If you were looking forward to photos from the fireworks, WRONG.

The Vancouver Celebration of Light, or more commonly referred to as “The Fireworks” in Vancouver, has been an annual event for as long as I’ve lived in the Metropolitan Vancouver area. I think it’s been going on before I moved to this place.

When I was younger I was a great fan of this event, as this gave us a great excuse to be downtown late at night among thousands of people (and this was quite a nice contract to the small town called Tsawwassen, which is the shithole town in which I went to highschool). We would take the #601 Bus, ride it out to downtown Vancouver, run down Davie Street and hit English Bay, and watch the frenzy of lights in the sky.

Each year there are 4 fireworks - Wednesday/Saturday/Wednesday/Saturday is the 2 week cycle by which it runs, and most of the years I went at least twice a year. I think there was one year when I went to all 4 of them! However since last year (I went just once last year) I’ve grown sick of them. It’s too crowded, and they’re only fireworks. I don’t watch TV because I don’t care for any more drama and craziness in my life (I’m busy enough with business and work), and I’ve been around the world a lot through different continents and cultures. Why the hell would some exploding dust-balls of nitrogen and sulphur mixed with odd metals such as copper and zinc and beyond entertain me so much? Not at all.

If anything, The Fireworks has become a time of craziness where the downtown traffic is more or less paralyzed, all the parking spots are taken (not that I need to drive to it - I live downtown), too many people get on the streets and litter, and the sight of all these wanna-be suburbia trash donning beers and mickeys of vodka just makes me laugh. Now that I think of it, I was the “wanna-be suburbia trash donning beers and mickeys of vodka” stereotype when I was going to highschool in that small isolated town, but it doesn’t matter anymore.

In any case. I’m sick of this, and Vancouver needs a better event that excites people. This tradition has gone long enough. The only reason this attracts people at 5 figures each year is because there’s not much special that happens in Vancouver. I wouldn’t call it a boring city - it’s got its beauties and fun nightlife, but in terms of events and celebrations, it’s been relying on the same thing for way too long.

Last Saturday, I had lunch with John Chow and a bunch of other guys. Rainer Schmoll of ThinkReferrals, as well as Gary Jones of Bluefur Hosting was there (Gary was hosting the lunch.. thanks for lunch Gary!).

It was an interesting lunch, and during that, John and I discussed the importance of having decent, and well-filtered links on our blogrolls in order to achieve better pagerank and credibility. For more details of the food (John is quite into food and what not), view John’s review of the lunch.

In case you did not know, John Chow is one of the big blogger guys who have a lot of experience in the internet world, and also makes the money to back it up.

Gary Jones from Bluefur Hosting is the owner of the company, and provides what I have experienced as the best web hosting service. I get a solid backend, reliable servers. My website is hosted their, and so are all my clients’.

On Sunday I went to the Vancouver Franchise Show, which is a convention/exhibition of a variety of franchise opportunities of all sorts. While I am definitely NOT in the market to get involved in any kind of a franchise, I was quite interested in what’s out there anyhow, so I ventured out there with my friend Kris. We had a 2-for-1 entry coupon so it costs both of us $8 Canadian (the parking cost $12 for 1.5 hours though!!!).

Once inside we were surrounded by booths after booths of interesting franchises. While many of them were ideas that have been overdone already, many of the franchise opportunities were proven to be strong and continues to be effective (although very boring to me). So I decided to pick the top 3 franchises that I thought were innovative, and had potential with a great concept in mind! (My friend Kris, however, was most fascinated by candie machines and mini vending machine ideas - practical and profitable, but definitely not too interesting for a techie guy like me).

3. Niko Video (www.nikovideo.com)

Niko Video is a franchise offering an automated DVD rental system that allows you to rend DVDs through a machine. You browse through movies on a screen, pick it, and a robotic arm grabs it and dispenses it for you.

Key Features :

• Open 24 hours a day - it’s essentially a vending machine. No man-power needed, 24 hours access.
• Online/Onsite reservation possible. Through the unique interface that is fully computerized, you can book videos online on their website or at the machine, and grab it when it is available.
• Requires smaller space for operation, which saves on lease costs.

(more…)