From BoingBoing comes word of a new computer game. Based on the classic Wolfenstein, wherein you run around shooting Germans (who scream "Ach, mein leiben" as they collapse) in this one you are a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.
Naturally you have no weapons. Naturally your hands are bound. Naturally at the unveiling…
most people were just mad that they weren't able to do much but get beat up.
That'd be what we 'round these parts call a "well duh."
From Pivot. And if you're wondering why this has the "Olympics" tag, think it over…it'll come to you, at least by 2010 it will.
Burns Block Tenants Taking Owner to Arbitration
Vancouver: On March 30, 2006, the City of Vancouver evicted 18 tenants from the Burns Block building at 18 West Hastings for fire code violations in the building. Tenants were ordered by police and fire officials to leave the building immediately with all their possessions. Pivot Legal Society is now assisting former tenants in making residential tenancy claims against the owner.
“I was lucky to find a place, I only had to spend one night in a shelter,” says Alfred Melnychuk, one of the former tenants “I moved all of my belongings in a shopping cart to my new home. I’m 53 years old with bad knees, and I had half an hour’s notice of the eviction.”
Melnychuk is one of the lucky ones; at least two other tenants evicted from Burns Block are now sleeping on the street.
The Neighbourhood Integrated Services Team inspection on March 30, 2006 that resulted in the closure of the Burns Block building was described by the City officials as a routine inspection. It was the first such inspection by the Fire Department in almost two years. The inspectors cited four reasons for the emergency closure: (1) blocked fire exits; (2) windows to fire escapes that were screwed closed (3) untested sprinkler systems; and, (4) untested alarm systems.
“One starts to wonders if the City is treating people in the Downtown Eastside differently because they are poor,” said David Eby, lawyer for some of the tenants. “Obviously the landlord has to be held accountable, but it’s hard to imagine the City evicting residents of an apartment building in Kitsilano with so little notice, short of a bomb in the building.”
The Burns Block building is now for sale, and the owner has received several offers. It sits beside the future City of Vancouver tourist walkway called the “Carrall Street Greenway,” and across the street from the Woodwards development. If the building is sold, it will be the second building closed and sold to developers as a result of City of Vancouver inspection actions in the last three months, following the Pender Hotel at 31A West Pender Street, which is transferring ownership on May 15 to the condominium developer who owns 33 West Pender. The Pender Hotel is 200 feet from Burns Block.
The tenants are seeking damages of $5,000 plus $1,000 in moving expenses from the landlord, as well as an order that the Burns Block building be repaired so that it is available again as housing.
With the closure of Burns Block, Vancouver has lost almost 300 low-income housing units since last June. This is in addition to 514 low-income housing units lost in the Downtown Core between June 2003 to June 2005, the loss of which accompanied a simultaneous 663 person rise in homelessness.
__________Further Comment: David Eby (778) 865-7997
Alfred Melnychuk – Room 316 – Travellers’ Hotel – 57 West Cordova Street
Apparently there's some kind of Medieval Scholar Knees-Up/Conference going on this week, and in the spirit of contributing to the occasion (although he is long dead), Geoffrey Chaucer has posted in his blog some of the best pickup lines of the late Middle Ages. Use with care; we assume no liability, etc.
Warning: as one commenter says, some of these were old even in G-Ch's time.
GALFRIDUS CHAUCERES LYNES OF PICKE-VPPE:
-Yf thou were a latyn tretise ich wolde putte thee in the vernacular.
-Nyce bootes. Wanna swyve?
-Shulle we maken the cindreblokke to synge?
-Woldstow haue me shyfte thyne voweles?
-Were thou yn my seisin, ich wolde nevir escheat on thee.
-The preeste telleth me that we aren more than VII degrees of consanguinitee. Game on!
-Ich notyce that myn demense and thyn do abutte. Wolde yt plese thee to consolidate ovre powere-base in the midlands?
-Makstow a pilgrymage heere often?
–By my soule, thou art a verye mappe of helle. For
thy face lyk the rivere Styx wil make me swere oothes neuer to be fforsworn, and thy embrace lyk the Lethe shal make me foryet al else, and lyk vnto the Flegeton thyn arse ys ON FYRE!
-Howe abovte a blancmange and the acte of Venus? Whatte, blancmange pleseth thee nat?
-If ich sayde that thou hadde a bele chose, woldstow holde it ayeinst me?
Our pervy sibling Fleshbot is proud to announce a wholesome contest taking place in New York, in which one lucky perv will win the chance to break into the lucrative world of pornography, courtesy of punky alt-porn lady Joanna Angel:
Joanna herself will create what is known in the porn industry as a “non-sexual role ” for you (with lines and everything!) in her upcoming “Joanna Angel’s Fuckin’ Guide to Fucking”, scheduled to begin filming in New York City this weekend.
To win, send a statement of 25 words or less to fleshbotcontests@gmail.com explaining why you’d like to be in the movie and why you’d be perfect for the role. Sounds easy, but 25 witty words can be tough when you’ve got your hand shoved down your pants.
Fleshbot Contest: So You Want to Be a Porn Star [Fleshbot – NSFW]
I wouldn't trust myself to review this book. Like the Necronomicon, this is a book best read by those you really wouldn't miss if it came right down to it. If you heard they'd become members of a sinister cult and had taken off to Arabia to rendezvous with a malevolent and unspeakably long-lived nobleman from Eastern Europe, to search for the Nameless City in the shifting sands of the desert, and you really wouldn't mind, then that's the person you should ask to review this book.
Because that means reading it. And that means the thetans will know you're out there. To say nothing of Tom Cruise.
Dianetics, Reviewed by Fat Joe Thomas, whom I do not know and so wouldn't particularly miss and who seems to have vanished from the blogosphere on or about April 4,
THE VERY DAY AFTER POSTING THIS REVIEW!
Half-way through this book, I wanted to stop reading. But, it wouldn’t let me. It made me finish. I couldn’t return it and get my money back and I couldn’t stop reading it. If I ever have kids, the book is going to make my kids read it. The book has put my family and friends under surveillance. They don’t want to talk to me anymore. They’re worried the book will take their money, too.
raincoaster 