Auckland

If you wanna skip this one, you're not missing much. Auckland really wasn't that exciting. Things didn't get good until my next stop.

Auckland has a nice airport. Customs was pretty easy. I just went to a flight-crew only aisle and acted like I had no idea what I was doing. They had me through in seconds, while everyone else from my flight waited. I pointed and laughed. They didn't like it.

I took a shuttle to my hotel instead of the cheaper bus, as a reward for not spending much in Rarotonga. True to form, I forgot everything's opposite there driving-wise, and spent a minute or so wondering why there was no door on the shuttle. Nice work dumbass, check the other side. Oops. The drive there was similar to the UK - full of roundabouts I could never navigate in a million years if I could actually drive. The hotel was dead-center downtown, 2 blocks from the harbor, facing the busiest street in the city (Queen St). Got a 10th floor room with a pretty dope view - check it...actually don't. I can't get the night pic to actually show the tower for some fucking reason. Check my facebook if you care. It's the same as the pic below...but at night. It's all lit up n stuff. Use your imagination.

For some reason, I've always been interested in TV in other countries. Not necessarily the shows, just what kind of channels they get and how much they copy/steal American stuff. Let's just say TV in New Zealand is lacking. In my room, I got the following - 4 NZ channels, Sky Sports, Sky News, 2 radio stations (?), and a 24 hour yoga channel. What the fuck? Then I went to plug in my netbook to get some internet action, and got another shock - it was 33.69 a day, and you can only use 100MB of bandwidth. I knew the price going in, but download caps? And that low? Brutal. I couldn't go to a few sites I normally frequent (not that kinda shit, eff off) because they use a lot of pics and videos and would eat up the allowable amount. AND, it was 10 cents a MB over the limit. Ridiculous.

I also remembered when I got there that I had lost an entire day. I took off from Raro at 5:45pm thursday, and landed at 8:15pm friday, since I crossed the international date line. I knew I was getting that day back when I came home, but I still felt cheated somehow. It was also completely disorienting, and I couldn't figure out what day it was for over a week after that. The people from home that I talked to didn't help, because they were a day behind me. You think it's easy to figure out? Try living it junior!

All this, and I haven't even been outside yet. It was walky time. It didn't take long to realize that a lot of downtowns are the same, but Auckland's is extremely similar to Vancouver's. It was almost eerie. Take out gastown and add some hills, and I felt like I didn't even leave home. The good thing was that there were no homeless people and it felt a lot safer, but...it was still boring. I hate downtown Vancouver, so it's not surprising that I wasn't a big fan of downtown Auckland initially. It didn't help that the one pub I went into had what seemed like crazy expensive beer at the time - 9 NZ Dollars. That's only about 6.50 Canadian, but still shocked me. I was consistently whining about the price of stuff, then immediately happy when I realized that it was 30% cheaper in Canadian. I love New Zealand.

I was a big fan of 2 things about Auckland though - the liquor store directly across the street, and room service! Shut it, I'm a baby. A 4.5 hour flight takes a lot out of a moo cow! Since downtown at night was kind of lame, I just chilled and watched some terrible TV. One room service beer was the same price as a 6 pack across the street, 7 bucks Canadian. One roasted lamb thinger and a moderate amount of non-room service beer (somewhere between 3 and 13) later, I went to sleep, kind of dissatisfied with Auckland so far.

Next day wasn't much more exciting. I started off by walking down to the harbour. Auckland is known as the "City of Sails", so I was expecting a kickass waterfront. Ah, no. Most of it is still a working port, thus it's pretty gritty. The area with all the fancy sailboats and expensive bars/restaurants is okay, but nothing compared to Stanley Park or Coal Harbour. I got my first taste of the difference between Canada and New Zealand when I sat down on the patio of one of the pubs. I waited...and waited...and waited. No service. I guess you have to go in and get your own in NZ. Oops. That was a nice waste of 15 minutes.

Since that didn't stimulate me much, I decided to walk all the way up Queen St (3km or so) to check out what the main drag was like during the day. It turned out to be 3 things - busy, multicultural, and expensive. The most amusing thing I saw was a squeegee kid. My guess is that they're not common in Auckland, because the people in every single car he approached were scared shitless. Two women actually screamed when they saw him, which made me laugh pretty hard. Neither the women or the derro (derelict, homeless person, etc) found my laughter very funny themselves, but I'm just a dirty tourist so I'm allowed to laugh at dumb shit. The reaction to him really was the most interesting thing Queen St had to offer. The rest was pretty generic. Malls, restaurants, asians, bad driving...it was like Richmond without an Ikea.

After the long walk, I figured it was pub time. 9 dollar beers again, but this pub had slot machines! These things should just bend you over and service you when you walk in though, because they're fucking rapists. When there's no one in a pub at 3pm, they're the only entertainment, so I got to playing. 2 cent slots can't pilfer that much money from you, right?

Wrong.

This Mike Tyson of a machine (only rapist I could think of offhand) ate my 20 bucks quicker than Juhl downs a cheeseburger. Quicker than Lisa mainlines a double vodka. Quicker than Jess claims the top bunk on a yurting trip. Okay, you get the idea. Anyway, I hadn't even finished 1/3 of my beer. So, like an idiot, I put in another 20, and decided to play fewer lines so my money would last longer. Good idea, right? Fuck that. I would have got as much entertainment dropping the 20 in a garbage disposal. Somehow, I was down 40 bucks in 5 minutes. Well, 49 including the beer. This is when being a loser doesn't feel so bad though, cuz 49 NZ bucks is only 34 Canadian. Not so bad at all. Yea, that made it all better. Stupid machine.

Dealing with all that excitement earned me a relaxing hotel stop, so I chilled for a while and drank beers that weren't 34 bucks a piece. I guess there were more "touristy" things I could head out and see, but I'm not really a typical tourist most of the time. I'm waaaay prettier. Anyway, Auckland has museums and underwater penguin adventures and cool islands n shit, but come on...how could any of that top the Mercure hotel and a Tui (the only good IPA beer in the world) on a saturday afternoon? Chalk another day up to me being a lazy bastard.

While I was lazing about, I noticed that there was a rugby game on. I quickly figured out that there are only 3 sports on TV in NZ - rugby, cricket, and netball. Netball is neutered basketball for white girls that doesn't allow dribbling or body contact. Basically, it's fucking stupid. Cricket's not so bad if you have 3 days to watch a match. Rugby though? Fucking AWESOME. I can't believe I have any respect for NFL players after watching high-level rugby. These guys beat the living bejesus out of each other, with no pads. I just happened to show up on the last day of the Super 14 season, and got to watch 3 games that decided who'd make the playoffs. They all ruled. Rugby's my new favourite sport (other than hockey and MMA).

I won all 3 rugby bets I made online, which earned me back the money I lost to the sexual assault machine in the pub. To celebrate, I went...back to a pub. Duh. Too bad it was a miserable failure. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of pubs, but they were either packed with rugby watchers, or waaay beyond my idea of a dress code. I couldn't find anything other than my hotel bar, which seemed pretty lame. But, a pub is a pub is a pub, and the lamest places can turn out to be pretty damn cool sometimes. I talked to just about everyone in there (all 7 of them), and they were all from other parts of NZ. Despite the multiculturalism outside the hotel doors, these people acted like I was a huge novelty by visiting their country. They bought me beer, enviously bitched about Australia, and explained cricket well enough that I actually understood the rules. Sort of. The best part was, unlike Australians, it seems that Kiwis use very little slang, so I could actually understand what they were saying. I learned more about NZ in those 4 hours than I had in 4 months of research.

Folks, nights like this are why I travel. Anyone can sit in front of a computer and memorize stuff, but LIVING this stuff is how you really learn about places and people. I'm lucky that I'm consistently able to meet people that are willing to take the time to help me get a feel for the places I go. I'm not the most outgoing person, but Kiwis are extremely personable people and made me feel at ease no matter where I was. It was awesome.

Where was I? Auckland, right. So after the informative night and a good sleep, I got up with the intention of taking this hop on/hop off bus that goes all over the city and covers the main sights. Notice the word intention. Apparently that good sleep wasn't quite long enough, because the next thing I know it was 1pm. Go Tim. I decided to hit up a pub for lunch and...they're all closed. Say what? Apparently Auckland still likes Jesus or some shit, because everything was closed on sunday. Another reason to dislike religion. It also happened to be raining, which actually didn't bother me since it was 20+ degrees every other day so far and I hate heat. I decided to go for a long ass walk, and cover everything in the downtown core I hadn't already seen.

