The Testy Chef

woop woop!

2007-01-28T20:47:00.000-08:00

It is 21 days till I leave!
Hurrah!
It is going to be so good to see green things and breath air with the smell of trees and flowers again.
Lots of memories...

Like, for instance, a couple of nights ago when we all hiked out to castle rock for the first time. We left around 9pm and got back around 3am. It was fantastic. Here is the view around 2am-ish from the trail.

When we got to the top of the rock, ther is a part where you can dangle your legs off over the edge and be hanging out over the full height of the rock, about 600 feet or something like that. Pretty breathtaking. Here is a photo of the rock with a little yelloe guy drawn in to give a sense of scale.

Yea! It was fun!

Honey dipped, gold plated Jesus

2007-01-08T01:37:00.000-08:00

I had the best day on Sunday. Let me describe it to you.
I started out working on my robot costume, which I am building for my upcoming birthday party next week. Robot building is very relaxing as well as rewarding.
Then I drove my shuttle for 3 hours in the beautiful sunshine, window down, carefree waving to all the people walking.
Then rugby game time. Got to see some good takedowns, and some of my friends tackle some kiwis.
Good sport!
Next was penguin watching down at Hut Point where about 200 or so had gathered. The adelie penguin is the hyperactive, spasmatic sibling in the family, and there was much penguin antics to observe. It turns out that everything an adelie penguin does is cute. So after about an hour of being hit with wave after wave of cuteness we went and ate a big pile of beef.
THE END!

rip! rip!

2006-12-21T03:55:00.000-08:00

It sneaks up every year.

Well here is an update. Tim, this will answer the number of different and somewhat conflicting rumors you have heard.
One, I am planning to stay longer than I thought, just not all at once. If I can get a job as a shuttle driver next year, I will do so and hold it for probably that year and the next.
Two, I did apply for a slightly better position here as a prep cook, and I was sadly passed over. I will tell you all details later should you want to know. I will remain an ambitious pot scrubber and plate rinser for the remainder of my time here.

We just got our first e-mails regarding our redeployment, which is the first step in getting out of here. Many of us share the sentiment that while we are excited about coming back next year, we really want to leave now and get back to the normal world.
Christmas is this next weekend, and so that means lots of preperation around the galley area for the next couple of days. Our thanksgiving was lots of fun last month so I have similar expectaions for x-mas. Lots of voulenteers come out and help, so the work load is alot lighter, and we get to do different food, which is a treat after the continual onslaught of chicken casserole this and beef carbonnade that.
Also the coming of christmas heralds the coming of the new year, which in turn calls attention to the fact that it will soon be my birthday, which is practically in the middle of january, which makes it only a couple of weeks till we are all in Christchurch partying it up.

The day before yesterday I got to go on my first, (and sadly probably last) boondoggle. A boondoggle is "morale" work trip that usually gets you somewhere cool, doing something cool while still under the pretense that what you are doing is actually something useful. The stellar axis project is someting you may want to google, they probably have more pictures and info about what this all is, but anyway the gist of it is this gal, Leta Alleghany who is a large landscape artist got a grant to set up these largish colbalt blue balls made of fiberglass to represent a portion of the southern sky during the solstice, which is actuall today. The big blue balls are of different sizes depending on the lumens of each star, the largest being 4'(Sirus) down to about 1' across. The pattern was laid out with GPS by an international team of consultant scientests and Leta herself. Our task was to further secure the 50 smallest balls so that they would not blow away in the wind that they were expecting the last couple of days. The first we saw of the field it was just at white-out conditions, so the effect was that the balls were just floating in front of us in space. Also with no frame of scale, it looked as if they could be huge, just like looking at the side of a galexey or someting. Once you got among them, you could see just how big everything was though, so I spent alot of time rolling around on the ground trying to imagine them huge and planetary. It was probaly the coolest thing I have done while I am down here, and I think the best boondoggle that has been or will be offered all season. I scored. The other cool thing is that I get to be listed in the project credits for doing my small part. So should I ever decide to break into the "careful placement of large geometric objects to enhance the natural landscape as well as make some fanciful statement about our place in the universe" scene, I will have a reference.

