Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Fuckitol

Sitting in Paris on a 18 hour "delay" (fuck you Zoom) yesturday I certainly could have used one of these! ;-)



Stevie J got this in, hopefully he's not on this stuff ;-)

Man this jet lag stuff has never hit me like it's hit me on this trip. Is it the aging?... or perhaps the partying? Well the party rate hasn't changed since high school, so basically I'm just getting old. :-)

Babies In 1's, 2's... and 3's??

My life has started to move from constantly increasing numbers of weddings every summer to an increasing number of baby announcements. Congrats to an old high school buddy Nolan for the birth of his first son as well as Sandra for her new born twins (which I visited last week and are doing great!).

Anyone with triplets? ;-)

Teaching Improvements

After an 18 hour layover I'm not so much in the mood for a massive trip update, but I was certainly in the mood for a good laugh. This prof sure knows how to take one on himself, hilarious: (starts about 2 mins in)

Monday, January 29, 2007

Back To Canada

Packing to go back home... already :-( Seems like this trip has been marred with almost too much travel/packing/unpacking/gas (the bad because of the environment kind, not the bad because of... well you know) and lack of internet access. Even my trip to Sicily seemed to present more posting opportunities!

Anyways at the same time it was such a fantastic trip jam packed with great people, great places and great times... I can't wait until the next time I've got to pack! :-)



Lots of pics from the trip a' coming, German/Paris gang please forward on the photos from those nights when my little digi-cam took a night off or two, thanks! :-)

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Stuttgart Hostel

The hostel in Stuttgart rocks. Period.

Pics/Vids tomorrow...

Hi-Etas

I've never gone more than 2 days without posting before... I've been traveling hardcore (biz/school/fun)the last week, and now things have changed. In the next week/months I'll be finding out something big that will allow me to be connected 24/7 as well as hook me up academically and socially to a higher level. Until then the blog will have to take 2nd billing for the first time in 2.5 years. Stay tuned... :-)

PS> Bayern lost today, VFB Stuttgart takes second place tomorrow for sure!! :-)

PPS> Safe travels everyone...

My Love

If I wrote you a symphony,
Just to say how much you mean to me,
(What would you do?)

If I told you you were beautiful,
Would you page me on the regular?
(Tell me would you?)

Well baby I've been around the world,
But I ain't seen myself another girl,
(Like you)

Because, I can see us holding hands,
Walking on the beach our toes in the sand.
I can see us on the country side,
Sitting in the grass laying side by side.
You can be my baby,
Let me make you my lady,
Girl you amaze me,
Ain't gotta do nothin crazy,
See all I want you to do is be my love...

My love,
My love...

Ain't another woman that could take your spot,
My love...

My love,
My love...

- JT

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

My Head Hurts

Last night we drank, ate and were merry with Otto... and got totally blotto!! :-)

Sunday, January 21, 2007

What's Cookin'?

Tacos are one of the great joys of life in Los Angeles. The variety of tacos, and of the places where they are made and sold and eaten is truly astounding. I feel that I have only scratched the taco surface of the city and I have encountered tacos made from beef, pork, goat, lamb, chicken, duck, fish, shellfish, bivalves, insects, potatoes, cactus, cheese, assorted other vegetables, even a little fruit and pretty much any part or preparation of any of that that you can think of. I mostly eat tacos made with soft corn tortillas, but you can find them with fried tortillas or flour tortillas too.

I've never eaten a taco made from human meat, at least not that I'm aware of. But I like the signs:



The pig cooking the man graces the side of Taqueria El Trampitas, at the corner of Main Street and Gage in Southcentral L.A. I ate there yesterday and the more traditional tacos - man cooking pig (picture below) - of carnitas and al pastor were good, if not great.



The goat cooks woman taqueria is just about four blocks up Main Street, in a stretch of three blocks that seems to be dedicated to eating goat. (There must be five or six places to eat goat within a three block area.) I was too full to do anything other than stop and take a picture. I'll have to go back.



The goat in the picture is saying: "Como que birria buey." Birria is "goat," or at least cooked goat. Buey is "ox." This must mean something in colloquial Mexican-Spanish, but I can't quite figure it out. If anyone out there reading this can, please let me know.

I have since come up with two possible translations. In Mexican Spanish, "buey" is colloquially used for "asshole." One figurative translation is: "How does that feel asshole?" Another, more literal translation is: "How's that [version of] birria asshole?"

I've been on something of a taco quest lately. My favorites so far are the carne asada and the al pastor at La Taquiza at 30th and Figueroa, near USC. Still, I have a mere passing interest in tacos. If you want to follow an expert's mania for tacos, you can take a look at Bandini's The Great Taco Hunt. He has never steered me wrong.

I have also resumed my slow but sure progress toward traversing the entire length of the mighty Los Angeles River.

Now most people think I'm joking when I refer to it as "mighty." Some people don't even know it exists, they think it is simply a concrete drainage ditch. But L.A. wouldn't have come into existence without its river.

