~Axl

Yup.

Might toss some new music up at some point. Got a few things I could post. Mostly just little ideas or musical "sketches".

Yupyup

(Not starring Jim Carrey).

I'm getting too damn old haha.

So I turned 23 what is now yesterday. Pretty good day overall. I had been visiting my grandparents the past few days, after spending the long weekend at the family cabin, so I spent the morning there, drove home 3 hours back to Vancouver mid-day and then my buddy and his girlfriend invited me over and made my favourite for dinner, fettuccine alfredo. I've got plans to go downtown to Shabusen, a Japanese and Korean BBQ house, but have to make it into two trips to accommodate everyone's work schedules and availability, which is fine by me, I love going there. There's a kick ass band playing at the Railway Club Saturday night, so we're going down for that too.

While I was at my grandparents, I finally was able to finish my Moog Taurus MIDI pedals project, which I think has gone on well over a year. I can't remember when I bought the pedals and keyboard off eBay. I need to find out what's going on with the G#-C pedals though, that group isn't working for some reason, although I know it functioned fine after it was wired up, (although that was a while ago and it's been sitting, waiting for it's wooden enclosure. Aside from wiring problems, all it needs is another coat of black paint on the sides and around the top and she's done. I'll probably toss up a collage of pictures on here in the next few days.

I've been back from my travels for a bit of time now, came home on the 23rd of June. Haven't done a whole lot in the way of recording lately, even with all my free time, having quit my job before leaving. Even before I left, I was in a musical drought. I'm looking for studio work/a production company job, as I'm tired of doing jobs that get me nowhere closer to what I want to do and are purely just a means for monetary support, although a necessary evil. Gonna start making the moves this week.

I've been working good with my band though, which I should mention that I've got myself into my own band now. I'm playing both guitar and bass, switching off with the other guitarist. I may do a bit of keys as well, as there's some places in songs where I can jump on the keys for their little part, as my guitar part is just doubling up the other guitar. We've got a show lined up...I think. There's some discrepancy with the date and whether we're confirmed or not. The original date was the 20th of August, which then moved to the 27th, then I heard possibly all the way to September 30th! So, I'm not sure what's up with that. I'll try and find some more stuff before then hopefully. At least it'll give us time to practice and polish up our set, and find a dedicated synth player, or best case scenario, another multi-instrumentalist. That way we're ridiculously flexible in our instrumentation.

I may have a WIP or two that I never posted that I can toss up here, so as not to make this account look like a total ghost town in way of activity. I actually do have a recent short instrumental thing I made the day I had surgery on my foot last week, while the numbing was wearing away and I hadn't taken any painkillers to buffer it before it wore off. That was fun. Spent the entirety of the next day after unable to leave my bed, with my leg elevated. Any circulation to my foot would make it feel quite literally on fire, which the painkillers did shit-all for. Worse pain I have ever experienced. I can at least walk now. Was hobbling around for a few days after, but by this past weekend I was good to go and was riding dirt bikes through the wilderness, while wearing a spare pair of my friends comically huge shoes that could accommodate my bandaged toe. Went for a few really long rides last weekend, (which is the smart thing to do a few days after surgery right?), most notably a 53km trip last Sunday to the tops of several mountains and down so many little trails, which provided a spectacular view and was the highlight of my week for sure.

But ya, so that's a little update, I suppose. Got my fingers crossed for a music-related job, wish me luck!

Hope everyone's had a good summer so far!

ON MY OWWWNNNNN

Well, it seems I've found myself wandering off to new and exciting places again. I'm jetting back off to Europe for another round of backpacking and hosteling. This time I've chosen all the beer countries, it seems. Hmmm, did I do that on purpose?

This time I'm going solo. No cousin and her boyfriend to bother me this time. I'm also going rather un-tethered, in that I'm not taking my laptop with me this time. I spent far too much time talking to people back home last time and just being on it too much in general. While it's good to keep in contact with them, all that time could've been spent meeting new people. I've also gone and booked all my hostels before leaving, as it's a much more set schedule this time. Last time was, "hey, let's go over here." "Okay!" I have Skype on my phone and MSN, so I'll still be able to contact family n whatnot.

I'll have to rely on WIFI at the hostels for internet access through my phone, as any data usage roaming abroad would be disgustingly huge in price. I'll have to make sure I turn the network off so I don't accidentally slip off the WIFI while on Skype or something and get huge roaming charges. I've still got my phone I bought there last time, which I'll use for text messages or any calls I'd need to make, as it's pay-as-you-go, so it'd be comparably cheaper to call home.

I leave tomorrow morning at 12:25pm, so I gotta be at the airport by 9:30, outta the house at 8:30-45 and I'm still up booking hostels (it's 1:15) yikes. Oh well I can sleep on the plane.

I'm gone for 6 weeks and will travel through; The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and Poland. I'm going back to a few places I visited before; Amsterdam (where I fly into), Munich and Berlin, other than those 3, everything else is brand spankin' new to me. At least I've got a previous trip under my belt and know what to expect in terms of figuring out trains and metro systems and dorms have never bothered me in terms of sleeping in a room with a bunch of people.

In other news, I got another kitten! Her name's Sofie, and she's a calico just like Bella. She's a tabby calico, in that instead of solid colours, her patches are tabby colours. So she's got tabby grey and white patches and tabby orange and white patches. Super cute. She's mostly darker coloured, so now I've got another white calico/black calico combo that I had with Patches and Cali. Her and Bella have started to get along really well in the past few days and weeks. Bella of course is much bigger and stronger and usually ends up over powering poor Sofie, but she can handle it. It's good to have someone for Bella to run around with and keep company any time we're out of town. Man, she's gonna be so big by the time I get back. I may post of picture before I leave if I have the chance.

In other, other news, the Canucks won their first game of the 3rd round, which I'm rather happy about. Shitty deal is, while they're on their third promising run to the cup in their 40 year franchise, I won't be home to see them win the cup :`(. When they get to the cup final, (I say "when they" and not "should they"), should it end up going to game 7, I believe that that game would be played on the 17th of June, a week before I get home, so I'll have to find a bar in Berlin, (where I'll be at that time), to watch it. I've also got the local Canucks radio station, TEAM 1040, on my phone and I'll be able to at least listen to it.