The distintive rock formation in the middle of the screen is Castle Rock, about 3 miles up the penninsula from MCM, Scott Base is just visible down and to the left from there as a blob of green buildings, and Ob Hill would be the next thing you would see if the picture continued any more to the left. You can see we were pretty far out from base on the sea ice. I think I was standing behing Sirus when I took this.

Well I guess it's just merry christmas to everybody, hope everybody has a good, quiet, peaceful one with family and loved ones.

give it up

2006-11-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

for turkey and turkey parts!
Ah yes the smell of turkey is in the air, filling my quivering nostrels with treptiphene induced anticipation of the 1200 pounds of gobble gobble we are about to proff up to the community organism. Today is in fact the big day, as with all holidays, we must wait untill the nearest saturday to celebrate and here we are. I was up late last night and could not sleep in this morning, so here I am in the computer kiosk updating my blog at 7:30.
I have not updated in a while I guess, as erin reminds me every so often, but I have been extremly busy, plus nothing really of note has happened latley. But I suppose that given the month or so that has passed between postings my life must have changed somewhat so here goes the update.

Well my friends and I are all getting along, I think the last blog was right before mainbody, and I have made some new friends from that group, but my main core of friends still is the winfly people. After meeting so many people it is hard to care about a few more. Erin knows what I am talking about. I have not been nearly as active a I thought I would be in terms of hiking and getting outdoors. It is pretty much go to work, come home, relax for a while, maybe go out for an hour or two, but 90% of the time its reading or a movie, then to bed cuz' nothing sux more than being tired when you are scrubbing pots 10 hours a day.
I am definitly feeling the effects of being in antarctica this long without the normal world to nourish and feed me. Meaning I miss home, and the ratio of thinking "what am I going to do when I get out of here" and "gee, antactica is so dang cool" is tipping.
Here is a schedule of a typical week:
MONDAY
go to work. scrub. wipe. drink coffee. wipe some more. come home. watch bad movie. read. go to bed.
TUESDAY
go to work. again with the wipe wipe. come home. work at the greenhouse for a while. read. go to bed.
WEDNESDAY
go to work. wipe. wipe. come home. drink some fine black velvet. come up with some crazy movie ideas with Devin. storyboard those ideas. laugh. read. go to bed.
THURSDAY
go to work. today in addition to the wipe I will scrub. and I will be inventive in my wiping and scrubbing technique. come home. think, "ah, today is almost friday, which is almost saturday, which is the day before sunday, which is my day off". watch tv. go to sauna with crazy people and get naked. go to bed.
FRIDAY
go to work. make jokes about the vast, VAST, quantities of meat that is consumed here on station. it is a meat carnival. a gathering of the meats. ask the cooks how they feel about all this meat. wipe. come home. party. its friday. that means burger bar at gallaghers. foosball. airhocky. billiards. shuffleboard. the house of games. sauna. naked. go to bed.
SATURDAY
go to work. work fast. get done with work. think "that wasn't so bad" "I could stay for more". go home. party. or maybe just a movie. go to bed.
SUNDAY
ahhhh a change... savor brunch, stack my tray with enough food to last me till 6o'clock and retreat to my room to watch the Sunday lineup of amazing movies and laze around in my fuzzy slippers. hmmm, today I might take a hike... nah, laying down is much better. think, "shit, it's 3. I only have 9 more hours of sunday left?", forget it and continue to be lazy. Maybe read, or nap, or both. whatever, its sunday and as we all know, sunday rules.

OK thats all I got
Happy Thanksgiving everybody, enjoy the company of your respective friends and family, remember to tell them you love them, then give them a hug, and a real hug, not one of those hugs where you stick you butt out so your junk dosen't touch.

