Ian

chillin in a hostel common room – 7th May 2007

good evening all,
well i havent put anything on here for a while (hey ive been really busy!) so here we go.
well we (me, john, ralph and greg) left whistler on a rainy day and i spent the whole journey talking to a strange girl called corina. an interesting conversation! we stayed in vancouver for a night and then moved over the border into seattle. i disguised myself as a mexican and confused the americans by smuggling myself over the wrong border. we stayed in a cool hostel called the green tortoise and went to hooters followed by a bar recommended by corina called noc noc where there was a pole dancing night going on. very cool. we also went to the music museum and sci fi museum (i certain people who would be very jealous about that last one).
we then went off to san francisco where we met up with james and dave. we rented bikes and cycled over the golden gate bridge, we all got sun burned and i fell on my head (see johns page)! we walked all over the place, caught the tram, went to alcatraz (and escaped)and smoked hookah pipes in an indian restaurant. good times. at this point we left james and dave as they stayed in san fran for about a week longer.
following this we set off to las vegas where we immediatly felt the crazy crazy heat. when you get off the plane your immediatly greted with a whole bunch of gambling machines in the airport arrivals. we stayed in the circus circus hotel and casino which was the first time ive had my own room for almost eight months. very nice hotel but the casino was a bit cheesy so we went up and down the strip checking out all the other casinos. we gambled away a fair bit of cash but nowhere near as much as we expected to. we played blackjack, roulette, wheel of fortune and video poker. all fun. even though we lost more than we won it was still really fun. we also checked out a jousting show in a casino called excalibur (medievil themed casino). very funny, we had to cheer the bad guys!
then we headed out to new york which was a long day of travelling.
so today was our first day in new york and we wandered around central park for a while and then went up the empire state building. tomorrow were going to head out the home of the warriors, coney island. we also intend to go check out where the two towers were, ground zero.
so yeah thats a brief overview of the trip so far. lots of other stuff happened and i can explain those at a later date but right now i need to go to bed because its 4 in the morning and ive got lots of stuff to see tomorrow.
laters
ian (the travelling stuntman)

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the times they are a changin’ – 26th March 2007

hello again, ive finally sat down and written some emails to people so i thought id update my page aswell whilst im in crazy writing mode! you lucky lucky people!
well i suppose the biggest bit of news round here at the moment is that one of our flat mates, john lucas, has had a really bad injury on the mountain (third degree separation of his shoulder) and is having to go home. they took him to the hospital and pumped him full of morphine and left him in a dark room for 3 hours. he moved out of his room and into his girlfriends room to avoid having to pay rent for the last few days before leaving and were all going to go out for a big farewell drink with him on tuesday so that will probably be quite messy! a new girl called loretta moved into his old room yesterday. she seems quite cool, shes austalian and does design work for magazines which sounds fun to me.
of course the other big news is that jenn left us the friday before last and has gone back home. we still havent heard anything from her yet but i dont think she has access to the internet. jenn and john went down to vancouver and stayed in a very swish hotel for a couple of days so that must have been a good send off.
also a couple of days we sat down and sorted out all of our flights and accomodation for our trip round america so were all sorted and ready to go on the 24th of April (less than a month away). my my arent we organised! in las vegas we are going to be staying in the circus circus hotel which features in the film fear and loathing in las vegas (and has a rotating bar and the worlds largest indoor roller coaster) so im going to be wandering around doing impressions the whole time and im pretty sure someone will slap me at some point and tell me to shut up!
st patricks day was pretty uneventful we just went down to a bar and had a couple of pints of guinness. not particularly exciting. we might be going out somewhere tonight possibly as we havent really been out for a big one for a week or two.
the weather here has changed drastically from heavy snow to heavy rain and now today its been blue skies and hot sun. weve had the windows wide open all evening! this of course means that the snow is slowly starting to disappear although we should get a bit more snow later in the week.

well i just remembered that i forgot to wish my mum a happy mothers day last week (whoops) so happy belated mothers day mum, ill get you something on my travels!
later one and all,
ian