Anyway, enough rambling as I need to get back to hostel booking. Almost done now, then sweet, sweet sleep.

Catch y'all on the flip side!

Awful pun courtesy of Ron MacLean

Detroit!! San Jose!!

Who dares defy the mighty Kesler and the Canucks?!?

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Third times a charm!!!! Holy shit what a series. Everything that could've happened, did.

Here we come Nashville! _{(I think that's who's next).}

Also, F5.

I no longer have any childhood pets. Awesome.

We had to put Cali down on Friday after she stopped eating and became rather weak and lethargic. She had started acting this way at the beginning of the week before and I watched it gradually worsen. We took her in for an assessment Wednesday, hoping for the best case scenario, (a blockage or something that could be fixed), but expecting the worst, (kidney failure or any equivalently incurable disease). The long and short of it is, we brought her home that night, they called back with the bloodwork results and confirmed it was kidney failure, something that 1 in 2 cats will die off. Both of mine died because of it, what luck.

We took her in Thursday, as they thought if they flushed the toxins, she might get better, although the damage to the kidneys was irreversible. We could have packed it in then, but they had given us the option and it would have really bugged me if we hadn't at least tried. On Friday, they called saying she wasn't getting any better and the heart murmur the vet found when examining her had gotten worse. He figured she was probably in pain and she probably wouldn't make it through the night. They leave after 9, so she'd be alone and that would've plagued me further, had something happened. I came home from work to find out we were heading out to say goodbye.

It was just as hard as it was with Patches and Bailey, but with the added sting of losing my last childhood pet, who I've had since I was 6. I pretty much went and laid down on my bed as soon as I got home, not leaving my room for about 16 hours, (this includes sleeping, 745pm-noon next day. Good thing was I didn't have to work the next day).

What bothers me now isn't the loss, but rather how I've seemingly repressed the whole thing into believing it never happened and even to the point where it feels like we never had her and nothing was lost. This is very disconcerting for me, as it goes beyond denial, or the simple notion of, "I can't believe she's gone." I have no idea why I would feel this way other than my brain supressing the trauma, but it wasn't like this with my other two pets. I still can recall the events of the night and memories of her, but they have that far, distant haze memories get when time has raged on by.

In any event, I guess this is me grieving, but I'm trying to unsupress it.

In other news, I bought a new guitar. New being relative, in that I didn't own it before. It's an early 1970s Mann Les Paul knockoff, commonly referred to as "lawsuit" guitars. I'll put a collage together and post it. My organ pedals project is also nearing completion. My buddy came over and helped me solder them up, and they now work perfectly. Only thing I need to do is build the casing for it and finish it up, I can't wait.

I've also got another work in progress I forgot to upload with that batch I posted a while back and perhaps another one or two I've been working on/plan to record soon.

Yup.

Happy Holidays y'all. Hope you guys had/are having a good Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzza, feast of the Son of Isis, Yule, Saturnalia, Festivus or Robanukah. Hopefully you all have had a chance to hang out, eat and be with your families, giving and receiving some neat gifts too.

I got some cool stuff like a Carbon Copy delay pedal and DKC Returns, also the ever obligatory socks and boxers.

What'd you guys do or get this season?

TL;DR below the wall o'text.

So I'm gonna actually do something I don't do all that often. Upload things. I've got a bunch of songs that I'm more than likely not going to finish, either because I lost interest or just never got around to finishing them. Two out of this bunch I do plan on finishing at some point, but Cubase is throwing a shit fit on my desktop right now and although I have it installed on my laptop as well, most of the VSTs/Amp sims I use aren't and I don't feel like installing all of them, in hopes I can just get it to work on my desktop.

I've got a few acoustic pieces I also want to record, one of which I started experimenting with mic placement already before Cubase borked. I actually have several pieces I'd like to get recorded and it'd be nice to get some acoustic stuff on here, as I've never showcased any, probably because I don't think I've even actually done a lot of acoustic originals up until about 2 months ago. Been playing a lot of acoustic lately actually, it's weird. But good. It's more than likely due to the fact that my head is in the shop, and they don't really know what it's doing.

Oh ya, I should probably mention that I bought a head. It's a 1971 Traynor YSR-1 and it is bad ass. It's just too bad it's doing weirdness. I took it in once before right after I bought it. Turns out the previous owner(s) had seemingly gone onto google and typed in mods to do to it and fucked up a lot of stuff that didn't need fucking with. So I had my tech bring it back to stock, with the exception of the master volume mod, (the only mod done correctly) and the "Marshall mod" to the first channel. Gives it a bit more bite. Well after it sat unused and not hooked up after a band jam, oh ya, I'm starting a band, I'll mention that too, it started to do it's current weirdness. Basically, when I bridge the first and second channels and turn either volume above 2, it makes an awful high pitched filter sweep-esque noise you can dial in by changing the volume and the reverb conked out on it. At first, if I played really hard and suddenly, the reverb would cause the amp to make a huge buzzing BBZZZZRRRTTTT noise, but then it just stopped working all together. It's been in this shop this second time since the second weekend of October, so I'm kinda getting antsy about it, but my tech isn't charging me, so that's good at least.

I've also got two other little projects going on, one for well over a year, the other somewhat more recently. Basically I'm building another guitar, just waiting for it to be painted. I tried doing it myself but I am inept with paint, unless it's like little doodles, but I couldn't produce the technique/look I was going for, so I'm having a friend of a friend try out. I bought the body months and months before I went travelling, so it's been almost two years since I started things. It's a Kramer Baretta with the banana headstock, Floyd Rose and will be painted to look like snow leopard fur, hence why I can't achieve the realism I'm after.

The other project is I'm retrofitting a set of old organ pedals with a MIDI controller keyboard to make a Moog Taurus-like contraption, but it's MIDI so I can do whatever I want with it. Just finishing that up, probably start building the contact switches for it tomorrow, then solder it up in the next few days. If I actually get my lazy ass to work on it, it might be done in the not so distant future.

TL;DR
So yes, in short; songs a coming (tomorrow, I'm too tired right now), I have a new amp, (bitchin', but broken), and I'm starting a band, (slowly, but surely), buildin' stuff, (taking forever).

Yup.

