Fly Boys

I spent some time at Pitt Meadows airport outside of Vancouver today. I ended up right in the hangar area where they store and maintain the small planes. The guys who got their pilot license and have been flying for years have a very unique disposition. Sort of a 'right stuff' feel to them. I can't believe how easy it can be to get a license to fly if you have the means and the will. You can push those smaller planes around with one hand. I saw them doing it a few times.

I also spent some time working on my screenplay with my friend Satomi today. This is the one who was making herself vomit due to weight concerns. It didn't come up whether she was still doing that. Groaning bad pun. The screenplay is being written entirely for the adult Japanese female audience. I'm coming up with sort of a soft core/ romance novelly/ empowerment story-type thing. Every nuance, subtle exchange, plot twist is done with the response of the Japanese female viewer in mind. It would make a killing if it ever got made and distributed. And then angels will fly out of my butt...

Prose eventually seeing the light of day isn't as much a pipe dream as a screenplay is.
After I finish the Japan story in screenplay format I plan to write it out as a sort of romance novel as well, see if that flies.

Down They Go

The officiating in the last game of the previous Canucks playoff hockey round was 'fragrantly' pro-Canucks, to say the least. They should get their legs back a bit by next game but if tonight was any indication of the match up I doubt Vancouver has a hope in hell of taking this series. There is an interesting stat to go with my sports predictions. I very, very, very rarely predict the correct outcome of a sporting event in advance. That fact bodes well for Vancouver because if I was a betting man I'd bet against them getting past this round.

Liar liar pants on fire

I am in the process of starting work as a driver. I am giving potential employers the impression that I have commercial driving experience on everything from hydroplanes to carousels. Today they called my bluff and had me go out on the road for a twenty minute driving demo to 'test my comfort level' in a 5 ton truck. Keep in mind, I have never driven one of these vehicles in my life. I clipped the curb just once turning right. My potential employer directed me to a spot where he wanted to check out some space for rent. It was right beside a shop where they detail and modify Porsche cars specifically. Potential Employer asked that I back it in about a foot from the wall so he could assess something. This involved coming ridiculously close to two rows of some very fine German engineering, going forward then in reverse. I think I start in a few days.

'Clear The Civilians'

Great hockey game tonight. Canucks won. I headed home right after the game. It had the feel of a pretty good riot starting to brew out there. I can hear the loud festivities, and sirens, from my apartment as I type this.

Commercial Drive Shop

Spent the afternoon exploring the sights and sounds of Commercial Drive here in Vancouver. What a wonderful congregation of vagabonds and ragamuffins in pursuit of art. The place feels slightly poser at times though. The true granolas are all over on Vancouver Island.

Photos

House Of The Spirit Bear

I had the opportunity to check out this gallery today;

www.houseofthespiritbear.com

Very nice works. Owner is a really nice guy.

New Pursuit

I have decided to put my energies towards obtaining some high end photographic equipment. I'd absolutely love to be able to get a paycheque to do that for a living somehow. There's a guy I see on Granville Island and on Granville bridge on weekends. He points his impossibly huge photo lens towards the expensive condos on the North side of the water. He scans the big sail boats coming in and out of the harbour as well. I get the feeling he may be paporatsi (sp?).
The tutoring I do on Tuesday and Thursday evenings involves two Korean teenage brothers, myself, and a co-worker. The kids were so high they could hardly speak when they showed up for the lesson on Thursday. My co-worker spoke to them in pig latin for a bit. I would start a sentence and then pretend to keep speaking but not have any sound coming out of my mouth. Messing with them. Their pot habit is going to be an issue when they go back to Korea. When I lived there last there was a Korean guy I knew who lived in San Francisco for a year. He cultivated a habit while Stateside. One day the police were waiting for him outside his door with his monthly mail shipment of pot. He took off to Vietnam to avoid being sent to prison in his own country. True story.
I'm off to scour the city for that next award winning shot. With the cheapest camera I could find in Japan.

My First $25 Mill.

Branson, the guy who founded the 'Virgin' empire, is offering twenty-five million dollars for a design to permanently remove carbon pollution from the atmosphere. I plan to be up all night working on the solution. You're a smart one. Get that brain of yours working on it. A cool $25 mill. and you get to save humankind.

http://www.virginearth.com/

Takae

Today's Wanderings

More Vancouver Photos

More wandering shots. Gorgeous city. Cost of living reflects how desirable a place it is to live.

