Also available in grape and watermelon.

 

As per my previous posting, I met up with my friend Chris yesterday for a beer and a bite at the new Storm Crow location near us. My previous visit with Karli had been for brunch, so this offered a convenient opportunity to check out the evening action. I wore my Doctor Who "Angels have the phone box" t-shirt - after all, peeps got to represent.

Once again, it was extremely busy, which pleased me. It's good to see that a gamer/geek bar can have such a strong appeal.  And the gamer crowd was out in full force, to the point where I almost want to suggest that they should have made the tables a bit bigger - experience tells me that it's a bit challenging to fit a game and a couple of drinks onto a table for two.

They've modified the decor a bit:  they've moved the carbonized Han Solo over to the east wall, made the washroom doors look like the entrance to the TARDIS, and added a large Millennium Falcon model to the ceiling.*

The bar's commitment to geek theme is complete. The dinner menu includes items such as Deep One Salmon Burgers, the BLT-9000, Boba Fettucini (no, really) and the Cenobite Sundae**, along with an obscure Persis Khambatta joke from 1982.  As with their cocktail menu, the adventurous diner can request a 20-sided die from the wait staff and roll for the contents of their burger.

As the final touch for the departing guest, the Storm Crow considerately provides a little extra something - just in case the world outside has changed for the worse since dinner started.

- Sid

* Perhaps some large Star Trek items are in order as well, the place is a bit Star Wars heavy right now.  Just sayin'.

** Which appears on the menu as follows:

Cenobite Sundae:  no tears please, it’s a waste of good suffering. This sensorium-blasting ice cream delight will hook you with sprinkles, caramel, chocolate sauce and whipped cream... before it tears your soul apart.

Quite affordable at five dollars, but seriously, does that description necessarily make you want to order one of these things?

On location.

On my way to meet my friend Chris at the Storm Crow this afternoon, I passed by the following piece of location filming setup at the corner of Arbutus and 6th.  (My apologies for the composition in this hurried photo, I wasn't sure if the burly security guard just around the corner was going to have a problem with photographers.)

 

On one hand, this could easily be a bit of futuristic set dressing.  On the other hand, it's a phone booth - and let's face it, phone booths are becoming increasingly rare other than at airports and similar locations where large numbers of people are trying to avoid roaming charges while travelling, which makes them an unlikely candidate as a prop in a science fiction film script.*  However, that being said, it makes it an equally unlikely prop in a contemporary film - could it be for some kind of 60s setting?

So, here's my request to the motley crew of friends, relatives, casual browsers and Russian spambots** which comprises my readership.  If you should happen to be watching a series or a movie sometime in the next year or so (post-production times will vary) and spot someone sobbing into the mouthpiece of this phone-in-a-dome, please leave me a comment - just so I know whether or not this picture actually belongs on a science fiction blog.

- Sid

* William Gibson has commented that the first thing his more youthful fans will notice about his seminal 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer is the complete lack of cell phones - "which I’m sure young readers assume must be a key plot-point.”

** They rarely comment, but when they do it's quite insightful.

Not with a bang.

Our dried voices, when 

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

So on Monday, my girlfriend and I were out with another friend for drinks, and the waitress ruefully informed us that the restaurant was out of dry ribs and nachos.  Then on Tuesday, we decided to have hot dogs at Costco, and they were out of relish. Our local grocery store has been out of stock on our favourite brand of farmer's sausage for a week, and I'm still waiting for Staples to deliver four whole boxes of paper that were ordered last Friday.

Is it just me or is this the first chapter of a novel about the Apocaplypse? Personally, this is how I always thought it would start, with little cracks in the structure of things: little cracks that would get bigger and bigger and bigger...

Recommended reading on this topic would have to be John Brunner's 1972 novel The Sheep Look Up, with Philip Wylie's posthumous The End of the Dream from 1973 running a close second.* Both books detail the end of the world as the result of a thousand little synergies between environmental damage, viral mutation, lowered immunity, lack of resources, collapse of services, civil unrest, and so on that eventually domino into complete catastrophe.  The Sheep Look Up is particularly grim, and paints a far too plausible picture of a disaster which takes place so gradually that most people don't even realize it's happening.

Somebody hold me - I'm scared....

  - Sid

* Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang takes the bronze - an excellent book, but the apocalypse is secondary to the theme of individuality.

"CAPTAIN Deadpool..."

Continuing this month's unintentional Canadian theme, a quick shout-out to Number 5 Orange, one of Vancouver's few remaining strip clubs, which appears as itself in the Deadpool movie.

  - Sid

You'd need an awfully large cake for 134 candles.

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Logan,

Happy birthday to you!

  - Sid

"I'm Canadian".

April 1st having come and gone, I have to say that my favourite April Fool's posting comes from the unexpected source of the Government of Canada's Library and Archives web site.  (Although Bruce Campbell's announcement of his starring role in the American version of Doctor Who comes a close second.)

The Library and Archives site was pleased to announce that they had acquired the military records of noted Canadian mutant supersoldier James "Logan" Howlett - better known to the rest of the world as the adamantium-enhanced X-Man Wolverine.

 

Included with Logan's declassified records was his original Canadian Overseas Expeditionary attestation paperwork from 1914, listing his place of residence as Cold Lake, Alberta and his trade as woodsman.

This form also shows his date of birth as April 5th, 1882, which suggests that there should be some kind of celebration on Tuesday to commemorate the 134th birthday of this unsung (and well-preserved) Canadian war veteran - probably followed by a little chat about whether or not it's okay to cut off Canada Pension Plan payouts during periods of extended non-residency.

  - Sid