OKAY, SO THE LAST POST WAS A BIT OF A COP-OUT. So to make up for it, here's a few ramdom photos I came across when I was clearing up my camera for the upcoming trip. Speaking of the trip, I leave for Seattle on Monday and so this will be my last post from Vancouver. I have to say I've had an amazing time (awesome almost) and I'm really going to miss the people I've met and the places I've been. But I'll tell everyone back home all about it once I get back. Over beer. Just in case you want to know, here's the itinerery:

4th- Seattle
5th- TRAIN
6th-8th- San Fransisco
9th-11th- L.A., overnight on TRAIN
12th-13th- Flagstaff (Grand Canyon)
14th- TRAIN
15th- Kansas City
16th-17th- Chicago
18th- TRAIN
19th- Washington D.C.
20th-24th- New York
25th-28th- Montreal
27th-30th- TRAIN (!)

So lots of trains then. Here's the pictures

All hail King Ralphie!

Kelly and Caitlin- two Canadians who I will miss.
Nicole- The Hostess with the Mostess

It got so hot at one point, I cut the legs of my jeans off with a kitchen knife. Why does my leg look so big?

Blah, blah Stargate joke, blah blah. Or possibly the worlds smallest roller coaster.

Me avec housemates. Taken just before we moved out when we realised we had no proof we were ever in the same room at the same time.

A bizarre Vancouver tradition (?) that I felt compelled to join in with. Goodnight Vancouver!

[INSERT WITTY YET DESCRIPTIVE COMMENT HERE]: I was about to say that this entry follows my previous one by almost exactly a month- then I realised has in fact been two months since I have written anything. Just to make up for it, I'll make this one extra specially great, so long as I have time to finish it. To make this post a little easier to understand you should know that it will be written in "memory order", i.e. reverse chronologically [check existance of reverse chronologically].

Last night a few of us got it into our heads to go down to kareoke [add brief history of kareoke and it's origins]. I was going to sing "Bridge Over Troubled Water", but when Gavin asked if I was going to sign up, Paul laughed [insert scathing sarcasm]. Instead Gavin wowed us with a rendition of "Brown Eyed Girl", Andy delighted with "Young Girl" and Ian left us stunned with "She Loves You". The less said about Paul's "Burning Love" the better though. Judge for yourselves by watching the videos below:

[obtain videos, find a way to add them here]

Fantastic, I'm sure you'll agree. After kareoke Myself, Paul, Ian and Gavin went on to the Royal for the first time this year, for reasons I'm still not too clear on [create good reason for going to the Royal...actually scrap that]. My memory is a little hazy, but I seem to remember winning at table football and wondering what the barmaid at the previous bar meant when she said she wanted my shirt. That and the sudden, cold realisation that I was back at the Royal.

[steal photos. add here]

This was followed by a brief scrap between me and Gav at the bus stop (I won). For everybody else the night ended here but I took pity on an extremely drunk girl who had fallen asleep on the (wrong) bus. I made sure she got back okay, but after getting down to the university campus, the driver informed me that the bus wasn't going back the other way and so I had to walk back home. At what was wel past 3am. BY MYSELF. FROM UBC!!

[add map of UBC to Macdonald st. make clear it's a really, really long way]

That's what you get for trying to do the right thing. Note to everyone: don't bother. [note to self: kill everyone]. Of course, this was just one night and the last two months have been action packed [describe last two months in detail- extra emphisis on how great the weather has been and how much fun I'm having. Include occasional swipes at Paul and Sunderland FC. Add more pictures- saves on typing (try and work that into a swipe at Paul).]

So next up will be the States for the month [beg for cash], and I should arrive back in England in early October where I shall spend my first week showering, sleeping and eating. Not necessarily in that order however. [beg for cash] I hope everyone back home is going well, and I'll see you all soon [beg for cash].

IT'S UPS AND DOWNS: Okay, frankly it's now been an unforgivably long time since my last update and I really don't have a good excuse other than I just couldn't be bothered to put aside enough time to do it properly. Therefore I'll do what I usually do any fire off as much as I can remember in the hope that some of it sticks.

I suppose first I should cover the world cup. While the weather in Vancouver was glorious throughout, the English football was less so. A series of stunningly average performances interspersed with the occasional wondergoal that did nothing but raise our hopes that maybe the team had finally got it together. Alas this was not the case. This feeling culminated during the England v Equador game which was possibly the least exciting England victory I've ever seen.