The Mississippi River, at about 2,350 miles long, is more than 45 times as long as the Los Angeles River at 52 miles. No surprise there. But the Los Angeles is steeper. It drops 795 feet in elevation from its headwaters at the Canoga Park High School football field in the Valley to where it spills into the ocean near the Queen Mary in Long Beach. By comparison, the Mississippi drops a mere 645 feet along its entire length.

At its peak flow, the mighty Los Angeles carries 183,000 cubic feet of water per second out to the Pacific Ocean. (According to the website of The River Project, that's the equivalent of 40 million garden hoses going full blast.) It's also 14 times the flow of New York's Hudson River.

One of the bike paths along the river is near my house. Here are a few pictures I took on a recent ride:



Friday, January 19, 2007

Geo Cache Man

Damn it's hard to get back on schedule when you fly international! 3:40am - 5:40am is not diner time!! Off geo-caching, looking for the Geo-Cache Man! ;-)

Thinking Of Stuttgart

Whad'ya think? Am I in Stuttgart? :-)

Hey You!

One hundred person comedy mod:

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Bad Day At The Office

A soccer defender has a bad, bad day at the office:

Hamilton Night Lights

The day is ending and the night lights are beginning, love the view from my appartment :-)

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Beckham Comes To America

He's coming. She's coming. I've got my Toronto FC season tickets so I'll see them both. Is he too old to play effective soccer anymore? Is this signing the beginning of the end for the league? Will Beckham dominate the league putting it to shame or play terrible putting himself to shame?

I don't know, but I do know one thing:

Cross Your Brain

How can this possibly be?? :-)



I remember looking at this back in grade 10 for hours before finally figureing it out by cutting out the pieces.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Gooogie Search

The Gooogie search does not lie:

Soccer Boys vs. Hockey Men

Why soccer is just never going to be as manly as hockey, let's take a look at how these fights go, one for soccer:



...and now a hockey fight:



One of these things does not belong eh, there's boys who play soccer... and men who play hockey ;-) Some more for your enjoyment, starring my hometown Ottawa Senators :-)

The World Is Now Flat :-(

I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed reading the travel blog "The World Is Not Flat". Over a year ago Lee LeFever left on a one year trip around the world with his wife and brought us (via their blog) along for the ride. Amazing:



For more info or to follow their adventure from the beginning go check out The World Is Not Flat. So when do we leave on our trip?? :-)

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Weekend Flashbacks

Man, did this weekend just happen?! Picking up my camera tonight I found that I indeed take some pics last night, here's the web-friendly ones, starting with Griz loving his cheese-less/topping-less pizza... basically hot bread with tomato sauce :-) Thanks for the 'za Gizz!



The night started rather slow... or perhaps fast... who knows, I think I was loaded when I took this pic, and I know that Steve was loaded when I took this pic, notice how he's having trouble "finding" himself. Luckily Griz was there to save the day: "here you are Steve" :-)



In what promises to become a running gag Stevie recycles a Christmas "gift" and passes on the love to Grizzy. Griz is there something we ought to know?? ;-)



Best part of the night is when Griz cuts off a car full of guys who initially wanted to kill him until they saw the bumper sticker, then they just flashed and honked our way on. Oh yeah, Griz had no idea that the sticker was on there nor could he understand why we wanted to take this pic... mystery solved cock-lover! :-)

Super-Pforzheim?

Sorry fellow alumns, Pforzheim University didn't make the cut as one of Germany's top 8 "super" universities :-( Don't worry PfU, you're still zuper in my books! ;-)

Darmstadt Homer

I'm not a Darmstadt homer, but I will be going there in 2 weeks and I do know that Darmstadt Homer has been around:



I wonder if they were naughty or nice... hopefully naughty of course! ;-)

(Jon Schulst via Vowe)

Friday, January 12, 2007

Hamilton Flickr Group Photos

Thanks to John and the rest of the Flickr photo group for meeting last night. Hopefully we'll be able to get this partnership rolling this summer in time for the next Recreation guide :-)

And for the rest of my army of readers ;-) go check out some of the local groups work, quite impressive!



(Hamilton bay near the Williams Coffee shack we met at)

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Bist Du Das

Es könnte ja sein, dass ich nicht meine, was ich sag?
Und es könnte ja sein, dass ich nicht sage, was ich mag?
Und es könnte ja sein, ich bin nur eine von milliarden,
Aber wem soll ich das sagen?

Es könnte ja sein, dass was du siehst, ist gar nicht da,
Und es könnte ja sein, ich bin so traurig, wie ich früher war,
Und es könnte ja sein, ich bin nur eine von milliarden,
Aber wem soll ich das sagen?

Bist du das,
Oder bist du das nicht?
Denkst du wie sie,
Oder denkst du wie ich?
Bist du das,
Oder bist du das für mich?

Bist du das,
Oder bist du das nicht?
Fühlst du wie sie,
Oder fühlst du wie ich?
Willst du das,
Oder tust du das für mich?

