I took the Skytrain to work today. Along the way, my iPod cued up a rather unsatisfying track by Lily Allen. The song, called “No Fair,” concerns Ms. Allen’s bedroom misfortunes with her nice-guy boyfriend. (Or should I say ex-boyfriend?)
A song in a playlist might seem uneventful but the train happened to be passing the Olympic Village site. The big misfortune. Talk about no fair.
Miro Cernetig recently had a sit-down with the mayor to chat about the first 90 days on the job. Being 90 days, this is the end of Gregor’s warranty period. Miro touches on Millennium Watergate and the potential cost to taxpayers. The mayor’s advisers privately forecast losses in the $200-300 million range. This isn’t good news but at least it’s realistic news. Two months ago, wet dreams of a “market rebound” had the politicos contemplating profits.
In other news, Quatchi remains uncooperative with the investigation into Peter Ladner’s stolen memo.
Photo credit: Smith
Condohype 
March 11, 2009 at 8:45 am
Yes, Vancouver, you’re supposed to care, but you never make me scream…
except with outrage. Which is not the same thing.
March 11, 2009 at 9:59 am
I think it’s time to subject Quatchi to some Millenium Waterboarding.
March 11, 2009 at 10:09 am
You know, just like the song, the first time I heard of the whole Olympic Village fiasco, I thought it was worth a laugh, but the more times you hear about it, you begin to realize how much it really sucks.
March 11, 2009 at 10:42 am
I heard Quatchi isn’t the one in the know, it’s mukmuk. When asked, mukmuk replied with nonsensical gibberish. However, consider this for a minute, around the time of the scandal mukmuk got promoted to an official mascot. Coincidence? I think not…
March 11, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Quatchi and mukmuk, together, will make $300 million look like chump change by April Fool’s Day 2010.
And then, suddenly, their market value will tank.
And by then all those Mascot Bubble Booster Boys hiding out in the bowels of the suddenly deserted Convention Center will be swearing up and down, to anyone who will listen, that no one back in the salad days of early February could possibly have predicted it.
.
March 11, 2009 at 8:12 pm
It’s tooo bad departures and arrivals at YVR aren’ on opposite lanes. Often wonder what the visitors would think as they saw savy Vancouverites leaving as they arrived. How about we lobby for a two lane departure arrivals terminal?
🙂
As that wil never happen I still would love to se some sort of stats on DEPARTURES a few days before the Olympics. Any sources? 🙂
March 12, 2009 at 6:55 am
Who are these people that travel around the world, spending gobs and gobs of cash to go to the Olympics? Are there really Olympics fans who attend these events? Or is everyone who comes to this circus either related to an athlete or connected with the Olympics infrastructure in some way. I dunno. I like sports and all, but even with Olympic events taking place a mere kilometre from my doorstep, my Plan A is to Avoid Olympics At All Costs. People spending thousands to come here to see the Olympics and I probably won’t even shell out skytrain fare. Ironic, huh.
March 12, 2009 at 11:35 am
I couldn’t agree more with dingus. I would much rather wait until we host the Olympics next time. At least by then we will have the ability to ‘iron out the wrinkles’ and the Olympics will be more enjoyable for all. My parents used the same approach for Expo and it turned out wonderfully!
March 12, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Vancouver will be an armed camp and very unfriendly place for locals during the Olympics
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/03/12/raphael-alexander-vancouver-s-high-priced-gated-community-vip-only-games.aspx
March 12, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Maybe if they include Quaatchi pillows and life sized stuffies with all new condos they will sell better…
March 12, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Oh, Luke. When 900 years old you are, be as sarcastic you will not. I don’t care about having a wrinkle free games. I also don’t care about the spectacle. Or, really, the events themselves. I just don’t get the hoopla. I really don’t.
To my earlier question, hands up if you went to Beijing to see the Olympics. Yeah, me either. Never occurred to me that that would be a fun thing to do. OK, now how about… wherever the winter ones were before that. Thought not.
So who does this? Who actually travels to go see the Olympics?
March 12, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Seriously, the 2010 Olympics could be the biggest financial train wreck to date. Like dingus, I don’t know who would ever spend good money to travel to see the Olympics, but surely their numbers shrink greatly in the midst of a global recession.
