CURRENT MISSION

Who knows where the road will lead us? Only a fool would say......

ABOUT ME

Veritas, Honestus, Dignitas.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Hello:
My name is Chris. "Guy Smiley" is....well, he's my role model, that's all. Any man that can come into the same job for over 30 years with such a great attitude is a better man that I, I'll willfully admit.
The Man at work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7m4whqRCJE&feature=related
I`m usually fairly busy in my job as a film technician, working in the Special Effects department. I always seem to be working or traveling. This year, however is a bit slow...but who am I to talk about being slow?
I want to hit Central and possibly South America next, and perhaps Cuba, and work on my Spanish, "Salsa", and Mojito-making techniques.
I rather enjoy travel. My most recent trip was a 3 month tour of SE Asia. I went to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Burma. I also had an all-too-brief stop in Japan. They`re all great, but I think I have a soft spot in my heart for beautiful, quiet Laos. Plus, the food is excellent and the silk and other hand-woven textiles are beautiful and everything is so damn cheap, I couldn`t stop shopping.
And I don`t even like shopping.
I obviously speak English, but I also speak some French, I`m currently learning Spanish, and if anyone out there wants to teach me Thai, you have a new Grasshopper, Oh Sensei! ;-P
I often ask myself: "Self, do you want to die having money, or do you want to die having traveled?"
Right about then I call the Airlines.....

My main photo is changed periodically, but it is quite often one of me hiding my fear, with a full-grown Tiger in my lap. It`s a good thing I was wearing sunglasses and brown trousers...
That photo was taken at Tiger Temple, near Kanchanaburi, Thailand last April. What an awesome place. If you would like to know more about Tiger Temple.please visit: http://www.tigertemplethailand.com/ What a great trip. I have so many stories.....so little typing skills....

If you like my profile, please click on "This is an interesting profile" above my main photo. I'm trying to see how many votes I can get. Vain? Yes. Make-A me happy?? Yes too. Thanks in advance.

One small Post-Script::
I prefer to fill my freezer with organic meat myself, which means, I fish and I hunt. There's a lot of tribal masks and hand-made silks on the wall, but they share space with some horns and antlers. If that's gonna freak you out, then you might not be comfortable here. If that's gonna anger you, and yet you eat meat, then you should look deep inside your judgmental little soul, and find some love! (How sappy was THAT!?). I think I just threw up a little....mmmm...tastes like Elk!

PHILOSOPHY

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Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I heard about this from a work friend, and as I love traveling, and most travelers, I thought I'd give it a shot. I also must say Americans get such a bad rap worldwide, but almost all the ones that wear a backpack are just great, interesting people, (Most likely all Democrats, so that goes without saying. Do Republicans just not read?) so just a shout out to my traveling neighbours to the South!
Oh, and if you need any little Canadian Flags for your backpacks, let me know. *Smirk*

Interests

Wow...doesn't look like much when you look at it this way.......

• animals
• fish
• culture
• dining
• modeling
• shopping
• traveling
• fishing
• backpacking

Music, Movies, and Books

Re: Music and me: "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder Books...so many books, so little time.
I am lucky enough to own these, and more. Always looking for good books.

Presently reading:

Jupiters Travels, by Ted Simon......50,000 miles around the world on a Triumph.

Highly recommended:

"A Fortune Teller Told Me", by Tiziano Terzani. An Italian journalist receives a warning not to fly during 1993, despite the fact that it's an absolute necessity given his occupation....or is it? A great read.

"The Lizard Cage" by Karen Connelly...(or anything by Karen for that matter.) A tale of a Political Prisoner in Burma; beaten, abused, malnourished, and left to die in a Stygian pit of a prison for the crime of singing songs against the regime. It was inspiring to me, and hit particularly close to home because I have always said "It's not where you are...it's where you're at."
The main character is an inspiration in how not to hate, and how to free your mind, and escape without moving a muscle. If you get though this book without shedding a tear or three, you are stronger than I , Grasshopper!

Also by Karen check out "This Brighter Prison" a book of poetry, and one more: "Dream of a Thousand Lives; A Sojourn in Thailand". A young Canadian woman goes alone to a backwater village in Thailand to live as a Thai, going to school to learn how to read and write Thai script, and discovering rural Thai life and the Buddhist way of 'being'. Autobiographical.