An hour later, I was back. Come on, this is me we're talking about. Were you expecting a 12 hour trek or something? Suuuure. I'm a giraffe, not a camel. Turns out there's just not a ton to see. Some nice buildings. A supposedly nice square that's under construction. And so on. So, now what? What to do, what to do? There was another hotel bar on the top floor, so why not check that out?

All I can say about it is HAHAHA. I paid another 9 NZD for a beer, and sat down to look at...the exact same view that my hotel room has, but 3 floors up. What. A. Waste. And to top it off, they didn't have one TV in the place. There just so happened to be the most important (and last) Super 14 game of the regular season about to start, and they don't have a TV? What the fuck? One shotgunned beer and an elevator ride later, I was back in the lobby bar. TVs! Jager bombs! Rugby! I'm sure you can guess how this afternoon/night ended.

So, I woke up hungover. Quelle surprise! Apparently I came back to the lobby twice to tell them my room card wasn't working...turns out I was just trying to get into the wrong room. Oops. Don't remember that. I was told that little nugget of info during checkout, while a Contiki tour full of hot women was checking in. Damn me and my shitty timing! Normally I wouldn't give a shit about being a retard, cuz let's face it...that shit happens all the time. But I was actually staying in this hotel again the next week for my last night in NZ, so I'm sure they were SUPER HAPPY to have me as a returning guest. And I ended up finding out for sure when I got back. As usual - Go Tim.

After a nice tour of the city via the shuttle driver who had to pick people up all over the damn place, I was on my way to Queenstown. That little tour actually gave me some hope for the city, cuz the burbs are pretty nice. I'd say Auckland is a nice mix between Vancouver and San Francisco. Pretty nice surroundings, hilly, nice houses, and very clean. You could definitely live in worse places. I still hadn't felt like I had left home yet in terms of NZ though, so I was excited about moving on into "real" New Zealand. And I definitely got my money's worth. You'll find out about that next time.


Bonus pics. Don't worry, if you like pics, there are lots more of the other cities. Auckland just wasn't that interesting.


Hotel room view during the day



The "City of Sails". Yeehaw.

Rarotonga

Normally I don't write these things until long after I get back from trips because I'm incredibly lazy, but I'm sitting here in the San Francisco airport waiting to go home and I have nothing to do for an hour or so. Seems like as a good a place as any to start, right? This blog will cover the pretrip stuff and my first stop, Rarotonga. That's in the Cook Islands, which is basically between Hawaii and Australia/New Zealand, for you geography majors. Yes Lisa, I'm looking at you. I was not in South America the entire time.

It turns out that buying a netbook (with my 500 dollar online bingo winnings. Shut up) was one of the best travel purchases of my life. How did I travel without a computer before? I might be selling out a bit as a "backpacker", but let's face facts - I'm too old for that shit. Backpackers stay in hostels - I stayed in hotels this entire trip. Fuck, I didn't even bring my backpack! I can handle 7-10 days just out of my daypack, but this was 18 days and I didn't feel like doing laundry 3 times, so suitcase it was.

So, here's a little info about how this all went down. In January, once I finally picked a destination, I did what I always do when I need to book a flight. Ask my dad if I can put it on his credit card and pay him back. What? I'm 30 years old, you say? Why don't I have the money to book it on my own, you ask? To these questions, you get the standard Tim answer - Eff off! I plan trips. I go on trips. I can't SAVE for trips! Are you nuts? Look who you're talking to! In actuality, I paid back the flight money before I even left, and did manage to save the money for everything I needed. My dad even let me sit in the big boy chair for dinner a couple of times since. I'm all growed up now!

So, there she goes. Now I just had to pick cities to check out, and a stopover destination. Air New Zealand lets you pick from a few Island countries (Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Fiji, other islands full of huge, lazy people***) to check out for free on the trip to NZ or back. Fiji is the obvious choice for most, which basically ruled it out for me. I had picked Samoa, until I found out that packs of wild dogs attack people all the time, and Samoans all carry rocks and sticks to keep the dogs away. Seriously. While that sounds like a ton of fun, I decided to change it up and pick Rarotonga. Turns out there were dogs there too, but at least I didn't get attacked. Other animals took care of that. I'll get to that in a bit.

***Before you say it, no, the fact that the description of the island people and a description of me are eerily alike is not lost on me. Assholes.

Departure time. YVR has free wifi, but bans going to the website I write for (www.fourouncestofreedom.com, total cheap plug) because of it's "questionable content". What the hell? I write about MMA, not tentacle porn. Anyway, the ticket agent told me no exit row seats were available and I was lucky to get a seat at all, because the flight was full. An Indian guy came up and asked him a question, which neither of us understood. He spoke slower, and said "I just saw you, and you gave me wrong tag". The agent tells him it wasn't him that he came to, then turns to me and says "I guess we all look alike to him." That was awesome.

Turns out the agent was just fucking with me and I got an exit row seat. Sweet. Get to LAX, and spent my 6 hour layover bored out of my skull. I watched The Wire episodes, played on the net, watched some hockey in the bar with my beloved Miller Lite, etc. Finally...FINALLY I got on the plane. I got an exit row seat for this flight too, which was good because it's a 10 hour flight. Air NZ has a wicked in-flight entertainment system with like 100 movies, TV shows, and even cool games to play, so I wasn't bored at all. I even tried to sleep for the first time ever on a plane, by pulling the blanket completely over my head and attempting to curl up against the freezing-cold exit door. Did sleep come? Nyet. So I arrived in Rarotonga after being awake for 24 hours. Woo.


RAROTONGA

It was still dark when I arrived, so I couldn't see anything when we landed. Too bad, cuz apparently it's pretty nice. Get off the plane still wearing my hoody. Big mistake, since it's like 27 degrees and the humidity was like 4592%. I was soaked with sweat within milliseconds. Going through customs was kind of funny, since all the agents had medical masks on to protect themselves from the swine flu, and no one could understand a word they said. They had the cutest little drug puppy ever on the baggage claim thinger, walking over the top of everyone's bags to...sniff for drugs, presumably. Either that, or milk bones are banned in the Cooks. He couldn't have been more than 6 months old though, so it made the Cooks seem pretty budget right off the bat. "Quick, we need a drug dog for the flight! Go grab Fifita's beagle puppy and get him a vest!"

The shuttle was on time and quickly took me to my hotel, the Paradise Inn. It was about what I expected, but still amusing. There was no one at the front desk when I got there (at 6:30am), and there's a sign that says "If no one is at the front desk, walk to the back and beat the drum". Uh, okay. So, I did that. Out came a small, wiry Island dude named Nooroa, who said "Hello, Tim. Welcome to Rarotonga". Wait, what? Did I have a name tag on or something? How the fuck did he know my name? Well, I figured that one out pretty quickly.

He checked me in, showed me my room, and told me if I wanted a beer to just go grab one from the honesty bar. I already knew about the concept, but not the execution. You grab a beer from the fridge, and mark down on a card how many you've had. When you leave, they charge you appropriately. I'm not one to rip anyone off anyway, but there was a pretty obvious reason I couldn't get away with it anyway. Why, you ask?

I was the only person in the hotel.

16 rooms, and it was just me there. I went in off-season, and got there on a monday. That adds up to just Tim at the hotel. And that's how Nooroa knew my name - I was his only customer, so it was pretty easy to remember. It was extremely odd at first, but I got used to it quickly. They have a huge veranda outside of the bar that overlooks the ocean, so I grabbed a couple of beers and chilled out there for a bit. The sun was up by then, and the view was pretty damn good. Here, check it yourself (there are many more pics on my facebook page):





The water doesn't come all the way to the beach because there's a lagoon surrounding the island. I watched as various dogs and birds strolled down the beach looking for food, and was joined by the one of the hotel cats, Sheba. After that, I decided to walk into town, so I headed out to the main road. It took about 3 seconds to change my mind about that. It was Rarotonga's version of rush hour, and the one-lane-each-way road was tire-to-tire. I would say bumper-to-bumper, but everyone was on bikes. Mostly dirt-bikes and scooters. There was no sidewalk on the road, and everyone was going pretty quick. They were also on the wrong side of the road, which almost got me smoked after about 2 seconds of not paying attention. After about half a block of narrowly skirting death, I totally bailed and went back to the hotel to get some much-needed sleep.

