Bonus Blast

A few piccies from Casa Loma mentioned in the previous post. Enjoy!

"No Dad, I don't mind if you pay for the meal"

So this next edition of Penguin Post contains another Phil First. That first being, my parents came to visit for a few days. Wahey! We caught a playoff Toronto Marlies ice hockey game at the Air Canada Centre, I introduced my parents to some of my mateys and we grabbed a meal plus checked out the bar of all bars, Panorama! We perused Casa Loma, the only castle like thingymajig in Canada, lucked out at the Hard Rock Cafe and generally had a great time. Still ill mind you. Owww!!!!

Baseball Fever

I just wrote this entire blog and it deleted itself. Dammit! Thus, here is the weeks activities in list form:

Went to baseball game, Boston Red Sox beat the Blue Jays, went to Korean Grill House, had to pay extra to cook raw meat myself, caught flu then strep throat. Thats how super my immune system is!

PLUS went to a place called Tanada (a tanning salon in Canada - genius name.) No tanning of course, you can't fool me into that cancer causing lark.

THEN Went home and Jess (the girlfriend of all girlfriends) made me chicken soup :D So I write to you with a fever allowing me to legitimately claim that I am hot :)

Peace out playa (possibly the most annoying phrase on earth, sure peace is great, but how do you out peace? Why would you want to out peace, isn't peace good?)

Latino Heat

Well what has been going on for the past few weeks. Well I have done a Korean History exam, a lecturer got me drunk, I have been to an International Party in downtown Toronto, got Salsa lessons from one of the sexiest teachers around as well as tasting one of the best shawarmas money can buy. All in all not bad methinks. Let me tell you though, it was a scary experience this Salsa lark. I went to a Salsa club called Acrobat, great place, very swish. However, everyone seemed remarkably good. Too good maybe, especially as the girl I was with by the name of Jess was very exspreienced. I did give it a go though and discovered I had natural talent at the merengue. Up until now i had though that was a fruit :P It was an amazing night out though and I think seeing all that spinning around I may have got the dancing bug. Plus the International party I went to had an amazing view from the roof, so check out the pics from that one above. Thats all the penguin post for this week. I'm off to a Hindu engagement ceremony now. I know what your thinking...gosh he's so cosmopolitan :D Until next time, see yas!

Prod me Prodigy

Excitement all round as I manage to tear myself away from the boringness of work and into the fires of Koolhaus to see Prodigy LIVE! For those of you not in the know prodigy are a bunch of firestarters who would have flown a spitfire in world war 2 given the chance. Quite simply a phenomenom and they were fantastic. Me and my main gal Val dressed hardcore, acted hardcore and tore the roof off the place. Aside from all this I also performed 'what a wonderful world' in a hospital. I was invited. I didn't just wander it and start laying down some hits although there's an idea. Any record companies out there, if you're looking for a headline act look no further than the Sai (Ba) Band. Phenomenal beats, phenomenal style and they have a drum. Its quite big and its pretty heavy. It's a proper drum. So my suggestion for today, put on a bit of dance electronica and let your hair down or perform for your local hospital. Or even do both. A big up (note this expression is not normally used by me) to all my mateys back home. Hope you are enjoying your Easter hols.

A little piece of Scotland

I'm fresh off a phenomenal birthday party for one of my best canadian mateys, Val, which involved me and Joe on stage doing 'Hey Jude' on karaoke. It failed to compare however to Val's tremendous rendition of hit me baby one more time, which involved costumes, dodgy looks from the karaoke oraganiser and her brother rocking out (I believe that is the technical term).

Last night it was the penultimate day before Joes 21st, so in time honoured fashion we took in a Scottish Gig. We saw Belle and Sebastien who were actually really good. The lead singer looked like a mime artist, but heck you can't have everything. It was down at the Docks, which sounds shady and underground. Last time I was there I was frisked. This time I escaped being felt up and managed to take in a great concert. Beer prices in Canada lead a lot to be desired however. 7 dollars for a can of Keiths, what is the world coming too. That was pricier than a G and T, my tipple of choice.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!

Celebrity entrails

Very soon I'm sure to become a celebrity in Canada. I have now been on Canadian TV twice, most recently appearing in a trailer for the Royal Canadian Air Farce - the premier satirical comedy show on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). I had to pretend I was talking to an uber happy Canadian TV presenter before he turned round and spoke to the world wide audience of around 10 million. Check out photos of the studio above.

So thats was the celebrity, here is the entrails - I went to see Body Worlds 2 at the Ontario Science Centre. It was created by that guy who plastinated dead people and turned them into works of art. It was fascinating stuff, but a little creepy. They even had a dead person fencing!

