Blog dust off.

Its been a while. Does this thing still work? Can I still do links? Ahh yes, that seems to be working just fine. Good stuff. Pictures?

Yea, that seems to be working as well. Looks like we have all the elements necessary for me to write my blog.

Right first off. How come I haven't been updating more often? Well I guess I just felt the things I've been up to lately  can't really compete with the early entries. Don't get me wrong, I've been having a great time, and I'm pretty happy at the moment. Its just I felt my life over here isn't really any different  from millions of other peoples lives at the moment. It pretty much consists of going out for meals and drinking, working, and reading or messing around on the internet, pretty much the same as everyone who reads this blog in the UK or were ever really. How many more times do you need to hear about me eating at Templetons. But its only a week and a bit until I start traveling again. Then I'll have a lot to talk about, that other people will actually want to read about.

Yesterday was my last day at Joeys Burrard. I've not been getting that many hours at work lately. Since the Olympics its pretty rare for me to get more than 20 hours a week, So I get around three or four days off a week. Which has been really nice, and as both me and my rent are pretty cheap, I've managed to survive on the lower income fairly easily. The fewer hours also mean that when I am in work, I'm well slept, and not very stressed, so I've been pretty upbeat when I have been in work. I get on with pretty much everyone who works there, and I'm really going to miss that place. I like turning up to work, cooking intensely for an hour in the rush. Then doing some chilled out cooking for 4 hours. Then after I finish work, making myself something to eat and eating slowly (well... for me) in the restaurant, chatting to anyone who happens to be about then heading home. My last day was pretty short, I got cut after two hours, I hung around for another half an hour saying good bye to people, then it was time to leave. Sad face. I went home, had a snooze for a couple of hours. Then went out with the Swedes for drinks and fun times. Fred and Oskar or 'the Swedes' are an awesome mix of hipster and yob. They've got great taste in music, but also enjoy getting very drunk and a bit rowdy. We started off our night getting food in the Templeton. They were pretty impressed, we were served by the waitress we always have, and who has seen far to much of me lately. Fred is the first person I know who has ordered the steak there, it was pretty good. After taking advantage of the cheap Tuesday pitchers we headed up to the speakeasy, were Fred recieved a text from Tito, one of the guys from work, asking where we were, to cut a long story short, Tito was also in the speak easy, and by the looks of things, on a date. Which we had interrupted. We had a couple more drinks before going to a random generic Irish bar on Granville, were things started to get a tad messy. Tito and his date downed a shot and left. Oskar got my phone and sent a text to Chloe that just said "Oi!" ( a running joke between me and Oskar) so I wrestled it off of him, which culminated in me knocking my pint of the table. The waitress very kindly got me a new one for free, and cleaned up the mess. After that incident we decided it was bed time. When I got back I passed out in bed. And woke up at 3ish to find Chloe asleep on the inflatable bed, which is a tad odd as we always share the bed the single bed in our room. It turned out this was because in my drunken sleep I had decided to hug her... face. And I was snoring. She puts up with a lot.

Yea, also for the last two weeks I'm sharing a room with Chloe to save on rent. Its been pretty cramped, and as were both pretty messy people the rooms a tip. It takes me five minutes to find my shoes most mornings. But considering the cramped living conditions, were both getting on pretty darn well. She's going to meet up with me in New York as well. Which should be really good, its going to be a tad odd traveling on my own as we spend so much time together.

The final bit of news is that my parents are currently over here. Its been pretty fun having them about. Highlights of there visit have to be taking them to meet Team Family. Rosie says me and Dad are really similar, and we have the same sense of humor..... I'm not to happy with that one I'll be honest. We also went for a meal at Joeys, which was really nice, and a tad odd for me seeing things from a customer perspective. But the food was good and the service was excellent as well, the price was pretty steep, even with free desserts, but that's what you get for that kind of place I guess. Good times. Chloe also got to meet my parents at a family meal at Templetons. The Templetons waitress immediately clocked what was going on. Good times.

Quotos Time!

Head Chef:- "OK guys, we've got a new menu, its going to be a busy lunch. But your the best! You are Navy Seals!"
Me:-".... did he just say we're baby seals?"