You've probably seen it elsewhere and probably everywhere, but today is John Lennon's birthday. Figured I should mention it, as John Lennon had a very early influence on my music. The Beatles were the first band I ever actively listened to as a child. I had a tape of "1962-1966" that I played religiously every night as I fell asleep. Funny thing is, my parents would unplug my stereo once the tape had finished, and I'd have to plug it back in every night. Once, four nights in a row, I electrocuted myself plugging it back in. Four nights. In a row.

Rejoice, for I am the same number twice. Double deuces. 22 mang.

This time last year I was buzzin' around on a pub crawl in Rome, having myself a grand ol' time. This year it's dinner at Shabusen and Steel Panther at The Commodore, so not too bad. Not quite as exciting as getting wasted on the other side of the planet, but it'll still be kick ass.

ps I skipped work today cause they scheduled me for a 10 hour shift. On my birthday! Cha right, like I'm gonna do that, dicks.

It's been brought to my attention that Dio has lost his battle with stomach cancer.

I'm pretty much at a loss for words right now, he was a big idol for me, and I know many others.

The music world has just lost a major innovator in rock and metal. The man popularized the horns. The horns!

I'm so glad I saw him when he rolled through town with Heaven and Hell. Second best concert I've ever been to. I know what shirt I'm wearing tomorrow.

As they say, "Drink him to Heaven, and hope that he gets there an hour before the Devil knows he's dead." Although in this case, such a clash would be of proportions not fathomable by human minds. Ronnie can take the devil.

The mental visualization of Dio doing battle with Satan makes me smile.

Now, I'm off to blast Holy Diver as loud as possible.

\m|_ .. _|m/

We took my dog to the vet tonight. She didn't come back with us.

Fuck.

_{I always have the best of news for you guys, don't I?}

It was an awesome concert. I'm not like a daft fan of them, but they put on one hellova show. Iron Maiden still rests at #1 concert I've ever been to, followed by Sabbath with Dio, (aka Heaven & Hell).

I missed the first two songs and the intro cause I was buying my shirt, like I do at every concert I go to. Some dumb bitch bought like 15 shirts, no joke, and it took like 15 minutes, cause they went through after to make sure they had all the right ones and sizes, thus taking an extra 10-15 minutes. You better believe I was givin' her and her husband/dad or whatever, dude was old, the stink eye. But then I got it and all was well.

Good excuse to knock down that monster wall of text that proceeded this journal.

_{Also, 1000 pageviews. Kinda cool I guess. Thanks guys!}

Alrighty. Second half of the monster journal.

Was a pain in the ass gettin' back home, as you can see. It's nice to be back, with friends and family n all, but I definitely do miss the freedom and adventure of going to new places. Now I just gotta pay off the debt I managed to rack up from it, (ran outta money about beginning of September), and go out again, this time bring my buddies along. Definitely makin' another play for Australia, it was really awesome there.

London (4 times now):
-Did my best to stay on Tokyo time, cause it was only an hour behind Sydney, where I'd be heading in two days, so I didn't want to get re-acquainted with the UK timezone
-Went walking around Earl's Court, where I was staying. Close to the airport.
-Went to Hyde Park for the day
-Managed to stay on the Tokyo timezone by going to bed at 5 every day
-Flew out to Sydney

Sydney:
-Took 22 hours to get there. Stopped in Singapore to fuel up. When I left London, the sun was setting. When I got into Singapore, 11 hours later, the sun was setting again, but on the next day. Kinda messed up.
-Had some really good turbulance about 4 hours out of Sydney. Scottish lady beside me was like hanging on to me, she was all freaked out. I thought it was fun, like a rollercoaster. We had been talking before the turbulance, then it happened, then she clammed right up and clamped onto my arm haha.
-Got into Sydney at 5am, the remnants of that big dust storm were still in the air.
-Got to the hostel at 7am, office didn't open til 9, so I had to wait outside til then, wouldn't even let me into the place, and it was goddamn cold in Sydney, like windy cold.
-Stayed up til real late to get onto the timezone
-Drinking games everynight in the kitchen
-Saw the Opera house, took the obligatory picture of me infront of it
-Went to the Botanical Gardens
- Paddy's Marketplace and Chinatown

Gold Coast, Collangatta:
-Flew up there, cause I didn't have time to bus it up
-Stayed at a place right on the beach
-BBQ and Bogan Bingo (Rowdy & drunken Australian bingo). I told Trigger about it already, it was really something fun, I'll go into detail about that one if someone wants.
-Walked the beach everyday, was warm enough to swim in
-Went up to Surfer's Paradise, the big party location on the Gold Coast. Was gonna meet up with the Aussie girls I met in Tokyo, but never connected.
-Bought some boomerangs and aboriginal art stuff
-While I was checking out, one of the guys from San Fran, that was in my hostel in Sydney, was in my hostel and checking out too. He was heading to stay at Surfers for a night, then up to Brisbane, where I was headed.
-Took the train up to Brisbane

Brisbane:
-My hostel was huge. The kitchen at dinner, had at least 30 people cooking at any given time and no spots on the stoves, the ones that worked anyway, so I had to wait til like 8:30 to eat most nights.
-Went up to the nightclub and music bar area of town, but on a Monday, and nothing was open, so that was a bust.
-Went to the various Botanical Gardens and parks there
-Went to the Australia zoo, where Steve Irwin used to be. It was awesome. I got to pet and feed Kangaroos and Wallabies. They have "Animal Encounters" there, where you can go in with a bunch of the different animals, like the wombats, echidnas, lemurs, even the tigers, (booked like 6 months in advance and with several waivers I'm sure). I went in with the Dingoes. So I got to pet them and hang out with them. They take a bunch of pictures of them with you, so I got a couple of those printed out and sent home
-Flew up to Cairns

Cairns (Pronounced Cans):
-Got some cool pictures of the moon rising over the mountains and river mouth
-Went to the Night Markets. Bought a t shirt that's yellow, and has two lemons running with a stretcher that has a third lemon cut in half laying on the stretcher, of which the caption is, "Lemon Aid."
-Went snorkeling and scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, then got comped a helicopter ride back to town, taking an aeiral tour of the reef
-My room had roaches in it and I kept killing them everynight, but they just did not stop appearing, earning me the nickname "The Roachodile Hunter."
-Went on a 4x4 trip through the bush and jungles in the surrounding mountains. Saw wild kangaroos and giant 900 year old strangler fig trees.
-Marketplace on the Esplanade, bought myself and my buddies these melted beer bottle clocks, that I'd somehow have to cart back home with me, along with all my other crap I had amassed.
-Got up at 3:30am to get ready for my shuttle to the airport for a flight at 6am back to Sydney.