"Following the Equator", by Mark Twain. Thoroughly enjoying his engaging, 'everyman' style and dry, slightly off-center sense of haha. Twain Rules. (Mark, not Shania....although Shania is no slouch either..**Drool**)

Also recommended:

Emma Larkin: Finding George Orwell in Burma

Stan Sesser: The Lands of Charm and Cruelty

Kim Fay: To Asia with Love. A Connoisseur's Guide to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

Anthony Kiedis: Scar Tissue

Loung Ung: First They Killed My Father; a daughter of Cambodia remembers (Nightmare material)

Christopher P Baker: Mi Moto Fidel (An Englishman living in the US takes a BMW motorcycle through Cuba. These are his stories. I rather wish he'd lose the 18th century Thesaurus he relies so heavily on, but a good read nonetheless.....just keep "Wiktionary" handy. Unless, of course, you use words like onomatopoeian or tatterdemalion in everyday use...I know I do...**Ahem**)

Roger Warner: Shooting at the Moon. The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos. Books like this just piss me off...in a good, educational way...like "An Inconvenient Truth"

Henry Mouhot: Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, Cambodia and Laos (The man credited with "discovering" Angkor Wat. One of the original travel books.)

Glen Heggstead: Two Wheels Through Terror. A motorcyclist decides to travel around South America on a bike. And all goes well. Until he's grabbed by FARC guerillas, that is. True story. Really.

Alex Garland: The Beach...a hammock staple. You all know that one.
George Orwell: Burmese Days. Sad story but true. Well, it's fiction....but it could easily have been true.I love Orwell.

Rudyard Kipling: Kim

Maurice Collis: Lords of the Sunset. A traveller's tales of the Shan States of Northeast Burma in the British Colonial days. A rare glimpse into the travelling past.

***Note, if after reading these, you know of a book I would JUST LOVE, please email me and enlighten me a little. Spread the joy!
(And seriously, read "The Lizard Cage" and "A Fortune Teller Told Me". You might thank me someday.)
Thanks for your tips in advance,
Chris***

Movies....Partial List:

The Big Lebowski
An Inconvenient Truth
Apocalypse Now (Director's Cut...with the French Plantation scene)
Boogie Nights.......Diggler....hehehe...Diggler...
The Boondock Saints (Willem Dafoe as a cross-dressing super-sleuth. CLASSIC! Great techniques with overlapping scenes when Dafoe is retelling events in a crime, and they come to life beside him. Really visually rich.)
Blade Runner
City of Ghosts
Desperado
Fight Club
Grosse Point Blank
Kill Bill 1 & 2
Manufactured Landscapes (Documentary)
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Office Space "We see you're been missing a lot of work lately"
"Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob!"
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
The Princess Bride
Salvador
Snatch
Spanglish
This is Spinal Tap
Team America: World Police
Up in Smoke
High Plains Drifter
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Butch and Sundance
Reservoir Dogs
The Lost Weekend
It's a Wonderful Life (I have never gotten through this one with dry eyes...dammit! OK, one more try...)
Citizen Kane
Pulp Fiction
Touch of Evil ( Charlton Heston as a Mexican...great stuff.....wonderful, long, complicated scenes. Watch it, and try to find where they had to stop the camera, then watch any other movie. Orson, you pro!)
Sunset Boulevard....of course.

OH! And anything with Paris Hilton in it....what a talent! And that lovely Lindsay Lohan. I just love working with pros.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams ... glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost ... in time, like tears ... in rain. Time ... to die.

OK, that may have been Roy, the Replicant from Blade Runner, but he's not far ahead of Yours Truly, I'll tell ya! :-)

Teach, Learn, Share

My opinion right now? China needs a serious wake-up call from the rest of the planet. For starters, read this: It won't take long, but it's a brief opinion piece of China's role in the world:
http://hoosierinva.blogspot.com/2007/10/chinese-connection.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/03/24/animal_cruelty_china/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/feature

Check out http://www.uscampaignforburma.org/aboutuscb/mission-structure.html
and http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3847
or even:
www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=174 if Freedom of Speech is your bag, Baby!
This last one is a very disturbing look at how cheaply this culture views animal life and suffering. Its a nauseating peek into the Chinese fur trade and is very hard to watch, so be warned. >>>DO NOT watch this if you are very sensitive to cruelty to animals! It is included as an example of some of the things that people do in China, and other countries, in the name of vanity. It is for reference purposes only, and should not be viewed by the sensitive, but is here (hopefully) make people think about what they buy, where it comes from, and what impact that has on the world.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belize, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, Kosovo, Laos, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Myanmar, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada

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