Photos may or may not be uploaded to Michael Morbius 2000, BCSFA, and The Ether Patrol.

(Note: Reports from Goth club nights can be found here. My account of the Reel Horror party is here.)

Friday 28 November 2003

Got the new BCSFAzine by e-mail during the day, so composed and printed the BCSFAZINEzine LOC before I left. Also finished composing and printed the text for Random Zine #1, a four-page less-perfectionist/more-creative ad-hoc pamphlet along the lines of the zines I used to do in high school.

It was a pretty good BCSFAzine, me-wise. The cover was a photo I’d forwarded to the BCSFA mailing list from the National Geographic web-site the day before. Inside was my previous issue’s LOC, three pieces of news forwarded by me, part two of my con report for V-Con 28, and several of my drawings. Two regrets: the poster art for the V-Con session of the trivia game didn’t appear with my con report, and I didn’t know Ryan’s Matrix: Revolutions review would appear in that issue, so I hadn’t had a chance to do art for it like I’d wanted.

I gave Joe $5 for gas and went to London Drugs to buy blank videotapes and a blank tape for Ray’s camcorder, which I returned to him at FRED. It was just me, Joe, Ryan, Fruvous, Julian, Ray, and Garth at FRED—way fewer people than normal. Mundanes had annexed our usual section of the bar for their Christmas party, but we found a good area on the other side with a long corner booth.

Had the usual, fish and chips and four Cokes with grenadine and lemon; wanted dessert but the bar only had cheesecake and dark chocolate cake, so I went to Cinnabon (although Cinnabon is no place for such as we—we are dark aristocrats of the night). It’s called Cinnzeo now (not a positive connotation for me, as it sounds like Power Rangers Zeo), and they don’t put the icing on the bun until after you buy it. Since I didn’t know that, I ordered two cups of extra frosting. I used one of them with the bun, but the other one couldn’t be used, so I gave it to Fruvous. He said he was going to spread it on toast when he got home, but then he ate it.

Fruvous mentioning toast made someone talk about an expression involving toast, which made me talk about how Mike Jackson used to say “He thinks he’s the cat’s ass on toast,” which made Garth talk about his theory that cats’ behaviour is caused by particles striking their single neuron at different angles.

Before going to Cinnzeo I used a photocopier at a tobacconist’s to make five copies of Random Zine #1. Copies were listed at 10 cents per page, but there was no coin slot, so I guessed it operated on the honour system like at Staples. I made ten copies, but the machine occasionally spit out a completely blank page in addition to my copy. I walked up to the counter and said “Ten pages,” and the old Chinese guy behind the counter said, “Twelve,” and tapped something metal behind the counter, which I guessed was a device that monitored the photocopier and counted its output. I said, “No, ten,” and counted the ten pages for him. He kept saying “Twelve,” so I said, “That’s probably the blank pages that kept coming out.” He asked me to show him, so I walked over to the photocopier and picked up the blank pages, and finally he said, “OK, ten.”

When I got back I collated BCSFAZINEzine and Random Zine. I knew I’d have to take the Cinnabon (or Cinnaroll, as they’re now called) outside, so I asked for a knife and fork and ate outside. Ray went with me.

With a smaller crowd, trivia didn’t go as well as usual. I’d written my questions to appeal to the broad demographic we usually get at FRED, but since they weren’t there, the questions were wasted. My dad had even submitted three questions based on Larry Niven’s Known Space, which nobody got. Ryan and Garth did get a surprising amount with intelligent guesses. Ryan won with eleven correct answers. The prize was a poster of Master and Commander someone had given me that I didn’t have room for in my room, with Russell Crowe on one side and the ship on the other.

The jukebox was working again, so I thought I’d subject the rest of the bar to my musical tastes for a change instead of vice-versa. I selected “If You Have to Ask” (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and “New Sensation” (INXS) for funk, and “Tears in Heaven” (Bruce Cockburn) because I’d been thinking of the Teardrop Awards sketch from Mr. Show in the shower that morning (“Heaven Better Save Some Tears” vs. “A Mouth Full of Sores”) and I wanted to hear the actual song that was being parodied. In the end, was it worth 33 cents? Probably not. Doesn’t the Socratic method normally require two people? Never mind.

Got home, watched Prime Time Glick and drank Banana Blasts. Watched Delirious (1991, John Candy) which I’d taped off KVOS the night before. Not as good as I remembered it—and I remembered it being mediocre. Still had some redeeming bits, though.

Friday 16 May 2003

Garth and Steve talk about Purple and Gor.

