New Haven,CT

Wow, what an awful, stressful drive. We left the venue and it was snowing lightly until we hit the city limits of Montreal. Then it was like a fucking blizzard. I went up front to smoke, and chat w/ the bus driver, and it was gnarly. I could feel the tires of the bus sliding. It was pretty nerve wracking. We didn't drink too much because of the border crossing. We actually got through real quick, because the weather was shitty, and the guards didnt feel like searching our shit. We also look like we're not total shitbags, either, so that probably helps. We got through, and the roads were straight up covered in snow. like 6 inches of snow. It sucked.
I sat up with Tim and Tom for a while, cause we were all freaked out by the shit on the roads. Eventually, i tried to go to sleep, and got to bed around 6 or 7 am. When we woke up in New Haven, it was like 50 degrees! I was stoked, it was like summertime. We loaded in, and while hanging around outside with Steve, i got in the best "Eww Yo!" of the tour. 2 girls, who were fairly attractive, walked by in sweatpants, and out came the "Eww Yo!", loud as shit. Steve busted out laughing, equally as loud. It was pretty enjoyable. We all got a good laugh out of it. When the dudes were soundchecking, i did all my merch work,so i was done waaaaay early today. I was stoked. Me and Mo did some dumb moshing while the dudes were practicing some new songs. Andrew came down and joined us for our little homosexual dance party.
After soundcheck, and our little jazzercise session, me and Mo went to get some lunch, and got a bomb ass pizza from the shop next door. We also got a bunch of fried food as an appetizer. Truly a last day of tour feast. After gorging ourselves we went back to the bus, to chill, since the show didnt start for another few hours. This turned into walking around and wasting money. I bought a new hat, some socks and underwear, since i needed some, and wasn't doing laundry til i got home.
The show was cool. Noelle and Alix came out, and it was rad to see them and hang out for a while. Alix took a bunch of sweet pictures, which i'll post in the next entry. We hung out, had drinks, and Elle brought me some merch helpers. They drastically increased my PMA, for sure.
When the show was done, we loaded up the trailer for the last time, and me and Tom were the only ones on the bus, heading to jersey, seeing as how everyone else went home with their significant others. We had a good long brodown. I was stoked, me and him got a lot closer on this tour. I love that guy. we drank some beers and went to bed. Tour, officially over.

So close, and so far.

The last day in canada is finally upon us. The vast amount of country that we've covered over the last two weeks, has been snow covered, and cold. Today was no exception. It was overcast, snowy, and overall just a nasty day. The venue looks like it's from the land that time forgot. An old school gymnasium type of setting. The dressing room looks like an old high school locker room. It was like stepping into gym class in 1976. They had a room there, that was just dedicated to fencing. It was pretty weird. We were shooting pictures in there of all of us stabbing each other in the mask with swords. Totally not weird at all, right? All in all, it was pretty fun.
The show was on the hockey rink of the place, of course. I'm convinced i'll just get to go to hockey rinks here, without seeing any hockey get played. They just covered the floor with rubber, which let me tell you, did absolutely nothing to insulate anything about it. My feet were fucking freezing all night long. It was fucking terrible. I wore 3 pairs of socks. Three!!! The whole place was probably about 50 degrees, until kids started filling the place up. They situated me next to the stage, which is great, cause it was gonna be loud as fuck. It was also primarily french speaking kids,and my french fucking sucks. Unless it's french kissing, then i'm the fucking best, but that's a story for another time. It took me forever to wait on getting counted in and what not, so my time to go adventure was pretty non existant, today. I just did some emails, posted a blog, and filled out paperwork for my taxes and stuff. Nothing exciting at all.
The plus side was the my friend Judy was coming out. I missed her when her and her boyfriend were in Baltimore over the summer. They were in town for a wedding, but i was away with the Oranges. Unfortunately, she was taking exams and wouldn't get to the show until 10 or so, when it was pretty much gonna be over. However, a gunman apparently started shooting up the school, which we were also on the campus of. She got out of her last exam, and was able to show up early. I was glad she was safe, and stoked we could hang out. On the other hand, the thought of a gunman wandering the University of Montreal was an interesting thought. Especially on a night where there was a 5000 person, sold out show in their Hockey Arena/Gymnasium time travel portal.
We hung during the show and it was fun. As has been par for the course, Geoff was about to say his usual bit about me, but decided to bring Sage up for a song, and had him do the honors since it was the last day we had with Sage, and the Rise Againsts. Instead of something funny, he went straight for the jugular, haha. He told everyone i had a mild case of herpes, a European Vacation reference. I was stoked, laughed, and did not expect the harassment that i got from the kids because of it. It was funny when i was half drunk screaming, "Jesus Christ! I don't have herpes" to a bunch of french Canucks. I'm pretty sure they didnt understand anything, maybe except the word herpes. *For the record, i do not have herpes. Sayin.
After the show i packed up my stuff, and stuffed it into the back of the trailer. Me and Judy hopped into a cab, and headed straight to Lafleur's. One of my favorite spots in Montreal, that isnt a bar. Tofu dogs and Poutine. It was awesome,and fucking tasty. It was rad to hang with her and catch up. I hadn't seen her in a long time,even though we talk fairly often, it was nice to do it in person for a change. I got back to the bus, and we said goodbyes to everyone, and headed for the border. Next stop, USA!!!