March 12, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I got all excited and took part in the ticket lottery. I was even prepared to pony up almost $5,000 for tickets. Didn’t get one. Not even close, I guess. Then I found out how few were actually available to the public. For instance, for a lot of the hockey games, in an arena that seats close to 20,000 people, only one or two thousand tickets were available. The rest were already promised to somebody else. Meanwhile, places like River Rock casino (how un-Olympic can you get?) are offering packages for tens of thousands of dollars with tickets for high rollers.
Why on earth are Canadians paying for this when by and large the numbers of tickets available to the public paying the taxes are few and far between. I mean, if the public can’t attend, what is the point?
I agree with the earlier point about expo 86. I remember going and checking out Jim Byrnes many times at Folklife. It was great.
The Olympics are turning into a bad joke.
March 12, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I think the negative sentiment numbers is showing up in the ticket sales numbers that the IOC will not share publicly. I think this is why the IOC and VANOC pushed so hard to get all the schools closed. At first the idea seemed bizarre but now it makes sense that the kids were going to be used as fodder to fill up the blank space in every camera angle. Could it be as simple as ticket resales by IOC and VANOC ghouls are down on EBAY and Craigslist?
Perhaps too the children will be used as a counterpoint for publicity programmers to counter the huge protests that are going to be taking place. The locals are increasingly furious now that the finacial numbers are being forced out and the bizarre Extremist Luddite Whack-Job transpo/buisness killer/socially invasive is being made public.
Don’t you just have to ask yourself WHY they want the children out of school? Why ‘all the kids’ including Universities, High Schools and Elementary Schools? It’s disgusting. My personall message to VANOC abnd the IOC ” LEAVE THE CHILDREN ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!”
No one realised we were entering a NAZI police state martial law enviornment where individual rights would be usurped from a democraticcally elected government and handed over to a faceless careless IOC Oligarch.
I would suggest we all read up on how to mitigate the physical effects of tear gas. The Vanoc statement this morning said ” The lasting legacy of the games will have been to CONVERT the population to transit”. Instead I think the lasting legacy of the games will be a knowledge of the day we lost our freedom and the ubiquitous taste of tear gas.
March 12, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Tragicspin, the only instance where “Nazi” is acceptable on this blog is when quoting Max von Sydow’s rant from the Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters. Example:
As your comment has nothing to do with Hannah and Her Sisters, it is unacceptable.
Thanks,
The Management
March 12, 2009 at 7:56 pm
tragicspin…I hope you’re kidding dude.
If not, you should try reality, it’s not that bad actually.
March 12, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Condohype, when I see jackbooted lackey’s and thugs murdering innocent people at the airport, in prison cells, in camp sites with impunity and without fear of retribution and now taking our democratic freedoms away with the threat of our imprisonment in the absence of legislation, referendum or consent without concern, with dictatorial power, I don’t have it in my heart to make that unseeing leap with you to refer to this described behaviour as a ‘pony ride’.
It is when people don’t have the guts to stand up and say “no” thats when those people deserve slavery and the weak Machiavellian government they get in the vacumn of moral judgement and the fear of self defence.
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. ”
Thomas Jefferson
If I meet you in the line to a gas oven I will be torn and bloody from my fight for freedom and I will ask you then how being polite to our oppressors worked out for you. Until then, hold on to your freedom, review it’s origin, look to the cultures who don’t have it and guard it as you would a precious thing. You will miss it dearly when it’s gone.
In the words of Flava Flav and Thomas Jefferson
” Fight the Power”.
March 12, 2009 at 9:48 pm
hen I see jackbooted lackey’s and thugs murdering innocent people at the airport, in prison cells, in camp sites with impunity and without fear of retribution
surely you exaggerate…this only happened a couple of times
you could almost consider it “collateral damage”
and carry on with your life….. your outrage is misplaced
March 12, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Go Crotchy! Er, I mean Quaatchi!
March 12, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Why on earth are Canadians paying for this when by and large the numbers of tickets available to the public paying the taxes are few and far between. I mean, if the public can’t attend, what is the point?
The point is to put money in the pockets of the rich, well-connected, and corporations at the expense of the ordinary person.
You mean you haven’t figured that out yet?
BTW CH, the modern (i.e nationalist-corporatist) Olympics, as opposed to the original concept of toffs getting together for fun and games without great public expense, are very much a creation of the Nazis and a certain protege of Francisco Franco.
