A Late Night Ode To Basil

I know a few people from the office in Winchester have visited the Opiated Sherpa of late, so I thought to spur on a few comments from them, I would post a couple of pics from my time with ol' Baz. I want all the Winchester folk who have visited to leave a comment on this Blog or one of the Homelands Blogs, just for the sake of doing it. I know you guys love it.

This is the first night that I actually met Baz

A night in the club with Baz and our pub co-workers, Jen & Ches

Less than a week before we got the flat in Bergholt, with our now asshole of an ex-flatmate

Lars' birthday in February of this year... Go Baz!

The night after... still goin' like a madman!

Do you see what you guys what I've had to put up with for 2+ years... gotta love the bastard, don't ya?

Homelands Weekend: Chapter 4

In lieu of memory loss between Beck's performance and the end of the Streets, photos will have to take it's place. I'm sorry ladies, but if you ever read this, I have to apologize 'cuz I don't really remember you at all. Well, that's not entirely true, I do remember bits and pieces, but names... forget it. But if you ever read this, do e-mail me and tell me how wasted I was. You're all lovely for posing.

I also have a few other photos as well. They're a little harder to make out, but it's probably the same thing. I had probably met you right around the time in between Beck and the Streets, so if you ever come across this page, drop a comment or an e-mail saying hi. That would prove the Small World Theory.

See what I mean? Very incoherent. Ha ha ha! If you can make yourself out from these photos, you'd probably even win a prize... but then again, probably not.

Yes, if you were wondering, that is me in all three of those pictures. It's a good thing I had those sunglasses on, or else I'd look even more wasted than I do in those pics, I'm sure.

The picture of the festival would have to be Mark's biting of the girl who was sitting on some shoulders in front of us during the Streets. I only know this, 'cuz of the date stamp on the photo and well, it was a funny story that was told over and over again when we got back.

How funny is that? Now if you recognize your ass... then you do deserve a prize! It has to be said. I'm sure we could send Mark out there to do it again... that'd make for an odd and/or interesting prize.

Well, this'll be the end of the Photo Blog. Hope you've enjoyed it... Chapter 5 will be along soon.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Homelands Weekend: Chapter 3

After sitting down and enjoying the view (and the Stellas) for a while, we decided to get up and head over to the Live Stage. Inside we found the Bravery just starting. I'll put it quite simply, we only waited for Jutty to get back with the next round of Stellas before we left. Since it was early in the afternoon, we weren't there for very long. I mean, the Bravery suck. I'll compare my distaste for the Bravery to my dislike of Morrissey and the Smiths. Watching the lead singer of the Bravery (let me do some quick research, 'cuz I have no idea what his name is), Sam Endicott(?), is pretty much exactly watching Morrissey on stage. They even look the same, for Christ sakes! The comparisons are very apparent between the Bravery and the Smiths... the music is good, the singing is shooting 82's when par is 71.

Thanks NME.com for the research help.

So in lieu of not wanting to watch the Bravery, we decided to use our hour and a bit before the Audio Bullys to take a leak. Well, Mark and I did, while Jutty and Barry disappeared. If Mark & I didn't already take a piss, we woulda pissed ourselves because we couldn't find them right away. It was quite funny, but Mark was on his mobile trying to ring Barry. That didn't work, 'cuz as it turned out during the day, Barry's phone got such shit reception, that no one could hear what he was saying anyways. Eventually, they moved away from where they were and found us again by the Live Arena. Later on, Barry told us that they disappeared to see Groove Armada at the Outdoor Stage, or something like that.

When we all gathered together, we found ourselves another beer and waited outside the Live Arena for the Audio Bullys to come on the stage. When we were sitting outside, the first approach came from a big black fella for pills. When in Rome, eh? 6 for £20. What was thought to be a reasonable afternoon, quickly went out the window and the rollercoaster ride began.

The Audio Bullys were pretty cool. I got some pretty good footage on my camcorder and some really good digital stills as well. I was pretty impressed with the end product and so were the lads. It's kind of a shame that the film and stuff would be so big or else I would post some of it for all of you to see. The cover and remix of Nancy Sinatra's 'Bang Bang' was the opening and finishing (a poor lead-up to an encore as well) track of the set, which sent the crowd pretty nuts. It was pretty awesome.

The Live Stage was really where we wanted to be for the gist of the day. Ronan was just dead up for the Drum & Bass stage and if we ever needed to find him, that's where he'd be... or else he'd be standing outside getting some food or fresh air... or may be even a beer. After the Audio Bullys had finished, we decided to go find Ronan and see what a few of the other tents were like. We had about 20 minutes until Mylo came on stage, so we thought we had enough time to do a quick tour and have a good laugh.

I think the day was really kicking in, because we had sat down with more beer, went into Arena's 2, 4 & 3 (3 being the Drum & Bass arena), found Ronan, Mark had a quick bite to eat and we ended up back at the Live Arena for the end of Roots Manuva. 'How the hell did we kill 2 hours like that?' That was the big question before we sorted ourselves out some more goodies and went in to see Beck.

Beck wasn't on until 8pm, but the sun was still shining, the girls were getting more and more gorgeous and well, we were getting more and more wasted. Luckily, I was still rather coherant for Beck. Since I missed Babyshambles earlier in the day, I sure as hell didn't want to miss Beck.



We didn't miss Beck. In actual fact, we got an excellent spot for Beck. Barry gauged us at about 5 rows from the front, if not better. I was snapping away with the camera and was trying my best to get a few of the good singles on video. Barry insisted that I have all of Loser on video, which I hopefully did. I think I did, I tried my best. But already, looking back at the tape, I think some people had been playing with it and rewinded it to certain parts, because I'm sure I had more footage on there than what was left. Maybe that was just me anyways.

Tunes Beck had played, that I remember anyways were The Devil's Haircut, Loser, the New Pollution and Epro. There was probably a lot more, but I was really beginning to fall apart upstairs... ha ha! It was a pretty good set and the arena was absolutely packed! What a great atmosphere.

And then everything gets a little silly...

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

This Morning's Blog Surfing

As we speak, I'm nearing the conclusion of the 100 credit race again... it mildly amuses me still to do it and well, I have the chance for potential readers. BlogExplosion has been the clean favourite on Mystery Credits, while the pre-race favourite, Blog Soldiers, has seemingly demoted their Bonus Credit system to give fewer than before. Ah well, we'll see how it all concludes.

BlogExplosion came up big when they handed me a 25 Mystery Credit bonus about halfway through the race. That really showed everyone. As I'm writing this though, I'm giving the Auto Surf program of FortuneCookieHits a slight advantage, 'cuz I can't exactly click and type at the same time. Oh well. BlogExplosion is so close to winning already, that FortuneCookieHits doesn't really stand a chance for the win.

I do read a few from time to time as well, so the Auto Click system gets an advantage that way as well. It's a really good system, I think. It does bring people to my Blog and that's all that really matters to me.

And there we have it... the first Exchange was over the line now:

1. BlogExplosion - 100 credits / 49 bonus
2. FortuneCookieHits - 93.2 / 0 bonus
3. Blog Soldiers - 90.5 / 25 bonus

Those are your top 3 today. Quite a good read today, I found. I saw a couple new sites that I didn't see before, which is always a refreshing change.

Now the results might be a tad skewed, because of impatience, good Blogs and system errors. Sometimes if a page loads too slowly, I will skip it and move on and that gives all the other Exchanges an advantage. Good Blogs will draw my attention for a few moments, giving the Auto Surf a few more extra credits. And Blogazoo today had a problem which logged me out and had to log back in, plus it stalled loading up, so it lost a few credits as well.

These are just a few things that I keep an eye out for in my morning surf for credits.

This afternoon, I will be going back to BlogExplosion to play on the new Battle of the Blogs and Blog Rocket, which I find kind of fun. I did two Battles yesterday and lost them both rather quickly. I might start playing that when I have the pictures of some of the women I got pictures of at Homelands on Saturday night. That'll get the male population to vote for me a bit, won't it? Blog Rocket for sure will be played. An extra 3 to 16 readers on the Rocket do me fine.

I'll also start writing Chapter 3 of the Homelands Weekend as well. It gets interesting after we all sit down on the grass with our Stellas. And when I say interesting, I mean messy... yet really fun!

Homelands Weekend: Chapter 2

Didn't think much of that Championship Playoff Final... West Ham deserved their win, if any team was to actually deserve it today. I found it better to watch repeat episodes of the Simpsons and then just check back occaisionally to see if there was any up tempo action or goals. Since it was a 1-0 win, there wasn't a lot to speak of.

Anyways, I think I might get back to the story now.

After shoving off to sleep sometime after 2:30am on Friday night/Saturday morning... it wasn't long before I was up. I rolled off the folded out couch at about 7:45am and was up making tea and waking the lads in no time. It almost felt like Christmas again... the anticipation of a great day. Granted, I don't feel that anymore around Christmas, but that's another story.