"Some" sleep turned out to be about 7 hours. Oops. Around 3pm when I finally got motivated, I walked into town, which wasn't very far - maybe 5-10 minutes. There wasn't a lot going on. Lots of little grocery stores along the way, a few restaurants and such. Mostly bikes zooming by again, but a few vehicles...all Suzukis, for some reason. Guess that's all they sell there. It was hot as fuck, so I didn't walk as far as I would have liked to, but the scenery was pretty crazy. I couldn't see the beach from the road the rings the island at this point, but the interior of the island was amazing - pure jungle all the way to a pretty high peak in the middle. Check it:







As much as I wanted to explore the interior of the island right there and then, I had more pressing concerns: food and beer. I grabbed some kebabs from the...er, kebab store, and some beer from one of the mini grocery stores. They're all pretty funny - they sell everything from pig feed to spare tires to beer and pasta. Everything was fairly cheap, bout 10 NZD (7 bucks CDN) for a 6 pack. For those wondering, the Cooks use NZ currency and all hold NZ passports. I took those back to my room, then decided to take the bus around the island. It's pretty hard to get lost, since there are only two buses. Clockwise, and...you guessed it, counter-clockwise. I caught the counter-clockwise one, just to be different, and spent the next 45 minutes stunned by the scenery.

Apparently my hotel was cheap for a reason - it's not on one of the crazy beaches. "My" water wasn't all that different from home. Maybe a little more blueish than normal, but not much. The other side was unbelievable bluey/green water, and the lagoon made it look even crazier since the "tide" was about 200 feet away from the coast. The lagoon was bright blue, sitting on perfect beaches everywhere. Here ya go (taken a couple of days later):



I'm easy to please, so that seemed like enough touristy stuff for the day. I walked into town and went to the first bar I could find, appropriately named the Whatever Bar. Two people were there, and they just happened to be HUGE. Taller than me, and way wider than me. Both of them. I grabbed a beer and went to sit on the other side of the patio, but one of the guys told me to sit at the bar, so I did. They turned out to be pretty cool guys, told me some stuff about the island and that the bar doesn't pick up much until 8 or so. They also had some sick tattoos all over the place. Turns out almost everyone does, even the women. A few even had them on their faces, which was a little odd at first.

I didn't hang out long because I wanted to check out the sunset off the hotel veranda, so I went back and did exactly that. Grabbed a few bar beers, and chilled for a while. Having your own beach and veranda to watch a sunset is an amazing thing, something I had never even considered before. Like the morning, dogs and angry birds wandered by, and I just relaxed for a while. I was looking for some relaxation, and had certainly found it. It was awesome. Traveling and vacationing are very different things, and I wanted to do a little of both on this trip. So far, so good.

I was tired after all that non-excitement for some reason, so I went back to my room and watched a movie on my laptop (no TV in my room, which I'm sure you could guess, being on a tropical island and all that). The Cooks are on Hawaii time, 3 hours behind us, so it wasn't too hard to adjust to the time change. I passed out around my regular time, happy with my first day in paradise.

Day 2 started pretty similarly to day 1. Veranda for a while, aborted trip into town, and some vegging time. Took the bus around the island again. This time I got off the bus far on the other side of town, and walked into the interior of the island a bit. Other than lots of coconuts, little houses surrounded by vegetation, and lots of barefoot kids, there wasn't much up that way. I went looking for a bar to grab some lunch in, but none were open. So...I went and used the internet at a cafe. I'm a nerd, bite me. Back to the hotel for a beer or 3, then my traumatizing encounter with the wildlife. I love spending so much time leading up to a story with such a shitty payoff.

There were more roads leading to the interior of the island closer to my hotel, so after it cooled off a bit I went jungle hunting. A lot of the roads were dead ends full of kids playing, or the odd HUGE Island woman chillin on her stoop. Finally I found one heading uphill that looked promising, so I started trekking. I was doing pretty well, getting into some thick underbrush and stuff, until I turned a corner and saw a roadblock. A huge, pink, grunting roadblock. The biggest fucking pig I've ever seen in my life was just standing in the road in front of me, looking in the other direction - but not for long. As soon as he saw me, he grunted something that probably translated to somewhere along the lines of "SPAAAARTA!" and charged directly towards me.

Being the world traveler that I am, I know how to handle situations like these, obviously. You can all guess what I did too - I screamed like a girl and ran for my life. Running downhill on a gravel road isn't as easy as it might seem, especially with a rhino-like pig chasing you and making rhino-like noises. Wait, do rhinos even make noises? Surprisingly, a scared pig in a Cards jersey is faster than an angry Rarotongan pig, because I lost him after a little while. Understandably (to me at least), I aborted my jungle trekking and went directly to a bar to ease my nerves a bit with a frosty Tui or 4. It was called the Staircase bar, but you didn't have to go up a staircase to get into it. Oh, those wacky Islanders. I had dinner there, and decided to call it an early night since there wasn't a lot going on again. Veranda, beer, The Wire, and my comfy bed in the loft of my room. And still no one at the hotel.

By the time I set out on day 3, I had two goals - to actually get off the bus on the other side of the island, and to go back up into the jungle. I had convinced myself that I could juke the pig like a tubby running back and continue past him to the promise land. I have no idea how I convinced myself of that, considering I'd have to run UPHILL from him, and let's face it - I'm a huge baby. Wait, I do remember what convinced me of all that - Speight's Gold Medal Lager.

Anyway, first it was bus time. I forgot to mention before that the bus is some sort of asian castoff, and all the instructions on it are written in some text I obviously couldn't decipher. I know the basics of the big ones though, and it definitely wasn't any of those. I dunno where they got this thing, but it was ollllld. So I got off the bus around one of the resorts, and headed to the beach. There aren't any "public" beaches around there, but people could use the resort beaches if they so pleased. Obviously they were amazing, but I didn't spend much time there because there were a shitload of bugs and it was hot as hell. I got back on the bus and went a little further, to an area devoid of people. The water wasn't as nice, but the scenery was pretty cool. I'd show you a pic, but I still hadn't figured out how to use my camera by that point, and none of the pics turned out because the flash was on or something. Master of technology I is not.

Back to town, used the net, had a couple and some lunch, and got psyched for stage 2 - Pig vs. Pig, round 2. I walked up the same street, this time on the grass skirting it so I wouldn't give myself away. Anyone watching me surely would have thought I was retarded while I crept up to the bushes and slowly peeked around the corner...and didn't see anything. No animals at all. YES! I started up the hill and got about 100 feet or so, when I heard a very familiar noise. Grunting. FUCK. I froze in my tracks, ready to book it once again, but after a few seconds I realized it wasn't angry grunting, just...regular? grunting. So I kept going. Not long after that, I found out why he didn't charge me. He was in a fucking cage!

I approached the cage slowly, but grew more confident quickly when I realized that motherfucker was locked up like OJ. I felt so vindicated, I actually started talking shit. To a pig. Again, anyone watching me must have been wondering what the fuck I was doing. "Not so tough now in your cage, are you? You pig pink fuck! You can't sto--" Wrong move, Tim.

As soon as he heard "fuck", he started slamming against the side of the cage and went back to angry grunting. My confidence evaporated quicker than my chances at picking up women at the bar, and - you guessed it - I ran away again. And downhill to boot, directly against the whole fucking idea of my plan. I didn't go far though, and eventually came back...where I ran into the pig's owner, a suitably-large Island woman with tattoos all over her arms. "Sorry about the pig, he's not that friendly". Well no shit, Island Captain Obvious. Oh, and my reward for finally getting past the jungle guardian? A dead end around the next corner. No more jungle. It wouldn't be one of my stories if something went RIGHT, would it?

Here's the pig in his cage:



After checking out some more jungle roads that were thankfully swine-less, I headed back to the hotel. The rest of the day was the usual stuff after that - veranda sunset, pub for dinner, beers/Wire in the room, and some sleepy time. My 3 days so far had been a lot different from what I had expected, but I was content. Except for the bug bites. Lots, and lots of bug bites. Even paradise isn't perfect.

