I don't know Stephanie, but I do know she is a visitor from France. Lyon, I believe is her home town. Check out her photos, especially her B&W's. http://hellostephanie.over-blog.com/

and here http://hellovancouver.blogspirit.com/

This morning's Vancouver Sun reports that Vancouver City Hall is hard at work minimizing increases in property taxes. Bless their little hearts, staff has come up with a plan that will hold tax increases to 4.07% while ensuring the Vancouver Police Department will get 23 new police officers and 46 new civilian staff to do the officers' paper work.

According to Premier Gordo's B. C. Progress Board, between 1994 and 2003 the crime rate in Vancouver has fallen by 21.5%. This doesn't mean that no one is touched by crime anymore. A couple of years ago my house was broken into. The thieves stole a couple of bottles of wine, some change, and an inexpensive digital camera. Nothing of any real value was taken, and certainly not enough to make an insurance claim.

In shock when I discovered the break in, I called 911. Hours later I was visited by a couple of polite young officers who told me how sorry they were that this had happened. It was nice to know they cared.

Most of the time my only connection with the VPD is at a couple of neighbourhood coffee shops where they sit in groups and occasionally toy with shiny laptop computers. I'm never sure if they are playing games or catching up on the “paper work” that the new civilian employees will soon take off their hands.

One night, 12 of them were lined up at the counter at the Laughing Bean. They were shocked when I asked them if they were having a meeting. They were, they informed me, on their break. With no crime on the streets that night Vancouver's finest could bond.

The price of bonding will take up much of the $100 and change by which my property taxes will  increase. If it makes tough-on-crime folks like Vancouver's Board of Trade happy, I can live with that. Apparently there are some taxpayers who can't. For them, City Hall's pencils have been sharpened. Staff has come up with some truly brilliant cost-containment proposals:

An international harm reduction conference will lose $75,000 from their original grant of $250,000. The Carnegie Centre outreach program for street people will be cut by 10% or $30,000, and–wait for it–the Vancouver Public Library book acquisition budget will be cut by $50,000.

I'm estimating these cuts will save me a couple of bucks. Almost enough for a latte.

While on my way to the Gateway Program open house this past Saturday I made a decision to keep my mind at least one-quarter of the way open. Twinning Highway 1 from Surrey to the Second Narrows didn't seem like a brilliant idea to me, but maybe I was missing something.

It turns out I was. Kevin Falcon really is serious and what he says, goes. It is a matter of when, not if, the highway will be widened. This deal is done. Open minds are immaterial.

Until April 29, the Gateway Program is in its “Pre-design Consultation” phase. Its intention is to “obtain community and stakeholder feedback” about “interchange updates” and “congestion reduction measures” including HOV lanes, transit priority on-ramps, and commercial vehicle priority access. Silly me. I'd had the crazy idea they wanted to know what I thought.

In contrast to the rag tag band of sign-wavers that stood outside the building, the interior hallway that led to the open house was lined with crisply-dressed hirelings. Their body language made it obvious that I wouldn't get past them without signing in. Once I'd complied, I was given a 25-page, glossy, 4-colour booklet and allowed to enter the open house, which was held in the tired auditorium of the Hastings Community Centre.

Several more crisply-dressed hirelings milled about the room, which was dotted here and there with proles and plebes like me. The perimeter was ringed with storyboards featuring images and text that were much the same as those in the booklet.

The only elected politician in the room was NDP Shane Simpson, MLA for Hastings East. Apparently no member of Vancouver City Council had managed to find time to attend. The Liberals had sent their always affable apparatchik, Judy Kirk, and her team. One member of Kirk's team had last been seen in the auditorium facilitating an acrimonious confrontation between the neighbourhood and City Hall concerning slot machines in Hastings Park. A shallow talent pool was the only explanation I could come up with for this strange coincidence.

In short order, one of the hirelings asked me if I had any questions. What ensued was a conversation that touched on transit systems in various cities like New York, London, Portland, and Montreal, Parisian arrondissements, urban and suburban densification, and Jane Jacobs, and ended with mutual avowals of gratitude—his that he lived a short walk from the Skytrain and was spared the drive to and from work and mine that I could spend 3 or more days most weeks working at home. No braving the Port Mann every morning for us, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, outside the community centre, the band of protesters continued to wave their hand-made signs. No one paid much attention to them. Visionaries and flakes who believe in crazy ideas like Peak Oil and Global Warming, they want solutions that look to the future and not to the past. Unfortunately, for now, the future looks pretty much like asphalt and smog.

Lunch from the Irish Heather Group's Salty Tongue a few weeks ago left me something less than best pleased. Even so, when a friend suggested the Irish Heather for Sunday lunch this week, I was willing to give it a go. After all, the Heather markets itself as a gastropub that places as much emphasis on good food as good beer, all very reasonably priced.

We decided to sit in the back room, which has plenty of windows facing the greenery of Gaoler's Mews, and rustic wooden stools, benches, and tables. Being one of those drizzly and overcast Sunday afternoons, bangers and mash was the only thing that would do for lunch for all three of us. I'm something of a conservative gal, so had mine with a spot of tea. My companions, used to living a touch more dangerously, ordered a Harp and a Guiness.

And oh my, what bangers and what mash! Owner Sean Heather gets his Dublin sausages from North Vancouver's British Butcher, and they are simply splendid. The mash was buttery, and laced with cabbage. Onions carmelized just to the point of no return crowned the dish, which was finished with a touch of red wine gravy. Perfect.

