The Montreal shows were a lot better than I expected. All the Pearl Jam songs I dont particularly care for in live shows.. stuff that stalls the first encore and loses momentum, yah well, Eddie rocks them.

Highlights:

Man of the Hour, Driftin', TYYAM w/ Liam, Masters of War, Let My Love Open the Door, the NEW SONG!, Blackbird, Lukin and Motherfucking PORCH!!!

EV teasing DTE the first night and RVM the second when someone shouted for it.. doing the guitar behind his head and everything. He's been taking guitar lessons with Mike McCready ;-) And Mike is doing fine, he's still handsome (erm, or something like that).

People that ask for attention need to DIE. Sit you ass down Eddie does not need to see you act as a conductor during Small Town. Although, that idiot STFU after he got a beer. But for real, if it isnt people yelling stupid shit, its them still competeing with "I can wave my arms more than you can!" Youre clearly over 35: GROW UP.

The guy who got his kid pulled up on stage was a real douche. No one wanted to see your dumb ass walk out on stage. The girl looked petrified and hardly looked at the crowd. Apparently this is the new way to live through your children: bring them to a Pearl Jam or related show, have band members spot them and give them items off the stage like tambourines or guitar plects, so that you can feel gratified your ugly mug didnt get anything. Seriously?

Playing "Ooh Boston!" was entertaining too.

Liam and EJ: Aside from the fact they are RAD, how cute were they the second night drinking water because they were still hung over from the night before.. At 8pm. I know Aussies go hard.. The first night they both had a glass of red wine.

oh, and I got in trouble during Trouble.. (haha) for taking photos with no flash. Second song in, I am told I will have to check my camera I say I will stop and put it away. Asshole venue security says that if he sees it again I will be kicked out. Two people in front of me have a cell phone and/ or a camera using flash out for the rest of the show. WTF? Yah, its fucking rude to use flash so I wasnt. Everyone else WAS and got to keep their cameras.

my weekend was pretty shitty. see previous post. at some point last night i started to feel better as if i flicked a switch and decided i was over it. im not and i still lack advice and communication, but maybe the worse is over. for this week.

we are getting a massive thunder storm at the moment. nice, the lights just flickered. i was out driving a little while ago before it started to rain, and lightning was intense. electrifying. its been ridiculously humid all day.

squee time? i managed to pull tickets to both ed shows here. first one was easy, in and out in less than a minute. they fixed the links to "the bank" from the us tour sales because that was instant. the second onsale was a test of stress and anxiety. why would anything else go simply? 16 minutes of refreshing got me the "buy" icon and a clickable link. by that time i also had to re-login and i was sure they were going to be gone. during my 16 minutes of bland nothingness i was consoling myself that it really didnt matter if i dont make it to the second show.

fangirl that son ;)

i miss the days of mailing in ticket request forms. yes, having to go to the bank for money orders and the post office was a task in itself, but it worked without trying my patience. of course canada has the most expensive shows.. and of course they are more expensive than the full band show price. wtf? how big is the entourage that he's bringing?

i saw ladytron for free last friday night. i was impressed with their show, since i paid nothing, and the crowd was pretty decent. D says their albums sound exactly like their live show, so i had intended on checking that out a few days ago. but, we reached our monthly d/l cap by then so i couldnt d/l anything else.

EDDIE IS COMING TO CANADA.
YAYAYAYAYAY!

now i just need to find some monies.

happy canada day to my fellow canadians! today we collectively turn 141. (i think, im sure thats what i hear on the radio earlier, but i tend to hear what i wanna hear)

just came back from watching the movie wanted with D tonight. it was good, but total cliche resistant newfound hero thing. ehh.. and angelina jolie was the only chick in the movie aside for the 'cheating girlfriend'. angelina + cars + guns + stuff blowing up = boy movie. everyday is exactly the same on the soundtrack brought back some less than fond memories of shitty time last year.

i had a marathon phone call the other night to melbourne. it was awesome. with all the talking and texting and photos, sometimes i feel like i didnt leave. then i am reminded i did when i cant get the good tea, but i have a whole diary aisle of coffee cream at the supermarket. win some, loose some. i could totally go for some devonshire tea and scones with clotted cream right about now.

