This weeks sponsor is the phrase:"Tom Hinatsu is a Dick"

Then Klarg realized that the telescopic up quark laser was pointing in the wrong direction, and his hazlord suit would never be able to take the 11 google watt laser. As his innards converted to anti matter, he realised he would never see his beloved wife ethelrella again. Damn you Quiznoze! DAMN YOU!.... Sorry just putting the finishing touches to my sci-fi book there "Klarg:- How I became the ruler of the Planet Swindon.". Anyway blog time. Short one this week.

So... first off; work news. I got in on Wednesday to see next weeks rota... and discovered that I wasn't down for night line cooking, but night dishwasher, and I was doing less than half my original hours. Plus that French yahoo Phillipe had got all my hours. We had literally been swapped round on the rota, I had technically been demoted. No more crispy mash. No more onion rings. No more folding aprons and cooking. Just dishwashing. I was steaming. As I started my day I spoke to Tom Hinatsu ( a guy who has I've never really got on with, he's very anal about everything, were as I'm a lot more... relaxed) about why Adam would have lied to me. He said that the hours you get are based on what you give to the company, and so I should gather from that, that I'm not giving much to the company, this is while I was traying his fucking bacon because he can't do his day fast enough to do it himself. I couldn't speak to Adam about it because he wasn't in until Friday, and Kieth (Adams deputy) didn't seem to know what was going on either. When I spoke to the night chef, who would be my new boss when Adam wasn't about, he told me that I was starting out dish washing with the 'intention' of moving me up to line cooking. Depression set in; I had failed at dish washing. I must be one pathetic excuse for a human being. Tom was right. When I got home in the evenings I spent them worrying about how I was going to pay my rent after Christmas, and how I was going to find a new job. With the exception of Thursday evening, were I relaxed by meeting with Kelvin for a drink in Joeys bar, and randomly met up with Conner and Tom-fucking-Hinatsu in there, we had a couple of drinks, and I finished of Kelvins cocktail for him, I was already feeling a tad tipsy. After I met up with Rosie and we went to watch J Tillman (lead singer of Fleet Foxes) playing his solo stuff at the Biltmore Cabaret. Me and Rosie arrived far to early, and had to go for a coffee at this little independent coffee shop first, on our second arrival at the Biltmore the doors were open, and it was time for a pint. The first band on were called Red Cesar, and if I'm honest, were probably my favourite band on the night. They were kind of psychedelic folk rock, but with an acoustic twist. There songs some how sounded like walking up in the forests in North Van on a sunny day. I had quiet a vivid vision of the tour we did in my first week (one of the pictures of which is in the banner for this blog) at one point. One ciggie and another pint purchased, it was time for the second act, an acoustic set from Damien Jurado, the bassist for J tillmans band. He was alright, Rosie instantly fell in love with him, and his stupid moustache. Cigarette and another beer, Christ I'm feeling a tad tipsy. On our cigarette break we also had a Very drunk guy join us for a chat. See quote of the week for more info on him. Another beer was purchased at the beginning of Tillmans set, and I suddenly realised I was swaying, and beyond the point were alcohol helps you understand music better, and just makes you want to sit down and talk shit. From what I can remember Tillmans set was really good, bluesy acoustic rock. Definitely the 2nd best gig I've been to in Canada. Me and Rosie headed home around midnight feeling relaxed and happy after the set, talking about how it was probably one of the best things we had ever seen. Rosie crashed at mine (again, strictly platonic), as the bus back to hers was pretty much non-existent at midnight. We drunkenly stole bread and peanut butter in the kitchen at my place, and talked about me not paying my rent on time. As we headed up to my room I realized my landlord had left his door open and would have heard our drunken tinnitus based shouting. Shit! Had I talked about his weird relationship with the girl who lives here before or after we got in the house?... next morning, with a meagre 5 hours sleep and a raging hangover it was time to head to work. After making Brewster the worst porridge in the world it was time to head back to the job I apparently failed at. It was stupidly busy, and I really struggled. But I didn't care, it was my last full day until Wednesday, and apparently I sucked at the job anyway. At the end of the day I finally got to speak to Adam. He said he wasn't surprised I wanted to see him after he had looked at the schedule. Apparently it should have been relayed to me that I was only dishwashing for two weeks over Christmas until they could get some new people trained up in the dishwashing job, then I would move onto line cooking. Suddenly I felt really relieved. He seemed pretty apologetic. But I'm still going to do a bit of job hunting over the next few weeks, Spaghetti Factory is Hiring, so I will drop in there tomorrow.

Saturday! I headed round JP's and we edited together our video of our day snowboarding. This took us four hours. It was surprisingly fun, as we chose appropriate music, discussed how best to end scenes and begin new one's and trying to just get Windows Movie Maker to behave. It would be the kind of task I'd like to chain smoke and drink coffee while doing... except JP had no coffee, and I didn't have enough cigarettes to spare. So I didn't. GEEK TALK WARNING!!! The reason it took us so long is because, thought JP's laptop is fairly powerful, it didn't have a very good graphics card, and was also running vista. This meant we didn't have the power to run our heavily edited video in real time, and spent a lot of time just waiting for it to apply effects and start. Here is the masterpiece:-



Afterwards we met up with Rosie and went and got some food at the Furniture Warehouse. JP bet me I could eat my meal in four minutes. So I did. Rosie was impressed how I can eat so quickly, without making it look disgusting. JP was just generally disgusted. Afterwards we bought some donuts and drank the last of Rosie's wine while watching Moon on Quicksilverscreen at JP's pad. It didn't get to me as much as the first time I watched it the second week I was in Vancouver. But that's not surprising because its a film about having a lack of belonging or understanding, and wanting to head home. Emotions that I could pretty strongly sympathize with at the time. Sunday I read one and a half books and cleaned my room. Today I met up with Rosie, who helped me do my Christmas shopping, we hit up Commercial drive and Mount pleasant to find small interesting boutique shops. Just need to get a couple more presents and the package should be ready to send home.

Quote Time!

"Your English isn't very good, were are you guys from?"

The Very drunk man who spoke to us outside the Tillman gig. He came to the gig on his own, on the off chance he might bump into a girl he spoke to in a bakery. Ye. Gods.

"We were playing bus racing"

Rosie on entering a bus we had just beat to a bus stop after the lights changed at a junction.

Just want to big up Vancouver's Transport system as well. The whole system is run by the Canadian Government. What happens when buses are run for the service and not profit? If they arrive 20 seconds late the driver lets you on free so he can keep up with his schedule. If the bus is full they find another bus and let you on free so you keep your schedule. If Cash machine is broken they let you on free. If you race the bus from a crossing and say 'I was bus racing' he lets you on for free because he thinks you are funny. Also if buses are run for convenience, and not when there going to make money you get some epic levels of integration. When we were going to mount Seymour the other day, we arrived at a bus station were all the buses arrive at the same time, wait 5 minutes for customers to run to the new bus they need like some kind of multi roomed version of musical chairs, then when the music stops, they all leave at the same time.