Here’s a succinct chart showing the state of issuance of building permits (click to enlarge), comparing 2013 to 2012 for the months elapsed so far. While eight areas show increases compared to last year, the remaining twelve show a decrease. Burnaby is the only big city in the Lower Mainland with a whopping increase, while Surrey, Richmond, North Vancouver, Langley, New Westminster and Vancouver are all negative. As we drift farther away from Vancouver, all the areas on the periphery show marked increases, notably Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Lions Bay and Port Moody.

Is the center dwindling while the periphery absorbs all excess bloat? Or is this just confirmation that the middle class has given up the ghost and is busy buying property on the outskirts, now that the GVRD core is strictly the purview of a faceless investor class.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the Best Place on Earth, you know that the housing market in Vancouver is experiencing a bit of a lull. You have the Real Estate board going overboard in their roseate predictions for the future, while the man on the street disdainfully stares at housing far beyond his plebeian reach. However, the consensus by almost anybody outside Canada is that we are in for a bit of a downturn. The spigot of cheap credit has been turned off, no one can conjure up the cash for a quick flip of a million dollar house, and the inventory of listings grows with every passing day.

The image above shows the full gamut of possible avenues this real estate correction can take. You have the Real Estate folks staunchly insisting that there won’t be any drops at all, everything is hunky dory, a claim belied by the 8% drop in prices seen as of April 2013. It’s safe to discount this estimate by now.

The next stop is at 10%. I’d say the IMF is pretty clueless when it comes to things like predicting housing bubbles, it’s not as if they have any reliable economists on board.

20% and 25% seem like a walk in the park, according to any Spaniard or Irishman, or even American. These countries are still reeling from their wee correction.

Finally, at 78% we have The Economist, the absolute Bible of middle management the world over. What makes these folks cast a pall of doom and gloom over the Best Place on Earth? They use outdated archaic metrics like price-to-rent ratios, price-to-income ratios and so on, statistics that many claim are meaningless in a world where Q.E. doesn’t stand for Queen Elizabeth any more.

As a starting point, here are some decent blogs that deal with this issue without any of the prevarications that you’re usually inundated with, as far as real estate is concerned. All of them are on the bearish side, but perhaps that’s simply because all bull runs must come to an end.

http://www.greaterfool.ca/ : Easily the best writer of the lot, Garth has the biggest following for a good reason. Lucid prose, compelling arguments, disdainful dismissings of inexperienced investors and above all, charisma.

http://vancouvercondo.info/ : A collection of news articles from other blogs and media about the deplorable state of real estate in Vancouver

http://vancouverpricedrop.wordpress.com/ : Three times a week, this fellow updates a top ten list of properties that have fallen the most in price in Vancouver. As of this writing, the best one has fallen 18 million dollars and shows no sign of selling.

http://theeconomicanalyst.com/ : Ben Rabidoux, a consummate public speaker who has an online feud of sorts with Garth. A welcome non-anonymous addition to the list. His posts included detailed analyses for why the current situation is just not sustainable.

http://vreaa.wordpress.com/ : Anecdotal evidence from Vancouver and its environs about the housing bubble, often cobbled together from other blogs and their comments.

http://whispersfromtheedgeoftherainforest.blogspot.ca/ : This blog has really come into its own with some eagle-eyed deductions in the recent past about unethical realtors, their equally slimy journalistic friends and “news” stories that make your flesh creep.

http://thethirtiesgrind.com/tag/vancouver-housing-bubble/ : Probably the most empathic of all the blogs out there, this one uses derision as a well-launched missile. Why not buy an overpriced shack and live in debt for the remainder of your years? A casual perusal of this blog’s offerings might have the answer.

It is 5.50 on July 29th, 2010 in sunny Vancouver. We’re seeing sunny weather and the heliolaters are everywhere. The skytrain (Vancouver’s version of the subway metro that rides in the sky on pillars) pulls into New Westminster, arguably one of the more crime-ridden junctions in this fair city (which isn’t saying much, the most we see is the occasional stabbing at Metrotown. I doubt most of the people on the train have ever seen a dead body in their lives).

The doors slide open and we hear voices from the platform. Two men, A and B are standing in front of the doors. A is reaching for a large gym bag, B is holding onto it. Both men are large and muscular. B is a good half-foot taller than A.

A: That’s my bag, can you show me a receipt for it? Where did you get it?

B: What do you mean, it’s your bag, it’s mine? I have to get on this train.

A: I’m serious man, you took it, that’s my bag. I can’t let you leave with it.

B: No way, dude. It’s mine, I have to get on this train.

A: I can’t let you do that, you stole my bag. Where did you get it?

B enters the train. A follows him.

A: Listen, it’s my bag. Let’s stay here until the police come, I’m calling them right now.