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violence and crazyness in whistler – 10th March 2007

hello everyone who still looks at this website (probably just my mum!).
there has been a bit of a dodgy incident in whistler last night. some guy was shot and killed in the village centre and a large area was cordoned off by the police. of course there are various rumours floating around already (including that janet jackson’s bodyguard shot him (janet jackson is in town making a film)). there arent really any more details than that at the moment and everyones pretty sure that whistler will cover up the incident as much as possible as they usually do when someone dies.
on a happier note im still exceptionally good looking………… apart from a great big cut on my chin from crashing on a big jump.
well people are leaving left right and centre. today our friend matt left after dislocating his knee and jenns leaving in about a week (so that means we should change the website to JI or IJ instead of JIJ). john and myself have finally decided what were going to be doing after leaving whistler. were going to leave at the end of april and go travelling round america for a couple of weeks with some friends, we bought the plane tickets a couple of days ago. were going to be going to seattle, san fransico, las vegas (gambling woohoo!), new york and then up to toronto. should be pretty damn cool.
not a lot has been going on really, just been working, snowboarding and partying really. im going to see a drum n bass dj called shy fx on wednesday so that should be a really cool night.
its been raining a lot lately which sucks and apparantly its going to be raining all the way up the mountain over the next few days which is going to mess all the snow up. lame. however the terrain parks will probably be quite good. ive being going into the back country with people over the last couple of weeks and riding all sorts of crazy runs. also been going in the terrain parks a lot and ive learned a fair few new tricks to add to my reportoire.
anyway im gong to cook myself some food now as i am very hungry (last week i made my very first ever stir fry, i was quite pleased with myself)
later y’all
ian (master chef)

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dear god im a quarter of a century old! – 19th February 2007

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…. etc.
well i just turned 25 on friday the 16th and that makes me a whole quarter of a century older than a new born baby.
on friday me and john and a few more people went snowboarding from 9 in the morning til about 3 in the afternoon. we had a really good ride and found a rock with loads of snow on it we used as a jump. we took some video footage there and ill put it on this website when i can.
that night we went out to a bar called furniture warehouse where they give you unlimited peanuts. as you can imagine lots and lots of peanuts were eaten and even more were thrown all round the place even at people we didnt know who promptly threw peanuts back at us(all in good humour mind you (this seems to happen every single time we go there)). eventually we bought so many drinks and ate so many peanuts that the waitress came over and gave us a free plate of nachos. which was cool. when all the nachos were gone there were still a bunch of jalepeno peppers left on the plate and so i ate about 10 in one go and was in a lot of pain for about half an hour. then john bought me a jager bomb (red bull in a glass with a shot glass of jagermeister in it) and for some reason the burning went away. i then completely forgot about the jalepenos until the next day when i went to the toilet!
then we went out to a club called moe joes and had a reet ol’ time in there too. and then we went to a pie shop on the way home. cool.
john and jenn bought me guitar hero 2 for my birthday so everyone has been coming round and rocking out! also i bought myself a video ipod because it was going cheap and my ipod broke. its very cool i can put pictures and videos on it aswell as music.
it seems that quite a few people are having birthdays this month so there will be a fair bit of partying going on me thinks!
anyway im going to cook myself some pasta bolognese so ill have to bid you all goodbye for now,
seeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaa!
ian

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general stuff since the last post! – 11th February 2007

how do y’all! ive finally sat down and dedicated some time to writing to you losers (ive got lots of important things to do and people to see so i dont really have time to talk to you). ive been meaning to write for at least two weeks but i just never seem to get round to it, theres always something that needs doing.
well where to start. when my parents came out last month they brought very large jars of marmite with them so we have bee feasting on that a fair bit (sometimes i just eat it straight from the jar with a large spoon (not really that would be a bit disturbing)).
our friends mark and alex came over from the U of K half way through january and we all had a reet laff! me and john went down to vancouver to meet them and stayed a few days there. that was the first time we’d been out of whistler since october and it was good to get out (we were starting to feel a bit cooped up). we wandered round vancouver a bit and went to a whole bunch of bars and restaurants and stuff (i spent way more money than i should have). then we all came up to whistler. mark and alex came snowboarding with me john and jenn up the mountain which was cool, getting the whole crew together on a mountain! luckily work gave me a whole week off so we were able to take full advantage of the time they were here. we went out a lot and on the last day they were here to a wwf (wrestling) themed night at a local club (lots of people in leotards) and then came back to our house for post drinking drinks and alex eventually fell asleep. im sure youve probably already seen the pictures of him covered in a variety of house hold items such as shaving foam, beer cans, corn flakes, a frankfurter, cotton buds, paper, etc. it was very funny until we all left and he woke up. he came round ours looking very angry. he didnt know how to get home so we took him back down the hill to the village. when we got back to his room in his hotel he promptly went to the fridge and pulled out a half finished bottle of cider, went upstairs (yes thats right they had stairs IN their hotel room), and dumped the bottle over marks head while he was asleep! it was all very very funny. i eventually got to bed at about 5 ish and had to get up at 7 the next day to go to work. needless to say i was completely useless at work being very tired and very very hungover.

