Vodka, slurpees, a waterfight, and a stripper pole

There is a web site out there that lets you review local businesses; it's called Yelp (Canadian and UK versions are available). While I was interning at Google, Guido joined the site and told me that when he signed up the founders added him as friends since they use Python. As I had been looking for a site to post restaurant reviews in Vancouver and Yelp had the best listing of restaurants (most sites lacked a large portion of restaurant listings), I joined as well.

I then subsequently began to post reviews. While in SF I posted a couple, but didn't make it a habit. But upon returning to Vancouver I made an effort to post a review every time I ate at a restaurant. I caught the eye of someone named Crystal who was active in the local Yelp community here in Vancouver. She's so active, in fact, she became the new community manager for Yelp in Metro Vancouver two months ago. And when Crystal became community manager, Vancouver gained a Yelp Elite Squad, which I became a member of early last month just before the group's first event.

The great thing about being a part of the Yelp Elite is your local community manager organizes some free event every month. This month it was to attend the flash mob waterfight in Stanley Park. I went to this the first year it was held in Vancouver two years ago and had a blast, so I didn't pass up my opportunity to go again this year (I missed last year for some reason).

It started with us being picked up by a party bus right off the Burrard Bridge. We were then taken to three different 7-Elevens for free mini slurpees with vodka tossed in for those who desired it. My first slurpee was lime with vodka, the second one was a virgin orange. But I only partially got through my second slurpee because the vodka and sugar did not do great things to my stomach. Luckily someone thought to buy some chips that help settle my stomach.

We then hit the waterfight, and like the first year I went I just ran in guns blazing! I of course got soaked head to toe, all while having great fun. Couple hundred people turned out and all behaved themselves when it came to innocent bystanders. Did that for about half an hour and then headed back to the beach on the party bus.

But on the way back we made sure we took full advantage of our party bus. If you follow the link above for the bus you will notice that there is a stripper pole at the back of it. On the drive out of the park, Crystal tried to get the two other guys on the bus to dance on the pole as they were already sitting there with their shirts off. They said they were going to go for it, but didn't commit, so I said, "you pussies", and hopped on the pole and did a little dance. Now having all of our stuff sitting back there on top of my being taller than one could stand, it wasn't too much of a show, but it was enough to get me a Yelp shot glass full of vanilla vodka. After I broke the ice one of the guys finally went up. We then had two girls go at it together twice. That pair then had me join them and then later another girl on the bus. And when we finally stopped at our final destination I attempted one stripper pole move which I pulled off, and one I couldn't attempt because of a lack of upper body strength and general ceiling clearance. I actually did the one I could do twice because I got requests for photos, but that's when I learned why men typically don't pole dance.

Afterwards we went to Burrard Bridge for drinks. And from there I came home, showered, and took a nap. Overall it was a great day! And before anyone asks for photos, plenty were taken and will end up on the Yelp Vancouver Flickr collection sometime in the near future.