Gravekeeper

[stephenr]

That was crazy. I am glad you are okay.

[monolayth]

But how will they order pants????


Glad you are safe and sorry this had to happen.

[Gibbo]

Glad you're safe. Definitely thought about you last night while I was at work. I'm afraid of this happening in Buffalo. Not because we lose, since that happens all the time, but when we finally win the Stanley Cup

I thought that it was just an epic display of being sore losers but from what Gravekeeper says it sounds like that they were planning to do this regardless of whether the Canucks won or lost.

[Gravekeeper]

I thought that it was just an epic display of being sore losers but from what Gravekeeper says it sounds like that they were planning to do this regardless of whether the Canucks won or lost.

Pretty much. CTV had a crew on the ground moving through the streets and here and there you could see the black mask types with molotovs or fire extinguishers just there to start shit. They knew exactly what they were doing ( At one point they were covering the looting by using the fire extinguishers to smoke up the store entrances so cameras couldn't see them ). One of them ran up to the crew and starting yelling "BEHOLD THE FORNICATION".

So, yeah, frankly nothing to do with the actual hockey game. Just fuck heads rousing shit up into a mob and stupid, young drunk fuckheads thinking its cool to hang out in the chaos and gangsta pose in front of burning cars.

Only upside to it is the 75% of the crowd was just hanging out to gawk with camera phones. We should have the whole lot of em pretty quick at the rate they're being ID'd by the Facebook and Tumblr groups. Though it really helps that half of these fucking morons posted what they were doing on Facebook.

Just stupid, stupid fucking people. I haven't even seen them ID a single person from Vancouver yet either. They're all from out of town/province/country that drove in so far. So what do they care? They can just drive home afterwards and leave the mess for us to clean up.

Fucking. Morons. ><

[teh_blumchenkinder]

Think of it more like... 'the people who only hear "Vancouver is full of hooligans" aren't likely to move there.' Thus, theoretically, fewer fucktards.

(logic... )
Glad to hear you're alright. Do you still get paid, even though riots caused you not to go into work?

[fireheart]

But how will they order pants????

I believe that's Nunavut not Vancouver. So pants and other pink camo can still be ordered...

[El Pollo Guerrera]

Glad to hear that GK is all right.

Anything else I'd want to say would probably fall under Fratching.

[Chromatix]

In other news, earlier this week some idiot set fire to a signalling equipment cabinet, thus disabling about a mile or two worth of signals on the main line. They're still fixing it, but an "anachist group on the internet" has apparently claimed responsibility.

There's anarchism, and there's psychopathy... and there's a big difference between the two.

The trains are still getting through, but they have to stop at the blacked-out signals and radio for permission to continue. The railway has switched to an emergency timetable to simplify matters.

The newspapers made much of the fact that, just a couple of days later, the idiot who did exactly the same thing to exactly the same equipment cabinet last year... got sentenced in court. Among the punishments are several hundred thousand euros of damages to pay.

[Sapphire Silk]

I believe that's Nunavut not Vancouver. So pants and other pink camo can still be ordered...

Yes, but the Nunavut pants freaks order from GK . . . who works in Vancouver.

So the question is still relevant.

How will they order pants?

I predict GK's next post will be littered with numbnuts freaking out because they

1) couldn't order pants
2) have to make up for lost time ordering pants
3) blame it all on GK instead of the anarchists
4) need those pants in pink camo for the next planned riot after a sporting event.

[Victoria J]

Think of it more like... 'the people who only hear "Vancouver is full of hooligans" aren't likely to move there.' Thus, theoretically, fewer fucktards.

I agree. Only idiots will think this reflects badly on the whole city.

Anyway pretty much everywhere has had stupid riots and troubles at some point. Many people are idiots. They don't (sadly in some ways) congregate in any specific place, they walk among us. When you add in the more justifiably angry people of the world having riots for actual reasons, that's a lot of rioting.

I once lived in an estate - a group of tower blocks, mainly low income housing - where there was apparently a riot. I was in that day, lived on the ground floor with floor to ceiling windows in one room. Didn't even know there was a riot Also a friend of mine once accidentally walked into a riot.

Police ended up reading the Riot Act. Which I should point out is a life sentence in Canada if you do not comply within 30 minutes. As it is a direct order on behalf of the Queen. We don't fark around when it comes to proper manners.

I'd completely forget until a couple of weeks ago that "reading the riot act" was literal.

