There are bizarre buskers, “posers” and other performers out here, some are truly amazing and talented.  That being said, there are… ahem… others.

The Olympic Monkey and Paralympic Fish

Finally, there were a couple of dribbled-in goals and everyone went home.  The Swiss played like they needed to go to hockey-camp this summer, and the Americans were not the same team that wiped the ice with us on Sunday, that’s for sure.

Right there? Jeff & $20 worth of Olympic food.

There’s other, more topical buskers, like the guys in the photo below – though I don’t know if they qualify as buskers because they don’t have any talent save for the ability to wear spandex so tight you can tell their religion.  The little boy in the picture doesn’t seem too keen on the idea, either.  “Guys, you couldn’t have worn underwear?  Really?”

It was so insane, though!  Lineups a mile long, nobody working there knowing what’s going on, short hours – just nuts.  We ended up going around and finally settled on Maison Du Quebec because it had the shortest line, which is like saying a century is shorter than a millennia – technically true but not really any real help.

After a long while we ended up getting inside just to find out that Maison Du Quebec should really have been named Maison Du Fuck-All.  I’m not kidding!  We stood in line to get in… In order to stand in line for $10 beer.  There was a lineup for a cafeteria-style menu and a tiny, empty stage.  Blank walls, no displays, no multimedia presentations, (way too few) dirty tables, and no room for the hundreds of people who just waited an hour to get in.  We left inside of thirty seconds and told the staffer at the exit the reason why.  He seemed to have heard this more than once.

We have a rule now.  Whatever we’re standing in line for, we have to spend 10 minutes inside for every minute waiting.  This has caused us to be much pickier about the venues we’re gonna visit.

It's official - there's more people in line for Ontario House than actually live in Ontario.

Ha frickin’ ha.

We were at the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion before 8:05 and damn, this was the lineup to see and touch the Olympic medals on display:

Those medals are now covered in germs from around the world.

They created a second line for people who didn’t care to fondle the gold, silver and bronze – we ended up waiting for 30 minutes and got steered directly into the gift shop.  Bleah.  Still, on the second floor they have the “Million Dollar Coin”, which is basically a loonie on crack, and a solid gold ingot, which weighs a ton and felt just so right in my hands…

I was a lot happier before finding out about the chain.

We also went to LiveCity in Yaletown’s David Lam Park, where we stood in line for an hour to see… an hour-long line-up for the Coke Pavilion and the Samsung 3D HD Theatre Show.  So, basically we stood in line to stand in line to see commercials while EXCEPTIONALLY LOUD AND MEDIOCRE MUSIC WAS BLARED AT US AND NOW WE CAN’T HEAR FOR SHIT.  Still, Jeff liked the shiny electronics and I’ve decided I need a touchscreen laptop.

You can't see it, but there's a lineup of over a thousand people to see the Coca-Cola "Happiness House" behind him.

Still, we had a great morning.  Too bad about the huge lineups for everything… Next time we hold the Olympics we should just leave out the tourists.

What’s really weird is that more than one person thought that this was a super idea.

The Olympic Cauldron at Coal Harbour.

Just amazing – the Olympic cauldron is beautifully designed and executed, and even during the day it’s dramatic and impressive.

Here’s the stupid part:

Because having a 100m no-man's-land around the cauldron is the best way to go.

The powers-that-be here in Vancouver have decided to block off a huge area around the Cauldron, ostensibly because the decking there is too weak to support the huge numbers of people coming to see it.  So, questions, please: a) who thought that this location would be a good idea for it, and b) how about a little presentation, and maybe cleaning up the surrounding area?  I mean, come on, people.

This isn't protesting the Olympics so much as stupid shit-disturbing.

The opening ceremonies last night were phenomenally well done and frankly seemed to be the best ones ever produced, which makes this all the more infuriating.  There are some valid points that Olympic protesters are putting forth – when they’re genuine Olympic protesters.  Many of them – distinguishable by the black hoodies and masks they wear to hide their identities – are just anarchists, enjoying the attention of the global media and participating in the destruction of public and private property.

Jeff was watching the news this morning and there were shots of cars being vandalised on Robson, newspaper boxes thrown around – this is not the work of sincere social protest.  Some random people seemed to get in on the action because it was an opportunity to get away with vandalism – At one point Jeff saw some young mom pushing her child in a stroller, who stopped to kick over a newspaper box.

Seriously, what the hell?

The windows were repaired in a few hours and the police are investigating.

If anything, this kind of crap hurts the causes of the earnest political protesters, and I’m sure they’re frustrated as hell that this is the message that gets attention, and detracts from their credibility.  I know it’s unlikely, but I sincerely hope that the idiots responsible get caught trying to pull something else and have the book thrown at them.