I had no idea what to do with my last day. My flight left at 5:30pm, and I had my hotel room till then, but I had done pretty much everything I wanted to already. Let's face it, Rarotonga's not very big. I did the veranda thing, I did the internet thing. Took the bus around the island one last time. Then just killed time watching The Wire. It felt retarded to "waste time" on a utopian island I might never see again, but it is what it is. I wasn't going to drink before a flight, and other than playing with Sheba (who meowed at my hotel room door every night until I let her in to hang out for a bit...awesome cat), chillin was my only option.

Eventually I headed out to the airport, after Nooroa's beaver-toothed Kiwi wife made me shuttle reservations. I had done a pretty good job not spending a lot of money so far, considering the island's fairly cheap and there's just not a lot of ways to blow cash. The island got the final laugh though, with a 55 NZD departure tax. Jesus fuck that's pricey. The airport was also open-air with no AC, so I was fucking cooking. And on top of that, my belt got caught in their ancient screening machine and ripped, so my jeans were riding somewhere around my knees for the next few hours. After enduring countless bastard children running and screaming through the seating room unattended, I was finally off to the promise land - New Zealand. At the time, the only thing I remember thinking was "Fuck, I hope they sell belts there."

Boston, part 2

Shame on me. Between getting a writing job and being a lazy mofo, I never got around to actually writing this. I'm sure Jess isn't happy about that, because the few days were pretty amusing, but...he's a bitch, so he doesn't matter! HA!

Anyway, to save you the time and trouble from having to look for part one, here's a link. Re-read, review, and...here we go.

I left off right where I got back to town after fetching Bitch's keys like a drunk, pot-bellied bloodhound. After we went to grab the car, we figured we had already had enough excitement for one day (Fuck you Rhode Island), so we decided to just stay home and get drunk. As usual, bitch was hammered off of 3 drinks, pissing and moaning about various stuff. Myself, on the other hand...I was having a helluva time trying to get pissed. You see, this Natty Light stuff is exactly that...light. Between my interstate (F U RH) trip and actually eating, apparently I just didn't have it in me to get drunk, no matter how fast I mainlined those little bastards.

For a while, at least.

I have no idea what time we actually started drinking, but by midnight I had convinced drunk bitch that online gambling was cool, so he used his fancy new american credit card to deposit some money and to play blackjack. He also made me promise not to tell Jamie. Oops.

By 1am, I had finally caught up and I was gassed. He was doing well with his money. Me? Not so much. He had graciously let me use his extra laptop (who has an extra laptop?), and between baseball betting and blackjack, I was down a fair amount of money. At least 5 cases of Natty. Throw in the 2 cases I consumed that night, and it was a rough night. I still love Natty Light though, not to worry.

At 2am, we were just sittin around bullshitting, and we both kept hearing a loud banging noise coming from outside. We went out on the patio, and we couldn't see anything...but we could hear it. It sounded distinctly like a skateboard rolling down a hill, then it bashing into something after a failed trick. And an occasional "damn" coming from the skateboard's owner. It was directly underneath the patio, so we couldn't see the little bastard though. At first we ignored it, but it started fucking grating on our drunk nerves after a few minutes. Being the big tough guy I am, I decided I was going out to see what the fuck was going on. Out the front door, down the stairs, out the door, and I peeked around the corner to see...

A kid on a skateboard. Duh.

Instead of actually saying anything, my drunk ass just went back upstairs to inform Jess that, yes, it was a kid on a skateboard. And 3 sets of stairs wore me out after 24 Nattys. Nice work, Tim.

***I'm just waiting for the jokes you motherfuckers will come up with about that stairs comment. I might as well pre-emptively throw out a "I hate all of you".***

So, we're at a loss about what to do. Apparently we're too chicken to yell at a 14 year old. We're drunk. It's really annoying. We look out again, and notice a cop sitting in the bus loop across the street, who's not doing a damn thing. He's right across the street from a kid skateboarding AT 2 FUCKING AM in front of a bunch of shops, right under a high-end condo unit. I guess his Dunkin Donut had all 143% of his attention at that particular time.

The following conversation ensued after noticing John Law and his lack of law enforcement:

Tim: "Maybe we should call the cops?"
Jess: "What, yell across the street?"
Tim: "No, dipshit. Like, PHONE the popo. Ask why Super Trooper over there isn't doing anything."
Jess: "Do we call 911? They'll laugh at us."
Tim: "No, there must be some local police phone number. Go look it up."

Jess goes to the Watertown PD website, and you can actually listen to their police scanner on their website. So...we listened. Magically, not much was going on. Super Trooper apparently wasn't going to do anything about the annoying little bastard, so I called the police on him. How juvenile.

Jess: "You call. I'll fuck it up. *laughing uncontrollably* What are you going to say?"
Tim: "I dunno. I'll come up with something."

Watertown PD: "Police."
Tim: "Uh, hi. There's an annoying kid outside."
PD: "So?"
Tim: "Uh, I mean, this kid is skateboarding outside the building, banging and crashing, and uh, we can't see him but I ran downstairs and yea it's him, but, uh, he's annoying."
Jess: *still laughing uncontrollably*
PD: "Sir, he's just...skateboarding?"
Tim: Well, yea, but he's really loud, and it's 2am, and this is a nice building. That I don't live in. *muffled* CRAP!"
PD: "You don't live there? What?"
Tim: "I mean, my friend lives here, but he's...here. But he made me call. Anyway, there's a cop across the street, but he's not doing anything about it."
PD: "Maybe because there's nothing to do?"
Tim: "Well, he looks like he's good at doing nothing, but...I mean...uh..."
Jess *still laughing*
PD: ........
Tim: "Look, we can't sleep. This kid's bothering us. Who else are we supposed to call? Can you just get the cop to come over and get rid of the kid?"
PD: "Okay sir, I'll look into it."
Jess and Tim: "HAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Go beer!"

So, it's official. Jess and I were acting like 85 year old men. Ratting to the popo on some kid that was probably just bored. But dammit, he was annoying! We sat there impatiently for close to 10 MINUTES before we heard the dispatcher radio to Super Trooper across the street to do something about it. We watched through the blinds like drunk voyeurs as the cop went under the building, then even crept out onto the patio like drunk Ninjas so we could hear what was going on (we couldn't), until the kid and cop left. YES! SUCCESS! We high-fived, went inside, chugged our beers, and acted like we just solved a triple homicide.

Once again, go beer.

Fast-forward to saturday morning. Or, afternoon. I can't remember if I mentioned it in the last blog or not, but Jess got invited by his boss to attend the Red Sox game that night, and sit in a luxury box. These people are fucking rich, so it was a big deal for him. I had no problem with chillin for a night while he was high-rolling, so we decided to drive up to New Hampshire and check out Nashua for a couple of hours, then come back around 4 so he could head out. We were obviously worried that another state might try to stick it in our proverbial poopers, but it was worth the risk so we could add a state to our lists. My list is still longer, bitch. You know it!


So, we headed up to Nashua. Jess threatened to turn around the entire time so I wouldn't be able to add the state to my list. Damn him. Nashua was...plain. Town of 60,000 people, but it didn't feel like it. It had a main drag with 3 or 4 blocks of restaurants, and a whole lot of suburbia. Not bad, not great. We ate lunch, which was good. We saw a weird black couple arguing on a payphone by the gas station. Both of them, on one phone. The highlight for me was Jess laughing at my response to his "What do we do now?" question:

Tim: "What do we do now? Get out of this shithole state before something goes seriously wrong, that's what!"

So, we headed back to Watertown. I grabbed an undisclosed amount of Natty Light (somewhere between 6 and 36), and Jess headed off to the game. I went and got some pizza, emptied some Natty cans of their contents, and watched the game myself (since I had bet on it). Turned out to be a pretty good game. After watching some comedy shows and doing my laundry, I...drank more beer. Around midnight, the fun began.

I heard the door. I can't say I heard the door open, because it wasn't being opened. I'm sure someone was attempting to open it, but that person was waaaay too drunk to get that shit right the first time. Finally bitch gets inside, and nearly falls down in his kitchen right away. He is trying to tell me about his entire night in 10 seconds, but it comes out as a bunch of gibberish. He then aims for the bathroom and staggers in there. This is already one of the funniest things I've seen in weeks, and it's just beginning.