ive also had the flu pretty bad and its finally gone away this week, i had it for a good 3 or 4 weeks and it was horrible. due to me being off ill from work and being given time off for when mark and alex were here i didnt get much money at all in my wages that fortnight. in fact i didnt realise how little i had earned until i went to the super market after a particularly heavy night to discover that i had $30 left in my account. fortunately with a bit of corner cutting i managed to survive until the next payday!
well besides these happenings not much has been going on apart from laundry, drinking, guitar hero, work, snowboarding (fantastic), washing up and drinking. all in all im having a reet good time.
any hoo im about to head on out because its 9 oclock on my friday night (monday night) and were going to tommy africas (club) for eighties night (woohoo!) where i shall be hooking up with people from work. and tomorrow me and ralph intend to hit up peak to creek (long run from the peak of the mountain to the bottom) on our boards and chances are john will come too.
well ive got to go and sort myself out for tonights festivities so i will be off now,
take it easy and hopefully ill put out another message again fairly soon,
bye bye
ian (the eighties boogie master)

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whats happening in january – 10th january 2007

well hello again you merry bumpkins. i hope you all had a cool christmas and a happening new years eve. i did.
i thought that finally getting my laptop would mean that i would use this website more often but i guess that hasnt proven to be the case, and for that i apologise! but i do intend to come on here more often and write things so do keep your eyes peeled (if anyone is actually still looking at this website!). i have however put up some more pictures.
well christmas was a blast (for me (some people were ill or working unfortunately)) as im sure you can tell from the messages and pictures already on here. we had a slap up meal (thanks jenn) and then later i went to an 80s night at a local club (most amusing). and then on new years eve we went out to a crazy house party was attended by so many random people that the police had to come and shut it down. at that point we came home and various forms of new years eve drunken shenanigans occured. also just before christmas john and me went to see dj Qbert with our friend james. my dear god he was absolutely ridiculous (go on you tube and search for dj q bert scratching, its amazing).
im sure youll all be glad to hear that ive been able to go snowboarding a fair bit more often now as ive been given a few more late shifts at work which allows me to cruise the mountain and then go to work completely knackered, but satisfied! weve all been improving a fair bit, for example me and john did a black run (difficult run) through some trees earlier today which was great fun. and also weve started hitting up the terrain parks and doing jumps and rails (whoa gnarly!).
my parents came over to see us over the weekend just gone (hi mum, hi dad!), so that was really cool getting to see them for a few days, also they took us out to eat (free food woohoo!). on the saturday they came up in the gondola with me to see what the views were like for themselves. luckily it was a pretty clear day and the views were quite good. now they are in vancouver and have sent me an email saying that there have been storms so bad that loads of trees in stanley park were knocked down and it had to be shut down for a while. in about a week mark and alex will be coming to see us for a little while so they can come and check out the awesomeness of the whistle-errr and other such things (bring me some irn bru!).
well ive got a three day weekend starting tomorrow so we are going to slap the mountain down with our boards and make it beg for mercy (chances are the mountain will slap us back and a lot harder) so im going to go and get some rest.
seeya
ian

