Vancouver Closing Ceremonies

The games are officially over. Its sad caz there was this holiday like vibe in the city for two weeks. It was ok to slack off or sleep in.

Anyhoo the closing ceremonies ....

Started really slow and boring and the middle portion was great. The concert segment started good but ended with who the fuck cares bands. I shouldnt say started slow and boring , they started initially by correcting their faux paus from the opening ceremony by poking fun at themselves with the whole malfunction.

I was going to rant off on various topics but Im really exausted from a long long week. Trust me on this , Im still feeling the after math of a long week but Im hoping Ill be 100% tomorrow again.

Anyways , good closer.

Taboo and Touchy subject: Too much ?

There's a lot of people who feel 1st nations were forced down our throats during the opening ceremonies. Too much of it as they say.

Here's how I see it. Its not that there's too much , I would welcome 50% , 75% , 100% of the ceremony to be 1st nations IF they had a show to warrant it. Unfortunately there's not enough depth and variety to it , its the same drum beating and ritual dancing. The equivalent to make my point would be if China did the Dragon dance you see on chinese new year for 2 hours. There's more to the arts and theatrical culture of china , they tell stories. They could've told the story of the salmon catch.. have 100s of kids dressed as salmon run through and fisherman catching them and do the ritual.. all done in a artsy dance thing , have Shania Twain meet in the middle for mainstream and 1st nation pride.. and my crotch's pride. But they didnt , they just danced around with drums beating like usual. There was no story telling.

I saw the drum and dance routine the night before when they welcomed the torch , what the hell was the difference? its the same routine. They dont tell stories which so ironic because the fabric of their culture is the elders passing on their stories to generations. Call me crazy but I would've had a theme of elders passing on their stories in the form of dance , music and art. Rather than look there's hundred of aboriginals dancing wiht feathers and paint and beating a drum. Yay.



There was so much potential to do something special for their culture and take it to the next level.

On another note , why do we need to represent all territories of canada? did Salt Lake City have Hula dancers? did Atlanta have grunge music? did LA have a tribute to highlanders? ... fuck Quebec , fuck the maritimes , fuck the prairies , fuck ontario and fuck the territories. These are BC"s games .. fuck us.

Olympic Opening Ceremony

Ok its finally here... firstly I saw the flame yesterday by Central Park.


So I have been really curious to see what they would do overall in this show. I have to say I was pleasantly suprised how good they made BC Place look. I didnt even recognize it on tv. Looked really good.

RIght off the bat a little mess up , they pan the camera onto the executive box for a spotlight and everybody is scrambling like we just caught them smoking dope and making out or something. Apparently they werent ready caz the chiefs werent there yet.. I dunno , small blunder.

I was bleh with the Oh Canada rendition. I forgot the singers name , didnt recognize her.

First part was the 1st nations portion , they introduced the 4 nations historical cultural significance to the northwest and a bitch slap to our school systems to teach more of 1st nations local history and culture. Good.

Then the countries march in. Very emotional to see Georgia walk in as they lost one of their athletes earlier in the day to a horrific accident on the luge run. Canada marched in last and erupted the place with a big team projected to cotend. So many drop dead gorgeous girls competing .. I was just a pervert seeing these women.

Then back to the entertainment portion with Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams kicking off the second half of the show. Bryan Adams screwed up via Ashley Simpson style and didnt have the mic to his mouth while he was "singing". They sang 'Bang the Drum'..Nelly Furtado looked great , I want to boik that body. She's way sexier with her curvy women body than her skinny little girl body.

Next part was really cool , hologram of Orca whales swam through the stadium. They broke into a dance about nature , trees and wildlife with Sarah Mclachlin sining " just another miracle". She too looks so damn sexy. Gawd she's amazing.

Then a portion of keltic crap.. some tap river dance and fiddling. Ashley whats his name performed. Not my kettle but I enjoyed the show regardless.