new york was awesome.. would have been nice to stay longer and one day when i am employed i will go back. shows were great as expected. i fucking hate arena shows and that was reinforced to the max at these events. and when did pearl jam become such a sausage fest? this is an american thing cause the crowds in canada, australia, and europe are a lot more even and not everyone is 35. more females than the random girlfriends that get dragged along. the guy in front of us playing air guitar, make that rock band air guitar, to state of love and trust had us lolling for good reason. the stage is the other way buddy.
the floor, stage, rigs, lighting and everything else shaking during betterman on the second night was unreal. eddie fucking up the lyrics was pretty good too. the new/ old songs were pretty rad, the background singers were a bit lame but no where near as bad as sleater kinney doing whatever it was they did. mikey having a bit of a sing was cute as. still continuing those singing lessons mr m?

of course it was a pleasure to see people again and hear how they randomly ran into members of led zepplin in unexpected places. JW said it to me a couple years ago after the AU tour, it just doesnt feel right when certain people are missing. next year we do it again, adelaide 2009.. or was is brisbane? ;-)

i thought about writing an update oh, last week but i decided to continue doing whatever it was i was doing instead.

so a random itemized-ish list of things i have been doing recently.

the majority of my time is dedicated to writing me thesis. no i am not done yet, thank you for asking. in doing this i have become mostly nocturnal. its a really hard pattern to break out of. basically im on melbourne time if i chose to get up at 5am each morning. i sort of did this for about 3 days last year right after i went back but the whole idea of being a morning person didnt last all that long. the communication break down still exists so i dont have nearly as much feedback as id like, but that happened when i was physically in melbourne anyways.

a few mondays ago i went to a baseball game. D got free ticket from work and his boss gave him the afternoon off, which was great for him but he had 3 tickets an d whole bunch of friend who have jobs. enter me, the unemployed student. bang on. we sat in the club level in the seats where a smiley waitress brings you your $8 hot dog and $6 soda. yep, it was a fun day. jays won too. since it was an afternoon game there were a lot of school groups there, and possibly because of all the kids they had an invite to run the bases after the game. no, we didnt go, but i wanted to.

i saw the presets a week ago saturday at lee's palace. it was excellent. the last and only other time i have seen them was at the myer music bowl opening for daft punk.. outside in the middle of the day. change the setting to a small club in the dark.. well it was hotter here but anyways a different atmosphere. lee's was ridiculously hot that night, i walked and started to get sweaty. it was a fun show, the crowd was really into it, everyone dancing around. no pushing and shoving and i was up at the front for about the second half of it.
after the show we went up to the dance cave for like 10 minutes were about to buy drinks until we found out T didnt get in cause he was too drunk. he wasnt really that drunk but apparently walking to a wall in front of the bouncer was not a good move. so we 'had' to leave and ended up at the bruny. that was ok, but had crap music and was filled with frat boys. seriously it was all guys and no pretty ones that i wanted to look at. we didnt stay there that long cause it was 2 or 3 by that point. this was the awesome night that the gardiner was closed. seriously, closing the highway at midnight on a saturday cause there is some charity even the next day? stupid. sat in traffic for a while in the city and then took queensway home. other that the sitting in traffic part it wasnt that much longer, but annoying none the less.

i saw sex and the city the movie with michelle the day it came out. since neither of us had work obligation we went to a late afternoon showing. there was maybe 30 people in the theater. at the end of the show, we exited at 6:30 and the next show began at 7:15 in that theater and there was at least 300 excited women in line for that show, even more for the 6:45 in another theater. i liked the movie, and was surprised they could make it as good as they did. i love that series and was skeptical how it would transfer to the silver screen, but for what it was and what it became it was good. the people who think it should have been done by the time they went on carrie's honeymoon, well you can fuck off cause i could have sat there and hour longer. the whole carrie having an assistant things was stupid, she didnt need another accessory character. they could have give more screen time to the women that did matter. jason lewis and david eigenberg have aged the least gracefully of the men, or rather they look older than season 6 of the show. chris noth.. has still got it ;-)