Funny Phone Conversation

Saw a woman I am getting to know quite well last night. We have these 4 hour gossipy phone conversations. When she goes home she calls me when she gets there. To make sure she does get there in this city. She called me from the bus last night well before getting home. I tried to draw her into a sexually explicit conversation while she had an audience on the bus. A lot of giggles but nothing doing. Her internet was down when she got home. She was waiting to hear news from a job she really wants. I logged into her email account for her and told her the good news that she was chosen for the job. She then had me write a response, accepting the job from her new employer. I joked, 'I have also attached a photo of my friend Pat completely nude and really needing a shower. Thank you so much for the job offer.'

She told me a joke. Why wasn't Jesus born in Newfoundland? Because they couldn't find three wise men and a virgin. Never heard that one before.

I'm off to get an International Driver's License. It's only 15 bucks.

Funniest Movie Ever Made

The filmed ending consists of Withnail delivering a wine-enhanced Hamlet soliloquy:
"I have of late -- but wherefore I know not -- lost all my mirth, forgone
all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither."

Whistler, My Whistler

You know what the village needs up there? An Apple Computer authorized Mac reseller. Think about it. All the kids working in the village would be on Macs. None of them could afford an actual computer living and partying in Whistler for a season but they would need the peripherals. And the wealthy tourists passing through would pick up tons of computer equipment just on a whim. The Christmas and March break seasons alone would make your year. Whistler is the playground of the money set. A Mac store could work up there. And in the meantime you could do a bit of skiing, and mountain biking, and golfing, and white water kayaking, and hiking, and ski-dooing... It is said that the doctors up at Whistler treat two things; broken bones and STDs.

This last year in Vancouver hasn't been completely useless. I have learned once and for all that I am completely ill suited to an office/ cubicle work setting. I'll play the bongos for the harri krishnas going up and down Robson before I ever attempt to sit in an office for an extended period of time again. As much as some people I know thrive on that type of work setting it is very bad for my soul to force myself to sit still for that long. The ADD kicks in and I start to loose it from the lack of visual stimulation. They get a pretty good groove going, the krishnas.

Scoop

A) Despite having missed the cocktail party out of obligation to a friend I have been given my first writing assignment by the magazine. I am to interview some people about a new company opening and how it relates to the already existing scene in Vancouver.

B) Tan. She commented to me not long ago that she, 'could never, ever date a black guy.' I suggested we shave her head and tattoo a swastika to her forearm then told her where to go. She was very attractive, blah, blah, she may have afforded me a green card to the States, yada, yada, but she just bought a dog! That's the shame of it. Half German Sheppard, half Yellow Lab puppy. Ever. Cute. I wonder if she'll raise the dog to be a racist tit too?

More Photos 'N Such

Second photo is Takae, my fashion designer friend from Tokyo. Caught her with a mouth full of cake. We were supposed to attend a cocktail party this evening. I figure she could show me how to interact with that set. She confided something to me about her personal life just before we were to leave for the party and I ended up sort of consoling her for the evening instead of going to the gathering. Probably a better move on my part from a karma perspective than bolting on her after what she told me.
First photo was taken out at Steveston on the weekend. My piece o shit $99 digital camera doesn't do it justice but that had the makings of a gorgeous shot. Camera quality can only go up and so will my shots.

Romance Writer

I was trying to see just how many conflicting verb tenses I could squeeze into that previous post.
The companies that publish those romance novels will supposedly pay really good money for submissions they accept. "Dirk Hugecock pointed his member in my direction. I had no choice but to hop onto him and ride like my life depended on it. He came out of the coma just as he came, calling out my sister's name. How could he? Just then our parish priest burst through the hospital room door. 'Father Brown! I thought you were dead!' I say. 'I was!' says father brown. Dirk slips back into his coma mumbling his never ending love for me. Looks like it's just me and the good Father left conscious. Pray for us. We're about to sin right there in the hospital room with my husband who I will divorce if he ever comes back out of his coma. Unless I'm now pregnant with either his or Father Brown's child." Or some such. You could crank that shit out while cooking dinner.