Mainbody Update

2006-10-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

LOOKING SW TOWARDS THE ROYAL SOCIETY RANGE. NOTE THE DISTORTION AT THE HORIZION LINE. DUE TO THE EXTREME COLD, IMAGES STRETCH AND INVERT SORT OF LIKE A MIRAGE.

So mainbody is pretty much all here. The times of quiet and privacy are gone. Work is much busier, we have about double the DA's and cooks running around. So far all the new people seem cool, but it will be nice when they all know what the hell they are doing and are more of a help than a hinderance.
I really felt more at home when the new people got here, it was a sort of sophmore syndrome, where you are the one that knows whats going on both in terms of work stuff and the social scene. Definitly I am still maininly hanging out with the winfly people from work. It seems like we are all about the same level of crispy at this point.
We got our 3rd and 4th roommate here yesterday morning and now have a full room. One is in cargo and the other is the greenhouse tech for mainbody. Maybe we can get the inside line on choice veggies.
I have been pretty sick for the last couple of days and it has been pretty much sleeping in bed and reading for 48 hours straight. I did help Erin a little bit do the sunday run, cleaning the bars and such after saturday night partys as part of my voulenteering efforts to get a janitor job next year.
Life continues at its normal pace here in general though.
Hanging out with friends or just watching movies in the room. It is a fine line to have a lot of fun staying out with your friends and going crazy not getting enough rest though. If I had the energy I would be out till 2 every night.
The new people that I hang out with the most are all from the west coast mainly in portland actually, so we talk about seeing each other in the real world.
I cannot really beleive that my time down here is already almost a third over with.
Well thats all I got for now folks... its back to bed for me so I can go wash dem dishes tomorrow.

Winfly

2006-09-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

Winfly is drawing to a close here. On tuesday we will get our first planeload of new arrivals from Chch.
Winfly has been a very laid back experience. With 400 some odd people here it has been very slow and quiet. You can always get a computer, do your laundry and find some private time whenever you want it. This is all about to change drastically.
In about 10 days the population will roughly double in size. This means that the base will be active, really active, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Some new folks I have talked to have expressed an anxiety with the approach of a tidal wave of people. All I know is it will be crazy. This is a particulary busy year for the NSF it seems. There is a new project being started this year here called A.M.A.N.D.A. or atomic muon and neutrino dector array, I think.
It will be packed with people up and about all the time. I am working at the burger bar here on station a couple of nights a month and with all these people here I could be potentially make $100 bucks in tips a night.
Also we get 2 more roommates sometime this next week, and we just finished rearranging our room to accomodate the new guys a little more. It's very cramped but we still have single beds (no bunkbeds) and have managed to carve a lounge space out of the remaining space.

I will have my first voulenteering experience in a couple of weeks as a janitor.
I am pretty sure that this is the job I want next year. I really like the independance of the job, and since I know 2 janitors this year it seems the most likley. For backup apps, I think I will apply for the greenhouse tech. That would be my dream job, or maybe somthing is housing (dealing with resident housing issues in some capacity) or possibly supply (there is cold supply for food, central supply for office supplies and other things, and some other supply I dont know yet). I realize that it is only 6 weeks in, but I really want to come back, so the sooner I am sure I can come back the happier I will be.

The weather has been beautiful here the last couple of days. Yesterday I went X-country skiing up towards Castle Rock, a formation up on the Ross Ice Shelf side of the island. It was windy and cold, but unbeleivably beautiful. Everything was pristine glorious sunshine, and you could see all the Royal Society Range crystal clear. It was fun to be on skis again, if only for a short while. We got pretty cold fast and had to turn back after only about 45 minuites.

Well, mainbody should be crazy, but fun. I think if anything the time will just fly by even faster. The weeks seem to be flying by so far. I start the week and before I know it it's saturday.

Greenhouse Fun

2006-09-21T02:41:00.000-07:00

So in order to break up the monotony of washing dishes and picking up after the residents of Mctown in general, we DAs are periodically tasked with an odd assignment every so often.

