Frosty Ivan

So i just thought id do a little housekeeping, and keep this thing running. Im not sure what i can write about on here. I dont think ive done anything that exciting. Last week i worked 3 13 hour days, which sucked big time, everyone was irritable, on the last day i didnt eat at all, working my ass off, with my boss being pissed off at me. FFS i was tired! We had to move this big white unit, seriously it weighed about 800 pounds, thats about 50 stone, yes i did convert it! it took 3 of us to lift one end, whilst the other had to lay the carpet underneath it, such a pain in the ass. I fucking hate my job. But not long left, so its all good.

I had a lazy weekend, although i lost my fone, which was gutting as people needed to reach me on the very weekend that i lost it. So annoying. So i go out and treat myself to a better fone, and on the offchance i go to lost and found at the subway station, and what do you know, someone handed my old fone in. Only in Canada. If it was back home, that would have been pinched and sold for drugs! So now i have two, so im trying to sell it along with anything i can hock for money. On my up to the subway lost and found, i walked past the EDGE studios (radio station) and saw a queue forming, i thought nothing of it. When i got home, i turned on the radio and realised what the Q was for, QOTSA were doing and in studio acoustic session and interview. So annoying. Well at least i got to see alexisonfire randomly all those months ago. Karma i guess. Hopefully seeing them 2moro with Justin in london (ontario). Should be an experience.

I had time to kill today so i checked out the second city (world famous). A comedy club that has given life to many comedians such as mike myers and some other random people. The show was called facebook of revelations, and it was very funny. Lots of sketches about technology and current affairs, this was followed by an improv set (which they hold every night, free at 10pm if you have nothing to do ) Which was very random, but very funny, esp when the actors start cracking up. Def recommend it!
Rich’s leaving do friday, which will technically be my leaving do as well. But ill see him out there. Just remembered my trip to the steamwhistle brewery, was quite interesting, not amazing, although free samples on a beautiful summers day, in the amazing roundhouse was a good way to kill some time.
Anyway not really been up to a whole lot more so just killing time (and money, doh!) until i go to BC. Missing some people now, mostly just random company, although missing my girl, and the cats, and well maybe the parents as well.

Heres to a new adventure out west!

So ive just woken up (not this instance of course, that would be lazy) from a raelly random night out. Saturday involved a thoroughly deserved day off, me and alison went to taste of the danforth greek street festival. Was bizzare to see. Hundreds of street vendors selling all manner of greek and other exotic food, so we wondered around in the blazing sun, trying a range of food and seeing greek and egyptian dancing. A good day out, something i would normally never do. After a torrent of text messages to enter in to win Queens of the stoneage tickets, and after a sit down from all that walking around, i set off to this secret venue that was texted to me, so secret that i couldnt find the place for ages. I eventually see a queue forming, i head towards it, this isnt so bad, until i head round the corner, more people, and then around another corner, blimey, thats alot of people. I met a couple of cool guys in the Q, who had as much idea as me as to how this whole ticket winning thing would work. We file round to this back alley and up a fire escape, in between two buildings to find a tiny club, dark/red and full of mirrors. I quickly redeemd my free beer ticket, and all of a sudden a band unleash a 6 song set, they were good, although im still trying to remember their name. A countdown and more texting in to win later, justin wins tickets in the first round. I was jealous to say the least, and after more talking, drinking and more music we headed back home. All in all the whole night was too random to put into more words, just take my word for it!

Well thats what the fortune cookie told me, and how can i not trust it, its so yummy and sweet (the solitude bit). So ive been trying to think of what ive been up to lately, and i cant really think of anything in particular. Let me try and start from this week and work my way backwards.
Me and alison had nothing really to do on saturday, so we wanted to catch caribana parade, although we didnt actually have any idea whereabouts it was. So we went to St Lawrence market instead. That place is awesome, some really nice market stalls, plus Ukrainian pirogi. On the walk down alison was telling me about her new parment she’s moving into in september, and how she has to pretend to be engaged, then she forgot that she actually didnt have a ring, it was so funny to listen to her logic, and trying to think how the hell she got into such a mess.

During the day i dont really have nethingt to do. So ive been going through Now magazine and my guide book to see what else i can do before i head off.Theres not been alot of work lately, so im hoping this zombie movie will provide some relief, and be kickass as well.