Ottawa, Ontario

We're getting towards the end now, only a few days of tour left.
Today, we were in Ottawa. Bone chilling cold. I mean, headache inducing cold, kind of like one or two of the other spots we've been to. it's also go about a good 2 feet of snow, just hangin out. Me and tucker had to walk like 2 blocks just to go get smokes, and froze our fucking asses off. When we got back, we found out it was like 5 degrees. Nice.
Most of my day was spent just hanging out in the visiting locker room of the hockey arena, aka the dressing room. Sage was in the trainers room. It was so cold, i didnt really want to leave. I went to get a coke at one point, and while i was gone, a table, 2 couches, and an easy chair arrived in our dressing room. It made it a little more comfortable. Of course it was almost at the point where i didn't get to use em much, but it was whatever.
During every show, Geoff usually says something to the crowd about me, making fun of me. Today was no exception. He had said it was my birthday, amongst other things. Today he kicked it up a notch and said that my gf/fiancee' dumped me over the phone this morning. He also said people should come comfort me. This resulted in me having to lie, as well as get hugs from people. By the end of the night dudes were yelling "Fuck that bitch", and "Your ex is a fucking whore!". It reminded me of being in Hampden, as well as made me stoked that people would get behind me on that, haha.
After the show, i packed up super quick and a bunch of us went out to this old man bar down the street.
When me, Barnesy, Tucker, Steve, Tom, Buck, and Alex got down there, there was no one in the bar. We ripped a bunch of shots and pounded beers. Buck conned some girl into making out with him within minutes of being in the building. It was creepy, yet somehow funny. There was a woman there named Mercedes, too. She took a liking to me, Tucker, and Tom. She got us shots, and definitely seemed like she was trying to get weird. Unfortunately for her, we weren't. We just sat there, got hammered, and left in time for bus call.
When we got on the bus, I sat up, for a bit, then me and Tom started wrestling with each other, and wound up punching the shit out of eachother in the process. I'm pretty sure that Tom punched Tucker in the balls.
After taking a beating, i just went to bed. I'm pretty sure i sat up texting JessiAnne and Chase for awhile. PMA is high.

Fucking Hamilton, ON!!!

Hamilton, ON
Fuck yeah, Hamilton. Home of Haymaker. I expected complete stupidity and insanity from these people. I also expected to potentially have the opportunity to acquire a haymaker shirt via trade from someone. My buddy Caleb from Circle Takes The Square, and his girlfriend Shannon came to the show. 2 of my favorite people in the world. Total sweethearts. They came to rage too, Caleb had been drinking since like 2 pm.
Nothing insane happened during the day other than the fact that our fucking bus almost caught on fire. Some hose came off on the generator at some point. There was gnarly smoke coming out of the fucking thing. Everyone was freaking out. It figured that something happened, cause the luck we've been having with buses on this tour was dogshit. I got all my shit done early for once today. After the shit that happened in London the night before i wasn't about to take any chances with numbers getting fucked up, so I allowed some time for errors. I was glad this didnt happen and I had a lot of fuck off time.
Unfortunately i couldnt find anything good to do, so i sat in the dressing room trying to find the internet somewhere. No dice. I chain smoked my afternoon away and that was about it. The show was relatively uneventful, until Caleb and Shannon swung by. I had no clue they were even coming. I was pumped, cause they were my raging buddies on the tour we did with them last year. There weren't any incidents other than the racism fight, which i couldnt get a grasp on. I just know i saw some kid punching another kid and it was apperently over some racist shit. No clue, but i'm pretty impressed by the amount of fights i've seen on this tour.
After I loaded out, i took a quick shower, and went back to the bus. Andrew was drunk and wanted to go out, so we went down to the bar where Caleb and Shannon were. We met a bunch of their friends, had some drinks and just hung out and had a rad time. We also all managed to get hammered. I thought i was gonna have an oportunity to get a Haymaker shirt, but this kid wanted my Buzzcocks shirt, and that just wasn't gonna happen. We drank as late as possible, and realized our bus call was in 5 minutes.
We bolted out the door and took off down the street. We almost missed bus call, Or at least Alex, Tom, and I did. It was also pouring rain on our way back, which was a bummer.
When we got back on the bus, we all still wanted to drink. I found a Dos Equis buried in our ice chest. I have no idea where it came from, but at this point I didnt care. A few nights before, we were given a gift by the promoter. It was a bottle of "good" scotch. Bullshit. It tased like Bacon Whiskey. Tucker apparently thought so, cause he took a shot of it, and threw up in a solo cup. then he booted on the bus a couple times. He was a trooper though. I was a good buddy, and helped him out. After that, i stayed up texting JessiAnne til i fell asleep. Good day, for sure.