• 7:45am... up and at it. Coffee and tea.
• 9:15am... out the door, into Winchester.
• Homelands tickets @ HMV... £63.50 a piece.
• Breakfast at the Winchester Bus Station greasy spoon.
• Walked off the breakfast in the parks and footpaths, around the cathedral.
• Picked up a new pair of sandals for me, because I didn't want to wear my clunky black Nike shoes.
• Back to the flat to meet Jutty & Ronan and get ourselves sorted!

Fortunately, I wasn't too hungover, so the walk wasn't too bad. Somewhere along the timeline, Pearce had to pick up some Nurofen for a headache or something.

Back at the flat, Mark and Barry had to get themselves through the shower and dressed. I did it early, because, well, I wasn't quite as hurting as those two and it was really easy for me to get through the shower process. Oh yeah, Barry's shower was absolute shit. Wasn't a big fan of that serious lack of pressure.

Jutty and Ronan each filed in after lunch time while the boys were getting ready and I was admiring my new sandals. By about 2pm we were out the door. Had to get cash and then had to get to the bus. Both of which were not far away at all.

According to the timestamp on a couple pictures, we were on the bus by 2:40pm.

By 3:15pm, we were in the grounds... finally! We had walked up and down a couple great hills to get into this wonderful (possibly?) natural ampitheatre. On the walk we picked up our programs and to my utter distress, Babyshambles were on at 2:00pm in the Live Stage and we had gotten in at after three... so, I was pretty gutted. I was dying to see Pete on stage since I didn't seem him in Leeds. That was quite possibly the one act I had to see... why couldn't I have seen the program earlier?? Why?!?

A can of Stella soon made me feel much better.

In no time, Ronan had disappeared to the Drum & Bass tent (where he stayed all day), I had already turned my neck about a hundred times (my goodness, the women!) and we'd all sat down to enjoy the newly broken sunshine and beautiful day.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Singles Out Today

Oh, I've been waiting for this for a while. I got the download weeks ago... but when you're a fan, the purchases have to be done. The White Stripes' Blue Orchid. Oh yes... sweet relief. I bought the two CDs and the 7" vinyl single as well. I did buy the UK versions of the single... well for another 15 days, 15 hours and 30 minutes... I am still in the UK. But once I've moved, I think the relevance of the ads on the site. I'm a huge Stripes fan as it is, so I would recommend anyone to get these singles if they get the chance. The B-sides are quite different and it's all probably a big pre-cursor to what's coming on 'Get Behind Me Satan.' I can't wait!

Who's A Big Baby is a good little B-side with the vocal stylings of Meg again... I'm sure that'd be an interesting track with her voice distortion in a live show. When I saw the Stripes at Leeds last year, I unfortunately didn't get to hear In The Cold, Cold Night... which would have been awesome. Not to say it wasn't an excellent set already.

The other notable B-side on the discs is Though I Hear You Calling, I Will Not Answer. It's a quick little Blues number with a promotional tag added at the end. It'll be a good track for my Sony MP3 player.

I did also buy the new Foo Fighters single, Best Of You. If you've heard it on the radio or seen the video on MTV or something, then you know what it's about. No sense in reviewing these things, my opinions are pretty much shared by the fact that I've bought these discs already! The B-side to this single is also quite good; I'm In Love With A German Film Star.

I do enjoy the Foo Fighters generally and I'm quite saddened that I won't be able to see them at Reading this year with all my mates. Well, I guess the single will have to do for now, eh! Speaking of which, I'll probably listen to it again. It's kind of infectious.

I sure have bought quite a few singles over here in the UK, I must say. I'm such a big fan of the B-sides. The likes of the White Stripes and REM are so good for B-sides that rival the singles themselves. I wish there was more of a market for singles in Canada when I go back!

Homelands Weekend: Chapter 1

Holy shit... what a FANTASTIC weekend. It's Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, a couple hours away from kick-off of West Ham v Preston, so I thought I would pop in an early entry into the Blog site from the weekend.

I guess I'll kick-off from the beginning of the weekend, since most of the good stories generally do that... you know, start from the beginning.

The plan started in Manningtree, 3:30pm to meet Pearce at the train station. He'd finished his day at work and was gonna pick me up there to save him the trip in and around Colchester. It was a bloody gorgeous day as well, a high of between 29 and 31 celcius... the perfect temperature to be stuck on the A12, M25 & the beginning of the M3 in.

Four and a quarter hours later, we finally arrive in Winchester and goodness me... the first thing you notice when you're driving through town is the women. Oh my! Blonde after blonde after blonde. All fit and all dressed for Friday night. What a warm welcome to town! It was a good thing that Pearce missed the turn into Barry's street and we had to do a quick tour through the one-way streets of Winchester.

Barry was already out from work and was at the pub before meeting us at his place. We quickly dropped off all of our stuff, got ourselves set and we headed straight out for the Friday night festivities.

We went immediately to the pub that Barry was drinking at with his co-workers, the White Swan and was ready to start our drinking fun. We met up with Barry's Dad, Giorgio, Colin, Andy, Ronan & I think a couple others. Memory loss is slightly apparent.

From the White Swan, we hit Mississippi for a fried chicken stomach lining and then back out on the razz. Oh yes, razz we did!

Greens, O'Neills... uhhhh... Baz, you might have to help me out with some more names of places that we went to, because now I'm really drawing some blanks. Anyways... we got pretty drunk. It was a good thing that I brought the camera along, or else I never would have picked up such great photos like the one you've already seen.

I think O'Neills was where we had finished off with the group. Everyone sort of filtered their way home while the Mark, Barry & I were chatting away to ourselves or other people. I had met some pretty cool people in O'Neills and was chatting away to no end. I was chatting away to one fella, Damien, about anything and everything. He seemed really cool. I have his e-mail address, I should send him the picture I have of us two. It turned out really good. I'd put it on here, but I will conserve my restricted bandwidth on here for now. I'm sure the good pictures will all make it onto Dirty Hairy Mouth sooner rather than later.

After chatting with Damien, I ended up chatting with Mim, a girl from Scotland for a little while. How much time exactly, who knows? But it was long enough to have her boyfriend complain about me in the bathroom. Fortunately, Barry was in the toilet and heard him call me an American 'something or other, probably best not to say exactly' with a goatee and Barry corrected him by telling him 'For your information, he's actually Canadian.' Ha ha ha... well done, mate! Barry said that shut him up quite quickly and well it must of helped, 'cuz nothing really happened past that. Ha ha ha.

Weather Update in Wormingford... it's a thunderstorm!! Woo hoo!!

Anyways, we finished up at who knows what time in O'Neills and made the walk back to Barry's but we needed something to eat from somewhere. We found the 24 hour garage just up the road from his flat. Funny photos of Knock-Down Ginger, rolling on cars & Barry throwing up all made the photo gallery and pretty much concluded a great night! Once we got back into Barry's we rolled out his couch into a bed and crashed. It was a necessary thing to do.

I put my camera on charge, so for Saturday, Homelands, would get a great showing on film and digital photos.

Don't worry, it won't be long before Chapter Two... I just don't feel like writing it at the moment.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Friday Morning...

Good morning... 19 days, 20 hours & 27 minutes until my flight leaves Gatwick Terminal when I started to write this Blog.

This morning, I'm showing off Neil's Subaru Impreza in his lovely Silver and Red. He's got a number 7 on the back window because he was out drag racing a couple weeks ago. Apparently, he did alright. That car sure does love to motor though. It's hard not to love it.

It was easy not to love it when he started adding all the red bits to his car, slowly. When he had just the skirting red, it was kind of funny. Something out of Zoo's Muppet Motors... it was close to making an appearance, no thanks to a dirty Canadian. Ha ha.

Ahhhh yes, Friday morning. Sadly, I was up at 8am this morning. Couldn't really get back to sleep... those damn birds were singing and the sun was out and shining through my window. Normally, two lovely things first thing in the morning. 'FUCK OFF and come back in an hour.'

So yes, I got up. Went downstairs and found myself a cup of coffee. For as far as I've written, my cup has been empty for a while now. I should fancy another mug, but... oddly... I don't. Oh well, I'll get better, I'm sure.

I'm still doing some Blog surfing... need some credits to last me the weekend, so you, the readers can see that I haven't posted much since this currently authored Blog.

Blog Soldiers gave me 250 credits for getting all the letters in 'RSS Junky' this morning, so that was a quick surprise. I still have lots of credits with Blog Soldiers, but it's always good to be sure you have enough, I find. BlogExplosion and Blogazoo are still on the go. They're both pretty good for using up the credits I earn right away. Hopefully, you'll all come again soon.

If any of you guys are gonna be at Homelands in Winchester tomorrow night, I'll be wandering around aimlessly (as I should as a Sherpa) in a severely orange hawaiian t-shirt.

Woo hoo!! Blogazoo spotted me 20 bonus credits! Welcome Blogazoo readers!!

Yeah, Homelands... get out there! Should be a great laugh! I'm hoping for a lot less bodily harm in my fucked up state this weekend. No more giant bruises!

