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Vancouver city staff gird for serious and unintentionally funny job of helping Olympics tourists.

December 11th, 2009 · 11 Comments

Okay, a frivolous story, I know, but I couldn’t resist.

Word has been filtering out the last couple of week or so about the one day of training that Olympics volunteers at Vancouver city hall have been going through, which included some amusing items like memorizing the names of the mascots and learning to identify the councillors (sure hope they don’t get those two mixed up — thought I vote for David Cadman as Quatchi). I hasten to add that staff thought much of the training was, by and large, probably useful. It was just certain bits that got them giggling.

I made long-suffering Peter Judd, who is busy trying to oversee not just this but also the transportation plan — essentially the equivalent of having 17 Super Bowls in a row — and much more, confirm it all and have a story in the Globe today.

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  • Darcy McGee

    Caman as Quaatchi is a moment of inspired brilliance, Frances!

  • Darcy McGee

    Umm….er….that should say Cadman, of course. New keyboard.

  • Bill Lee

    The Globe headline was : “From mascots’ names to toilets, nothing’s silly about preparing to greet the world ”

    Toilets weren’t listed in the story though.

    So they are going to show how backwoods Vancouver is with only 3 public civic toilets?
    (I’d mention the one by Thornton park but that’s away from the venues somewhat.)
    And what was the reason for closing the formerly busy Howe Street one beside the (former) courthouse?

    @Darcy McGee what new keyboard? Gget and keep a bunch of Model M’s, lots at the FreeGeek store on Pandora Street. Last forever

  • spartikus

    Everyone make sure to recommend to our foreign guests and new overlords the Miga Roll at the local sushi joint. It’s Miga-licious.

  • Urbanismo

    “Okay, a frivolous story, I know, but I couldn’t resist.”

    A ha, not so frivolous!

    If all the minion Hallistas are so readily available for the frivolity of frivolities . . . maybe they are, then, dispensable! Has anyone thought of that?

    Yes, our self-congratulating anticipation dismisses the thousands of hard working souls, those not on Penny’s boondoggles, not in shelters, not on EI, but, sin embargo, struggling to make ends meet: but just can’t afford it.

    But, remember we are about to party . . . between the phalanxes of cops . . .

    Contemplate for a minute, the anxiety ridden Mummies and Daddies, we never know or mention, driving the kids to school, shopping for groceries, paying the bills, vacuuming the stairs and cleaning the toilet, day in day out, and at the end of the day flopping before the telly for what is their “left over life to kill”.

    And, por supuesto, the paradise crowd, Johnny 5-O, Mickey, Larry, Gord, Ken, Brent, Michael, Sam, Green Gregor . . . all blind to the moral hazard that is their lives . . . organizing meetings, congratulating themselves . . . about to party big time.

    Errr . . . yes . . .international they call this wizened little place obliviously unaware of the oh how so repetitively similar we are to the other myriad human dumps . . . not yet as bad but getting there . . . Beijing, coming on Londinium . . . yunno towers, concrete, glass, all depressingly similar . . . you’ve seen one you’ve seen ’em all . . . and the financial consequential aftermath . . .

    Forgeddit!

    So! What do we know? 5-0’s 5-0’s all the way . . . What do we care? The human organism is so very, very limited . . . even, too, the crowds at Whistler . . . shall we dance?

  • Denis

    Like it or not, and a lot of folks sure don’t like it, the circus is coming. Close the roads shut down anyhting not connected to the events and the rest of us can simply pay for the mess. I’m praying for rain at Whistler, and downtown as well. All the politicos will be doing their best to get a few photo ops and everyone else doesn’t count. We await the final bills with some trepidation. what started off as a sports event has ballooned into a major disruption for the peasants who will end up paying for the error made.

  • Bill Lee

    @denis. Schadenfreude?

    10,000 dead at stadium, Yaletown a radioactive no-go zone. Airport closed down for several months and everyone uses SeaTac airport or the train to Calgary for international flights.
    Mass revulsion at the bills in the next election brings back the most-right wing governments in history as we try to avoid the bills. And this is only “1936.”

  • Kirk

    I think this is a Vancouver thing. There seems to be a unique Vancouver concept in which the most important thing is being able to say “Hrmph. I told you so. I’m smarter/wittier than you.”

    If a bomb goes off, instead of people running over to help, all we’ll hear are smug chants of “I told you so! I told you so! I was right! I was right! Let’s meet for coffee and extol stories of our intelligence.”

    Whatever happened to agreeing to disagree, but hoping that everything works out well?

  • Hoarse Whisperer

    Kirk, this is sometimes not so much a place about debaters but “de haters”.

    Welcome aboard!

  • michael geller

    Kirk, I liked your message, particularly since I thought it was very much in the spirit of the season.

    I too have tried to capture the spirit of the season in my year end electronic holiday greeting card. You can find it at http://www.gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com

    I hope Santa will be good to all of you, regardless of whether you have been naughty or nice to Fabula, and her extended family of readers and comment posters. Holiday Greetings to you all.

  • Urbanismo

    Madame Hoarse Whisperer: so smug!

    Madame: male, female, hermaphrodite: whatever?

    Beware: petards lurk!

    Through your “Looking Glass” . . . mira . . . The Cheshire cat, The Mouse, The Queen of Hearts.

    I am delighted Oakridge was once open . . . and you could pick up your cheese with gay abandon in the Sunshine . . . ahrumph!

    And so flippin’ what? Were does that nugget of wisdom take us?

    Sincerely, I hope “we” too find our . . . errrr . . . mouse holes to stash our “Chunky’s” cheese.

    Some will not!

    Oh I hope you will be okay, next to your Queen of Hearts . . . yet . . .

    “Beware the Jabberwock, my daughter (sic . . . whatever)! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun. The Frummious Bandersnatch!”. . .

    “Off with her Head.”