Man, they’re not kidding when they say “if you don’t like the weather in Vancouver, wait”. I checked the forecast before heading out yesterday morning and it said nothing about rain. Maybe I should have intepreted that as “no MORE rain than usual”, cause we got showered to poured on two or three times in the course of a few hours. Big-ass rain, too – no wimpy rain. Punch a hole through your brain pan and make soup of your brain-calibre rain. I swear to you I saw one raindrop crush a man where he stood. I saw it with my own eyes.

But rain notwithstanding, my first full day in lovely British Columbia was good. My cousins and I did the all-you-can-eat sushi which was decent enough. I certainly ate all I could eat. Reports of how fresh the sushi was on the west coast seem a little exaggerrated though – it didn’t taste any fresher than the stuff in Toronto on a good day, but I’m not complaining. They limited the menu to basically salmon and tuna nigiri and sashimi, but combined with healthy amounts of chicken teriyaki and maki, it was just fine with me. After lunch we grabbed the SkyTrain rapid transit into downtown. The SkyTrain is great for getting INTO downtown from around the greater Vancouver area, but crap for getting around in it. There’s only three SkyTrain stops in downtown proper, so once you’re in you’re basically walking or taking a bus. Also curious is how their fares work on the honour system. There’s no ticket takers or turnstiles, just vending machines for pass cards that you’re expected to use correctly before boarding. They say the odds of getting caught by a spot ticket check are about 1-in-20 so a gambling man might never pay to take transit. Crazy.

Our first stop downtown was Gastown, which with all respect to Vancouverites, was kinda lame. It’s a single street just off the downtown core that’s been tourist-ified to look all historic-like, but is really pretty artificial-feeling and uninspiring. Run-of-the-mill tourist-trap shops, that sort of thing. That it’s surrounded by somewhat seedier parts of town also detracts from any sense of authenticity. We took a quick walk around but headed to where the locals were soon enough. Downtown Vancouver is really different-feeling from downtown Toronto, a lot cleaner in design and more constrained-feeling. The streets are narrower and the shops more chi-chi – most of what I saw was pretty boutique-like and upscale. It didn’t have the same ‘people actually live here’ feeling that somewhere like the Annex has, but this is only the retail centre of town. I’m sure it gets much more lived-on a few blocks out. I didn’t do much shopping as anything the shops here had I could get at home for about the same price, and without having to lug it across the country. I did however find a bunch of the non-SACD Bob Dylan remasters for mighty cheap, so that was a nice acquisition.

Sadly, I still haven’t seen the ocean since I arrived. Some of the rivers and such coming into the city, yes, but not the mighty Pacific itself. That’ll change today when I head out to Victoria for some whale-watching action and then down to Seattle. I’m not done with Vancouver yet, though. When I get back mid-next week, I’m heading back into the downtown to check out Stanley Park, UBC and the coastal region of the city in general. I’m betting that’s the part of the city that’s really going to ‘wow’ me.

It’s a good thing I found that extra book on the plane, because I already finished the first book I brought with me, Tim Sandlin’s Honey Don’t. It’s a bit of a departure from his previous stuff, being a broadly satirical slapstick-y political farce, but still decent enough if lacking the depth of the Gro Vont trilogy. And it’s not set in Wyoming, amazingly enough, although Jackson Hole does get lovingly name-checked. Next up I’ve got Tom Robbins’ Villa Incognito which has gotten some lukewarm reviews, but it’s a slim enough volume that it’ll be over soon enough either way.

Okay, got a ferry to catch.

So it turns out I have a computer with high speed internet in the bedroom I’m staying in at my aunt’s place in Vancouver, so you won’t be getting rid of me that easily, at least for the days I’m here.