over the long weekend i was at a bridal shower and dinner party. at first it was nice to catch up with some people but by the end of things the attitudes and tenseness was too much and id dint need to deal with that. when i got home from the shower my mom asked me what the gifts were, i didnt know cause she didnt open them. my brother's girlfriend is a bridesmaid in two different weddings and on of the girls is being a total bitch about everything. my brother hates this girl but basically has to go to the wedding (lulz, poor kid). through my own experiences, the stories some of my close male friends have told me, and my brother's gf, i am in no rush to attend any more of these events because they bring undue stress and attitudes.

this weekend i caught up with my friend nick from sydney who is doing another round the world business/ pleasure trip. the travel budget he has in his PhD is something i am jealous of and also of the freedom he gets from his supervisors. if i ever do more research in academia i am much more aware of things i need to know so i do no get walked all over again. anyhow, nick was staying with a friend, and 3 others went out to dinner. i spend most of the dinner talking to nick and not purposely ignoring the other but it sort of happened. something that was reinforced that night was expensive wine does not always taste better to the palate. and some boys have no idea how you are supposed to tip. tipping is the most annoying thing about being back in canada, not that i even go out that much but i got used to it the other way.

after humming and hawing over travel plans for NYC i have decided to take the train. i was going to fly and use my air miles, but cause air canada is shithouse i was going to have to pay as much in tax as what the train is going to cost and hand over the points. whatever. it annoys me that they are the main choice for flying in canada, but some of the star alliance airlines are okay. airlines can stick their taxes and fuel charges where the sun dont shine cause its bullshit. we all have to pay more gas. ive sat on a plane for 12 hours before to go to one show, so on a train to get to two isnt much. people coming from europe have to do it, so no big deal.

my mom is going to hong kong at the end of the month and i am a lil jealous. she is going to bejing too, which i think would be better to wait until after the olympics, but my opinion doesnt count. i have to make a list of fun stuff to see and cool electronics and shoes to buy me places of interest in the next little while.

im so sick of this heat we are having. i really hate summer. yah its cold in the winter but at least you can put on a sweater and turn on the heat. i cant take off layers of skin. physiologically not possible. if i get to go back to australia any time soon it will be awesome since its winter there!

there was some stuff i forgot to post yesterday.. like..

thanks to daryl for getting my nine inch nails tickets. from what i heard the pre sale was almost as shitactular as pearl jam at msg ticketing was, despite being run by music today. when will anyone selling the tickets learn that your servers are going to crash because everyone and their mother wants to go to the show. a bunch of people i know were locked out for red rocks and toronto. we are just too good of a market here to let tickets to anything hang around for long. red rocks is well, red rocks and there were limited tickets. daryl seemed to have no problems for the shows we are going to, im thankful for that.

i keep thinking that i see my friend's ex girlfriend at the gym. my gym has a women only section which i sometimes will go to if i dont feel like being in the everyone section with all the smelly dudes. i used to see this girl in the womens section, but yesterday i saw here in the other part. since the end of said relationship was not quite the best of terms, and its been like 4 or 5 years since i used to see her at group events, so i dont really want to say anything cause she wasnt my friend to start with, and it might not even be her. there are other people from my high school i randomly see there too, but i actually liked them to start with.

does everyone else feel that going to shows in a city you dont live in is much more fun than driving there and home in the same night, or is it just me?

oh and since ive already mentioned nin in this post, theres still more: its been one whole year since the shows in melbourne last may. crazy. best queueing experience ive had in years and the number of people i met on those days that i became friends with was unexpected, but awesome. i finally met people who were from melbourne. my time in melbourne got better from around that point on, even though all my foreign friends were gone by the end of winter.

im on twitter now too.. better late than never right? im thinking its still not that popular since i could have registered my real name. and that never ever happens.

ahh.. back home again and it feels like i never left. vancouver was a lot of fun even though it was cold most of the time i was there. really glad that i decided to take a coat despite toronto having 21C plus temperatures the few days before i departed.

