i'm back.

I'm home. And I'm shutting this blogspot business down.

You can find me at tumblr from now on. Click here for my blog in English or here for my blog in Spanish. Pretty much the same material but just in the two languages.

PEACE!

So it Ends.

Well, folks, this is it. This blog has been really fun. Thanks if you read this. I hope you've enjoyed peeking in on my life.

I suppose I'll see you in two years.

And now I leave you with some Christmas love in the form of David Bowie and Bing Crosby.



Love,
ktg.

La Vida es Aventura.

Woah!

Life here lately has been an unbelievable adventure lately. A crazed, wild adventure. But it will pale in comparison to the Mission, which will be the greatest Adventure yet, methinks.

Anyway, what is going on in my life? Oh, just everything.

I leave for Utah a week from TODAY! Yes, Monday December 10, I will leave my home for two years. Everything I will need must fit into two suitcases. Because I'm leaving, I'm kind of scrambling to get everything together. Or rather, Mom is scrambling to get everything together while I complain about it. Thank God for my wonderful mother.

But there is still so much to do. From calling all of my out-of-town friends for one last time to going to the optometrist, I've got a full plate this week.

All I do is live/breathe/sleep/think MISSION. Speaking of which, my two childhood best friends, Caleb and Jon Trujillo got their mission calls. Well wait, I'm jumping too far ahead in this story. So there are three missions based in Buenos Aires, Argentina: Argentina Buenos Aires North, Argentina Buenos Aires South, and Argentina Buenos Aires West. So anyway Caleb and Jon are these twins I used to pal around with from about age 7 to 12. Then they moved to Colorado. I've seen them a couple times since and talked to them a few times. Anyway, so they called me on Tuesday and Jon is going South and Caleb West. Weirdness, right?

More mission-related weirdness: one of the guys in The Scene Aesthetic is Mormon. As if that's not weird enough, he's serving a mission in the Argentina Rosario Mission. This isn't just a rumor. Check the site, man, it's there.

Anyway, my last day of work was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. You have no idea how sweet thinking about not going to work is. That night I spent the night at my cousin Reed's house (for clarification I have a brother Reed AND a cousin Reed) and stayed up way too late and got up way too early. But it was very worth it.

The next morning, I went with my sister Marlena and her fam to our sister LeAndrea's house in order to Give Thanks. I really love Thanksgiving. We hung around there for a while and my cousin Ami came up. Then I drove down with my cousin Matt to Disney World.

Man, Disney world was beyond radical. I could start a whole different blog (kirksultradisneyworldtripexplosivehiiyavacation2007.blogspot.com, maybe?) but that would just be unnecessary. Suffice it to say, Disney World rules so hard. Except for Epcot. If you're planning a Disney trip, remove Epcot from your itinerary. It blows. Animal Kingdom is my favorite park down there. The animals really rule so hard. And that Expedition Everest ride they got sporting down there is fun. Disney is just so expensive. You save up and watch it all quickly disappear.

The only drawback to being down there is the warmth...It was November. And there were all these Christmas decorations, but it definitely did not feel like Christmas. In fact it didn't feel like Christmas until I got home and the house was decorated. I'm glad I didn't have to participate in the decorating like last year.

So one of my (if not my absolute most) favorite bands, Anberlin came out with a B-Sides/unreleased album called Lost Songs. This is not really relevant nor is it pertinent but I'm all about the musick.

Okay, I think I'm FINALLY done.

Merry Christmas.

Women Falling Down.

This is the greatest video on YouTube.

The Greatest Person I Have Ever Met.

Sorry, Veronica Danberry*, but the greatest person I have ever met is my cousin, Ami Jagnandan.

Now, this isn't Ami. This is Paris Hilton. But Ami kind of reminds me of Paris Hilton for a few reasons:

1.) Ami is totally glam.

2.) Paris Hilton and Ami both love Mario Party 6.

3.) Ami, as a rule, will never answer the phone if you call her. Not even one time. I've spent more time leaving Ami voice mails than I've spent doing, I don't know, something. Like, maybe a daily activity? But probably something I don't do for a whole lot out of the day, because in all seriousness, I only call Ami, at most, once every 2-3 weeks. However, if you were to catch her on the phone, this is what she'd look like.

Or, you know, she'd look something like that.

Ami lives in the Atlanta area with her husband and three kids. She and I have a relationship which is hard to describe with words. Basically, we are meant to spend the rest of our lives together. I can remember being about 5 and Ami's family coming to visit and she asked me who my favorite cousin was. I confusedly replied that it was she; "confusedly" because the answer seemed so obvious.

Ami laughs at my jokes and I laugh at hers. Because they are funny jokes. Seriously.

Ami is married to this guy, Davin, who is like half Sri Lankan and half Moldovan or something. Either way, he is brown. Maybe you don't know what I mean by this. Let me explain: I am an Anglo Saxon and he sure as hell isn't.

