Nice Dimmers Dude

We replaced the light switches in our house with dimmers - talk about improved ambience! Our kind neighbour Mr F gave me the installation tutorial and now I can't stop installing them around the house!

Goodie Goodie - Yum Yum

My friend from England sent me this.. It's probably more funny to English folks who remember The Goodies...

It's the mid 70s, The Goodies (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden) are in the Marquee club getting drunk. They spot the DJ John Peel, who had given their record 'the Funky Gibbon' a bad review in this weeks Melody Maker. They storm over, pissed up, to batter him. Fortunately Robert Plant leaps inbetween them to break things up.

Spring On It's Way ...


Spring is slowly creeping in. The trees on the street are budding, the daffodils are growing tall, crocuses are blooming and it's getting time to plant the garden. Very cool.

Sunny Afternoon In Steveston


It was a sunny Sunday afternoon so we decided to head down to the little fishing town of Steveston. Situated on the South side of the city it's just under a 20 min drive.

Steveston is a fab little place .. tons of fishing boats, great places to eat, lots of groovy shops and a fantastic English stuff shop run by a couple of delightful old dears.

Steveston has some great history. Once the busiest fishing port in the world, it played host to a many immigrants from all over the world.

We started our afternoon with a tasty lunch. I treated M to some fish & chips. Well, you know .. she can't eat tofu all the time like me! What did I have? I enjoyed the heart-smart option ... grilled cheese sandwhich & fries. Come on! It had spinich on it. :)

Munching aside, we strolled around the shops checking out some of the groovy shops. We picked up some garden art, lots of seeds/bulbs for our near-future garden and excitedly headed over to the English shop!

Always a treat. I picked up some potatoe cakes, sweets/chocolate for us and our neighbour B. The old dears who run the shop are delightful! - they make me smile with their deeply familier ways/mannerisms.

On the way back to Vancouver we stopped by the canal to view the aiport and North Shore mountains.

A lovely afternoon which lead us into a fantastic evening with the neighbours B & Oz. B busted out the cooking skills and crafted some mighty culinary treats - mm-mm-mm.

Don't DIY

Taking a drive the other day, I ran past this house in Vancouver. Come on dude .. is it REALLY worth not calling in a professional to do the job?

Nice & Spicy...

A few words of advice.. Do yourself a favour and don't cover your pizza with dried red chiles. You'll regret it (later)!

Cousin Mix Master-M In Town

It's been 10 years since I last saw my cousin, so it was very nice to see him and hang out in Vancouver. We had some good chats about ... stuff, the tour he's on, what we've all been upto etc...Time flew by and the Mixmaster was scheduled to head out for dinner with Mr Wobble but decided to stay out with us all. Right on!

I guess being English, erm.. we like to to drink beer. So it wasn't long before we all got merry . :). After many laughs we decided to heading out of Tafts on Granville Street, head down to Subees. Outside we decided to have our picture taken. I invited around 15 Japanese tourists to have their picture taken with us. "Do you guys want to have your picture taken with me and my cousin from England" . They all got really excited and jumped into the picture. One girl grabbed my hands afterwards and asked "You must be great English gentlemen?" "I am, a real Manchester English Gentlemen" .. she grinned and told me "My sister is married to real English Gentlemen". I responded "She must be very happy then!" LOL.

Many more laughs later we left Subees and headed down to MixMasters hotel. On the way back we took the picture above. Not sure who the random dude to the left is, I do remember him asking us "Can I join in the picture?". LOL!

We closed the night down and walked MixMaster back to his hotel... A reet-good-night. MixMaster-M is an excellent person and we all had a great time visiting with him.

Jah Wobble

First some background ... Me and Dubmaster C noticed in the local whats-going-on paper - Georgia Straight that Jah Wobble was coming into town. We thought .."that'd be a good show to watch" and left it at that. A few days later I called my Mum up in England for a chat, and she goes "Do you know Jah Wobble?". What? "Do you know Jah Wobble?, he's playing Vancouver!". This is too much. Nevervously I respond "I do ... , and ... how do you know he's playing here?". "Ohhh your cousin is on tour with the band and has been trying to get hold of you!".. "Fantastic!, I'll have to head down and watch the show". She updated me on how he got his name from John Lydon, "You know, Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols". Now, I've always been proud/impressed of how much my Mum know's about bands/pop culture ... but this was all too much for me and my pre_coffee_sunday_morning_shuffle around the house.

Dubmaster picked up the tickets and the big night arrived. I haven't seen my cousin for 10 years, so I ended staring at every random person that kinda looked like the way I remember him. Much odd glances back from strangers. I was sat in the bar upstairs enjoying a nice euro_beer when I heard the mike check. ... in a Manchester accent. LOL! Looking over the balcony, I could see him .. so I headed down to the stage for a big hello/hug.

The show started.. 1st up.. a local Dub band. Excellent! What a treat to hear this music live. The only time I hear this music is in Dubmaster C's living room. :) The band was tight, lots of rimshots, echoe'y .. dubby.. spacey sounds clued by a tight Jamaican rythmn.


Jah Wobble came on with the dubby .. echoey ... spacey sound you'd expect but tonight ... a twist. English Roots music! Yes, 2 ladies sang old time English songs to all that space madness Jah put's out. It was REALLY GREAT! Later in the set they had a jam session, and punctuated the songs with what seemed like war drum songs.

Afterwards we met my cousin and adventured Vancouver - which deserves it's own posting :)

B-Boy Breaking, Electric Booga-Loo

Me, M, DubMaster C & his freestyle graffiti girl R. headed downtown to enjoy the Hip-Hop Electro pionerr - Afrika Bambaataa.

This has been the 2nd old-school act to swing by Vancouver this year, so we had our fingers crossed that we wouldn't be dissapointed after Young MC's miserable 20 minute set.

The tension built as "Planet Rock" boomed through the sound-system - a mad mix of Roland 303 drum machines, Kraftwerk and Zulu Nation rapping. 'Bam' arrived on the stage proclaiming "This aint about guns, drugs, violence. That's poison. This is true Hip-Hop. Love, Peace & Community". Then the jamms started .. and out came the .. super exciting break-beats, furious back-beats ... booming like a the late-train out of the Bronx. Fan-Freaking-Tastic.

All Weather PowderHounds
The month started of with another 24 hours of major snowfall. 14 inches overnight! So once again me & Oz headed back-up the mountain to sample the powder. Once again the snow was fantastic. We did about 9-10 runs, sampling both mountains. Oz is in training to become an all-weather-powderhound, and I was impressed when he suggested that we do a final run as the visibility dropped to around 10 metres. Funnily enough, that turned out to be one of the best runs of the night. We wrapped the night up and headed down the mountain in the blowing snow. Our stomaches started rumbling heading through downtown, so we decided to pick-up some tasty 99c garlic cheese pizza on Davie St. -- mmmm