I can hardly wait.

Shea Kelli checks out the choices at a food stand in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.


I had the opportunity the other day, to scan quickly through some of the footage that came back from Asia with the mighty SRWT crew.
I can hardly wait to get at the edit.

Memories of Waikoloa

a live webcam
surveying the landscape of the Hilton Waikoloa on the big island of Hawaii.
Far be it from me to link you to some other place without comment...
BIG BROTHER IS EVERYWHERE !
I walked all over this area, unaware that I was on TV...shooting tv...etc.

I hate my new job

Intrepid SRWT videographer D gets too-da#@-up-close-and-personal with a pair of cobras on the streets of Jaipur India for an upcoming episode of Shea's Rockin' World Tour.

What's next for SRWT ?

Momentum is building to our season launch in September... who knows what wonders the future holds...?

Thanks to all my solicitous coworkers wellwishers and those who wish me no particular harm

Your kindness has been noted and will no doubt be rewarded at the gates of heaven. If not sooner.

It really was a lot of fun...

Though it's funnier to remember the bits that were challenging.

I can't believe i didn't post this shot

The kids at Agra loved Shea, and now Shea loves goats.

See "2 part post" below for video

I have a LOT more video of tuktuks but I hadn't planned to actually cut something...

What happened to Sunday ?

I got up at 7 Sunday.
Was as asleep again by 10.
Woke up a 5, crashed at 7,
woke up at 3AM.
Ack.
Is this jetlag ?

Comics don't have to be funny

A two part post

I'm not next to the hard drives or i'd upload a short bit from India.
The next time you look here you will probably see a scary/exciting movie from Mumbai.
Is it cheating to bait and switch like this...?

A Haiku

SRWT promise suspect
will feed and water ezi
maybe not kill him

Where are we ?

The jetlag-lag is pretty amazing...I think i'm addicted to Orange juice...Denise is looking at Kenya and I'm in Hawaii (mindspace wise) this is not helping.

Happy Birthday Picante Ads

A brief but emotional celebration was held today, SRWT jetlag experiment continues...

Bar Graph

This is what the "SRWT Orient Excess" tape output looks like, expressed as a bar graph.

Back in CDT

I guess I'm back.
Woke up at 5AM CDT hankering to shoot something.

That's all folks

Now I know why they call it the RedEye.
The flight from LA to Toronto was gruelling for some reason.
It's nice to be home.. thanks to everyone who showed at the airport to receive us !

Far be it from me to bitch...

We encountered the most surly ticket agent today. SO sour that I'm spending 6 US$ so I can slag her as soon as possible. She watched as we manually punched in all the data for 8 people, then she said "I could have done that a lot quicker over here" (*subtext* STUPID !) She hadn't offered to do it, though we were the only ones in line...Carrie and I think we remember her from past trips... also surly.
UPDATE:
Hurrying through the terminal later, Allan was defending said agent to Laura, being the forgiving type that he is... then it was noted that the agent had selected him for "triple security screening" ooooh it just gets better...
*...hoo boy i'm bitter.

Preliminary Tour statistics

Some Official Statistics for the Record. Contributed by Shaun, updates and snotty comments by UD

UPDATED Thursday April 12

Number of Days on Tour 21

Number of Flights taken: 15
Number of Airports: 11
(Winnipeg, Salt Lake City, LAX, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur*,
KL, New Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Cochin, Mumbai Langkawi,Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, L.A. Toronto, Winnipeg )


*The BEST Airport in the World 15-25 million passengers ! Toronto's in the same group-it's NOT the best, big time.

Number of Hours in the Air (not including layovers) 68

Number of Hotels (or versions of) stayed in
(Corus, Sunway, Clarks Shiraz, Umaid, Bawa Int’l,
Houseboat Heaven, KL Marriott, Berjaya Langkawi,
Afamosa (Cowboy Town), Shangri-la, Ramada Plaza) 11
Most consecutive days in one hotel 3 Shangri-la
Number of nights flying/driving overnight instead of hotel 5
(LAX to Taipei, KL to Delhi/Agra, Mumbai to KL, Taipei to LAX,
LAX to Toronto)
Number of Hours spent waiting in lines, security at
airports,Embassies, etc. 50 (at least)
Internet Connections attempted / completed A lot/Not so much
Number of times someone used the phase
“__________ the good times!” 10,297 (Estimated at the very least)
Number of times Ezi grossed out/ terrorized Marnie 17
Number of Beers consumed by UnkyDuck Ask Ezi for verification
Number of Batteries used / carried by Allan 248 (especially those AAs)
Number of cars / people in India I’m kidding – lol
(Actually, Barbie's dream bus hit a scooter- neither driver stopped)

Number of times McDonald’s Gourmet was consumed 6
KFC
Number of watches received from Kingfisher Airlines 4
Number of BEERS consumed by Marnie 6. It was very hot.




Number of times an Asian tourist took Shea’s picture 29

All about perspective

Strange..it's about 17 degrees here in LA, and everyone is scrambling for their coats.

Crash !!