He's just leaning over the bathroom sink, spitting. I opened a chelada (beer + clamato, they sell them in cans down there) and offered it to him. He responded with a guttural NOOOO and spit a whole lot more into the sink. If I believed in a god, I would have been praying for him to puke right there, but alas it didn't happen. Why?

He'd already done some puking, that's why!

He managed to explain to me over the course of the next hour exactly what had happened to him that night. He went to the game. The box had an open bar. He was being fed beer. Then shots of sambuca, shots of tequila, and shots of something else. Then, shots of ALL THREE of those liquors poured into one glass. The game was a blur to him, he had no idea who won or what happened. After the game, they went to some fancy seafood place, where they consumed a shitload of oysters and other sea critters, along with more assorted liquors. Some girl tried to talk to him about something, and he yelled something along the lines of "GET YOUR OWN FUCKING OYSTER!" to her. Classy.

After finally escaping all of that, he decided he had to get home. Obviously, a drunk guy that was just out at a high-roller party, a guy with a high salary job, a guy that's residing in a pimp condo on the company dime...that guy finds the easiest, most convenient way to get home, right?

Too bad this is Jess we're talking about. He took the fucking bus.

Magically, halfway through his bus trip, he felt the need to puke. He rang the dinger thing about 400 times, fell out the back of the bus, and puked all over the place. On the sidewalk. Once again, classy. Only THEN did he decide a cab would be a prudent idea. I'm sure the cabbie looooved his smelly passenger. To top it off, he was passed the fuck out in the cab until he felt the urge to puke again. It just so happened that he was in the square across from his place, so he stumbled out of the cab, paid the guy somehow, and ran down to the river and puked again. The river that runs though the center of a really nice town. Pure class.

After that, he staggered home and told me the story. The above story was littered with the phrases "I'M SOOO DRUNK" and "I DON'T FEEEEL GOOOOOD" approximately 40 times. Each. I almost puked myself, from laughter. It was quite the story. After taking deep breaths and spitting in the sink for a bit due to me trying to continually offer him booze, he finally passed out. I had a few more beers and passed out myself, still laughing at his retardedness.

We had planned to go to Connecticut the next day, but I wasn't sure if bitch would actually be up for it or not. He was most definitely hungover, but he kept to his word and we headed south. We had to go through Rhode Island on the way, so we spent 40 or so miles just yelling and screaming at the fucking waste of land and it's citizens. There was no way in hell we were going to stop, that's for damn sure. We carried on through that shithole, and entered...another shithole. Actually, Connecticut didn't turn out to be that bad, but it's...strange.

Our first stop was only because I kept harassing Jess to go there. It was a town called Mystic. I have no idea why I've always wanted to go there, I...just have. There's nothing special there, really. It's a nice little town. It had a nice little marina with some old houses and stuff, which we were going to check out...until we realized it was some sort of museum, and we had to pay 15 bucks to do it. Suuure. Don't they know there's Indians up the road with a fancy ol' casino?

Here's Mystic, by the way:




So, guess where we went? There are actually two fancy ol' casinos in CT - Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. They're very odd though. Other than a freeway sign, there are absolutely ZERO directions leading you to the casinos. No signs, no nothing. I'm not sure why. I think the state won't advertise for the Indians or something. Anyway, it took us forever to find one, and the only reason we could is because of the GPS on bitch's Iphone. Once we did though...wow.

We went to Foxwoods first. It was fucking MASSIVE. Bigger than any Vegas casino I've ever seen. They all look the same on the inside, but it's extremely odd walking from one part of the casino to another, and looking out the windows. In Vegas, you see neon, people, other casinos, traffic...in Connecticut, you see... Grass. And trees. FOR MILES. The casinos are like an oasis in the desert, except they're in a forest and they're an addiction source, not a water source. That was a terrible analogy.

So, we wandered around. Played some slots, did some exploring. We wanted to play blackjack, but every table in the entire casino had a 15 dollar minimum for some reason. I guess you gotta raise the stakes when you've got people trapped in the forest or something. Jess is still pretty hungover, which is quite amusing. We went into the sportsbook, since it seemed like the best place to get free drinks. Like everything else, it was absolutely huge. We sat down and bet on a few horse races, eventually earning a free corona. WOO HOO! I lost 22 bucks on horse races for a corona! Good deal!

After that, we decided to grab some food. They had a cool place called the "Burke In The Box" (seriously), but I wasn't down for a "cheeseburker". I couldn't make this shit up if I tried, folks. See?




We saw a cool BBQ place from far away and decided to go there, but we changed our mind once we arrived. The line was longer than the "non-citizen" lineup at a Canadian passport office. We would have been there for hours. There was a less-busy Hard Rock around the corner, which seemed like a good alternative. Couple beers, some loud music, and some guy asking Jess if he could use his Iphone. Surprisingly Jess let him, even though there was no way he was making a local call. Fuck, this place was so big I think a call from one side to the other would be long distance.

After that excitement, we decided to head over and check out the other casino, the Mohegan Sun. The worst part of the Foxwoods experience? We didn't see one fucking Indian. Not one. Fail.

By the time we got to Mohegan (using my awesome navigational skills), it was already dark. If I thought Foxwoods was big...wow. This place was even bigger. Our parking spot was something like Lot 5, Floor 4, Sector D, Sub-Sector QQ, Row 92, stall 1919. I wanted to leave a trail of peanut shells so we'd find out way back, but I didn't have any peanuts on me. Denied!

This casino was a lot cooler. It's divided up into 3 or 4 "themes", all having different features and layouts. It took us forever to cover the entire thing, but it was definitely worth it. I really liked it, since it just had a better vibe than Foxwoods. Same 15 dollar tables though. These invisible Indians weren't cheap either.

We were done with Connecticut, so we headed back to Boston. Bitch was STILL hungover, but I wasn't! We gambled some more on our respective laptops and I drank beer until he finally passed out. Apparently the Natty caught up to me quick that night, because I lost 50 bucks playing blackjack. Motherfucker!

Last full day was up, and it was Fenway time! We had some time to kill though, since it was a night game. Since I had been lazy as shit and hadn't actually gone to Harvard yet (even though it was 10 minutes away), bitch decided that he'd drag my ass there. I also had other motivations for going - I promised Lisa I'd buy her a Harvard hoody, and getting my lazy ass to Harvard was much easier than 2 years of listening to "I can't believe you didn't get me a hoody!" at the bar.

Just kidding Lisa!

So, we went to Harvard. As expected, it's really nice. It was the day before classes started, so kids everywhere were moving in. It was mildly hectic. A bunch of nerdy kids were hanging out in the square with a "FREE HUGS" sign. Even Jess took a pass on these deviants, and he's quite the hugger.

He's really not, but the thought of him hugging everyone made me laugh, so it stays.

Anyway, we had lunch there and wandered around for a while before we bought Lisa's hoody and left. Since we still had hours to kill, Jess said we should go downtown and check out the Marina and stuff. I had never actually done that my first time there, so it sounded like a good idea to me. As expected, it's a pretty nice area. The aquarium is right beside the marina, and they have a glass window facing out so you can see some of the animals. It was like a mirror!

I still had money left, and I make it a point of never going home from a trip with money, so we went to one of the many clothing stalls down there. I bought a black-and-green Boston hoody and a green Celtics hat. I was like a member of House of Pain. Or a fat leprechaun. The bitches were going crazy either way, yo. So, after all that (and beers of course), we made our way up to Fenway. We were sitting in dead center field, but it's Fenway...every seat is awesome. Well, awesome for viewing, anyway. The seats were fucking TINY, with zero leg room. It was like being on a Guatemalan bus. I was uncomfortable the entire game, beer or no beer. Stupid Fenway.

They introduced a bunch of US Olympic medal winners, which I didn't give a flying fuck about until...Alicia Sacramone was announced. Uh, she's kinda hot! And I've been closer to her (approximately 550 feet, give or take) than you have. So there!
The game turned out pretty good, lots of offense and Sox dominance. A couple of funny crowd incidents were the highlight for me though.

The first was a pushing match between 2 fans seated in the front row of our section. After babbling in their stupid accent and pushing a bit, security stepped between them. Well, the guy on the left didn't like that, so he reached around the security guard and threw his FULL DRINK right in the other guys face! The wet guy went fucking bananas, the tosser (and all of us) laughed hysterically, and security had it's hands full. Eventually they got shit sorted, but it was pretty awesome.

