We signed up to get down

Fuck The Hurricane Tour 2005

I have left the wonderful town that was Crystal City, Virginia. It turns out I was never even in Washington, DC, although I was about 4 blocks away from Pentagon City. I am wondering if all of these places have mayors and stuff like that.

Everything this trip has gone according to plan so far, however this is as far as plans were made. I recall vaguely that Ryan and Tim are flying in from Houston, so I have staked out a spot near where their luggage should arrive in hopes of meeting up with them before we head to The Breakers to try and find Mark. It would be helpful if anyone had a cell phone, or even a contact number and we could arrange these meeting,s but apparently I forgot mine in Calgary (on the floor near the spilt Gatorade) and Mark didn’t even bring his. Lame.

I expect that we will get through this and in a matter of hours I will be louging casually on a beach drinking the gayest fucking drink I can get my hands on. Something pink and with glitter in it. That would be spectacular.

I expected a lot more damage or something from this hurricane, but from what I can see there are some puddles. That is it. I’m not sure if disaster coverage is embellished in these parts, or if one part of town that I didn’t manage to fly over got hit way worse or something, but I’ll be damned why people would need to evacuate if this is what it looks like a day after a hurricane hits. Maybe it was still a tropical strom when it spun through here. I may never know.

Looks like the plane I am expecting Tim and Ryan to be on has landed so I am gonna go wander around and see if I can find those tards.

Remember to keep it right.

I don't miss my span of attention

Fuck The Hurricane Tour 2005

Welcome to the first entry in the official Fuck The Hurricane Tour 2005 tour diary. I am going to attempt (read: fail) to write a daily summary of the most entertaining shit that happens down here in the south. It is looking like the Hurricane won’t even be around by the time I show up in Florida tomorrow morning, but whatever, I already named the fucking trip.

We’ll start with Friday night, where I made the executive decision to go out with Chris and a couple of his buddie for what I told myself would be a few beers. I honestly had intentions to leave around 12. I think I ended up walking into the Crack Alley around then. The night continued along those lines and by the time I made it to Iraqi pizza I think it was 2:30 and I was capitaaly trashed. When Tim rolled in at 4:30 I was passed out on the couch with a pink Gatorade spilt all over the carpet. It’s worth noting that I had arranged for a cab to pick me up at 4:15 so I could get to the airport in time.

I did manage to get to the airport, still half cut, and with luggage that I don’t remember packing. The flight was all good and I made it to Toronto with no major events. I was able to fall asleep on the plane about 4 minutes into the flight and was relatively well rested upon arrival. So I got through the horrible mess that is customs and duty free (dirt cheap jack is a go), and thought I was home free. Nope. Turns out if you are flying to Washington you automatically get every article you own searched. Stupid United States government.

So the flight to Toronto was on a mighty fine plane. The flight to Wsahington was on a CRJ1000 or what I like to call a Deathjet. I have never been scared on a plane before but I was amazed that this stupid thing stayed in the air. After conducting some rudimentary research I have determined that at any given time Air Canada has 50 of these flying death traps in the air. All I am saying is that if you happen to see one in the sky I would recommend running because it is liable to drop out of the air at any point in time.

I did manage to survive the trip in the Deathjet and caught the shuttle to the hotel where I am currently hanging out in the only bed I will see for the next week. The shuttle was so far the highlight of the trip as the shuttle driver decided to tell me all the good places to find “easy bitches”. The best part of this is he is telling me all this nasty shit while two horrified old couples are cringing in the back. I can only hope to come across as professionally as this dude did when I am at work.

My night pretty much ended with a few Sam Adams in the hotel lounge and some Little League World Series. That shit is way too entertaining.

Ridiculousness is on the agenda for tomorrow when Tim, Brehon and I meet up with useless Mark. I will do my best to remember what goes on.

Peace.

I hope your new boyfriend gets cancer in his dick

Recapping my week in Vancouver has seemed like such a ridiculous amount of effort that I have continued putting it off, however I am realizing that I suck at remembering things so I may as well get down what I can. You must realize that this is such an affront to my blogging style to have to force things out. When I do that things tend to ramble and that is quite likely what this will end up being.