March 13, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I’ve had some responses from clients who want 24 hr call out coverage during the Olympics. We have quoted triple time 24 hr a day to be on call. (That would mean the client (strata corps in our case) pays 375.00 / hr every hour.) They have written back and said we are gouging them when their original letter stated ” as many of the owners are renting their units for well over 7 times the usual daily rate we need to know you will respond immediately”?
Does any body else see something wrong with our “gouging”? 🙂
March 13, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Strataman , are you a concierge service or a property manager?
March 13, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I’m the type of person that gets mighty upset when my freedom of movement is restricted in small ways for a lousy reason, let alone what VANOC has planned for us. I’m so sensitive, that even hearing the VPD’s helicopter going back and forth over the ‘hood gets on my last twanging nerve. I can’t begin to imagine that helicopter times ten. I know that I would have a full-on breakdown if I had to be around during the Olympics. I’ve been saving up my humble coin, and me and my kitty are heading south. I don’t care if we have to camp out in the desert!
The Olympic circus will not be a fun time for those afflicted with anxiety disorders and other mental illness, a large concentration of whom just happen to be in the crosshairs of the Security Zones. I’m relatively high-functioning – I can barely imagine the stress this will cause for more vunerable people in the area.
March 13, 2009 at 3:23 pm
“If I meet you in the line to a gas oven I will be torn and bloody from my fight for freedom and I will ask you then how being polite to our oppressors worked out for you. ”
Which Olympic event is this?
March 13, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“Strataman , are you a concierge service or a property manager?”
Neither; we are Building Operations Technicians! 🙂 and you are?
March 13, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Strataman I get it, but you’re ‘clients’ don’t seem to.
March 15, 2009 at 9:44 am
“If I meet you in the line to a gas oven I will be torn and bloody from my fight for freedom and I will ask you then how being polite to our oppressors worked out for you. ”
Clearly it worked out the same for both of us: We’re both in a line to a gas oven. I may be a little prettier though, while you’re all torn and bloody.
March 16, 2009 at 4:21 pm
“I’m the type of person that gets mighty upset when my freedom of movement is restricted in small ways for a lousy reason….blah, blah, blah…people in the area.”
-Canada’s Poorest Postal Code- seems to have some serious First World Problems.
Having suffered from anxiety and depression myself, I understand the POTENTIAL for these minor inconveniences to cause some people problems. But for crying out loud, it’s just two weeks once in your life.
Are the Olympics going to cause a mental health crisis? Discuss.
March 17, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I wasn’t going to post again, because I was merely putting in my two bits about the Olympics, but I guess since Paul’s “challenge” to me is of recent vintage, I’ll bite.
“Serious First World problems…” Oh, God, this reminds of my days back at community college. There was a “progressive” young male attending classes back then who utterly loathed Western feminists ’cause they had things so bloody good in the Western Hemisphere (sniff) and didn’t have any real problems like the ladies in the so-called third world do. Contemptuous little middle-class nerd with a chip the size of Mt. Kilimanjaro on his shoulders. They’re a dime a dozen, and I’m willing to bet you’re one of them, Paul.
Moving on:
1. There is nothing trivial, petty or minor about mental illness. Whether you’re stuck in the Gaza Strip or in the Downtown Eastside, or anywhere for that matter. Grow up.
2. Speaking of the third world, we have our very own version here in Vancouver (i.e. Main & Hastings) in case you haven’t noticed. And if think that security crackdowns and a massively increased security force is going to be a two-week holiday for DT eastsiders with our “first world problems” and our “minor inconveniences”, think again.
3. Back to the subject at hand – I will be leaving Vancouver and going as far away as I can, Paul. I feel for those who can’t. Chew on that, Tindy.
March 18, 2009 at 8:14 am
No CPPC, you’ve read me wrong.
I’m just calling you on your trivial whining.
Enough with invoking the DTES too, it’s really getting tired.
We all whine too much here.
It’s a Vancouver thing.
Time to give our collective heads a shake.
Perhaps when you leave you should stay away if this place is not good enough for you?
June 6, 2009 at 8:09 am
Well, I guess that the “market rebound” never did take hold.
I’m thinking as we get a little closer to te Olympics, prices will start to ratchet upwards (with any luck)