In the past few months, Vancouver is not longer a safe city. It has shooting after dark and in broad day light almost every day. It has become a war zone in the Gangster’s turf war. It is getting pretty bad when shootings happen on the street where you usually go to lunch or 2 blocks away from your friend’s house.
The Gangster turf war begins with US cracked down of Columbia drug lords last year. After the drug lords are gone, there is a sharply reduce in cocaine supply, so the price of drug on street goes sky high. Every gangster want to get a cut in the lucrative drug dealing business. Their strategy to gain more market share and secure drug supply is taking out the competitors, literally.
I have no objection the gangster killing each other, they are the scum of the society wants to get rid of anyways. However the gangster behave more like a gentleman when taking each other out. They should not go around shooting each other in the neighborhood when the victim is sleeping, eating or driving. Bullet has no eye. They may hurt innocent by-standers. They should they fight like a man in a duel, just like the old western movies. Maybe we can even host the gangster duel in a stadium and sell tickets of the event. I am sure this modern gladiator fight would be quite popular. We can get some good entertainment and get rid of half of the gangsters. Killing two birds with one stone.
Yesterday, Pat’s church choir held a hot pot dinner social gathering event. Although I am not part of the choir, I tagged along as the choir director’s husband and the choir side kick for putting away the microphone after mass every week. I shared a table with several guys from the choir. Most of them are still in university. I almost a decade older than them and I afraid I may have generation gap with them. At the end, I mixed pretty well with them without feeling bored at all for the whole night. The topics of conversation is quite geeky, we talked about sci-fi TV series and movies. We had some in-depth discussion on the history of Firefly, Star Trek, Battle Star Galatica and Star Gates. We also talk about the latest development of Heros. To my surprise, the younger generation is less passionate about Star Wars than my generation. I guess the prequel really trashed the Star Wars brand by leaving a bad impression on those come to know it the first time.
I like watching sci-fi, but sometimes I feel like I am just wasting my time watching TV. It turns out those time I spent sitting in front of the TV is not wasted after all. Other than the enjoyment I get from watching the show per se, the useless trivial knowledge are handy conversation materials with acquaintances. Common interesting bonds people together. If I don’t have general knowledge on sci-fi TV culture, I will totally left out of the chat last night. The young guys may think I am just a weird middle age man.