Finally, I was shown this patriotic American Film in the only OmniMax cinema in Ontario. I feel it did not affect me in any way. By the way, have any of you considered joining the US Air Force, its a great opportunity? You get to blow stuff up like tanks and such.

The world is a funny old place!

QUICK FENCING UPDATE:

I have been given a new nickname. Many of you know me as the Penguin Master, many of you refuse to call me that because you believe it is embarassing. Fair dos, but it costs you when birthdays and christmas come around. However, at fencing I am now known as the Ripper for my unorthodox new stance, which looks darn cool. It also gives me the excuse to say when I win "You've been ripped."

INJURY UPDATE:

While ripping I hurt my thumb and made one of my fingers numb for several days. My thumb was bleeding from under the nail. Nasty stuff, but I battled through the injury and won the bout.

LIFE UPDATE:

Today I had a lecture in one of my courses by a cross dresser. Yes you heard that right, will the hilarity of this place never end. He is a Canadian Eddie Izzard and a pretty good lecturer at that. Its not every day you can say something like that.

GRADE UPDATE:

In the style of Ryan I will be bragging slightly via the internet. 94% in my take home exam for philosophy. WOOHOO!!!

Ice Ice Baby dun dun dun dur dur dur

I would just like to take this opportunity to welcome Patrick, a brand new exchange student to the posse, he studies in England, originally from Germany and lives in Brussels. Continental or what. So last weekend we has two little jauntys. The first involved Republik, a rock club in downtown Toronto. Joe, Patrick and me were meeting some other dudes inside the club so we get in. We then go to the coat check, bare in mind its cold and snowy out so we are wearing big coats.

"Sorry guys the coat check is full"

translates into:
You are going to have to walk around in a crowded rock club with Toronto's so called cool crowd carrying your ridiculously oversized coats under your arm and looking like prize plonkers!

So we enter looking like prize plonkers as expected and set up base during a system of a down song by the bar. Boy do they know how to make barmaids in Canada. They are very tall, very hot, but in a stripper sort of way and they wear very and I mean VERY revealing clothes. So we stood by the bar for the while taking in the ambiance of the place. I then went to get the first round in and who should serve me, but the hottest and tallest bar maid there was. When giving me my drinks she winked at me provocatively. I decided not to tip and therefore fall for her clever flirty game. 1-0 I thought as I walked away with the beers triumphantly. Besides the beers were pricey despite being paid for in canadian dollars.

Two hours later we met up with the other 3 people we were originally supposed to hang with. One was German (Cosi from the Christmas holiday), one was Canadian (Dianna who last year went on exchange to Stoke) and the other was tanned (I forget his name) more than David Dickinson himself. He was a bloke as well. The two girls were great dancers although Joe, Patrick and I did a mean shake rattle and roll and may have shown them up.

The night ended when they decided they would make there own way home and Joe, Pat and me wandered off into the moonlight, and then into a taxi and then back into Stong for a kip.

The following night me, Joe and Patrick decided we would hit the town again. This time we headed for the C lounge, a popular bustling night spot. Inside the place was made entirely of ice. Not the toilets of course, that would be silly. However, the toilets were very confusing as they had stand ups in stalls and it wasn;t clearly labelled and there was some bloke touching up girls' make up. It was all very odd. The ice lounge however was great, they even gave you complimentary coats when you go in, however, it did turn me into a walking Smirnoff Ice advert. It was warm nonetheless. Inside the centrepiece was none other than an ice penguin. It was really really cool, much like that scene from Die Another Day, not the best Bond film by any means, but a passable effort. Check out the camera hi-jinks we got up to in there when let loose with a camera. On the way home Joe sang songs by Snoop Dogg (ironically of course) and we witnessed two fights.

Everythings BIG!

Just realised forgot to mention how I became pregnant (mentioned in previous post). It reads from bottom to top you see. In Stong we had a game where everyone was issued with a condom. You were then ordered to keep it on your person at all times and if someone were to discover you without it you would be infected with an STD or become pregnant. It was the final stages of the game before Jerry got me. Darn you Jerry! How am I supposed to support a kid with all this student debt?

It was very exciting a couple of Fridays ago. I saw my first real celebrity in downtown Toronto and I was within a metre. It was the one and only Jimmy Hart (Phil assumes the audience has blank looks on their face). He is the most famous wrestling manager of all time! From WWE (the blank faces of the audience have now turned into a scowl). Well I was excited! He was at EDGE, the radio station with the name that makes it sound hard. Apparently it has the most listeners in the world, I dispute that when you have such quality programming from radio Leicester. Where else can you laugh at old people talking about their favourite vegetable and such like?

