Last year, I spent a lot of time working on a Christmas list full of goodies. This year, I have three wishes only:

1) A donation to a charity: you make one, and tell me what you’ve done.  My current favorite is Population Institute but I am also interested in seeing what you’d like to donate to.  Last year’s pick, http://www.kiva.org/, is still wonderful, and I was “given” donations last year to the Alzheimer’s Society and a few other medical research funds. Can’t argue with curing something awful for the holidays.

2) A mixed CD with your favorite songs. I’m not tired of my current music, but the thrill of discovering someone else’s music is always touching and wonderful.  If you need a mix “theme”, something like “Party This House to the Ground!” or “Pretending to Have a Sophisticated Dinner” or “Morning Mix: Take with Coffee” would be great.  One of my favorite mixes was a copy of my high school friend Judd’s “Falling Asleep” mix.

3) A restaurant gift certificate, in the small range (i.e. $20-40).  Doesn’t have to be dinner for two, or even dinner for one, just a little something.  My favorite restaurants are: Hapa Izakaya, Raincity Grill, The Irish Heather, Starbucks (I could really use a Starbucks card!), Red Door, Gotham, Raviolini’s, Quattro, and the Mongolie Grill.

You’ll notice that I’m on an “intangibles” kick this year—I hope that’s OK, because I really don’t want anything else.  (I do keep an ongoing list of objects that I have been wanting, but I look at it right now, and it seems horribly prosaic or silly to the extreme.  Like, do I really need a Nikon D700? No, I do not.)

What’s your list?

The food was great, and the service started a little cold though otherwise decent.

But this time, as the meal wound down, the strangest thing happened.

We were almost the only folks in the restaurant—and it was only 8:45 p.m. The waiter came to our table and asked us if we wanted dessert.

I said, do you have tiramisu? (It was what I’d ordered last time.) The waiter said, No.

I said, Oh, are you out? He said, yes, we’re out.  Monique said, what do you have? The waiter said, spumoni ice cream, and coffee ice cream.

Neither sounded great, so we asked for the bill and for him to package up our leftovers, of which there were plenty—Cipriano’s has HUGE portions. He said he’d split the leftover bread between us. (Note: Yes, I’m being picky, but you’ll see why.)

The food came back, and we’re sitting there talking, waiting for the bill, and the music is switched from being an eclectic though nicely Italian mix, to being some ‘50s comedy lounge routine that’s hard to understand with a SUPER loud laugh track.  And the restaurant is blaring it. Finally the bills comes back, and we pay it.

At this point, Monique and I have to yell to hear each other, I’m not kidding.  We get frustrated and get up to leave, and as we walk over to get our coats from the coat rack, they turn off the music entirely, so now it’s dead silent in the restaurant.  It’s now 8:58 p.m.

They basically drove us out of the restaurant.  And when I got home and looked at my food, they’ve split the bread and given half to Monique and the other half is not in mine, it’s nowhere.  So they screwed me out of the leftovers.

And I now believe they probably did have tiramisu.  I mean, what Italian restaurant doesn’t have any?  Come on.  They just wanted to get the doors shut by 9 p.m. so they could go home and watch Law and Order or something.

Crazy.

We’re heading over to join my mom and my sister, who are attending a conference put on by Kumon Japan.  Kumon is a supplementary educational system that helps people learn math and reading—sometimes remedial, sometimes advanced.

Kumon is celebrating its 50th anniversary by hosting a world franchise owner conference.  There will be about a zillion people there, and it’s my mom’s first time in Japan, so she’s really excited.

I don’t know why I phrased it like that: It’s all of our first times in Japan.  Susie and I have been wanting to go for years.

But one thing that I find interesting is that when I was asked recently what I wanted to see in Japan, I was a little stumped.  I couldn’t really think of any attractions that attracted me.  Tokyo doesn’t seem to have the same types of tourist draws that a Paris or a Berlin has—no Eiffel Tower or Brandenburg Gate.

Instead, I’m totally interested in things that are less tangible: the food, the restaurants, the shopping districts, the language, the electronics, the people, the history, the religion… all these intangibles that the Japanese are known for.

We’ll have the benefit of being with our good friends Jason and Noriko for much of the trip—they’re heading back to visit family and have graciously volunteered to help us see the country and not provoke any international incidents.  They say we should get used to:
* showering in a big communal room
* pointing at pictures of food we want
* paying in cash for something worth 100,000
* not really understanding why we’re doing something

But of course, even with them there to suggest, guide, prod and rescue, I’m also looking for suggestions from others who have been before.  Do you have any must-see or don’t-do advice for Susie and I? Share in the comments!  Best advice gets a pack of pocky!

