Trippin Out

Hello everyone,

It has been a minute since I updated this and we been on the road for a couple months now, close to 3 maybe, so a bunch of stuff has happened since the last update. I like to try and keep these things brief cause I can't see my friends having a long enough attention span to read for more than 10 minutes. Also, my main blog competition is Con's and all he puts up is funny pictures with no reading at all so if I wanna keep up with him I can't be boring.

So I guess last time I wrote we were in Namibia and had just gone through South Africa. We're now in India but I will just give the low down for the last bit of Africa before I get into the Indian craziness. We went through a couple more countries...Zambia, Botswana, Malawi, Tanzania/Zanzibar and Kenya before we got outta Africa. They were all pretty wild and things got hella rugged the further up North we got. At first I thought South Africa and Namibia were worn down but Malawi and Zambia were haggard. In Malawi the power just goes out all day randomly so the place is pretty much shut down. At resturants they cant even bring you food cause you try to order somethin and they just say "we can't cook that" so you end up eating this weird corn meal paste stuff called "shima" which is horrible...but the locals eat that shit up like its the tastiest thing on earth.

Here's the brief history of what we got up too. Left Nambia and got to Zambia, we checked out Vic Falls and swam on the edge of the waterfall which was pretty hype. Then went on a little safari in Botswana to Chobe national park, saw some animals there hangin out lookin weird. After that we went to Malawi on the most horrid buses ever. There was probably 150 people on shittiest smallest most haggard bus and im pretty sure none of them wore pit stick and had a diet of only fish. They played African music at full blast the entire way and the heat was unbearable. Every stop everyone got off and got more fish to eat. I saw women breat feeding, people pissing and puking...all on the fucking bus! Then when it got dark I felt some weird crawling on me and realized cockroaches were emerging from my seat and were just chillin on me. There was no other seats to move to so me and Brit just had to suck it up for the last few hours and hang with the bugs.

We got to Malawi and hung out in Nhakata Bay for a few days and went swimming in the lake. Then we caught some more buses to Tanzania...got robbed again at the border for some dollars and then headed to Zanzibar. The island was super nice, we hung out in nice resorts and swan in the clearest water I've ever seen. Then we saw some dolphins and monkeys. Brit was pullin the monkeys tails. After that we went on a safari in the Serengetti for a few days and saw lots of animals. I had the shits the entire time but all the toilets here are squatters and for some reason I just can't use them. Its not the smell or grossness of them I just physically cannot get poo out my butt in the position you gotta squat in. So I just had the worst diarrhea ever but couldn't get it out my ass...def put a damper on my safari fun. I did get to poop in the Serengeti though which was a plus I guess.

After Tanzania we went to Kenya and stayed in Mombasa for a few days swimming in the ocean and meeting people before heading to Nairobi (Nairobbery). Everyone we met pretty much guaranteed us we would get robbed there but I actually thought it was a pretty nice city. We went to a little elephant orphanage to see the babies and I started to feel weird there. I went to the bathroom (squatter) and had the most violent shits and vomiting that I have experienced in my life. I pretty much blacked out on the floor in some liquid which I hoped was water. Then I tried to get Brit so we could head back but we made it about 20 steps before I got crazy tunnel vision and dizzy and Brit had to carry me to a bench. I couldn't move for a bit and the cab driver had to drive into the place to load me into the car. Big time puss status...Back at the hostel an American dude we met gave me a homemade malaria test he had with him to see if thats what I had. Brit had to stab me with some needle to check my blood, luckily the tests said I was malaria free. When I was feelin better we got a group of friends and went to Carnivore where we got to eat crocodile, camel, ostrich and ox testicles...which were actually really good. Crocodile sucks though. Last thing we did in Africa was go to a giraffe farm where we got to pet the giraffes and they licked our faces, they loved licking Brits face as you can see in the picture below.