most of the trip was spent catching up with my pseudo australian friends. i met up with jen a couple times for lunch. the first time was at a place right by the water where we ate burgers and drank beer and had fun with the waiter who made fun of us for the silly things we were saying. does anyone who doesnt live in vancouver use the expression "its a gong show" ? i dont. the other time we went to granville island and had perogies and curry and it was excellent. almost kinda like going to the vic market, but different. we walked all around the buildings on granville island which i missed the first time i went there myself.

i caught up with jeremy to go for beers, belgian, at my request, somehwere just outside of downtown vancity. i cant remember teh name of the street, so um, i guess it doesnt matter. that place was good even though there was like 87 extremely loud asians sitting at the table next to us for most of the time we were in the bar.

i met a bunch of carolina's friends, family and work mates so that was all good. her soon to be sister in law came over from the island to go to queens of the stone age with us. i thought about going back and going to the vicoria show too, but uh, i didnt. it was fun with rebecca there since we stood up front on the rail, then squeed like fans girls during and after the show. yep, never too old to do that.

i met up with clayton and gitta a couple of times. they live off robson street so it was near everything. the first time we went to the cupcake store (sofaking awesome). i only had one cupcake but easily could have finished 4 or 5. its on denman is you live in vancity and have never been. get there.
the second lunch date with them was the day of liam finn's show and their friend steph came too. i ended up going back to new west before the show cause i think carol had to do something somewhere before we could go.

liam was awesome. EJ was not off her face drunk like the last time i saw them play in melbourne. they played a little community centre hall in west van that looked like a church form the inside without the religious memorabilia. the ceilings were high and we sat in pews and the acoustic were fantastic. every other person had a pearl jam shirt or hoodie on. i did not.

after departing vancouver we (carol + me) went down to seattle for flight to mars. we stayed at grant's house so got to catch up with him for a little bit too. we did some shopping and wandering in capitol hill and we ate at dick's. actually we ate in the car since someone didnt want to stand at the counter. as a joke we went into hot topic and i contemplated buying a belt. i didnt, and days later somewhat regretted it when my pants kept getting too low in the goddamn mosh.

prior to the flight to mars show, we met up with a colleague of carol's who is also a big PJ fan, but being decades older than me had seen the who & zepplin in the 70s etc and had many good concerts stories. we kept saying how you have to go to europe to do shows cause the crowds there are so much better than america. its probably wrong ot give advice to someone my parents age.. anyways.

flight to mars and the hendrix tribute were great. at one point during the shadow reunion i looked over to the side of the stage and thought that guy looks like duff mckagan. then the guy who looked like duff was putting one one of mike's guitars. yah, it was him, and they played a couple ramones songs. very cool. i was so tired at this show which took away from it a bit.

i left seattle the next morning to go do some queens of the stone age shows in canada. during the trip i flew alaska air and west jet for the first time. i went back to saskatoon < insert runnin' back to saskatoon joke here > something i never thought id do. i learned that the cities in the prairies are not as far apart as i thought there were, even though we still flew. josh homme is my homeboy. ok thats a lie, but he did dedicate infinity to me in winnipeg :D and i heard era vulgaris 4 times. woo. more on this later..

and while i was gone is was sonia, andrew, lara and asal's birthdays.. who's combined age is more than 100, whatever that means.

happy mother's day to my mom, who is now asking me when i am going to grow up.

and, THANK YOU TO CLAIRE WHO SENT ME ANZAC BISCUITS BECAUSE SHE IS SO AWESOMELY COOL. YEEEAH!

there really are entirely too many people on television that look like barbie dolls. or stepford wives. my gosh. all these tv channels to chose from and i end up watching bbc world news cause most of it is an insult to my intelligence. one thing that contemporary television makes clear: life is a competition.

