when the smoke clears

what happens after the smoke clears?

what side do we fall on?

i'm talking , of course, about the canuck riots that erupted in vancouver on june 15.

i have not been able to stop thinking about what happened the past couple of days. and the more i learn about what happened from all sides, the more i find myself digging my heels, staunchly positioned in my outlook.

i'm not a hockey fan. never have been, never will be. the game itself is fine - i have no problem with that. nor do i have an issue with the longtime, true canucks fans who have have stuck with the team through thick and thin since childhood, accepting any losses with civility and optimism for the following year.

i'm talking about the lowest denominators that sports cater to. the drunken louts who can't take a loss and act out. the girls who adopt hockey as their religion just because their boyfriends are devotees. the bandwagoning, fairweather fans who are really only there for the party.

the day of game 7, my coworker goodnaturedly believed that they'd be no repeat of the 1994 riots. i told him flat-out he was wrong. just look at the type of people who make up the fanbase. with these types of "fans", win or lose, there was going to be a riot. like many people, i never thought it would escalate to that level of destruction though.

the hot topic that has been brewing online since the morning after the riots has been whether to shame or not to shame. there's only 2 sides that you can fall on. and there's seems to be a real divide.

i'm for shaming and naming. i want these rioters and looters who had the gall to come downtown, hellbent in their premeditation on destroying property, terrorizing and hurting people, to be identified and punished to the fullest extent of the law. these anarchist thugs purposefully outfitted themselves with balaclavas, crowbars, molotov cocktails and fire extinguishers with the clear intent to harm.

i want those f*ckwits, fueled by all day drinking and who have used the excuse of being "caught up in the moment" due to the anarchists' actions, to also be outed and thrown into jail. you join the herd, you get punished with the herd.

i don't condone vigilantism but it is our civic responsibility to expose these f*ckers and help the police arrest them.

i consider myself a tolerant person but this issue of whether to name and shame is black or white, with no shades of gray. and although i can understand the counter argument about the dangers of crowdsourced surveillance and branding people with scarlet letters, i remain unmoved in that direction. when i'm a witness to such a disgusting display of mob mentality, it's hard for me to conjure up any sympathy and understanding for these criminals, especially those who bragged about their exploits on their FB and twitter. every time i pause and think about the 4 hour live newsfeed i watched after the game, i become livid all over again.

how dare they.

in my ethic classes, we learned about 3 types of people in the work/group environment and this i've always remembered:

* those that will go along with the plan so as not to feel ostracized
* those who may disagree but go along anyway if there's personal gain for them
* those who will not be swayed under any circumstances

the third type of person might very well not be popular among their peers or may even lose their job because of their convictions. but these are the people who have the strongest moral fiber. and i try to think of myself and live life as that type of highly principled person. there are just some things that should not be done, lines that should not be crossed.

and that's why when i see all the brave samaritans who stood up and put their lives at risk against the mob that day, it makes me furiously angry at the way they were treated. a) what makes these cockroaches think they can behave like this? and b) that they think they can get away with it? and anyone who thinks i'm being too harsh, i ask them to view these raw videos and see how they feel by the end of it:


these women put up a great fight in attempt to protect this car from being vandalized but were ultimately overpowered


this man tried to get the mob to stop vandalizing and gotten beaten up as a result


bert easterbrook who got beaten up by the mob while trying to stop this truck from being set ablazed. but that right hook was a thing a beauty


this drunken midget trying to provoke a fireman to hit him and when he doesn't, punches the firefighter anyways


one man trying to reason with the mob to stop destroying property by declaring "this is our city!"

and this link through globe and mail of a lone woman who stood up to the rioters


this sack of shit threatened this lady with his skateboard as she tried to reason with the mob to stop smashing store windows

and while there's people that got overpowered in their acts of heroism, there were a couple caught on video that gave these cowards what they deserved.


the guy in the cap is one of the douchebags from the above videos smashing on the overturned smart car. bam! goes down.


this little f*cker thought he could act with impunity and that no one would do anything. wrong. boom.


this idiot got flashbanged by the police right in the family jewels. serves him right for rioting

you may say i'm going to hell for deriving satisfaction from watching these thugs get pounded on, then so be it. i'm going to hell with these videos set to repeat.

i really hope the riot act which was read by police is enforced and that those who contributed to the destruction or refused to leave the scene really do serve time. canada is much too lenient in punishing criminals.

Under Sections 67-68 of the Criminal Code of Canada, a public official may read what's colloquially called the "Riot Act" in order to disperse an unruly crowd:

"Her Majesty the Queen charges and commands all persons being assembled immediately to disperse and peaceably to depart to their habitations or to their lawful business on the pain of being guilty of an offence for which, on conviction, they may be sentenced to imprisonment for life."