B: Okay, take it, it’s yours.

A stops the doors from sliding shut, grabs the bag and the hand that’s clutching its straps. B lets go of the bag but his hand is now in the iron grip of A’s right hand.

B: Let me go. (Moves agitatedly. Starts to bluster. Raises his right arm menacingly).

A: Hey, there’s no reason for that. Calm down. Step off the train and onto the platform, let’s wait for the cops to arrive.

B: (Lowers arm) Here, you can have it, the train’s leaving, I gotta go.

Side note: In Vancouver, the trains can actually be stopped by the simple expedient of holding their doors open. The doors are relatively weak and a wedged ankle is enough to stop them, without hurting the ankle. This can and often does happen ad nauseam, while we all wait for some yobo ‘s friends to arrive, as he holds the doors open. Recently, alarms have been installed that alert the control station that a door is being held open. The control station then sends some transit cops or real cops, whoever’s closer, to the scene (the trains have no drivers and run on on some exorbitant software). Since the control station is far away and the chances of a cop being near are fairly low, the wait can be tedious and lengthy indeed.

A: Let’s get off the train. (Seizes the bag and B’s hand and leaves the train)

B is done talking, but complies with his body language showing a great deal of remonstrance.

As B exits, we see the left side of his head. Under his ear and on his lateral nape, are, I kid you not, the twin lightning bolts of the Schutzstaffel. A real SS tattoo. It is in red with a black outline. It is NOT the KISS logo with the KI eroded from years of scrubbing. This is the real deal, a genuine neo-nazi getting busted for petty theft on urban transport. Let this mannequin, which has more brains than the subject it represents, show you the location of the aforementioned tattoo.

As I reach for my cameraphone to snap a pic of this twerp, he walks out and the doors shut with a maligned sigh of relief. Everyone in the compartment saw the tattoo at precisely the same moment. An old lady beside me who looks like Margaret Atwood out for a jog turns to me and says “Fucking white trash. New West is full of them”. I am more amazed by her swearing than by the racist neandarthal we all just saw. We are all also impressed by how the theft victim handled the situation. Despite being physically smaller, he took control and dominated the other man and essentially ordered him off the train. It seems unlikely that the former gaolbird would stick around on the platform and wait for the cops to arrive, preferring to flee instead. In any case, the situation is now ab oculis.

The train starts with its usual whine, the hot summer air is shut off, the air-conditioning resumes and we continue over the river.

As for our poor missing link, what does his tattoo tell us about him? I’ll let Cracked.com do the honours:

“You know you want to dance with me, come on”

Normally, such words uttered by an attractive female on a dance floor in a pub would be enough to make you want to join her. Except that, in this case, the lady in question was a little lacking in pulchritudinous charms. She was around 65, missing a few teeth and wiggling a saggy derriere. Despite all this, she was one of the most attractive women in the bar.

The evening started off with us waiting outside the Funky Winker Bean, a bar at the T-intersection of Hastings and Abbott, probably the dirtiest spot in the entire country. As we waited for our friend, who for some inexplicable reason had chosen to celebrate her birthday there, some yahoo driving by hurled an empty beer bottle at us that smashed into a million pieces on the street. As we watched the shards of glass ricochet off the sidewalk, we wondered what we were doing there. We went inside and I noticed that I actually knew a fair number of people there. Not the drug-addled regulars, but the crowd that was gathering to see four local metal bands. There was nothing to suggest that our mild-mannered fan was a fan of the heavier forms of metal, so we were even more perplexed as to the choice of the venue.

We stood outside, waiting for her and her friends, and when they got there, they realized that it probably wasn’t the best place to go to, both in terms of the music and the crowd inside. We stood around, waiting for even more people to join us, and then in a burst of inspiration decided to go to the Grand Union Hotel across the street. The plan was to pre-drink there, then head to 560, a snazzy new club that had opened downtown, with a transvestite doorman (person?) playing the role of Janus.

As we entered the Grand Union Hotel, we saw that the interior wasn’t as bad as the exterior would suggest. It was bad, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t the reeking cesspool of Third-World-ian proportions that we expected. The lights were bright, the barman grim but polite and the booze cheap. We settled down for some serious imbibing, after all, the beer was very cheap, $1 or $.150 for the  “better” kinds. There was a two-man band that played country music for all the Downtown Eastside folk who loved country. We heard some Johnny Cash and some other bands I don’t really know, since country isn’t really my thing. After a few drinks, we realized this place actually had a tiny dance floor and there were peolpe dancing. As we stared at them, wondering how far gone you had to be, to dance in a place like this, the lady from the first paragraph beckoned at me and Elliot, another of the birthday girls’ friends. I stayed put, but after some protracted exhortations on her part, complete with blown kisses and simulated hugs, he went over to dance with her. His last words were “What’s the harm, what can possibly go wrong, she looks harmless.” Luckily for him, those last words didn’t end up being his famous last ones.