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late night howdy doody – 21 december 2006

work sucks. i think every last one of you realises that but i just thought id let you know that work isnt good on this side of the atlantic either. i work a 5 day week, same as back home, whereas other people such as john only do a 4 day week (he does do 10 hour days but he also gets to board every day if he fancied it). i on the other hand go up the mountain when i can. today for example (a wednesday) is my saturday, (as i get wednesdays and thursdays off work) so naturally i went for a big fat snowboarding sesh…. by myself…., john was going to come but i got up too late. so i cruised around for several hours listening to my ipod…..by myself…., its cool but not as good as when youre with other people. its very difficult to get people to go out on your saturday when its their tuesday and they have to get up at 5 in the morning the next day. so basically i stayed in tonight (on my saturday!) and had a chilled beverage or two with a couple of people. everyones probably going to go out tomorrow night instead (my sunday night) and ill probably go out with them then instead.

anyway instead of complaining about the lack of peoples weekend synchronization i should probably write about what weve been up to. well, me and john got our macs the other day (finally (i mean does it really need to take 2 months to send out 2 laptops! (obviously it does))) and typically the telecommunications for the whole of whistler had been knocked out that morning so no one could access the internet. does that surprise anyone? it really should but i wasnt surprised at all after the various fudge ups that ive had to go through in recent times (and by that i mean the whole not being able to get a job thing and everything that went with it). also i dont think i mentioned it before to anyone about how i accidentally dropped my phone in a puddle about a month ago on the way home from a bar and it is completely and utterly broken. i then (eventually) bought a new phone from ebay. this phone i lost on the way home from a bar in one of many piles of snow. we were playing, rugby tackle or pick up and throw into snow, a random person from the crew and by the time i got home and realised id lost the phone i had already dumped and been dumped into snow by other people so many times that it was pretty much impossible to find the phone again. oh well i guess its time to check out ebay again!
i still havent got round to taking my camera up the mountain yet but ive bought some batteries so if i remember (fingers crossed) ill take it up the mountain tomorrow. and then i can get some more photos put up on here.

on monday i had my staff christmas dinner on monday which was pretty cool. it was held in a five star hotel and it was all free, woohoo! i got my photo taken with santa (and this was a proper five star hotel santa, not one of your run of the mill shopping centre santas that smell of wee and gin(no no this guy smelt of fine whiskey and rich mahogony(and thats much better… i think))). and then we went to an 80s night at one of the local clubs. all in all it was a pretty cool night. i have to work christmas day so that will be a bit poo but i think ill survive!

right its late (about 3 in the am) so ive gotta go now. ill try and message again before christmas but if i dont merry christmas mofos!

ian (the workingist worker in all of workingham tennessee)

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snowboarding and housing – 19 november 2006

well two important things happened to me this week. firstly i managed to get myself a job in a warehouse (woohoo!), and secondly me and john have just gone snowboarding for the first time (jenn had to work, haha!). the mountain opened today and it was muchos fun even though we spent most of our time on our backs or faces. it is very hard to stand up on these things if we go out again tomorrow then ill try and remember to bring my camera.

we went to a free bbq on thursday night to honour the norse god of snow, Ullr. there was also a great big bonfire with a big wooden man on top and fireworks and cookies. whoop. it was a pretty good night. then we went to a club in town called garfinkels (or the finkels of gar) and were given locals passes so that we can push to the front of the queue whenever we go there. oh yes thats right we are officially locals now and we have cards to prove it. we also have library cards how cool are we!

now that ive got a place to live im in the market to buy a playstation 2 so that i can sit around all day playing computer games (mostly guitar hero! haha!). unfortunately the arrival of our laptops has been set back again so we wont be able to get them for at least another two weeks which totally sucks. one of our flat mates has bought a really fast wireless modem so when our computers arrive it’ll be time to do some serious downloading, cyber piracy is the way!

we have discovered that canadians love to say awesome a lot. sometimes theyll even say “super awesome” which we beleive is a bit strong for some of the things that they apply this phrase to. for example “i ate a super awesome piece of cheese yesterday”. now i dont think that any piece of cheese no matter how great it is should really be referred to as “super awsome”, and i REALLY like cheese! surely something thats super awesome would be winning the lottery or an amazing view or some fine leather bound books and an apartment that smells of rich mahogony (watch anchorman).

me and john went and watched the new will farrell film, stranger than fiction, yesterday and was really good. it wasnt really a comedy as such although there were a lot of funny bits but i would totally recommend seeing it. we are going to  see the borat film and lets go to prison at some point as well as they both look really good too.

