Did you know Sparta was coming to town again for the 3rd time in a year? That’s pretty sweet news for John and I who have been lucky enough to interview Jim and Keeley on the previous 2 occasions.

Want to know what makes this even better? They’ll be opening for Alice in Chains. Yes, Alice in Chains.

Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez and Sean Kinney will be joined by William Duvall, who will handle lead vocals for the group’s five U.S. club shows and overseas festival performances in Europe and Southeast Asia. [Alice in Chains]

Doors: 6:30pm / Show: 7:30pm / Tickets (reserved seating) on sale now for $75, $55 AND $39.50 + service fees.

Unfortunately they’ll BOTH be opening for Velvet Revolver, against whom I have no qualms but I wouldn’t normally jump at the chance to see them live. A look at the first two bands on the bill however, makes me change my tune and as John puts it, it wouldn’t be bad to see Slash play. Now if only we can muster up the $100 + it will take for us both to attend, or maybe my husband’s fancy new job will be able to pull some strings – here’s hoping.

And now, some more from Sparta…

If there is such a thing as an epic music video, this would be one. Based on the autobiographical events that shaped the life of Sparta’s drummer, Tony Hajjar, “Eme Nakia” tells his deeply personal story of how the Hajjar family fled Lebanon during a brutal civil war, and the lasting scars it inflicted upon his kin. [Atom Films]

I’ve discovered some tools, apps and tricks that have made a part of my ‘real life’ job a lot easier lately. Basically I wanted to start screencasting – providing an online demo video of our new web-based application. After searching and putting the word out to the wonderful Vancity Tech Swarm folks I found the following tools (for Macs) that make this process a breeze.

Once my screencaptured video is converted from .MOV to .FLV how do I get it on my site? I browsed WP codex and forums for a while until I stumbled across this player, which also came recommended by peers.

So there we have it, how to use a Mac to screen capture and publish custom flash video on a WordPress site. Snapz Pro to an editor and/or converting program, then getting a kick butt flash player to embed your video.

This works so far and everything is fairly inexpensive and simple to use (except for Final Cut Pro if you want to get fancy with fades, text, zooms, compression etc.). If this helps anyone else, great! If this seems like way too many steps, please let me know if you have any recommendations.

We don’t nearly spend as much time on Commercial Drive as we should. I can probably only name two occasions in the past year when we ventured over that way and each time we say we should return, and for longer [1]. Taking in a movie at the RIO would be the perfect excuse. Aside from being several dollars cheaper than seeing a show at the Googoplex downtown or in the ‘burbs, it’s got a whole lot of character.

First opened in 1938, the RIO theatre returns as a landmark theatre in the heart of Vancouver’s Commercial Drive. The RIO is a single-screen theatre with 20 speaker Dolby surround sound and the most comfortable seats in Vancouver [RIO]

We’ll be heading there tomorrow (if I can get some ladies to go with me) for some Rush Hour 3 action, and although the movie isn’t one I would normally want to pay money to see, it’s all part of an experience I’m hoping will be very worthwhile.

The RIO is located at 1660 East Broadway, near Broadway & Commercial. Catch the Simpsons Movie there now for only $8 for adults.

Friday night after being totally Duff’ed out, I met up with John at home (after he had a busy day up in Whistler). We packed up the car and hit the road, heading deep into those dark mountain passes. John was by my side the whole way, telling me stories about work and playing some awesome tracks on the ipod via the transmitter in the car to keep me awake. We rolled into Osoyoos by 4:00am, just as the sun was rising and the last shooting star sailed across the sky for the night.

The following 3 days were wonderful. We had no plan, no agenda, we both just knew we wanted sun, sand and good times.

John cooking up the good eats on the grill.

From Osoyoos we took a mini road trip up to Penticton on Sunday

Oliver is the Wine Capital of Canada.

Wine country views

John introduces me to Rickard’s White. It was yummy.