Comments: 3

Boris went as 007 himself, in a tux that he had “lying around”.  Boris has a lot of amazing things lying around.  Susie and Rachael went as typical Bond girls, with dresses cut down to here and up to there.  Alex was Q—he wore a real lab coat borrowed from UBC, and spoke in an excited, enthusiastic voice just like Q.

Monique’s mom dress as M, with feathery cap.  James was going to wear a wet suit, but ended up doing too much cooking to get into his costume.  There may have been other costumes, but they escape me at the moment—just like James Bond would!

We went from the party, after having imbibed a few martinis, to the Dunbar Theater where the popcorn is great and the movie was sigh sigh sigh.  I mean, it was a decent James Bond movie, though I liked it even better when they called it Bourne Supremacy.

They left out the part where he says his name is Bond, James Bond, and they left out basically any gadget except for a fancy cell phone with GPS and an extreme zoom.  They also glossed over some important points like, when he’s stuck in Austria and his credit card is declined, how does he get to Italy to ask his buddy for fake ID?

Started out with a rousing drum number that got the crowd—well, not exactly roused, but you know, going a bit.  There was about 100 people in the audience (though there were a lot fewer 15 minutes before show start, which was a bit of a heart-in-throat moment), and about 30 candidates in total.

Three folks from COPE did a skit followed by a great video presentation, the theme of which was “Vote Beard” in favor of David Cadman, a candidate who had a great beard.  Best line: “You’ve found hope, because you’ve found COPE.”

Each skit was followed by the opportunity for the audience to ask a question. This first question for the candidates: What was the first, and last, theater performance you saw?  Answers: The Nutcracker Suite, and I forgot the rest.  I’m actually realizing my notes from this night are somewhat bad, so please forgive me in advance.

David Cadman came to the microphone and sung “The Times, They Are A-Changin’” in honor of Barack Obama, then a sunshine song whose name I don’t know in honor of global warming, and followed with “You Can’t Eat the Oysters in Vancouver Harbour” which led to a policy position statement about turning sewage system waste into methane and hydrogen.

He’s worried about sustainability and building a secondary treatment center.

Scott Yee, the first mayoral candidate, takes the stage.  A stand-up comedian routine is his attempt… oh dear.  Truly repulsive.  Tasteless and poorly delivered.  Heckling starts.  Horrible sexual humor.  Worst one: Why did the transexual cross the road? To make five bucks.  If women want more men to go down on them, they should come up with a slogan... I tuned him out about then.

Candidate was gonged, and wasn’t given a chance to answer questions.  Thank goodness.  Id he seriously running for office? I guess that’s what makes free speech so terrifying.

Laura MacDiarmid, Park Commissioner candidate, stepped out and sang an a cappella number, “Crazy”.  Had a hard time hitting the high notes.  But full marks for trying.  Question for this candidate: What kind of a tree would you be? She’d be a weeping willow.  She also answered a more serious question: That there should be more parks, that parks are a place for recreation as well as for solace (I think she meant solitude).  She was part of a project to bring art to the parks.

Little interlude promotion for Plank Magazine, the local performing arts magazine and Web site.

Then, the absolutely star of the night, Menard Caissy, who came out wearing a ski jacket and a iPod, doing a cover of a Staind song or something.  I underline the “something” because his singing was sans-words, sort of guttural groaning and incomprehensible.

Questions: Are you running for mayor?  Are you wearing a bullet proof vest?  Is that an original work?  The questions just keep coming.

“My father is god, my brother is jesus, vote for me because I’m going to run the city.”

“Don’t Fence Me In” wafts over the crowd, as the Nude Garden Party candidate steps up—Patrick Britten, after a verse of that, steps over the invisible spotlight barrier, and dives directly into the soliloquy of Hamlet.

“Who would bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?” indeed.

This guy knows a stage, has fairly good positioning, and walks directly to the point of the spotlight.

Yesterday earth, tomorrow the sky. Today, blossoms, you and I.

Question: Are you naked under that robe? (I totally forgot to mention that he was wearing a bathrobe and pyjama bottoms. What does it say that this is so far from the most weird thing tonight that it escaped mention?)

G?l?k Buday now up, starts with a tasteless joke.  Oh, and another tasteless joke.  Luckily, he talks so quietly, no one can hear him. He’s provided a mike, and that was a mistake.  “I’m bissexual.  If I want sex I have to buy it.” Now he’s forgetting his routine, so he starts over from the beginning.  He begging for heckling, we’re all completely silent.  He did all his jokes over again.  He shouldn’t have.  FInal joke “Why’s a Guiness like a good prostitute?” Seriously.  I hope I never see him again—what a sicko.