Friday 11 April 2003

When I arrived the bar was very crowded. There was a hockey game on TV and our usual table was busy. There were only two other tables left. Steve had come back from the Okanagan. Ray had news: British Airways is retiring the Concord that was used in the Doctor Who episode “Timeflight,” and Bill Gates, who is apparently a closet Who fan, is buying it to donate it to the museum of flight in Seattle. Ray hopes that a small blue police box will somehow find its way into the exhibit.

Ray continues to hope that someday there will be new Doctor Who episodes. Steve said that even if there were, it wouldn’t be real Who; it would be too slick and boring, as opposed to the cheap effects and clever writing of the original. I agree.

Paula comes to take our orders. Ray accidentally butts ahead of me but I had called it first and I insist that my order be taken first. After taking my order Paula seems to walk away without taking Ray’s order, so I call after her, and she seems mildly annoyed. It’s a no-win situation; if I hadn’t called after her, she might really have forgotten Ray’s order, and then I’d feel about insisting on going first.

Steve says, “If I like Enterprise, I wouldn’t like LHOTP” [all my notes say is “LHOTP” and I can’t remember what that stood for; I want to say “Left Hand of the Proton” but I assume it’s a current SF TV show…—MM]. I say that I don’t like Enterprise, and Ryan says, without smiling, “So you’ve said, loudly and repeatedly.” So I give him a dirty look of the exact type that he gives me when I’m a little too hard on him.

Ryan also says, “Look at everything that’s come out in the last ten years with Roddenberry’s name on it.” Steve replies, “Majel was holding seances: ‘Where did you put the unused pilot scripts?’ ” Ray says that the actress who played Peter de Luise’s character’s girlfriend on 21 Jump Street now does announcements on BC Ferries. Teela hates professional wrestling and refuses to concede that it has any redeeming qualities.

Amnesia Department: Garth forgets that the issues of Stay As You Are/Ninja Bear I returned to him are his and tries to return them to me. Ryan says, “Steve is hitting on drunk girls on the other side of the bar.” I ask which Steve—Steve Samuel?—and Ryan says “He’s the only Steve I know…” while Steve Forty is sitting next to him. Steve Forty teases Ryan about it for a minute while Ryan remembers a few other Steves he knows besides Steve Samuel and Steve Forty.

Also on the subject of people with the same name, Gowan makes it to FRED, and he notifies us that Paul has a birthday in a few days. I assume he means the Paul that he knows, but in fact he means my friend Paul, so I mistakenly tell my Paul that he shares a birthday with Gowan’s Paul. Garth meets Paul (my Paul) tonight.

I play a game of pool but suck at it. I watch South Park and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.

Friday 4 April 2003

Steve 40 bought this week’s new issues of my mini-comics. Thanks, Steve! Garth returned my copies of Redwire and Boris the Bear #1 and loaned me two issues of Brad Yung’s Stay As You Are with special back-up strip Ninja Bear—very Borisesque. Thanks, Garth! I gave Garth the new BCSFAZINEzine that incorporated his layout suggestion from last week.

Ryan needed a drink and ordered a white sambucca. Brian asked what that was. Ryan told him and added that women like the licorice flavour. Brian said that he liked peach, but he didn’t know why. I asked if he was from the Okanagan; he said that he wasn’t, but that he went to Penticton every summer on vacation with his parents. So did I, so I said that it might be that he acquired his taste for peach from Penticton, a town whose totem fruit is the peach.

Ray is finding New Westminster too stressful. It’s too busy and there have been two murders in his neighbourhood recently. He’s moving to Langley, which he says is quieter and more like his native Powell River.

Ryan and Garth suggested the killer joke from Monty Python’s Flying Circus be used in Iraq.

We watched Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. It was a hit. Tonight’s episode contained one new short—“Death by Chocolate”—and a repeat of a previous one—“Shoyu Weenie.”

I was unpleasantly surprised that my $4.95 burger and two $2.25 Cokes came to about $14 on the check—but Garth spontaneously tossed a twenty onto my check and confirmed that he was paying my bill. Wow! Thanks, Garth! Garth had a suggestion for a comic: “The Three Stooges Go to Iraq.”

Friday 28 March 2003

There’s a new section on the Jolly Alderman’s menu: “Pub Food.” A burger or a roast beef sandwich is $4.95. Steve Forty said it’s important to support the bar. I asked if he’d like to support my mini-comics and buy some, and he said sure! He bought the complete run so far for $3. Thanks, Steve!

Ray said that there’s going to be a Ninja High School anime! Dr. Media added that PBS is in financial trouble and is accepting Christian programming to make ends meet.