All photos taken with the Nokia 6682, almost time for a new camera phone but this one’s served us well over the last year. I have so much blogging to catch up on, hence the photo-heavy post. It was awesome to disconnect for so long and to spend time with the person I love, I’m actually not too happy to be home but here’s hoping we can get the heck outta here again some time soon.

(not actual rescue chihuahua)

No, that’s not a title of a Shaw On-Demand program that will cost you $10.99.

John had left the room and I was sitting on the couch, watching the evening news when the story hit: the Vancouver SPCA has a rescue chihuahua. As I was retelling the story to Trevor this evening he thought the entire thing was a figment of my imagination. I then realized… I was the only person who witnessed this and couldn’t wait to come home and get Google to back me up.

Manuel the chihuahua was rescued himself once, and he returned the favour recently by helping bring a disoriented beaver to safety from the waters off Vancouver’s Stanley Park. [Times Columnist]

That’s right, Manuel the rescue chihuahua rescued the disoriented beaver. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

Leung figured the beaver needed a companion animal to swim toward, and decided Manuel was the perfect choice. He put a chihuahua-sized life-jacket on the pet, and let him out into the waters a few metres from shore. Within minutes, the beaver began swimming toward Manuel as a crowd on the seawall cheered on the pooch. [Times Columnist]

I heard on the news that the beaver died later that night, but Manuel is still being praised as a hero.

Yes Alanah, I had enough of bunnies and kitties so I just had to pull this one out, but at least there’s no mention of Rick Astley.

No, not the beer, but Hillary. On Friday night my sister and I took my niece to see the teen sensation in concert at the Pacific Coliseum. All I can do is quote Yogurt: “Merchandising, merchandising!” Wowsa. They were selling these glow sticks that said ‘Hillary Duff’ on the side and I swear all 10,000 kids there bought one. I bet they were like $10 a pop too. It looked pretty cool from our seats up high in the balcony, and so did the rest of the concert. She’s a sweet girl (not sure she was actually singing though) but it was nice performance although I thought it ended about 4 times, really… who does 5 encore songs?

Another thing I found strikingly odd was all the 80′s cover tunes. ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ and ‘Personal Jesus’ with different lyrics for the verses. Then… ‘Love is a Battlefield’ where you had thousands of 5-15 year old girls pumping their fists in the air, in unison, shouting ‘We are young! Heart ache to heart ache we stand!’. It made me a little uneasy but it seems like the fans had an amazing time. I haven’t been to a concert where kids colour poster boards with felt markers and sparkles, making signs for the artist since… um.. well New Kids on the Block back in 1991. I’m used to club shows, rock and roll but you know what – it was nice night out with my sister and niece. We giggled, got a pop and popcorn for $6 and had a lot of fun.

We stopped by Corinna‘s briefly the other night and she made a comment about how she didn’t know we were leaving town because I hadn’t blogged it yet. So here is the mandatory ‘we’re going away’ post.

I’m super excited about going on a mini-trip with John tonight. After his long day up the coast on-location and my Hillary Duff concert with Jen and Alexis (I know, quite the departure for me but it’s for my niece!) we’ll be hitting the open road.

The theme will be to spend the least amount of money possible and to get the most sun… ever. Wine tours? Maybe. Desert interpretive centre tour? Perhaps. Hitting the beach on the lake front property and laying lazily for hours soaking up warm rays of deliciousness for my pasty-white skin? Definitely.

Unsure if we’ll bring the laptops, we may want to disconnect from the grid, although really – who are we kidding.

The CRTC said 70 per cent of Canadian households subscribed to the internet in 2006, a slightly higher figure than in 2005. And about 60 per cent of households had a high-speed subscription, up from 51 per cent the previous year.

As of December last year about 48 per cent of Canadian adults with internet access went online for up to 10 hours a week, while 30 per cent of adults were online more than 10 hours per week.