Coming back home (Oy vey):
-Flight from Cairns to Sydney, changing in Brisbane at 6am on the 12th
-Flight from Sydney to London at 5:30pm on the 12th
-Land in London at 5:30am on the 13th
-Customs lady was skeptical about why I'd been into London so many times with my flights. She coudln't get it into her retarded head that I did it to save money. She didn't believe that I could afford it working at where I did, and if I were to come back to the UK again in a short period of time they'd probably ask for proof of emplyment and like audit me or some shit. To which I tore into her about how that was actually really insulting, cause I worked my ass of for this trip, and people actually have the ability to save up money for a long time and go on trips like this. It was great, cause she just looked at me dumbfounded, stamped my passport and I walked off with the knowledge I had taken her down a couple notches and felt pretty good about it haha.
-Flight from London to Glasgow at 5:20pm on the 13th, which I actually missed, cause I fell asleep at the gate on the benchs and woke up at 5:24pm, just after it had taken off. Had to get on the next one, which luckily didn't cost anything, but when I got into Glasgow at 10pm, my luggage didn't show up, it hadn't come up with me.
-Fly from Glasgow to Vancouver at 9:10am on the 14th, delayed til 10:10am. Had to sort out my bag situation. Stayed up all night freaking out about it. Filed a report and all that crap, said to check when I got into Vancouver, cause the system is worldwide, so they'd be able to look it up.
-Got into Vancouver at just after 12pm on the 14th, found out my bag would come in on the flight the next day and be delivered. Problem solved.

So, it took 3 solid days of travelling to get home, 40 of those hours were spent in an airplane at some point, the rest waiting to get on a plane in the terminal. Including the night before I left, in the 80 or so hours to get home I got about 10-12 hours of sleep, which enabled me to sleep about 18 hours the night I got home. Went to sleep at 3am, got up after 8pm the next day. I've been having trouble getting back on the Vancouver timezone too, last night I finally went to sleep before 3am and got up at like 10am instead of after 5pm, like every day up til this point. Should probalby do that now. Sleep that is.

Alright guys. Well I'm back home now, have been since wednesday, and holy shit did it take me forever, in perhaps the most ass-backwards way possible. Right, so here's the rundown on the last places I went to and did stuff and whatnot. Really going back here, but I didn't have a lot of time. I haven't even finished my LiveJournal postings from each city that I'd been keeping. Like always, ask questions if you wish, I will fill in the blanks. I'll split it up, cause I typed all up and it was super long. Here's Liverpool to Tokyo.

Liverpool:
-Spent the first 2 days re-discovering the city, mailed off some postcards
-Met up with Paul, got my care package, which was surprisingly heavy
-Owen finally got into town and we hung out the other 2 days I was there, tons of fun
-Saw District 9, which was amazing
-Learned my dad was gonna meet me in Tokyo

London (Like third time now):
-Chilled out
-Went to the town of Bath, saw the Roman Baths
-Went to Stonehenge, which was pretty awesome
-Flew out to Japan, took 9 hours, watched like 4 movies on the plane

Tokyo:
-Had to figure out the train system to get to my hostel from Narita airport, took like 2.5 hours to get there
-Got to the hostel and just crashed until that night, when I up to make a sandwhich in the kitchen, I got talking to a bunch of people, which the group got bigger and bigger and included an Irish couple, a group of three Finnish guys who were really funny, these four Aussie girls and thisone really awkward guy from New York.
-Neighbours called the cops on us cause we were too loud in the hostel kitchen. Cop comes up and was gonna fine us all 10,000Yen, which is like just over $100, but the one Aussie girl spoke enough Japanese to convince him not to.
-Went out to Karaoke so we could be as loud as we wanted.
-I rocked Champagne Supernova like you would not believe.
-This was all the first day

-Dad flies in, I had told him what to do with the trains, so he had no problem
-We checked out Odaiba, which is like the weird, futuristic building part of Tokyo
-Went to the Fuji TV Headquarters building. My dad works in the film industry, so we thought it'd be cool to check out the Japanese film industry, which just turned out to be weird and confusing to us North Americans hahaha
-Went to the temple and marketplace by our hostel
-Went to the Tokyo Tower, which had in it, a very weird and mostly inacurate wax museum (James Dean looked like he was 55 years old, Brad Pitt looked like Dr. Zaius).
-Accidentally went to a 3D anime movie at the tower and me and my dad were like wtf
-Went to the Sumo Wrestling tournament, which was really cool. A couple of times the one guy through the other one into the judges that were sitting ringside, and they had to have mad dodging skills to avoid being hit by this huge fat guy flying towards them
-Ate some Japanese food, duh
-Tried without any success to find the "Freshness Burger" restaurant we had seen the second night he was there. I would later go on to find several after he left
-Went to Don Quiote's this weird XS Cargo on Japanese steriods department/novelty store and got an awesome engrish tshirt
-Went to the markets in Ueno and got my sister and her friend some funny engrish shirts
-Daytrip to Kyoto. Took the bullet train, was going like 300 km/h. First time my dad had been on a train besides the Royal Hudson.
-Dad flew home

-I hung out with these girls from Edmonton for pretty much the rest of my time there. They left the same day I did, but to go back to Canada, not the UK like I was.
-Drinking beer and talking about Canada and movies n stuff with the Edmonton girls
-Met up with my friend who lives in Chiba. Her and her friend showed me around Tokyo and some places I hadn't been to yet.
-Went to the SquareEnix store with the Edmonton girls
-The kitchen had little roaches in it, and the kitchen only had ONE FORK in the entire place, and a hot plate that took 35 minutes to boil the water.
-Stayed at my friends house in Chiba, which was really cool. Had like an authentic Japanese family dinner, some shabu-shabu and big ol' thing of sushi. It was pretty fun, but also very different staying with them. Her and her parents were obsessed with me and it was pretty funny. I'll tell ya more about that if ya want, just ask, cause it was pretty funny.
-Flew out, back to the UK. Watched a ton more movies on the plane.

Part 2 will be London (for like the fourth time) all the way to my flights home and the ordeal that was.