Later that evening I found myself at Wayne Gretzkys, its a restaurant owned by the worlds most famous hockey player. After my main course I was intrigued by the colossus chocolate cake mentioned and so ordered a slice. It was flippin massive, almost as big as the deer, check out the pic. No wonder people put on wait in North America. Apparently that is just for one person. One person...that could feed thousands...bloody ridiculous...and why is there not a sparkler in the top of it? Guess you can't have everything.

Longest Blog entry EVER!

I was recently shot and became pregnant. Despite what they say I am not mad but in fact have been involved in several interesting games in Stong - my humble abode. First up, assassins a rip roaring game involving the brutal murder of Stong citizens until only one remains. I won't bore you with the rules, but suffice to say I was murdered with toothbrush in hand at 1 in the morning by an American football player. Its not even a real game, bloody US football...stupid rip off...

I'm not bitter about it honest. Currently no champion has yet been crowned and yesterday Joe was brutally murdered in the lift by a girl. The same girl I might add who called me flippin australian, how many times must I tell them, I know I have the bod of a surfer dude and my attitude towards life is somewhat gnarly, but please I'm English. Not that there is anything wrong with being Australian mind. I mean I know my platypus from my dingo and I have always been a fan of the outside swimming pool, but seriously. The worst is when people question my ethnicity:

Random person (probably canadian) : "Oh your Australian"
Phil: "No actually I'm English"
Random person (probably still canadian) : "Are you sure?"
Phil : "Yes, yes I am"

I mean seriously I think I would know. In fact it is multicultural week here soon at York Canada and they have loads of countries flags up in the shopping centre on campus, but they don't have the union jack up. They have Sweden, Brazil...(Phil continues excessively long list)...they even have Nepal, but not the Union Jack. Thats racism! They have the rainbow gay flag up in there as well, thats not even a country. Sure, the Union Jack is on the Aussie flag and the original Canadian flag, but still it deserves pride of place on its own. I swear some of the flags they have are made up. I mean what flag is green white and red with little stars all over it? Unless Italy has recently jazzed up their flag and I have not been informed.

Take a short breather, its been a long blog entry and I should be asleep by now. Make a cup of tea, preferably green. In fact I tried green tea ice cream the other day, very...well..milky in taste. Ironic really seen as you don't tend to put milk in green tea.

Drip, drip, drip, drip, ca-caw ca-caw. Do you hear that? Thats nature that is. Its all part of the canadian experience, the rolling hills, chipmunks, the odd bear, snow, mountain dew (not the drink) and squirrels. Talking of squirrels I asked this hard looking canadian lumberjack bloke recently what his favourite colour squirrel was. Its something I often think about because they have these really cool black squirrels over here. He replied and I quote:

"My favourite colour squirrel is brown"

Now correct me if I'm wrong but no squirrel is brown, you have grey, black and red. What plonker answers brown. I tell you its a shocking day when someone tells you he loves brown squirrels. If brown squirrels had been discovered you can guarantee that 15 minutes of programming would have been dedicated to it on East Midlands today. I ain't never seen no brown squirrel. Sorry, I digress, nature isn't it grand. Over here you get to see it up close and personal and I mean personal. Allow me to tell you a little story. A couple of weekends ago I found myself on the 'emerging global leaders retreat'. I applied to go on it because it sounded poncy and I can do poncy, so I went along. It was fully paid hotel accomodation at a ski resort, free food, free drink and interesting lectures on ethics. I had my own balcony, it was that cool! So after a hard days group activities we broke for dinner. The dining hall was in a luxury conservatory, made of glass, obviously! Not the perfect place for throwinjg stones, but perfect for a buffet and what a buffet. Anyhows we are all eating when I see a whacking great deer outside the window. Now this thing is over 5 foot tall and it looks a little stressed. It is sort of running around outside in a zig zaggy motion. We all carry on eating when suddenly no more than two metres in front of me the flippin deer jumps through the window into the dining room. Now no windows were open, it was cold out, so glass flies everywhere and buffet tables are knocked over, girls are crying and I'm trying to get a pic. I failed misrably although pics should hopefully be on the way. So there is this whackin great deer in this tiny dining room with us all and its going mental and stampeding. First thing it does is head for the bar. I figured he was after a night cap, but then realised deer often were t-total. Not a lot of people know that. This bloke grabs a chair and locks the deer in a headlock to prevent it from killing us. He then, and I didn't think this was the wisest move, forces it out into the lobby. It carries on stampeding and then its shot. Real shame for the deer that. If only he'd stayed in the forest and just preyed on lost skiers. We shed a tear before tucking into our venison lunch the following day. See the photo of the window the deer came through above just to prove I am not lying. Mental it twas.