Thats all I got for now, this was fucking long again. I gotta work on that. Next update I'll talk about India and how fucked up and crazy this country is. Grant wanted me to acknowledge him in my blog instead of just Ramsay so what's up Grant I hope things are ratty in Van. I'm gonna post this without proofing it cause I gotta go eat some Indian food which will probably give me more diarrhea. So if there are spelling mistakes I don't really care maybe they will be funny. Also, I couldn't figure out how to get this aligned to the left which is why the layout is funny. Hope everyone enjoys the pics.

- Dan

 Just a few peeps on the bus

 Just a few more peeps on the bus

 Gettin it

 Monkey joint rollin

 Safari buds

 Tuk Tuk ride

 Minutes before the most violent shits of my life

 Malarial fever

 Ox ball treat

 Bro'd out

 Beastiality

Giraffes look weird in real life

Oldies But Goldies

The Last Year and The Trip So Far

*I wrote this all out in Notepad and when I copied it in here it got all bunged up so I tried to fix it all but if there is mistakes then I blame it all on that fiasco.

So I had planned on updating this alot sooner than now so I could avoid a lengthy recap and having to upload tons of photos, but since I have been staying at places with some pretty sketchy internet I haven't been able too. Also, I just haven't had much time. So since I have quite a bit to write about I'm going to go ahead and just rifle off a bunch of point form stuff and hope that everyone gets the jist of what I am talking about...and by everyone I mean Ramsay since I think he is the only one whoever reads this. Probably for the best anyways since not many others think what I write is funny.

Anyways, I havent written on here in forever and I can't remember much that has gone down in the past year or whatever it's been, but here is a quick list of some stuff that's happened and then I am gonna get to the meat of this post which is my trip stuff and pics.

So some bullshit from the last year...
- Graduated from university (finally)
- Took LSAT, did ok-
Went to Whistler and bungee jumped with Brit
- Went Skydiving with the family
- Played a bunch of Ratwheel shows, most notable our first fest in Victoria which was lots of fun
- Partied a bunch with friends
- Saved money for the around the world trip
- Watched Tommmy lose 800 bucks at the casino on my birthday (this for some reason stands out in my mind)
- Moved in with Connor
- Moved out and moved in with Brit
- Got some tattoos
- Watched my friends party lots and get drunk, puke in and on my car, pass out with each other, and eat several cheese pleasers
- Did some cliff jumping
- Broke my dirt bike on the first ride
- Shot some guns for the first time, was a huge puss about it

And thats pretty much all I can remember for now...I am sure I missed tons of important stuff that people will be bummed about cause I forgot about them/the stuff we did but I bet it was all great and I am sure somewhere deep in my memory bank our fun times are waiting to be remembered.

NOW ONTO THE GOOD STUFF

Me and Brit have been planning a big around the world trip for some time now and after months of planning we finally left at the beginning of November. We played a final Ratwheel show the night before I left which was great, then in the morning it was off to Van and now were are a couple weeks into the trip. I'm writing this in the hostel bar listening to some horrible radio music so I don't feel that funny cause the bad tunes are ruining my mood, but I'll try to get through this anyways and make it an somewhat enjoyable read. So here is a quick recap of what's been going on.

