Vancouver is awash in billboards promoting condominium developments, each more meaningless than the last. (I swear they come up with their slogans using mad-libs. You can’t tell me that “Taste the ambience of the urban pulse”-style taglines are the result of weeks of careful wordcrafting. They’re the result of a room full of monkeys throwing around the contents of a “Dialogue from Frasier” magnetic poetry set.)

To the rescue comes condohype, a blog that has spent the past two months savaging the marketing machine behind developments with such names as Levo (which promises a “Mahattan vibe” – presumably unavailable in greater “Vacouver”) and Patina (definition: a thin surface appearance). Here the blog takes on the developer behind d’Corize:

Asking buyers to “rize” above the Centre (and check their dictionary at the door), developer Newgen Whalley Properties passionately describes d’Corize as a project of “quality view homes… located in Central Surrey’s most desirable neighbourhood.”

….Of course, the marketers of d’Corize didn’t show what’s across the street… This photo, published in the April 25, 2007 edition of Surrey’s Now Newspaper, speaks to the majesty of the d’Corize neighbourhood. It’s an abandoned, filth-infested duplex complete with derelict furniture in the yard and derogatory graffiti on the walls. Who’s owner of this paradise? Newgen Whalley Properties.

Welcome to the blogroll, condohype. (And let’s hope you never branch out into critiquing web sites or speeches. Hat tip to Kitsilano.ca.)