Ob du willst oder nicht,
So du wirst nie ein teil von mir,
Und wenn du so wärst wie ich,
Dann wärst du sicher gar nicht hier,
Und dann wüsstest du auch,
Ich bin nur eine von milliarden,
Und dann müsstest du nicht fragen,
Dann müsstest du nicht fragen...

Bist du das,
Oder bist du das nicht?
Denkst du wie sie,
Oder denkst du wie ich?
Bist du das,
Oder bist du das für mich.

Bist du das,
Oder bist du das nicht?
Fühlst du wie sie,
Oder fühlst du wie ich?
Willst du das,
Oder tust du das für mich?

- Juli


Monday, January 8, 2007

I Am A Soccer Player, I Cry

From the "no shit sherlock" files comes this report from FIFA that soccer players fake injuries during the game to gain advantage or stop opposition attacks:

"At this World Cup, the deplorable habit that involves players staying down for no apparent reason after minor collisions, thus causing frequent breaks in play, was increasingly in evidence"


No kidding. It's the absolute worst part of the game and it's embarrasing. This commercial dubbed "The Secret Italian Training Camp" highlights how pathetic it's gotten :-)

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Es Ist Schawbish Juli

I just found out that the lead singer of one of my favorite German bands "Juli" was born in Böblingen (Stuttgart suburb), so she's a Schwabish girl! Yummy, figures of course, I should have known! :-)



I hope to see them live in Dortmund in just over 2 weeks, anyone else want to join me? :-)

Saturday, January 6, 2007

EuroRoss.com Live!

Sweet! We've now got www.EuroRoss.com auto-redirecting to our current address www.EuroRoss.blogspot.com (so you just have to remember EuroRoss.com). A small change, but a welcome one (it only took 3 years!). Blogger now also allows custom domain hosting which we'll take a look at.

Thanks for the help Nils! See you in 2 weeks in Darmstadt for a cold beer and some darts ass-kicking! ;-)

World Nomads

Welcome World Nomads! Thanks for checking out EuroRoss!

My posse of fellow goofs will be in Australia for the month of April, our application has been submitted, we're the best for the job, I'll be the blogger and my cast of friends from around the globe will be providing the laughs, let's do this! :-)

Friday, January 5, 2007

Hockey Lives On

We all know that Patick Stephan is one of the worst under-achievers of all time but did he really need to add this play to his resume?!?! Unbelieveable, with less than 15 seconds left in the game:



Love the Oilers, they were my fav during the pre-sens years when I was young and they had Messier, Gretkzy, Lowe, Coffey, Anderson, Fuhr, McTavish, Kurri, Tiki... etc. etc. They never quit, never give in. Fantastic!

Also fantastic and not to be outdone was the Canada World Junior team that beat are arch rival Russia in the Gold medal game 4-2 to take this years tournament in Sweden. Way to go guys!!

The best was that the arena was totally filled with Canadian fans! You'd think the game was being played in Canada and not Sweden! Can't wait till 2008/9 when the tournament comes to Ottawa, and yes, I already have my tickets: Gold level row 4 right behind the bench, Boo-Yeah!! :-)

India Polls

Who knows why all the crazy polls seem to come out of India these days but here's another one that queries the marriage desires of it's males. The only thing more disturbing than the second half of this quote:

"Nearly two-thirds of young Indian men expect the woman they marry to be a virgin, but nearly half have had sex with prostitutes, according to a poll."
...is the last half of the article:

"Fourteen percent of those surveyed said they had had sex with a member of their own family."
Wow. I think I just ruined my weekend... and yours! :-) How about we post a nice unrelated pic to end the week...



Darn it, did it again. :-)

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Aussie's On Americans

Saw this and got a laugh. We had a similar segment on a Canadian TV comedy show that would make you pee your pants.



What's even scarier is that there's tons of Australians (et others) that actually believe all Americans are like that... well maybe my spelling is scarier, but the spell check on my editor is broken (actually I'm just too lazy to use it ;-)

On a related note I can't wait to get to Australia! Less than 3 months away and my first time there, boo-yeah! :-)

200 Calories

For all us New Years diet'ers: what does 200 calories in each food look like?

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

The Hills Returns

It's not as good as Laguna, but it's sure close! Season 2 preview of "The Hills". I love this trash :-)

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Twinky Of Death

This is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever seen anyone eat. The fact that it's that time of year when everyone is trying to hit new years (fitness/diet) resolutions hard makes it even more gross:

Just Friends

Monday, January 1, 2007

New Year's Eve 2006

Out of all the pics from last night, here's us looking our... best? ;-) Notice the Much Music Canada's New Years Eve Bash on TV in the background, yep we had it going on! ;-)



Ok, so the tele wasn't so invigorating, maybe this will work: intoxication.



Al showing off her extreme range of dancing abilities. Trust me, in the postmortem hangover central this morning this was enough for most of us to collectively pee our pants. (you can't see the pic unless you turn the brightness up)



Night pics didn't turn out but you can certainly get a feel for the view from this morning's view from Joe's apartment:



Thanks for having us Joe/better half, and to everyone else for a smashing good time :-) Day 1, 2007: complete. :-)