well im cold and wet from my mountain adventure so im going to head back up to the house and eat lots of scrambled egg! oh yes i am a master chef. so anyway take care of yourselves and each other!

ian (the most Xtreme dude ever)

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halloween

well it was halloween yesterday. did any of you guys dress up like fairys and run around trick or treating old ladies for money. no? me neither.

halloween is kind of a big thing here all the canadians and americans love it, the aussies dont do it in oz but they really get into it when theyre over here. some british people got into it and everyone went out and got drunk and went clubbing! whistler was full of crazy people last night! one guy we know here looks like tom green and so he went as him, another one with a beard went as jesus (oo err!), two guys went as ron burgundy from anchorman (very funny “milk was a bad choice!” etc).

i didnt get the job as a snow remover because  i “cant ski or snowboard” which is not something they put on their website (which the guy nicely apologised for but that doesnt help me). ive been hecticly searching for work for several days now and may have to move out of staff accomodation soon. theres another opportunity to work for whistler blackcomb on the 6th but theres going to be a lot of people all clamouring for the few jobs there are.

ive been applying for jobs in whistler village instead but that will mean not having staff accomodation which sucks.

i went to a massive whistler job fair yesterday and applied for a bunch of things and had four interviews and one today so well have to see how that turns out.

on a plus note everyone else is doing fine! apart from our mouse tarquin that is. he got caught in the mouse trap under johns bed last night. we may have to draw straws to see who is going to have to clean him up and give him a viking funeral.

well im off now so wish me luck on the 6th!

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 a room with a mouse

we are now in whistler hooray!

i now have my own bed to sleep in woohoo!

we have a mouse called tarquin shitwell……… crap.

well ive got a job interview to be a snow shoveller in about 3 hours so i guess im going to have to prepare my mind, do some meditation or something, maybe ill go a drink a whole load of energy drinks (there are many to choose from) so that i get some kind of facial spasming, i dont want to look over qualified.

we went to a bbq on saturday next to a lake called ‘lost lake’. canadians seem to have a real problem remembering where their lakes are, even when they’re on the map. i had a veggie burger, it was rank, never again. then we chilled out next to the lake with a random, aussie guy called mike and drank a bottle of wine out of a brown paper bag, i felt so cool.

the place that were living in is half way up a mountain so everytime we want to go to or from the village we have hike up a massive rocky hill (not at all good when carrying cases of beer). also not good at night as you cant see anything. getting to our local bar involves a bit of a dark night time stroll over some bridges and random countryside aswell which is also kind of bad when stumbling home. the first night we went there one of the people we went with got very very drunk and was sick outside next to a huge bouncer. when the bouncer asked him if he was alright the guy flipped him off so we had to run in and drag him off before he got pummeled. he then spent the whole journey home screaming about how he “screwed a fat bird”. very funny!

well id best go and prepare myself now so im off down the grocery store to buy a whole load of energy drinks!……. and cider! yeah!

byebye

ian

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back from tofino

hello there people, im still wearing the belt and spinning it at regular intervals (BLING)!

so yeah we have just come back to vancouver a couple of hours ago after a 7 hour greyhound journey (fun!) with a ferry ride in the middle. tofino was very cool very small and quiet and despite this there was a big concrete skatepark. hmmm odd. we went whale watching yesterday in a small inflatable speedboat (the guy driving neglected to tell us that the whales could capsize the boat if they felt like it until we were way out on open waters). we saw humpback whales, grey whales, bald eagles, porpoises, seals and sealions all very cool. the hostel was really cool you could drink in the common areas so it worked out slightly cheaper than going down the pub and also there was a proper kitchen so you could cook up your own food (saved a couple of pennies there too!). however i would just like to say that the staff there were completely and utterly useless they were just high all the time and couldnt help you at all, instead they would shut down the kitchen for “cleaning” and cook them selves some food. very annoying.

the night before we left for tofino me and john saw ra the rugged man and jedi mind tricks and they were amazing. we left the club at three and we had to catch the greyhound bus at half five in the morning. weak. at the show john saw some guy try to elbow another guy, miss and elbow some girl in the face knocking her out. which was nice. on the whole the crowd was quite cool but some people went completely nuts and went all out trying to mess people up.