Question: What’s your number one skill? His answer: Was too long and quiet to reproduce here, and I didn’t care.

The moderator is now heckling the event itself.  That’s never a good sign.

Betty Krawczyk, Work Less Party has a lot of fans here—whoops ring out as she takes the stage.  She brought tap dancing shoes and is about to do something amazing.  And she doesn’t disappoint, she does a routine to “Old Time Rock and Roll” that has everyone clapping their hands.  She’s a lady in her (60s?) with plenty of bling on her vest and hat, and the audience is loving having someone actually interesting taking the stage.

However, she seems to have tired herself out so much from the dance that she can’t answer questions.  Alas.

Now Marc Emery is here.  He says he was going to do some Monty Python, but he says he was afraid, of economic collapse, and that things are going to get so bad, he can’t bring himself to do something entertaining.  And his policy talk is a vehement and heartfelt, but not entertaining.

Question: What are you going to actually do, your policies? 

Question: What do you think of the city giving $100 million to property developers? She says “I think it’s a disgrace. I think it’s just such an outrageous attitude.”

Next up: Sean Bickerton. He’d been living in New York with his partner, and then moved back to Vancouver where he’s from. “We decided to come to this country where we could be free, and live and love the person we wanted to.”

He’s reading poetry he wrote: “Where oh where is osama bin laden, have they looked in baden baden?”

Question: What do you think of the privitization of community centers? He’s opposed to it. If you were a Dr. Seuss book, which one would you be? Green Eggs and Ham.  Ahhhhh.

Now, Leon Kaplan. Independent.  His mom thinks he’s funny and will be the only one voting for him. Ha!  He’s got an out-RAG-eous French accent. He also thinks we shoudl take tasers away from cops and give them to street ambassadors.  He’s got a nice clown nose, and he’s going to bottle vancouver water.

Moderator cut him short but he was doing very fine. Someone asked him a question: Is this your first time running for mayor? Answer: Yes, and thank you for giving me a chance to finish my act!

Park Commissioner candidate Jamie Lee Hamilton in a sparkly dress: My father will kick my ass if he sees me wearing—it’s his!  15 lesbians and 15 candidates in the audience: 30 people who don’t do dick.  Her standup is pretty good, actually. Oh wait, no it isn’t.  Her platform seems to be in getting people to vote: “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, we want to get municipal participation way up.”

Question: Top three skills? Other than her mouth (her words, not mine!): Compassion, ability to bridge communities, working for the public good.

And now, Bill Ritchie.  He comes out and immediately goes into a dramatic monologue—pretending that he’s various characters at various social levels talking on the phone. 

Questions: What makes you want to run? He says it was mostly because he wanted to show someone else how easy it was to run.  How are you on crime?  First of all you want to work on the sources of crime: food, shelter, spending city money on some of these support programs.

AND NOW: A group from Vision Vancouver. Heather Deal, Geoff Meggs, Gregor Robertson (he’s the mayoral candidate).  They play a little Tom Lehrer overtop, and are going to play guitar along with it.  It’s the element song.  It’s stupendously poorly executed.  Have they ever practiced? They hand out sheets with the lyrics—but no one gets them.  They redo the song several times, slower each time.

“Ok, we’ve beaten that horse.”

Geoff says, “It’s very difficult with the at-large system to remember who to vote for. Here’s how:”

Question: Someone shouts out: “Skills?” Watering plants, flipping pancakes, playing the tuba (Gregor) Hiking, cycling (Meggs) Doing the splits, wearing a tutu, and performing requiems (Deal).

Vamping: There will be a meet and greet in the lobby, ask your questions then.

Final performer of the evening: Peter Ladner, NPA, I think.  He’s doing a song he wrote himself after spending an evening out in Vancouver with another activist.

He’s stopping in the middle of his song to explain it.  Now he’s starting again.

He’s actually not too bad, though his guitar needs tuning. 

“A chocolate, a cigarette, a crack in the gloom, and maybe if you’re lucky, she’ll find you a room.”

His voice is getting better and better.  He’s truly good—better singer than performer. He just tuned his own guitar.  Now he’s doing, what’s this, a SECOND SONG!  It’s called “Because of You,” dedicated to all potential candidates and current politicians.  He says his son blames everything on him, and this song’s all about that:

“Because of you, SUVs are everywhere, because of you, housing prices so unfair, because of you.”

Questions: Attack question from Betty about the $100 million: “Why did you do such a stupid thing?” We loaned money to get the development going, and we’re going to get that money back, plus interest, along with 200 units of social housing. Question: Can you identify a mistake in your career that you acknowledge and how you reacted to it?

