An open letter to the management of the Storm Crow.

To whom it may concern:

I've visited your location a few times since the introduction of the BC vaccine passport system has made indoor dining feel a lot safer - a couple of times with a friend, and today with my wife for lunch - and I'm sorry to say that I haven't been made to feel that my business was welcome.  

I realize that managing seating in any restaurant is a strategic challenge, and that it's sometimes preferable not to give people preferred seating in order to keep larger tables and booths available for bigger groups, but I really don't think that the hostess should make it quite so obvious that she's not enjoying having to find me a seat that fits into the plan.  Explaining that it’s difficult because you’re getting busy might work better if it weren’t such an obvious falsehood - I don’t think that 1:15 on a Saturday afternoon is exactly prime time for a pub restaurant, and when I went to the men’s room before leaving there was a plethora of empty tables.

Is it because it's only for two people?  I somehow got that feeling, to the point where it would not have surprised me at all if they had asked if we could leave and come back with four friends in order to make it worth their time to find us seats.  Please ask your staff to take a minute and remember that your motto is "We serve all kinds in here" - even if it's only two of us.

- Sid

Little bit of both, probably.

I was reading Marvel comics on my iPad in bed this morning, and you know, either the universe is not as interesting as it could be or we've been really lucky, given that a Norse demi-god, a supersoldier from WWII, a man in a suit of flying cyber-armour and a green Hulk are not currently defending us from DNA-rewriting biobombs being hurled at the Earth from Mars by an aeons-old destroyer of planets* .

- Sid

* And his sister. 

And Captain America's feet on the next shelf up.

"Oh, that's my Halo UNSC M6 blaster, two collectable Star Trek mugs that my friend Colin gave me, a Warhammer 40K Primaris Space Marine toy, and the skull of the last person who made fun of me for owning them."

(Seriously, though, I am a bit defensively self-conscious about my background during work-from-home Zoom meetings.)

- Sid