It can be something unexciting as shoveling the snow off the steps around station (not to be knocked though, as it gets you outside), to todays task: working in the sweet-ass mctown greenhouse.

Working with the greenhouse maven, Karen, we sorted and harvested the lettuce that was ready (ripe? can lettuce be ripe?) into big trash bags to be served at tomorrow night's dinner.

All items in the greenhouse are grown using a large hydroponic system. Film feeding is the way the plants receive nutrients. Meaning that the plants roots are being constantly washed by a thin film of neutrient rich water solution fed up to one end of the long 15' PVC pipe by pumps and gravity runs it past the whole row of whatever plant they happen to be growing at the time.

The solution is checked and corrected as needed, several times daily by Karen to ensure that the PH is right (4.9-7.9 or so) and in some of the troughs, that the temperature is right. The various stations are kept full of water by a main water tank that delivers water as needed though a system of tubes, pumps, and manifold stations.

Misters keep the humidity up in the rooms, as the plants would wilt and without proper healty leaves, the plants would crash and die. But even with the misters, the leaves still wilt some so it is a little tedious.

Anyway,
it was a very welcome diversion to the everyday actvity here. Check the usual photos and videos at Flickr and UTUBE for more.

Bowling

2006-09-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

We have a 2 lane bowling alley here on station, and last night was a DA bowling night. Much fun was had by all. I bowled a 103, pretty decent if I do say so myself. It was a pretty fun night alltogether, after the bowling was done we went back to the 155 lounge and played pool and got crazy, leaping around on the furniture and knocking it all over the place. We got a whole 2 noise complaints.

Nothing bonds like alcohol and some late night schnianiganns.

so

2006-09-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

so whats happening?

I wish I would hear more from you all. I miss everybody. especially you

Shannon &

Alyse and Klass.

send me photos

Life of a rock of ice may seem interisting, but live on the plain old rock is sweet too.

Right now I'm listining to belle&sebastian
There're rad.
+
I'm
drunk...

Life here is nice.

Adjusting is hard.

My job requires being around people pretty much all the time.

since I am a hermit, that is not so cool.

However, pretty much everyone is interesting, so that somewhat compensates for their intrusivness.

Shannon,
run around outside and talk to your sheep for me.

A&K,
pick up E&I
and toss them about.

We have neither

sheep

nor

children

here.

really I miss home

but in a strange way

like a photograph I want to paint

or visit

or just look at.

Dinner

2006-09-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

mmm, delicious beef tenderloin..
I realize that it may look like we exclusivly eat beef, not chicken. Well, I guess we do eat alot of beef.

SIB

2006-09-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

This one's for my sister, regarding something none of the rest of you could ever, or want to ever, understand.

Dinner

2006-09-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

I didn't really eat dinner for a couple of days, but here again is a tasty dinner pic.

Tonights dinner was some flavorful flank steak and rice & raspberry mousse pie for dessert.

SaturdayNight Party

2006-09-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

Last night was my party night, and woooweee it was a blast.
We kicked things off classy at the coffee house where I had some FineTawnyPort, which was not all that fine, ate some cheese that the bartender Troy had provided and played some dominos and UNO. Then things moved to Gallaghers where I got down.
Here are some pictures to help you envision the scene.

A good time was had by all.

Dinner

2006-08-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

I have decided to start posting a daily photo of what I had for dinner. This, I hope, will generate comments and speculation. Both on the quality and consistincy of my dinners as well as to satisfy any doubts about whether or not I am eating well.

Tonights dinner was a fine New York strip steak with potatos and a salad. yum.

Life on the Seventh Continent

2006-08-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Life here is not so different than at home. Except that its pretty much always -20 outside. And you live in the same building that you work in. And you eat chicken every day.

When I was first researching this trip, I had a mental picture of M.A.S.H. only always covered in snow. Definitly not multiple bars, giant dining hall, movies, central heating, gyms, saunas, and all the rest.