Garth and Doug enjoyed looking through the zines I bought at the most recent of Leonard Wong’s comic shows. Garth still wants to do BCSFAzine as a comic. I’m still not sure how to do that.

Doug has a cool “Ridge” t-shirt (from the Ridge movie theatre). The art reminds me of the art from The Slacker Handbook and KMFDM album covers and videos.

Garth had a layout tip for BSCFAZINEzine: fold the page in half and glue the outside edges together to make a single two-sided page.

Friday 14 March 2003

I arrived at about 9:00 p.m. with Paul and Ryan. Sid, Ray, Purple, Nemos, Joe, and Brian were already there.

Brian was relieved that the next shuttle launch was going to be as early as September instead of three years later like after the Challenger explosion. Brian brought a book claiming a conspiracy behind 9-11 and joked that when he showed it to Garth, Garth left.

Ray brought the Doctor Who episode “Shada” to lend me. He also brought the list of the top ten episodes of Doctor Who, which he’ll be showing in a video room at the next V-Con. That should be fun—I saw several episodes I want to see again on the list.

Purple was uncharacteristically wearing a velvety dress shirt and had a black trenchcoat. Nemos showed us the unintentionally hilarious brochure that came with the video for the animated Disney movie Spirit, which showed the title character, a horse, bending over and looking through his crotch, with the caption, “Look inside.”

One of the questions in the bar’s electronic trivia game was “Who is Daredevil’s love interest?” The answer they were looking for was “Elektra,” but I told Brian I missed Typhoid Mary. Brian didn’t remember her, so I explained that she appeared in the Daredevil comic in the eighties, and drew her. Brian said she looked like she was in the band Kiss (referring to her punk hairstyle and the white mask covering half her face). Paul could tell who I was drawing by the spider-like shoulder-pads.

Sid said that anti-missile missiles such as Patriots won’t work—they didn’t really work against SCUDs in the first Gulf War and SCUDs go back to the 1940s, when they were called SS1s and SS2s.

Brian, Paul, and Sid agreed that the Columbia explosion could have been prevented, but the corporate suits at NASA were too cheap to heed the warnings of technicians of potential problems.

The Jolly Alderman’s lunch menu proclaimed “Proud sponsors of the 2010 Olympic bid.” Sid cleverly summarized the government’s blowing of money on the Olympics while claiming to be too poor to pay for infrastructure and social programs as “bread and circuses—without the bread.”

Sid reported that the FBI wanted all ISPs to install software and hardware—at the ISPs’ own expense—to let the FBI spy on them. Paul wondered if, when the authorities read your e-mail, they read all your e-mail, including the spam about bigger penises. Brian explained that a program scans your e-mail for certain words. (I’ve heard of this; IIRC the program is called “Echelon.”) He added that you can find a list of those words and include them in every e-mail to sabotage the program. This gave Paul and me the idea that terrorists could send messages in code using spam words:

0 = vagina
1 = penis
2 = herbal viagra
3 = mortgage
4 = lolita
5 = Russian lady wants to talk to you
6 = bukkake
7 = university diploma
8 = work from home
9 = weight loss

I learned that the toilets in the men’s washroom are on the floor, and that the far one sprays your leg with water when you flush it.

Brian read the winners of a contest for made-up words, like “ignoranus.”

Friday 7 March 2003

Ryan and I arrived at about 9:45 p.m. Before catching the bus into town we went to dinner; I tried the garlic toast at Tino’s (delicious, and only $1 for two good-sized slices), and once downtown we stopped in at Bang On again, where I hoped to replace the Sex Pistols—Anarchy in the UK button I’d lost a few weeks ago.

I couldn’t replace it; they didn’t have another one like it. I did get a Bauhaus button, a different Sex Pistols button, a Jem button, and Autobot and Decepticon buttons. The girl working there was extremely nice and really sympathetic about the lost button—she even gave me one of the five buttons I bought for free. We also talked to Michelle—briefly, since my transfer was about to run out. The #15 bus worked great—it picked us up right across the street from Bang On and took us right to the door of the Jolly Alderman. Credit for this goes to multiple individuals: Many weeks ago Steve suggested the #15 if I ever had to bus to FRED, I remembered the suggestion when planning our route with Ryan, and Ryan looked up the transit map on-line and found the stop. Thanks to this group effort, Ryan and I were saved a hard up-hill three-block slog from Broadway.

On arriving we found our usual section was occupied by a birthday party that had started at 9:00 p.m. Steve, Sid, Ed, and Barb were at one table, while Joe, Purple, Ray, and Brian were at another.