- Got to Van and went partyin with Brits buds for Halloween, Van is wild for Halloween but I was more interested in playing with Amber and Tyler's new kitten which was way more fun than any bar could ever be
- Left to Johannesburg (South Africa for all the retards reading) on the 1st and the plan ride was the longest experience ever. 4 hrs to Chicago, 12.4 hrs to Abu Dhabi and another 8 hrs to Jo'Burg with layovers in between. We arrived at 4am on the 3rd
- Got off the plane and were instantly swarmed by dudes tryin to help us with our bags and take us in a cab places. Exactly what you want after 2 days of travelling...a bunch of weird black dudes grabbin at you
- We got away from the guys and tried to get money. This resulted in me pretty much instantly losing my credit card to an ATM that ate it. Good start to Africa
- Caught a cab to Kevin and Yasmines house, a couple we were staying with for the first couple days
- Got there and got to know them a bit, they had to work and had to lock up their place (every place in the city has razor wire, a couple 7 feet fences and a security system...rugged shit) so pretty much me and Brit had to get the fuck out till they were off work
- They dropped us off downtown Jo'Burg and we got to wander around for like 9 hours in some strange place getting super sketched out of getting robbed and not knowing where was safe and where wasn't
- We were so tired and just passed out all over the place, Mc'Dicks, on the bus, in taxi's
- Went to Apartheid museum...heavy shit
- Later went to dinner with Kev and Yasmine, I got a "Bunny Chow"
- Passed out and slept in till like noon the next day
- Went to Melville which was a nicer area around where we were stayin
- Ate weird cheesy/corn pop things and met a rasta dude also named Dan. He claimed we were buds
- Went to a Couch Surfing party that night and met a bunch of people. Brit drank lots of wine
- Caught the plane to Cape Town the next day
- Got to Cape Town and went to the waterfront, shit was super nice and high class (Armani type shit)
- Met a couple from London who were travelling to some places we were going...both were named Sam
- Next day we caught the train to Boulder's Beach and got to see Penguins
- Went up to Table mountain that night and took tons of flicks the view was wild
- Got robbed that night
- Next day got to hang around and wait for the Police to file a report with them
- Now I hate Africa and think it fucking sucks and want to go home
- Caught the bus that night to Oudtshoorn
- Went to Cango caves in the morning and had to bike home from there (35kms)
- Stopped at Cango Ostrich farm and got to ride ostriches, I fell off and Brit was lovin it

FUCK THIS IS WAY TOO LONG AND NO ONE EVEN CARES TO READ ABOUT THIS BULLSPIT, I AM NOW GOING TO STOP WRITING ABOUT THE SMALL STUFF AND ONLY WRITE ABOUT THE IMPORTANT STUFF...LIKE TYPES OF CHIPS AND CANDY I HAVE TRIED

- Nik Nak's: These things intrigued me cause they came in a yellow package with a rasta dude on the front but you couldn't see inside and I saw the packages everywhere. So I got some and was super let down to find that all they were, were FUCKING CHEESIES! Won't get again.
- Simba: This is like the Lay's of South Africa, (although they also have Lays...so I guess they aren't the Lays of South Africa) they are everywhere and come in tons of weird flavours. So far I tried Steakhouse, Chutney, Cheddar and Onion and one other one I can't remember
- Fritos: Classic corn chip except you can get them in different flavours here like Ketchup and Chutney
- Niki: This was like a Bounty bar with coconut but you can also get it with Chocolate coconut...always good times
- Tex: Similar to a KitKat but the chocolate insides are bubbled like an Aero
- Lunch Bar: Weird name for a candy bar but it was like a Mr.Big crossed with an Oh'Henry
- Curly: This shit ruled, it was shaped and looked like a Chessy but was tasted like peanut butter...that sounds disgusting writing it out but trust me, shit was delicious.
- Golden Sweet Corn: This was weird little balls of corn...they had the texture of Cheesies but the taste and look of corn pops.

So yea, that's what I tried so far OH! and they got this weird cream soda thats green and doesn't taste like cream soda. Its like a Mountain Dew/Cream Soda hybrid that kicks my ass everytime I have it...in a good way. I will have to report back when I try more stuff. Gonna be a fat fuck when I get home. I already got tons of heaters forming an apartment complex on my face.

We did some other stuff like visit a wildlife rance, go sandboarding, see the desert and huge sand dunes, hang by the ocean, swim and tan, see a shark and some seals but who wants to read about that crap? It's all about the candy. Anyways, I'll be back in some time and have some more shit to post. Until then have fun in Canada Ramsay, I hope you enjoy The Sword in Kamloops.

Ps. Me and Brit danced in the pool today...needless to say we had a big big day today.
- Dan


Here are some pics I've taken and thought were pretty neat, we got tons more that we took with our more high class camera that I haven't posted on here yet...but I will soon. I promise.




