The Elbow Room Cafe – Breakfast for Ladies Only…

On the corner of Davie and Richards, near the trendy Yaletown area of Downtown Vancouver, there’s a little breakfast joint hidden away amongst a million coffee shops and boutique stores. Stores that range from places that sell mens only skin care products, to places that only wash and blow dry your hair…no cutting. You’ll also find tons of women wearing Lululemon and men that didn’t get the memo about dudes being forbidden from wearing it (Hi Tyler!).

The Elbow Room Cafe is a well worn local eatery that specializes in breakfast all day and is home to clientelle ranging from your typical Yuppies to Movie Stars, and of course everyone in between. Strangely, it’s the product of an insurance adjuster and an ex-teacher. However, no matter who you are, you are not exempt from their unique style of abuse. Everyone is greeted at the door as a couple of ladies, though I’m pretty sure they mean it more when they are talking about Ed Lau, connoisseur of such things as the said mens skin care products in the previous paragraph. Want coffee? Get it yourself. Need service? They’ll be right with you…when they are done talking. If this offends you, Denny’s is on the other side of Burrard. I guess after all those years of abuse in insurance and teaching, this is pay back.

After partially recovering from a coma induced by Cleaning and Jerking for four hours, the previous day, I was in need of sustanance and ordered up the comforts of something called “The New Yorker” which consisted of two large poached eggs served over a mixture of mushrooms, onion, tomato, bacon and pepperoni in a spicy tomato-BBQ sauce. All of this is tossed on top of a couple of toasted croissants, with a nice ladel of hollandaise sauce to finish it off. Not only is it messy and sloppy, but it’s also a great cure for a hangover and wonderfully delicious in the most non-nutritious way.

Kelly had the “Hillary Swank” Omelet aka the “Don’t Make Me Cry”. I have no clue why but if you had to finish it, you’d cry because it’s absolutely enormous. Made of cream cheese, avocado, sauteed spinach and tomato, it destroys anything health beneficial by being absolutely gargantuan. This is followed by a side of generously buttered toast. If you toss in a few chocolate chip pancakes and three fried egg sandwhiches and they could call this the “Michael Phelps Breakfast“. There was enough stuff inside this one omelet to make two regular ones. Stingy on the service but not stingy on the food.

If you don’t finish your dish, not only do you get called a lady again and verbally abused, but you’ll also get charged a couple of extra dollars on your bill that goes directly to feeding the less fortunate that are afflicted with AIDS. Mean to you. Good to the people that need it.

If you’re looking for someone to suck ass for a tip, then turn around and leave. This ain’t no IHOP. But if you’re looking for a place that’s different, that has some great comfort food plus some very charismatic servers, and you don’t mind getting your own coffee, then check out the Elbow Room Cafe next time you’re in the Vancouver area.

Five Reasons Why It’s Hard to Hate Starbucks

Lately, my favourite place to hang out and do work isn’t in my office. Despite the fact that it has everything that I need and more, I seem to have found myself gravitating to the busier atmosphere of the local coffee shop. I guess it gives me that bit of nostalgia, like I’m back in the rat race or something. I’ll grab my cup of “whatever I’m feeling like today” and spend at least a couple hours (or until the 6 hrs of battery on my ASUS U1F) hanging out and leaching off the WiFi, while listening to other people’s conversations like the lunch room gossip. I also tend tp spend money on high margin snacks while I’m there during that time frame since I’ve gotta eat when my brain is doing stuff.

I guess the evil coffee kingdom of Starbucks clued in on this work habit of hanging out longer and spending a few more dollars. Although I’m not a fan of Starbucks Coffee in general, opting for smaller, much cooler hang outs, the Seattle Java Giant has just made it harder to reject them and their burnt beans (though their light roast has improved lately). Starbucks recently launched a whole series of rewards tied directly to their gift cards. When you register your gift card at their website, you get to take advantage of a whole bunch of freebies which include…

• Free Beverage Customizations – If you want a flavour shot or a switch to soy in your beverage, it’s free when you use your Starbucks Gift Card to purchase the drink. Perfect for taking off the edge off the edge on those burnt beans.
• Free Refills on Brewed Coffee – When you purchase a brewed coffee with your Starbucks Gift Card, you get free refills on all brewed coffees. This includes iced or hot. This is good if you like their coffee, but when it’s cold and slightly watered down, it ain’t so bad. You can also go to town on milk and sugar if you have to. Since you’re downing that much coffee, you’ll need to have more snacks. So evil. I do wonder if the said perpetual fill ups work during your visit, or if you can just come back through out the day with your cup like we used to do in the good old days at MacDonalds.
• Free Tall Beverage With the Purchase of a Pound of Coffee – When you buy their burnt beans, you get a free tall drink of your choice. Just offer to buy beans for your buddies and cash in on a free drink if you don’t use their coffee. I’m sure a Hot Chocolate or something would be nice on a cold day.
• Two Hours of Free WiFi Every Day – Whether you purchase a drink or not, you’ll get free WiFi at any Starbucks with a Hot Spot. You get two hours each day by just by registering that gift card, which you should have done already to be able to get the above three things.

