Packing up a sad sad life...

For those of you who don't know I am once again moving out of my parents home and into an apartment herre in Windsor...so no big deal really. The most fun about this move is packing up and finding all sorts of things that seem to linger around your room for no real reason. My main "lingering spot" is directly under my bed. Currently I have found the following items in this location:

1) A Dru Hill CD
2) Hootie and The Blowfish CD- Through Cracked Rearview (featuring the blockbusters "Hold My Hand", "Let Her Cry" and "Only Wanna Be With You")
3) A mismatched pair of socks
4) A medal for being on the 1995 Optimist Club of St. Clair Beach Senior League Soccer Championship team for the 6 PM time slot
5) Marshmallow Shooter (TM) Instructions and "Tips and Tricks"
6) A fake autographed picture of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson at the All-Star Game. (It's their real signatures, just a copy of them...hence the reason it is under my bed)

The sad thing is that now that I've uncovered these gems I can't seem to part with any of them. While they've spent the better part of a decade hidden away, it's almost like extra Christmas presents when I re-find them. They're all going into a box and will be placed back under my bed at the new apartment. It's my own personal time capsule

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. We had a blast when a certain family member asked if Dave Chapelle was the "guy who played in that show with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson?". After a long pause and the realization that they were talking about Uncle Joey/Dave Coulier the laughs didn't stop. Much to the delight of the whole family no one bothered to break out the "I'm Uncle Joey bitch!" lines.

Have a happy and safe New Year, hopefully more pictures/videos soon!

Reading - "The Potato Factory" by Bryce Courtney
Listening to - "Low" by Coldplay

This Is What the Holidays Are All About

...It must be Christmas when I'm huddled around my laptop watching episodes of Entourage. You know you've been filled with the holiday spirit when you watch an episode where Gary Busey describes "emotional confusion" as "running naked backwards through a corn field at midnight". My favourite part of the show are the random celebrity cameos and the name dropping that goes along with it. Example:

Jessica Alba: Hey guys, it's me Jessica Alba
Vince: Hey! Jessica Alba, so good to see you
J.A.: Would you guys like to come to my house for a party tonight. I'm Jessica Alba
Vince: Sure thing Jessica Alba, we'll be there
All in unison: Jessica Alba

I realize this is done to emphasize that the show has the power to draw celebrities such as the aformentioned Alba, but it always reminds me of our university newspaper. The reason being that one of our school newspapers was entirely for jokes, and one day they decided to put a tape recorder into a Student Council meeting and documenting the contents verbatim. The idea behind this was that by taking certain things out of context they would sound much funnier than in person. The favourite on campus was when one member of council with the last name Zwambag (I can't make this up) dropped her last name mid conversation in what made for confusing reading. Little did she know that this one simple act of name dropping spawned all sorts of Zwambag related jokes and even an award for grand party champion.....To make a long story short, name dropping is funny, and so is Entourage.

Christmas is also great because of my Advent calendar. When I got home from New Zealand on December 1st I found one waiting for me on my bed, placed there by a loving mother who has bought me one for the past 25 years..and who was severely threatened the year she thought about stopping the tradition. I'm lobbying heavily to have a yearlong calendar of chocolate. First of all, chocolate is delicious..and secondly, the only time of the year that I actually remember the date is from Dec 1- Dec 24. This is a great educational tool for children of all ages and should be expanded to maximize the learning experience/caffein intake.

In my excitement of learning how to post videos I've decided to add one from my trip to New Zealand as a holiday treat. It features a hungover British girl with a dirty mouth, Andrew talking about bungeeing and how that would affect him; and a discussion on American Thanksigiving as Patty, our American friend, walked through the camera.

Happy Holidays!

Reading: "The Potato Factory" by Bryce Courtenay
Listening To: "Was It You" by Donovan Frankenreiter

Back To Queenstown and Christchurch - November 28, 29, 30...Wrapping this trip up

So I could tell you all about our return to Queenstown or I could sum it up in a few succint points.