Me stu and emre went to wonderland, which rocked. So many awesome rides, alot of moeny and waiting in line, almost an hour for top gun ride, which wasnt worth it. 10 hours later and many rides and weary eyes and legs we head home. The next night me and stu head out to see evil dead musical once again, which i think ive allready blogged about.

Well in terms of solitude im all alone now as stu and dan have gone off, stu back to uni, dan, who knows where. So eventually ive managed to pick up some work, sort out my travel and accommodation for vancouver, which im quite looking forward to now, yet im still trying to cram in as much stuff in toronto as i can. At least ill get another try at toronto in a few months, hopefully with nez, we’ll cause some mayhem.

So ive had an awesome and intense few days. So i thought id start with the best of the few days. Evil dead the musical!It was bloody (and i mean that in both sense of the word) fantastic. This was of course my second time seeing it, and this one was all the more enjoyable. Me and stu were bored, and i spur of the moment decided to ask “Shall we see evil dead again?”. And so we set off to the playhouse (via a quick stop to get stu’s new tongue pirecing) and booked the tickets for the splatter zone early in the day.
“Yeah ive got two front row” the clerk said. Awesome. So $40 lighter in pocket me and stu eagerly awaited the next few hours until it started. We got there bang on time, only to find that there were out two empty seats….Right at the fucking front, dead centre, inches from the actors. OMG, its as if the zombie lords themselves conspired to seat me there. Naturally i was wearing my white tee-shirt i got from the previous time.
It was just as funny as last time, thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish and some of the lines were hysterical.

Halfway through one song ” Do the necronomicon” i think, that the girl that played cheryl leaned over mid song, and said “your going to get bloodied up bitch”….That did not bode well. Anyway the last scene where ash kills all the zombies, its a blood bath, fake blood bing sprayed everywhere, but mostly in my direction. I was sat 6 inches from a blood nozzle, and whenever ash shot someone, they had capsules of blood and sprayed them at me and stu and the guy next to me. A good time was when the main zombie got shot down and was crawling towards me saying “help me, he’s trying to kill me”, although Funniest was when ash pulled the heart out of the main zombie and threw its contents right at me, going all over my hair and tee.

At the end, people were saying, omg im covered, then they look at me and find, nope he’s covered way more! People were shocked and laughing at the state of me. Im not surprised. So me and stu nabbed some evil dead t-shirts and got outside. The fake blood kept collecting on my cigarette, and i was visibly dripping from my hair. Stu made the joke; “get in a taxi and say - get me the fuck outa here”, i would have, cuz it would have scared the shit out of him. But i thought otherwise. The number of dodgy looks i got walking through downtown toronto, covered in fake blood was numerous. I laughed soo much. Best night ive had in a while, totally worth it!!

below are some of my favourite quotes from it:

ash - “this isnt as bad as it looks”
jake - “how the fuck could this not be as bad as it looks?”
ash - “well its not like theres a pile of bodies in the corner of the room……anymore”

annie - “dont you think its inappropriate to be touching me there?”
ash and jake - “i aint touching you”
ash - “argh my hand!!!!” - throws it across the room
annie “eww that was gross, who knows where thats been”
ash - “actually i do….but its still pertty gross”

annie - “why are you alone in the woods?”
jake - “well afer cheryl gettin attacked by those trees, the presense of my wife bobbie jo seemed a bit redundant…”
annie - “what did you say?”
jake - “ugh nothing!!!”

ash - “face it ed, your just a bit part demon. A demon like you would never kill a guy like me….the main man!!”

ash - “im ok, the sight of my girlfriends necklace made me allright!”
annie - “….the same necklace that your girlfriend was wearing when she was a demon?”
ash - “yeah that does seem a bit inconsistent!”

Well theres nothing much to report this side of the pond. Was talking to doyle on MSN and he’s appalled by my apparent use of northamerican-ism’s, such as subway, to which he replied “Transportational sandwiches?”. I cant help it ok, ive been here a while!. I dont have the accent though, thank grayskull!. Not that theres anything wrong with it. So in that sense i kind of miss english sayings, and people being able to understand what i meant.
For example rich said “pickle my balls” to his colleague, and he had no idea, come one!!! How hard is it to understand that!

