Movie magic to light up White Rock this summer

Set your DeLorean to Nov. 5, 1955, and power up your flux capacitor with 1.21 gigawatts because White Rock is heading Back to the Future!
The 1985 comic blockbuster, starring Burnaby’s own Michael J. Fox as time traveling, electric guitar-wielding skateboard enthusiast Marty McFly, is one of four family-friendly films lighting up a giant movie screen [...]

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What you’re worth at 14

Fifty bucks and an apology letter is all it takes to get away with taking sexual advantage of an underage girl in British Columbia.
A White Rock man who pleaded guilty to assaulting a 14-year-old girl last August has been ordered to apologize to her in writing, take respectful relationship training and stay away from drugs [...]

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White Rock hauntings, redux

Now that a striking character home in White Rock has been demolished, I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to the two ghosts that were reputed to have haunted the former Marine Drive architectural landmark?

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White Rock’s ghosts: homeless after the wrecking ball?

What happens to ghosts when the building they haunt gets torn down – or undergoes an extreme makeover?

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The next voter in line wins a car!

It would be simple. Raffle off five new cars, say, (or the equivalent cash prize) on election night. Anyone who votes would be eligible. Do something like that, and I bet you’d get people pouring into the polls come election day. And somebody better do something pretty quick. In just eight years, B.C.’s voter turnout for provincial elections has plummeted from 71 percent in 2001 to slightly higher than 50 per cent in May 2009.

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Our Liberal overlords have been returned to power

7:22 p.m. A giant flock of seagulls floats past the skies above our ocean view deck. “It’s like The Birds!” I shout. “Isn’t it freaky?” the gulls float in the balmy wind currents over White Rock, where incumbent Liberal MLA Gordon Hogg is so assured of victory, I’m not even planning to check tonight’s results. But I fear the birds are a sign. A portent of things to come. The Liberals will win a majority. Like the grease-fattened gulls who beg for fish and chips from unsuspecting tourists and visitors along White Rock’s promenade, they don’t deserve it, I think darkly.

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City of Glass, South Fraser edition

Touring lottery prize homes is a year-round hobby when you live in White Rock.
The latest is the 2009 Hometown Heroes Lottery, which raises money for the UBC & VGH Hospital Foundation and the B.C. Professional Firefighters’ Burn Fund.
This year’s grand prize is a three-condo collection worth $1.9 million or a huge luxury home (haven’t seen [...]

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Surreal glow

Lingering winter fog creates a surreal glow along White Rock’s iconic landmark and its famed promenade, a 2-km walkway on the shore of Semiahmoo Bay that’s nearly deserted on a chilly January evening.

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Another damn weather picture

Hey, what’s that blinding glowing ball in the sky?

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Ghost stories I have known

Do you believe in ghosts?
I can’t remember when my fascination with true B.C. ghost stories first began.
Maybe it was reading about Vancouver hauntings each year at Halloween, when the pages of the Sun’s lifestyle section would feature stories involving strange, unexplained disturbances in local restaurants, theatres, various recording studios and Gastown comedy clubs. These [...]

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Federal election 2008: assessing the hangover

I don’t know about you, but last week’s federal election left me feeling kind of bummed out.
It’s not just the national results that are getting me down. It’s the local race, too.
My Conservative MP, the remarkably life-like Russ Hiebert, got re-elected. And I don’t believe he deserves it. Full disclosure: not a fan of the [...]

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What the fuzz?

Aug. 24, 2006 – If you live right next to the largest, undefended border on Earth, you gotta put up with a little overhead surveillance from time to time.
Once in a while, you’ll hear the rumbling thump-a-thump of an American helicopter that’s swept across the line in pursuit of some freelance – and therefore unauthorized [...]

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