Feet don`t fail me now · Tuesday June 17, 2008 by colin newell
A human foot was discovered partially submerged in the water near Westham Island in Ladner, B.C., Delta police said Monday.
It’s the fifth human foot police have found in the province in less than a year.
I am prepared to make a declaration about this…
If you want to find out who belongs to the missing feet – simply do a head count of gangland types in Vancouver…
Or a show of hands…
“Uhm – We get it Colin!”
Yea. I figured.
Living with the Health Mullahs of British Columbia - Part two · Sunday May 18, 2008 by colin newell
Ever see something in passing (in your daily travels) that makes you totally scratch your head?
You know – stuff that does not make sense. Like kick-boxing… or child beauty pageants… or golf.
Or A stupid law or practice that defies logic?
If you have… Well…
Please, please comment on this.
Like, it cannot be just me can it?
Examples? Drive-through Coffee houses… or Fast food emporiums.
We have a No Idling policy in our city… and it is pretty darn strict.
And yet we have drive through cafes, bank machines and doughnut houses.
I have sat at the B.C. Ferry terminal while some Eco-Pig idles his SUV while he waits the 20 minutes to get on the boat – and everywhere signs… stating no idling.
The craziest thing of all? We now have a law that forbids cigarette shops or stores that sell tobacco products… from actually displaying the products.
No one profits more from the sale of Tobacco products than our Federal and Provincial government – and yet the stores are forced to cover up.
The example photo above is from Good-fellas cigar shop.
I have never been a smoker but I am starting to sympathize with smokers more and more every day.
Another crazy thing is the new perimeter law for smokers – no smoking within 3 meters of any doors or windows of any business down town… which would put a smoker squarely in the middle of most busy roads.
It is retarded… and it is your B.C. Liberal Government at work.
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Life as a duck · Friday May 16, 2008 by colin newell
To Government House British Columbia – camera in hand (Canon EOS-30D) with one of their many fine lenses.
Click on the link for the B.C. Government House (if you would be so kind…) and then come back to this page.
If this were an episode of Star Trek, B.C. Government House would be that floating city on a cloud – where all is joyous and peaceful… and the Earth below is one of misery and despair. Think Earthquakes, typhoons, global warming (or not) and a spiraling consumer price index.
Click on the photo above (when prompted below) to reveal the true nature of this peaceful creature.
And yet yesterday, on one of Victoria B.C.‘s hottest days of the year, walking through this Provincial Government residence (little more than one KM from home)… it was as if nothing else really mattered. Or that everything mattered. And we were both acutely aware of the cataclysmic events unfurling around the globe – a planet experiencing its own paroxysm of physical rage – with heart-breaking consequences leveled against tens of thousands of fellow humans… ostensibly and ironically less than a heartbeat away; 12 hours by jet and a microsecond at the speed of light.
We do what we can. One one hand we give freely to the Red Cross and know that thousands of Canadians are doing the same thing – and this benefits the Chinese recovery and many other worthy campaigns.
But what of Myanmar (Burma)? A stubborn military dictatorship is standing between the World (and its desire to help) and the victims. A million people could die in the next couple of weeks.
And yet – here we walk – amidst hundreds of native plants (and some not so native) with dozens of wild birds and ducks… families of Mallard Ducks and air thick with every imaginable fragrance. The Government House also has a herb and vegetable garden… open to the general public. And if you are stuck for chives, parsley, mustard, basil or one of dozens of herbs – in the preparation of your salad or pasta… well, help yourself courtesy of the Provincial Government of British Columbia!
Back to the duck (above) for a moment. If you can take in every bad (or good) thing that has happened to the Planet Earth in the last week or so… (do it now…)
Now take a good long luck at the Duck (click for the blow-up) and see if you can guess what it is thinking about our plight. See it? Yea.
Exactly.
Life in the Canadian Air Age #1 · Wednesday May 14, 2008 by colin newell
Tickets, check. Passports, check. Luggage, check. Baby…
Someone forget the baby?
A family boarded a flight on Monday in Vancouver, and forgot their child at the Vancouver airport. Oops.
The 23-month-old boy’s family had just arrived in Canada from the Philippines, but they had to re-pack their overweight bags before catching the connecting flight to Winnipeg. So they were running late.
In their Olympic sprint to the gate, the family became separated. Been there, done that.
The boy’s father Jun, thought his son was with his wife.
The boy’s grandparents, who ran ahead thought the boy was with his dad.
On the plane, the family members were seated separately and so did not immediately realize they had left the child behind. An honest mistake.
Eventually, a security guard found the boy, who speaks no English, wandering near the departure gate, and Air Canada officials tracked down his shocked parents on the flight. Thank heavens the RCMP didn’t find the kid first… Tazer-tot anyone?