Getting used to the idea that you are in one of the most secluded places on the planet (and there ain't no way your getting off in under 6 months unless you lose a leg) is alot easier to take if you have a sauna to stretch out in after a big fat meal of chicken, a workout, and a shower, to be followed by a movie and a cold beer.

I have really only had one moment where it was a searing releazation that I was really on the south end of things. Then I went to dinner and I was fine.

Every day there is something to do here on base. You could keep yourself busy untill 11 every night easy, so the problem really becomes making sure you get enough rest and taking time for yourself to keep your sanity.

Fortunatly the dorms are pretty quiet all of the time, at least this drom, so getting away just in your own space is pretty easy.

Last night I went to Southern Exposure, the "real" bar on base. They have a hand shuffle board that is really cool, a nice pool table, and of course drinks and music.

New video and photos are up as of today on utube&flickr

Man on the street

2006-08-29T02:10:00.000-07:00

Several people have asked me if I am going to do interviews with my youtube site. This, I say to myself, is a swell idea.

So,
if you have a question (presumably about Antarctica) that you would like me to ask to random people,
silly er serious

please e-mail them to me.

ada312b@yahoo.com

thank you

Videos

2006-08-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

I now have videos on the web, check em' out at:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=fanciful

more photos are up at the flickr site as well

Chicken

2006-08-24T02:58:00.000-07:00

We have chicken in everything.

The pasta,

The salad,

As the main course,

I wouldn't be suprised if it turned up in my bed to wish me a good morning.

Yes,
Lots of chicken.

Well, already the second day down and the concerns I had yesterday are aliviated.
The routine is not so hard to master, and I feel like it is already becoming second nature.
Kind of nice to be back in the kitchen. Now let's do the best to dillute myself to keep up that attitude.

Anyway, the newest photos are up at flickr. It's an exciting VIRTUAL TOUR set, as per request of my parents.

DA'n

2006-08-23T03:12:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day reporting to the galley. All in all it was very overwhelming. Always with kitchens, it is that way untill you figure out where all your shit is. Untill you get your little routine.

The sooner I slide into that groove, the happier I will be.

Everybody I work with is a little quiet and reserved. It seems like they are all feeling somewhat the same way I do.

Right now Erin and I are trying to stay up late to get adjusted to the time zone here, never really had a chance to catch up in chch. We are zombies right now, waiting for our laundry to get done, then its the sheets for me.

I now have Flickr

2006-08-22T01:11:00.000-07:00

Check out my album of travel pics at Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetestychef/

Then bookmark that sunuva.

ICY ICE NICY NICE

2006-08-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

Yes indeed, it is very,very nice.

We arrived here on the freakin' 7 continent at about 12:45 our time(that's 5:45 SPT, only one day earlier). Getting off of the plane was unreal. It is one of those things that will be burned into my brain untill I go senile. Nothing is like here. Except maybe the north pole. But that isn't even a real continent. So unbeleivably desolate. The landing field was this massive plain of snow and behind it in the distance is this massive range of mountains in a line. The sun was just setting (12:45pm) and the yellow red glow was streaking throught the clouds illuminating them. Twilight here this time of year lasts about an hour and a half. Today was a condition 3, which means it was nice.

We came in to the mess hall, which is where I will be working, had 1 more briefing, met with our department supervisor, got our room assignments and set about getting, uh, settled.

My boss Sally is cool, a frisky little woman, very nice.

My roommate Jessie is very down to earth, also very nice.

My room is right across the hall from the sauna, showers and in the same building that I work in, which means that I don't have to suit up every day to commute, and that's nice too.

nice nice nice
now some photos...

No worries mate

2006-08-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

Now in NewZeland!