Racism at its finest


Our first African wildlife encounter


The Rats are everywhere


Corn Pop Cheetos


Party dog wanted to hit the wine all night


Couch surfin party, everyone got boozed


Boulder beach


Penguins of Boulder Beach, penguins in the sand what a bunch of retards


Table mountain view, typical tourists


More Table Mountain


Lookin cool on the bike ride


Brit tryin to look cool also


Midget Ostrich love


Gettin ready to ride. The ostriches gave no fucks and didn't change expression once


Lovin the ride...still no fucks given by the ostrich


Me makin a cool face, laaaaadies?





"Hello my name is Mr. Burns"
"Ok Mr. Burns what is your first name?"
"...I don't know..."


Canadian Lemurs


The mighty Meerkat, lord of the African wild looks over his kingdom

Haven't Posted In Over A Year

Ugh I just wrote a super long write up thing for this and accidentally deleted it. Anyways, here is try number 2.

So I haven't updated this fucker in a long time and im hella bored right now so I figured I would take a quick rip on this and try to remember some of the shit that has gone down since the last time I posted...which was over a year ago holy shit. So this is gonna be super quick and super lame since I already wrote it once and because I can't really remember all that much.

So here it is. Im currently in my last year of school which is rad cause it feels like I been goin to school for pretty much my whole life now and im done with it. Can't wait to be done. We just had Halloween and my birthday recently which were both fun. For Halloween we played a show on friday night in Kelowna. It was a hoot, everyone got dressed up and got wild, we also got to silly string the fuck outta Derrek which was a plus. Saturday I hung out with Brit and my friends. We went out to one of her buds places which was done up all spooky and had a haunted house running through the entire top floor. I def got scared a couple times and almost trampled Brit while trying to run away. Sunday night which was the actual Halloween night was a bit more chill. We gave out a bit of candy at Brits place then went to a haunted house at the science center which was real spooky. Brit got chased by a chainsaw guy and freaked out which was hilarious. After that we went to the fireworks and ooohhed and aaaahhhhed at the explosions for a bit. We then watched Freddy vs Jason which is just a real treat. If you haven't seen it I would highly recommend it, just pure cinematic genious went into that film...

For my birthday we went and watched Brits roller derby game then partied at her place and the bar for a bit. It was a good time and I was psyched my friends were down to party with me...oh wait they all bailed and went home before we even went out! Rad.

Anyways, I'll do a brief recap of some shit that went down this year now:
- Rainfest which was super fun we got to see a bunch of rad bands again and meet some awesome people (josh, mike, baxter)
- Summer, always a fun time. Did lots of swimming, boating, and hangin with friends. Took a couple trips to van as well. Once with Brit to go to the PNE which was a blast and another time with Ramsay, Derrek and Grant to see The Gaslight Anthem. Also a good time.
- School, fucking sucks. Don't go.
- Living in new place with Connor, fun aside from the fact it is always stinky
- Finally getting full lisence, just happened today so im psyched!
- RW shows. Always sloppy, always rad.
- The Mighty Daves, winningest season of hockey ever. Nothing but pure skill on that squad.

Thats pretty much all I can remember from this year right now...hopefully I can keep updating this fucker so I don't forget all the shit I do. The last year (since I updated this thing) was pretty fun and I owe it all to my friends I love all of ya! Connor, Ramsay, Derrek, Grant, Sean, Clayton, Dave, Haley, Joe, Lindsay, Packer, Ting, Matt K, Ben, Tommy, all my friends in Van especially Justen, and last but def not least Brit! Thanks to all of ya for makin my life rad. Hopefully next time I have some more funny shit for you to read (for whoever reads this aside from me...).

Here are some pics, thanks for reading even though no one does.

Ratwheel

My band just made a blog/myspace, you should check them both out.

Blog: Ratblog
Myspace: Ratspace

We are going to be recording pretty quick and have a shirt or two up for sale as soon as we can. Also, a show is in the works for the friday before Halloween (the 30th), so keep a look out for that.