Steve and I talked about depression. One thing he needs is a place he can go to that cheers him up, like Wreck Beach. He said everyone has problems, even the rich. I countered that at least being rich makes problems more bearable, and he disagreed—there are plenty of unhappy rich people. (He said some of them just want to impress their parents, which isn’t easy, since their parents have seen a lot; they’d be a lot happier if their parents would just say “I’m proud of you,” but that doesn’t happen.) I said that maybe you had to be poor, then rich to really appreciate how being rich solves all your problems. Steve countered that the nouveau riche are sometimes less good at handling being rich than the old-money families that have more experience at it. Also, being rich could be nerve-wracking if you were always worried that it could be taken away from you someday.

Steve said you have to have a dream location you’ve always wanted to go to and can save up for a trip to. I don’t have any one place I could think of, but I do have a burning dream of having enough money to get surgery to become handsome. Steve said I looked OK—“not Cary Grant, but average”—and I said I’d still like to actively handsome. He said I had a talent for writing and maybe I should try to get some extra money from that—the worst that can happen is I’ll get a rejection slip. I pointed out that Stanley was handsome, and to confirm this, asked Stanley if he would have any surgery to change his looks. Steve looked like he was sorry I’d asked this question; I realized why when Stanley said he didn’t think he needed cosmetic surgery, but that his big ugly sister… (“She’s six foot seven and two hundred and forty pounds, all muscle,” said Stanley. “Hey, just like me!” quipped Steve.)

I’d also like a love life. Steve said that he had a different problem, which was that girls ignored him in favour of the jocks in high school, but then after high school, when he was in his twenties, girls threw themselves at him, to such a degree that he wasn’t comfortable with it and wanted to get to know them first. He said he’d like a female best friend. He had one once, but she got married (to the man he introduced her to, ironically) and she moved on and he lost her as a friend. I remembered how my female friends from grade ten abandoned me when we got to senior high school. Steve said at that age they just want the captain of the football team, and ignore guys they think are nerds. I said it was too bad that the female nerds also wanted the captain of the football team, so that there were no girls left for the rest of us. Steve countered that it worked the other way too—didn’t I want the cheerleader when I was high school? But I responded that the difference is that I wouldn’t only want her; I’d go out with anyone that said yes, whereas even the least attractive girls refuse to lower their standards to guys that are in their league. This is what’s so depressing about girls.

Stevie Nicks was on the juke box. Steve said he liked Stevie Nicks, and Fleetwood Mac.

I showed Paul the new buttons. Steve didn’t recognize the Transformers buttons, and said they looked like Haida art. He’s right, they do (especially the Autobot symbol); that’s a cool way to look at them.

Ray had a story about a bus he was on recently. The driver was again the guy who once had a bit part as a ship captain in Andromeda. This time the bus was going up a steep hill and the turbo engine exploded, forcing the bus to take the hill slowly, at 10 miles per hour, until a back-up bus could arrive and take the prisoners passengers the rest of the way to the Skytrain station. Ray and the driver joked that the bad guys from Andromeda must have been hired by the bus company’s competition to sabotage the engine.

Ray also said that a series would be filmed here, in which Vancouver would substitute for Washington State. I remembered all the times Toronto was supposed to be New York. “New York, or Chicago, or any scuzzy eastern city,” Paul said, laughing. “Occasionally it’s Vancouver that’s New York.” Ray added that Lisa Gemino was an extra in the episode of The X-Files that was in black-and-white and had the boy with the same disfigurement as the boy from Mask.

Someone mentioned Jason X; I was looking forward to seeing David Cronenberg’s supporting role as the professor of the students who go into space and find Jason’s body on a ghost ship (in the future, of course). Of course, I prefer Cronenberg’s directing to his acting, but he was decent in Clive Barker’s Night Breed. This reminded Paul that he was tired of directors doing cameos badly. M. Night Shyamalan did good cameos in The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable but was very ineffective in Signs, said Paul. I added that Tarantino can’t act, but Sidney Pollack is generally good, although I conceded that he tends to act in other people’s movies, not his own.

Steve learned that both Gowan and I are classically-trained pianists. I learned that Gowan went to UBC. He took science. I told him and Steve about how miserable I was at UBC. The SFS was good; the book stacks were good; I had some good classes. Still, it was a depressing place. Even if I hadn’t had to drop out after second year for personal reasons, I’m not sure if I could have lasted long enough to get my Bachelor of Arts (I was going to major in psychology).

I also checked in with the other group. Ryan was saying something about a rapping TARDIS—one idea they thankfully didn’t use for the 1996 American made-for-TV movie.

I showed Purple the drawing of him that made it into the last BCSFAzine. He’d seen it before (when I’d shown it to him and asked if he’d mind if I submitted it) but he was once again pleased with it. He could tell I’d used the stamp filter from the variations in the stroke width in the line representing his jaw.