Peter says: A story about when he was 19 and ended up getting fired from the newspaper he worked at because he talked in public about something he shouldn’t have.

At the end of the performance, all the candidates came up and took a bow together - that was a real wonderful moment and made me feel like Vancouver was a small town, not a big city.

Was it a success?  I think so.  Truly some bad performances, and yet a kernel of heart-felt wonderfulness, and a chance to see the human side of the people who will, some of them at least, be running Vancouver.  Thanks, Left Right Minds.

Comments: 1

Email.

More rain.

Pizza.

More email.

More rain.

Picking up a movie.

In the rain.

Pizza again.

More email (iPhone).

Movie.

More pizza.

More movie.

More rain.

More email.

Bed.

I voted for U.S. president (absentee ballot), in the Canadian election, and plan to vote for city council here on Nov. 15.

And I was feeling, let’s face it, sad but also a little smug, because of all the people I know who didn’t vote.  Someone I know (no names, I’m going easy on them) was too busy on Canadian election day, and many of the U.S. citizens I know here in Canada didn’t get registered in time to vote, if they even bothered to try.

Side note here: For a U.S. citizen, your absentee ballot goes to the state you most recently lived in.  Which for me is California, and to be frank, I might as well have balled up my ballot, stuffed it in a bottle and thrown it in the ocean for all the influence it will have in California.  If I had only used to live in Ohio or Pennsylvania or somewhere that a vote might have more impact.... Anyhow, because I can’t vote in any of the other California measures or elections or ballots, my vote is pretty near useless.  Ah well.  Still, I did my duty.

But then recently, sitting around with some friends, I realized that the unthinkable had happened: I’d missed an election.  Turns out there was a by-election in my riding, and I had misunderstood and thought it was for a neighbouring riding.  (There was, in fact, also a by-election in the next riding over, hence my confusion.) And suddenly, I went from being safely smug to being a non-voting asshole.  Oh no! Don’t let this happen to you.  Vote today.

(I plan to make it up by recycling a little more styrofoam and replacing two lightbulbs with CFLs.)

Ghostbusters :: Ray Parker, Jr.
Invisible Touch :: Genesis
Black Magic Woman :: Santana
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic :: The Police

Magic Bus :: The Who
Satan is My Motor :: Cake
The Invisible Man :: Queen
Never There :: Cake

Magic Carpet Ride :: Steppenwolf
I Put A Spell On You :: Nina Simone
Devil Inside :: INXS
Sympathy For The Devil :: Guns N’ Roses

Runnin’ With The Devil :: Van Halen
Devil In Disguise :: Elvis Presley
Bad Moon Rising :: Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Killing Moon :: Echo & The Bunnymen

The Mustard :: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Zombie Zoo :: Tom Petty
The Vampires :: Paul Simon
Vampire Blues :: Loudon Wainwright III

Furry Happy Monsters :: R.E.M. & Sesame Street
Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps) :: David Bowie
Monsters Lullaby :: The Brothers Comstock
Of Moons, Birds & Monsters :: MGMT

Ghost Story :: Sting
Ghost of a Dog :: Edie Brickell
The Purple People Eater :: Sheb Wooley
Dracula Moon :: Joan Osborne

Born to Be Wild :: Steppenwolf
Moon Over Bourbon Street :: Sting
Eye Of The Tiger :: Survivor
Dead Man’s Party :: Oingo Boingo

Destination Moon :: They Might Be Giants
Helter Skelter :: M?tley Cr?e
Spooky :: Classics IV
The Time Warp :: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Cast

Nothing To Fear (But Fear Itself) :: Oingo Boingo
Devil And Your Deep Blue Eyes :: Sweethearts Of The Rodeo
Monster Mash :: Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers
Here On Earth (I’ll Have My Cake) :: Crash Test Dummies

Helter Skelter :: The Beatles
The Ghosts That Haunt Me :: Crash Test Dummies
Ghost Riders In The Sky :: Johnny Cash
Ghost Waltz :: Jolie Holland

Nasty Habits :: Oingo Boingo
Deadbeat Club :: The B-52s
James Brown Is Dead :: L.A. Style
Ghost of a Texas Ladies’ Man :: Concrete Blonde

Dead Puppies :: Ogden Edsl
The Dead Heart :: Midnight Oil
Exquisite Dead Guy :: They Might Be Giants
Dead :: They Might Be Giants

GhostWorld :: Aimee Mann
Ghost Of The Navigator :: Iron Maiden
Dead Things :: Emiliana Torrini
Humans Are Dead :: Flight of the Conchords
The New Twilight Zone :: Grateful Dead

It’s just across the street from my house, so very convenient, and it looked like the kind of dry cleaner that takes good care of your clothes. (One I went to when I first came to Vancouver used to staple their claim tickets to the bottom of my shirts.  Staple!)