I hate Davin. Not because he's brown. It's simply a coincidence that I hate him and he's brown at the same time. But he's not funny...not even a little. This is an old picture of Davin that I found in a family photo album.

You may ask why he's wearing those clothes. I may ask why Ami ever married him in the first place. Notice the gut. And the vacant look of sheer incomprehension. Davin's been in school since like 1964 or something. Get a job, pal.

Ami's got these kids, Ethan, Aidan, and Sidney. Ethan and Aidan are both really smart. Sidney is, I think, less gifted (the last time I was around, she crapped her pants...like a couple times a day), but she still asks about me, so I'm down with whatever. Ethan and Aidan both have a future in some form of comedy; Ethan can write it and Aidan can act it out or something. Either way, they are both hilarious. At this point, with what I've seen from Sidney, I'd say that she's got a promising future in drinking cheap bourbon and having chia pets. But we're all blessed with different things.

I like going to Ami's house because it's 100% fun time. And Ami's idea of fun is not going and looking at stuff. In fact, Ami doesn't really like "going." We just sit and eat good food and we all make fun of each other. Oh, and we now play Round Robin Ping-Pong. Ami's house is a social lubricant far more powerful than any alcoholic beverage. Where else would my best friend describe my sister LeAndrea as looking like "any lesbo"? Nowhere, friends. Except for maybe heaven, because that's what being at Ami's is like.

Ami also introduced me to David Sedaris, who wrote some of my favorite books, including Me Talk Pretty One Day. I love to sit and listen to her read Sedaris's essays aloud. And the best part is is that she keeps in all the swear words.

Nowadays Ami goes to the gym and does yoga. I'm not really sure what that's all about, but I think "going to the gym" is code for something that most people aren't supposed to know about. Because that's not really Ami's style. But apparently she's lost a lot of weight and is still going strong. Screw Lance Armstrong, somebody make some bracelets for Ami.

I am going to see Ami around Thanksgiving, which will be pretty great. I am way excited. We belong side by side, a privilege which I have been robbed of by Davin. What a worthless crap sack.

All the potshots aside, Ami really is a rad lady. She loves her kids and has a sweet, sensitive heart. And I've never seen her fall down, not once, and I still love her. That's how great she really is. Because, seriously, seeing Ami fall down would be the funniest thing I can think of.

*Veronica Danberry is in no way, whatsoever, a "real" human being.

Take a Sad Song and Make it Better.

I saw Across the Universe this weekend. For those of you that haven't heard of it, check out the trailer.

Basically, it's a musical with songs written by the Beatles. They aren't the originals, and they're sung by the actors.

I definitely think that the makers of the film were heavily relying on the fame of the music for the success of the film...the plot is fairly formulaic and there are some pretty huge holes. I was sort of left with questions like, "Wait...who was this character?" or "She's in love with him?" or "How did they get back to the city?"

And being as it was set in the 60s, they have to make a political statement, right? There's a scene where troops are toting around the Statue of Liberty, crushing the tiny palm trees of Vietnam, singing "she's so heavy." Seriously. Ridiculous.

I enjoyed it, though. I was super entertained. I just wished they had a little more script and a little less social commentary. Maybe they had to cut some scenes for running time...perhaps a Director's Cut DVD will be really great? Who knows. And it's fun to look at...one of those movies with a lot of colors and wacky effects that some critic somewhere would call "visually stunning." If you're into good music and some pretty stuff on the screen, check it out. I would go see it again, even though it's got faults.

And "Hey, Jude" and "I've Just Seen a Face" have been stuck in my head ever since.

My Mission Call Video.

So my sister Marlena put this together for me. Don't make fun of my crying. I'm kind of an emotional wreck.

Argentina. I still can't believe it.

Today is the Day.

Dashboard Confessional's new record, The Shade of Poison Trees, came out today. It's way too rad. I highly recomend it. From what I've heard so far, it's 100% acoustic, like the early Dashboard albums.

Dashboard Confessional is my favorite band and I've been listening to them since middle school. If you haven't jumped on this bandwagon (ha! bandwagon!), now is the time to do it.

YouTube, Ya'll (2).

As I've said before, I am all about some YouTube. And I like showing folks some of my favorites off of the biggest time-waster on the internet.

I won't post the actual "Leave Britney Alone!" video on here, but clearly, I've provided a link...the reason being that, 1.) Chris Crocker is all sorts of ugly and 2.) this is a kid-friendly blog...ol' Crocker sports quite the potty mouth. So if you don't want to hear that, skip it. However, if you haven't seen it...I mean, its pretty funny...so watch it.

Now onto what we're really here for.

Best Day of the Week.

I just want to say that tonight's episode of The Office was the best yet. Holy freaking crap. I don't want to ruin it for anybody. But seriously. So good.