Friday 28 February 2003

Joe, Ryan, and I arrived and Ryan and I dropped off our bags and went to the food court. I had Edo’s teriyaki chicken and beef again. The service was slightly better this time. The teenager had dyed his hair blond and there was an old man (his father?) there. Ryan went to the Vietnamese restaurant and got soup. It was brown with white noodles in it and extremely spicy; Ryan hoped it would cleanse his system.

While we ate our food on the Jolly Alderman patio, Paula (one of the waitresses) came outside for a cigarette break. She asked if the lawyer was coming. I asked her if she meant Stanley Foo and added “The guy who looks like an Asian version of Ryan?” She agreed that Stanley does look like an Asian Ryan. She noticed we were eating food from somewhere else and asked if it was better than the Jolly Alderman’s. I replied that it was only cheaper; not necessarily better. She said the prices were starting to come down. Another patron outside with us overheard this and remarked that his wings only cost $4. She pointed out that he got them at half price.

While we ate Ryan and I discussed the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ryan knows that I don’t like the show; yesterday he bought a newspaper to save the headline “Buffy Slain” for me. Unfortunately, the “Buffy” in the headline refers to the series and not the character; however, Ryan thinks that a cool way to end the show would be to have Buffy turned into a vampire and then slain. I agreed with that, but not with his vision of the scene after that: Spike and Angel, crying in a bar.

When we’d finished eating and gone into the bar I noticed the pool table was free so I immediately started a game with Ryan. Last night Ryan said it was too bad that Star Wars didn’t have a place in the fetish community the way that Gor did. There’s the armour and uniforms, for one thing. I added that the Princess Leia slave girl scene (from Return of the Jedi) was revealed to be Ross’s fetish in an episode of Friends that aired seven years ago. Tonight Ryan said that it had occurred to him that Star Wars doesn’t need its own version of the Batman urban legend: alerted by the screams, the police found a woman tied up and in the shredded remains of a Catwoman costume with an unconscious man in an abbreviated Batman costume next to her—apparently the man had hit his head on the headboard and was knocked out. They weren’t doing anything wrong, but the woman was embarrassed.

Brian had a story about Al Betz (“Mr. Science”) being upset by women in leather Nazi uniforms at a convention. I couldn’t hear him properly.

Garth and Doug arrived with the new BCSFAzine. The cover was a photo of Garth in Royal Swiss Navy field uniform. It looks good! The pants are, as I had hoped, “pizza” patterned. The only place that they could help the wearer blend in would be in a volcano. This is precisely on target for RSN fatigues. Of course, I still want a pair of urban camouflage pants someday, the white-black-grey colour scheme worn by Snake Plissken. Doug gave me my contributor’s copy of BCSFAzine and I gave Garth my BCSFAZINEzine and one each of the mini-comics I’d recently made (with the help of Ryan’s artist friend Garrett Eng).

A new FREDgoer arrived: Teela. And Steve wasn’t here this week so she couldn’t sign The Book of FRED! Although she’s read a lot of SF, she seems to be a neo to fandom as well as to FRED. She had gone to White Dwarf Books because her psychiatrist had told her she might find information about a book discussion group there. The clerk had given her a BCSFA flyer containing the URL of the BCSFA site. She learned of FRED from the site.

She had never heard the word “zine” out loud until tonight and so was surprised to find that it was pronounced “zeen” and not “zyne.”

Ray says he might have to sacrifice going to Norwescon this year to be able to afford to go to the Worldcon. He plans to make the trip to the Worldcon (in Toronto) by train.

Garth said I should draw a poster for the book discussion group.

Sid, Doug, and Garth took turns—sort of—explaining to Teela the Elrons and Gor. Ryan heard someone say “Gor” and sauntered over to see if it was another “…of Gor” novel-title brainstorm.

Ryan brought the book Star Wars—The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels. Decent art; I still don’t want to believe that the most common and coolest-looking TIE Fighter—the one with the straight hexagonal wings, which the book calls the TIE/IN—is the weakest. Nevertheless, according to both this book and the TIE Fighter video game, the TIE/IN has no shield, life-support, or back-up engine or weapon so that it is light enough to be faster and more maneuverable than any other fighter.

Garth, Teela, Doug, and Sid compared ages. They asked me my age and I said I liked to get people to guess first so I know how old I look. Doug liked that idea. Doug guessed I looked 25. (I’m 29.) Garth said he was 46 and Teela said that she was exactly half that.

