Summer is a great time to be alive. It’s the season of outdoor concerts and camping trips, the season of hiking and biking, the season of patios, porches and decks, the season of blockbuster movies in air conditioned theaters, the season of ice cream and slurpies, hammocks, novels, cool showers and afternoon naps. All little things maybe, but they add up to something big.
To help you get the most of your summer I’ve put together a list of summer Web sites.
The Gorge at George – www.hob.com/venues/concerts/gorge/
If you’ve never been to a concert at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington state, then get there – it truly is one of the greatest outdoor music venues in the world. This year’s lineup includes the Curiosa Tour with The Cure, Interpol Rapture, Mogwai and others; The (Grateful) Dead with the Allman Brothers Band, The Van’s Warped Tour with about 30 different groups including NoFX, New Found Glory and Guttermouth; the Dave Matthews Band; and Jack Johnson with G. Love and Special Sauce.
The Plaza of Nations – www.plazaofnations.com
Not a lot of events are posted on the Plaza of Nations Web site just yet, aside from the second annual Camp Moomba Yogathon, but stay tuned because this outdoor venue in downtown Vancouver always pulls in a few amazing acts over the course of a summer.
Thunderbird Stadium – www.upcoming.org/venue/2515
Thunderbird Stadium is a little bigger than the Plaza of Nations and draws some bigger acts to Vancouver. The only event on the list is the Vans Warped Tour on July 13, but the listings should fill out in the next few weeks.
B.C. Parks – http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/
It’s not the most memorable Web address, but bookmark this site anyway because it’s a great place to start planning your B.C. outdoor adventures for the summer. There are currently 817 provincial parks, recreation areas and ecological reserves in the province, and this site is your key to all of them with directions, lists of amenities and things to do, and an online reservation centre to book your campsite or trail spot in advance.
Fahrenheit 9/11 – www.fahrenheit911.com
While there are lots of reasons to get excited about Spider-Man 2, King Arthur and a lot of other summer movies this year, the one film everyone is talking about is Michael Moore’s controversial pseudo-documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. According to Fandango.com, an online ticket service, Moore’s film accounted for almost half of all advance ticket sales. In comparison, advance tickets to Spider-Man 2 only accounted for nine per cent of sales.
This could well be the biggest movie of the summer.
Make your own ice cream – www.kidsturncentral.com/links/icecreamrecipes.htm
There’s nothing like going out for two scoops of your favourite flavours in a waffle cone, unless it’s eating some ice cream you made yourself at home. If you have little kids that need to be kept busy or some free time you might want to follow the links on this page and try making a batch of homemade ice cream. It’s not as hard – or as messy – as it sounds.
World Cup of Hockey – www.wch2004.com
Baseball is okay sometimes and I like to watch a good car crash now and then, but otherwise summer sports generally suck. Except for this year when Team Canada takes on the world in the World Cup of Hockey from Aug. 30 to Sept. 14. Tell me you’re not already excited.
Although it’s still a few months away, the Web site is chock full of articles, stats and other tidbits that no diehard hockey fan wants to be without. Pray for rain or move your television outside because you’re not going to want to miss a second.
Summer Olympics 2004 – www.athens2004.com
Did I say summer sports were boring? Not this summer, as the world turns to Athens from Aug. 13 to 29 for the Olympic Games and Sept. 17-28 for the Paralympic Games. You can follow all of the action on this Web site and just about every other news or sports page on the Web. You know you’re going to be sucked in, so don’t make any plans that take you too far away from a television.
Crankworx Freeride Mountain Bike Festival – www.cranworx.com
From July 22 to 25, Whistler will be all about Cranworx with an outdoor concert series, movie premieres, pro rider demos, and five awesome competitions in the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, including the Air Downhill, the Boneyard Biker X, Garbanzo Downhill, Slopestyle Expression Session and B.C. Downhill Championships.
Hotmail goes big
In an effort to compete with Google’s plans to offer customers a full gigabyte of storage through its G-Mail service, Microsoft has announced plans to increase Hotmail storage capacity from its current 2MB to 250MB, starting sometime in July. While that’s still only 25 per cent of the storage being offered by Google, Microsoft is betting that people won’t want to alter their longstanding e-mail addresses, like the Hotmail interface and the free McAfee virus scanning of all files, are generally lazy and fear change. Still, it’s not a bad deal – 250MB is a huge amount of storage.
Microsoft has upped the ante for their paid Hotmail Plus subscribers as well, offering them the ability to send attachments as large as 20MB. That’s a huge plus for business customers that like the portability of a Web-based e-mail account.
