Before you learn who Paul Henry is, you should learn a thing or two about the New Zealand network television programming landscape.

New Zealand has 5 non-cable TV stations (4 if you don't count TVNZ 5, which just constantly shows low-production-quality advertisements for regional restaurants and attractions). Between all of those channels is one good show, The Simpsons. It's kind of like American TV in those dark years between Family Guy getting canceled and reinstated. Couple that with the fact that you'll never see a baseball, football or hockey game televised here, and you might as well replace your TV with a box fan that sprays feces at you.

Google image search for "feces fan" produced this irrelevant but hilarious gem. Try searching yourself! Then delete your browser history.

There are a small number of especially horrible shows. For example, Noise Control is basically a Cops-style show where "noise patrol officers" (not actual police) respond to noise complaints in Auckland. Another one is What's Really in Our...?. It used to be called What's Really In Our Food?, but the marketing geniuses at TVNZ3 realized that there are some really weird and possibly gross sounding (demographic dependent) chemicals in non-foodstuffs like shampoo and lotion. And to top it off, they have possibly the worst nature show I've ever seen:

Where did they find this guy - Spatula City?

So the entertainment TV sucks. But I (Adam) hardly watch it anyway since I work during the day and slave away at this shitty blog at night. The only program I consistently watch is the morning news which conveniently airs while I'm housing cereal and hydrocodone on the couch before work. And in these several minutes of peace, I'm forced to stare at this asshole:

This is Paul Henry, Asshole.

First off, he's not really a news anchor, he's a morning show host - the Regis of the South. After an actual journalist reads the news, he sits there and gives his opinion on it. Unsurprisingly he has an opinion about everything - which doesn't make him an asshole de jure, but just think of how many people you've met who have opinions about everything who aren't assholes. Occasionally he interviews people and asks them tough questions to get to the bottom of the truth, and for that I thank him.

To wrap it up, I hated this guy until I found this video of him commenting on one of his interviewees' mustaches. The interviewee was Stephanie Mills of Greenpeace.

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In New Zealand they got rid of 1 and 5 cent coins awhile back, so the stores round to the nearest 10 cents on purchases. They call it Swedish Rounding. Everywhere else it's just called "rounding," except for Sweden where they call it "öresavrundning." Eventually the States will get rid of smaller denomination coinage and stores will implement rounding policies and they will probably call it "Freedom Rounding." And at some point after that somebody will move from the US to New Zealand and write a blog post about how funny it is that they call Freedom Rounding "Swedish Rounding." But the Swedes won't be laughing. No, not this time.

Nobody f*cks with the Swedish Rounding.

Also, at sporting events here they call the wave the "Mexican wave." What do you expect from a country where burritos cost $24 and the hottest hot sauce you can buy in the grocery store is called "Sweet Chilli Sauce?" Seriously, that shit is Busch league.

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A couple weeks ago Lara informed Adam that they would be going on a date on the upcoming Saturday.

Adam asked, "where?" Lara replied "you get to decide." Adam thought that was fair - after all, Lara had already done the heavy lifting of deciding to go on a date in the first place.

So they went to an ice rink - the one place in town that could cater to them both.

What does a bib say? For the restaurant, it says "this is a quality meat eatery that serves up juicy slabs of fun for your enjoyment." For Adam it says "I am a quality meat eater who owns a small number of shirts."

We passed out around 10:30pm, which was good because Adam didn't have anything planned after that.

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Queenstown has the largest Winter Festival in the Southern Hemisphere. For us it meant we could hear an MC and techno music every evening for 2 weeks. But on the positive side we had all sorts of cool shit like this going on down the street from our cabin:

No big deal, just scaffolding setup in the middle of a park with a bunch of snowboarders doing rail stunts on it.

Lara actually got the opportunity to volunteer at the Winter Festival. "Volunteering" is when you do work for $0/hour. She did some amazing things - such as setting up road barriers, making photocopies and most importantly checking in contestants to the dog barking competition. She made the World a better place. And at the end of the festival all of the volunteers had a party at the casino with free drinks all night. Adam, who did not volunteer, somehow got in anyway.

