The Games They Play Causes My Head to Shake

The Olympics are almost upon us.  I am getting in shape – dodging requests to stay with me by strangers.  I actually had someone I barely knew (met them at a meeting in Quebec City years ago) email me and ask me if they could stay with me for the Olympics.  Oh, if I had a dollar for everytime I’ve been asked that in the last two months.  The answer is NO!  If I don’t know you and we don’t have some level of friendship you are not staying at my house unless you pay me lots of money as you obviously see me as a hotel.

While we’re on our Olympics rant…let’s talk transportation.  From the beginning we were told that we would have to take public transportation (of course the system that already sucks and has no room at the best of times would be the backbone) in order to get around the city.  They even built an amazingly expensive train to the airport which opened “just in time” for all those Olympics visitors.  I guess that it’s not just the public who hate the taxi drivers and the taxi industry – Mr. Campbell obviously does too.  In pushing the green agenda, they have cancelled the bus that runs by my house and is convenient to getting to a part of town that one can’t get to otherwise.  Oh well, those businesses don’t need my business during the Olympics.

I have tickets to a 10am event at Whistler.  This means I have to be on a bus at 5:05 am (have to be there three hours early so I can get through security, which means I have to be at the bus stop (not downtown, not anywhere I can walk to, not even by the bus station) at 49th and Cambie half an hour before that.  There is NO way I can do that using public transportation at that hour (first train from my house is 5:05 am), on top of that, the taxi that might drop me off there, won’t be able to get anywhere close to the destination as they seem to be relegated to areas outside the “Olympic zones”.

For anyone going to Cypress “surprise surprise surprise” – it was revealed today that people taking that bus will have quite a hike to walk.  It turns out the bus will drop you off 2km from the event site.  It’s funny that Vanoc couldn’t tell anyone this before they bought the tickets.  Had I been looking for tickets, it definitely would have influenced my decision, especially if I was in some way mobility impaired.  Up until now, all the information made one believe that you would be dropped off close to where you needed to be (not 2km away).

While we’re on the subject of “misinformation” need I mention the word “hockey house”.  The cost to get in there is $500/day.  Well, I guess they weren’t selling enough tickets so they introduced a special price ticket for $99 – making you believe you were going to have access to all.  Several days after these went on sale it was revealed that “surprise surprise surprise” these tickets were only good for the days that the women played.  Not when the men played.  This was beyond outrageous.

Canada has all kinds of rules and laws, and now we are changing the BC laws to make it convenient for people from other countries.  After all but banning smoking in BC and bragging about the health benefits etc, and how green we are in all ways – it was announced that there will be smoke pits at the Olympic events.  We can’t ban smoking.  Why not?  It’s our law.  Why can’t we ask people to respect our laws?  I shake my head.  Of course the VIP’s will get special access to half the smoke pits and won’t have to do things like go through security again after having a puff.  Everyone else (not rich or connected) will have to line up again and go through security again.  I don’t smoke, so it’s not an issue, but I just think it’s ridiculous.

Now that my head is about to explode, I come to my favourite rule.  They are going to confiscate any/all cameras that have a built in flash.  So now I can’t take my “good” camera to Whistler because it has a built in flash which I never use at events like this.  I don’t think I can even take my pocket camera as it also has a flash.  When I think about it, the only cameras that don’t have a flash attached are those from years ago.

I’m sure that as time goes on we’ll learn more because the powers that be have been less than honest up to this point.

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