The second happened in the row behind us, about 5 seats over. A guy was absolutely gassed, basically falling asleep on his buddies by the 3rd inning. I guess he was sick or something, because he was also coughing uncontrollably (when he was awake). The girls sitting in front of him commented on it a couple of times, while he just mumbled an apology and kept coughing. In the 6th inning, shit went down, son!. I just happened to be looking over when he took a huge swig of beer, and I guess felt the need to cough immediately after...so he spit/coughed the entire mouthful all over the girls back. Needless to say, she wasn't amused, and completely flipped out (in her stupid accent). I tried my hardest not to laugh, but how do you not laugh at that? She berated the guy for a while, until his buddies decided enough was enough and escorted him out of the stadium...to a round of applause from quite a few people.

Our view in Fenway:




This, folks, is where the story winds down. After the game, a few more beers were consumed. My flight home left at 7am, so I had to be at the airport by 5:30 or so. Since I still hadn't adjusted to eastern time in the week or so I was in the zone, I was still going to bed at 4:30am every night. Yup, that means I got an hour of sleep, give or take. Bitch was nice enough to drive me to the airport (after I harassed him about it approximately 300 times), where my flight actually left on time. After a quick connect in Salt Lake City (I've been to Utah, bitch!), I got home around 10am pacific time. I had planned on going to work, but I was waaaay too bagged for that. I just took the bus home and slept for 17 hours or so. My usual ending to any trip.

Bitch, thanks for the hospitality. You're lucky that wasn't actually your couch, cuz I think I spilled at least 3 Nattys on it, and lost a chocolate bar in it. Oops. I'm never, ever going to Rhode Island again, and you shouldn't either. Yes, you went to Vermont after I left and I've never been. I got 2 words for ya:

Cook. Islands.

I win bitch! I WIN!

Toothpicks are dumb

After dinner last night, I was using the obligatory toothpick to rid my teeth of excess steak. Midway through, I dropped it. I looked down and couldn't see it, so I stepped to the side, and....the motherfucker, somehow, became embedded in my heel. I'm not kidding when I say almost half of it was now INSIDE my heel. Oww is not a strong enough word to describe the pain. Wait...is oww even a word?

Anyway, I had to pull the motherfucker out super slowly so I didn't get a sliver inside, which hurt like hell too. The puncture was only the size of a toothpick though. Not much blood. Not so bad, right?

WRONG. I can't put any weight on my heel today. I'm walking around like Terry Fox. This fucking sucks. All from a toothpick. A TOOTHPICK!

25 random things about me

1. I've been to 12 countries, 6 Canadian provinces, 23 US states, and 4 Mexican states.
2. I've also been to airports in Minnesota and Utah, but Jess says I can't count those.
3. One of my legs is a little longer than the other one. It makes standing on the bus a bitch.
4. After all the writing I've done (blog, other crap), finally getting a writing job is tremendously rewarding.
5. I drink enough Old Milwaukee to know that they've had their "71st anniversary can" out for over 3 years now, and are still using it.
6. If I could figure out a way to support myself on the road, I'd never leave it.
7. I know way too much about jiu jitsu.
8. I finish people's sentences all the time, and I'm pretty sure it annoys the shit out of them.
9. I delete facebook friends if their statuses repeatedly annoy me.
10. I kick ass at Jeopardy for money, and Jim refuses to play me.
11. If you're reading this, I can outdrink you. Yes, you.
12. I write down funny stuff on Keno tickets at the pub all the time, and rarely stay sober enough to remember to take them home. Thus, all the funny is lost.
13. I just watched parts 1 and 2 of Che, and they both fucking ruled. Go watch them.
14. After I go to New Zealand in May, my next big trip will be to either Argentina or Japan.
15. I can read the same books over and over again and still find them entertaining.
16. I drink beer at work at least once a week. Sometimes more. And it's okay.
17. I just realized I wrote 11 twice, and had to go back and change the subsequent numbers.
18. People talk to me too much when I'm trying to do stuff. This annoys me.
19. I rarely answer the phone. I probably know it's you calling, but I still don't answer. Don't take offense. I hate the phone, not you. Well, most of you.
20. I probably watch 225-250 NHL hockey games a season. Seriously. And I've been to NHL games in 11 different cities.
21. People that don't know me very well occasionally accuse me of being racist, when I'm usually just tryin to be funny. People that do know me well know better, for the most part. Especially the hindus.
22. My current profile picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.
23. I once got drawn out so bad playing online poker, i ripped my monitor off my desk, walked out onto my patio, and almost chucked it into the neighbours yard. Luckily, I came back to reality about a millisecond before said throw.
24. I hate malls with a passion. I would rather order something online and wait a week for it to come than go to a maill and pick it up right away.
25. I have way too much time on my hands if I have a full time job and a writing job and I fucking wrote all this up.

Jasper, in Timeline form!

Tuesday, Dec 23rd

1:25pm - Starting drinking beer at work. Bullshit about sports and stuff.
2:15pm - A prank Len and I pull on Carla goes sideways. Carla's not happy. It's still funny.
3:50pm - Meet Len at the old Scruffys. Order a beer. Call Carla. She's still not happy, and isn't meeting up with us now. We are highly amused.
6:25pm - Depart Scruffs after 5th beer there, go next door and buy train liquor.
7:10pm - Arrive at The Ivanhoe. Start consuming more beers with homeless-like people.
7:50pm - Leave Ivanhoe after 3 beers. I'm a case deep, Len's not far behind. And we haven't even left yet. Gnarly.
8:05pm - Wait in line for train. Len goes to Mickey D's. I order 3 filet-o-fishes, for some reason.
8:15pm - Train is boarding. I have consumed all 3 filets. I am unsure if this is safe. I can barely move. Len is laughing at me.
8:30pm - The train is supposed to depart. It doesn't. We go immediately to the drinking/snack area, where I am the first in line for beers. This is good.
8:32pm - The lineup is now out the door. I hand Len a beer, and he immediately gets in line while we make fun of each other and things in general. People are amused. I am basking in the glow of attention.
8:55pm - We have 4 empty cups at our table, and Len is in line again. The train still hasn't left. We are still entertaining. People love us.
9:30pm - We have 8 empty cups in front of us. The train still hasn't left. The drink salesman says he's closing at 10. We nearly riot. Drink guy isn't amused.
10:20pm - There are 6 people left in the drinking cart. The train finally leaves. We are out of liquor.
10:21pm - I remember that I brought booze with me. All is well in the world.


Wednesday, Dec 24th. Christmas Eve.

12:50am - The 6 of us have gone through all my vodka energy drinks, and a 1 liter bottle of Len's Vex. I tease Len about said "girly" Vex. I will eat my words later.
1:05am - Len goes back to his seat to pass out. Kid from Edmonton has brought out huge ipod speaker and we listen to loud music. Train attendant with curly hair (who I lovingly dub "Fuzzy Head") isn't amused. She tells us to keep it down. We laugh.
1:10am - Tim remembers he bought bottle of Carolans, and goes to get it. Tim is a hero to remaining crew.
1:20am - Carolans is gone. Tim convinces Australian girl to break into the drink/snack shop because she's tiny and can probably squeeze through. Midway into said squeeze, she is busted by Fuzzy Head. Fuzzy Head is angry, and wants us all to leave the drinking cart immediately. We refuse, and laugh at her. She storms off. We laugh heartily.
3:15am - Everyone finally disperses. Aussie girl is sitting in front of us, and is still talkative. I happily oblige, cuz she's cute. And I'm drunk.
3:16am - I remember Len still has a liter bottle of Vex left. I shake him awake and ask for it. He says no. I am shocked. Len reminds me about bugging him earlier. I apologize. This gets me nowhere. Len holds out for 2 or 3 more minutes, then finally coughs up the bottle. I am elated.
3:25am - The bottle is gone. Aussie girl is pretty drunk. I am too. We are unable to stay awake. This sucks.
4:15am - I'm woken up by lady across from me. The following conversation ensues:

Lady: "Can you tell your friend to turn his music down?"
Me: *shaking Len awake again* "Hey, hey...this lady here wants you to turn your music down."
Len: "Really? Well, tell her to quit fucking bitching!"
Lady: "EXCUSE ME?"
Tim, not sober enough to come up with anything wittier: "Uhh...he didn't mean that."
Lady: *Stare of Death*

