Vancouver

After saying goodbye to Brent, I took a flight to Vancouver, British Columbia where I met up with my mom (she flew in from Detroit).

I connected in Calgary, and breathed a sigh of relief upon boarding my second flight. Normally, I obsess about different ways terrorists could bring my plane down.  But, I was in Canada, and who would ever want to attack Canada? 

We got our luggage with few hassles and made our way to the hostel I had booked for the evening.  When we got there, we were greeted by a very nice front desk attendant (Mike) who made each of our weeks when he knocked off between 5-10 years from our respective ages. We were also greeted by several of the other guests.

When I booked the hostel, I had expected to find several twenty-something backpackers eager to explore Canada.  What we got instead were several drunk, middle-aged men eager to creepily smile at us. 

 

After being warned not to go farther than seven blocks left of our hotel, we set out to find a place for dinner. Again, it being Canada and all, things seemed perfectly fine even eight blocks to the left of our hotel (of course, we had to be rebels and test the limits of Mike's warning).  I was kind of disappointed for not running into post-apocalyptic conditions; instead, all we saw was some extra trash on the street.  Have I mentioned I love Canada? 

We ended up having dinner at the London Pub, where we thoroughly enjoyed veggie burgers, salad, and of course, beer.  The beer made us sleepy, so we headed in early and attempted to avoid eye contact with the fellow guests.  They ended up being harmless, and despite our room looking like it might contain a severe bedbug infestation, we got decent sleep.

In the morning, we quickly set out to explore some sites before boarding our cruise to Alaska.  This is what we saw:

Again, have I mentioned I love Canada?

LA

After my shows in Laughlin, I megabus-ed it to Los Angeles.  Can I just say I love megabus?  It's not nearly as scary as Greyhound in that I've yet to encounter someone a. get arrested or b. show me the knife in their pocket (both of which have happened to me on Greyhound), and if that's not enough, the bathroom rocks!  Seeing as I have a bladder the size of a lima bean, I frequent the restroom, well, frequently.  The toilets on Greyhound buses are glorified porta-potties, but on megabus, get this: they flush.  Be impressed, be very impressed.  I was!

 

I stayed with my friend, Brent (who also happens to be a really talented and hilarious stand-up, writer and actor), and we had a blast eating sushi, checking out the much acclaimed Veggie Grill, and giggling on the Santa Monica Pier roller coaster.

Sadly, we also experienced a lot of LA traffic.  

 Also sad?  I didn't have enough time to stalk Joey McIntyre while I was there.  So instead, I just listened to "Please Don't Go Girl" on repeat on my ipod.

Despite the traffic and lack of NKOTB-sightings, I think I might be in love with that city.  Awesome weather, great food and lovely friends - what's not to love?

If only megabus had a direct route from Michigan...

Las Vegas and Laughlin

As I mentioned in the last post, I recently had an out west extravaganza that took me to Laughlin, NV; Las Vegas, NV; Los Angeles, CA; Vancouver, BC; Juneau, AK; Skagway, AK; Whitehorse, YT; Ketchikan, AK and Seattle, WA.

I first flew to Las Vegas for my gigs in Laughlin.  Can I just say that I love flying next to Canadians?  They're so polite and don't hog the armrests.  Although, apparently some of them really like to drink as there were four couples from London (Ontario, that is) who were clearly feeling no pain on my flight.  People don't usually cheer when the drink cart comes around, right?

Our flight was fairly turbulence-filled (complete with a guy in front of me throwing up from motion sickness), and I was quite happy to exit (and get away from the heinous vomit smell that seemed to linger in the air - if only barf smelled like chocolate chip cookies).

I rented a car and headed down to Laughlin where I worked with the hilarious Andrew Norelli.

Our faces in the free circular.  I've officially made it!

The view from my hotel room.  Not too shabby, right?

And a view from inside my hotel room, five minutes after I checked in.  My bags have a way of exploding as soon as I enter. 

When I wasn't telling jokes, I was hanging out on the river walk and taking full advantage of the free buffet (it's kind of disturbing how excited I get for those). 

The Steve Miller Band and Joan Jett were in town on the same weekend, so as you can imagine, there was no shortage of drunk fifty-somethings with mullets walking around the casino.

I also met up with my brother in Las Vegas.  He introduced me to Greens and Proteins, where we enjoyed this delicious vegan pizza.  Not quite free like my beloved buffet, but it was still quite heavenly.  And seeing my brother was great, too!

Adventures in the Pacific Timezone

I've been having an amazing time out west so far! A proper update is in the works, but so far I've been getting vegan pizza with my brother in Las Vegas, hanging with one of my dearest friends in Los Angeles, performing shows, and living it up at the casino (and by living it up, I mean going to the vending machine and watching free cable). 

Now I'm off to Vancouver and Alaska! Can't wait! 

New car!

I got a new (well, new to me, anyway) car!  Here she is:

 
It's amazing to drive without a cracked windshield and broken air conditioner for the first time in six years!  Plus, this car actually has a CD player and hazard lights (unlike my old one which no longer had such things after the tragic break-in of 2007).

Looking for a new car was nothing short of a nightmare.  It was so stressful!  Walking into a car dealership is like playing poker, at which I suck.  Well, okay, I don't totally suck, but I have zero poker face.  If only I could have bought the car online...and for fake money, like I do on Full Tilt.   

Luckily, my good friend, Keith Lenart, taught me how to barter (we had many practice sessions).  And he told me to treat the salespeople like hecklers.  "Don't let them have the last word, and never let them win!" was his advice.

After dealing with several salespeople who either insulted me (one called me "hon" and then implied that I was super privileged with rich parents who bought me a brand new car) or tried to sell me a piece of junk (one honestly tried to get me to buy a car with a dent already in it), I ended up buying my car from a very sweet woman who wasn't in the least bit pushy.

Dealing with her was great, although it was much harder to see her as a nasty heckler because she was so nice.  Plus, the negotiating seemed to take FOREVER and they tried every trick that Kelley Blue Book and every other car website said they would. 

But, in the end, I still was able to get $900.00 off the sale price (it was already reduced by $2,000.00 from the original price).

Here's hoping this one will get to 365,000 miles, too!

Rusty and Running

Not a lot to say about this weekend (but I do have lots of pictures) other than I got to see my dear friend, Rusty:

That's us awkwardly posing after our show at Alexander J's in Flint, Michigan.

I also worked with the always funny (and really nice) Steve Bills at several sold-out shows at the Holly Hotel!

And I ran the Color Run 5K (AKA I inhaled dyed corn starch like it was my job) with my mom for Mother's Day.  The weather was so cold (it was in the 40's and misty), but we still managed to have fun.  I also successfully avoided getting any dye on my white shower curtain when washing all of the color off.  Bonus!