London Calling

After the 2 days off, i was pretty stoked to go back to work. Well, not today, cause it was another Venue sell. That meant not doing any work all day. I kinda putzed around all day, because i wasn't feeling well, and just felt like chilling. I did my count in and stuff, and just relaxed in the dressing room. Dinner was fucking epic, though. They had chocolate bread pudding for dessert. It was fucking incredible. Mercedes came and hung out at the show for awhile. She brought her sister, and her friend Ivy, which was cool. I hadn't seen Morgan in a really long time, so it was cool she came out. I guess Mercedes and Alex had some sort of issue cause she wound up leaving early, which was a bummer, cause i felt like i didnt get to kick it with her too much. When the show was over, it took me fucking forever to settle. The dudes who counted me in were like fucking beavis and butthead, total idiots. The one dude looked like the godfather of Hair Metal. Total meth tooth lookin dude. I mean like he had baked beans instead of teeth, gross. I also don't think that the guy was capable of constructing a sentence more than 6 syllables long. The other kid was just a total fucking mouthbreather. Either way, they fucked up counting me out. Twice. I settled, and had loaded half of my shit out. At this point the weather changed from snow to freezing rain and back to snow, so loading down icy steps was kickass. Then having to go back in and doing it all over again made it even better. I flipped out on the dude who was the venue's rep, and he blamed it on his computer. He didnt appreciate it when i told him it was the person using it, not the computer's fault. After flipping my shit and packing the trailer, i thought i'd wind up going out, but instead i just hung out with Andrew, Mo, and Geoff on the bus. That was a little more fun. Alex wound up missing bus call and got grease spotted.

Millenium Drive. Part Deux.

After getting back to the bus after out Casino/Stripclub experience, we just crashed out. I woke up the next day and we were still going across the frozen tundra, zig zagging through mountains, and darting around lakes. We unfortunately had to bid farewell to our bus driver, Jerry, today. He was kickass, and got the Strongman award for the tour for handling that shitty drive. We switched over to our new driver, Scott, in London. Nothing too crazy happened on the drive. It was pretty crazy how fast people go on a 2 lane road though. Big rigs were fucking flying past us going the other way, on some wicked sketchy roads. We just did our best to not pay attention and sleep our way through it. I can't remember if it was this day or the day before that we watched European Vacation. I know it was one of the two. I'm sure it was irritating with me and Alex reciting the entire movie start to finish. When we got in to London, we got our hotel room,and tried to figure out what to do for the night. Alex's ex, and my friend, Mercedes lived there,so we decided to meet up with her later on. Since we hadn't spent enough time together over the previous 48 hours, we decided to go out to dinner at this Italian place next to the hotel. Holy shit was it incredible. i had Mushroom Risotto, and it was fucking next level. Andrew got the Gnocchi. We split both of them, and it was awesome. We also drank about 5 bottles of wine at dinner. it made going back into the cold weather not as bad, since we were a little warmer. Mercedes convinced us to go to 80's night with her. It was deece, lots of knuckleheads there, but it was fun. I knocked back a few, and just kicked it with Mercedes, and acted like dickheads with the dudes while they were there hanging out. afterwards, we went back to the bus, and slept. it was real exciting.

Millenium Drive.

So after 2 days in Winnipeg, the shit part of the tour hit. A 2 day, 1400 mile drive. Across the snowy plains of Central Canada. Not awesome. The roads were shitty, our bus was cold, and it was 9 dudes primed for cabin fever. The only upside was that we were able to smoke on the bus, and our driver, Jerry was the fucking man.
I missed my cousin's wedding in Florida, which was a total bummer, but i had a bunch of updates from my mom throughout the early part of the first day. I hope it was awesome for him, i was pretty bummed i couldn't be there. I was bummed to not be in Florida in general.
We did a lot of movie watching,and dick and fart joke telling the first night, while we hauled ass to our mid point, Sault St. Marie. When we got there, of course, it was cold and snowy, as was par for the course at this point. A bunch of us went to a Bar/Strip Club called Studio 10. The upstairs of the place was a "Hotel". I call it a "Brothel". Either way, it was like a normal bar, but with naked ladies. Some of the dudes got dances, i just hung and drank. At least until last call when we saw a sweet fight. Some customer touched a stripper in her bathing suit area. This broad did not need an adult, because she hit him, then straight up knocked out his friend. The fight kept going because the dancer and her steakhead friends kept coming back in the bar, and fighting more. the security was terrible in this place, but it was apparently also a Hell's Angels bar. After escaping the wrath of security, we went to a Casino, where i lost 15 bucks, and at a massive omelet. We returned to the bus where i promptly passed out, lamenting the next 12 hours ahead of us when we woke up.
More on day 2 of the drive soon. I have to go do merch dude work.

