Boy I'm tired.

BUT...life goes on and I'm also incredibly excited to be on the road again with not one, not two, but all members of my little clan as we jet off on a comedy tour/ family holiday through one of my favourite places in the world, British Columbia.

A full debrief on my shenanigans at the unbelievable Banff World Television Festival is coming soon (I'm writing it for my next column) but a few highlights included:

- a half hour meeting with Jon Plowman, head of Comedy at the BBC, the genius behind such shows as Ab Fab, The Office, Extras, Bottom...oh man, I could go on forever rambling them off. And - from my very nieve and fresh-faced opinion - it went rather nicely. Agh!

- meeting Brent Butt, creator, writer and actor (and more than not-too-shoddy stand-up) of Corner Gas.

- extremely fun, friendly and incredibly informative meetings with peeps from Just for Laughs, The Comedy Network and CTV's Comedy branch, plus a couple of tres cool literary agents for film and TV.

- plus another billion amazing people I met, in both pre-organised and random encounters.

My head is spinning.

Immediately after signing off on the fest, I drove back to Canmore, whereupon we packed up the car (after first almost floating off into another realm upon discovering that Laura, my babysitter extraordinaire, had taken it upon herself to clean my BATHROOM! Does the wonder ever end?!) and drove to Calgary, where we crashed my Loose Moose cohorts Stephanie & Jeremy's pad for the eve. At 5.30 the next morning we were all up and at it, out to the airport and onto the plane for the quick journey to Abbotsford (just outside Vancouver).

To be continued...

I want to debrief this all properly, there are so many wild, wacky and ridiculous little details that I want to share with you, but I'm so tired my eyelids kinda feel like they've been coated in antiseptic right now. So for now just a brief highlight/lowlight/featured moment:

I had my first gig of the tour last night in Chilliwack, it was really weird. Namely cos most of the people, despite paying a cover charge for a comedy show, opted to get really drunk and talk loudly through the MC and both of us comics' sets. Then after the show, I was in the bathroom and overheard the following:

Chick 1 - Did you enjoy the show?
Chick 2 - Yeah, but I was here a couple of weeks ago and it was just so much funnier.

Ouch. I've been thinking about that a lot today, as I'm sure you know too, the best comebacks always come to you after the moment. Part of me wishes that I'd gone out and said something like:

"Uh, just so you know...when the audience just talks over the show, it makes it pretty hard to HAVE a good show. I mean, Todd (who opened the show) has been doing this for years, he was on the CRAIG FERGUSON SHOW last week for heaven's sakes! It's not the comics' fault when most of the audience out-shouts the entire act...in that situation, nobody looks funny!"

Either that or:

"I was here a couple of weeks ago and the audience was just so much better."

But of course, I said neither of these things. (And I'm glad - I mean, in my cooler-headed state, I can say that I genuinely believe you shouldn't blame a bad gig on the audience. It's just life - these are just my little hot-headed fantasy revenge sequences after what was basically a below average night.)

Instead, I simply walked straight out of the toilet and asked her how it flushed.

She looked sheepishly at me, and said "Oh, it...it happens automatically."

As she spoke, I heard the flush.

"Oh good! Thanks!"

And I walked away.