Eye of the Tiger

Just finished my first session at my new gym - the UBC 'Birdcoop'. Not a bad gym, lots of equipment that is in good nick, lots of benches, lifting platforms, and most people in there seem to stick to the machines.

Anywho, I had my first encounder with a raccoon - a pair of them in fact, climbing up one of the trees outside the entrance to the Hennings (physics) building. All I can say is raccoons are BLOODY HUGE. I thought they were possum or cat-size. No way. Try more like the size of a decent-sized dog. Dusty, Jacqui's parents Smithfield (a stumpy-tail cattle dog, on the left, teaching a rubber snake a lesson) would size up pretty well to the two raccoons I saw.

The ringed tail and white face make them quite distinctive, but their size sure surprised me. Perhaps I should shelve my plans for my evil cat-army of the night, and replace them with raccoons. That is something to ponder.

Now I know American spelling is different to ours back in Oz, but c'mon, how hard is it to spell Hines, when

1. You have it written in front of you on some form of official ID
2. You're given an email address, spelt out, consisting of hines@ blah blah
3. The bloke is standing in front of you spelling his name out.

Sounds simple? Not for some of these Canadians. So far, my Mount Seymour lift pass has me as Andrew Haines and now my new gym membership card has me as Andrew Himes! Both have my photo, so it now appears I have two aliases.

Well, at least its better than "Phonesy", as anyone who was on the last Tour of Duty pub crawl will recall.