Internet's been scarce the past month, but that's okay, I didn't come here to sit on my laptop all day, although it does make calling home on Skype rather difficult.

Since the past post, I've been through France, Italy, Greece, back to the UK, over to Ireland and back to the UK, waiting on my flight to Tokyo.

A little point form breakdown for y'all.

Paris
-Met up with my cousins boyfriend who flew into Paris on the 20th of July
-Took the free tour, saw all the major sights
-Went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower
-Went to a BB King concert
-Went to Le Louvre, saw the Mona Lisa and Venus di Milo among tons of other stuff
-Went to a church on the highest point of Paris only to be bugged by scammers

Bayeux
-Went camping for the first time. Cousins boyfriend brought a tent-like thing that we used.
-Rented bikes and went on an epic 8 hour bike journey along the D Day beaches. Saw Omaha, Juno and another one (which ever it was, it was only from afar). My legs were absolutely dying on me, got back to the bike rental place with 3 minutes before the return time, (with a penalty of €10 if you didn't come back on time).
-Ran from our campsite to the train station, (a 30 minute walk), with only 15 minutes to catch the train I needed to make my connection in Paris. Ran up as the train was pulling into the platform

Lourdes
-12 hours to get there from Bayeux
-Stopped and walked around Bordeaux on a 2 hour layover
-Visited the big church there. It's a Catholic pilgrimage, and not being Catholic, or particularly religous, it was more of a nice quiet town to do laundry in my hotel room and grab some rest and time away from my cousin and her boyfriend
-Got a waffle from a sandwich shop that was so loaded with icing sugar, I kept inhaling it everytime I'd go to take a bite.

Nice
-Stayed at two different hostels, liked the second one the best. Had an outdoor terrace shared by 2 other hostels that backed onto each other. Also shared a single kitchen that was at least 50C in there by 8pm
-Went to the beach a bunch. The beaches aren't sand, but rather medium sized round, flat rocks. Good skipping, but terrible for laying on.
-Went out with a bunch of people from the hostel, then got caught in the crossfire of a weird and uncomfortable arguement between two of the people with us.

Venice
-Wandered trying to find my hostel for like an hour
-Walked along the canals trying to find a place to eat. Found one, had terrible, over-priced pasta.
-Had a huge fight with my cousin in the train station
-Ate a kilogram of gelato between the three of us
-My cousins boyfriend dropped his sunglasses in the canal, he went in after them. Had to go back to their hotel, grab his mask and snorkel, and went back and found them
-Tons of tourists walking slow, getting in the way. Super expensive city. Really nice, but lots of tourists.

Rome
-Got in on my birthday.
-Went on the pub crawl on my birthday. I got in free cause it was my birthday and there were 2 other people with the same birthday as me. One of them had to be taken back to her hostel cause she drank too much during the all you can drink happy hour
-Saw all the major sights; Coliseum, Roman city and forum, St. Peter's Bascillica, Vatican City and Museum and lots more

Florence
-Saw Michelangelo's David. It's in a building that doesn't look at all like a museum, rather drab
-Saw the Duomo
-Walked around a lot. I was only here one night and packed in the sights of the whole town, which amounted to me walkin around lookin at stuff all day

Pisa
-Saw the leaning tower and took my picture with it.
-Planned too much time in Pisa, thought there was more to do there. There isn't. Jump off the train, take your pictures and continue on your way.
-Went back to Rome for the night so we could catch our train to the ferry port in Brindisi

Ferry/Travel to Greece
-Spent 48 hours taking an overnight ferry, then a 4-5 hour train to Athens, then took another night ferry to get to Santorini

Santorini
-Spent 8 days there. Mostly just relaxing and laying around on the beaches. The beaches were nice and sandy, although being black sand it was extremely hot on the feet. The fish kept nibbling on my feet when I was in the water.
-Ate at this one Gyro place every single day I was there

Ferry Back to Athens
-Left at 6am, got into Athens at 8:30pm. Wasted a whole day, kinda sucked.

Athens
-Were only there for one night and not even a complete day cause we had to fly out the next day at 7pm.
-Went on a walking tour and saw all the major points of interest.
-Had to fly out at 7pm, so we had to cut our tour short. Luckily we saw all the stuff we wanted to, and it was only little, non-ruins things left to see.

London
-Cousin got ready to leave. I gave her all my gifts n crap I bought to take back to I don't have to cart it 6 times across the freakin globe
-She left at 10:30 the night before so she could catch the tube to catch a train out to Gatwick. She would have to check in by 6am, so she left super early. Her flight ended up being grounded for 5 hours due to technical problems and they had to stay within 3 hours of an airport. How they did that over the Atlantic I don't know.
-I hopped on a bus for Dublin

Dublin
-Got in at 6am, hung out at the hostel for breakfast
-Went on the free walking tour
-Went to the Guinness Storehouse
-Went on a pub crawl and met a buncha guys from Ottawa and another from Penticton (BC)

Galway
-Walked around the town a bunch
-Felt pretty homesick
-Talked to a friend I hadn't talked to in a while, helped with the homesickness
-Planned out some stuff for the rest of Ireland, Japan and Australia
-Actually went to a restaurant and got a decent meal for the first time in over a month

Killarney
-Explored the town
-Discovered I do not like Carbonera on my pasta, bleh
-Went and saw "Funny People" to take my mind off of things. Wasn't as good as I had hoped. Had it's moments I guess
-Went on the Ring of Kerry tour for the day. It was awesome. Took so many pictures. Beautiful scenery of mountains, lakes, the ocean, you name it.

Cork
-Went to Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney stone. Lady who took my picture didn't work my camera properly, and got me as I was pulling myself back up, with the goofiest look on my face
-Had a few pints waiting for my bus
-Walked around the town, took pictures of all the old churches
-checked out a couple of vintage shops, (just like home, they're all really expensive, and in Euro's no less)
-bought a copy of the four part trilogy of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. I don't like books or reading, never have, but I liked the movie, so I figured I would read the books. I know there's a fifth part, but it was an even larger book that had all 5, too big to carry around.

Now I'm back in Liverpool, going to meet up with some people I met in Munich. Had my mom mail a package with supplies from home to one of the guys, so I gotta go pick it up, and he's like a really far walk from my hostel to where he lives, so hopefully I can get him to drop it off or something. But ya, that's all for now. Japan is quickly approaching, and my dad just might meet me there. The show he's working on stops production for 10 days, the very 10 days that I'll be in Japan. So he might come over for a week, still looking up flights. Until then, see ya!