Templetons Waitress:- "Your just like your Dad"
Me:- Yea, everyone keeps saying that... I'm not sure I like it.
Templetons Waitress:- "Yea everyone says I'm just like my Mom, and I'm like 'No I'm not, shes completely mental'"

A conversation that took place between me and the waitress when me and the Swedes went for a meal at the Templeton.

Heddle:- "Greg, can you do a Sweep of the line?"
Me:- "Sweep Mop? Yo."
Heddle:- *In hysterics* - "Did you just say "Sweep Mop! Cheerio!?""

This soon became a running joke, and was probably my final words at Joeys.

Finally a couple of cracking music videos for you guys:-




Heavy as fook. Might go and see them play on Friday. On a lighter note:-



Longboarding is a big thing in Vancouver, and has more links with Snowboarding than skateboarding. This track is by a band called the Dodo's and its one I've been listening to a lot lately.... espcially after listening too much dillinger.

Olympics:- Work Work!

I've not updated this thing in a while, I've been pretty darn busy over the last few weeks, and just not really got round to it. So this one should be fairly epic. First off, tales from work, other stories to follow in a second post.

Work first! So the week before the Olympics work was dead, every one had been given full time hours, but no one was coming into the restaurant. This meant a lot of people getting cut early, which was annoying for everyone as we were earning an extra $5 an hour. We needn't have worried because when the opening ceromony started on Friday, the city suddenly filled with thousands of new people, I have no idea were they had all been hiding for the last week, as the busiest day in Vancouver airports history had been on the Saturday before. Friday night we had one of the busiest nights in the restaurants history. On Saturday we broke the night sales record. On Saturday  we broke the day sales record. Normally my station (Appatizers) can easily be run by one person, and you have time to help out on other stations. But on that night we had 3 people running it at one point, and we still couldn't keep up with all of the orders coming through. Sunday saw the first of Canadas hockey matches, and Valentines day coincide creating the highest sales in the restaurants history. After that it settled down a bit, but we were still running a full line of staff for every hour the restaurant was open and struggling to keep on top of everything. If it calmed down a bit, you had to go out the back and help the day team to prepare the food for that evening. It was at this point I started to get pretty ill, a cold, saw throat and blocked ears while pulling an 8 hour day with no break was not much fun. Normally I would have taken the day off to try and kick it. But the money was so good that no one, including me was letting illness stand in there way. In the second week of the Olympics Canada continued to do well in pretty much all of the events, most importantly, the hockey, only loosing to the US. Whenever Canada played a hockey game you could be sure the restaurant would be full, and everyone would be ordering appetizers (hot wings, an chilli chicken) so my station would get a pounding. On the second week Joeys transformed at night into 'Bosco' as the Russians had payed Joeys a lot of money to let them use the restaurant in the evening. You had to have a Russian passport to get in, and this would secure free food for the evening. They had imported a load of Russian chefs to cook alongside the Joeys cooks to provide both Russian and Canadian (... really American) food. The chefs from Russia were all professional hotel chefs, so the food they created was simple, but looked stunning. I've stolen some of night sues photos of facebook so you can see what kind of stuff they were making:- 

 

Joeys horse covered in Bosco Stickers.

 

Corder "Expo'ing" and getting a cuddle of a server.

 

Knowler working pans. The best bit of working pans is setting the oil on fire to "give the meat extra flavour". This station is the most fun, but fooking hard work.

 

What the servers had to wear. Not only is Tim a sues chef, kick boxing instructor, and award winning chocolate chef, he is also a dab hand with a camera. 

Food waits to go out.

 

Caviar.

 

Not actually a desert, but a Pickled Herring Salad.

 
 

Another Salad.

 

Salmon.