As a note, the title of this blog has nothing to do with any new boyfriends; rather it is to celebrate the fact that Atmosphere will be in Calgary at the end of September. The last time I saw them they absolutely killed it. Everyone should get down.

So ya, Vancouver. First impressions were good, the place is busy, sunny and all in all a good goddamn time. Obviously the week involved a big bag of drinking on my part. I’m sure no one is surprised by that now. Training was good because the people in it were cool. And it wasn’t too hard. I like that,

Tuesday was our work organized social at the Yaletown Brewpub. It was a good time and the food was really good. If you are ever in that neighbourhood check it out. The beer they make there is pretty good, better than a Maguire’s or something like that. After the work thing ended we wandered down to a bar called Tonic. Honestly I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was the weirdest little bar I have ever been in. I am pretty sure our group was an average of 8 years older than every other person in that bar. It was slightly off putting, although I’m sure had I been there with a group of friends I would have had a blast being a creep.

On Wednesday Dimitri took us to this Greek joint called Taki’s Taverna. It was quite good and I had way too much food on my plate. It was around this time that I noticed that there are approximately ten thousand more restaurants of considerable quality in Vancouver than in Calgary. This makes it ten million times more than in Saskatoon. I suppose that is a function of the population, but it is definitely something that plays a large factor in my decisions regarding permanent locations. So ya, I’m pretty sure now that wherever I happen to end up it won’t be in Saskatchewan. Just thought I would throw that out there.

To bring a frame of reference to Thursday: does everyone remember that scene in the movie Seven where the fat guy had to eat spaghetti until he died? That is sort of what we did, but it was with Sushi and Korean BBQ. Good food all around (the restaurants name escapes me) however I was so full that I couldn’t even go for a drink after supper. I just went back to the hotel and laid in bed trying not to die from being so full. You may be thinking that I just didn’t need to eat that much, but this place we went to had a diabolical rule that if you don’t eat everything you order you get charged for it. It’s an ugly rule to be sure, and with Dimitri and Jackson continuing to order food long after everyone thought they were done, I was prepared to pay the extra. I never want to eat that much again.

Friday was the final day of training so we got off nice and early. I really wasn’t sure what to do because Jon was supposed to be at work all day and then studying at night, leaving me to find my own way around. Luckily the Vancouver guys invited me out for some going away drinks around 5:30, and then promised to take me out on the town that night. And they did. I was already half cut by the time I got to their drinks at The Lennox, due to an afternoon of booze consumption, and I proceeded to get even more cut. I was phoning people who didn’t need to be phoned at around 8:30 that night to give you an idea of the state I was in. From The Lennox, we headed out to The Caprice where we met up with more dudes from Vancouver. The bar was empty when we got there, but the next memory I have is it being full. The next one is getting the cab driver to take me to the best pizza joint he knows, with the promise that he would get a slice for his efforts. Jon tells me that he heard me get back to his place because I accidentally slammed the door and then yelled fuck. Great house guest.

Saturday morning I woke up early, which I suspect is due to massive Red Bull consumption the night before. I meandered about Jon’s house and when he finally woke up he was in study mode so I wandered about some more. We had some sushi for lunch and then I set out to check out Kitsilano, which I decree to be a dope neighbourhood. That night Jon took me to the coolest goddamn sushi joint ever where we ate Tuna Tempura that slayed all other tempura ever. I wish I could remember that the place was called. From there it was UBC and the grad student lounge for pub olympics (which ended tied) and then off to Fiction (the site of my last Absinthe drinking experience) for one beer too many and some delectable yam fries. We checked out after that and went back to Jon’s place, where he thoroughly kicked my ass at Magic Cards. It was a wicked night all in all and I appreciate the hospitality of Jon and his roommates, who may or may not have known I was there.

So there was Vancouver. It was an awesome week, and now I am even excited to go back for Christmas, something I wasn’t prior to this trip. Back here in Calgary it is work as usual, and I have nothing new to say about that, so I won’t say anything.

Keep it right.

Oh ya, one last thing. In Vancouver Jon introduced me to Thunderbirds Are Now! To me this band comes accross as the spastic child of Hot Hot Heat and Placebo. The cd I have (Justamoustache) is fucking spot on. I highly recommend it.

