Blogs, Vancouver IAM Daily Blog Report: Honouring James Barber, Rib Injury Keeps Luongo Out, Canadian Immig


by ANDREW RIDEOUT - Date: 2007-12-11 - Word Count: 917 Share This!

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This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from VancouverIAM where you will find the best blogs from Vancouver, BC as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring

Sanford Starts, Canucks Lose

Our blogger over at Canucks Hockey Blog was surprised by back-up goalie Curtis Sanford starting for the Canucks, but their loss to the Kings last night (4-2) can’t be blamed on him, as he didn’t get much help from the rest of the team. Playing their fourth game in six nights took its toll on Vancouver. “They came out flat, and by the ten-minute mark of the first period, they had less shots than the Kings had goals.” They didn’t improve as the game progressed. Brendan Morrison was benched for a lot of the latter part of the game. “Lukas Krajicek had an off-game. So did Mattias Ohlund and Sami Salo.” The Sedins and Naslund fared better, but couldn’t generate many scoring chances.

Matters weren’t helped by “Roberto Luongo [proclaiming] himself not well enough to play during the warmups.” Our blogger reveals in his post that Luongo has actually been injured with a rib injury for about a week now, “after the Vancouver Canucks maintained for two days that their star goaltender was not injured.” Our blogger can’t remember another time when Luongo was injured enough not to play. “It's been injured since last Sunday in Minnesota,” said Luongo after Sanford was rushed in to play. Luongo is unsure how soon he'll return to his National Hockey League team's lineup.

Immigrants Quick to Purchase Homes

According to a recent post on Chinese in Vancouver, over half of new immigrants to Canada have purchased a home and “did so, on average, within three years of arriving in the country, according to a new study by Genworth Financial Canada.” Genworth’s First-Time Homebuyer Monitor reveals a strong desire by immigrants to own their own home. Over 90% say that “purchasing a home is either very or somewhat important to them.” This desire appears to be widespread among new immigrants “polled in Toronto,
Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa-Gatineau who have come to Canada within the last 10 years.”

The post also states that some academic studies strongly suggest immigrants place a higher importance on homeownership than native-born Canadians, and that they “have additional incentives for ownership, such as demonstrating success and permanency to themselves and others.” There are “unique challenges” facing immigrants when purchasing a home, which include a lack of credit history, lack of information about financing options, and “finding a job in Canada that suits the level of education they attained in their country of origin.” Many also find it difficult to get information about financing a home purchase in “a language that is easy for them to understand.”

Translink Behind the Times

Stephen Rees blogs about Vancouver’s need to adopt a plan similar to Ottawa’s joining with transit agencies in Greater Toronto to “make smartcard technology a reality by 2010.” According to the Ottawa Business Journal, “with their contactless, automated fare system developed with the Government of Ontario – the project will result in ‘significant savings’ to the City of Ottawa.” During the Transit Camp last weekend, such a payment system was strongly discussed. However, Vancouver doesn’t have such a system  because “none of the financial institutions has shown any interest in small denomination transactions.” Not that Translink and its predecessors haven’t tried in the past to get something going.

According to Rees’s post, Vancouver’s big banks see no reason to get involved. “It is far too easy for them to keep on making huge profits doing what they do now… [lending] out money at high rates that they have borrowed very cheaply - or even charged people for looking after.” Rees points out that larger cities with larger “mode share” on transit, thus a bigger market, has the ticket machine manufacturers falling over themselves to “sell them fare systems.” Other merchants see cashless payments, such as reloadable gift cards, “a way to retain customer loyalty.” There’s a lot Canada needs to do to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of card technology, including embedded chips and proximity readers.

Blogger Honours James Barber

Don Genova’s Blog pays homage to beloved BC Chef James Barber, who died in late November at age 84 in his Vancouver Island home. Known as “The Urban Peasanst” Barber published many successful cookbooks that promoted “one pot wonder” recipes. Genova has posted a unpublished podcast of an interview he did with Barber, who “spent quite a bit of time talking about his earlier years in England and France and how he ended up being a restaurant reviewer and cookbook author.” 

Readers and fans can hear the podcast or audio file for the first time on Genova’s blog. He also encourages others to visit his post and “pay tribute to James” or go to Barber’s own website, “where your thoughts are also being accepted.”  Barber was considered “a mentor, colleague, neighbour and friend” of Genova.

About VancouverIAM

VancouverIAM is part of a groundbreaking network of city-focused blog aggregation, user generated media and social networking websites currently rolling out across North America. Each IAM website filters and organizes blog content as well as offering video upload capabilities, social networking, blog authoring, favourites lists and rumours. The IAM Network is a division of SoMedia Networks Inc which also operates Inveslogic.com, Greenedia.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com. For more information or to register an account, visit VancouverIAM.com.


Related Tags: vancouver blogs, vancouver bloggers, vancouver news, roberto luongo, translink, james barber

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