After many months stealing photo's from other people's blogs (mostly Paul's) I finally put
some batteries in my camera and started snapping. To be fair due to a not so good zoom function on my camera and too many cans of Colt 45 (don't even ask) some didn't come out so good. But dammit at least I'm trying! We all got up bright and early confident of an impressive England victory. Unfortunately as the pictures below suggest, this expectation was not entirely met.

Another game of mixed emotions

The English perspective at half time...

And the Scottish

Of course within the week it was all over. We watched the last game in a cinema on Commercial Drive with a mix of English and Portugese fans and had to listen while, inevitably, England crashed out on penalties. However, it's not been all bad. The weather has been great and we've spent a lot of time at the beach. We even had a couple of fires after sunset until "the Man" reared his totalitarian head once more and shut us down for breaching park regulations. Admitedly the beer cans strewn around us didn't look good, and the guy from the nearby group who literally couldn't stand up (he tried. A lot.) really didn't help. Then Liz stole Gav's iPod, tried to beat me up and then fell over. It was then we decided to get a taxi. HERE COME SOME MORE PHOTOS!

Here's another one of those scenery shots

Why is nobody looking at the girl??

The wreckage of a houseboat washed up on the beach once...

...and cut off Gavin's legs. He's fine about it though.

Mugsy, Two-tone, Stabber, Hotlips and Knuckles before the Big Greek Job.

Also, Ian's girlfriend Jade left a couple of weeks ago and is sorely missed- primarily by Ian but by us all one way or another. So just to remind everyone what she looks like, I'll stick up a photo. I chose this one because it's the only one I've got. I don't think it's even mine.

I think Chris is trying to show his nipple. This was just before he started running through rental signs and climing poles. Oh, Chris...

MUCH TO TELL: Yes I have in fact got much to write about this time largely because, yet again, it's been a while since I've written anything. Oh first off it was my birthday on the 3rd and perhaps unsurprisingly I went drinking. In fact I may have drank too much- I can't really remember. I also went along to see the league-leading Vancouver Whitecaps (football team: reputedly dynamite) play the Minnesota Thunder. There was a Brazillian Carnival at half-time (that's standard apparently) and they were so good most of us hadn't realised the second-half had started. There was also a penalty shoot-out between Vancouverites of different national backgrounds: Brazil were beaten by the mighty India by a combination of Brazilian apathy and piss poor goalkeeping.

Still on the football front, the Five-a-side is still going strong- I've actually learnt how to score goals. And just to counter the near-inevitable snide comment from Paul Banks- you shut your damn mouth! The only (allegedly) sad news from football is that Steve "the coach" hasn't attended for several weeks, not since he accused me of trying to break his legs. The big baby. For those who don't know about Coach, I'll be starting a blog dedicated to his memory in due course.

In other news, I went to see The Strokes with the same gang that went to see The Subways (that's Chris, Simon, Erin and Meredith). Despite hearing bad things about their live performances and some sub-standard acoustics they were actually pretty good. After the show we went to the now offically tradional after-gig bar, the Speakeasy, where Erin very kindly picked up our bar tab thanks to her excessively large tips at work. And nothing else of note happened. At all.

This was followed some days later by one of the strangest nights out I've had in Vancouver- an all night-video game-dance music soundtracked-illegal alcohol selling-marathon. Ian read about it in the now defunkt Dose free newspaper so me, Ian, Banksy, Simon and Gavin went down to check it out after a few jugs of confidence-inducing sangria at the Whip, a nearby bar with possibly the best looking barmaids in town. Despite our distinctly negative preconceptions (ooh, long words) it was actually quite cool, even if the place was full with some very artsy looking people. How often is it you can sit in a tent in a warehouse playing Mortal Combat 2 at 3am while a DJ plays dance music, including a remix of the Dr Who soundtrack (?). After waking Ian up, we finally left around 4am to the strains of the Match of the Day theme through Gav's headphones. Good times. See below obligitory stolen photo from Pauls blog.

Simon had left by this point. Lightweight.

The only other event of note I can remember is that Simon and I went to Science World (think Imperial Science Museum in London- smaller obviously). We had the day off and it was raining so we decided it was about time we should take a look. Turns out I can out think, out shoot ,out react and out wheelchair race Simon, but he can out jump and out magic eye puzzle me. Fair enough. There was also Lego. Oh I also have a tan. In the middle of May. Ah ha ha ha ha ha!