Because of the boys tender age, he was not issued a boarding pass.
And would have sat on a parent’s lap during the flight…
…so airline personnel did not notice a passenger was missing.
Airport security found a Tagalog-speaking Air Canada agent who looked after the child while his father flew 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) back to Vancouver to pick him up. What a wonderful and full first day in Canada!
Victoria private Steele episode #1 · Sunday April 27, 2008 by colin newell
It was a regular Friday in the offices of Robert Steele when the phone rang. I grabbed the handset out of the cradle, a telephone cradle… big, black and plastic like the color and texture of my heart.
Cold and shapeless – that is me. It is the job I do. I am… a private detective with the firm Steele-Wall. Down on Main Street in sunny Victoria.
I’d genuinely like to believe I have a partner named Wall – but I don’t. What I do have is, the promise of what you run into when you cross me…
And judging by the sound of the dame on the other end of the blower, I knew I had a hot one on. She spat her words out like a pro-wrestler on a Saturday afternoon, which was odd. It was Friday. Friday, high noon.
It seems one of her favorite cafe’s had just dumped their quality beans for some johnny-come-lately discount brew and, don’t tell me let me guess, the drinks are the same price.
Yea, this was a clear case of brew and gouge. I hate it when that happens. I hate it when the phone rings and there is a angry babe on the other end of the chatter-box. I hate stomach aches and this scene meant I was going to be cooking up a winner.
After she stopped ranting I managed to squeeze a few words in edgewise..
“So let’s take it from the top shall we?” I coached.
Beau, we will call her Ms B, works as the executive legal assistant with the District attorneys office and B’s no slouch. She knows a bad fish when she smells one so she knew who to call.. I had a good feeling about her as I casually glanced at my incessantly and largely unstoppable work load.
B: “Ah, Mister Steele, is this you?”
“Ma’am”, I mumbled between gritted teeth… “It sure is. What seems to be your beef, Baby?”
B: “I was down at the Matrix today, you know the cafe down on 4th and Spring?”
“Yes, Ma’am… the one between Jimmy’s Pawn and Leo’s Bar n Grill?”
B: “Yea, that’s the one… I go there, like, every day without fail and…”
“Stick to the facts Beau.. just the facts..”
B: “well, you know how it is. They get you all jazzed up on supreme bean, all tasty and perfect, and…”
“Please continue…” I encouraged.
B: “Well, I was in for my usual double-americano and… well and… well and….”
Just then Beau broke down into a paroxysm of frustrated sobs. I could almost picture her white shoulders quivering under her delicate cotton brocade. I was touched and at the same time fascinated.
“Baby. Get a grip of yourself… Shake it off honey..”
By now I was furious. I snubbed out a virtual Marlboro into an imaginary ash-tray next to my Olivetti.
“Here’s the way it is sister. There are two kinds of people out there – The good people: that’s you and the men and women in your office that you know and trust.
And then there are the coffee people: the bad people, looking for every opportunity to screw with the general public. That is where I come in.
When my phone rings, it is like the sound of a crying baby. And lately, I have been getting a crib full.”
My job never ends. Coffee cop and private detective. It is a thankless one and the pay is crap. But sometimes on a sunny day, when the wind is blowing in the right direction and things are going my way, I can sit in the corner cafe and everything is okay. The brew is hot and the chicks are cool.
Cool, until the phone rings…
B: “Mr. Steele, ah… Mr. Steele….?”
I snapped out of my narcissistic reverie long enough to realize that I was still on the phone…
B: “Their americanos were just so perfect.. crema like butterscotch churned by angels.. and now.. and now..
“Go on, Miss B.. and don’t let me interrupt…”
B: “Their coffee is like a double-double Tim Horton’s that has been forgotten in the back-seat of a ’56 chev, left overnight in the strip mall and allowed to bake in the heat of the day…”
“Baby, I get your vibe, and it pains me to know that every day in this sleepy little town, there is yet one more coffee crime going down…Now you relax and don’t sweat that pretty little face of yours and let Mr. Steele look after things from here on in…”
As she hung up the phone and I tapped another pretend Marlboro out of my near-empty deck of phantom smokes, I realized one thing -
Damn, I need a coffee!
Detective Robert Steele is the sole proprietor of Steele-Wall a private investigation firm keeping a handle on caffeinated crimes and general mischief in the sleepy little town of Victoria.
Colin Newell, author of the coffeecrew blog once helped write an episode of C.S.I. Las Vegas (Season 3 – Episode Last Laugh) – since then, pretty much everything has gone to his head.