And 52 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 24 went online for more than 10 hours a week. [CBC]

Photo credit: audihertz on Flickr

I knew we were living in a new heightened age of digital culture when my mom got upset with me for not blogging about her on Mother’s Day. Next thing you know she’ll be on Facebook. Wuh oh. I’ll have a nice sappy I (heart) my Mom post soon, I promise. In the meantime, I’ll start by moving her from hotmail to gmail.

I’m seriously trying to sign off for the weekend, but I just can’t help it – the thought of leaving the blog (after becoming so attached last weekend) is hard to bear. Yeah, I’m a nerd, I know.

Update: How can I write a long weekend going away post without mentioning what we’ll be missing back here in town? I was just reading Dave’s super action-packed blog post and was reminded of the kick off of Pride Week. We went to the parade last year and it was a wicked good time. The staging area is along Robson, then the parade begins on Denman, down Pacific and ends up at Sunset Beach where there will be a beer garden this year. It’s totally free, lots of music, dancing, fun and prizes. Definitely worth checking out (noon – 2pm).

We got home last night and I checked my mail noticing a crisis notification from Metroblogging, regarding Metblogs Minneapolis [LiveBlog][LiveFootage]. We flipped on the news and saw what had transpired that evening.

Photo credit: bridgepix on Flickr

The major bridge collapsed during rush-hour traffic shortly after 6:50 p.m. CT Wednesday, sending more than 50 cars plunging 20 metres into the Mississippi River.

The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, was in the midst of being repaired, and two lanes in each direction were closed when the bridge buckled and broke into several massive sections that fell into the water below. [CBC]

We had just been talking about Minneapolis at dinner with Henry, who is originally from Vancouver and now lives in Chile. He’s been following my blog for a while and we decided to meet up while he was in town.

A school bus that dangled precariously on the edge of one of the broken concrete slabs was carrying about 60 children, but all inside the bus managed to escape when an adult in the vehicle kicked open the back door, according to witnesses and survivors.

Others reported seeing bystanders diving into the water and repeatedly attempting to help people trapped in their submerged vehicles. [CBC]

Watching the news again this morning they had a family on TV, their mother was missing. Her husband said he didn’t want to release a photo of her because she never liked how she looked in pictures so they wanted to respect that. She is a wife, mother and only child – her father lost her mother earlier this year so he was also pretty distraught. The missing woman’s daughter said you have to tell people how much you love them every day. This almost brought me to tears… then I felt like a jerk, for many reasons.

It seems like it always takes a tragic event to get people to react. This is a sad situation but there are every-day events all around the world that should also affect us this much, as humans. Flooding, famine, hurricanes, earthquakes… …missing women & men, missing children. What the daughter of the missing woman said in the interview struck home – even though it sounds cliche it truly is important to let those you love, know they are loved.

At a press conference this morning the NTSB chairman was saying there at 70,000 bridges in all of the USA that were ranked the same as the bridge that fell: ‘structurally deficient’. There’s a database of structurally deficient bridges by state and highway that you can peruse and get a little paranoid over. I have to say that ‘terrorism’ not being mentioned or blamed in this case is a bit of a relief, but it also make me wonder about structural integrity of some places around Vancouver even.

Photo credit: ore_reserve on Flickr

I’ve had a bit of a series on the Pattullo over on Metblogs [1][2][3], but most of its issues arise from poor driving conditions, excessive speed and a poor layout for a 70-year-old bridge that handles so much traffic. I’m not going on a witch hunt by any means, but tragedies like this make you evaluate lots of things. How safe are our bridges or our buildings [Top10CrashSites]? There’s something to be said for public safety. You can browse the Ministy of Transportation website for most recent upgrades and construction, although this is just helpful in the case of tracking costs and road closures.

If you are in the Twin Cities area, Metblogs is providing great coverage and information including alternate routes for commuters, drivers and traffic pattern changes [TrafficChanges]. Thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the rescue workers.