Tonight, I'm in Winchester with Pearce and Barry... I've yet to see Winchester in the year that Barry has been down there. Apparently it's a great place to go! A lot of lovely ladies about in Winchester... ha zah! It might be fair to say, if you're a lovely lady and NOT a head case... come find us for a good time tonight! I'll be the loud Canadian... not American... CANADIAN. Yes, I'm loud when I'm drunk. So i'll be easy to find.

From the odd file: Someone has Googled my site when they were looking for "Rachel Stevens" Nipple Pierced. Nice... it a couple ways. Great to think about... excuse me a sec... and well, funny that it showed up my site. Ha ha. If only I could provide that service to one unlucky Googler, let alone myself.

I've always said, if I was allowed to take one thing from Britain home to Canada with me... it would have to be Rachel Stevens. So if anyone can help out, that'd be greatly appreciated. I would also accept Dido... I feel that would also be a compatible match.

As it stands though, the Amberblacks keep showing up as a search result to my Blog. Which is cool... they're up around 5 matches clicked. I reckon though, it has been the band that's been looking me up via Google & Yahoo.

If you haven't looked yet... Go to the Dirty Hairy Mouth site. It's now getting more and more updated with great drunken photos of us lot. There will be quite a few good shots of the weekend ahead next week, I'm sure. Especially if I have anything to do with it. Of course one or two pictures will show up on here, 'cuz I'm sure there'll be a story somewhere from these upcoming pics.

Well, I think I'll call that the last entry before the weekend. I'm gonna get some more surfing in and then get my ass ready to PARTY! WOOOO!!! Cheers, y'all!

I'm Not Supposed To Be Here...

But plans with Naomi were cancelled.

Last night I had it all planned. I would get rid of my books and few DVDs I have to her, 'cuz I knew she would actually read and watch them, respectively. So, I thought to myself, get up, get cleaned up and shaved before work and have a bag packed for a quick stop at home and then off to Ipswich. It was mission accomplished before I was out the door at 6am.

Since she invited me out to her's, I thought it'd be nice to send a text message in the morning. Ask her how she was, tell her about the night before, which as you could have seen was a little bit of a drunken night. She responded back to say that she was alright, nice day and all and not much else to respond to. Okay, fine... nice one. Plans are still alright.

"Yo.goin2hve cancel2nite.bin invited2 dinner with anna and dan.keep up my social ties.nxt thurs is gd. got fri off as im cin lis that sat.soz mate.ring u nxt mon. u enjoy homelands.x"

For those who can't decipher text speak, she ditched her invite of me to go on an invite of a junkie couple for the night to keep up her 'social ties.' Sure thing, love... get fucked on ket and leave your invites behind.

Okay, I'm a tad drunk at the moment, so I am taking this a tad personally again today. She's not exactly winning any argument that she's sorry to see me leave although she puts on her sad, sympathetic voice the times she calls me now. Can someone please Clockwork Orange me so I don't think about her again... or at the least don't feel I owe her anything? I can be such a muppet sometimes.

Symbolistic White Walls by the Matthew Good Band now playing... Class Tune!

Anyways... it was all good anyways. I was late leaving work tonight and it would have stressed me out to some sick extent and what would it be worth?

So this is why I'm blogging tonight and a small one tomorrow possibly. Yes, I'm off to Homelands tomorrow, which should be a quality night. Then the weekend descends into a deep bit of alcoholism and debauchery... well, alcoholism for sure!

I am meeting Pearce at the Manningtree Train Station at 3:30pm and then it's game on from there. OH YEAH! I'm dying to have such a class time. I will have my camera with me, so excellent pics will be posted when I get back.

Tonight after work, I had a great chat with the Jones'... the people who I'm staying with at the moment. The conversation went from what I'll be doing back home in Calgary to politics to football to relationships and sex. It was quite interesting and we probably touched on more topics than that. A few beers and an Indian later... it was a good night. A total loss of the concept of time as a whole.

It was a long day at the factory today... so I'm thinking an early bed time for me would be ideal. I have a HUGE weekend ahead of me and well, I'll need any sleep I get from here on in.

I am so glad I got a Blog in tonight, 'cuz I was able to see a couple comments left for me on the last entry and well, I have to give a shout out to those readers who wouldn't have anything of my drunken self-depricating self last night. I'm glad you're all enjoying the Blog... keep up the reading and I'll keep up the writing!!

Cheers all... Talk to ya on Monday at the latest!

Last Post For A Few Days...

Dinner for Lucy's birthday... 21 ya know...

Mildly drunk from drinking the majority of the day away... up early in the morning.

Thursday night in Ipswich... complimentary visit to Naomi.
Friday afternoon off to Southampton/Winchester to see Barry.
Saturday through til Sunday morning is Homelands.
Sunday afternoon til Monday morning is Rapture at Route.
Monday afternoon will be recovering from weekend.

If you hear from me on Monday, count yourself as lucky. If you were brought here by a Blog exchange, you're wasting both your credits and mine.

Whattya mean you're getting half a credit for being here? Rubbish! Hand it back then, you've probably seen this Blog 4 times now.

Until Monday... if not Tuesday.

Late Night Blogging...

Yeah, I think I'll do another post. "Aeroplane Flies High" by the Smashing Pumpkins (the song is on my MP3 player at the moment) is pushing me on to produce more... more reading material for those who desire more to read.

I've been surfing the Blog Exchanges myself tonight. I wanted to find a service that provides a free countdown timer for your website. I thought I've seen them, but I can't seem to find any when I want one.

There seems to be tools for everything on the web. Moon phases, weather reports and clocks for the author's time zones. Wow... the age we live in, eh? If anyone can find a countdown timer for me, that'd be much appreciated!

In my surfing though recently, I've added a few things to my site. I'm involved in BlogRolling now. I'm not very good at adding sites at the moment. There are very few sites that really catch my attention all the time, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually. Do BlogRoll me if you get the chance.

I found a curious site tonight. Blogebrity. Now, I'm not sure how it's determined, but they list the celebs of the Blogging world. When I have a little bit more interest, I am thinking of cruising the site to see what the A-list Blogebrity sites are like. If they're any good, I might move to the B & C-lists... but if they're bad... forget it! I did send an e-mail tonight to see if I could get added. Why not? It could be a real good laugh.

Oh yeah... "Discotheque" by U2... fantastic!

AND 5 Mystery Credits on BlogExplosion... wow, it's my night!

I wish I could filter out both the religion AND political sites on BlogExplosion, but sadly, I can only filter out the one. Amazingly, I've chosen to filter out the political ones. I find them more annoying than the religious ones. Religion has taken a backseat to the annoying antics of political figures in the world today, I have to say.

Cool, I've just BlogRolled a site... good for me!

Right... well, Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" will be my send off tonight. I think I can sleep now. Good night, cruel world...

Revelations From Saturday

Lookin' good, m'boy! Lookin' good. One of the best clips I've seen since my wheelie bin falling over incident last summer in Ipswich. If anyone wants this clip to my right... you can drop me an e-mail. It looks better in video form.

When Neil arrived today, I showed him the result of Saturday night's footage, hence the animated GIF to your right. It turned out to be the best thing out of the whole 11 minutes of footage that was shot.

Neil was also good enough to tell me about my bruise, listed in the Blog: Today's Events. He said that I found a flight of concrete stairs that I thought I could jump all the way down. Well, I thought incorrectly by the looks and well, the feeling, of the result. It still hurts. Neil said that I clipped the last stair or something to that effect and landed flat on my back. The physics wasn't completely explained, but he said I was lying there for a good few moments until he asked if I was okay. And much like I think I would after a dramatic incident, I popped back up looking as if nothing had happened. Way to go, me!

If I was to do it all over again, I would.

Today, I went for a couple drinks with Neil and then met Chapman, Tom, Jim and eventually Lars for another couple. I wanted to meet up with Lars to pick up my bag from Saturday night. It had some important things including that key I didn't have to get back in to the house with... ha ha!

Had a few good chats with the lads. Talked a lot about going home and what it's going to be like. At least I'll be home in time for the Stampede... oh yeah! Gotta get myself some work right away, but that'll be much easier at home since I don't need a visa to work there.

Well, a few MSN chats going on at the moment is restricting me from writing anymore... later!

An Early Afternoon Report...

Welcome Bloggers and/or readers... the Sherpa is in session.

This morning's surprise result: BlogXchange won this morning's race for more readers as it was first to 100 reader credits. Welcome all you BlogXchange surfers... and for those not surfing with 'em... you may want to give it a try.

ANYWAYS... enough with the shameless plugging.

There's nothing better than the bathroom in the house, I have to say. I think I was spilling this sort of genius in my drunken state on Friday night... but I feel it has to be re-iterated. I just had a great shower and crap... and where else in this world can you get that sort of relief and good feeling than in the bathroom? That's not all either... you can do all the good things in the bathroom if you wanted to as well. You can read a good book, have sex, eat (if you feel so inclined) and make yourself look pretty. I dunno... if I was to make a Utopia, I think I would have to model it around the bathroom.