its been a busy weekend. so busy i had to take a nap this arvo after eating sushi buffet for lunch. it was a sushi buffet that was brought to your table almost a la cart. this place is on the oakville border was found via a friends of a friends birthday party. there was a take away looking menu on the table that you wrote numbers beside how many of each dish you wanted to order. when the food started to come out i think some of us who are not me were a little shocked at how much food was there prompting the comment "thats what happens when you write down the big numbers." i dont know most of what we ordered beyond bbq chicken and california rolls. something called red dragon had a bunch of stuff inside including tempora shrimp and salmon on the outside and that good. the random fish stuff i did not try. not my thing. we had green tea ice cream for dessert that really made me want a green tea latte.

oh and we found a drive thru starbucks. ive never seen one of those before and it seemed to be a novelty.

yesterday was the first of st patrick's day celebrations for some and my only alcoholic acknowledgement to the occasion. rex found there was a party/ celebration going on at the steamwhistle brewery downtown that started in the afternoon. we headed down to that via mississauga transit and the go bus.. and hour later plus walking time we got there. im not a fan of transit, i like walking, but it seems as though that is the way to go when planning to get very very crunk on the weekend. we got to steamwhistle around 2:30 but the event didnt start until 3. that meant we had to have free samples of beer while we waiting. that didnt suck. the place wasnt packed out at 3 but very full. we had some more beers and waiting for another friend to show up. apparently green on st patricks day does not require than one wear irish green. there were people who can cute capes in the shape of clovers and others were doing the funny hat, glasses, antenna thing. but also lots of tops from mainstream mall stores that just happened to be green and a few sports jerseys for countries like mexico and brasil. the most festive i got was a green hairband and barring the one green tshirt i have that says 'australia' across the front, i do not own anything green. we left at 6 and i went home while the others went to madison. i was close to falling alseep on the way home, clearly id had enough. the stories they told me today about being off their faces made me not regret my decision. my parent had friends over for dinner so i got good food cooked for me there.

friday night was the gutter twins (mark lanegan + greg dulli) show at he mod club and it was my first show back in canada. it was really great. saturnalia sounds better live than recorded. considering who is in the band, i would have been disappointed if they had not delivered something awesome, but yah, it was awesome. to my knowledge the mark lanegan band/ mark solo has never played in canada and the last time i heard him sing was qotsa in montreal (oddly i just found the mini disc of that show the other day). meth blues was on the setlist and some of the european shows from this year's tour. towards the end of the set they went into hit the city, fucking rock, but i was so sure that it was going to be the only lanegan that was played. nope. four songs later we got meth blues. even more rock. yah, it was pretty great, even if it was an early show. a friend was trying to get me to go to montreal for the show on saturday but he couldnt convince me. a $30 ticket plus $300 in travel only happens for certain artists, as much as i liked the show im not spending that kinda cash.

i found good underground parking on college street too. in the past whenever ive gone there or when someone else is driving we laywas go for street parking on ossington or college. the snow banks were covering a lot of that, and seeing as my parallel parking skills are a little rusty i was hopeing for paking lot. i found a green p parking that was only a few mins walking away. it was all good.

the gym i joined closes at eight on the weekend. i thought it would be at least 9pm.. not cool.

the internet is being so retarded right now. i feel like im still in australia and i just hit my download cap and was reduced to dial up speed.

i looked at the date earlier and thought feb 23rd, where the fuck did the year go already? life has always been flying by at a rate too fast to comprehend, but at the moment its going at hyperspeed.

i had a great week involving seeing some friends again, its been awhile, and having saturday in the middle of the week. the work week needs to consist of every wednesday off and it be made mandatory to hang out with friends.

excellent i can still get into pubmed. it would be nice if my access isnt cut off before the end of the weekend.. cause im no longer a fee paying student, thus i dont exist!