After drinking some more swill, a couple of the folks went out to talk on their cellphones, away from the racket. While out there, they were approached by an undercover cop who asked them what they were doing there, since they looked like they had healthy, prosperous bodies, which definitely stand out around Pigeon Park. They answered, with all the naivete of college girls, “Oh nothing Officer, we’re just pre-drinking here”. The cop’s reply: “If I were you, I’d get the fuck out of here right now. With every passing second, the likelihood of you getting stabbed with a needle or a knife grows larger”. Having uttered these prophetic words, our gloomy seer stalked off into the night mentally swinging his billy club, no doubt steeling himself against the zombie-like lurchings at every street corner.

The girls ran back in, marshalled the troops and tried to convince us we had to leave and pronto! But the guys were drunk and saw no harm in lingering, after all, the beer was cheap, they were dancing and there was no imminent danger. The atmosphere inside was definitely not one of danger. I mean, the place was no Ritz, but it felt like any small town in BC or Alberta, or even Canada, for that matter. The only difference was the large amount of junkies in the bar, any of whom could potentially erupt into deadly violence, according to the undercover cop. It’s definitely a possibility that the cop was just out to panic us, or was a pessimistic fellow. Regardless, we made plans to leave and soon left for 560.

And that is how we spent a few hours drinking in the meanest part of Vancouver surrounded by junkies, prostitutes, pimps, burglars, cops, drug dealers, predatory scum and homeless people.

Today I learned that there are snipers atop buildings in the downtown core, in case any “terrorists” attack or there isn’t enough cheering when $country wins $medal. Click to enlarge the pics.

Anybody know what kind of sniper rifle that is?

EDIT – The comments have taught me that the two guns aren’t “sniper” rifles. In my ignorance of all things firearms-related, I assumed they were so. Thanks, Reddit.

A few years ago, I lived in a loft close to the Metrotown area. This house was an older house and I lived in the attic. My friends co-rented the house with me and shared the other bedrooms below and in the attic. Often, as I lay in the dark, drifting off to sleep, I heard vague scrabblings on the floor and in the walls but paid them no attention, being unconcerned about nocturnal noises.

One day, I found our cat chasing a huge spider down the stairs, but before I could stop him, he’d killed the spider and eaten him. Thinking it was just an irregular incident, I ignored it as well.

One summer afternoon, as I sat at my computer desk in my room, something scuttled past my bare foot and stopped in the middle of my room. I stared at it and saw an enormous spider. I seized an empty bowl off my desk and dropped it over the spider, who was now trapped. Realizing that I had to find out if it was venomous or not, I decided to kill it by not destroying it completely. I fetched a can of RAID and shoved the nozzle into the upturned bowl, simply gassing it to death. I put the body in ice in a tupperware container and stuck it in the freezer. Before doing that, I took some pictures, so that people would believe how big this spider was. You can see how large it is, its leg-span equals that of a regular DVD case.

There are sites on the internet where trained entomologists identify bugs for you, based on pictures, but these helpful scientists are inundated with requests from all over the world. I looked for spiders with similar characteristics:  the spindly legs, huge diameter, the boxing-glove fangs and my research led me to believe that the specimen I’d frozen was a hobo spider. Not good! They’re one of the few venomous spiders in the Pacific Northwest and their bite causes deadly necrosis. I won’t post pictures, but you can quickly google it and be revulsed.

I looked around on the BC Forestry site (what are my taxes for, after all?) and emailed the resident entomologist, who happened to be on Vancouver Island. At his behest, I couriered him the frozen spider and he got back to me in a couple of weeks. Good news! It wasn’t a hobo spider, but the giant European house spider instead. Having the GEHS spider around is good, since it competes with and drives the hobo spider away.

I opened the little door leading into the attic from my room and it was a scene out of the Alien franchise. Huge cobwebs hung from the beams, while spiders scurried around in dark corners. I should mention that my roommates are severe arachnophobes and on being confronted with the frozen specimen and realizing that there were more there, they simply left the house and wouldn’t return for a few hours. Once they found out there was a giant arachnid factory in the attic, they bought me crates of RAID and asked me to empty them in the space beyond the little door.

We all moved out soon after, but at least now I knew the source of the scrabblings noises and furtive rustles in the dark. Click to enlarge the pictures below.

On October 8^th, I saw the play Black Comedy. I’ve only seen a few plays before, so perhaps my review doesn’t carry the weight of some avuncular critic with a monocle and a cane, but here it is anyway.

The play was at the Stanley Theatre and was preceded by a shorter play, Chekhov’s “The Marriage Proposal”. This was entertaining by itself, with Sasa Brown and Jeff Meadows portraying the mad Russian peasants quite accurately.