Teela noticed me taking notes and asked about the notebook. I explained that these were FRED reports (at which point it turned out that she hadn’t heard the term “FRED,” so Doug told her what it stood for). Doug asked if I had progressed from just drawing the FREDgoers to character assassination. I said “No” and he said “You should.”

Garth explained the origin of the Royal Swiss Navy.

Teela asked us to remind her of our names again; I hauled out the pack of “Hello. My Name Is…” badges I’d bought at a dollar store. Doug asked “Where did you get those?” I told him and he said that what meant was “Do you carry those around for an occasion just like this?” I said yes. He said he’d be right back.

As it happened Stanley Foo did show up tonight. I don’t know if Paula caught up with him but probably.

Teela said that she knew her name was also in He-Man. I hadn’t brought it up but at least that’s out of the way.

Ray knew the list of top ten Doctor Who episodes (as voted on by fans I guess) and how many belonged to which era. Apparently the only one from the John Nathan Turner era (1979-1990) was “Survival,” which was also the series finale. The number one episode was “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” which I also like.

Teela said she was an outsider; the other FREDgoers assured her that she wasn’t, but that Brian was, because he was standing on the edge of the group at that moment. Brian said he was doing what he does when there are five panels at a convention he wants to see—“orbitting.”

I was pleasantly shocked when Ray said that he had the Doctor Who episode “Shada” on tape and would bring it next to week to lend to me.

I was also pleasantly shocked to find that between playing pool, conversing, and working on a new mini-comic of drawings of fandom, I had only had one Coke.

Friday 21 February 2003

This week Joe, Ryan, Purple, and I went to Denny’s (on Davie and Thurlow) before FRED. Doing so nearly broke me financially, but when we got to FRED, Paul was there, and having just been paid, decided to buy me a Coke. Paul, Steve Forty, and I talked about driving through dangerous parts of town. Steve has been to Tacoma, Washington and it sounds like it lives up to its war-zone reputation: two RCMP sent there on an exchange program were unpleasantly surprised to find themselves warning motorists to stay away from certain streets. Someone Paul knew made the mistake of using a GPS in their rented car to plot the shortest route to their destination and ended up driving through the heart of the ghetto, South Central Los Angeles. My parents were on an anniversary road trip to Carmel (where Clint Eastwood was mayor once) and some psycho with road rage brandished his gun at them—with a baby next to him in the front of his car! Vancouver (British Columbia, not Washington) doesn’t have neighbourhoods we wouldn’t drive through, but Steve says he can think of a few alleys he’d stay out of (behind Co-Op Radio’s former building, for one).

On the subject of areas with crime, it seems that some people have found Skytrain stations to be dangerous. I speculated that this was one reason places like Richmond have fought so hard to avoid getting a Skytrain line (even though it would it make it much easier to go to other outlying cities like Surrey and New Westminster since we wouldn’t have to bus downtown first and then back out again in a spoke-like pattern). There are other reasons, some more understandable than others. If a Skytrain track were brought in it would probably go down Number Three Road, and if it went far enough south on Three, it would go past my neighbourhood. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy the construction of that track disrupting my quiet subdivision, nor the activity that would follow when the station was built and people were using it. In reality, the station would probably only be as close as Richmond Centre, several blocks north of me on Three, but I can empathize with whomever would have it in their neighbourhood. I feel less sympathetic about the possible classist angle—that some suburbs deliberately cripple public transportation within their borders in order to discourage the poor from living there or spending their free time there—doing anything there except working at the menial service-sector jobs that someone has to do. The planned community of Plano, Texas, which was conceived by Ross Perot as a place for his employees to raise their families, has used this technique.

Despite approval from the FREDgoers who live near it, Steve declares Joe’s Place, the other bar we tried recently, to have too many drawbacks. It’s not as centrally-located as the Jolly Alderman, it’s got a very limited menu (three items) with prices as bad as the Jolly Alderman’s, and it closes at 9:00 p.m., although its exponents (such as Brian) say that they can get the management to leave it open later if there’s enough business. The free refills I got were probably attempts to encourage FRED and would not necessarily be given in future FREDs. It looks like FRED will be staying at the Jolly Alderman for now (and I’ll continue eating before I come if I can). Joe’s Place being in Burnaby reminded Steve of FRED’s early days, when it was held out there, and got seventy to eighty participants a week, including pros and semi-pros who would later become pros, such as William Gibson and Donna McMahon.

We also talked about burgers (although Steve watches his diet these days). Paul and I remembered a place in north Richmond called Burger Brothers; Steve remembered a different branch of the same chain elsewhere. I also remembered there being one near Whalley Station in Surrey. These restaurants were just small shacks with one- or two-person staffs but they served decent food and had surprisingly intense service. I miss going to Wally’s Burgers. The burgers have a unique texture there—very soft and chewy—and a slightly sweet flavour, but what I really miss is their banana shakes.

