• Actress JoAnne Worley fulfilled her The Drowsy Chaperone obligations and made a "special appearance" at J&R Music and Computer World yesterday. We love you Worley, but you look like a drag queen in this picture.

• Preliminary investigation begins for Larry Craig ethics hearing. Barbara Boxer says:

We are in the process of conducting a preliminary inquiry, and this stage is always closed to the public. If, at the end of the preliminary inquiry, the Ethics Committee decides to move into the adjudicatory phase, any hearings held would be public unless the committee votes to close them. But that is a decision that is made after we have completed our preliminary inquiry.

The Democrats are also reportedly worried public hearings will set a potentially embarrassing precedent.

• More evidence of Jossip editor Rebecca Aronauer's jerky ways.

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Homos the world over came together this weekend to celebrate the first annual Global Gay Solidarity Day.

American activist Michael Petrelis tells us that America, Canada, Mexico and Poland all saw activists come together to commemorate lost comrades and form a symbolic phalanx against homo-haters.

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Daytime brought us some new views of Vancouver that didn't involve a man girating around under a stream of water (thank goodness!), and of course we devoted an afternoon to wandering around Davie St., the center of Vancouver's "gay village" (that's what they call the gay neighborhoods in Canada. We think it is cute and reminds us of Smurf Village for some reason).

We started with breakfast at the Elbow Room Cafe, where everyone flocks not only for their pan-fried cinnabon buns, but also to be insulted by the waitstaff. When we were looking at the ketchup bottle to see if it contained corn sweetener, the waitress smirked at us and said, "It's ketchup honey. What, you don't have one of those back at your trailer? You've only ever seen those squeezy bottles?" Later she playfully berated a foreign woman for not getting her own coffee, which is one of the house rules. We posted them all after the jump if you're curious.

Next stop was the legendary Little Sister's bookstore, which was embroiled in a legal battle with the Canadian government a few years back over importation of "obscene" materials. Most of the smut they sell is imported from the U.S., and Canadian customs was confiscating some of it! We won't ask what they did with it if they don't tell. Little Sister's has an ample selection of fiction, self-help, and art books, and also a nice rack of vintage porn mags, but we were most excited about finally getting to flip through this book. We haven't laughed so hard in recent memory.

We had another nice shopping moment when we discovered this rack at a vintage store on Davie Street:

After a little research, we discovered that yes, the hanky code is still alive and well in at least one Vancouver gay bar. Most of the bars and clubs are also located in the neighborhood, so you can have a very homosexual day and night and only walk a few blocks. See a couple more photos of the Elbow Room after the jump.

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While Calgary was a charming city (and by charming, we mean creepily conservative and unwelcoming), we had to push on to Canada's shining western jewel, and the last stop on our road trip: Vancouver. It's a city that has it all: beaches, mountains for hiking, shopping, restaurants, and lots of hideous, expensive condos clogging up the otherwise beautiful waterfront. Since it was Thursday night, we were happy to be there instead of say, Saskatoon, because we knew that there was fun to be found.

After a false start at a club called Shine in historic Gastown (and by "false start" we mean a club full of straight frat boys dancing ironically to the Eurhythmics), we ended up at Odyssey for their Shower Thursdays, which involves the not-entirely-original concept of a live man "bathing" in an installed shower for drooling homo spectators. Odyssey also has a large patio out back, but we could not check it out because there was a huge line of smokers waiting to get a puff outside, and unlike real Canadians, we cannot abide waiting in line, especially for anything nightlife related. We would rather sit at home and watch Top Model. Actually we would rather watch Top Model than even go out to a club at all, so maybe that's a bad comparison.

Nevertheless we had a good time at Odyssey in the spirit of travel. The music was good, the place was packed, and the shower experience was larger than life. See what we mean after the jump [NSFW].

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