Summer is in full swing, as due to my sweating profusly walking 5 minutes to the laundrematte. And its definately not nice when wokring in 32 degree heat and your shirt is sodden. mmmmm nice! I got a little fed up sunday, of toronto i mean, not of canada. Which in reply to that i booked my Adventure tour trip. Stopping off at places such as Banff, lake louise and jasper, among others. Cant fricking wait. Ive never skiied in my life though, could be interesting. But thats in september, a way to go yet.

I also went to my first canadian house party round danny’s house. 20 people sat out on the roof drinking from red beer cups. Me and rich were fasinated, red beer cups, ala - American pie style. We were now truly in north america!! Naturally rich (being an architect) said “in my professional opinion, 20 people shouldnt be out on this roof”, although people only paid attention to him when the cops arrived to maintain order.
Also celebrated Canada day (i dont see what all the fuss is about) and spent a solid few hours at the hostle with dan’s mate SI, a mental case of the highest drinking order, was cool though.
So in general not been up to a whole lot. Watched Transformers (OMG it looked so awesome, though the story was some to be desired) and ratatouille (which was pretty entertaining. Worked last wednesday and within 5 minutes of being at the job site, i fell up the stairs, landed on my shoulder, to which i head a crunch. Uh-oh spgahetti-oh’s something’s not right. The doc said its all good, id be up shit creek if i busted my arm, esp in my line of half-assed work!

Ah well things are ticking over, so will report back soon of any developments.

Well….. I never thought that i would be at a gay pride parade on my birthday, but the nature of coincidence just-so-happened to be that the parade was the same day as my birthday. So naturally i went to see what all the fuss was about…omg the amount of shemales i saw was disturbing. Still there was a proper carnival atmosphere so i suppose it wasnt all that bad. So yeah my birthday was FABULOUS!!! lol

It didnt help that i was soo hungover. To celebrate another year flown by we went out to the “legendary” horseshoe tavern and hung out there on the porch, which was cool. There was me,dan,laura,danny,rich,helen,jennette,sean,tom, emre and other random people. So a good turnout none-the-less. My only regret was that i hadnt drunk so much vodka before i went out. Its just not cricket when you have to leave your own birthday party before everyone else, due to being fucked off your face. Ah well…good times. From what i can remember i didnt make that much of an ass of myself, although nobody is telling me anything on the contrary yet. Theres still photos though :O !

In other news, havent really been up to much this week, was going to go to the esplanade, and queens park and the islands again, but got too lazy. Although i did get another tattoo, a little birthday present to myself. Got 6 days of work in a row starting 2moro and im not going to like it, ah well hopefully ill get planty of tips.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinny_chin_chin00/ 

Ahh today has indeed been a beautiful day. I thought id get up off my ass and do something rather than wait for something to happen. Just so happens i remembered that the dragon boat festival was on at the Islands. So i thought id check it out.

For some unknown reason i decided to take the back route to the harbour and end up on john street. I was listening to Idelwild and something overpowering was coming through the headphone. I take them out and i hear something very familiar. :O Shock horror. Its fucking Alexisonfire. My heart skipped a little. WTF are they doing here. Then it came back to me, the MMVA’s are on today, and they performed a song for the crowd on one of the outside stages. Managed to get some good pictures and a video of them as well. Talk about Karma or fate or whatever random name you want to call it, this shit was surreal.
When they finished i thouhgt id carry on down john to the harbour, then what do you know, the band were hanging out backstage (which was technically still the street). I would have asked to get a photo but they were being mobbed by a swarm of emo girls.

I spent the rest of this gloriously sunny day, trying to work on my tan walking around the islands. Spent a good 3 hours walking around, finding little quirky spots, and a little opening with an amazing view of the skyline (see below). Checked out the beach as well, sat down and read my book amidst the quiet shores (bar a powerboat jetting around). Must have walked like 6 miles or something. All in all a great daytrip.

Just thought id do a little quick update on things here. Well ive managed to sort out some things that will occupy my time, for the time being that is. Had NXNE which was immense, so much crazy drinking and bands and stuff like that.

On the terms of crazy shit, me and stu were at the hostel bar (its our favourite place in the world atm, god knows why) and got talking to 3 irish guys and an english guy. Somehow ended up playing poker with them until 4am, was awesome, i didnt last many hands, but won and awesome hand on the last card. Also some random girl laura knows lives 3 doors away from us, which is rather random.