On a lighter note, later that same evening I was in the piano bar and who should be sitting there playing the piano, but one of the guys from Bjorn Again, the biggest ABBA tribute band in the world. I even had a little chat with him. Great guy! He plays a mean ABBA medley!

Breaking News

George Galloway has been voted out of the celebrity big brother house. I once saw him in real life on the top of a double decker bus shouting 'no more war' outside my house. I tried to tell him there wasn't much war in Leicester, but it didn't seem to make much difference. More news - a T-shirt from the brand new stool store has been sold. Thats right folks, the trend is now spreading the nation, so don't delay buy a t-shirt today. Sure the t-shirt sold was to my sister, but thats still success, so BUY NOW to avoid disappointment. Not because they might sell out but because I'll be disappointed if I only sell the one :( if this guilt trip has worked on you comment below and then buy a t-shirt. Anyhows the remainder of the Christmas holidays involved me going ice skating for the first time in my life. It looks much easier than it is, however by the end i was zipping around in a circle like nobodys business. Whaddya mean I'm supposed to glide!!??! I also attended an improvisational comedy show and monsters inc on ice. Two words to describe that, phe nomenal. Where else can you see hundreds of monsters dance around on ice and partake in as much candy floss as you can handle. Funny things monsters.

Boxing at the Falls

This blog is now rated phils most popular blog of all time with 153 profile views and people viewing it from all over the world. A big hello to all of Joes friends and family who use this to find out what he's been up to. For those of you who have not checked joes blog you can link to it from this very site. Warning: he is still on the first day he arrived on Canada, so he has a little catching up to do. Anyhows back to Canada. Now I know its nearly February but I know waht you have been wondering, 'Sure Phil we know what you did at Christmas, but where did you spend boxing day?' Well that is a great question and the answer is I was at Niagra Falls, not to be confused with that other well known waterfall that flows upwards...whats its name...Viagra falls, thats it! Fun was had by all including a whistle stop tour of the marvel adventure park. Where else can you play the incredible hulk miniature golf and go in 4 different haunted houses? And they say that the area around Niagra is commercialised tsk tsk.

Merry Christmas

Now I'll admit, I got a little behind. But hey you can now buy innuendo-esque so it can't be all bad. By the way on the way back from Quebec we drove through Avril Lavignes home city, now there is an interesting 'Phil Fact' for you. The town is called Brockville, it sounds gritty and emo, just like her and her 'skater boi' friends. Anyhows back to the matter in question, Christmas. It was weird being away from the U of K however i had a fantastic time. I was off to Orillia in Northern Ontario to stay with some second counsins of Joes, who were very nice. One of them even looked like Santa himself which made everything that bit more exciting. Orillia was very snowy hence the picture of lots of snow. My first stop in Orillia was a somewhat unusual one for me, a casino. Now I have never gambled before, unless you count that strip poker game last term where only my dignity was lost. Joe and I were dropped off for 3 hours, so we agreed we would only spend 15 dollars each and any winnings, we were optimistic, would be split straight down the middle. Joe lost all his money! I however found good fortune in the form of a munsters slot machine. I popped in my little ticket and spun the reels. I got 3 grandpa munsters, and it started chinging.

"Ka-ching Ka-ching" - Shania Twain

I ended up going from 15 dollars to $127.50. The thing about a Phil is we know when to stop and I cashed out. Huzzah, but I had to give Joe $60 in order to complete our gentlemens agreement. We then enjoyed a lovely buffet lunch.

Christmas day itself was a quiet affair, we spent time with the family, not my own, but hey it was family. They also had two dogs and a rabbit although all were on loan. Check out the contents of the cool stocking they got me! My favourite present was a wind up gorilla! The big jose and me also played air hockey with the two 7 and 8 year old girls. We lost, darn they were good! I also spent much of Christmas day in a hot tub outside in the snow. Unfortuantely I had to wear swimming trunks that were far too big for me and a lilac, yes lilac bathrobe. In fact I met the whole of Joes extended family via webcam while wearing a lilac bathrobe. Oh the humility.

New Online Store

When is a bench not a bench? When its a stool! Inspired by my love of bench clothing the cube proudly presents the first in a number of new online stores. Why not buy some ironic merchandise today. It makes an ideal christmas present, birthday present, valentines day present or just an easy way to say stool. The cube is ever expanding, soon we'll have to add a seventh side!

http://www.cafepress.com/stool