Every 20 minutes until 8am: I wake up in pain due to uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. Len's music is super loud the whole time. I find this hilarious.
8:00am: Len goes for breakfast. He is forced to share a table with a couple who are done eating, yet sit there the whole time and stare at Len while he's eating. He's kinda freaked out. He refers to them as his "Breakfast Buddies".
8am-11am - I impatiently wait for the snack/drink store to re-open so I can continue drinking, while being surprisingly unhungover. Len watches his Lost DVDs in the drinking car, the only place on the entire train where you can plug stuff in. A guy sitting across from Len offers me some Crown when I go to talk to Len. I decline, more out of fear than anything. The scenery going by is amazing...frozen rivers, crazy mountain peaks...awesome stuff.
11am - I practically run to the drink store, to find this sign: "Out eating lunch, back at 11:30". My swearing is heard across the train, and the valley.
11:31am - Labatts Blue has made me whole again.
11:31am-2:45pm - Many beers are consumed. Creepy guy with the Crown is trying to convince kids to watch "The Aristocats" on his laptop, while hugging up on some girl he's fed a ton of Crown to. Len is more drunk than he should be. He finally admits his ginger ale is half full of rum, that he acquired from Crown guy.
2:55pm - A French Canadian guy announces over the speakers that "Ve are passing Mount Robson, ze highest mountain in ze Canadian Rockets". Yes, he actually said Canadian Rockets.
3:45pm - We are allowed one more beer each from the drink store before we're cut off. We have a litany of empty cups in front of us. Creepy guy tells us he put two sleeping pills in drunk girls drink, so she "doesn't go anywhere" when he's searching Jasper for coke. And I don't mean coca-cola.
4:15pm - Drunk girl is passed the fuck out in the corner. It's very odd.
5:15pm - Arrival in Jasper. We walk the few blocks to our hotel. It's not that cold out, probably -15 or so. We might just be warm cuz of all the booze, who knows. Snow-covered mountains all around us. Definitely a cool location.
5:45pm - To the pub for food/beer. They sell Pilsner by the bottle. This is a very good start. Len orders a burger with elk, bison, and deer in it. Seriously. I order the biggest chicken burger of all time. We consume so much food we can't even finish our beers. That's a lot of food.
6:45pm - Back at the hotel. Hangovers kicking in. I pass out, Len watches Lost DVD's and passes out.
11pm - I wake up. Len's still passed out. We've pretty much missed everything. Bars aren't open much longer. We can't go get booze from a liquor store. Restaurants are closed. It's about -183 outside. I wake Len up, who just snorts and demands iced tea. I spend all my change in the pop machine on iced tea and water. I settle in and watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on the Space Channel. Leave me alone, dammit.


Friday, December 25th. Christmas Day.

12:30am - Star Trek III - The Search for Spock. Apparently it's a movie marathon. I'm hungover.
3am - Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home. I'm oddly attracted to Vulcan women by this point, cuz they're the only women I've seen in the last 8 hours. I have no food, no beer, and no hope for any. All I have is Kirk and Spock. Is this really my life? Merry Christmas, dipshit.
10am - Wake up to a hindu banging on the door yelling "Service! Service!" One "Fuck off with your service!" and he's gone. Len is gone too. Odd. Not odd enough to stay awake, however.
10:35am - The door opens. I yell "HELLO!" cuz I think the cleaning hindu has let himself in. It's Len. He looks at me like I'm retarded. He's probably right. He went for the hotel breakfast, and now hates Aussies. Every employee at the hotel is Aussie (except for the cleaning hindu). And guess who was there for breakfast with him? His Breakfast Buddies from the train! Seriously.
10:36am - I'm back asleep approximately 9 seconds after he finishes telling me all this.
12:45pm - Exploring time! We decide to walk through the town and see what's open.
12:46pm - We stroll by Len's breakfast buddies. It's getting a little weird.
12:50pm - A restaurant close to our hotel is open! They have a beer sign outside! We decide to stroll on and see what else is open.
1:25pm - We stroll by Len's breakfast buddies.
1:50pm - The Mac's is open. A Cantonese alcohol-less restaurant is open. A Korean alcohol-less restaurant is open. That's fucking it. No pubs, no other restaurants, no strip clubs, not even the Pizza Hut. This town is deader than Heath Ledger.
2:01pm - There's still the first restaurant, at least. We arrive, hungry and beer-thirsty. As we stroll in, we're told (by a fucking Aussie, of course) "Sorry mates, we close at 2. We were only open for lunch.". Choke on a dingo and die, pesudo-foreigner.
2:10pm - Another convenience store is open closer to our hotel. I get a Salami sandwich and some Ruffles. Len got some other sorta sandwich, chips, and beef jerky. Yes people, this was our Christmas dinner.
2:20pm - Back at the hotel, we ask what time the bar opens there. "5pm", we're told. Tears roll down my face. Len steers me out of the lobby so no one sees me openly weeping.
2:22pm - Back in my bed in my hotel room, eating my tasty dinner. Guess what's on? Star Trek: Insurrection!
3pm - Finally, FINALLY something else is on TV. The comedy channel is showing a Comedy Roast marathon. Len's never seen the Flavor Flav roast.
3pm-4:45pm - We laugh hysterically at blatant racism. My favourite line (courtesy Jeffrey Ross) "Ice-T is so old, the first thing he bought with his record deal money was his freedom!"
4:45pm - I call the Jasper Park Lodge, the fancy 1000 dollar a night lodge up on the ski mountain, to see if they have bars open. Yes, yes they do. At least we have a fallback plan.
5:01pm - Hotel bar. Sweet, sweet bottle of pilly. Len orders Jager bombs. Dingo fucker says they're outta energy drinks. Jager shots it is.
5:05pm - Another pilsner.
5:45pm - Len says "Hey...there's some fuckin animals eating some shit over there". I look out the window. 3 elk are across the street eating grass poking through the snow. This is all sorts of cool. Only one thing could be cooler.
5:46pm - Another pilsner.
6:30pm - We're sick of being the only people in the hotel bar. Time to go outside. I walk right up to the elk, probably 10 feet away. They act like your average female and completely ignore me. Whores.
6:32pm - We decide to go explore again, to see if anything has opened up in the last 4 hours.
7:15pm - Nothing has.
7:25pm - Stop at Mac's so Len can buy smokes. Call cab to go to Jasper Park Lodge and their booze.
7:30pm - It's a 15 minute drive, but only 15 bucks to get there. Good deal. As we approach our hotel, Len says, with his typical tact "Oh hey, watch out up here...there's some fuckin caribous or some shit on the road". That was awesome. As we continue, the driver explains that Jasper has been super busy at Christmas every other year, and usually everything is open. This is the first year he can remember it being so Ledger. Just our luck.
7:45pm - I give him 20, cuz I'm nice to white people. I mean, taxi drivers.
7:46pm - Jesus fuck. We walk into, basically, our version of CHRISTMAS HELL. The first thing we hear is kids singing Christmas carols. We see a choir, led by a guy playing the piano. A fucking choir! Are you kidding me? We walk around a bit, and stumble across people that wipe their asses with money (not the coins, that would be weird). This huge, cavernous room is full of couches and tables full of people happily enjoying their Christmas. Len gave me one of his all-time best "What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into??" looks. He looks so annoyed that I think he's actually scared he might hurt someone. I don't blame him, cuz I am too. Not even booze can make this go away, unless I break the bottle and jam the shards of glass in my eyes and ears. Curse you, Jasper!
7:49pm - We stumble around until we find the bar. A nice waitress asks for our orders. "Caesar", I reply. "Mountain sized?", she asks. "That's sounds delightful!" I DID NOT say. I just grunted and nodded, while trying to cover my ears.
8:01pm - Huge caesars arrive, with a big prawn on top. Sweet. Can't taste the booze, but that's hardly surprising.
8:35pm - We're looking around like welfare cases at The Boathouse. It's obvious we don't fit in, we're not welcome, and we probably can't afford the drinks here anyway. We just talk amongst ourselves and try not to actually look at anyone. It's not hard, actually...there wasn't one decent woman in this entire cavern.
9:15pm - Even louder, non-Christmas music begins. An actual parade of Lodge employees strolls though single-file, all holding different types of foods on trays. Turkey guy? Check. Chocolate volcano guy? Check. Attractive women? Nyet. Len and I look at each other, even more horrified than before.
9:30pm - We can't help but laugh at the predicament we're in. We traveled on a train for a whole day to avoid Christmas, and we've ended up stumbling into a fucking scene right out of a Christmas movie. And we didn't even leave. We were THAT desperate for booze. Going through the long list of degenerate shit I've done in the name of alcohol...putting up with that for 2 hours might actually top the list.
9:45pm - We ask for the check.
9:50pm - It arrives. 2 ceasars, 4 beers...58 dollars. Nigga what? The ceasars were 14 dollars. EACH. FOURTEEN DOLLARS. You know what? Fuck Christmas.
10:20pm - Back at the hotel bar. More sweet Pillys, more Jager, some food. Guess who's in the bar. Len's breakfast buddies. He's getting seriously creeped out.
11pm - Bar closes. I'm not done drinking. I'm allowed to take beers to my room. Sweet. I have to pay 4.50 a beer. Not so sweet. I pony up for 6, hand the dingo fucker the 27 bucks (!), and waddle back to the room.
11:05pm - Bob Saget roast. "Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen walk into a bar. They say to the bartender "We'll have two Ass Hurts" and the bartender says "Well how do you make an Ass Hurt?" They reply "First, Bob Saget hands you a chocolate milk that he has just made. Then, you wake up three hours later lying on your stomach with your pajama pants pulled down around your ankles."


