Month: October 2018

Humour is a weird thing, but I believe it can be studied scientifically.

Experiment: take 14 or 15 budding standup comics, fresh out of a 5-week class, and have them give a 5-minute set one after the other in an apparently random order. 4 were men, all cis and straight*. The rest were women, all cis and only one openly queer in her set.

(* None of them pinged my LGBTdar and I figured they’d have worked it in their material, so I feel pretty confident in my diagnosis.)

Result: all the women were funny, including the friend I’d gone to see. None of the guys were that funny. Jokes about Trudeau and other politicians, one guy joked about offending his Indigenous wife’s relatives with the word “Indian,” another joked about creeping on 15-year-old girls or something… Their humour was largely lazy or mean, revolving around making fun of other people. The women talked about sex and menstruation and relationships and little details of life that are hilarious when viewed in the right light. There was empathy there, which I just didn’t get from the guys.

Conclusion: cishet dudes aren’t funny.

Does that sound harsh? Sorry, guys, I don’t make the rules. You can’t argue with science. And this isn’t an outlier, either; I’ve been to other default-straight standup shows that were much worse, with cringey overt misogyny where all punch lines boiled down to “cos bitches, am i right?” I don’t need that kind of crap in my ear-holes.

Anyway, let us talk of happier things. Like foggy Sunday nights. I’d come home from vball still photoless, but fortunately I spied the Sheraton hotel surrounded by a nice halo of foggy drizzly damp. That would do nicely.

And fall colours. And more fall colours. And yet more fall colours. And a gorgeous shot of cloudy morning sky over Davie Street. Y’know, if self-discipline to go to the gym isn’t enough to get my ass moving in the morning, maybe the thought of more photos like this will do!

This post is all about warm tones. The soft gold of a sunset, the russet on wood hues of a cider drink at the Storm Crow, the earthy tones of a cooked turkey, and oh look another sunset.

The only exception would be Friday night: as I came home from work, not feeling very inspired, I turned around and shot my street, with a glimpse of the North Shore mountains and orangey evening sky in the far background. It’s nice, I think, but kind of nondescript, so I’m extremely puzzled at how popular it eventually became. 23 likes on IG and 9 on Facebook, which for me is a lot. What am I missing? Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not complaining, I just… don’t get it. Not the first time this happened, and I figure that’s the way it goes. I’m good with it.

Saturday, just on an impulse, I went for a walk in Yaletown. I’ve shot photos of it before, mostly in the summer before and after grass volleyball. The real target (which I wasn’t even thinking about, but is obvious in hindsight) is this thing, which is very definitely not a Stargate. I’ve driven by it a million times, and always vaguely thought it was an homage to the franchise, even though the proportions are wrong. Turns out, though, it’s an homage to Yaletown’s industrial past, and this particular ring was part of the previous Cambie Bridge, which was a swing bridge to allow bigger boats to pass. Fascinating! This was all before my time, since Yaletown was all prettied up and gentrified for Expo 86. Only a few mementos like this exist anymore, including Engine 374 in the Roundhouse. I wonder how many others are around? That’d be a fun hunt.

It’s been days of random stuff, taking in what Vancouver has to give me.

The Harvest Moon after volleyball. Harvest moons are apparently supposed to be orange for some reason, but I really couldn’t tell. And I’m a bit peeved that my phone still can’t take better full-night moonshots. Also, I’ll be honest: I’ve been doing that thing where I laze around all day Sunday, and only get off my ass to go play Intermediate. This shot was taken as I got home and realised I didn’t have a photo because I didn’t want to do yet another shot around the gym.

I really need to be better about that.

Mind you, Monday was looking up. Here’s a rare morning commute photo, of pigeons near Vancouver Centre Station. I also took a few closer shots of that one pigeon on the bike, but it turns out pigeons aren’t that pretty up close. Who knew?

Lately I’ve been pulling longer hours, so here are some photos I took as I got out of work: Granville Street. The West End from Burrard Bridge. The sunset from Burrard Bridge.

On Thursday I took the scenic(er) way home, along the waterfront for a bit. I really like this photo of Harbour Centre behind 333 Seymour, almost making it look like it’s the same building. And here’s one of North Vancouver. I do miss not having a physical zoom, but this photo’s all right.

I’m pretty sure I’ve shot the Vancouver Block Building before… maybe it was only years ago, back when I used Flickr? At first I wanted to capture the building alone, but that turned out to be impossible. I don’t mind though, this is a really good shot, contrasting the lovely white stone with the more modern glassy towers. MicroSoft wasn’t around in 1912, was it? No, I’m thinking of IBM. Which I don’t think is that old either but I’m too lazy to check.

Looking it it now, the photo has a little bit of a slant, which usually I try to correct before posting. This is all right, though. Gives the whole thing a certain je ne sais quoi. I’m slowly edging out of what I thought is acceptable, photography-wise. And maybe I’m making mistakes along the way, but that’s the fun of exploring.

The next day, coming home through Davie Village, I spied with my little eye… a spiderweb. Actually two webs, each with a pretty orb weaver in the middle, in some bushes by the sidewalk. I got as close as my lens would allow, careful not to disturb the webs, and noticed the biggest spider had a little seed in its web. Neat! Useless to her, but it made for a great picture which I’m absolutely including in my Year 2 retrospective.

And it got me thinking: are there any vegetarian spiders? Turns out, yes! Or, sort of. Bagheera kiplingi isn’t totally herbivorous, but it seems to be pretty close. Just goes to show, Nature has enough tricks up her sleeve to one-up any silly little jokey hashtag in your photos.