"This time for sure!"

Many are my names in many countries, he said. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves, Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.

Faramir quoting Gandalf, The Two Towers

There's a longstanding tradition of pubs and bars in science fiction and fantasy:  Arthur C. Clarke's White Hart, deCamp and Pratt's Gavagan's Bar, Spider Robinson and Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, the Vulgar Unicorn, Munden's, The Mended Drum (and The Busted Drum), The Prancing Pony, Chalmun's Cantina, and so on.  For a long time the village tavern was a ubiquitous starting point for Dungeons and Dragons adventures, to the point where it's now a fantasy cliché to start a quest in a pub.

The Storm Crow Tavern, which opened here in Vancouver last month, is in some ways a tribute to this tradition, as well as simply offering a geek/nerd alternative to sports bars and night clubs.  The bar describes itself as "An Olde Medievalle Taverne with rayguns", so obviously I've been curious to see what they have to offer.

I've mentioned my first unsuccessful attempt at visiting The Storm Crow, but, fool me once - this time I check their Twitter™ and Facebook™ pages to make sure that they're open for business. Reassured by both, once again I put on an appropriate Doctor Who t-shirt, and head off to 1305 Commercial Drive.  No problems this time - the doors are unlocked, and I head inside and find myself a seat in the corner. Based on my previous comments about wanting to find a bar that would show Star Wars in lieu of the Stanley Cup, I'm amused to see that I've shown up exactly in time for the start of A New Hope.

The decor is a mix of longsword and laser: in addition to the battle axes and shields, there's an array of ray guns and blasters underneath a Boba Fett helmet and a Cyberman mask*, and the tattered war banners are balanced by a selection of Colonial and Dalek propaganda posters. There's also a comprehensive library of vintage 1980s Choose Your Own Adventure books.

The lager on tap is a locally brewed Howe Sound product, which I order with a bit of caution, having had a couple of dubious experiences with their brewing. The menu isn't very elaborate, but all the meals are six dollars, which is intriguing.  I order the prime rib sandwich with fries - it shows up quickly, it's a good size for the price, and it's quite tasty, although next time I'll ask for well done fries, I prefer mine more on the crispy side.

The bar's wireless password is "mithrandir", and to my amusement the waitress pronounces it like a foreign word and slowly and carefully spells it for me even though I'm already typing it in. I suspect that she hasn't been hired based on her genre background, which, when you think about it, may not be a bad thing.  Logically you want waitresses who can reliably sort out beverage orders for a table of eight rather than list all of Gandalf's pseudonyms.

The place is empty when I arrive, but then very few bars are busy at 3:00 on Thursday afternoon. As time goes on, people begin to trickle in. Notable guests are a woman in steampunk attire, another patron wearing a Sith Inside t-shirt, and a table of confused German tourists who are suffering from the mistaken belief that the banners and battle axes are evidence of a Teutonic bar. Interestingly, as the place starts to fill up, a lot of the clientele are female. Female geeks have become a solid part of the community, and I think it's a positive sign that the bar has a high female ratio.

Because I have a lengthy bus trip home, I pay a visit to the little orc's room on the way out - literally, the men's room being distinguished by a World of Warcraft Orc action figure on the door, and the ladies' by a female Wood Elf.

Overall, I quite liked The Storm Crow, and will certainly go back to help support it as opportunity allows. I realize that my midafternoon weekday visit wasn't really a fair evaluation of a bar like this, in that, as with any social environment, it will be defined by its patrons. I suspect that on a busy night, when the gaming table is in use and the place is full of customers, the atmosphere is brilliant.

Ultimately, all of the bits and pieces of decoration are just window dressing, and I think that the reason for the sudden popularity of the bar is purely conceptual - the decor is almost irrelevant, it's the idea of announcing to the geek community that they have a place to go which will be responsible for the bar's success.

 - Sid

* By the way, Autocorrect on the iPad obviously needs some more work - it didn't recognize either one of these terms when I was taking notes on site.


October 1st update:  attempted another visit at lunch today in the company of co-worker and fellow geek Donovan, only to find out that they were closed again.  Checked Facebook™ and discovered that apparently they'll be closed on Mondays going forward.  This gives them a score of 1/3 so far, which is not great.

Guys, I like your pub, but honestly, two words:  POSTED HOURS.

And trying harder.

 "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." 

- Mark Twain

Congratulations are in order!  According to Internet statisticians Alexa, The Infinite Revolution is ranked 23,702,450 out of all the web sites in the world.

Why, do you ask, does this deserve congratulations?

According to the Techlogon technology information blog, there are approximately 190 million active sites on the Internet.  And those are just the active ones, apparently there's another 430 million that are considered to be inactive.  (An inactive web site is defined as a registered domain name with no content - cybersquatters, companies that bought up variations on their own name to avoid conflicts, etc.)