I visited Glasgow recently, which for a grand city oddly has no guide books but we did find some rather nice free leaflet "heritage trails" for some places. One for the main square told of Glasgow's "“Bloody Friday”, 31 January 1919". A union protest that the police charged with batons, leading to them inciting the riots they were claiming to be stopping. Things got bad and they read the riot act.

Well they tried to. The protesters took the act and ripped it up

I love this. It both covers everything I particularly admire about Glasgow and is fine example of the kind of thinking of the people there and is my new ambition. However I only want to do it if the riot in question is purposeful, idiots after a sporting event would hardly be the same.

Anyway good luck to your city with the aftermath. I don't know whether to hope that somewhere in Nunavut a small town survived the horror of not being able to order fashion disaster hats and pants in the early hours of the morning. Or for your sake that they didn't.

Victoria J

[Geek King]

In other news, earlier this week some idiot set fire to a signalling equipment cabinet, thus disabling about a mile or two worth of signals on the main line. They're still fixing it, but an "anachist group on the internet" has apparently claimed responsibility.

I always found it funny that several so-called anarchists, when I asked what if me and my buddies decided we wanted his wallet, said they'd call the cops.

Also: Have you ever noticed that people calling for anarchy always think they'll be one of the ones to come out on top? Particularly when they look like they wouldn't survive a cage match with a kindergartner?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Tee hee, this guy took a flash grenade to the cherries.

He probably needs pants now. Among other things.

[DeltaSierra]

Gravekeeper is correct in that this was all premediated. Cops actually stopped some people and found moltov cocktails/balaclavas in their backpacks, but of course they weren't able to get them all.

My brother was downtown, 50' from the big screen when everything happened - they started throwing bottles and shit at the screen, then somebody lit a teddy bear and threw it into the crowd, then the anarchists started to thrash the truck they had brought there for that very purpose and set it afire. Before the fire started, my brother and his friends said "WOAH - lets get the frak out of here!!" and were going to head to the skytrain and leave, when one of his friends stepped back wrong off the sidewalk curb and sprained his ankle. He couldn't walk, so my brother and his friends carried the guy to the protection of a store awning, and decided to wait it out (they weren't gonna get separated). Well cops start lobbing tear gas, so there was nothing they could do but pull their shirts over their faces and huddle and wait until the throng passed. They got the injured guy over to St Paul's, my bro hightailed it back to the skytrain to get home, and then spent a good hour in the shower trying to wash away the burning from the tear gas. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was in Vancouver yesterday, and had to catch a bus outside the Hudson Bay Co where all the windows had been smashed up and looting occured. The outpouring of support from the whole lower mainland was unreal - people from toddlers to senior citizens were cleaning everything up, and all the boarded up windows had comments written on them supporting Vancouver, and decrying the violence. I was only able to snap a few pics with my cell before my bus arrived, but here they are:

[Gravekeeper]

Tee hee, this guy took a flash grenade to the cherries.

I saw that the other morning and I laughed. It was a dark and bitter noise.

I was in Vancouver yesterday, and had to catch a bus outside the Hudson Bay Co where all the windows had been smashed up and looting occured. The outpouring of support from the whole lower mainland was unreal

17,000 people voluntarily showed up downtown to clean up, and yeah, every square inch of plywood ( on every store too, not just the Bay ) was signed with written messages. Was nice to see. I was reading them this morning and one gave me a chuckle: "Good news is no books were stolen from Chapters!". Yeah, I don't think literacy was high on the list of priorities for the fuckheads outside the other night. I saw them break a few of Chapter's windows, but no one cared to loot it.

[Jester]

When I first heard the news this morning*, it was from my head chef, and he basically told me "they rioted in the streets in Vancouver after the game." And my immediate response to him was, "That's not very Canadian of them." And I remember how many times I have heard about the politeness of Canadians, from GK and others. And I was saddened.

That was before I read all the stories online and saw this thread and found out what actually went down.

*(I was incommunicado yesterday while on the road, and didn't even know the result of the game until I watched it on my DVR. Yeah, somehow I managed to get through one night in a bar after the concert, and four bars yesterday before we hit the road, at least one of them a sports bar and all of them with tv's and lots of people, without having anyone spoil the result of the game for me....so I did not know who won until I watched it last night from 2:00-3:30 am. And that is part of the reason I did not know a thing about the riots until this morning.)

17,000 people voluntarily showed up downtown to clean up...

THIS is the kind of behavior I think of as "Canadian." THIS is everything that is right about being a Canadian, and a Vancouverite (or whatever the word is for a resident of Vancouver).

That other stuff is garbage, and anyone involved in it should be ashamed of themselves. Thank goodness they are not representative of your city, province, or country.