- Dan

Rest/End Of Summer

READ THE BLOG BEFORE THIS FIRST!...unless you don't want to hear bout some trip to Cali I went on.

2nd part of the summer blog here. Probably should have mentioned this earlier but for the better part of the summer me and Ramsay had been playing guitar together writing some tunes and those tunes eventually evolved into this band that me and Ryan and been joking about for awhile which neither of us thought would ever materialize, but it did which is rad. The band formed with me and Ryan playin guitar, my bro Con on bass, big ol Grant on drums and Derrek "Mr. Incredible" Traxel doing the vocal duties it is called RATWHEEL, keep your ears open. So, right when we get back from Cali we get offer to play this show which was like a week later, we were not ready to play a show at all and had barely jammed and got our songs worked out but Grant and Ryan were psyched on the idea much the shegrin of me, and Con who thought we wouldn't be ready. So we spent the next week jamming everyday and ended up getting out shit together and actually playing 2 shows instead of one and both went splendid. We nailed out 4 songs and people were vibin it so it was a good time for sure. Thanks to all our friends who came out to watch our first show, definetly helped to calm me down. I guess I should mention that I flipped out one day while jamming and broke out cause I couldn't get a song down. The boys aka Ramsay had a good lark at that one. Ratwheel is writing more songs right now, I think we got about 6 or 7 now and are going to record in the very near future. I will post the demo up on here when it's done.

In other show news, the boys from Kelowna managed to get this allstar lineup to come play a show in Kelowna over Vancouver, lineup was Have Heart, Shipwreck, Cruel Hand, Bitter End and Grave Maker (amazing). So I was super pumped for that since Have Heart is one of my favorite bands and it would be my last time seeing them before they broke up :(. The show ended up being awesome and the venue the boys found was ridiculously good. All bands were solid, we mosh, we sang and Sean got frapped...hard.

I am trying to think of other stuff to talk about in here...the rest of the summer was pretty basic, we did a bunch of swimming, cliff jumping, wakeboarding, hanging at the cabin, and some partyin here and there. All of which were a great time. We had Lennea's dad come stay with us at the cabin for a weekend, her brother and their dogs came as well. It was fun having them here I really enjoyed just hangin and playing with the dogs all weekend. One of the dogs Duke i'm pretty sure is gay/retarded, pees like a girl (he is male), lets things hit him in the head when you throw them to him, is afraid of everything even though he is huge (about 130 pounds) and has to nap after like 10 mins of exercise. Lennea also just had her friend Megan come stay with us for a week which was fun, I always find we do alot more activities when we have people staying with us. OH, I just remember that last weekend me, my Dad and Connor went to Van for the BC Lions game. Game was intense, came down to the last play with the Lions coming out on top. Was never really into the CFL but the game was super exciting and fun, thanks to my Dad for taking us!

So I guess the highlights of summer aside from the trip to Cali would be these:
- Friend hangouts: Ramsay, Grant, Derrek, Joni, Con, Sean, Lindsay, Matt, Dustin, Tommy, Clayton, Megan, Justen and of course Lennea.
- Cabin days
- Dan + Lennea hangouts
- Swimming
- Enderby river floats
- Screamers
- Cliff Jumping
- Oroville
- Ratwheel shows + jams
- Have Heart show
- Kelowna Monsters
- BC Lions
- Mom and Dad
- Opie naps
- Partyin
- All around good times

I am sure I am missing some stuff but that stuff up there pretty much sums up my whole summer. It was a blast and I am sad that I am now back at school (today was my first day). I am hoping the year won't be too tough but I won't be holding my breath. Kinda worried that I won't be able to get my work done since I am back living at home now, so many distractions. Also, me and Lennea are going to the hot springs in Revelstoke for our 3 year anniversary (send presents) in Revelstoke this weekend, which I am hyped for as it will be like my last big outing for the summer, after that pure unfun school ugh.
Anyways, this summer was a blast and one of the best I have ever had, hopefully next years will be as good! Thanks to all my buds for hangin with me, being the best friends I could ask for and making my summer a good one.