So I’d dropped off my clothes last week, told the fellow no hurry, and then forgotten about it for a day or two, so today was pickup day.

After I’d paid for the shirts, he looks at me and asks, “Do you use deodorant?”

Uh, yeah, why?

“Well, here sir,”—and he offers me this free sample of deodorant, Gillette clinical strength somethingorother.

Free sample, he said. He’d been contacted by Gillette and had a bunch of these to give away to his “best customers.”

Now, I don’t know if he decided while washing my clothes that I was in sore and dire need of this particular product, or if the fact that I was spending $100 on dry cleaning—it has been months since I’ve taken any in, so I had quite a pile built up by Susie and I—meant I was in the non-wanting-to-smell demographic.

But overall, I think it’s a risky proposition to be telling your new clients that they, in a nutshell, stink.

Just something to think over.

Comments: 2

Topanga Cafe, probably named after the artist-y area in California and not the busty teen co-star of Boy Meets World, is located just a little ways from my old house.  sigh.

It features about 10 4-person tables, and a line up that took my friend and I 35 minutes to wait through tonight.

The menu is long enough and yet still simple, covering all the basic Mexican foods you might want: enchiladas, chili rellano, tacos, burritos, etc.  The smell was fantastic as we waited, though I will say this was the most uniformly Caucasian wait staff I’ve encountered so far. Goes to show, you shouldn’t judge a restaurant by its employees.

The default serving for the burrito here is with an avocado sauce, green and creamy. (I can’t tell you how it tastes because I don’t eat avocado, but I’m told it was delicious.) If you order your burrito “wet,” it comes with a red sauce instead, and costs $4 more.  Why $4 more? Is the avocado sauce subsidized by Big Avocado? It’s a mystery to me (though it would explain why every damn sushi roll in this city comes with avocado in it).

But no matter.  I paid extra for “wet” and extra again for my “premium” filling, pork tenderloin, ultimately driving the cost up to about $18.  My companion’s was beef with an chili rellano to match it, and everything was amazing.  My pork, though not stewed, was still spicy and fragrant. His was yummy through and through, though a little small, he said.

The rice was simple; spiced without any mixed-in vegetable matter like peas.  Hooray! The beans, perfect—more pinto than black in this case, which is as it should be—and cheese melted over everything in sufficient but not ludicrous quantity.

I should disclose that the accompanying beers, Negro Modelo and Dos Equis, really, really made the burrito go down perfectly, and the chips were so thin and crunchy they could have been made of formica.  Accompanying the chips was just enough salsa if you weren’t greedy (I was), and it was none too spicy, which suited my mood and beer consumption.

Two more points of note: despite the fact that it’s pretty low key and casual, the dim lighting and the coziness of the place would make it a good date restaurant.  And, if you do have room for dessert, I highly recommend you order the chocolate cake.  It’s really rich, totally moist, and tastes pretty darn close to freshly home made.  Yes, it’s not Mexican. Neither are you, so just order it and enjoy it.

The only two downsides: the wait, but how can you criticize people for wanting a piece of this action, and the prices, but then again, where else you gonna go for good and cheap Mexican food? Ultimately, It’s not exactly what I wanted, but it satisfices wonderfully, so I give these burritos a 9/10. 

Now what? With an actual good burrito found, I’ll probably have a few other Mexican restaurants to test out and share, but without the same strange sense of urgency that’s been driving me this past week.  Thanks for following along.  In the future, maybe… who does the best Thai food? Naw, that’s crazy.

Topanga Cafe
2904 4th Avenue West
(604) 733-3713

Comments: 2

Poorly expressed, but interesting in the world view it highlights.

What a Christmas gift -- 6 pounds of bacon!

It is what it says it is, that's for sure.

I wonder how many iPhones I could buy for the same price.

I'd be interested in this.

Been there.

The 3D stuff seems like overkill, but the other two things are really powerfully easy to use.

And she can't get her name removed. Awful story.

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Ha!

Cool!

“Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.”

Who Said It?

“He who has not a good memory should not meddle with lying.”

Who Said It?

“Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom.”

Who Said It?

“Everyday, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”

Who Said It?

“A man should ever be ready booted to take his journey.”

Who Said It?

“From Obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion.”

Who Said It?

“Man is the only animal whose existence is a problem that he has to solve.”

Who Said It?

“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”

Who Said It?

“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”

Who Said It?

“I quote others in order to better express myself.”

Who Said It?