The Olympics finished this Sunday with Canada playing the US in the hockey final, easily the most important medal in the winter Olympics for the countries who take an active part in it. We were all called into work early to help set up for the day. The game started at mid day, and we opened at 10, and people were already waiting to get in at 9am. The restaurant soon filled, the best part for us was that people weren't really ordering food, they were just drinking, so we had it easy in the kitchen. Canada stayed 2-1 up for almost the entire match, and then the US scored in the final 10 seconds of overtime. We had all left the kitchen to watch. The funny part is when the US scored, everyone in the restaurant looked shocked and put there heads in there hands, while all the cooks just laughed. Not that it mattered because in overtime Canada scored the golden goal and won. After our shift we all sat in the bar and had our free post Olympic drink, while raiding a box filled with Russian Olympic clothing (I now have an awesome t-shirt with the Russian Olympic mascot shooting a rifle, I like to think he's saying "O HAI! I'M KILLIN' PEOPLE WHO SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE GOVERMENT! LULZ") The TV's in the bar showed shots of downtown Vancouver. The streets were filled with thousands of people celebrating the hockey win and the closing of the Olympics. Joe was out in it some were and later told me it took him 15 minutes to walk half a block. I took a bit of a detour to get home, and it still took me 20 minutes longer than normal. The atmosphere was amazing, every car was honking its horn and people were waving flags high fives all round, etc. Normally I hate all the kind of sports based back slapping bull shit, but its Canada, and they won the final, and got the most Olympic golds for a hosting country ever. Cooommmeee on!

The! Olympic! Circus!

Afternoon All. So first off:- work news... so its been really quiet last week. I got 3 days off in a row for the first time since October (The four days off in December don't count because I had to work 8 days in a row after). Plus I only got 3 hours last Monday... and this today. But it should start to really pick up soon. Rumour has it I'm working every day of the 14 days of the Olympics. Which I'm fine with because of the new tip system. The Russian Olympic team decided to make our restaurant the place they eat over the Olympics, and are paying $3000 a day for the privilege, and all the staff get the benefit of this through the massive pay increase for the next 3 weeks. I now get $10 an hour, plus $6.50 an hour tips (Tax Free!). I think its pretty amazing that they've decided give these extra tips to us, most companies would just keep all the cash to themselves. Gotta love Joeys. This made going home early today extra hard because of all the mullar I missing out on... but I've now got 2 days off, then working Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So there is little chance of me being cut on these days, as there busy Olympics or not.

Stuff I've been up to:- Last Saturday I went for a meal at Templetons with JP and Jen, his new girlfriend. This is the first time I've met her, and she seems really nice. Its nice having some one who can join you in pointing out all of JP's flaws. On Wednesday me and Chloe went Ice skating at a temporary rink that has been constructed in the heart of Downtown Van. It only cost $3 to rent skates, and entry is free. No one fell over, and fun was had by all, near the end some disco lighting was switched on making the experience extra trippy. Also the ice cleaner/hoover machine has a paint sceme to make it look like a killer whale. It looked like it had been pimped by Timothy Westwood and his Cronies. On Friday night, me and Rosie went for a couple of drinks at the Cambie. Rosie tried to make her mind up about if she should get her hair cut short that evening, and we both agreed that the Cambie is the best bar in Vancouver, it has a cracking jukebox, and couldn't understand why we havn't been there in so long. Afterward we met up with JP and went to get some food, we tried the Furniture Warehouse, but the $5 menu has gone up to $8 for the Olympics, so we decided to go to the Roxy were the prices havn't changed, and you get a much better burger for $10. We had a couple more drinks before heading home. It was a good night.

So, the Olympics have officially arrived in town, and its pretty exciting. Every were you go there are people with bright blue tracksuit pants and jackets and bobble hats, and massive lanyards with there Olympic credentials on. Plus you see random members of random Olympic team... well it mainly seems to be the Russian and US teams I see. But Joe (oh yea... Joe got another work Visa sorted in 2 months, and has returned to Vancouver) said when he was flying back to Vancover the only member of the team from Ghana was on the plane, and everyone was getting photos with him, and he was the happiest man in the world. Also there are hundereds of spot lights lighting up the Vancouver skyline from various stadiums, celebration sites, and art displays, it looks like Vancouver is in the middle of a technicolor air raid. Apparently you can create your own display for one set using a website, and it will tell you what time your display will be used so you can see it. Once I've found a way to create a giant light penis, I will submit my own display. There is also the continuing news saga that is: will they be able to find enough snow for the snowboarding events which are on grouse mountain... which is pretty much snow free at the moment, there currently 'harvesting' snow and taking it there in lorries. Also Arnold Swartzzenggneruare is running through Stanley park with the Olympic flame... at 7AM, so I'll give that a miss. Finally there are also a lot of free gigs and shows going on as well, bands include Alexisonfire, Deadmou5, and Mother Mother, all of which I will probably miss because I'll be working, if I can save enough cash now I can watch as many bands as I want as I travel round the states for 2 months this summer... and go up to Jasper with my parents (who are visiting late March)... and by a small digital camera I can take everywere unlike the beast.