Adam also got to participate in the festival as a contestant in the Splash-n-Dash. This event involved jumping off a boat in the middle of the bay, swimming to shore, and then running up the beach to a finish line where the swimmers could relax and let their testicles re-descend.

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First, let me establish that "sorry mom" is addressed to Mama Saraceno, not Mama Cirkovic. Lara never really does anything stupid, and in fact spends most of her free time trying to prevent Adam from doing stupid things. In this instance she failed miserably.

Secondly, before Bonny has a heart attack, let me establish that I am perfectly fine and not hurt or in any sort of trouble. So stop freaking.

Adam recently participated in a backyard boxing match. Backyard boxing is just like regular boxing but the fighters are more mismatched and reckless and there is nothing of material value to be won. Just pride and/or pity from your girlfriend. Adam got both.

Cardboard sign. Ring made out of road cones and caution tape. Ref holding a beer. This is backyard boxing.

As awesome as that picture looks, it's hard to believe that Adam got his ass handed to him. Lara was nice enough to get the first 30 seconds of the first round on video. Here's an idea - every time Adam falls over, drink! No, just kidding. You don't want to drink that much.

I had my doubts about the caliber of this backyard boxing party, but after seeing the ring I knew it would be totally legit.


Once the fighting ceased we were all friends again. This is the way it works when you hang out with Irish people.

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To our dismay, $3 gets you a bag of horse poo, not the opportunity to watch a horse poo. This sign is misleading. It should say "Horse Poo (noun) $3."

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When you travel you learn things you thought you'd never learn before. Case in point - we learned the upper limit of time that two couples can comfortably cohabitate a 1-bedroom cabin with no insulation in the middle of Winter. It's about 1 month.

Cabin 30 had a great run. But we had an opportunity to jump ship and we did. Behold the 2-bedroom, fully insulated Cabin 117:

Don't be fooled by the street light - it's not on a street! Is YOUR house not really on a street? Movin' on up.

Okay it doesn't look that spectacular here, but it's pretty sweet. Come, let us show you around.

First you walk up a winding, icy staircase which could also be considered a luge depending on how many stairs you fall down on your way up. Does YOUR house have a luge? Movin' on up.

Our front porch is at the top of the staircase. Turn around and here is the view you get to the left:

Queenstown Hill. This is where the rich people live. Can you see rich people from YOUR house? Movin' on up.

And here is the view straight ahead:

OHHHHHH SNAP. Movin'. On. Up.

So yeah, good view. Also, the place came fully furnished, so we no longer have to use lawn chairs and we were able to throw away our dining table that Adam made from a cardboard box and an old twin bed frame.

Lara, a love seat, a coffee table and a big blanket. I smell SUNDAY MORNING TEXTING!!!


The kitchen has a medium sized fridge (no more mini fridge), a toaster, microwave, oven, water kettle and two burners that are actually built into the counter rather than built into the top of the weird oven/toaster/range at Cabin 30. And if that's not homey enough for you, it even has the cliche "French Canadian person making french onion soup" in it. Kim's baguette is just outside the picture.

It also has a wall-mounted heater (called a heat pump here, which is a term that can't be used in the States because Bonny Saraceno would make inappropriate jokes about it), a cast iron fireplace, a dehumidifier, an Electrolux vaccuum cleaner (top of the line in 1968), and a whole bunch of other shit that reminded us that more nice stuff is better than less nice stuff.

The heat pump is right above the love seats. It is constantly blowing. MUST RESIST JOKE.


Some people like copper buckets full of gold spray painted pine cones next to their fireplaces. Adam likes primer buckets and beer boxes filled with 1x2 pine off-cuts. You say "tomato," I say "I'm a f*cking man."