The flight out was alright. The new Terminal 1 at Pearson is cavernous. Very clean, very sterile, very efficient. It’s only a few months old though, so I’m sure it’ll get all grungy-like soon enough. My travelling companion for the butt-numbing trip was a large man who decided to read his Sikh newspaper out loud, very slowly, for the entire five-hour flight. I’ll say this much, he got a lot of mileage out of that newspaper. It panicked me a little at first to think that I’d be listening to this for the whole trip, but once the headphones went on it was fine. The in-flight film was Laws Of Attraction, which wasn’t very good but wasn’t offensive either, and it did the necessary job of killing an hour and a half so I’ve no complaints. A nice bonus was finding a brand new copy of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time in the front pocket of my seat. I needed something more to read over the next week, and the free book gods took care of me. I don’t think the owner was coming back, anyway.

The flight was otherwise uneventful, landed in Vancouver and am enjoying the view of rivers and mountains. I haven’t seen the ocean per se yet, but will no doubt be getting plenty of that in the next few days. I think someone mentioned all-you-can-eat sushi for today. Mmm mm good. I think I’m definitely feeling the jet lag, though – I was barely able to stay awake till 10pm local time last night (though that was 1am EDT, not bad for such a long day) and I slept through till 8am. 10 hours is a lot of sleep for me.

Okay, this post is boring me now. Bye for now.

Rolling Stone talks to New York City’s Ivy about their just-completed fourth proper album (fifth if you consider covers album Guestroom). In the article, the band mentions that the new album is a return to their rawer Apartment Life-era sound and if that turns out to be the case, I’ll be happier for it. I found their last studio album Long Distance to be pretty, but too adult-contemporary sounding and generally weighed down by the production. The new tracks they recorded for Guestroom (as opposed to the ones taken from older b-sides and whatnot), however, were stripped-down and great. Fingers crossed that this new record puts them back on track. They’re hoping for a January 2005 release – add that to their promise to release a compilation of rarities and unreleased material sometime next year and a new Fountains Of Wayne record in April, Adam Schlesinger and company are busy indeed… but not too busy to help you make chili.

The Arts & Crafts website has Broken Social Scene at the Harbourfront Centre on August 27 taking part in the NOW-sponsored Gobsmacked festival. Details are sketchy on exactly what this is, but one thing that is known is that this show is FREE. Eff arr eee eee. Yay. Also appearing at the festival will be NYC lit-rockers (no, I don’t really know what that means) One Ring Zero – they’re scheduled for the 28th.

Comic Book Resources reports that Halle Berry will not be reprising the role of Storm in X-Men 3 after it was decided that she would not be given a larger part in the third and probably final film – after all, they telegraphed the Dark Phoenix story a mile away. I personally won’t miss her – after all, Storm never really did much. Which I suppose is sort of the root of her complaint…

This may well have been one of the most stressful two weeks in recent memory. Which is extra sad considering I had a four-day weekend sandwiched in there. It hasn’t been pull-my-hair-out nervous-breakdown stressful, just really really busy. So many things to do, my life of late has been an endless series of lists made, revised, crossed off, rescheduled, thrown away, and new lists made. MAN. Needless to say, I am glad today is just a half day and I’ll be on my way at the stroke of noon. Of course, I’ve still got a crapload of stuff to take care of at work before I leave. And speaking of craploads of stuff, it’s obvious to me that I don’t know how to pack. I swear I’m not bringing that much stuff yet I feel like my bags are way too full and heavy for just a week. I don’t understand. Am I spoiling myself with too much clean underwear?

ANYWAY.

I obviously won’t be posting daily while I’m away, but I’ll have access to computers pretty much everywhere I go so I will likely make a few updates. One from each of my various destinations, at the least. Apologies to anyone who comes here for a daily news fix, you’ll just have to do without for a week. Unless something earth-shaking happens, I’ll probably just let it slide and catch up when I get back. I will be checking my email, though, so if you need to get in touch go ahead and do so like normal. I’ve also set my mp3 of the week to update at the stroke of midnight on Saturday night, so if all goes well I won’t be missing an entry there. See how I take care of you? You love it.

np – Elvis Costello & The Attractions / Blood & Chocolate

This is just amazing – Spider-Man 2 done entirely in action-packed Lego-mation. Truly, I am in awe. The creators, Spite Your Face studios, also have lots of other cool stuff on their website. Check it all out.