In a little while, Neil is gonna come by and show me his Scooby. I should get a picture of that to post up on the site. After getting some great pics of Graeme's Escort, I feel I can do the Scooby some justice as well. That will be for my evening post, I think.

Who needs another cup of coffee?? I do. One second.

How was that? Not too bad, eh. I actually made a cup of coffee... but instead I went over to the shop and grabbed a microwave burger, crisps & Coke. Once I'm done though, the coffee should be sufficiently cool.

I just received an e-mail from Googlepex. My Basic account has now expired and now they want me to pay USD19.99 a month to continue... yeah, right! My AdSense revenue doesn't even cut that. What a load of rubbish! Ah well... I had some hits, that's what's important I guess.

Bollocks to 'em!

I think going to Homelands is in order this weekend. Go crash at Basil's and turn that mother out sounds like a damn good plan! I want to go see Babyshambles and go see Pete, since he wasn't with the Libertines at Leeds last year. If my bank cards are sorted first thing on Friday morning, I will head down to Winchester in the afternoon! Oh yeah! What a plan!

Well, it should only be about another 15 minutes before Neil is here... I wanna post something on The Dirty Hairy Blog before I get going as well...

Until later!

Can't Sleep...

I want to sleep, 'cuz I'm bored. I laid in bed for about an hour... nothing.

I might have a little bit of a cough coming on. My throat feels like it's drying out too quickly and I've been drowning it in orange drink. It's sort of working, but then I have to take a few too many leaks for my own liking.

I've finished editing my Fool Monty movie. DVD production will start in the morning (or early afternoon, depending on when I get up).

It's my Dad's birthday as of today... but it's not where he is at the moment. The joy of time zones. He still has another 5 and a half hours to wait... Happy Birthday Dad (a few hours early).

My eyelids are getting heavier, the desire is there, but my body doesn't feel quite the same. It's a slight bout of torture I think I'm going through. I should be able to sleep, but no... not right away.

I might go try again anyways... see what happens. Go on then...

Nice day...

Well, that was a good day. It was a really nice day to be out taking photos of Graeme's Escort... no, no... his car. HA! I suppose if you knew Graeme, that'd be a bit more funny. Ah well, it's my Blog and my jokes. For those wondering, I'm the one on the right. Check out all that hair, eh! My Mom would be so weirded out by it. From time to time, I'm weirded out by it.

A high of 18 degrees in Colchester (and the surrounding area) today. Some odd clouds hung over top as well, but all in all, a nice day.

Today was Day 768 of a scheduled 792 day stay in England. Only 23 full days left and well... not a lot left scheduled to do. It's getting easier and easier the thought of going home. I look back and think that it wasn't the idea of going home that was bringing me down so much, it was more the uncertainty of the situation. I despise uncertainty. That can actually be more depressing than actually knowing the bad news. At least when you have the bad news, you can at least do something with it. Hanging in limbo is a terrible place to end up.

In another stroke of good luck... my replacement MP3 player arrived today. My Sony NW-HD3 (in Silver) arrived from Norwich this morning and already I have got all my music on there... all 3,300+ songs!! I can't wait to get home and rip the rest of my CDs that are there. I bought the new Athlete disc... that Half Light song is absolutely fantastic. It could almost be my anthem for leaving...

"When I see you next, we'll make the most of it, tell the sun to start moving again..."

The CD as a whole is actually quite good. Same sort of Coldplay sound but without all the pretentious bullshit. I also picked up the singles: Somewhere Else (Razorlight), Electron Blue (REM) and Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) (Arcade Fire). If you didn't know already, I do collect as much REM as possible. I'm not missing too many CD singles now... I could list 'em, but I don't really feel like it.

Oh... I've just plugged in my MP3 player again... first up, My Red Cell. They're a band that another Graeme introduced me to. The album '13 In My 31' is kind of a White Stripes/Blink 182 sort of cross. Kind of the pop-punk rhythm & sound with the Jack White vocals and lyrics. Quite cool. I only was able to quickly take a copy of the album for the MP3 player, but I will buy the CD when I get a chance. Fantastic!

What else did I do today?? Oh yeah... I bought some more blank DVDs as well. I have to publish the Fool Monty still. I will probably just publish a couple copies of the footage I have, plus the behind the scenes spot I put together. That'll be good, I reckon. I think that'll be my mission for tomorrow and maybe deliver a couple copies to the pub in Bergholt.

Not a lot left for writing today... can't really think of too much to elaborate on. Oh well.

Today's Events

Let's see what did I do today after my post...

• Watched TV
• Did another Independent Blog Exchange Test
• Watched more TV
• Booked my flight home
• e-mailed Kate (from the Hog's Head)
• Saw Graeme today

That's about it. Kind of an eventful today, actually. It's amazing what you can do when you're recovering from a heavy night out on the town.

I watched the Monaco Grand Prix today and mostly flipped through channels for the rest of the day. I couldn't really focus on one thing at one time at all. I felt like I should have slept through the afternoon, but then I wouldn't have gotten anything done.

Blog Soldiers came out on top in the test again. With the bonus credits and what could have been some help from my referrals, Soliders went on to 19 credit difference to second place BlogXchange. I'm really beginning to wonder about that BlogClicker though... it just doesn't seem to like to give any bonus credits at all for surfing. Oh well, maybe it'll learn sooner or later. The more readers the better! Saying that, I just found a new site that points people in our direction to find readers as long as you have others go to that site as well. Blog Overkill, give it a click. You might find something you like.

Lars eventually phoned me back today after I called him to get some information out of my bag. I decided to book my flight today, to make sure I got the price that I wanted. When booking your international flight, you need your passport number and well, the e-mail address of the girl you talked to at the pub was also high on the priority list. Ha ha.

Nevertheless, I booked my flight this afternoon. June 16th, 5:55am out of Gatwick to arrive at Calgary International Airport at 8:55am local time. Fantastic! In Premium class is where I'll sit... at a window seat as well! Gotta love it. Now it will be a process of getting everything together and packing everything up so I am well under the weight class of 30kg of luggage. Wish me luck... I'm gonna need it!

Today was also a big surprise because Graeme phoned the house. I thought he was still in Thailand. Apparently, he's back for a week and a half to sell all of his shit and get the hell outta the country forever. He's since cut his hair, givin' up the drugs and looking like a brand new man. He looks quite good as well, I must say. He's got himself a dirty lil' bird in Thailand and a good setup for work. I'll get a picture of him tomorrow when I see him. He's gonna sort out his car and stuff tomorrow and he may want me to sell some stuff on eBay for him.

The bruise on my back is horrendous! It just isn't getting any better any sooner. It's really hard to sit down on the couch or anything like that. As you can see, it's a pretty horrible bruise. I still am a little cloudy as to how I actually got it. I really wish one of the guys were around to see how it happened.

It probably didn't help too much that I was sleeping on a cold garage floor as well last night for a few hours. My back didn't hurt (in my drunkeness), so it may have been when I was sleeping that something got me. Who's really to say?

Well, that should just about do it for me then. Tomorrow, I have a few more things to sort out, see Graham and maybe even go catch a film or something in town. It all sounds like a really good plan!

Ouch... It Hurts!

What a night it was last night! Or it was really the whole day, to be honest. Madness, absolute madness. From the Hog's Head, to the Marquis, to Twisters, to the Hole in the Wall, to Route, to gosh knows where... I've forgotten quite a bit of it now, but man was it fun! I don't think I got the video footage that I was after, but I did end up with a few photos, some of which I'm pretty sure I didn't take... nor do I remember giving my camera to anyone. Ha ha! Nice. It will be interesting to see if there was anything on the tape.

Leaving Route though, everyone sort of got split up and Neil ended up getting a lift from someone and rang me to see if I needed a lift home, which I did. When I finally got back to the house, I realized that my bag with the key was still at Lars' place. So, I tried to ring the house, but no one was picking up. I'm sure it was about two or three in the morning. Instead of getting in the house, I crashed in the garage on and wrapped in a rug that Sue put in there. I think I managed about 4 hours sleep or something out there before I rang up the house and Brian was finally up. So, then I went to bed.

I have woken up now, been up for a while. And I've got some serious bruising on my back and my left leg. Ouch! I think I was jumping around outside after we left Route and I think I bailed on some stairs and landed on my back. I think... errr... I'm not too sure. I haven't checked it out yet, but I know it hurts... a lot!

I ended up bombing about £200 as well last night... good effort on my part! What a bash!

But alas, the mission was a failure... I didn't end up getting married last night. It was a shame, I suppose. I was having too much of a good time anyways and I'm sure that I forgotten about the mission anyways, by some point in the evening.

Aw man... I'm spacing out as I write this, trying to remember what might had happened last night... I do remember buying Chicken before meeting up with Neil and his mates for the ride.

I don't remember going into Route... I had to check my hat though I think. Actually, I don't remember the walk to Route or where we were before hand.

