Duran is a superstar that’s for sure! Here’s a video that his dad shot when he was a kid:

Check out VM Lounge (formerly Video Monster) in Gastown at 1 West Cordova Street in Vancouver and say hi to Duran!

Here’s the scoop for the Palace in Calgary according to Jocelin – apparently they have a 150 seat restaurant called Wild Fire. The rest of the club will have a 1200 person capacity, 600 on the first floor and the rest for the two upper floors. It’s going to be huge! The Calgary Flames are involved and I’m totally looking forward to this new venue on 8th Avenue. Keep your eyes peeled.

Palace Night Club – slated to open in November, 2006
Capacity: at least 1200ppl
Location: 219 8th Avenue SW, Calgary

An absolutely lovely widget for Flickr:

Get your own Flickr widget here: http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/

Newsflash.. or rather I should say ADFLASH! Metro News, the Metro, whatever you want to call ‘em, we love them for the local coverage they provide of our events. The public transit riders in the city read the daily free newspaper intently since it sure beats conversing with the guy next to you, right? (Watch CityTV, Sunday the 17th, 11am for insight on that comment.)

So what gives?

Metro, apparently has decided to sink to new levels with their ad on the front page. Yup, Metro News (I use that term loosely) is no longer about the news, it’s about the ad. Maybe they should rename themselves to be Metro Ads.

I wonder how many people actually looked at Metro this morning and went, hmm.. no news today, just a bunch of fucking ads. Yup, no integrity.

Glenn Stevenson of Citytv in Calgary mentioned to me, a similar stunt that DOSE pulled in Calgary around the time close to their demise. Is this a telltale sign that Metro in Vancouver is going down the tubes?

Okay, well, that’s my rant for the day.

Serendipitiously, Poynter ran something which closely relates (albeit in the online world) in their roundup yesterday:

Poynter E-Media Tidbits – Sunday, September 10, 2006

Posted by Steffen Fjaervik 10:45:20 PM
Online Advertising Extravaganza in Norway

In Norway, several news sites are experimenting with new formats for advertising. Today’s online business model is not strong enough, so they want to try new strategies. How far are they willing to go?

Norwegian news site VG.net is experimenting with “wallpaper” ads as a backdrop to news.

Take a look at VG Nett from last Thursday (left). The blue ad for pills that surrounds the editorial text works as a kind of wallpaper ad, sure to get the attention that the company behind the pill would pay a lot for. My guess is that most journalists would accept this ad.

But what happens when you “crank it up to 11?”

… read the rest here: A110210

Name: Il Nido Cafe (Robson and Thurlow)
Location: 780 Thurlow Street, Vancouver, BC
Phone: (604) 685-6436

Alright, so Il Nido has recently launched a new menu. Hope they re-launched their front end staff as well since they totally suck.

I didn’t make it down for their “Sights and Tastes of Summer” fall menu launch party last Thursday and given the opportunity, I’d probably decline.

As for my experience?

First and foremost, I suppose I should have known what was coming to me when, during the date with an ‘in the know’ girl last year, I was told that the restaurant has, on previous occasions been shut down for lack of hot water. Go figure, I guess you need hot water to CLEAN THE DISHES?! How someone could run a restaurant without such a necessary resource baffles me. Sure, put the lives of your clientele on the line, would you like some Hepatitis C with your order, sir?
Anyhow, that’s not my bitch, here’s the deal:

• Il Nido’s staff couldn’t pour a drink if their life depended on it

I feel like drinking a 25 year old scotch, ask ‘em what they’ve got, the waitress returns to the table with some 12 year old shit. What gives?

Okay, in all fairness to the waitress, she could hardly speak English which brings me to the next point…

• At Il Nido, ESL seems to be a prerequisite

So, this is supposed to be ‘inventive Italian dining’, right? So it’s acceptable if the staff there are going to speak a bit of Italian – that’s authentic but when the waitress asks if I’d like some p… pp.. *stutter* ‘poivre’ with my food? What’s worse is our ‘gracious host’ (yeah right) didn’t even bother to understand the finer points of the language (like more water please) and looked at me like I was some numbskull until I started making requests in French.

I have a bunch of other gripes but these two stuck out and for the sake of keeping things simple, I’ll leave it at that for now.

So what about alternates?

Decent food in the area is really easy to come by. There’s the obvious, Joe Fortes or The Keg. There’s the izakaya and Brazilian place downstairs a block away… there’s event Saltlik which at least has decent eye candy (food’s just okay, you’re paying for over-priced Earl’s but that’s a whole seperate rant).