BARSTUD, FUGGIN TAXMAN: Yet again "the Man" has decided to stiff me. Apparently, only being in the country 4 months somehow lessens my entitlement to a tax rebate! How the hell am I gonna pay for that skidooing trip now? Huh?

Anyway this is a solitary grey cloud on what has otherwise been a pretty good week. On St. George's day, we had no less than 2 BBQ's, a trip to the beach, an ice cream from a real ice cream van and I handed over a fiver to Jade for a cheap thrill (gambling, the thrill was gambling). Everyone had a good time except Chris who wasn't there- he had to work. And Ian lost his camera. And Simon cut his foot in the Ocean. Most of us had a good time anyway.

Also, I bought a T-Shirt. It says "Pirate" on it and it has a skull and crossbones- I like it a lot. And I got my first birthday cards. It was Gavin's birthday last night. We went to a comedy club. We laughed- you know actually that fucking tax thing is still getting to me, I mean I work just as hard as any bloody Canadian, but for some reason I get screwed! This is just picking on the new guy! I mean Simon got more than he asked for! More! How is that fair? I spent hours filling in the form (because the Canadian taxman is just too busy to do it himself) only to find I get done out of $230 just because I haven't been here as long as most- it's a piss take it really is. And don't even get me started on the rest of the tax system. You know they don't include the taxes on price tags? When did that ever seem like a good idea? Who sat down and decided it would be better if they left the taxes off? And then there's the tip! Try and split a bar tab between seven people in your head, without counting the money in the middle more than once! Can't be done!

God, I'm so angry I could scream! But then I'm in a library, and we all know "the Man" doesn't like noise in the library. Well fuck it, just fuck it! AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWWWWWWWWWWW
WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
RR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHISTLER- 2 AWESOME: Yes. at last we all actually got our collective acts together and finally made it to Whistler. Okay to be fair half of us had already been before, and two more only just got in the country so really it was me and Paul who finally got it together. Actually Paul might have already been before too. Anyway, the important thing here is that I finally made it to Whistler and yes it was damn fun.
But before I get to that, I have to mention the Subways gig that Me, Simon (and his friend Meredith) and Chris (and his friend Erin) went to. It did in fact rock like a bastard, and yes I did stink like a dog afterwards. Me, Chris and Erin were essentially the driving force behind all the jumping-up-and-down-stuff while Simon was at the back stealing drinks off of girls. I'm trying to get a couple of the photos off him, but at the moment he's censoring them on the grounds we were just too sweaty. Later there was Yam fries and wrestling in the street.

Talking about Yam fries, Whistler was also good depite the fact that within 2 hours of getting there we found ourselves in The Worst Club On Earth. And yes I include The Works in Canterbury. To be fair we were the first people there, and it was free, and there was porn in the guys toilets (but none in the ladies, much to Hannah's annoyance. Hannah is Ian's friend from home. Read his blog if you really want more information. Also Simon's friend Duggan was there. Again, you're probably better off reading Simon's blog for details).

Ian begins to regret shelling out extra for the VIP section. (Kazoo not shown)

We later went to a better club. I say better because there were other people there and the music was less shit. It did however annoy as soon as I walked through the door after they made me check my coat, and then charged me $2.50 for the privilige, despite letting Duggan walk straight past. Also the DJ told Simon to fuck off when he asked for a request. He didn't even make it to the song title.

The second club, from the "HandbagCam" angle.

The next day was a little more action packed. First off, a quick spot of snowmobiling. To say it was fun is probably a bit of an understatement, but due to my limited vocabulary, it'll have to do.

After a brief experiment, it was decided it would be best if we got a skidoo each.

The lengths we went to in order to find an open KFC

It was all going pretty well until the guide called a halt. After I parked up I realised there was nobody behind us. The guide instructed me to wait where I was while she went to check what was wrong. Essentially I was in the middle of nowhere, unable to hear anyone or anything and was hoping both that nothing serious had happened to anyone, and that I wasn't about to have my first taste of Canadian wildlife. As it turned out Hannah had drove her skidoo into a ditch. She was unhurt, but as you can see from the photo below, the skidoo was pretty much jammed, and so she had to ride home on Ian's.