I'll probably go on about everything a little bit more later... I'm too exhausted to think about writing anymore.

Wisdom & Music

You can never get enough of the "illegal immigrant" jokes... there's one piece of wisdom from me to you.

Another one will be (quoting from an e-mail):

"actually, the 2nd law (not theory but LAW) of thermodynamics is 'everything
tends to minimum energy and maximum randomness'. and being a 20, 30 or 40
something partier is just an example of the law in action." - Kelly Chikmoroff, until I hear different.

If you can decipher it's English grammar, you'll understand.

Saw the Amberblacks again tonight. It's almost like I'm a fan or something. Nah, I'm just the director of their first video. It doesn't mean I have to like them, right? Right? Really? Oh.

The Box in Chelmsford... a Royal Mail club which has a small (or very small) sectioned off portion of the drinking establishment set aside for live music. Only saw the guys (pictured left) tonight. Left before the other bands started, but I wasn't driving, so it wasn't really my choice.

You know what, I've given you the link to their current "under construction" website. If you click this link here for the Amberblacks, it'll take you to their MySpace page, which actually works and has a couple of their tunes on for you to listen to. It's pretty good. Click that one, you'll love it!

Tomorrow night will be a landmark night... gonna get me married, yeeeeeeehaw! Gonna have to get me some plastic money cards first... but I know where to rustle some of 'dem up... oh, we're gonna have a ho-down tomarrah! Giddy-up!

Independent Blog Race

Friday morning... coffee... no work... what better thing to do than earn credits to get more readers for my Blog site. Well, I thought to myself, I've signed up for seven sites to increase my traffic and my traffic has indeed increased. How many people are actually stopping to read it? Well, that's another argument for another day. But then I thought to myself, if I wanted some quick credits, what would be the best site for it. I know if I left Googlepex and FortuneCookieHits auto credit surfers on, I would get credits eventually and probably a great deal of them as well. I don't usually get less than 700 credits on Googlepex in the few days I have been on it. That has increased my Google AdSense as well, which is great. A few more American cents in my bank account makes me happy.

This morning though, I wanted to see what was the fastest out of the six Manual Click sites. FortuneCookieHits has a Manual Click system, but it seems no one actually uses it... but I did use it for racing purposes. The race was first to 100 credits earned, including bonus or mystery credits won. I didn't quite count the number of pages seen, but I will give approximate numbers. All sites were measured in rounds, so each site should have had an even number of looks and clicks... but some bonuses count for extra clicks and such, but that makes each site better, right? Anyways, here's what I'd found this morning...

The first site to reach 100 credits was Blog Soldiers. Lots of bonus credits to be won and they have a word system where you can earn letters to fill the word randomly. When you fill the words up, there's mucho bonus credits. When the last site earned a 100 credits, Blog Soldiers finished up with 443. I recommend this one. Click on the name to be passed on.

Second place went to FortuneCookieHits. At a 1 credit per site, it went pretty quick. It was a little rare to get bonuses though. They aren't as frequent, but they are big. I got one of 50 credits. But like I said, no one really uses the Manual system it seems, 'cuz my credits hardly diminish. You can transfer them to Auto credits, but you might as well Auto surf instead. FortuneCookieHits finished off with 217 credits at the end of the test.

Third went to the best content of all the Blog exchanges... BlogExplosion. The random system of Mystery Credits worked in their favour and did generate enough in the race. Like I said, the content is fantastic. I think it probably is the best community of good Blogs out of the lot. Very few advertising Blogs and a great Shout Box where you can chat and earn Mystery Credits as well. Very fun! But the 30 second timer is a bit of a bummer... but you'll get over it. BlogExplosion finished with 113.5 credits.

Fourth in the race was Blogazoo. 40 bonus credits to their name, quite a few good sites... not bad. Fifth was BlogXchange. Not very far behind Blogazoo. And last with no bonus credits given out was Blogclicker. If there are any more... then I will probably find them and then relegate Blogclicker from the competition. It was quite slow.

Well, that's my independant review of the current Blog Exchanges. I earned 1,107.8 credits this morning, that should do for a while I think. A good test and it brings in the readers, which is more important. Unless you have ads, then that could be deemed more important.

Not me though... bring the readers! I have lots of Blogging left in my system!

The Home Office says...

"The Secretary of State is not prepared to exercise discretion in this case as he does not consider your circumstances to be compelling enough."

I received the letter in the post yesterday and now I have my passport back as well. Man, was I in somewhat of a state yesterday and hence the reason why I didn't post at all yesterday. I also had a REAL long day at the factory, so I was tired and mildly depressed and couldn't gather my thoughts for the Blog.

Well, time has passed and barring an excursion with Dirty Hairy Mouth in Colchester on Saturday night to find a wife, I will be booking my flight to Calgary on Monday.

Zoom Airlines will be my airline of choice 'cuz of the cheap prices... I'm looking at a first class (or their equivalent) ticket to Calgary in a few weeks (with tax & crap included) at just over £300. First class... free booze! Oh yeah! Not to mention more cargo room, which makes sense for me.

If you don't want me in the UK... I recommend you hitting the donate button further down the left side of the screen and pop a few pence into the account. You know... the sooner ya do it, the sooner I'm out. Ha!

Yeah, the decision has been made though, barring marraige, I will be booking my ticket home on Monday. Yay!! June 9th or 16th... it's kinda scary and still mildly depressing. I'm hating the thought of leaving, but I probably had to go home at sometime and I'm pretty sure I'll make my trip back anyways.

Not to worry Blog readers, the Opiated Sherpa will continue to produce some quality misery and humour back in Canada as well. I hope to have just as many pictures and exciting stories for the Blog site, but I might fall short of that. Nah... I will have to continue to document my progress for all the UK Dirty Hairy Mouths and build my Canadian division for world domination.


This was what I had to work with yesterday... just kidding, Tony. Ha ha ha... yeah, I got a few pics on my mobile yesterday, just to have a few for posterity. Tony and I stood in front of the stitcher for a good portion of the day, bored to tears.

Sorry to interupt the work story, how exciting it is, but Dad just sent me a whole load of Tegan's wedding photos via e-mail and man does it drag out my computer... crikey!!

Yeah, anyways... Tony and I were standing at the stitcher after lunch when Brian came in and handed me a large brown envelope with a Registered Mail sticker on it. The sticker kinda gave it away that it was my passport in there and what turned out to be my denial letter.

I can't say it really came as a shock, because I have been thinking about the whole marraige thing as a 'what-if' and I have been thinking about home as well.

The wave of disappointment was the thing that really hit hard. It then meant that I did have to think about doing something about my situation. So, I sent my text messages out to Lars, Naomi, my mate Graham and my ex-housemate and fellow Monty-ist Mark. I would have told Barry, but his phone was shot... you know, just in case you were wondering.

The hardest thing will be packing everything up and wondering how much it's all gonna weigh. If I do actually get that first class (equivalent) ticket, then I can only carry 30 kg with me. I think my CDs that I bought since I been here weigh more than 30 kgs... ha ha! Okay, probably not, but I have a lot of discs. I will probably have to call the airline and inquire about how much it costs to take more than my allotted space. Ah well, that'll all be worked out, I'm sure.

Well, I thought I would write a little bit now about what has happened, just for those keeping score. I think tomorrow in my time available to me, I think I will start racing Blog exchanges. I have a feeling that BlogSoldiers will do really well... I think I will race all the manual clicks to 100 credits each and then see who's the fastest and maybe who the best is. I predict BlogSoldiers, but I do like the content on BlogExplosion. If you want good reading, go to BlogExplosion.

Right, I will do a lot of writing I'm sure soon... gotta get all caught up. Remind me in comments about what I've missed so far!!

I'm In The News!!

CAPTION READS: Stripping Success - A group of brave men kept their cool and strippped off in front of more than 200 people to raise an impressive sum for charity.
The Brewers Troop (as pictured, not as the caption actually says) - Nick Lever, Dave Bentley, Clayton Corley, Mark Slade and Mark Batchford performed the Fool Monty at the Queen's Head, Queen's Road, in West Bergholt.
A group of girls also got in on the action - Amber De'Ath, Charlie Bird and Sarah Woods all auctioned off four hours of their time to do chores, clean cars or act as escorts for a drink out.
Landlord John McGivern said: "It was a really good night and they all did very well."
The groups managed to raise £1,700 with their antics and more cash is still rolling in. It will all go to Rett Syndrome research.

And so on...

Well, how'd ya like that? I sure enjoyed it. And you know what ladies... I still have the hat! Ha ha.

Sorry 'bout the picture though. I don't have a scanner, so I only got a picture with my digital camera and the lighting in the house isn't too great. Gonna have to make do with that.

Made dinner tonight... I had all the time in the world, so I decided to cook. Cream of Mushroom Chicken bake with mashed potatoes and carrots. Pretty easy... took a good portion of time up and it was tasty!