Christchurch is a beautiful city, very english, everyone is very friendly. I feels a little weird to be the one with the accent, people giving you weird looks or constantly saying, "excuse me?". Yesterday we arrived in the country through Auckland, the POE and then flew down to Christchurch (aptly named, there are about a hundred churches and half of the stores are closed on Sunday) where we spent the remainder of the day wandering around and looking at the sites and shops. There is this little coffee shop right down the block from where we are staying with a nice little patio area where a cup of tea or coffee (they have amazing coffee here) buys you a front row seat for people watching or soaking up the spring sunshine.
Yes its spring here, to give you an idea, the camelias are blooming and some cherry trees are blooming, everything else is pretty much bare.

We felt like real tourists yesterday, we were taking pictures of what would be considered the native pigion, which is actually more of a petite seagull, except its call sounds like a screaming baby, we mistook a power box for a trash can, and tried to flush the toilets by poking the only thing that looked like a handle, which was actually the part where the water came out.

I have pictures to come, no opportunity to download them here, that should be in a couple of days at the earliest, the soonest we will fly out is tomorrow, but we are all praying that we will be delayed here in chch for at leat a couple of days.

I'm off to the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) to get outfitted for big fuzzies.

Bye-bye

2006-08-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

It is my last day on Bainbridge before I make the big flight on down. I am trying to take in everything, to burn as much of this place into my brain as possible. All my stuff is out of my house except what I am bringing down with me to the ice, my room has an echo now.

Today I am busy downloading a bunch of tv shows from itunes and later I am going to hang with my friends from the island for one last time. We had a gong away party on Sunday that was a big ol fun drunken time. Colin's parents are a couple of party animals, they busted out the grappa and limonada, and proceeded to get smashed.

It will be in the 50's when I get down to Christchurch, chilly, early spring type weather.

I will be posting the first travel photos as soon as I figure out how to load them onto the site.

Disaster averted

2006-08-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

Like my father is fond of saying, "Look for the easy fix."

As is the situation with my I-pod issues. It turns out that all my little friend needed was a change in some fairly simple settings, and it was happy to do as I bid. Now I am happily downloading from any source I wish, and now am faced merely with material to load onto it. Needless to say, I no longer feel like a total idiot. Which is good, because I was going to slit my wrists if I couldnt find a way to watch movies on it.

Radmitten

2006-07-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

Badmitton is the ultimate summer sport, hands down. Smashing the shuttle back and forth on a cool evening, nothing like it.
Last night I was over at Klass&Alyses' house playing Klaas the game with a modified shuttle. Since the shuttle moves too slow for our manly selves, we used some scissors and cut out half of the little plastic "feathers" keeping it symmetrical to significantly speed it up and extend the distance you can hit it.
I used to be really good when I had my own court growing up and had sort of forgotten how much fun it is. The PPE going away party is this saturday and there is definitly going to be a tournament of champions.

I-pod cramps

2006-07-28T20:08:00.001-07:00

My i-pod sure is nice to look at. And the feeling of feeling like a total hipster has not worn off yet. I alread love it having all this music at my fingertips and best of all no skipping. There are thorns in my beautiful rose though, mostly due to the selfish, selfish artists that demand that they make a buck and the resulting copyright laws. When loading music onto your I pod you must do it ALL from ONE computer. If you are at another computer, like say on the other side of the planet, you have to purge your HD and start from scratch...shitty shittersons. Gives me an excuse to visit the island every year or so though. I am really hoping that you can upload songs from any computer from I-tunes. If you cannot, then I really will feel like I am missing something.

Soon to be HIP

2006-07-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

I purchased an Ipod today. Excited does not cover it, imagining that soon I will be able to listen to music non-stop untill I am 87 holds such beauty and promise I feel I must do a little dance.
I got it from Amazon, and for those of you who have never shopped amazon, it is no wonder that those fellas survived the internet bubble popping. You can buy anything. No, you can buy 100 of anything there.

So soon I will be so hip, with my fancy little earbuds, I will cry.

I plan to immeditly download all 3 LOTR and watch them on my ittybitty screen all in a row.