back to this week. tuesday night involved shenanigans at the wonderful woywoy building that will soon be sold and tenants fucked over (dontcha loved landlords?!) many beverages were consumed and pizza and snacks were eaten and we talked over the top of many videos. nadeen had to leave and by that time i was sufficiently mood altered that i ran outside to give fabien a hug. in another example of time flying, somehow it became 3am and sonia thought it would be an excellent idea to go for a swim. and swim we did. port philip bay, middle of the night, no one else on the entire beach. and no sunburns. it was the first and probably only time that i have been swimming in the bay beach. any other time ive been to the beach but not swimming. sonia forgot the key to the outside door so she had to buzz lara to come and let us in. oops. the next morning was not so good. i had quite the headache and dawn had realtors coming through her apartment (hate to landlords for inconvenience). outside it rained a little bit and i got a little went coming back into the city. i had to miss the shopping fun since i had a lab meeting to go to that arvo and yah, i had to go.

wednesday night was the miss polly jean harvey show. omg, awesome. if you didnt happen to read it somewhere else i posted it, here it is again: whatever boys can do, girls can do better. she played a lot from white chalk and older stuff too. songs on the piano, songs on the electric guitar and songs on the acoustic guitar. mick harvey was the opener and he came out and played a few songs with her too. and oddly in his set he played some non album pj stuff. polly said that she watched the crowd coming into the venue and we all looked very nice. this was after someone shouted at her your the prettiest lady or something alone those lines. and after her comment it initiated the we are much better than sydney response.

the venue was one of the reasons a good show was made even better. the acoustics were excellent. the only time ive seen an artist play at a similar venue was the 1999 cornell solo tour of symphony halls etc. or it was in toronto at the time. every note she sang and played was crystal clear, even the vocals when she backed away from the mic were picked up well.

after the show we hung around for a bit and then decided food was needed. walking the 500m into the city one of us commented about how the moon looked really eerie. the sky was misty and cloudy and it was (almost?) full. this was 15 hours before the eclipse that was viewable in the northern hemisphere.. although at the time i had no idea there was an eclipse. when food was in sight mcdonalds got veto'ed so it was hungry jacks. the only time i eat shit food is after shows. i had a strawberry milkshake that was pretty good for $2, but not great for a milkshake. everyone in the place stared at us. weirdos.

thursday i packed all day and this morning i tried to get some work done then i packed some more. i got pretty much everything in boxes to ship out tomorrow. the amount of stuff i have left to go into suitcases is still quite a lot. most of it is things i will need in the next 10 days or in the month after returning home. its hard to figure out 'what will i need until the end of march'. im throwing out a lot of stuff too. that is hard to part with since i keep everything. tonight i took down the posters off my wall with the intention that i would keep the frames and ship them home. as careful as i was the glass cracked on one of the frames. while it was leaning against my bed of all things. if it cant survive sitting on the floor then it would definitely break in transit. that prompted me to repack all the photo frames that are going home. im going to have major issues on where to put everything since i dont have my own house.

i had to go to lab drinks today since it was half planned with me in mind. someone else is leaving the lab too so this was our shared goodbye thing. total gyp having to share. not really complaining though since its usually awkward enough. got the usual questions in the round table that certain people dont care enough about to ask in personal situations. i routinely find it funny that random people ask more questions and seem more interested in general life things than my supervisor. since there was a lot of people time went by fast enough and i didnt end up leaving until 7:30.

i ran down to bourke street to pick up stuff at supre that i want to take home. i went to ask an employee standing near me a question and she turned around and asked me "are you asal's friend?" im looked at her for a second and details came flashing back but not a name. it was mo, someone i havent seen it about a year and a half and only knew through asal and her brothers. totally weird to see someone like that randomly. i guess you know the city well enough when that happens.

since its after midnight i will officially call this the 17th of february. the 17th of february 2006 was the day that did not exist as i crossed the international dateline. ive been in australia for TWO YEARS. weird. and i leave in 18 days. even weirder.

tonight i started packing. i am 1000% sure that everything that went into a box tonight will be moved at least twice before friday. it was a start. i spend more time throwing stuff out than putting it somewhere it will be for the next 6 weeks. it seems to be that i will need to have stuff ready to ship by next weekend. oh, this will be fun. since i am shipping stuff it means that i will be keeping all of my shoe boxes of shoes that have been purchased in the last 2 years. excellent. if it all had to go in suitcases that would not be possible. one of the shoe boxes that i like the most got pretty crushed coming back from hong kong, but thats ok, im keeping it anyways.