Finally, all of these bribes are available to you whether you are in the US or in Canada. Your gift card gets registered for North America and you’ll be able to leach off the WiFi in the US or in Canada. What I should do one day is login for two hours at a Canadian Starbucks, then cross the border and login for two hours in a US Starbucks to see if I can double dip on the Interwebs. The only catch is that your card must have a balance and you need to use it at least once a month. Since Starbucks seem to outnumber cool coffee shops with stable WiFi, it makes the ‘bucks, that much harder to ignore. Also, their Internet seems extremely fast at least at the locations that I’ve been too.

The only hitch that you may run into is that some locations may not be fully aware of these benefits. I went to the busy Pinetree Location in Coquitlam, and they had no clue that it was tied to their gift cards and tried to get me to sign up for their Duetto Credit Card. Also, not all stores have a WiFi HotSpot so make sure you look on the door before you sit down and enjoy that whatever you ordered. This is especially true of new locations. I went to the one beside the new Thrifty Foods in Port Moody near IOCO Road and they were FAIL on the Interwebs. Not to mention, not everyone reads the memos so if you get some part time dude or dudette, they might not know that you get all this free stuff and you might have to jump through a couple hoops initially.

Another thing I found out, for all you K-12 teachers, is that every Monday, you guys can grab a free coffee at any Starbucks in Canada, whether you use the card or not. I’m not sure if that applies to the educators of the young in the US, but I’m sure they get something similar. Though I do wonder if you get the pertual fill ups. Someone try that and let me know

It’s hard to reject Starbucks when they bribe you this much. If they’re throwing this much stuff out there free, I wonder what else they’ll toss at us to get us to not go to the cooler place down the street.

Three More Useful Scooter Accessories

My first Yamaha C3 Scooter modifications addressed some basic comfort and styling issues that were nagging me. Sticking to the non-warranty voiding modifications that don’t allow me to personally crack open the engine, I’ve done a few more small mods that offer some utility, safety, and fun.

This One’s For Kwanye The Segway Crasher

If Danger Prone Kwanye bites it today at Dot Com Scooter Gang like the poor guy did at Dot Com Segway, we’ll be well prepared. Because of the cavernous storage compartment in my Yamaha C3 Scooter, I can fit a whole ton of things in here. One of those things is this first aid kit that I picked up at MEC for $14.50. This kit gives you all the basics including rubber gloves so you can tend to your own wounds or the wounds of your wiped out comrades without catching cooties. The kit is small, flat, and waterproof so you don’t end up applying soggy bandages. Even if you don’t plan on spilling, you never know when someone else will.

The Dot Com Scooter Cam

There is no better way to capture the action than with a video camera. However, video cameras and digital cameras in general are expensive and running over them with a Segway or a Scooter isn’t a great way to take care of them. That’s why having a cheap and useful video camera in your reportoire like the Flip Mino is great for those times when you know (or don’t know) how much carnage may happen on a machine that is built to be crash proof. But how are you going to mount it so that someone can’t blame it for causing the Segway to crash? How about an UltraPod Mini!

Unlike the poor Manfrotto ModoPocket Mini Tripod that got bent in the Great Segway Crash of 2008, the Ultrapod Mini tripod features a pivoting head and legs that are folded down the center at 90 degrees for stiffness. They fold apart like a fan when in use, and fold together when you need to store it. The best features of this tripod is the attached velcro strap that not only helps the Ultrapod stay together for storage, but also allows you to secure it to a pole, structure, or in this case, the handlebars of my Yamaha C3 Scooter.

The mounting is very secure and you can tighten it quite snuggly with the velcro around the bars. Since the head mounts on a ball socket, I can pretty much move it wherever I want. It got this at MEC as well for $13.50. Not bad at all.

I Need NOS! Two Bottles!

How about one bottle and a straw?

One of the things that many scooters lack is a place to put a beverage. This handy beverage holder, originally made for things like JetSkis and other watercraft , is perfect for the less choppy waters of a scooter. Using a pair of suction cups, this thing sticks to any flat clean surface on your scooter. I chose to mount it down low to keep the center of gravity intact, but you can mount it up higher if you wish. It’s excellent for mounting a bottle of NOS (or two if you buy a second one for the other side) to help you race for those pink slips…NOT!

Stay tuned for the Dot Com Scooter Gang Video later today! Hopefully a camera survives to tell the tale.