive.
I was in NYC for the 2008-2009 new years. and honestly, if given a choice between what I experienced in person there in Times Square, and what I saw in everyone else's pictures of Van, I woulda stayed in NYC for the sake of breathing room. And after the hockey game, I highly doubt it was just 150 000 people on the streets in downtown. Looks far to crouded on far to many thoroughfares for it to be just that amount. |
Journalists from wherever were able to see that Vancouver already does MORE than pretty much anywhere they could possibly be from.
Thus, our governments "brutality" was a non-story to them. Despite the horror stories, there is certainly more government involvement than most places. Plus, the 100 or so protesters kind of just made a fool of themselves, in their bid to get headlines by pretending they actually care about the people in the DTES. The WHOLE Olympics were very quiet, protest-wise, and the media finally gave them the fringe treatment they deserve. 100 or so people vs. millions... hmm... |
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