Long time no journal...

So we've been on the mainland since the 1st. Got into Amsterdam on Canada Day. Even had one guy yell out "Happy Canada Day" to us, since I have a flag on my backpack.

Too much has happened to go into detail, so I'll list it in point form. If you care to know anything specific about any one, just ask and I'll be happy to talk you ears off about it ;).

Amsterdam
-Went on free tour of the city
-Met up with guys from England and US who we hung out with for the rest of our time in Amsterdam
-My cousin ate hash cake in Dampkring and would later get freaked out and went to bed to sleep off her high
-Went gallivanting around the red light district at night with the blokes from the UK
-Ate Dutch pancakes. They were bigger than my head
-Got lost consistantly because the city looks genuinely the same everywhere
-Sold my guitar cause I didn't like carrying it around, and figured it'd be a pain to drag it everywhere, (as I had originally thought)

Den Haag
-Walked around and saw stuff
-Tried to find a beach, but ended up going in the wrong direction, confused that maybe because the wind was getting stronger, we were getting closer to the beach, only to wind up in some dodgey neighbourhood to buy peanut butter and shampoo
-Paid too much for our hostel. My cousin booked it and didn't think it was that much, but it was
-pretty much nothing

Brussels
-Stayed in separate hostels because I couldn't book into the same one as her. Actually stayed in a cheap hotel the first night, but it was really nice
-Ate Belgium chocolates
-Saw a lady get her purse stolen 15 feet in front of us. (If any point to ask me about, this would be one).
-Went on a terrible city bus tour. Everything about it sucked.
-On said bus tour the next day, we got stranded at one of their stops for an hour and a half
-Sent a bunch of stuff home that we didn't need. Like everything in Brussels, it was a hastle. The post office didn't take international cedit cards, so I had to run around to 3 different banks to take out money.

Bruges
-Was a super cool little medieval town
-Our place was really awesome, it had a bar downstairs that was lined with North American memorabilia
-Ate a Belgium waffle
-Weren't in Brussels haha

Frankfurt
-Walked around the city for like 5 hours with a map that the guided foot tour that costs €10 uses
-Happy hour at our hostel
-Our hostel was in the red light district of Frankfurt
-Went on the observation deck of the tallest building of the city
-Watched kids frollick in a fountain and contemplated joining in

Berlin
-Was awesome
-Went on the free city tour and Red Berlin tour (about communism)
-Saw the wall in three places where it still stands
-Our hostel was really funky and located in East Berlin, (way cool)
-Were woken up at three in the morning by Greeks having loud conversations and arguments in our room
-Played a bunch of drinking games then assembled pretty much the whole hostel and went to a party on top of an abandonned ice cream factory in East Berlin, where we had to run through a field that had barbed wire and scale a 10 foot concrete fence to get in (again, a point to ask me about, sooooo much fun)
-Wish I had more time to stay

Munich
-Stayed in a place called The Tent, which was just that, a big tent. Holds 100 people in the one main tent, and you can pitch a tent out back if you want for even less money
-Fought a bunch with my cousin
-Went to a nudist park, much to our surprise...."Is that dude....nude?" "Houston, we have weiners"
-Met more people from the UK, (people from the UK seem to like me), and played drinking games then went clubbing til 6 in the morning (perhaps a point to elaborate on)

Interlaken (Switzerland)
-It rained
-It rained some more
-It cleared up
-We watched fireworks last night, they were awesome
-Went hiking
-Went paragliding, it was awesome

We're off to Paris tomorrow, where my cousin will meet up with her boyfriend, and I'll meet back up with them two days later, if you catch my drift, wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean? Hopefully things'll go smoother with him here, I dunno, could make it worse, but we'll find out.

Been in the UK since the 18th. It's been pretty cool. My cousin and I aren't getting along too well though. She's supposed to be this social, party girl, and she's proven to be quite the opposite. I attribute this to her new boyfriend back home that she just started seeing before we left. She's been completely withdrawn most the time, and most of our conversations are just meaningless small talk about the general surroundings, or an arguement about what to do. I thought we had more in common to just talk about, but we haven't been clicking at all. She also doesn't seem to want to get the same thing out of this trip as I do. It's been super frustrating and we've been spending the last few days, as well as a few last week, apart. I dunno, she's going back on the 23rd of August, so that's a really long time, not sure if we'll make it to there before one, or both of us snaps.

I'm in London right now, and I didn't bring a guitar with me, even though I wanted to. I decided against hauling it all over Europe, but it's a really good starting point for conversations with people, and seeing as how I'm having so much problems with my cousin, I'm gonna go out and get a travel one. Something nice n cheap, slim, and able to strap onto my main backpack. I'm gonna get everyone I meet to sign it, and it'll be my souvenir from this trip. I really miss not being able to play guitar and I think it will help improve this trip, which has been up to this point, somewhat unenjoyable.

Other than that, it's been pretty cool seeing all these old buildings and landmarks. My cousin is taking an assinine amount of pictures, like 350 a day. Maybe I'll upload some of them at some point.

I did however find an awesome bar/club yesterday when my underground train had stopped due to a giant storm that rolled in and flooded some stations. It's called Worlds End in Camden and it's full of metalheads and punks, my kind of place. Unfortunately, being a rather warm and muggy day I was wearing my shorts, so my only rock n roll attire was my Ozzy t-shirt with my leopard print bandanna and aviators. All my rock n roll clothes are at home, cept for my dodger (Pink Floyd patched army jacket), I brought that along cause I needed a good coat.

I'll probably get around to posting some music I prepared before leaving too if I get a chance. Wi-fi is on and off with my laptop, it's producing some problems. Plus not every place is free, but most are.

But ya, hoping for better times, and a new guitar. Everything's closed today, so I'll have to go tomorrow, which reminds me, I've got to go book monday night to stay here...

So...I never really mentioned it before, but I'm going off travelling for the next 4 months. I leave later today, (it's like 3:30am right now), at 2:35 in the afternoon from YVR.