Tomorrow, gonna head into the factory for an extra day this week. I hear I'll be feeding covers through the large stitching machine. I'll probably scribble some insane notes on small pieces of paper all day, so be ready.

I haven't heard from Naomi since the weekend... my insane drunk text messages probably clinched her distaste for me. Hooray... except that she still has one of my CDs and a couple of my books. She still hasn't told me off, so she'll be back, I'm sure. Ha ha... that or she's waiting for an apology from me.

I did apologize to Lars & Hannah... but not to Naomi. I think I'll keep it that way. Tomorrow will be a serious lack of posts, unlike today... so be prepared for a mad one tomorrow.

Bored.

• Copied Fool Monty to computer - check!
• Enquired about cash-in-hand job - check!
• Showered - not yet.
• Googlepex'd - check!
• DHL picked up Sue's laptop - check!

Anyone else have something for me to do? Anyone? Anything?

I've heard that our photo for the Evening Gazette is in tonight's issue. I should have a picture of that and posted tonight, I'd gather.

Well, I might turn Googlepex on again... might as well, nothing better to do. Have it rack up the credits.

Welcome Blog Surfers... Have a quick look...

Good morning, kids! Where's everyone coming from this morning? Yesterday was a day of expansion for me. I was cruising the likes of BlogExplosion and FortuneCookieHits and I signed up to BlogSoldiers, BlogXchange and Googlepex. It's all started to work already, I had record hits on my site and there were a few more people who clicked ads. I know it's small and all rather useless in the end, but it's really filling up my time while I look for more work or a new Part-Time British Wife. Ha ha. I actually think I have all five sites opened at once. I'm going to try for a new visitors record again today, which should be fairly easy since Googlepex will be working all day today. Get in there!

This all brings me to another point. Roger sent me an e-mail this morning because there was a good article on BBC news website about Blogs. It was somewhat of an interesting article and it's mostly for people who haven't seen a Blog yet or even heard of it yet. There was the indication that it's gaining star power and that people are using their voices and blah, blah, blah; most things that us Bloggers already know. So, as Roger predicted in his e-mail that he sent to me, I added a (hopefully) fair comment to what I've found Blogging to be for me:

Blogs are slowly becoming a great source of writing talent and community spirit. Blogs are for people who enjoy writing, communicating, art & photography and/or making money. Blogs have spawned Blog exchange sites, which allow Writers to converse on the internet with each other & bring other Bloggers to their site to read and critique, photographers put up their photos which speak a million words, illustrators put their drawings on Blogs and entrepreneurs are thinking of new and exciting ways to make money via the Blog community. Blogs address the problem of lack of mediums that listen to ALL people for very little cost. Finally, with great celebrity endorsement, it has also become a great equalizer in society as anyone with a computer can start their Blog and be whoever they want to be.

Now, I'm kind of hoping that it shows up on BBC site. I did add my Blog site address as well, you never know if they might want to hit it.

Yesterday, I completed the "Behind the Scenes of the Fool Monty." I'm mildly proud of it actually. Hell, I'm no Hollywood editor, but it didn't look too bad. I wish I could have done more with the sound, that's about my only regret. It's very choppy that way, but all in all, it gets the humour that we had across. So, today, I will probably get a good portion of that copied onto CDs before actually making DVDs, which I don't currently have any blank ones in stock.

Today, I hope to have the performance copied over and prepared for DVD production. I will be extremely chuffed when that all starts to get come together.

What else am I gonna do today? I have no idea. Oh yeah, I'll probably send a couple more text messages regarding a cash-in-hand job that I had heard about WEEKS ago. I would like to know if there will be anything coming of that, because well... money just keeps getting tighter and tighter... and it's not getting any easier.

To the Batmobile!!

WANTED: Part-Time British Wife

Oh yes... Monday morning. Bloc Party on the CD player, hot coffee, custard cream biscuits and new hope for a new week!

Sent an e-mail to that online company already this morning... good! Now I play the waiting game... just like I have been doing for however long I've been doing it. All this waiting makes you lose track of time.

Well, with all this waiting for my visa application, I'm becoming more and more keen to the idea of finding some random (mildly attractive) British girl to marry. I'm thinking I am taking down my options a little by excluding girls who I don't find attractive, but I wouldn't mind the photos of the afterparty to be something I'm not ashamed of, you know what I mean?

I was asked if I could actually go through with that sort of thing sometime last week... and I would honestly have to say yes. You know, it wouldn't exactly be the first girl who says yes. There would have to be some sort of interview process involved and an agreement would have to be reached so both parties would be okay to go ahead with it. But in this time of mild desperation and skepticism, I am feeling so random and excited towards this idea that it might just work. Then again, I could fail miserably, but I think that's what provides the adrenalin rush. Mwah ha ha ha ha!!

The only thing crazier are these prices!! Everything must go!! It's a clearance sale!! Act now and get a free set of steak knives.

I am now taking applications for the position of part-time wife.

I have all my camera equipment ready to start copying the Fool Monty performance from Friday. That should be rather interesting, I gather. I can't wait to get it all on DVD. It should look pretty sharp when its done.

Keep your fingers crossed... I'm hoping for my visa and passport, maybe a job this week... let's hear about something soon, eh!! I'm liable to go mad again!

Tickled pink... or black.

How do you like the new look of the Blog? It's certainly black. I think it suits the logo, which I have had great feedback about. Tell me how you like the look with my Poll on the left hand side. I seem to like it... it's easy on the eye (so, I'm told).

Today, I spent a great deal of the day fixing up the site. If you've been here before, you might remember that it was that dark-blue with dots template... well, not anymore! Black. Black is the new... well, blue with dots, I guess. I also signed up to a couple more traffic services and Technorati.

I also decided once I signed on to Technorati, I would check out it's search capability. It seemed to me that it was quite great. And not to sound too conceded, I did enter 'Sherpa' into the search and it came up with another Blog site as the first result back. Crooked as a Clockwork Orange came up and I was greatly surprised to read that the Opiated Sherpa brought another Canadian to blogging. Quite an honour, I must say... thanks! Well worthy of a shout in the Blog community.

In more good news, Friday night's Fool Monty performance has so far raised £1,700 for Rett Syndrome research. I received a text message from Dave this afternoon saying that we've reached that mark and could I have felt any prouder? Yeah, probably, but I still felt pretty proud. I am still yet to look at the tape of what transpired that night, since I was a tad ashamed that I didn't set the camera up to get a lot of me... 'cuz it would have been damn funny to see me struggle with my trousers falling down for most of the performance. Anyways, I think that'll be my work for tomorrow. I will finish up the 'behind the scenes' part of the film and then put it all onto DVDs so the guys and even the pub will have a copy.

If anyone wants a copy of the DVD (by Opiated Sherpa Productions), e-mail me and I will work out a way to get you a copy. I'm sure a donation to the Rett Syndrome fund would be accepted forms of payment and maybe we could raise that total up a little further!

Once I have the tape copied onto my laptop, I will take some screenshots and will have some of the dancing photos up on the site. Hopefully sometime tomorrow.

On a sadder note, I have a TSN.ca feed of the current score between Canada & the Czech Republic in the World Hockey Championships (ice hockey, for those keeping track). With about 4 minutes to go... we're down by 2. One of the best offensive teams we've put on ice and we can't even get one past a Nashville Predators goalie. Shame, fellas. Nash, Thornton and Gagne aren't figuring in at all... what's up with that? If the people I am living with had subscribed to the North American Sports Network, I'd be able to watch it. Unfortunately, it doesn't come included with the HUGE sports package they already pay for. Damn. C'mon you boys in RED!!

I'll be waiting to hear tomorrow about an online job with a website called trade-deal.net. I sent an application to them last week and they responded quite quickly. I have all the necessary tools and they hadn't asked for any dodgy information like one dodgy job (that ended up folding in the end, I think) asked for. Fingers crossed... some income would really be nice SOON! I think I might follow up on that in the morning if I don't see anything first thing.

Damn... 2 minutes to go and NOTHING! Oh, if I was watching it now... I'd be yelling and screaming at the telly... let me assure you.

Oh, fudge! 3-0 Czech Republic... looks like an empty netter. Shit. Well, you can't three-peat all the time, right? We're still the best... theoretically. Olympic Gold, people... Olympic Gold.

In my links section, which I might be getting to by the length of this post, if I haven't already passed by it... there is a link to Megfa Clothing. It's a clothing line designed by my cousin Megan in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada. Check it out... it's more for the skater sect, but it all looks really good!

I've done really well tonight. I haven't really strayed off the page too much in writing this Blog. It's taken me less than a half hour to get this far... and this far is how far I'm gonna go. The blackhole of mobile phone signals may or may not have resulted in very few texts lately... I did get one from Dave and Naomi did ask about the show, which both I replied to, but nothing since... who knows when they were even sent.

Right... well, take care all... fill in the poll, let me know if you like the look or not! Cheers!!

Stuff I Thought About Recently...