LAX was the usual security chaos. Amazing how dingy the arrival hall is in the glittering city of Los Angeles. We checked into the Ramada Plaza near the airport, most of the crew was asleep before Allan and I got the luggage upstairs.
Downstairs in the lobby, dreams of shooting links are dancing in Denise's head, but they are pretty lonely. We will assuage our needs with pizza instead. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. pizza.
DISCLOSURE: I got "keyboard face" in the lobby after 2 pieces of pizza.

Ezi scores the big one

Ezi managed to organize a 3 seat row all to himself for the longest leg of the trip. Some of us were jealous.

Taipei in a hurry

Delays in Kuala Lumpur resulted in a real quick turnaround in Taipei, I hardly had time to exchange some money and drink half a (rotten) beer. Back on the 747-400 for a quick 10 hour hop over the dateline, to arrive an hour earlier on the same date. It’s not just the kids that are having a problem wrapping their heads around THAT one…

Teenage girls rejoice

Because I’m inclined to read the manual…it was discovered that you can phone seat-to-seat on this aircraft. Amazing how you can get a busy signal, calling someone two rows over…MARNIE ..get off the phone !

Slow start

The flight home's going to be delayed 1-1/2 hours (so far) KL is Malaysia's hub so a new plane is being unboxed as we speak... Allan's L.A. connection back to Winnipeg is significantly challenged...the rest of us have a layover until midnight so we'll probably be OK. At least we have a nice Turkish comedy on tv to watch. Subtitled in Malay and English.

Shopping 'til they drop

We're in KLIA and everyone is blowing off the last of the Ringetts. Lotsa great stuff at airport prices...

And so it begins anew...

A little after 5 AM and we're just about ready to head to KLIA "The World's Best Airport" for our flight to Taipei. Then it's LA, Toronto on the Redeye, and home.
Arriving Tuesday eveningish...

One last fabulous Promo shot

More and better kudos to our beloved host. Without Shea's hard work and grinder attitude, this show would be impossible. As it is, it's a pleasure every day.

Last Day in Malaysia

We're in the final winding down process in Kuala Lumpur, running around with JD of PopShuvit. It's been a long haul, it seems impossible that it's almost over. Thanks to the band, and to Tourism Malaysia for the BEST SHOW(s) EVER ! Wait until you see the stuff we shot at HitzFM's birthday....the Cable car...Cowboy town...Langkawi beach...the skating rink...

A wide variety of (Chinese) foods

We have been treated to some great meals here in Malaysia. Our tour guide says he prides himself on showing his guests the gamut of food choices in-country. Unfortunately, he's of Chinese descent, and can detect the difference between the 3 kinds of Chinese food that we ate in a row.

A lesson learned

We found out the hard way that taxi fares double at midnight. We were pretty suspicious when our driver told us THAT one at 12:06AM.

More Birthday party action

Hitz FM is 10 years old

Our pals Pop Shuvit played tonight at a birthday party for the biggest promoter of homegrown music HitzFM. It turns out that the main honcho for the TV side of the event is a Cable Regina alumnus Rob Middleton(Scarily small world). The bash was a blast, and the band just cooked !! Their album is good, but it doesn't prepare you for the quality of the stage show. They had the crowd screaming ! Also us. We shot some incredible footage, making the probability of 2 Malaysia shows almost certain. Click on any photo to expand to ridiculous proportions.

Link o mania

Malaysia stands in for Oahu this afternoon... then the sky went black...JUST got 'em done. Sheazie is SUCH a huge pro.
Allan needs to rest his pipes...

Getting up and getting down

We shot briefly at the KL tower, though it took them nearly an hour to decide to let us shoot for 1/2 hour... then Ezi, Shea and Denise did a little ziplining. There's photography to support this ... I just have to track them down.

She's a GOOD girl !

The list of stuff we're going to tell Denise's mom is growing.

Proof of Life

Ezi is getting even more comfortable with us... good thing ? Bad thing ? He's fully confident in launching into the Kingfisher Airlines themesong 20 times a day, and issuing fart-contest challenges.

Too hard on herself

Laura's self image needs work.

In case you think we aren't having any fun

Back to Kuala Lumpur

NOW we're talking. We've landed at the Shangri La in Putrajaya. Beautiful rooms, hi-speed connection for everyone, and Pop Shuvit appeared on MTV about a minute after we walked in the door. Fabulous view of the city skyline, and our room has a LAWN ! Just the spot to shoot our Hawaii links.
HEY LOOK MARNIE'S HAVING A BEER !!

Malacca or Melaka - Whatever...

We visited the oldest city in Malaysia, which like most of the places we've been has a pretty flexible spelling. The city was annexed successively by the Portuguese, Dutch, English, Japanese, and gained independence in 1957. A quick tour of Dutch square, a boatride to see the "Floating Mosque", some lines in Chinatown and the we are outie....

Afamosa

We won't go into the details until we're safely out of the country, but suffice it to say that Laura has arranged a move to a more conventional hotel in Kuala Lumpur.
Maybe if we were millionaire golfers from China or the Middle east, it would have been our cup of tea...
The place was really a nice building...