I'm backpacking around Europe, Japan and Australia for the next couple months. My cousin's coming with me for the Europe part of the journey, so that's pretty cool. She really wanted to go to Japan, but she has to be back by the end of summer to get ready for school, and I'm not going to Japan until the second week of September.

The basic plan is this. We land in Glasgow, where we stay for a couple days, then take a train down to London. We'll hit up Stonehenge along the way, then we spend some time in and around London. From there we take a ferry to Rotterdam and kick around Amsterdam for a little bit. Then we head to Berlin and a couple other places in Germany.

After, we head to Paris and some other places in France. We'll head to the south of France and maybe even go down to Spain, hit up Barcelona for a couple days. We're off to Italy at that point as we make our way through the French Riviera and we'll hit up Venice and Rome for sure. I'm thinking Italy is where we'll spend a good amount of time. From Italy we take a ferry to Greece where we kick around for about 2 weeks.

It works out to about 2 weeks per country, with the five main countries, but everything all up in the air. This is just a basic, skeleton idea. We haven't planned it out day by day, as we just wanna cruise along and be like, "hey, you wanna go here?" "Ya totally, let's do it." Planning takes all the fun out of it.

My cousin and I then fly back to London so she can fly back home. After she leaves, I'm off to see Ireland and England a bit more. About the second week of September, I head off to Tokyo from London for two weeks.

My next destination is Sydney, Australia, but to get the cheapest flights possible, I had to essentially get two round trip tickets. So from Tokyo, I fly back to London, where I'll fly all the way back to Sydney. Had I not done this, a direct flight from Tokyo to Sydney was outrageously expensive. In the neighbourhood of $2500. I don't know why, but that's what it was.

It's something like 19 hours London to Tokyo, and another 19 back to London. Then it's 22 hours to Sydney. With the time that I leave for there, I depart on the 24th and arrive on the 26th, the 25th never really exists for me. I think with flying through the timezones, the 25th lasts for 8 hours or something. Good thing is, I've got a day or two inbetween coming back from Tokyo and leaving for Sydney. So it's not just me getting off one plane and stepping right onto another one. That would suck. Big time. It's bad enough already as it is, but I've ALWAYS wanted to go to Australia, ever since I was a kid, so I'll suck it up.

I'm meeting up with a buncha people in London, Japan and Australia that I know, or that friends know and they've told their friends living there that I'll be in town. I've got relatives in Scotland too that we'll be visiting. One of them is my great-grandpa's youngest sister, who's like the only one of the 6 siblings still alive, and she's like 85 or something.

I'll toss up a journal every now and then with some pictures about what's goin on. I've also got some songs, mostly WIPs and songs from my EP project that are mostly, kinda done on a flashdrive with me, that'll pump into my gallery every once and a while.

Anyone who has travelled a bit and has some cool places they'd like to share? Places to see, what not to see? Hit me, I'm all ears. I probably won't check this until we get to Glasgow, so that'll explain a lengthy time to get a reply from me.

Cheers

I can only wish I was this good.

A friend of mine showed me this guy like a long time ago and then I went and totally forgot his name. Then today I asked her if she remembered, and she did, so here he his.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4.....aS3N4&NR=1

Some of you might have seen him before, so this could be old news. If not, I think it's pretty rad.

Also, Ronald Jenkees is pretty cool too. Buddy from work showed me him a while back too. It's cool cuz it's like awesome hip hop beats with him jammin' over it.

This one "Throwing Fire", is probably my fave. Check out "Disorganized Fun" and "Stay Crunchy" too. I had that stuck in my head at work all day once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O2aH4XLbto

He's like a southern Bubbles, (character from the Canadian mockumentary/comedy Trailer Park Boys for those who don't know).

Also also...it's like summer here, it's great. It's been like 21C here, (70 for the Yanks), for the past few days. I love summer, and summer weather for that matter and considering it tried to snow last week, this is most welcome indeed.

I'm pretty much running on auto-pilot right now. Not really too sure what to say, but I thought I'd mention it anyway as a tribute of sorts I guess.

I'm sorry it's not very short, you don't need to read it all, but it's something I've got to get outta my mind. Any condolences I'd like to thank you for in advance if I don't get around to thanking you right away.

I lost my best friend tonight. For near 17 years she was rarely absent from my side. We grew up together after we met when I was 4. She was the best cat I could ever have wanted.

_{Yes...overdramatic, mis-leading few sentences, so sue me :P.}

I got her for my fourth birthday, and she was just everything to me. Like anyone who has a pet(s), the bond between the two (or more) of you is something akin to family. Well hell, they are family. It was always in the back of my mind the day to come, but it's still never any easier. For the last couple months she had lost like half her weight, and she was something of a chunky kitty. Not huge, but still. Then in the past few weeks she'd begun eating less, having trouble remembering how to drink water from the tap and just losing all the things that made her her.

Last night, when I got home at 1 in the morning, she had started to meow like I had never heard her before. She was obviously in pain about something. Her declining health had weighed on my mind all day at work today as I knew we were taking her to the vet to see what was wrong with her. Now, I already knew the outcome, but couldn't fathom it actually coming true. She was old and she was on her way out, no matter how it pains me to say that. As soon as I got home I picked her up, and my mom asked if I wanted to take some pictures, and I did, so we have two final pictures of me n her, sitting on the couch with her in my lap, calm as she's ever been.

Took her to the vet to see what was wrong, and from her best guess it could've been late stages of kidney failure or diabetes. Both could possibly be treated, if not to only make her more comfortable, but it would only buy her time, no clear fix. When left to decide, my mom and I concluded that she couldn't be put through any more suffering. The night before was really hard to listen to, knowing how bad she was hurting.

How do you say goodbye to 17 years of friendship? Someone you've seen practically everyday of your life, is about to never be able to be seen again. It was the hardest thing I've probably ever had to do. I got about 20 minutes to say goodbye, scratching her ears and under her chin, nuzzling her and headbutting as she used to do. It's never long enough. It was a lot faster than I thought it would be. I thought I'd have enough time to scoop her into my arms and have her fade away. It wasn't 15 seconds before it had taken effect. I pet her as she slipped the earthly bonds of this world and I bent down, making sure I was the last thing she ever saw, and I hope I was.

