DJs Techtard and Malificent join Jonny Vancouver to talk about Galaxion, a celebration of games, booze and 80′s tunes.

Just a little something I put together for Launch Party 7, a Vancouver event where startups strut their stuff for the tech community and VC types.

Which would be…me.

Boudoir party at Opus Hotel from Warren Frey on Vimeo.

Jonny Vancouver interviews Christian, the owner of Voltage, a store on South Main St. in Vancouver that specializes in cool vinyl toys, arty t-shirts, and general awesomeness. Shot on my HV20 and edited with Final Cut Studio.

East Van Podcast episode 5 from Warren Frey on Vimeo.

After 100 years of the affluent rushing to the suburbs, many major cities are experiencing a reversing trend, where young urban professionals opt for smaller living quarters, more densely packed living areas, and mixed-use communities. The New Republic has a decent article about this trend of “trading places” in their newest issue. Vancouver, where I live, has been on the forefront of this for a while now. Of course, what rarely gets mentioned is how damned expensive all this is….Vancouver is one example, but the best one would be Manhattan, where it’s virtually impossible to live or own a place without being a millionaire. Still, it’s an interesting read.

In this episode of the East Van Podcast, Jonny Vancouver interviews Bon, the owner and operator of Bon’s off Broadway, an East Van institution and a great place to go have breakfast when you’re hung over.

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Rogers has announced their data plans for the iPhone. It’s all there in their chart…no unlimited plan, 2 gigs of data for $115, and a lot of even worse plans with less data. I didn’t have time to write about this wrinkle when it came out, but others have covered it in my stead quite nicely. They’ve mounted a pretty weak defense for this push for the status quo, and given they announced the plans today it’s pretty sad that they’re already on the defensive. All I can say is there is NO way I’ll be getting a new iPhone with these rates in place. I’ll stick with my first gen iPhone, which has served me well using only wifi for my data.

Ok, so maybe it’s not THAT exciting. But according to a post on Howard Forums, the esteemed cell phone scuttlebutt site, Rogers will offer a $30 unlimited data plan ($45 for enterprise users) on the iPhone when it hits Canada on July 11th. Frankly, that sounds too good to be true, but I’d be more than happy to pay that fee (and not a cent more) for always-on, unlimited high speed data access from my phone. You hear me, Rogers?

This one’s more ranting about the proposed Canadian DMCA. Also, on a technical note, it looks like video hosting sites don’t ike something about the end credits, so I guess I’ll have to tweak that for further episodes.

The Canadian DMCA has just been tabled by the House of Commons, and from what I can tell (gleaned from Michael Geist’s excellent blog post) it’s a complete and total ruinous mess for the future of electronic media in Canada. Let’s, just for a second, get past the spectre of evil pirates stealing content from hard-working, impoverished studios and record companies. This bill makes it illegal for anyone to transfer music they bought off a CD and onto their own iPod. It also makes it illegal to unlock an iPhone or other locked digital devices, to the tune of a $20,000 fine. So the fact that I’ve been carting around said iPhone for the last six months is apparently more important than the fact that our representatives in Parliament consort with gangster molls or that the Alberta tar sands are an ecological disaster area. No, people downloading the latest Coldplay album is what our law enforcement services should concern themselves with.

The real irony here is that the studios are the authors of their own destruction. If these laws are actually enforceable, all that will happen is that people won’t bother to watch copyrighted material anymore. The means of production are cheaper than ever, and more and more people are watching amateur video, citizen journalism and other user generated content. The drive for self-preservation will actually accelerate the decline and fall of big media, by its own hand.

And the potential damage from this bill doesn’t just affect individuals. Companies in the business of moving and storing content, like Domain7, have already expressed concerns (check their news section for their take on the bill).

What can you do to voice your concerns about this bill? Email your member of Parliament (I just did, for the very first time), join online groups like the Fair Copyright for Canada group on Facebook, and join the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, and other groups advocating for digital rights.