In other words, just looking at the active sites, my little hobby blog is close to being in the top ten percent of international web sites based on the number of visits per month.  Ha - just you wait, Facebook™...

- Sid

Or the Wardrobe, for you Narnia fans.

This is my living room.

And, as living rooms go, there's really not a lot to say about it.  It owes a large debt to IKEA, as so many transient living rooms do, there's a forgettable Frank Lloyd Wright poster over the couch, a couple of paintings by my friend Norah the artist, books, DVDs, some antique cameras, and that's that. Pictures of my dining nook, my kitchen and my bedroom would reveal a similar approach to decorating.

And then there's this one other room...thousands of science fiction and fantasy novels, comic books under the desk, some boxes of Heavy Metal fantasy art magazines, my toy robots, a Starcraft action figure, my Atlantean shortsword, a chrome battleaxe, my globe of Mars, a Dalek, computer game boxes, the R2D2 mug that my nephew Chris made for me about 25 years ago, and right now a big stack of bits and pieces destined to become a Hallowe'en spacesuit. (Or not.)

It's funny to realize that, as far as my geek life goes, I haven't really come out of the TARDIS, so to speak.  Seal off that second bedroom, and there's no evidence in my apartment of the interest in science fiction and fantasy which has been a mainstay of my entire life.  I've no idea why.  It's not as if I'd have any difficulty decorating the living room with classic science fiction movie posters and moving a few robots onto the wall unit - why don't I?

At some fundamental level, I'm still self-conscious - if not embarrassed - by my hobby.  The term "self-conscious" is well chosen, because other than some high school ostracism, there haven't been any incidents in my life where it's been a barrier in any way.  The current social environment embraces - or at least accepts - the geek lifestyle, but the lessons taught to me during my redneck childhood subconsciously tell me that I should be watching baseball highlights on TSN rather than Voyager reruns on Space.

But there's hope.  After all, I do have this blog with my actual real name on it, and the people I work with know that I'm a geek, and they've generally been pretty accepting.  In fact, as it turns out, one or two of them are geeks as well.  Hmmm...I wonder how they've decorated their living rooms?

- Sid

"Láthspell I name you, Ill-News!"

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Chris e-mailed me a link to an article in the Vancouver Courier about The Storm Crow, a newly opened fantasy/science fiction and gaming themed bar over on Commercial Drive. (For those of you unfamiliar with the derivation*, Stormcrow is one of the names by which Gandalf is known in The Lord of the Rings.)

I've always felt that there was room in the marketplace for a bar that would show the third Star Wars movie instead of the fourth game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but to be honest, details in my mental picture have been fuzzy (outside of a few unfortunately juvenile ideas regarding costumes for the waitresses).  As such, I was interested in seeing what an actual implementation of the concept would look like.

Apparently the new spot has been a hit, to the point where I've read a few online comments on their difficulties dealing with the crowds. I'm off work this week, and I thought that I would take advantage of the opportunity to go over to the Drive early enough in the afternoon to avoid the rush and scope the place out in relative peace and quiet over a contemplative pint.

So this afternoon at about three, after putting on my London Doctor Who Experience 2011 souvenir t-shirt (hey, if you're going to a gang bar, you got to wear your colours) I was out the door and onto the Number 22 bus.

Fifty-five minutes later, as I was making my way up the last bit of a hill to Commercial, I thought to myself that generally I wouldn't patronize a bar that required a two hour round trip.  SF and fantasy motif or not, it's a big city, there's lots of bars.  However, I had high hopes that it might prove worth it now and then just for the ambience - and, you know, the opportunity to hang with my peeps.

I rounded the corner onto Commercial Drive, there was the sign for the bar, I started to unlimber my Nikon for a picture, and what do you know - CLOSED TODAY FOR STAFF FUNCTION.  So I took three shots of the frontage, a closeup of their sign, and trotted back to the bus stop.

A little investigation revealed that there had been a Tweet announcing their closure at about 2:30, and the fine print on their Facebook™ page also said that they were closed until tomorrow.  Sadly, I didn't decide to follow them on Twitter™ or friend them on Facebook™, I just went to their web site for the address - which, by the way, did not mention any sort of closure in their Events calendar for September 24th.

I realize that these things happen, and that no lives were lost as a result of this. I'll make another attempt to visit The Storm Crow later this week.  However, I would like to suggest to the management of the bar that if you're going to be closed for a full day, you should have that information EVERYWHERE - including, perhaps, your web site.

- Sid

* There are some other genre references to storm crows, but Gandalf Stormcrow is probably the best known one.

Voight-Kampff machines - your tax dollars at work!

Photo by Chris Sumner

I think I speak for everyone when I say that I'd like to see a little more transparency in the British Columbia government's handling of the Nexus Six replicant situation.

- Sid