going through all of my stuff i realized just how much i have. papers and books were pretty obvious since they were mostly out on a bookshelf, visible. other little things that had been in the wardrobe packed away built up faster than i expected. i found a whole bunch of photos that i forgot i had with me since they havent been on 'display' since i lived in graduate house. a few of them are me with my grandparents at about age 4 and another with my other grandma maybe a year or so before that. i had these photos at the last place i lived at the university of toronto and when i packed up a moved home from there they stayed packed and them migrated to australia with me. other random stuff i found was a setlist from a killers show in october 2004, my boarding pass from st johns from 2005, a slew of stickers, more photos and every card that i have been send since ive been here. if you sent me a card(s) while i was in australia.. thank you, i read it in the last 2 hours and people wrote some very nice things. i appreciate the christmas, birthday, easter, and random thinking of you stuff i received.

with all the random stuff that was kept, much of it was destined to go into a scrapbook thing that i had the intention of making. i got as far as april 2006 and then lost interest. perhaps i i will make it when i got home, cause i kept all the stuff. most people, okay, girls, i know that i have done overseas trips/ exchanges have all kept something in the way of a diary/ scrapbook thing with photos, tickets, maps and stuff what they did. M has kept and excellent diary from september of last year, everyday of what her and C do. impressive. mine wont be quite that good.. i dunno where im going with this. im lazy and will get around to it at some point.

the one thing i found that i had not been able to locate recently was all my boarding passes from asia. as i was go through things, i was thinking, how upset would i be if i lost this? the answer to that question leads to how it will go. my three levels of packing are: 1. shipping it. 2. checked luggage. 3. carry on luggage. preferably carry was supposed to be my laptop, full stop. yeah. since i dont trust people (another thing i found was my baggage claim forms to get reimbursed for what was stolen out of my bag the first time i came over..) anything that has sentimental value needs to be with me necessitating another bag. anything that remotely relates to the word tour will be on the plane with me. that bag will be light though, that stuff doesnt weigh much.

thats enough about that.

tonight the flatmates and i went to see jumper. it was okay, but not good. its one of the movies that has been advertised non stop. since i hear audio advertisements, i didnt realize hayden christensen was in it. better to see him with real dialogue again, well, to a point. the movie didnt require that much thinking.

last night i was out at the corner hotel to see some bands. i met up with steph and meegs and one of megan's awesome friends drove me home when it was all over. i missed most of the first band, then saw horsell common and shihad. they were really good and i kinda wished that i got into them earlier since they play here quite often. by the start of shihad it began to smell like 'rock show'. a smell i dont particularly enjoy but can put up with some of the time. small sweaty club with not a lot of fans going on only encouraged the smell. i havent been to the corner that times, so last night was the first time when i have visible noticed a barrier in front of the stage. they definitely needed it since people were crowd surfing like it was 1994. after the show one of the members of horsell commmon was outside flyering. so was another band (rook, i think) one of whom came up to talk to us explaining that they were too lazy to call their street team so they decided to flyer themselves after the show, so could we please take a flyer. haha.

i find myself on myspace more at the moment, even though i hate it, since many bands dont find it necessary to have a real website. this morning i was greeted by the bulletins of people who seem to think that eddie vedder is the only member of pearl jam and the fact that he is touring is reason enough to pull out your vibrator and splatter everything possible all over the internet. relax girls, just relax.
of course seeing as there is a tour on the continent i will be on at that time i had to investigate. flights from toronto to vancouver run a minimum of $550 return. flights from toronto to los angeles, a whole different country, are $404 return. wtf? direct flights in both cases. what the hell is wrong with air cannda and west jet? that route had something like 25 direct flights a day between those two airlines.
edit: update on this. its actually only $348CAD to fly YYZ-LAX return on air canada. domestic travel in canada is a little messed up. is this cause the USD has is so crap and canada is finally catching up with the exchnage rate.

i am going to miss the $120 one way melbourne to sydney with a full meal included during the one hour flying time. and seeing an advertised price that has tax included for a domestic flight.