Then they went into a story about a girl ' Who has seen the wind' WL Mitchell , I thought maybe it was the story of Emily Carr but it was a Disney like production of a girl floating around and discovering the beauty of wheat and hay. Accompanied by some canned jazz.

They then erected the mountains to George Vancouver with hovering skiers and snow boarders. Generic music playing... they could've used a little Corey Hart imo but thats just me.

A poem by some dude about what defines Canada. Pretty good.

THen boring speeches from Furlong and IOC declaring the games officially open

Then KD Lang rises by her lonesome singing a tune that I dont recognize but it was a sombering song. It goes with the pacing I guess you cant have 2 hours of screaming madness , you need some down spots.

The Olympic flag carried in by Donald Sutherland , Betty Fox , Jaq Villineuve , Anne Murray , Bobby Orr ,... the offical Olympic hym sung by opera singer. Nice tune.

1 minute of silence in honour of Georgian Athlete.

Hayley Wickenheiser takes olympic oath , then french singer sings french song I dont recognize. ANother sombering tune.

Torch arrive Rick Hansen > Catrin aLemay Doan> Steve Nash> Nancy Greene > Wayne Gretzky,, long awkward pause caz technical problems with hydrolic system. SO long they looped the music. Embarrasking.

Gretzky takes torch to the outdoor cauldron afterwards....

Overall it was a good opening ceremony . I cant say it was the best ever nor was I blown out by any portion , the final lighting screw up really hurt , it was a nice idea though. The pacing was a little off , more slow moments than "moving" , not enough crowd pops. Some problems at the end , the rain for the outdoor shots didnt help but considering it was a first indoor show.. it was good.

Feb 3 2010: Guido Quer

Last night when I went to bed at around midnight , a host of ambulances and a firetruck parked outside my place. Immediately I thought of my next door neighbour of 30 off and on years when I lived "home" , Guido whom has been having health issues the past few years. It finally caught up to him as he passed away.

Guido was a retired gentleman in his late 70s , immigrated here from Italy and a canadian citizen of 50 years. He is survived by his wife Pina , his two adult daughters , a son in law and two grand sons , also by his siblings whom Im not familiar with.

He worked for the city , he was part of the road crew I think , I remember he would get his truck crew during icy winters and he would shovel salt for the block. SOmething we all took for granted caz without his pull we would be in line with the rest of the smhmucks but Guido always made sure our block was top priority, Well mainly for his kids and wife but we all benefited from his kindness. Even when we had the two can limit for trash , Guido always made sure that his house and ours got unlimited treatment , again , a perk we take for granted.


Guido always took care of our lawn. Mowing our side and weeding our driveway and garden. Seeing he was an avid gardener he really enjoyed it , it was like having a huge yard for him. It didnt go unnoticed , Guido.

I remember he attended my dad's funeral. I remember looking back and Guido stood out in crowd of chinese people , there he was head bowed showing his respect to his fellow immigrant middle class blue collar father. He didnt have to , he didnt know my dad very well but Guido was always about respect and showing it.

I remember when we lost our power for 3 days , Guido let us plug an extension chord into his house and gave us power for bare necessities like a lamp and radio. Thank god we didnt have the electric stove at the time.. or did we? I dont recall. I recall Guido always willing to lend a hand when called upon.


Guido was a sparkling charismatic man , he was a superb father and husband and good all around guy. He always had friends over drinking his wine and eating their food. A man can be judged by the company they share , he had a lot of good friends that stuck by him. Im sure Guido wished he was a little younger so he could play some sports with his grand kids but he probably had the time of his life watching them regardless. I can only imagine Guido's joy in his grand sons.


Guido was the prototype neighbour that we all dream of , that we all want and we dont appreciate until he's gone. I will miss hearing Guido shuffle through his shed at all times of the day and night, we're talking 6am to midnight. I will miss Guido setting up the sprinklers to wet both our yards. I will miss Guido asking if we need anything. I will miss Guido's homemade wine. I will miss Guido. Guido my friend I will forever miss " how you doing young fella!".