Later we went tubing, a less adrenaline fuelled experience, but good nonetheless. Basically it involved sliding down a snow covered slope on a rubber ring for an hour and was in fact suprisingly tiring. Now if only my tax rebate would come through, I'd be able to pay for the whole thing.

The gang in Whistler

PROMISES, PROMISES: Honestly, I had every intention of updating last week but a plague of locusts was threatening to eat all the food in my cupboard, so I had to stay inside until they got bored and went away. So to make up for it, I'm going to update twice in one day. First off- The Skeletor Joke. A short time ago we were all sitting in the Railway Club when Ian mentioned that the line "Skeletor walks into a bar" was just too good not to have a punchline attached to it. So the next day, while waiting for a bus I came up with this. It's not big, it's not clever but at the end of the day, it's the best any of us have got so far...

"Where the hell's my Latte?"

Skeletor walks into a bar to meet up with the rest of the gang: He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Battlecat, Evil Lyn and everyone. He sits down, has a couple of drinks until it's his round. As he reaches for his pocket, he realises that in fact he doesn't have any, so he turns to Evil Lyn and asks her to lend him a twenty.

"No" she says, "You know full well I'm saving for that typing course, and if I lend you this money I'll never see it again"
"But you're supposed to be my henchperson! You have to lend me it!" Skeletor replies.

The others around the table mutter agreement but Evil Lyn remains adamant that she won't part with the cash. So with a sigh He-Man stands up and bursts into a song and dance routine worthy of Broadway. He's graceful. He has an amazing voice and he prances like a Prima Ballerina. Perhaps understandably the others are stunned, including Evil Lyn who immediately hands over the readies to Skeletor. Everyone orders beer except for He-Man who asks for a Cosmoplitan.

Shaking his head, Skeletor goes to the bar. On his return Skeletor asks He-Man "How did you get Evil Lyn to lend me that money?"

"Simple" He-Man replies "I used the power of GaySkull."

told you it wasn't clever...

I KNOW HOW IT LOOKS, obviously I haven't updated this in a while so it would be easy to assume that either I've had nothing to talk about or I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to write anything. But of course the truth is if I'm given a choice of writing on my blog or watching an episode of the original series of Star Trek followed by a round of retro console games with whoever happens to be around- well you get the idea anyway...

Of course that's not to say that I haven't got anything to say. Once again I'm going to fall back on my bullet-point summary of the last month or so , with the aid of other people's blogs in order to jog my memory.

• January 9th to 16th- Rain. Analysis of other blogs reveals that's pretty much all that happened. Dinners consist largely of pasta or rice. Begin playing five-a-side footy with some of the others. Only one Canadian present, but what he lacks in height, personality and ability, he makes up for in arrogance. Legs hurt.

• January 17th to 24th- Continued rain. Dinners consist largely of pasta or rice. A plan is formed for coast to coast road trip of North America at the end of the year if anybody can afford it, and if we have a big enough car, and if any of us can drive it, and if they'll let us take the car over the border. Sunderland lose again.

• Janurary 25th to 31st- More rain. Canada gets new Conservative Prime Minister- at least now campaigners will stop asking us who we're going to vote for. Dinners consist largely of pasta or rice. Visit Year of the Dog parade in Chinatown which I have to leave for 20 minutes in order to find food (not a burger van in sight, what are the odds?). Debs moves out. Paul Banks aquires yet more housemates.
• Feburary 1st to 10th- SUN! Sweet, glorious sunlight! Some light drizzle. Dinners consist largely of pasta or rice. Get pay raise at the Party Bazaar. Meet low level sci-fi actor at work (apparently his name is Gary Jones) who plays that guy in Stargate who tells everyone when the gate is open...wears glasses...balding...no? Here's his picture anyway. That's Gary "Not Patrick Stewart" Jones... Hurt neck playing football.

• Feburary 11th to today- Continued sun with occasional cloud. Go see hockey game (Vancouver Canucks v Minnesota Wild). Would like to extend thanks to Sweeden for providing the Sedin brothers who secure win in Sudden Death Overtime (really not as over the top as it sounds). Dinners consist largely of pasta and rice. Twist ankle playing football. Simon breaks toe. Oh, and we've got a new housemate her name's Liz and she's from Oldham (no, really) she's a Bunac'er too and came over a month after us.

The next update will be sooner. Probably.

Go Canucks Go!