Video of the week:-



I'm really into this band at the moment, the entire album Mama Im Swollen is cracking, and I'm currently digging out there entire back catalog. That is all cats and kittens.

New! Camera!Trial!

So, I mentioned I got a new camera, I've taken a few pictures with it, and think there a bit to pretentious for facebook. So thought I'd upload them here. This also brings up the blog post numbers for the month, as there Far to low. Enjoy.  Names given were appropriate.

Are we nearly there yet?

 

 Mc Mayan Skull

 

Apartment block reflected in water

 

 Woooooooooooooooo!!!! I'm a Ghost. Probably.

Proper Birthday update! Bagel! Another Walk!

So, my drunken update on my Birthday did pretty much cover all the main points from my Birthday, but I thought I'd give a slightly more comprehensive update now I've sobered up a bit.

So first off; work news. I'm slowly getting less dishwashing shifts. I've got 5 shifts next week, and only one of them is nothing but dishwashing. I did a shift on Monday and Friday were I did nothing but cook. Friday was pretty intense, I was the only one working my station, and, as on all Fridays it was really busy. I was making food constantly, and when ever there wasn't any orders, I was chopping up veg, and making tasters, But it was a lot more fun than dishwashing, as your working with 10 other people there is always loads of good banter. Friday's highlight was what a communist version of Joeys restaurant would be like (lots of cabbage, and a uniform waiting time of one hour for all food if your wondering). They still seem pretty happy with me, so its all going well.
Also, Chloe is staying in the same place that I am, she currently lives two doors down. So I spend most evenings watching (quite frankly shocking) TV with her, reading, playing on the computer etc. So the dull evenings at home are better these days as well. With the exception of occasional glitches, things seem to be going pretty well with her at the moment. 

So, when I've had time off the adventures have been as follows; me Rosie, and Piers went for a breakfast bagel and coffee on Commercial drive last week. We sat in the restaurant for about 3 hours talking away. It was pretty good. We now have a loose plan to rent a camper van and travel down the west coast of the states some time in April. Hopefully this will happen, but it depends on us all saving enough cash to do it. The next real adventure was... MY BIRFDAY!
So my Birthday was on Monday, I got up around 12. And met up with Rosie for some food at the restaurant she is currently working at, we were going to go somewhere else, but she got called into work, and when she told them her plans, they said I could go and have a free meal there. The restaurant has only just opened, and having a few teething problems. Customers aren't going in because there are no food prices on the menu outside the restaurant. When I got there, they had no cook, or mayonnaise, my mile high club sandwich came out in two slider buns as they had run out of bread as well. OK, a lot of teething problems. But the Iranian guy who owns the restaurant doesn't seem bothered, he has a lot of money, A Lot of Money. I'm beginning to wonder if the restaurant isn't actually a front for  a drug cartel or something, a way for them to make black market money white by passing it through the restaurant. Anyway, Rosie doesn't seem to bothered as she gets a very good wage, even if the tips are tiny. After I had gotten my (battered!?) fries, I scoffed the lot quickly and headed to work. I only had a four hour shift, and it was my first day on pans. When I got there they were really over staffed for a Monday, this was because they had cooks from another Joeys restaurant who were going to run the restaurant so we could all go to the staff party at 8. We all finished at 8:30 and handed the restaurant over to the imported cooks. As we were about to leave, J was asked to go back online and cook because the head server thought there weren't enough cooks. This was BS, as the restaurant is always dead on a Monday, so the rest of us decided to wait for him to finish. We finally got out the restaurant, into the worlds dodgiest cab (the driver was listening to Led Zep very loudly, telling really bad jokes, and was a completely different person to the photo on the Cab ID) and finally arrived at the party. I got three free beers straight off. Then I got bought birthday shots by various cooks, I also got some kind of ouzo based drink from Frederick that he had snuck into the party. I spent most of the evening talking to the other European travelers who also work in the kitchen, just because I have the most in common with them. Some awards were handed out, I got best international staff member. I won some mittens, I might have already mentioned it somewhere. I was pretty drunk, and worried I might be that person who makes a massive dick of himself at the staff party. But thanks to Corder drunkenly trying to chat up every server from the restaurant, and giving a drunken speech, this was avoided. After the party had finished me and Fabian got invited to go with some of the other cooks to a Vietnamese restaurant. I got bought some kind of noodle based dish, which had very thin slices of raw beef in, which cooks in the noodley broth before your eyes, and you eat the beef when its cooked enough for you. As far as I remember I ate it instantly. After wards I got a taxi home, went to see Chloe, told her about my mittens for 20 minutes solidly, convinced myself that I needed to buy the blender on a infomercial on the TV, before going to my room to write what has been described as my best blog entry ever.
Nothing much happened until this Thursday when Piers and JP came round so I could kind of celebrate my Birthday with them.  I made pizza, they bought donuts. JP (knowing of my love of planes) bought me book called Flip Flap Airport. This literary classic goes into immense details about how a airport works, along with pop up sections and "over 60 flaps to lift and other exciting surprises." Its very good. Afterward we headed down to gastown for a few drinks. We randomly saw a random band in the lamplight bar, who were pretty good. Afterward we headed up towards Cambie street for some pizza, before heading home. The wit of the evening was of a particularly high standard. The next day, with only a slight hangover, Team Family (Rosie, JP Piers and me) headed to Templetons to get some food. We arrived at 1:30 in enough time to sample the breakfast menu. I tried the scambled eggs and Brie served with grilled potatos and rosemary. It was marvelous. And thats pretty much all the news for the last couple of weeks.

