Patrick Koslo photo

Best electronics recycling

B.C. leads Canada in end-of-life electronics recycling. The Lower Mainland is recycling the lion’s share, a whopping 49 percent of TVs, computer monitors, CPUs, printers, and fax machines. Vancouver Island checks in at 22 percent, the Okanagan at 13 percent, the Fraser Valley at 8.4 percent, the Kootenays at four percent, and northern B.C. at 3.6 percent, for a grand total of 11,033,284 kilograms of waste electronics collected between January and December 2008. The program—introduced by a nonprofit corporation made up of electronics suppliers and retailers and approved by the provincial Environment Ministry—is funded through environmental fees levied on electronics purchases. See the Web site ( www.electronicsrecyclingbc.ca ) for Return-It Electronics drop-off locations.

Best Vancouver related iPhone app

Although it was only useful for a limited time, the Vancouver International Jazz Festival application released this year by XOMO Digital is the finest Vancouver-related app to grace the iPhone thus far. The app contains everything from schedules and ticket prices to venue maps and comprehensive artist biographies. The best part? It’s free to download. Hopefully, the app will become an annual release with each subsequent festival. Although TransLink’s iPhone app would have been a contender, the poor execution and lack of key functions like trip planning mean it’s nothing more than a glorified bus schedule. Other local apps are mainly map-based, showing the nearest coffee shops or just straight-up maps of Metro Vancouver, and most of these cost a buck or two.

Best advocate for bridging the digital divide

Grand Chief Edward John is known as the champion of bringing Internet technology to First Nations communities in British Columbia. A member of the Tl’azt’en Nation, John learned a decade or so ago that his northern community wasn’t the only reserve lacking the high-speed access many British Columbians take for granted. Since then, the First Nations Summit executive, who lives in Vancouver, has been a persistent advocate for bridging the digital divide, working to increase the availability of broadband, computers, technical support, and user skills in First Nations communities. Today, 123 out of the 203 First Nations in B.C. have high-speed connectivity, and the provincial government’s goal is to see 190 First Nations with broadband by the 2011–12 fiscal year. “You know, any time technology comes along, we seem to get—our communities seem to get—left behind,” John told the Straight in June. “But we don’t want to be left behind.”

Best inclusion of Vancouver in a video game

Vancouver has its fair share of game developers, so it’s only natural that the city pops up in video-game form. Various sports games have featured Vancouver as a playable team, and GM Place has even made an appearance a few times. However, the best use of Vancouver in a video game has to be in the Skate series, which is developed in Vancouver by Electronic Arts. The games’ skateboarding metropolis is San Vanelona, which derives its name from San Francisco, Vancouver, and Barcelona because different aspects of it are based on those cities. Vancouver’s influence is seen in the architecture of the downtown core. The tall glass buildings found in the games’ city centre are sure to give Vancouver players a definite sense of déjí  vu. There’s even a B.C. Place Stadium–like arena (sans deflating roof).

Most ominous locally produced bad omen

EA Sports’ NHL game cover

Burnaby might seem like a well-groomed bedroom suburb, but don’t be fooled: there is a darkness there, on the Electronic Arts campus. How else to explain the NHL video-game-cover curse, which rivals the Sports Illustrated cover jinx as a portent of athletic doom? We submit the following for your evaluation: 1998’s Peter Forsberg (only one more healthy season), 1999’s Eric Lindros (collapsed lung), 2000’s Chris Pronger (injured; missed 31 games), 2002’s Mario Lemieux (injured), 2004’s Dany Heatley (vehicular homicide), 2005’s Markus Naslund (steep production decline following the Steve Moore incident). The latest cover boy is Patrick Kane, who, perhaps inevitably, recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.