Get me away from here, I’m dying

1:30: Dimitri and I have landed in Vancouver, ready to lay waste to the city and it’s population. I am currently operating on 3 and half hours of sleep, but I can’t rest until I figure out how this week is going to be paid for. As the folks I went out with last night can attest I am broker than you would think reasonable for a person with a full time job. I am talking “Boy, I hope I can afford that Big Mac” broke. However I am confident that everything will work itself out, and this will end up being a fruitful venture.

The hotel is looking decent, and Dimitri is well familiar with the area. They have even been so kind as to include a scale in the bathroom so I will be able to document my flirtation with being the heaviest dude ever.

4:39: SO Meat and I just got back from buying booze and I habve so far seen Mike Myer’s brother and Robin Williams on Robson. It was neat Dinmitri is like a fucking tour guide. I am six beers in and I have forgotten how broke I am. I will send more shit out when I figure out what we are doing. I think its dinner at the rugby club or something.

6:41: Kirby just traded Meat rooms so now I am rooming with Meat. That’s cool because the 24 is totally gone. iTunes is currently cranking out Feeding the Fire (live) by NUFAN. Fukcing great song. I am pretty sure igt was on Fat Music For Fat People. That was a dope fucking cd. We are goiung for super at a place called the rugby club soon. Dimitri just got in to the room. It smells like perogies in here. Did I point out that Dimitri is ukranian? He is.

Next Day: Well my play by play update kind of fell apart after we left the hotel room and I no longer had access to the laptop. Apparently my plan was flawed. The rest of the night was spent cavorting about Vancouver. I was able to see Jon and nail down a resting place for the weekend, so that was good. This week is looking to be a hell of a time, with some of the people we trained with in Banff here. I do so enjoy being a minor celebrity for being such a fuck up.

Also, normally I spell-check this stuff before it gets posted, but I thought this post would lose some of its drunken lustre if I did that.

Peace.

So awkwardly cast even I could be the star

Is it really worth relating the past two weeks on here? I honestly think that I have provided a negative contribution to the human race ever since Stampede. I have had multiple days where I got home from drinking at 3:00 am, got up for work at 7:00 am, returned home to sleep from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm and got up to head out drinking again. I have once again spent all the money I have in the world, under the guise of saving for Florida. I realize that doesn’t make any sense, but that is how it went down. The worst part about this is that most of this occurred during training, so I’m not going to write about what little I recall or have been told. I hear leaving work stories off the internet is the way to go.

This Sunday I am leaving for Vancouver for 10 days or so. I’m fairly certain this is not going to help me save any cash, but it will allow me to pursue my lifelong dream of eating at a place called Goo. That sounds kinda bad, but not bad enough to rewrite it. Dimitri and I will be in full effect trying to show these pompous Vancouver kids how to really have fun in their city. I think the plan is to make it out of that week with no police record and Dimitri’s marriage in tact.

On to more entertaining things: I’m not sure how many people read Rob’s slice of the web these days, but today he dropped a bomb involving Evan and a girl from France leaving the Pat together. I don’t know if there has ever been a better set up for a story. I think Evan should post a ridiculously cold break-down of the events leading up to the departure from the bar, and any hijinks afterwards. Unfortunately Evan’s blog is decidedly 14A, and this won’t happen. I’m sure it had something to do with Evan casually tossing out some French after hearing the girl talk, and doing a Dave Quach fist pump when the girl responded. In my mind the rest of the evening plays out like scenes cut from Napoleon Dynamite. I think that is awesome.

So ya, I would write about the cds I bought in the past two weeks, but I don’t think anybody really cares, so I will just list them. I am an effective advertising medium. In the order they were purchased:
- Stars – Set Yourself on Fire
- Iron and Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
- Painted Thin – And Still They Die of Heartache
- Esthero – Wikked Lil Grrls

I also read the following books in the following order:
- Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut
- Lullaby – Chuck Palahniuk
- Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince – J.K. Rowling
- Shampoo Planet – Douglas Coupland
- My Turf – William Nack (I’m about half way through this)

Needless to say the best book of that lot was Harry Potter. By leaps and bounds. The best CD out of that group is Esthero’s new one. And that is the extent of the media I consumed over the past two weeks.

Peace.