we found a cool restaurant that sold loads of beers from all over the world last week and they sold something called a tower. what this is is a giant 6 or 7 pint glass with a tap in the bottom so you can pour your own. pretty cool i thought. we also went to a mongolian restaurant last week that has a big circular stove and what you do is pick out all the raw food you want and put it in a bowl, you take it to the chef and he cooks it up right in front of you on his massive stove thing. very very tasty.

well jenns off to whistler tomorrow to get into her accomodation and get her work on. me and john are gonna stay here until the 15th and then stay in some crazy jesus freaks hot tub until we can get our staff accomodation sorted.

anywho im off to eat something and drink something and slap a pigeon…… or iguana (whichever i meet first).

ian (the adventurer, warrior without feeeaaar!)

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bling blong

well i just bought a belt with a spinner for a buckle and a bottle opener on the back and i also bought a camo bandana, yes thats right i am the blingingest gangsta on the west siiiieede.

yeah we’re not going to be seeing alexisonfire tonight because they sold out. lame. never mind were going to fill the void in our lives with food.

we’ve been here two weeks now has anyone realised we’ve gone yet? has the profound sense of loss kicked in? have you all managed to come to terms with the fact that we are no longer with you? i know it will be tough for you all but your just going to have to cope without us. there may be occasions when you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat screaming “wheres ian?”. well its too late now you shouldn’t have taken my presence for granted. your going to have to find yourselves a new person to worship and adore like a god until i get back.

on another note im slightly hungover and would like some sympathy

we went to a comedy club last night that cost $3 to get into. we werent really sure what to expect from canadian comedy having never seen any before especially considering it was only $3. it was actually quite good i only felt sorry for one of the comedians. the other thing that was cool about the comedy club was that every table had a button on it, and if you were to use your finger (or face or elbow or whatever) to press this button someone would come to your table and take your drink order. awesome! i didnt have to go all the way to the bar (which was about 3 metres away).

yeah alex (or xela as you signed on as(yes i know it was you(wow im putting brackets inside brackets, the world has gone topsy turvy))) ill take some photos of the skatepark at some point. yesterday when we were at the skatepark i was desperate for a crap so i had to run off to use a public washroom (eww). but the blokes toilet was out of order so i had to use the ladies, and i noticed on the wall someone had written “you smell of junkie poo”. which i thought was lovely. so lovely in fact that i decided to you all about it (if anyone wants further details let me know! haha!).

anyway i think ill leave you with that thought

bye bye

ian.

p.s. i still hate you ross

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natterings from a person in canada

well we have still not been to capilano bridge because the bus that goes there doesnt seem to exist. we tried to walk there the other day and we almost died (my legs actually fell off, i had to glue them back on with glue i bought from a squirrel). we ended up back in stanley park and found beaver lake and some really tame ducks and squirrels, but no beavers, strange that.

well me and john bought bought ourselves skateboards because we found an amazing skate plaza under a bridge (all the skaters we’ve seen are ridiculously good). guess what, it rained the day after that, no surprise there. we thought that might be the end of our dry weather but it dried up again (thank christ). i also found out that whistler has a temporary indoor skate park in a carpark so hopefully that will keep us amused during winter.

other massive expenditures that are going to have to be made this week are buying all our snowboard equipment (around $400 – $600) and also me and john are going to buy mac laptops so we can do some music production whilst we’re travelling (including all the programs and other gubbins we need should be around $3000, maybe less if were lucky).

me and john saw jackass 2 the other night, its really funny i totally recommend it (unless you dont like that sort of thing). also on friday night we saw the vancouver canucks versus the calgary flames (thats ice hockey by the way) and it was really cool, john bought the worlds worst giant pretzel, canucks won by the way. at the beginning some guy sang the canadian national anthem which was quite amusing(oooooo caaanaaadaaaa!). were going to a comedy club on wednesday, alexisonfire on thursday and jedi mind tricks on saturday so weve got a pretty full on week of cool stuff happening. were also intending to head off to a place called tofino for a few days which is supposed to be really cool.

hope all you guys are well (apart from ross, i dont like him haha!)

ian