Last night, I was on the BlogExplosion shout box and was chatting with buddhadharma and julialou and started to miss Vancouver. Actually, I started to miss Vancouver after chatting about an interesting looking Blog. Click on Blog to see it. There was a really good debate on whether that Blog site was ironic or really, really dumb. Not to mention a bit of faux-lesbianism entered the conversation, which was quite funny... but the end result was that the site was extremely self-depricating in the end. How to make a shitty Blog, indeed.

Well, that was pointless rambling, wasn't it? I thought I would give a quick shout out to last night's conversation and a couple links to other Blogs. Now I can't find the links to buddhadharma & julialou's Blogs. They were alright, I should say.

Anyways, yeah... I'm beginning to miss Vancouver. Actually, I think I have a picture of Vancouver from the last time I was there. Yup, I found one. This picture was when I was leaving downtown Vancouver to Richmond... a day or two after I handed my notice at Maritime Life. Woo hoo!! Yeah, I was going to go bowling on a 'team building' excercise. It's not really team-building when one of the team leaves in a month's time. Ha ha!

I was thinking, that if I moved back to Canada that I would eventually make my way to living in Vancouver. It's such a better "downtown" city than Calgary. Calgary is nice and all, but Vancouver has such a bigger city feel... plus then I could save up for Canucks season tickets. You know, when they start playing again.

Hmmmm... anyways, I digress. I was thinking about all sorts of topics to write about last night while I was drifting off to sleep. But I can't really think of what I wanted to go on about. I'm sure there would have been something of interest.

Well, how's about a little bit more about me then... you know, for all you newcomers to my site. I just need to write something at this point in time.

• Hometown: Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
• Lived in: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Living in: Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom
• 24 years old
• Blogging for about a month now... enjoying it!
• Anything else?

I don't really know what else to put. Should I put my credit card numbers down for you guys?? Nah... probably not.

Oh! How do you guys like my new header banner? I'm finding that this Blog is very much like a car. I'm enjoying customizing it so much. I know the colour scheme isn't quite right at the moment, but the layout of the theme that I used was one I like. I'm sure I'll customize the rest of the site when I get a chance to learn what all these tags mean.

Now everything is coming back to me about what I was thinking about last night.

Isn't it amazing how important the numbers are to the internet & Blog sites? I crossed over 1,000 unique visitors the other day. Yay! Thanks Blog Explosion, quite a big help in that. I've also signed up to a couple other sites as well of late. I found a new site yesterday, FortuneCookieHits. com, I have to find my referral number before I put a link on. I've already had a couple hits from that site. There we go. I think I'm also signed up with InstantBuzz.com and a couple other ones. Hey, if everything is on the web, people might like to read it, right??

Today, I've had my first Google search hit. Someone was searching for the Amberblacks and one of my posts came up. Excellent! I don't really have a lot of searchable ability. I saw one Blog site, which I can't remember now, which said if he placed 'sex' in his Blog post somewhere that there would be a great increase of traffic. I posted a comment to ask how that had worked for him, but I have yet to see a reply.

Sex. Girls. Teen. Orgy. XXX. Certain keywords that might increase traffic, right? But is that really the sort of traffic I want? I might have to make it worth their while by putting up some porn, right? Nah... it'll only get me kicked off a few of my traffic sites.

Right, well, I think I'll shower. Yeah, shower. Watch the last day of Premiership football today. Chelsea are off to Newcastle this afternoon. Should be a good romp at St. James Park. Apparently, Shearer will be the only real offensive threat for Newcastle this afternoon, while a 2nd XI could romp Manchester United, I think this should be a straight forward result. I will take a draw though... just to get the season over with. I'm secretly (well, not anymore) cheering on Norwich to stay up, I thought they would stay up at the beginning of the year... go on you Canaries!

I'll probably be back on later... I'll give a brief update on how the keywords are going!

Tough Drunk Love

I'm not drunk at the moment, nor am I having anything to drink. I might actually get myself a Coke and put on a CD before I really get into this Blog post.

Ahhhh... warm Coke (not that I really like it that way, it just is) and the Arcade Fire. Done.

As discussed today with Joanne on MSN, cruelty to people when we're drunk. My text messages as explained in the previous post today and Joanne and her mate leaving behind someone who only ran to get his coat from his house. Oh, the crazy things we do when we're pissed, eh?

Fortunately, the backlash wasn't as massive as I thought it might be. Only a couple texts from two people that I sent them to. I should apologize for my behaviour and since most of them read this site, then this is a good place for it.

Sorry.

But those sort of texts are an example of "Tough Drunk Love." You always mean so well to get your point across and sometimes you gotta take a hard line to do it.

Even leaving someone behind is probably trying to tell that person something, right? 'Hey, you've really annoyed us tonight... I hope you don't mind if we leave you behind.' It's just easier than telling said person, isn't it?

Hmmmm... I've probably been guilty of something to that affect as well. Can't think of any I can draw a good story from right away. I do find myself left behind sometimes though... ha ha!

I'm chatting away on BlogExplosion at the moment... might ring myself up a few Mystery Credits, but it isn't really working too well. Ah well, the chat is much better than the continuation of surfing for the moment.

So bored... it's almost 7pm now... I haven't changed or showered today... feel quite lazy still. Don't even feel the need to do much. I'm just glad the hangover is gone.

I talked with my Sister this afternoon. She sent me some of her pictures from her wedding today and was telling me about how good everything is for her at the moment. I'm so happy for her. It was really good to chat with her as well. I also got an e-mail from both my Mom and Dad today. I also hadn't spoken to them since before the wedding, so it was nice to hear from them. They had been really busy with work since returning to Calgary from Kelowna and hadn't had a chance to send any notes, nor download the pics from their digital camera to the computer.

Damn, that Arcade Fire CD is so good, it makes time just fly by. It's almost done. Wow. Granted, my ADD has kept me from concentrating on the Blog. I have another chat on the go and trying to get more chatting out of the Shout Box on BlogExplosion. It's already 20 past 7 now and I really haven't done much for paragraphs since I gave the time out the first time.

Oh yeah... Roger has updated Dirty Hairy Mouth and it looks really good. You should check it out for the mad photos of us on our nights out and what not. Check out the galleries and stuff. I really have to make up a link spot on my Blog page... other than those ads I have. (Click on one, eh!)

Yeah, maybe that's what I'll do now... put on some links for you guys. Good plan!

Oh, What A Night!

Beer, triumph & misery... that really does sum up my night last night and man, am I paying for it today.

The lead up to the night was also quite good. Mark & I set up my camcorder at the pub in the afternoon and I was already on the beer by then. Had a couple at the pub whilst setting up and then picked up another 4 cans before heading to Nick & Lolly's for our pre-gig warm up.

We headed up to the pub for 8pm to have our pictures taken for the Evening Gazette, which went really well. That's myself, Dave & Nick in the picture above. A pre-photo photo... missing is Skippy & Mark.

So yeah, we were on the beer some more at the pub. The singer last night was absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't stop admiring her for a while. I wish I could remember her name. Granted, I was pretty drunk.

Not the greatest picture in the world, but it'll do for the Blog. I'm sure I have her on film as well.

Anyways, we were in the kitchen for about 10 past 9 for our performance at half past. We had a hell of a time getting ready and Nick took his sweet time getting back there as well. He only had about 5 minutes to get changed and ready, but it worked out in good time!

The camera was rolling... Lolly was doing her speech... we were out the back, almost too drunk to care... and then Mark missed the cue, went out early. Ha ha ha... it sent the crowd into hysterics though. A good start.

Finally, the moment of truth came! Brewer's Troop! And we were off... so was the velcro around my hips keeping the trousers on me.

Let me tell you, mate! Dancing with a pair of trousers sliding down your legs isn't the easiest thing to do in the world, let me assure you. Especially after a day of about 6 pints. Nevertheless, I tried to prevail through Rock DJ... and then when the song ended, I jumped into the kitchen to fix my trousers again, but the music for You Can Leave Your Hat On came too early for me to do anything... absolute rubbish!

So back out there I went... trousers still falling down. The other lads were alright... some of them came prepared with a belt, but I didn't think my trousers were that bad. I thought wrong.

Both songs went by like a flash... until the CD skipped and stopped playing. Only then was I able get the velcro back together on my trousers before the CD came back on and we had to take off our shirts. And then that was it... off come the trousers... well, sorta. A good couple yanks and mine still didn't come off. I held them up for so long and they still couldn't come off. How predictable is that?

Anyways... I jumped out for our pose in our animal faced thongs. We gave the crowd what they came to see and reverted back to the kitchen where I proceeded to laugh my ass off. Nevertheless, the crowd was going nuts. So, I decided to do a victory lap behind the bar. Out from the kitchen, across the floor to the top bar and back making a real show of it. Well... everyone had a go at it afterwards. What a laugh!

And I would have had the encore on tape too... if I didn't give the camera to Jo so she could watch it. She then stopped the camera right before the encore, which I wasn't aware of, and then I took more footage of the afterparty. What an unfortunate turn of events.