Not all new concert announcements, but some changes and clarifications to previously announced ones, in chronological order:

Detroit’s Slumber Party is no longer opening for Camera Obscura July 23rd at the Horseshoe. Instead, Montreal’s Pony Up! will support. It’s too bad because I was pretty excited to see Slumber Party – the stuff up on their website sounds great. I’m considerably less chuffed about Pony Up! – their website samples aren’t doing anything for me. Sigh.

The Emily Haines solo show at the El Mocambo on July 24 just graduated from “maybe” to “must-see” status – Amy Millan of Stars is also on the bill. Tickets $10 advance.

Old 97’s will be at Lee’s Palace September 12, and not the Opera House. This is good because I hate the Opera House and I love Lee’s Palace. And I can walk to Lee’s Palace whereas I’d have to take all sorts of crazy transit to get to the Opera House. Tickets will be on sale sometime in late July. Their new album Drag It Up is in stores July 27.

The legendary British pop singer, songwriter and producer Nick Lowe will also be at Lee’s Palace on Setpember 15, tickets $23.50. He was the man behind the boards for all of Elvis Costello’s early stuff from My Aim Is True through Trust and wrote “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding”, if you need a brief CV.

The Magnolia Electric Co. or whatever Jason Molina is calling himself that week will be at the Horseshoe on October 2, tickets $10.50. This one will certainly sell out. I hope I’m in town for the show. Pitchfork has some info about what else the band is up to this Fall.

Got my Wilco tickets yesterday – paid a little more than maybe I would have if I tried another outlet but I definitely didn’t want to run the risk of missing out while trying to save a couple bucks. I think the pre-sale sold out in under half an hour – but there probably weren’t that many tickets in their allotment. Either way, I am hooked up.

P-Fork reports that Neutral Milk Hotel will be the next subject in the 33-1/3 series of books (wherein authors or artists write a book about an album that changed their life or something). I hadn’t looked at the full list of books in the series before now, and there’s some intriguing stuff there (Alan Moore on Jethro Tull? Whoo!). Has anyone read any of the books in this series? Worth hunting down? Update: The Boston Phoenix has a review of the book series. From LHB.

Three of the four principal roles in the Fantastic Four film have been cast. So they’re NOT going for big-name recognition, I see…

Part two of The Onion interviewing The Kids In The Hall is now up.

Chaos. Everything is chaos. Work is up to my eyeballs, trying to get ready for my trip is all (wave hands frantically in the air), and I picked the wrong week to be trying to sell off my excess guitar equipment. Chaos. Some people thrive on chaos. I don’t think I’m one of them. But I did pick up this swanky new backpack for the trip. It’s got lots of pockets! Pockets are key.

np – Sea Ray / Stars At Noon

Broken Social Scene have been added to the lineup for the Olympic Island concert on August 7 at with Sloan, Sam Roberts and a slew of others. They had originally been connected with some Modest Mouse tour dates in the US, but those seem to have quietly been taken off the board.

Britain’s Hope Of The States will be at Lee’s Palace on July 26th, tickets $13. You may have heard of them as their guitarist died in the studio this past January while recording their debut album, The Lost Riots. Michelle, whose site is now back up, says they sound like Godspeed with vocals and recommends them. Okay.

Also from the UK, Gomez are making up their Lollapalooza date August 6 at the Opera House Phoenix.

Check out the video for The Shins’ “Kissing The Lipless” at MTV.com. No world conquering penguins like in the “So Says I” vid, unfortunately. From Slatch.

Billboard has some info on a couple of reissues being released by Rhino on August 3. You’ve probably already heard about the upcoming reissue of The Velvet Underground’s Live At Max’s Kansas City – In case you were looking for specifics on the release or a reason to replace the 1972 edition you already have, here’s the skinny.

Also coming out that day are the next batch of Elvis Costello reissues. Double-disc remastered editions of Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World and Kojak Variety will be out on August 3 – details here.

Grandaddy are releasing a DVD of their bearded selves doing various bearded things on October 26.

Update: My server is having some hiccups that have disabled the photo galleries. Trying to get that sorted out now.

np – Bob Dylan / Blood On The Tracks