Ray seemed keen to know who the guests would be for the next V-Con (in October again).

Friday 14 February 2003

I took advantage of having to arrive a few hours early by arranging to meet my friend Gowan (fellow horror fan and classically-trained pianist) at the food court where I’d bought the teriyaki chicken at the earlier FRED. Once again I went to Edo for teriyaki chicken. Again the price was right and the food was good but the service was bad. When I arrived an Asian teenager was working there. “What do you want?” he snapped. I had to think for a moment whether I wanted just chicken or chicken and beef and he slouched impatiently while I decided. I wondered if he was working at the family business and didn’t really want to be there and decided to try to cheer him up with some small talk, but he remained rude. An old Asian woman came out from the back and said something in her language. “Chicken and beef!” the teenager shouted. When he went to the back I asked her if he was her son. She nodded. She seemed depressed. I left a decent tip but as usual it was not noticed.

By the time Gowan arrived I’d actually finished my dinner, so I bought dessert at A&W. Gowan, who usually eats at all-you-can-eat restaurants, found it impossible to choose only one restaurant in the court at which to spend the money he’d budgeted for dinner, so he decided to get coffee instead. The sexy girl at the coffee shop enjoyed Gowan’s conversation so much that she gave him a free coffee! I wish I had that kind of charisma.

Ironically, I was so hungry that I eventually paid the quadrupled prices at the bar and ordered a burger there. That, along with my two Cokes, should have cost me over $15, but Paula (our waitress that night) was nice enough to leave the Cokes off the bill to show her sincere regret at the drastic inflation. The prices have started to come down slightly, although still not to an acceptable level: now, every day from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and all evening on Wednesday (“Wing Wednesday”) the chicken wings are half-price, as in “only twice as expensive as before.” I was talking recently to the proprietor of the pizza restaurant I go to regularly, and he was saying that while 15¢ to 20¢ is the most the market will bear for chicken wings at a pub, that is a loss-leader price; the chicken wings he sells at the restaurant cost him 50¢ just to make.

This week it was a first-time FRED for Alex and Amanda, whom Ryan and later I had decided were nice enough to be invited from the Goth scene. The location was not convenient for them (they prefer to stay downtown) but I think they enjoyed the pool table.

Friday 7 February 2003

This week some of the FREDdies decided to check out a new place recommended by Ray as an alternative to the Jolly Alderman if the Jolly Alderman gets too crazy as it did a few weeks ago: Joe’s Place, at the King’s Best Western on Kingsway just east of Royal Oak on the north side of the street.

When Joe and I arrived at about 7:00 p.m., Ray and Ryan were already there. The restaurant was closed and the menu at the bar was extremely limited—and extremely overpriced. Chicken wings were even more expensive ($7.95) than at the Jolly Alderman. The chicken wings also came only in barbeque flavour and not in teriyaki or honey garlic. At this point, based on the location, selection, and prices, the bar was receiving a zero rating in my book.

Disturbed by the food situation and remembering last week’s successful forage at the food court, I decided to go out once again In Search of…Cheap Meat. There were no fast-food places in the area, but I did find a Denny’s, so I bought four sausages to go, which came to $3 after tax.

The good news began with the drinks: a Coke was only $2.25 and was effectively bottomless (I was told that since I wasn’t ordering food I’d only get three refills—that’s still pretty awesome and certainly more than I can drink in one sitting). The waitress—Karen—was also very nice. New rating so far: two and a half stars out of five.

We were told that the bar was closing at 9:00 p.m. Fortunately the rest of our party (Barb, Brian, Garth, and Garth’s friend from work) got there before that happened.

In conversational news, I taught Ryan and Ray the correct pronunciation of “Straczynski.” Next we compared which catastrophic scenarios most haunted our formative years. For those in what Douglas Coupland (as opposed to the mainstream media) would call “Generation X,” it was, of course, nuclear war. I quipped that the eighties was “The Decade After.” I countered that—speaking for myself if not for my generation—nuclear war wasn’t something that I spent a lot of time worrying about, but economic depression was. In other words, a post-apocalyptic wasteland didn’t scare me as much as—as Ray cleverly put it—“an economic wasteland.”

Both Ray and I wish that Duckman would come back on TV, but whereas Ray wants it to be on the Comedy Network, I would prefer to see it on Teletoon (where it was shown the last time we saw it), contributing to Teletoon’s potential as an animation fan’s network and not just children’s programming. Ray said that that would be a good mission for Teletoon’s late-night programming, after 9:00 p.m., when children have gone to bed.