So, yes... we triumphed greatly. Hoorah for the lads! We gave ourselves a good pat on the back and went for a few more drinks.

Then the hyper-emotional gear kicks in... as it's becoming a regular thing when I'm drunk now. I realize that none of my mates had shown up. Dave had work people, family & mates... Mark had work people... Skippy had work people... Nick had family & friends... I had... me. I just coasted around the pub for the rest of the evening without any of my mates about. This then set me off. As much as I had a great time all day... having none of my mates about really put a drain on my jubilation.

None of them even said that they couldn't make it or anything. It really drove me mad. So mad, in fact, that I decided to walk home from Bergholt to Wormingford. 3 or 4 miles away, plus whatever I gained by staggering around.

I also decided to sit down after passing by Packards Lane to sit and write a couple of seriously angry text messages about having great friends and what not. Oh, I was mad! And tired. And mad because I was tired. And mad because I was tired and I still had another half hour to walk... if not more.

Well, I finally made it home at about 2:30am. I thought I would stay up and write this post... but I poured myself into the door and decided to die. And did I ever.

I woke up this morning to a text from Joanna. Was it a success, yes it was. I didn't bother to go into the details. I then shut my phone off, 'cuz I had a steaming hangover. Who knows how much beer & all I had to eat yesterday was a few pieces of toast. Yup... I was toast! My headache has almost left me now. I've had a couple cups of coffee... more toast and I think I might go watch Ipswich lose to West Ham. Last I saw, West Ham had just scored. Probably is 1-1 or something now... but anyways, I digress.

I best turn on my mobile soon... see how many angry responses I had from everyone. I'm sure there's gonna be a couple.

With my tail between my legs... I must leave you all!! Cheers.

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Showtime!

This is the adorable, little girl that has caused five guys to take their clothes off in the pub tonight. This is Lauren. Sorry the picture wasn't a bit better, maybe what I'll do is crop it a bit and she'll show up a bit better. Nah... now that I've loaded it, it'll be fine. Actually, what I might do is get one of the pictures I have of her from New Year's and pop it on as well.

But yes... task at hand is... SHOWTIME!

We received our hats and other related items on Wednesday during our last rehearsal. Love the hats... love 'em! I might wear this thing all the time. It's perfect for me. Don't worry, there'll be pictures and everything, just so you know what I'm talking about. If not tomorrow then Sunday, for sure!

It's gonna be so funny tonight. The guys are all meeting at 6pm and we're gonna start to have a few drinks while we're down there. It will be most interesting to see who's gonna bottle out before the alcohol sets in. Nah, I'm just kidding. I think now that we've all come this far, we're gonna be okay.

Here's Lauren again. This was a picture I took of her at New Year's. She's so adorable. Ha ha.

For more information on Rett Syndrome, click on the link here and go to the homepage of the Rett Syndrome Association UK.

Current tune: 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Neil Young. Represent!

I had a few comments this week about playing some Matthew Good. All were good comments too! I must say, he is one of the better Canadian songwriters of our time. Every CD I have of his is absolutely brilliant from start to finish. Since moving to England though, I have yet to have his latest solo effort shipped out here. I've heard that it's pretty good as well. Avalanche is just the nuts.

Great... now I've sent my reminders of tonight's festivities to those who may or may not come. I need to get my ass back on Dirty Hairy Mouth. It's there once, it needs to be again.

Feeling nervous? No, not really. I feel the same sort of rush I did when I got my left nipple pierced in the pub before Christmas. What can I say? I'm a showman!

The madness of which I call Naomi continued yesterday. Apparently in my ranting and raving about how she hadn't contacted me in however long, she did try. The black hole of text messages (thanks to living in the middle of nowhere) sucked up about three messages from the week and when I turned my phone off for a few hours yesterday because of a low battery, I turned it back on to see three new ones show up. Well, they all asked how I was doing today... well, that's odd.

Thanks to the black hole, I jumped to conclusions. Nevertheless, I must add, I did talk to her yesterday. She gave me a call and decided to talk to me in a condescending way, as she does, about getting my visa sorted and being pro-active about it. Her advice was fairly helpful, I must admit, but she doesn't sound like the most caring person in the world. She also proceeded to tell me how great her life is... in that way that she's almost rubbing it in my face.

Her concept of friendship boggles my mind, truly. She winds me up so badly... I hope you can believe me when I say that I'm really trying to convince myself to cut all ties. I don't know where this sense of hope with her is coming from. It probably lies in the fact that I could probably sleep with her again, but that does me absolutely no good, really.

Actually, I could really do with someone new that takes my mind clear away from her. I'm now accepting applications for that position.

Well, once Neil Young's Greatest Hits ends, I think it'll be time for MGB's Underdogs. Oh yeah. Time to pump up the jam and get this party started!

I Hate Titles

2nd cup of coffee. Matthew Good Band's 'The Audio of Being' on the CD player. Biscuits a plenty beside me. Blog-surfing again. It's quarter to 11am and well, I'm back!

"I will bask in my disaster, baby... it'll phase me out!"

I should be looking through the other two gigs that I have on tape of the Amberblacks to look for their performances of Little White Lies. But I don't think I could be bothered at the moment. I should be looking for more work, but the results from my efforts of the last 45 days or so have put me off.

Well, that's rubbish. The Audio of Being won't play very well in the CD player. So, I've moved to Matt Good's solo effort, 'Avalanche' to fulfill my angst.

Yeah, I'm feeling a bit of angst at the moment. At the end of April, I wrote a huge piece called 'STEAMING!' because Naomi really pissed me off. Well, that pretty much killed the gist of the feelings I had for her anyways. Well, no less than four days later... she had 'excommunicated' me and told me we weren't talking... that she asked if I'd calmed down yet. I didn't really play along, 'cuz I told her what she had done and that she could make more of an effort to be a better friend if she wants to talk to me again. Well... that went well for like, two or three days.

Sunday, she had invited me over to hers for Wednesday (today) and that seemed okay. Monday, I had a pretty bad day. I was pretty depressed. I went to work in the factory late on and had texted Naomi a couple awful things including not having money... then told her about losing my wallet that Saturday I stormed out. Even the idea of going home had passed through the texts. Well, she doesn't respond well to other people being depressed. The Drama Queen seems to like being the only one who has a problem and have everyone gather around her problems so she could be the centre of attention. Ummmm... no. Her problems lately seem to involve being confused on who to sleep with. Yeah, I really want to talk about THAT.

3rd cup of coffee. "Weapon" comes on... and I'm singing away.

Well, being in the obvious sad state I was in on Monday... she decided to disappear and not send a text message now for... oh, going on 48 hours now. Oh yeah and that was when I said I couldn't make it Wednesday (tonight) for dinner 'cuz I would be working at the factory early tomorrow morning. I know she wanted to stay up all night, get drunk and talk. There was no way I'd be able to do that.

I'll find it rather interesting if she decides to show up to Bergholt for the performance on Friday night. I give it a 50/50 chance... and I reckon she won't text me until tomorrow... which I give that an 80% certainty. I reckon at the 72-hour mark, she'll decide to send me a text. Mark my words.

You know, I think as I write this, there will be one here in the next 5 minutes. That'd be my luck, eh?

I still have time for her, 'cuz I always seem to remember the good times that I had with her. I don't tend to remember the shit she's given me or all that. The good times is what I reflect upon. I don't think she does or maybe things would be different. Nevertheless, she's still got my Hawksley Workman CD and a couple books of mine... so I best be nice.

Anyways, this Joanna... after finishing my Blog last night, she came back on and we chatted even more. Bizarre and comical conversations. A Captain's hat & a stick for one and a Yellow & Blue spandex suit for the other. Now switch in your mind which one of us has each and you'd be right. Yeah, it's really bizarre. Probably best not to ask about it, 'cuz I don't understand I how I got the short end of the stick on that one (ha, ha!).

Besides all the sarcasm, which is hard to tell where it starts and where it end, she'll marry me for "its a visa thing and our mutual love of the devils nectar." How can I argue with that?

Now, that's what I call progress. I feel better already. I was even dreaming last night and this morning. That was a nice change. I really have to look up more stuff on dreaming. I'm surprised I haven't found a Blog that relates to dreams and/or dreaming. I'm sure there will be one I come across soon.

Hmmmmm... what else am I gonna do today? Oh yeah, I might call the Citizen's Help Bureau in Colchester and see if they have any advice for me in my situation. I have this sick feeling that they'll just tell me what I already know: wait for the Home Office or get married. 'Dudes, I'm working on it!'

I have the last major rehearsal tonight at Lolly's house. I might take my camcorder tonight to get some 'behind the scenes' of the Fool Monty for my DVD I'll make of it afterwards. Oh man, do we laugh! I'm sure I'll pissing myself come Friday night in laughter... or fear... or both.

If anyone wants a copy of the Amberblacks live outings in London & Colchester or a copy of the Fool Monty when it's done, e-mail me and we can arrange it! I love to share!

Right... that'll be it for me for now! Take care, y'all!