- Dan

Some more pics to end it:

SUMMER

Was planning on writing on this thing all of summer with a bunch of updates but never got around to it. I don't think anyone really missed reading it anyways...so it doesn't really matter. I pretty much forget everything that happened over summer though so my storytelling is going to be super shitty this time round, sorry to all my millions of followers. ONTO THE SUMMER.

Shit started off on a pretty crappy note, me and Lennea moved back to Vernon had a hard time gettin work at first which resulted in us being hella broke for a few weeks. I missed out on going to Rainfest which bummed me out HARD (think i wrote bout that shit last time). Eventually we got that shit sorted out and both ended up getting jobs at PRT which was a shitdogger of a job. The had us workin out in the hot ass sun all day liftin wood a blocks of trees, then when the lifting shit was done they moved me to this other job where I had to thin out all the little trees in the blocks. Showed up to work to do the thinning and found that all the men had quit cause apparently thinning is woman's work. So I rocked bein the only male on the force for a couple weeks but it was cool cause I had Lennea to hang with. However, she ended up ditching me for a better job leaving me all by myself with a bunch of ladies and girls I knew from school but never talked to. Hella awkward cause we knew each other and would give each other the ol head nod from time to time but would never actually talk...Some of you may be wondering "but Dan, why didn't you just get a new job?" Well I'll tell ya, I didn't have any money and had to save up for Sound and Fury which was in a couple weeks and didn't wanna quit and not find a new job and I didn't wanna get a new job then have to ask for 2 weeks off right away. So I decided to tough it out till I left.

The job at PRT worked out nice cause the work ended like the day before we all left for Cali. Reason we went to Cali was for Sound and Fury (look it up) and to have a little bit o fun at Disneyland. We took pretty much the exact same trip last summer and it was a hoot. So we went to Cali with me, Lennea, Connor, Ramsay, Sean, Derrek, Joni, Justen, and Kara (pretty much the only people who would bother to read this and don't really need to know what happened on the trip...). We left from Van on the bus, stayed the night in Seattle which was fun. We ate at an oldschool type diner and went to the beach which was filled with colored people who knew nothing of Canada, we pretty much just made fun of ignorant little girls the whole time. Next day flew out to Cali and took the train to Oxnard. We stayed there for 4 nights and went to Sound and Fury. Highlights:
- Pool party, naked Sean, R2D2 swims
- Meeting up with Clarke
- Going to some muck hole swimming area down stink alley
- These little rolled up chips that Clarke discovered, Gucamole flavor FTW!
- Kid getting stabbed
- Security gettting RAVAGED!
- These sets: Shai Hulud, Shook Ones, Lewd Acts, Mongoloids, Rotting Out, Mother Of Mercy, Ceremony x2, Mind Eraser, Creatures, Trash Talk (played outside in the alley CRAZY) sure I forgot some rad sets, oh well.
- Some certain people being super downers the whole time

After S&F we went to Medieval Times, Disneyland and Cali Adventure which was a hoot. We rode all the rides, ate lots of food and pretty much just had a blast. Highlights:

- Clarke manning up and staying the whole trip
- Black and White knight being the WORST but cheering for him all the same
- Picture with the King
- Multi-Cultural knight
- Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder, Buzz Lightyear, Haunted Mansion
- CHURROS
- Chimychangas
- Soup in a bread bowl
- Fantasmic
- Roller coaster, Soarin Over Cali, Maliboomer, Tower Of Terror
- Dark Rider
- Free Tortillas
- Ghoulish Delight
- Debbie Downer
- Wispy Shit Beard

All in all the trip was a blast, I didn't go into tons of detail cause tons happened...and I pretty much remember none of it. Kinda hectic with some many people, everyone got up in everyone else's grill on a couple occasions but the trip was still awesome!

I am gonna end this blog here and split the rest of the summer into another one so you faithful readers don't have to slug your way through tons of useless time wasting boring writing that I try to make entertaining.

Here's some pics of the trip.