2 Table Join, Ambiguous Columns, Aliasing, Active Record

[eluser]syncronos[/eluser]
THE PROBLEM:

The 2 tables I want to join have ambiguous columns (id and name are columns in both the events table and venues table *see below). This is a problem because i need to output both the event name and venue name, but when I JOIN the table, one is over-riding the other. Additionally, when looking in the manual I didn't see an alias function in the database class.

OPTIONS:

Option 1.) Don't use Active Record and alias the columns in the SQL query. I don't prefer this option though; I want AR's escaping, cleanliness, et al--I didn't see how to create aliases with the database class, as I mentioned. I was looking for something like $this->db->alias('table.column' => 'alias'), but to no avail. Does this function exist?

Option 2.) Prefix my database columns in the mysql database: event_name, venue_name, etc so that there are not any duplicates--seems like a hack though.

Ideas? Suggestions? A Solution?

My code is pasted below--thanks in advance,
~Syn

TABLE EXAMPLES:

Code:

events (id, name, venue_id, day, description, price)
venues (id, name, day, street, city, state, zip)

*Notice that both the events table and venues table have duplicate columns: id & name.

MODEL CODE:

Code:

function display_event()
{
    $this->db->select('*');
    $this->db->from('events');
    $this->db->join('venues', 'venues.id = events.venue_id');
            
    $query = $this->db->get();
    return $query;
}

PRINT RECURSIVE

Code:

print_r($query->result());

Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
        (
            [id] => 1
            [venue_id] => 1
            [name] => Venue Name
            [day] => 2009-01-30 22:00:00
            [description] => Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
            [price] => 11.11
            [street] => 123 Magnolia Ave
            [city] => Orlando
            [state] => Florida
            [zip] => 32801
        )

)

*Notice that there is only 1 id and name column for venue, whereas I also need an id and name column for event.