Day off/ Winnipeg

Day off.
+bro time on the bus
+mad booze drank on the bus
+band dinner
+awesome hangs with Jessi Anne

Winnipeg.
+Venue sell
+hung out w/ J.A. 2 days in a row!!!
+excellent catering (brussel sprouts!!!)
+best gifts i've gotten in a while

this was my favorite 2 days in a long time. i am stoked on life. it's a shame we left to drive 2700 miles after the show. if i'd have had the cash, i'd have flown to london. for real. shit, yo. next update tomm. i'm almost caught up. there will be a picture entry at the end of tour, promise.

Edmonton.

Edmonton was...
-fucking insanely freezing.
-the coldest date yet.
-the purveyor of world's worst burrito
-home of the nicest bank teller
-also home to a sweet girl named lauren.

edmonton is the home of the oilers. it is also fuuuuuuucking cold. nothing incredibly exciting happened here, except for awesome catering and a 2 mile walk to get champagne and guinness. lauren was real nice, but would have been nicer if she'd driven me and alex to see the northern lights after the show. I lost my sunglasses because andrew wore them, and i left them in the dressing room. i lied and said it was my birthday today. i made 120 bucks. i was stoked. still am. the drummer for rise against might as well be John C. Reilly, because he looks just like him, and acts the same. Yeah, i said it. Great dude. Overall, tour is rad, and i'm stoked for tomorrow's day off.

*- his entry was posted after the day it happened...a couple of them actually.

Calgary.

Today was the first day that it felt bitterly cold. Me and Mo took a walk to the mall, about 15 minutes long. We got there and felt frozen. There were kids working in this mall that looked like they were fucking 12, dude. No shit. I guess if you can drink at 19 you can work at 12, fuck it. Anyways, we sat around and drank coffees, and found out about the casino. We also cabbed it back to the venue because we are giant pussies. The show was fine, and there were no major issues. I was finding out at this point that Canadians truly become total dicks when they drink. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, my friends.
Sean Avery got suspended by the NHL, so i didnt bother going to the Stars/Flames game. It was pretty punk calling Elisha Cuthbert "Sloppy seconds" though.
The show was packed. There were a million kids buying Rise Against shit. Kids waited in line for over an hour. Some girl spit on their merch dude, Buck. He has shitty luck with kids. I had a dude try and fight me over 5 fucking dollars tonight too. Some people don't like to pay for anything i guess. Fuck him, at least he didnt spit on me, cause i'd have probably killed him.
When my night was over, i decided to go out since we had a late bus call. After the show i was walking around, and went to a couple bars, and the casino. I definetly got propositioned by a hooker. That hooker was definitely a dude. The chick had a dick, fo sho. That was how my night ended, getting propositioned by a dude dressed like a chick, for expensive sex. Boooooo Canada, boooo to you. JK, i love it up here.

Sand in my Regina pt 2.

So nothing really amazing happened during the show. We sold some shit. I talked some shit. No one tried to make me sniff their vagina phone, so that was cool. However, I saw one of the most amazing beatings of my life. Some dude got socked for doing something un-Canadian, and got pounded for like 10 seconds. It was loud as fuck, i heard him getting hit loudly, from like 30 yards away. Real boring. I felt bad for the kid who got beat up, i wound up finding out he wasn't even the dude that should have gotten punched. After summer bummer.

It's so cold...

So here i am, in Regina, Saskatchewan. It is mind numbingly cold out today. Like 15 degrees cold.
The show last night was funny. The drinking age is 19, so obviously it was fucking amateur hour. I thought that like 5 kids were gonna vomit all over my merch. There was also the girl who held her phone in the front of her jeans, you know, in her bathing suit area. Either way, it rang, got her stoked, and then she was trying to get me to smell her phone. In front of her boyfriend, of course. Gross. There was also a ton of huge frat dudes trying to fight each other, calling each other faggots. It was nuts.
For the most part, everyone was nice, and it was chill. I wasn't too busy last night, so that was cool. We all just wound up hanging out after the show in the dressing room. The crazy meth head local dudes that we met at the bar the other night never showed, so we counted our blessings. I can only imagine how raged those guys would have been. They probably would have tried to hustle everyone with their card tricks, like they tried to do to us.
This morning i woke up after freezing my ass off all night. Got some shit at wal mart, and am now sitting here, killing time until load in. i'll have a fun story at some point i'm sure. i'll probably post again in like an hour, cause i'm fucking bored out of my mind.