Point the first: We stayed in the same room and the same beds as the last time
Point 2: We ran into the same people as last time, and Karl from Ottawa who wore a shirts which read "Can I Take This Snake On The Plane" with an arrow pointing to the crotchal region
Point 3: We went to the same bar and drank the same drinks
Point 4: We saw many mullets and rat tails
Point 5: We had fun

Christchurch may have been a very fun city but for the most part we were all pretty disappointed about the trip ending that we forgot it wasn't over. Seriously though, we had to do all the fun things that one does at the end of the trip. Return the car, get a ride back to the hostel with a lady named D who will never forget us and will gladly drive us anywhere in NZ, get Adam to the airport the day before us, watch bad movies with annoying girls from Ohio, and eat multiple sausage and egg mcmuffins.

That about wraps up the trip, it was an excellent one which I would recommend to anyone. I will gladly pass on all the pertinent info like where to find the best mullets/rat tails, the best beer, the best camper vans, etc.

This means I can now go back to my usual rambling about nothing. I apologize to everyone!























Kilmer's stache on the final day...what a big boy! 

Te Anau/Milford Sound - November 26 & 27

The fun thing about New Zealand is that you can basically drive from one coast to another in about 4 hours. If anyone is actually looking at a map of where we've gone you'd see we went from Queenstown, which is basically on the West Coast, to Dunedin on the East Coast, and now back Te Anau on the West Coast...We are excellent at planning trips and conserving gas..but it had to be done.

Milford Sound may very well be the most tourist travelled destination in New Zealand. Filled with crystal blue water, fjords, waterfalls, dolphins and penguins it's easy to see why. Before we took our day trip we stayed in Te Anau, using it as our home base. Te Anau was a small, laid back town with two bars, a few shops and not much else. This meant one thing....time to check e-mail...Invariably it seems this is what ends up happening when we get bored. Typical conversation goes like this:

Kilmer: What's there to do in this one horse town
Doug: Ha! One horse town
Ads: We could check e-mail
Doug: We just checked it like an hour ago
Kilmer: Oh shut up Doug!
Ads: Your mom checks e-mail
Kilmer: Well how bout we check e-mail, drop some hate, take a nap and then be ready for dinner

This is pretty much how our days off went in small towns. The good thing about Te Anau was running into the girls again. We ended up being directly across the hall from them and they helped us out big time at dinner by making us garlic bread and cookies for dessert. If you're going to meet people while travelling make sure they are able to provide food or booze for you...preferably both.

The next day we got up at the ass crack of dawn to be on our bus trip to Milford Sound. Immediately IPOD's went on and we all fell asleep, much to the dismay of everyone around us. I awoke with Kilmer elbowing me telling me to turn down my music because people were staring, and my snoring wasn't helping. Sure enough there was an angry looking old couple giving me the death stare of all stares. Acting tough I said "So, what do I care"...translation "I'm a scared little boy who doesn't want to offend tourists I will never care again".

The drive from there on out was unreal...We got up to 3000m elevation and the ground was covered entirely in snow. The cruis when we finally got there was great as well...I can't really do it justice so I'll let everyone stare at the pictures....

I'm off to check e-mail


















View from "downtown" Te Anau















Buying stuff for dinner, we cooked once the entire trip.















The view of the lake from our backpackers...early morning 

This is about where I woke up on the bus ride...Mirror Lake. It was worth the nap to get there






























When these guys cut an album this will be the cover that will sell tens of copies 

 

 

The Homer Tunnel, 1 mile straight into the rock...




















Kilmer and Ads, posing with snow for the first time in over a year. Apparently Brisbane is pretty warm or something like that....Suprised you didn't know that















The Kea is a fat parrot-like bird that supposedly makes a noise like "kea"...I say supposedly because it doesn't. It is also supposedly not able to fly..although this one took off pretty well. Other ones just shrug their shoulders and jump to lift their fat bodies off the ground only to fall right back...Damn gravity

 

 

 

 

K-Pod sets up his tripod and earns a new nickname...





















Asian tourists are good at disobeying signs. Here is an one example of a man disobeying a sign that clearly stated in multiple languages "Do Not Stand" on the equipment. Other rules that were disobeyed were "Do Not Chop Andrew's Arm To Get Past Him" and "Do Not Crush Old Ladies from San Francisco Into The Front Railings To Take Pictures"