TQ

"Can I just get every one'sh attensshion! awrsshhh shrwwrrarr frwarsshhhh shwarrr...."

Oh, Corder, thankyou for drinking far to much, standing on a chair and giving a speech after trying to chat up every girl from the restaurant. You kept everyone's eyes of me, who didn't take his mittens of all evening.

Me:-"So JP, if you get married, who's going to be your best man?
JP:-"Rosie"
Me:-"I guess she is about 30% a guy."
JP:-"Which makes her more of a guy than you or Piers"
Me:-"This is true. Poor Rosie, always the best man, never the bride."

I would just like to point out this was all a joke! But it was a hilarious. JP has a new girlfriend, the joke is:- he is planning to wed her so he doesn't have to come home on the 15th of June like the rest of us. I don't know if he will be happy with me saying this. But its to late now!

"SHUIT!!! I need a magic bullet blender... like..... now?"

I don't remember this, but apparently I said this after seeing the infomercial for the magic bullet after getting back from drinking on my Birthday. I shouted shit as well. Good. Times.

ITZ MAH BIRFDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woooo! I'm drunk, nafd UI'm going to write a post. I had a really good night. Some people sang me happy birthday. I think they were work guys. But I can't be sure. I got bought lots of shots. I also won some mittens. I love my mittens. There red. And have something to do with the olympics. I love yhem very much. I also had some Vietnamese noodles. They were good. I didn't pay for them. I don't know who did. Probably Tim. Probably. You guys are the beast, Becase  your read my blog. I don't even read my blog. So that makes you good. Tonight I only spent $10. and that includes a $1.35 tip. I thi8nk that taxi driver will be pleaded with me. I really like my mittens. Mittens. Chloe bought me a massive tub of smarities. There is probably like. 10,000,000 million smarites in there. But I can't be sure. I havn't counted. I like Joeys. Its nice. I don't want to leave Canada, but some times I miss home. That is all. Love you long tim greg. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Mahoosiive blog update. Part 1. New Year

Afternoon Children of the Frozen Isle. How's it been going? If my facebook updates and the news are anything to go by, your all stuck in your cars in various supermarket car parks and B roads around the UK. Its been almost warm in Vancouver all winter, around 10C and raining most days. The blogs been getting a bit of ignoring for two reasons. 1) I've been shattered as I did another 8 days in a row at work, and only just really recovered from it. 2) Its hard to write your secret blog about Canada when Chloe is always in the room. Shall we start?