Oh and btw never get drunk with french people, esp if your friend thinks he’s a good translator. Mucho confusion. I also managed to get a free copy of SOAD hypnotise from somewhere :S

The week after next dave is wanting me to work 7 days, apparently some candians got it into their heads that they all want removals on the same friggin week of the year. Mucho fun to look forward to then. At least its pay, plus tips. I love gettin tips, esp for the amount of shit i have to carry up and down stairs.

Ive had an email about the zombie film, and ive been offered a production assistant role, its voluntary but its should be kick-ass. A mock doc about a zombie invasion, how could it get any better? Off to see “the audition next tuesday, they should be good. and mite snag a ticket to see MUSE Also got the week off, so i want to check out the islands a bit more, maybe some kayaking, and also go to st lawrence and church and esplanade. Also casa loma and the ROM(royal ontario museum).

So its all systems go here. catcha on the flipside

So a few things i have to fill in on. Well first of all, stu is finally 19, im not sure if ive mentioned it before, so finally we can go about and not worry about being turned away at the door of a bar.

Its been quite eventful. I went to my meeting for NXNE last week, and next thing you know, its come around, and im caught in the middle. It all seemed a bit of a daze. It started on thursday night, i was stage-handing at the Reverb club in Toronto. It seemed a bit of a dive, reminded me alot of some places back in plymouth, which were something to be desired:S. Alot of time me and rich were standing around watching the bands, then helping them lug equipment on and off the stage, alot of the didnt want our help, which kind of sucked. The first night there were some pretty cool bands. First one was this last minute replacement act from dublin called All star charge, kinda punk pop, similar to bloc party. Then a goth country act called miss Derringer. Both were awesome.

Second night some random act,  (actually alot of the acts were random canadian bands ive never heard of) had sooo much shit he wanted. Like using their own drumkit, even though we had a strict schedule to stick to. Managed to do it on time. The last day me and rich started early (5pm) drinking, then slipped out for cheeky pints over the road. And managed to get some special coffee off this guy we met in the bookstore. Nothing that special about it, just a coffee cup, filled with beer, so we could smuggle them into the club. Then hit El Mocambo till 4am, managed to stagger home at 6. A rather good night. Then the aftershow party saw yet more mayhem, although me, rich, danny (a girl btw), rob and chris all hung out. I can see alot of reunions happening.

Now its all over and done with im trying to find things to do. I saw an ad in craigslist about volunteering for a independent zombie movie, which i applied to, hopefully that will turn into something interesting. Now im yet again, applying for more jobs, as the removals have been quiet this week.

Ah yes, summer has arrived here in toronto, and you can tell by the 30 degree heat, which is unbearable. Unfortunately me and stu only just realised we have an A/C unit in our kitchen, which was rather dense of us.

Not a whole lot has been going on this week. Monday i went to see the bluejays whoop the yankees (baseball) 7-2. Actaully quite an interesting game, although 3 hours long is a bit of a stretch. At least oit filled up some time. On wednesday, we were pyched up for the SWAP office club nite, apparently a load of travellers were meeting at this club. Turned out to be rubbish so went back to the hostel bar. Where to our amazment they were giving out free beer. Im never one to turn down free beer (6 or 7 pint’s worth of the stuff). So that was an awesome nite.

The next day i decided, after my hangover, that i would join the girls at a museum. Alas it the BATA shoe museum. Who would have thought they could fill a whole museum full of the things. So me and 4 women, in a shoe museum. How much torture can a man take :S. They were in their element.

Friday i had another removal job, which wasnt too bad, although the humidity was unbearable, sweating buckets, i think is the term. Had to carry the heaviest cabinet thing, ive ever seen, up two flights of stairs, which was awful. Although as joe pointed out, it wasnt as bad as carrying a piano. Still got $70-ish pay, plus $70 tip, which is awesome!

Last nite me stu and laura went to the opening of the Royal ontario museum, there were like 50,000 people there, was rammed. Some random concert was on, hosted by the guy who played the mountie in Due south, much to laura’s excitement.

So now just looking forward to the start of NXNE, my music festival that im volunteering for. Should be awesome.