I like burritos

2006-07-25T15:01:00.001-07:00

London broil is the next ox tail. By that I mean that untill recent history, the oxtail was regarded with suspicion and distain as a cut o meat by most people. Oxtails were available at next to nothing which made them attractive to restaurants that were willing to cook them up in tasty stews and had to talent to turn people on to them. They caught on, and now the once vile oxtail is revered for its meaty flavor and is turning up in stewpots across this great land.
Back to london broil. This cut of meat should be priced along the lines of flank steak in my opinion. It is pretty much the same deal. Tough untill cut against the grain and very thin. It does not require long cooking just different preperation.
I made burritos last night with this broil and it was the bomb . As the name implies, broil that puppy untill rare after slathering some peanut oil and seasonign with whatever spices you want to be tasting in your burrito. I used Johnny's Famous Seasoning Salt. Slice against the grain at an angle.
So everyone go out and instead of getting crummy ground beef or hormone injected chicken for your burrito, go high class and wrasle up some london broil.

I am crazy

2006-07-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

If you are not familiar with Family Guy, dont even bother reading this.
I was watching Family Guy last night. It was the episode where the Griffin's house is robbed and they run into the panic room where Peter starts telling them the Griffin family history. At one point Meg is in the kitchen and the robbers grab her and write a note that they hold up to the camera. Anyway Stewie says, " Better not be using my crayons. Mixn' 'em up". It made me laugh so hard, it made me wonder if I had popped a gland.

I like cartoons

2006-07-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

I have been watching a lot of this new show "Avatar: The Last Airbender". It is produced by Nickelodeon and is a Elemental Fantasy based story of 3 friends Sakka, Katara, and Aang who is the Avatar. Their quest is to journey to the North Pole to reunite with the Water Tribe. Aang's purpose as the Avatar is to bring all the element tribes in to balance and he can only do this when he masters all 4 elements. And he is 12.
It's a pretty good little story, the martial arts in it are cool, each element has its own style. Water, for instance, is based on TaiChi very fluid, and Earth is this very aggressive style of KungFu. The animation is nothing special, but the environments are pretty imaginative.
The writing can get a little tedious, as it is intended for the teenager crowd, but if you enjoy watching the occasional Disney movie you probably won't mind.

Squish

2006-07-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

I feel like a big bloated blob today. I hate days like this, where you just want to tell everybody to go away and leave you alone so you can get some much needed rest. I can't even look at people without crossing over to the dark side. Perhaps I should do something, like have some coffee.

On a brighter note, I saw "Planet Of The Apes, Escape From The Planet of the Apes" last night, and wooo boy did it deliver. That's not sarcasm, it was hilarious. I'm not really sure how a couple of pretentious apes with no facial expressions can not. I won't ruin it for everybody, but there is ape on human action.

Penguin update:
I got my airline tickets today, one more step towards doom.

By the way Jenny and Mom, this has spell check, sorry no more peingunes or antarticas

I'm leavn on a jet plane and how this blog got its name

2006-07-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

I am leaving for the antarctic on the 16 of august. So far I am going through periods of intense panic, pretty generic non-spacific panic, just sort of this looming fear; and equally intense periods of being totally thrilled and excited. Generally when I am thinking more clearly I am happier about it all. All the places I am going to see and what I have planned to do is really exciting. I am thinking about writing something about it all, but I am not really sure if anybody would really be interested in reading it. I want people to be interested in what I am writing, so I might make it sort of a half fiction type thing. I really like writers like Garrison Keillor and Tom Robbins, they both sort of take a semi-beleiveable enviroment and make it both funny and interesting. I think I will go for that.

For those of you reading this that do not know, I named my blog after this little greasy spoon diner, actually called "The Testy Chef" that was on the way out to Maple Valley, where my brother-in-law's parents house is, and when my mom saw it she thought it was the funniest shit, because apparently I tend to get a little testy in the kitchen. As I plan to write a fair amount about the food wherever I am, the title seemed appropiate. Plus testy sounds like testicals, and I love my testicals.

me

2006-07-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

this is me