Saturday, December 26th. Boxing Day.

1am - Beer's gone. Sleepy time.
3:35am - Woke up from a nightmare. Stupid Dexter books.
10am - Awake yet again, start to get our shit together.
11:15am - Back at the restaurant that closed at 2 the day before. Ask for a beer. Dingo fucker doesn't know what kind of beer they sell. What the fuck?
11:45am - Get the fuck outta there and go find a real bar.
Noon - Find a real bar. The Whistle Stop Pub. Awesome layout.
1pm - Blissfully enjoying our last Pillys in Jasper.
1:30pm - Get to train station. Can't find train ticket to go home. Uh oh. Len laughs at me, and points out that he can't believe I lost it because I'm usually the responsible one. Apparently not this time!
1:35pm - I'm informed I have to buy a new ticket. 91 bucks. Guess I was pretty drunk when I got off the train originally, and forgot it. Oops. Len laughs at me again.
2pm - Score a group of 4 seats that face each other, so we can put our feet up when we sleep. Len's idea, and a great one at that.
2:25pm - Guy who made me buy new ticket runs up to me and tells me that he's really sorry, and my original ticket was in their safe the whole time. There's no time to get a refund there since the train leaves in 5 minutes, but I should be able to do it in Vancouver. Uh, okay.
2:30pm-5:30pm - I enjoy the insane scenery until it gets dark. Never seen anything like it. Extremely cool.
6pm - Find out that every bathroom on all the comfort-class cars are out of order. To use the bathroom, we have to walk back though all the cars, through the dining car, and use the bathroom in the first sleeper. All of us have to. This leads to lineups.
6:15pm - I barely hold on until it's my turn. I absolutely destroy said bathroom.
6:45pm - I get in line again.
6:55pm - I attempt to absolutely destroy bathroom again. As I get comfy, the train stops. The power stops. The fan stops. There is no noise. If I carry on my path of destruction, everyone waiting outside will hear this happen. I can't exactly hold it, so I very carefully destroy the bathroom. 3 emergency flushes, so not to offend all the turd burglars outside. Stupid train.
6:55pm-10pm - Variations of the above occur 3 more times. Len laughs at me every time. Great friend he is.
10pm - We arrive in Kamloops. I joke to Len that the train takes 9 hours from here, but a bus is only 4. If we got off now and jumped on a bus, we'd be home by 2am and could sleep in our own beds. If only I knew...


Saturday, December 27th. Fuck Whalley Day.

12:30am - We're still in Kamloops. Colour us unamused.
6:45am - Train stops just outside of Abbotsford.
9:45am - Train is still just outside of Abbotsford. Freight trains are stuck in front of us. As such, we are stuck as well. We are supposed to be arriving in Vancouver right now. We are highly annoyed, since our sleep was less than pleasant.
10:40am - We actually move!
12:10pm - Arrival is Surrey railyard. Train stops dead.
12:25pm - We are informed that the train "cannot navigate the yard", so they are sending buses to deliver us to the Via Rail station downtown. I'm 9km from home at this moment. The Via Rail station is 25km past my house.
1:15pm - The buses finally arrive, and...they load all the baggage onto the buses first.
1:30pm - They finally let us off. Len and I refuse to get on the bus. We're right beside the Patullo Bridge, in Lower Whalley. We decide to call a cab.
2pm - No cab arrives. Len's phone dies.
2:15pm - We decide we have no choice but to walk out to the skytrain.
3pm - We have walked 3.9km to the gas station on King George. We're soaked from all the wet snow. I want to use the phone to call someone, ANYONE, to come get us. I'm informed they don't have a phone at this station, and they won't call me a cab. Assholes. We're told to go to the skytrain station.
3:05pm - The entrance to the gas station is a LAKE. I'm actually informed later that the station was closed for a few hours because cars couldn't make it through this lake. Len and I have to navigate this thing to get to the skytrain. We try walking in the snow around it...and it turns out that was a part of the lake too. At the same time, we step into water than comes up close to my knees.
3:06pm - We're officially fucked. We're cold, soaked, and exhausted. We still have another kilometer or so to the station.
3:20pm - Arrive at the skytrain. No taxis are there. Len decides he isn't coming out for Lisa's birthday cuz he's soaked, and is gonna go home. He hands me the 50 cents change from buying his ticket, but I tell him to keep it "in case he needs to make a phone call".
3:22pm - Standing on the platform, I say to Len "After all this, watch now...the train will be not working".
3:23pm - "This is skytrain control...the train is not working."
3:30pm - A train arrives. I get on. Len is waiting on the platform to go the other way.
3:40pm - My train finally leaves. Len is still standing there.
3:50pm - There are no taxis at New West station. Nor are there any payphones.
3:55pm - Arrive at 22nd St. Skytrain station. Go to use phone. Realize I have no quarters. In fact, I have two toonies. The payphone doesn't take toonies. I have to buy a skytrain ticket for 1.75, to get a quarter. I call my dad. The call fails, and the phone eats my quarter.
3:57pm - I finally stop yelling "JESUS FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH THE FUCKING WORLD!" over and over.
3:58pm - I buy another skytrain ticket to get another quarter, to call my dad...who tells me he's snowed in and can't drive. I consider crying. Luckily, I'm too tired/wet/awesome to cry.
3:59pm - I look to my left. My saviour is there. The 101 bus home. No one sits around me. Wonder why.
4:20pm - I arrive home. I collapse in the doorway. My journey is complete.

I hate Trevor Linden

I don't really hate Trevor Linden, but I'd probably be a whole lot more alert and a whole lot less hungover if the Canucks could have used their brains and retired his number on a WEEKEND. Instead, they pick a wednesday, and now my thursday is completely useless. Thanks Canucks...you bastards.

So, how hungover is Tim? I was walking from metrotown skytrain station to the bus loop, and I happened to look down and glance at my feet. Yes, I can actually still see my feet, assholes. Anyway, I look down, and what do I see?

A brown shoe. And a black shoe.

I shit you not, I was so fucking out of it I put on two different-coloured shoes to wear to work today. Nicely done, retard. And, of course, this would be the ONE day that a hot girl decides to sit across from me. And notice my attire. And stifle a laugh. I guess it was a good thing though, because she couldn't resist and had to ask what the deal was...if I knew hot women would talk to me about unmatching shoes, I woulda pulled that shit years ago! Anyway, I had to tell her I lost a bet. Go Tim. How original.

So, I'm sitting here at work drinking tomato juice and laughing at my own retardedness, and a (very dim) lightbulb turns on in my head. The hamster starts running on his wheel. Pick any shitty analogy you like. Anyway, I know my co-workers and boss will tease me about this when they notice, so I think "Hey! If I just take my shoes off and walk around in socks all day (like everyone else does here), I can hide my unmatching shoes and no one will notice!" Good idea, right?

No. I take off my shoes, and...guess. Fucking guess.

Yup, you guessed it. Two different-coloured socks. One grey, one black.

I'm not looking forward to the trip home.