As 9:00 p.m. approached Karen spontaneously extended the bar’s hours to 9:30 p.m., which Ray pointed out is what happens when they know a large party is going to be there giving their patronage.

Some people were about to go back to the Jolly Alderman when it was decided instead to check out another bar down the street called Delaney’s. I remembered seeing Delaney’s through the window while I was sitting in Denny’s waiting for my sausages.

Friday 31 January 2003

Joe and I arrived at 5:45 p.m. As usual, Ray and Steve were there early, saving FRED’s preferred table. Upon looking at the menu we were shocked to discover that prices had quadrupled. Teriyaki chicken wings had previously been listed as “25¢ each” and sold in groups of six so that six wings cost $1.50. Now the wings were listed as “$4.95 for ½ a pound,” causing Joe to order some in the hopes that ½ a pound was more than six wings. Unfortunately it wasn’t. Each wing is now almost a dollar! Ray’s usual sandwich had gone up by $5.

I decided to go for a walk and see what else was open. I noticed that the City Center mall (where I worked for a few months in early 1996) was across the street and remembered that they had a food court with teriyaki chicken. For $4.35 I got a nice big styrofoam box of teriyaki chicken. Steve suggested I eat it outside rather than in the bar. I hadn’t neglected to support the bar: I had already bought two glasses of Coke which I’m happy to report are still only $2.25 each. Michael—our waiter—had a sympathetic attitude about the prices (and gave me the name of the department and the managers to contact for complaints)—whereas other waiters I’ve encountered at other places would have been indifferent or even actively hostile—so I tipped him $1, 150% of a 15% tip—better than standard. He seemed pleased.

Next there was a lot of talk about Star Trek. Steve says that Enterprise is his all-time favourite Star Trek series. He also liked Babylon 5 for its realism and continuity. Steve hates Q and never got into Deep Space Nine. Ryan added that “first-season Voyager was Red Dwarf without the funny.” Steve countered that Quark was Red Dwarf before there was Red Dwarf. Steve also noted that the Klingons got coffee from humans. Someone asked how the Klingons got Shakespeare. Ryan replied that Section 31 stole Shakespeare’s work from the Klingons and took it back to Earth’s past. Steve’s answer was “a million monkeys at a million typewriters.” Paul pointed out that the noble poet-warrior Klingons we know today were a later re-interpretation of Klingons; that in the original series and the first five movies the Klingons were the bikers of the universe. Joe didn’t believe that a Klingon would write a play like Hamlet where the hero couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Ryan said that to the Klingons that was what made the play a tragedy.

Renovations continued. One section of the bar was closed off by tape. There were no urinals in the men’s bathroom. One of the non-FRED regulars from the bar suggested aiming for the holes in the wall.

I looked up at one point and saw multiple policemen on the other side of the bar. It turned out that someone had been stabbed outside and had come into the bar to lie down. Paramedics were there too. I sauntered over thinking it might be interesting to watch paramedics at work, but the stabbing victim’s arm was spasming in a disturbing way.

Paul did his hilarious impression of Randy Newman performing “Cars.” Both Paul and I then did Gary Numan singing a “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

Tonight was also new BCSFAzine night. Although these nights are sometimes referred to as “collating” nights, this time the zine was already collated when Garth and Doug arrived with it. This issue marked the first time Joe’s art had appeared in BCSFAzine.

Aside from the new prices and the stabbing, the bar was quite calm tonight. This was not surprising; I’d phoned ahead this afternoon to ask if there was a hockey game on tonight and someone answering to “Darren” (the bartender?) said that there was no hockey tonight.

Ryan brought tonight’s first-timer: Joel, his classmate from the new course he’s been taking.

Friday 24 January 2003

Insane! There was a Canucks game on pay-per-view and gigantic numbers of people showed up at the bar to watch it. Due to renovations the cable was not plugged in to the TV on our side of the bar; that didn’t stop the entire bar from being unbelievably crowded and ridiculously loud. On top of that, the management thought for some reason it would be a good night to put only one waiter on duty; it tells you how bad the situation was when I say that a couple of suits from the hotel had to actually pitch in and work until Carla, a waitress, could get there. According to Barb, my food set a new FRED record by taking two and a half hours to arrive (starting from the time I ordered it). There was some talk of relocating FRED but a consensus could not be reached. Current intel from Ray and others seems to indicate that the only other viable venues are in Coquitlam.

The FRED newcomer this week was Adam, whom Gowan (who had been to FRED once back when it was at Bosman’s) and I had invited.