Checking her heartbeat, the vet said, "She's gone," and left my mom and I to grieve. I quickly picked her up to cradle in my arms. I sat down and hung my head to talk to her. I now have an idea how my friend's mom felt when her son passed away on New Years in her arms, (see other long-winded journal). Slightly different yes, but there's still that bond. She was my baby. My best friend. My Patches. (Yes, real original name for a Calico I know, w/e :P).

My best case scenario for "this day" would've been her falling asleep on my legs at night and then going in the night, but you never really get what you want. Whats matters is she's no longer in pain anymore. Cliche yes, but it's true, and it's what will give me some solace in what transpired today.

I get her ashes in about a week, but I really hope sooner. I also get this plaque/disc thingy that they'll put her paw prints onto, and I grabbed the little patch of fur they shaved off for the needle. Maybe that's a little weird, I dunno, but fuck it, it's something, anything to remember her by. Anything to remember her by is gonna really help me pull myself back together, so I'll be going thru all my old photos, maybe do up a Snapbook, or w/e the hell that thing is where you make a scrap book online and they'll print it and ship it.

So, as it rains in the city of Vancouver, (Surrey if you wanna get technical), I can only hope to be re-united one day with her, in some other-worldly plain of existance, should one exist. I kinda hope so, I dunno. Never been big on religion, but the idea of a heaven is kinda comforting, even if it turns out to be a falacy. Who knows..I know I don't.

I don't think I'll ever get used to her not being around. Bounding up the stairs or sleeping on my feet at night or licking my nose as I tried to sleep. Her meow and purr, imitating it and talking back to her. There's another hole in my heart that won't soon be filled by anything.

Thought I'd compile a list of some newer artists that I listen to that I think I should share. No hogging. Most are Rock, Indie or w/e, with Classic Rock being the main influence, however there's a wild card in the mix too.

Some might have heard of some of them, but they're all pretty Indie in the sense that they aren't like big, household names...YET! I dunno, I like 'em. Love 'em even. Lemme know what you think. I'm even so kind as to provide links to their respective myspaces :D.

Link me bands you wanna share. Indie, "big name", w/e.

The Parlor Mob-Saw them in the summer with some punk band and Airbourne. I went there for Parlor Mob, ended up staying for Airbourne, and I'll say this about them, (Airbourne). Their stuff doesn't sound like AC/DC...but rather ONE SONG by AC/DC.

www.myspace.com/theparlormob

Rose Hill Drive-Opened for The Who in 2006 when they came to town. Now as opposed to Tea Party who opened for Def Leppard and everytime the tech handed the Tea Party guy a freshly tuned guitar me and my friends would groan in displeasure, we didn't want Rose Hill Drive to stop.

www.myspace.com/rosehilldrive

The Answer-Opened for AC/DC this past november, they ruled. The guy had the maneurisms of Robert Plant, and even kinda looked like him. Dirty Blues Rock is always good.

www.myspace.com/theanswerrock

VHS OR BETA-Found their show bill at The Plaza downtown when my band was playing there. Looked cool, so it was promptly swiped and placed in my backpack. I love crazy show bills. Grabbed it cause it looked cool, but didn't actually look up the bands on it until like 4 months later. It was staring at me from my wall saying, "Why haven't you looked us up yet?" So one day I obliged, and by damn, I liked it! Had I only looked it up sooner and I could have actually gone to the show the bill advertised.

www.myspace.com/vhsorbeta

Tigercity-Were on the same poster as VHS OR BETA, same deal. I really liked these guys cause they're like 80's pop almost. I even bought their EP on iTunes, a rarity as I often opt to download. However, not being a large band that can make up for record sales losses with big stupidly priced shows, I bought their EP cause they need the money.

www.myspace.com/tigercity

My band Black Jacket :D plug plug plug. I'm technically not a "formal, performing member," but w/e, I'm with the band.

www.myspace.com/blackjacket00

Handsome Furs-Haha, um ya, Not gonna lie, the name grabbed my attention on iTunes Music Store. They're kinda the different ones of the bunch. More alternative if you will. I got their new album, Face Control, it's pretty rad.

www.myspace.com/handsomefurs

San Serac-Just listening to these guys at this moment. Kinda cool too. Very 80's sounding.

www.myspace.com/sanserac

I've got two WIPs I'll post tomorrow night and maybe an old song in the coming days, if I get around to mastering it so it sounds decent, (I lost the project file and all the wavs, so all I have is the only rendering I ever did of it...not rad).

Fuck yes...that is all.

Well, I've done it again. I bought another guitar. Up to 9 now. My eighth was actually me getting my very first guitar back, (3/4 acoustic from Sears or something), that been at my buddies place for the last 5 years for some reason. I think he fixed the neck and never gave it back or some shit.

Gutted project guitar, Strat/Baretta style with the Kramer banana headstock routed for a Floyd Rose and a single humbucker, which the dude tossed in for free. Hopefully it's a good one, said it was a high output, quadrail style like the Kramers, which I'm not totally familiar with, but it saves me $100ish that I woulda spent on a Gibson Burstbucker 3.

$265US after shipping on ebay, so now I just need a Floyd Rose to drop in it. The volume pot, knobs and tuners I can get at my guitar techs shop. Which reminds me, my acoustic should be ready to pick up soon.

Can't wait though. I'm gonna paint this one up white with airbrushed leopard prints, so it'll look like the guitar in my "music" thumbnail, minus the black pickguard. Borrow my friends air brush and I'll be all set.

Had to buy this one cause the project guitar I had already wasn't good enough to drop a Floyd in. Ripped it all apart and surprise! Plywood. Not for Floyd Rose's. At least now though I'll have something that I can dive bomb and do all that crazy shit on that my Strat won't allow me to.

Ughhh...and I'm supposed to be saving money, damn my impulsiveness and GAS...(guitar acquitision syndrome). Whatever, I've wanted a Floyd Rose system FOREVER.

I've got some songs from a recent jam that I'll be putting up in the next couple of days when I get around to re-rendering them at 128 or 160kbps to appease the FA submission gods, as they seem to loathe my attempt to upload decent bit rated material.

Also, my band's playin' this friday at Pub 340 downtown and it's gonna fuxin' rock. Party time, excellent!

Anyone else's user page gallery still messed up? Mine's a nice little line of icons running down the page :I

EDIT: NVM, using the default template for the site makes it work now. Still no select all button in my submissions inbox when using IE7 tho.

_{filler to bump off the last journal}