And true stick to your ribs fare. Though I had lunch in the early afternoon, there was neither room nor desire for dinner that day.

I'm now looking ahead with great anticipation to Heather's latest venture, Salt, which will open in Blood Alley in late May. Salt will offer a rotational tasting bar menu featuring artisanal cheeses, cured meats, assorted condiments, and all the wonderful Terra bread you can eat.

Cheeses will be sourced from producers in England, Ireland, and North America, while meats will come from suppliers like Oyama on Granville Island and Salumi in Seattle. They'll be accompanied by an assortment of wines by the glass, along with ports, sherries, and some “interesting” bottled beers. Sounds divine.

The saga of opening Salt is, like much these days, being blogged. You can follow their progress at the Salt Blog.

If this hotel's prognostications are correct, pretty much anybody will be able to make a smallish killing during the Olympics.

Think about the possibilities. $400 a night to turn your kid out of his room, and another $100 to sweep out the Potter-like space under the stairs and throw down a thermarest and a duvet.

and lots of other strange goings-on!

Yesterday, uber blog Boing Boing gave a mention to the Brian Jungen exhibit on at the VAG. Your dutiful scribe was on the job more than a month ago. This may be a Vancouver story, but it's interesting to note how long it can sometimes take for Boing Boing to get something.

Budapest Restaurant and Pastry serves Hungarian food in a cramped 25-seat room at Main and Sixteenth. Despite its location, it is the antithesis of a hipster hangout.

The Budapest is kitschy and homely. Bright green walls make the red and white checked tablecloths pop. A refrigerated display case is stacked full of cakes, slices, strudels. Bits of memorabilia are stuck here and there. And everywhere there are ceramics that can only be described as eccentric.

Table lamps are fashioned to look like strange, smiling little men. Happy little faces beam out of a plaque on the ladies’ room wall. There are ceramic people everywhere. It would be hard to feel lonely in a place like this, even if it wasn’t crowded. Apparently, it usually is.

 I ‘d arranged to meet a school friend there for lunch on a recent Friday. We hadn’t made a reservation, and although it was well before noon, there was only one table available. In mere minutes, the room was packed full of happy, chatty people who for the most part looked as if they were regulars having lunch in their home away from home. This restaurant definitely has its fans.

The menu offers an extensive selection of Hungarian specialties. I chose the chicken paprika with spatzle, while my friend ordered the pork tenderloin. Immediately after we ordered, a basket of sliced bread that was a touch on the dry side and a dish of butter that had just left the fridge arrived at our table. Not the happiest of combinations, but edible.

Service was pleasant, if a bit detached. Our lunches arrived on huge platters, each accompanied with a side of sweet red cabbage that had been cooked with celery seeds.

Mine was okay—well-done chicken, spatzle,and the requisite bland paprika sauce—but nothing to get excited about. My friend’s platter looked like it had a little more going on. She pronounced her tenderloin good and authentic, and since she used to have a Hungarian neighbours who cooked for her, she would know. But I didn’t exactly hear her doing a “Meg Ryan.”

I wanted to when we got the bill. Not a Meg Ryan, exactly. More a dramatization of disbelief. Two lunches, one beer, forty-five dollars. Two words: too much.

Following up my earlier post, Galiano artist Dorrie Ratzlaff advised me in a recent email that Commercial Drive sex boutique, Womyn’s Ware, has dropped its allegations of trademark infringement against Ms. Ratzlaff.

Apparently the whole thing started because WW co-owner Janna Sylvest, who has a law degree, feels WW is legally required to actively protect the integrity of the WW “Woman” trademark. She believes there are any number of “misogynistic” sex toy manufacturers who could be plotting to place a picture of a fat woman on their “vile” products. Any one of them could win in a courtroom if WW couldn’t demonstrate it had a history of actively protecting its trademark.

This explains perfectly why WW would practice trademark protection by going after Ms. Ratzlaff’s Leaping Goddess logo, which is available on t-shirts and other fun stuff at Autonomous Tees.

Or does it? Sounds like the old school, patriarchal way of doing business to me.

The sex toy business is not one about which I have an intimate knowledge, but WW must believe there is plenty of upside. Forget about “a chicken in every pot.” Imagine instead “a dill and a whip in every dungeon, and a dungeon in every home.”

All the same, how many misogynist sex toy sellers or buyers would be attracted to a goddess/woman logo? I’m thinking that number would be vanishingly small.

WW may find this hard to believe, but most misogynists like their women looking as close to famine victims and/or little girls as humanly possible. An image of a “fat chick” on a sex toy probably isn’t going to do it for them.

This whole matter has made me think. I’m not too happy about the possiblility of trademark infringement myself. So, I’m hereby putting all bloggers on notice. Don’t even think of using the word “vancouver” or any variant of it in your blogs, or you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.  Just as soon as I have one.

San Francisco-based special effects firm Giant Killer Robots (aka GKR) plans to open a new studio in Vancouver soon. This expansion will create as many as 100 jobs here, likely providing new opportunities for those who have been laid off by Electronic Arts.

All five managing partners of the Oscar-winning company plan to continue living in San Francisco, making the 2-hour flight to Vancouver when and as required. Maintaining a home in San Francisco and collecting frequent flyer points is probably a smarter strategy than taking a flyer on the rumoured-soon-to-burst Vancouver real estate bubble.