Then came Black Comedy. It’s about a down-and-out artist who seeks to impress his fiancee’s father by stealing his neghbour’s furniture for the duration of the prospective father-in-law’s visit. This coincides with a visit of one of the richest men alive, a German named Bamberger who has taken a keen interest in the impoverished sculptor’s work. And of course, the lights go out a little before everyone gets there, leaving the hapless soon-to-be newlyweds fumbling in the dark.

The play is hysterically funny in parts, and will leave you rolling in the aisles at the end. The superb acting is both  helped along and dimmed by a heavy use of stereotypes: a crusty English colonel with a toothbrush moustache and monocle who promises to thrash the jilting suitor, a man who’s not openly gay but talks with a lisp and smacks the protagonist’s buttocks in the dark at every chance he gets, the secretly alcoholic old lady who thinks the upper classes are a breed apart, the ex-girlfriend who’s a sex bomb and so on.

The play is excellently choreographed, with movements that realistically simulate haphazard fumblings in the dark. The plot twists and turns just enough to not get stale and leaves you wanting more.

In conclusion, both the plays were very enjoyable, with superlative acting. I would definitely recommend seeing them. 4.5 stars out of 5.

Witness the plight of one David Doroghy. The man posts an advertisement on Craigslist, stating that his apartment is open for tenants, hoping to rent it out while he’s away, presumably gallivanting in Lilliput. It matters not where he’s headed, since the phone rings, courtesy of one Erin Baines.

Erin Baines aspires to rent this apartment, and we can imagine the conversation went something as follows:

David: Hello
Erin: Hi, I’m looking to rent your apartment.
David: I see, who all will be living here?
Erin: Me, my husband and my child.
David: Well, I don’t think the apartment is suitable for a child.
Erin. This is discrimination against people with children, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.
*click*

Poor David. Would you want your furnished apartment and accoutrements at the mercy of some snot-faced brat? I think not. But for speaking his mind, Erin is now suing for damages and discrimination against children.

The case is now awaiting “trial” by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, a panel of folks who by all accounts would seem to be on Erin’s side, superficially anyway, she with the ceaseless charitable work in Rwanda and whatnot. I guess a Blagojevich-style smear campaign is out of the question.

Or could it be, that Erin saw that David Doroghy was a member of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) and saw her chance for more media attention in her crusade against the archetypal white male patriarchal figure who denies habitation to her and her offspring?

While helping organize the Olympics for a bunch of athletes from rich, cold countries while billions around the world starve is dubiously ethical in this day and age (these aren’t the days of Pheidippides, fool), we can forgive Doroghy his noble intentions, the road to hell and all that…

But what Erin is doing, if intentional, is inexcusable. Only time will tell. All we can say is that the above telephone conversation is fully surmised from a hypothetical rambling of this feverish imagination and that in no way, do I know either of the aforementioned people (lest she try to sue me too).

Poor David. A 45 second phone call and now over $200,000 in potential damages and lawsuits. Call screening, people, call screening!

If you have seen anything stupider than this, or any cases explicitly involving a litigious harpy, post a comment.

I witnessed a brutal assault in my parking lot last Friday. I was pulling out of my underground parking when I noticed an illegally parked black car on the fringe of the parking lot. A young man and a young woman, presumably his girlfriend were standing in front of it and talking.

As I turned towards them, things got worse. The guy punched the girl in the head and then smashed a beer bottle on her head. The girl staggered and retrieved a sixpack of beer that was lying on the ground beside them and clouted the guy in the head with it. By now, I’d braked to a full halt and was pointing the scene out to my girlfriend.

Things got worse. The girl rushed her beau with the sixpack and he went down on the asphalt. She straddled him on the chest and started working his face over. He responded by striking her in the face and she climbed off. As you can imagine, I was on the phone with 911, answering the lugubrious operator’s queries: “Yes, police, dammit!” , “Yes, it’s an emergency.”. Finally, saying “There’s a brutal assault in progress here, two people are attacking each other in the open, fully in front of everyone else” had the desired effect and she said someone would be right over. I gave them a general description of the assailants, the car’s licence plate number and they hung up.

The girl, bleeding by now, got into the black car and drove off. She narrowly missed me and drove off like a maniac. The guy staggered into one of the warren-like entrances to my complex and disappeared. Since there was nothing else to do or see, I drove off. A short while later, as I was driving off, I counted four police cars heading in the general direction I was driving away from.

I was back in half an hour and noticed a slew of cars, the aforementioned ones parked around. I pulled up to one and asked if they were here for the assault. The constable asked if I’d been the one who had phoned it in and I replied in the affirmative. She thanked me and said that they had the licence plate and would handle it, it’s really all they needed. My civic duty done, I drove home.

What a night.