At our old place we had to drive to a laundromat and use coin-operated washing machines. Now we can stay at home and use a Lara-operated washing machine. For Adam the difference is driving and coins. For Lara there is no difference.

And one last thing to mention - we now have a TV and DVD player so we no longer have to speak to each other when we're in the same room.

Instead we speak to Chuck, who always talks back with attitude and you just get the feeling that he's up to no good, but you later find out that his intentions were noble. Movin' on up.

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How about we stop weirding you out with Japan pictures for awhile and talk about something that's at least happened in the last month.

Okay, it actually happened more than a month ago. But we're such interesting people that we're always about a month and a half behind when it comes to crazy stories about our adventurous lives. Did I say interesting? I meant lazy.

Here are step-by-step instructions on how to get on our blog:

1. Send Lara Velveeta Shells and Cheese

2. Send Adam chew and beef jerky

The first big winner is Brooke Stein. Behold:

B-Stein ain't no shiksa.

It's no surprise that Brooke is the first person to do something great and awesome like this. In fact, you can thank her for this shit-fest of a blog because without Brooke there would be no Adam and Lara. Story time!

Once upon a time Brooke Stein was moving to San Francisco and so was Adam. Brooke and Adam were friends in college so they started looking for a place together. Brooke knew another apartment-hunting betch named Tammi, and both of them loved Albert Pujols so naturally it made sense for all 3 to join forces.

From left to right: Tammi, Albert Pujols, Brooke.

They found a dope apartment located at 757 Clayton Street, an address that later became known throughout the city as "Studio 757." The apartment was spacious, it had a backyard, the landlord was an 80-year-old man/raisin-goblin who was a life coach and taught sex workshops, and it was right down the street from the Gold Cane (see first review).

It even had a man cave.

At the last minute Brooke bailed on the apartment, leaving Tammi and Adam with a 3 person flat and a non-refundable $500 downpayment, citing "I just want to keep looking" as the main reason. Luckily, Adam's old fashioned friend Pete knew a guy who was also looking for an apartment in SF.

Not sure why Pete is holding a bag of fruit - his apartment had a hanging fruit basket. It also had a wicker basket glued to the ceiling.

Anyway, Pete's friend's name was John Stanley and to say the least he was a little rough around the edges. But Tammi and Adam were in a bind and this was their only option. So Tammi, Adam and John went on to live together in Studio 757. They lived there for 2 years and during the height of their power (known as the Yee Dynasty) composed the greatest Christmas card known to man:

Yes, John is wearing Budweiser pants. Yes, Tammi is wearing a Bud Girl tank top and boy shorts. Yes, Adam is completely naked.

In the meantime Brooke found some randos on Craiglist to live with in Russian Hill. Those randos happened to be Sam Jupponit Bartelloni and Lara Cirkovic. They all got along great because they shared a love for Velveeta Shells and Cheese.

Lara (guitar) and Sam (mic) also shared a love for holographic 80's cartoon rock. They are truly, truly, truly outrageous.

Not suprisingly, Brooke, Lara and Sam all got evicted about 8 months later.  According to them their "landlord was selling the building" and it had nothing to do with their rooftop pot farm. Anyway the three of them ended up moving right around the corner from Studio 757, into a quaint little bungalow called Casa De Carl. Because of their close proximity, it didn't take long for Adam and Lara to hit it off. And by "hit it off" I mean "became friends," because Adam's initial attempts to hit on Lara were completely struck down. But it worked out in the end, obviously - I mean you're reading our blog right now.

Actually, at this point you're probably just looking at the pictures.

So today we salute you Brooke Stein, for all you've done for us.

As for the rest of you, step it up. It's amazing how quickly a blog can become a vehicle for smack talk.

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Oh. My. God. According to Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, we are most likely white: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/01/11/120-taking-a-year-off/

This finally clears up the whole "Lara is half-asian" issue.

Embarrasingly accurate post courtesy of Jordan Small.

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This guy looked like he was either going to fart or say the word "fart." All possibilities made us laugh.

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