People who do not "peaceably disperse" within 30 minutes are "guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life."

i'm surprised/not surprised at how i find myself feeling about this riot. i don't like hockey but vancouver is my home. and i will NOT be empathetic to these parasites trying to pass as human beings. and yes, if i was parent and my kid took part in this hooliganism, i would march them down to the police station myself.

surprisingly i found that i was unable to contain myself, posting my thoughts on FB the night of the riots. and i even held back on my rantings, lest i would flood all my friend's timelines.

speaking of which, what surprised me was how eerily quiet it was on my FB. besides a handful of friends, the majority did not post their thoughts or reactions on the matter. ironically, these were the very same people who could NOT shut up about posting their 'go canucks go' fever in the weeks leading up to game 7. and now they had nothing to say. where was all that passion and vigor they displayed when the going was good? where they not upset at what had happened? maybe they are still processing?

and me who's never posted squat on the canucks fever now felt like i couldn't shut up about it. i felt and still do feel seething white hot anger at what's happened. i couldn't even fall asleep that night because i was so livid. in a way, i'm surprised at how incensed i feel about this.

more than ever, my favourite adage by charles m. schulz, "i love mankind. it's people that i can't stand." has never wrong more true with me.

so i applaud these webpages in their mission to ID photos and videos and bring to justice these deplorable little stains on society:

www.vancouverriot.com

vancityriotcriminals.tumblr.com

publicshamingeternus.wordpress.com

www.forumvancouver.com

www.facebook.com/pages/Report-Canuck-RIOT-Morons

www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-Get-These-People-Locked-Up-2011-Vancouver-Riot

www.facebook.com/Canucks.fansagainstthe.2011.Vancouver.Riots

letters from the front lines: vancouver riot

are they really so stupid to think they won't leave behind a digital fingerprint in this day and age?

absolutely yes, let these rioters and looters have their day in court, but like the date june 15 2011 in vancouver's history, they too shall go down in infamy.

a rose by any other name

my friend dan vogue is the bestest. even though we've never met in person, i knew from the get-go that he was a kindred spirit. we "met" through the joys of social media. twitter, if i'm not mistaken. and we got to know each other during my time at vancouver opera. we share the same wacky sense of humour and love of pop/opera culture. he also wrote a wicked blog called the fool and the opera.

a couple of weeks ago, i got my first put-down nickname on a gaming forum. three weeks into my job, someone referred to me on the boards as miss ding-a-ling. i had to laugh because i thought, if THIS is the best that they could come up with, we have NO problem. i had to share this milestone moment with all my friends. the EA community manager for the other games congratulated me, saying that i was now officially in the community managers club.

so i had shared this bit of tidbit on my FB and this reminded dan of the simpsons episode, lisa's pony:



this had me in stitches. but even better then that, dan dedicated a blogpost to me. all because him growing up with his name and me growing up with my name, we've endured alot of nicknames between us. many of mine which is still around today. luckily, all of them i'm very fond of.

as i've heard it all in my many years on this planet, i'm still waiting for a new zinger on my name. surprisingly, i'm still waiting for someone to call me ching chong ling long ting tong. but then again, no one would be fool enough to attempt that one.

gotta love nicknames.

my furry doppelganger

...analyzing features and running canine comparison... thank you for choosing doggelganger - human to canine pairing software

so says the monotonous yet strangely soothing female voice.

the pedigree adoption drive in new zealand has come up with a rad way to bring awareness to the hundreds of dogs that need adopting. partnering with NEC technology to create doggelganger, pedrigree adoption had me going through their human to canine pairing software to find my doggie twin. what a way to tug at the heartstrings, non?

i've always wanted a puppy. i had one when i was 9 years old but only for about a week. my dad thought it would be wonderful to surprise me and my brothers with a little german shepherd. we were ecstatic. my mom, however, was not. and after a week, she had my dad find the puppy another home.

all the sadness associated with that childhood memory is still deeply ingrained in me.

but i digress.... back to some puppy-loving...



this is a fun little piece of tech. you upload your picture, it does its whizz bang thing and then voila, the facial recognition software matches you with your furry doppelganger!



so with an accuracy rate of 66%, pedrigree adoption NZ paired me with my twin, a caramel coloured male mastiff cross puppy named tubs. i think the resemblance is striking.



being the animal-loving, tech geek that i am, i just had to try it again but with another picture. with hair in my face this time, my doggie twin turned out to be a 14 month male pug cross puppy called molly.

