By Rod Mickleburgh Like many Vancouverites, I presume, I have a love-hate relationship with the big box Chapters bookstore downtown at Robson and Howe. Stocking the main floor with almost everything BUT books, bringing in the flag-waving American Girl franchise to what is supposed to be a Canadian bookstore, and, worst of all, the shameful […]
Vancouver’s dark flaw
By Jim Henshaw I spent a couple of days in Vancouver this week and on a sunny day, it’s probably the most beautiful city in the world. It ain’t half bad looking on a rainy day either. And as the locals say, “Wait twenty minutes” and you can observe it either way. It’s hard not […]
A Tale of Three Kitties: Cats allow cafés to come to Canada
A BoB Short Cats and cappuccinos may not seem the likeliest combination, but the idea has stirred the pot for several entrepreneurs across the country. The concept is simple: Come in for a coffee and play with a few cats while you’re there. The first “cat café” opened its doors in Taipei, Taiwan in 1998. They’ve […]
The Video: Is this Canada’s biggest pothole?
Who was that masked pothole filler?
A Bob Short New York has Spiderman, Gotham has Batman, and now Saint John, NB has its own face of vigilante justice. Meet Mike Defazio, 60-year old auto body shop owner, one-man road repair crew, and local hero. Defazio’s origin story is simple — driving home from work on Saint John’s Broadway Avenue, his vehicle […]
Bad first compression
A BoB Short When residents of a Northwest Saskatoon neighbourhood heard their street was slated to receive its own piece of public art, many were ecstatic. But when the big reveal finally came last November, the piece was greeted with overwhelming confusion. The result of the city’s $4300 investment, titled Found Compressions One and Two, […]
Seeds and the City
By TJ Dawe Are we headed toward a civilization-wide collapse? Maybe. The bees are dying. A sperm whale with a belly full of plastic washed up on a Dutch island. People share maps on the internet showing Fukushima radiation allegedly making its way around the Pacific in terrifying red streaks. The climate’s in a tizzy […]
Wrong Way
By Alison@Creekside You know how you sometimes wonder how we might reorganize society if we were starting over again today from scratch? Imagine how public meetings to discuss it would go. Anyone recommending any variation on tinkle down economics or massive handouts to the rich as a solution to poverty would get laughed out of the room. […]
Crowdsourcing hockey
By TJ Dawe Hockey season is upon us. The tellers in my bank wear game day jerseys. People refer to their team in the possessive — “we” — despite the fact that the only contribution individuals make is to buy sufficient gear and tickets to enrich the owners sufficiently to pay the salaries of better […]
Wake Up Call
Jodi A. Shaw “I think, if luck were real,” David Arthur Johnston says, “that I’m one of the luckiest people on the planet. To have a grand scope in my head, that’s weird, but makes me feel like a superhero most of the time. “A lot of people love me, though most of them think […]