Work has been mad busy between Christmas day and New years eve. Every night I started at 5:30 ish, and got out around 1:30 to 2:00 am. Even though its been so busy, its still been a lot easier than the day shift. I've become a pretty good dishwasher over the last few months, so even when the plates are rattling in at a fair pace, I've still not found it that hard to keep the dish pit clear.
I was expecting new years eve to be a crappy night, as I was working, but it actually turned out alright in the end. I got to work around 5:30 and commenced dishwashing. Management had provided us with donuts to keep our energy levels up, and boy did we need it. The whole night was manic up to 12, we were still getting large food orders at 11:45, the point when we stop accepting them. At 12, all of the kitchen staff went into the prep hall and did the count down, Adam gave a short talk and told us it had been a record breaking night in food sales. Our busiest night in history. We each got a shot to celebrate, then people who were closing the restaurant got another (that included me) then bar staff gave us another shot as well. I'm now a notorious light weight, and was hungry and dehydrated, so the shots went straight to my head. So I got to enjoy operating heavy machinery while tipsy. I did momentarily break the dishwasher, and had to climb inside put her back together, she had taken a fair pounding that night. We finally got out the restuarant at 2:00, and headed down the Judge pub (the Joeys local) after. Most of the staff who had worked that evening were down there, most had finished at 10, so they were all pretty hammered.  I had 2 honey largers and a random (hopefully not ryhipnoled) cider, and generally mingled. Joeys has employed a load of Europeans doing the same 1 year visa thingy as me at the moment, so there was plenty of people to compare travelling notes with as well. Around 3:30 I got a call of Chloe asking if I wanted to meet up. She had been out with Moniques Irish friends. Got into a club ( normally $50 and a line around the block to get in) for free by doing the old rub some else's stamp on your arm trick. Got bought a load of drinks by random guys in there, felt a bit worse for ware,so gave me a call, and so spent nothing the entire night. She was staying at a friends place right on English Bay, so we headed back there. The next morning/afternoon we got up and headed down to English Bay to watch the Polar Bear Swim, when a load of people take a dip on New Year day to celebrate the beginning of the year. Half of them still drunk. It was lightly raining, but not to cold, probably around 10C. I hadn't been down to the bay in a while, and the view was impressive, mountains and beach, with additional snow and cloud toppings. It was a fairly large event, there must have been around 500 people down there. Most people ran into the water, stood around for 20 seconds, then ran out, a few braver souls paddled for a bit. A lot of people had gone to the effort of constructing costumes, there was  a massive guy with a viking helmet and fur swimming costume, and the one guy who had attached a massive balloon to his head, and finished his outfit with a pair of pink poker-dot speedo's. He was going absolutely mental. At one point he climbed inside the balloon that was on his head, when the balloon finally admitted defeat and popped, he wore it like a dress and ran up and down the beach shouting "I'm naked". The whole event was really upbeat... maybe even uplifting. Everyone had that sickening positivity that only a Canadian can muster. I really enjoyed it. Afterwards me and Chloe went and grabbed a coffee at starbucks and did some light to moderate people watching on Davie street (Vancouvers west end) then I headed to work.

Not much else to report until later in the week when me Rosie, JP and Piers (or 'The Team' as Piers has dubbed us) went to Tafs (the sorta Mexican themed restaurant) and ate some food. JP was disappointed I didn't eat the rest of his burger, but did eat his salad. He sent me a text a couple of days later about it he was so miffed. We discussed how we had spent our new years, before all heading home, as were all to poor to actually go drinking properly. Thats pretty much it for the new years week.

QT!

Chloe:- "I look like.... what do you call one of them cats that bedraggled?"

Perhaps a bedraggled cat? She was pretty drunk at the time. So I'll let her off.

Server:- "Guys, the lounge is filling up"
Christian:- "Your a lounge! Oooohhhhh I showed him!"
Mike:- "Surely 'Your Mum is filling up' would have been a better response?"

I love kitchen banter.

Video of the week:-




Props to John for telling me about this guy. I don't really like NERD, but this interview is really good. Nardwaur is from Vancouver.

Just a quick note on 'The Team' slowly turning into Canadians, and not only being part of random chats with strangers, but even starting some of them. The other day, someone asked directions to the cinema. JP asked him what he was going to see, on hearing it was Avatar, he decided to give his opinion on it. It was only as he was walking away he wondered what had possessed him to do it. The other day I had a 5 minute chat with the girl who was serving me in the bank about how my signature was getting worse, at one point another customer joined in. God knows whats going to happen when I get back to Oxford and find myself still doing it.