air new zealand takes puppies on their transpacific flights, right?

sunshine weekend II

now that it's getting warmer and a whole lot sunnier, we'll be taking jonesy out to the park more. she's actually getting more comfortable with it. she's not tucking herself into the crook of sean's neck too much, but rather, more observant and curious about the world around her.

here are some pics from our day at the park last weekend.


stopping to smell the flowers


she may be curious, but she's still not straying too far from her humans


joney loves her human


jonesy the sphinx


hanging out in leaves

oh how different the world is compared to seeing it from the window perch in sean's office.

sunshine weekend

it has been unseasonably cold this year. the past month has felt more like fall than the spring bordering on summer. however, last weekend was just purr-fect. the first weekend where sunblock was definitely needed.

sean and i decided to explore whytecliff park in west vancouver. i had been there a couple of times in my early 20s (a long time ago!), and only at night to star-watch. so it was kinda fun making our way there. good thing we both had our smartphones to track our positioning and to get directions there. LOVE my new iPhone!

i was psyched to go as whytecliff park is also a wild seal habitat but sadly, the seals didn't come out to play that day.

what was there instead was a saxophone playing musician, plying this talent for all the park visitors. we may have not been able to see him, but boy, can we hear him from a distance. the fact that he was not visible to us had sean and i picturing him as the long curly haired, oiled up, shirtless hip thrusting sax player from the lost boys. that would've been hella awesome. but this was posh west van, so that would NEVER happen.

we walked along the rugged and rocky terrain but did not scale up whyte island. instead, we hiked up the park's walking trail and sat down for a bit to enjoy the view.



it was the first day that sean and i took advantage of our smartphone camera apps. i was pleasantly surprised with the quality of pictures that the iphone can take. here's some pictures of our day in the sun.


trying out my iphone's front-facing angle


sitting in the sun


me in the shade

i even got a chance to try out my new free app, super 8, the tie-in app to j.j. abrahm's summer blockbuster movie.



i'm very sentimental about super 8 movies. i have a soft spot for the format as my dad used to film me and my brothers on super 8 when we were growing up. i'm totally dating myself here.

i even entertained the idea with sean to buy a vintage super 8 camera, but unfortunately ruled that out as no one processes super 8 films anymore. (unless you send it away to some lab in the states and not expect it to get back for weeks slash months)

you can betcha i'll be playing more with this app throughout the summer.

for more pictures of us at whytecliff, press play or click here for my flickr.

pick me

if i had mucho disposable income and was an avid music memorabilia collector, i would totally participate in this. a favourite UK clothing retailer, ben sherman, is having themselves a wicked online charity auction where fans can bid on plectrums aka guitar picks from some of the world's finest musicians. proceeds go to support young people with cancer and aids advocacy.



the auction is divided into 3 lots, started on may 29 and ending june 19.

so many great artists and a real "get" for hardcore fans. so if i had a blue sky budget, who would i paddle for? well, interpol, paul weller, depeche mode and ian mcculloch would be first choices. and duran duran and the kooks are not too shabby either.



i'm sure the bidding on these lots would go into the hundreds, if not the thousand pounds range. it's for a great cause and it does some with a nice handwritten note and picture too.

unfortunately, (and luckily) i don't have that champagne budget.

but come to think of it, i think i'd much prefer the ben sherman picks over any of the auction ones. the way they look really rocks my mod-lovin' world. is there a lot for that?

the (space)ship that launched a thousand faces

my visage has been launched into orbit. aliens from another world now know what i look like and may come to earth to find me. and the hundreds of thousands of others who participated in NASA's face in space program.

and yes, it did cross my mind about sending a picture not unlike the facial expressions of general zod, ursa and non when banished by jor-el into the phantom zone.



anyways, i submitted a picture of myself months ago to fly with the space shuttle endeavour mission STS-134. (welcome aboard!)

The 134th and final scheduled shuttle flight for Space Shuttle Endeavour launched on May 16, 2011. On the 16-day mission, space shuttle Endeavour will deliver spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields. The research center AMS-02 will also be transported for installation on the ISS.

There were a total of 128,940 faces and names flown on this mission!

the mission was originally scheduled for april 19 but had been postponed until may 16. which meant that i had to wait longer for my commemorative flight certificate. but it's here now!



as of mission STS-134, i am now one of the 337,260 total partipants of the program. one in 9,235 canadians. i feel like such a member of an elite club. with full on bragging rights.

to get yourself launched, click here. the final shuttle flight STS-135 is targeted for july 8. come to think of it, i might even go again. maybe this time i WILL play it like a superman villain.