Big Dave, Little Plane, Oh, The Chomanity!

Entering final preparations.

That's what she said!

I swear, does my humor know no bounds? Don't answer that! For serious, there isn't much time left before I go, and almost everything that needs done is about done. Here's the most up-to-date, state-of-the-art, works-well-with-children, user-friendly, contents-may-vary-from-picture, life-as-it-should-be, coronary-inducing, technology-fearing, should-be-taken-with-a-meal, and mind-warping list of to-do's turned to-done's with action-kung-fu-grip:

• Received my amazing backpack/sack-o-life for 22 days from www.ebags.com
• It's a Transformer!!! Big and little, more than meets the eye!
• Printed pretty much every possible bit of information I could, including itineraries, maps, directions, cheat sheets for phrases, reservations, recipes, yoga poses, schematics, city guides, lists of top 25 things to do in Hong Kong, the lost scripts for Lost, Final Fantasy XVI cheat codes, and paper airplane guides
• Made a list, checked it twice, of necessary toiletries, etc and will be picking those up tomorrow
• Attempted to drink a full gallon of milk in one sitting
• Discovered I was lactose intolerant
• Paid the hospital bill for a stomach pump
• Purchased a snazzy neck wallet, plug adapter, and luggage locks
• Took pictures of all of the puppies that live outside my apartment complex, saw the ghostly image of David Hasselhoff, and proceeded to burn my camera, reciting the necessary exorcism incantations
• Borrowed Rick's camera, ignoring the request for permission part
• Set up my change of service to an international phone – phone number will be the same, no worries, fellas – just text me if you want my BlackBerry PIN so we can message each other and massage each other messagistically
• Drew stick figures in crazy-cool matrix poses and put the crayons away this time so the mangy cats that also live outside my apartment complex don't eat them and poop crayola for three weeks straight
• Realized I wouldn't be around for three weeks and that Chris would have to clean it up by himself, and put the crayons in open tuna cans

So, quite a bit of it all is knocked out of the way. It's incredible! I seriously thought I would have to make up stuff in order to fill up the pages of my blog, but it's all for true. True, for true. It seems Europe is more demanding than a starving man named Eddy I keep locked up and malnourished in my closet. I get it already, ooh, sooo hungwy. Wahh! Boohoo. Why are you doing this to me, blah, blah? I was just bringing you a pizza, blahbiddy blah! Wah-wah, I get it, Eddy! But, it was either trust you to not be a robot sent from the future to destroy me so that I wouldn't live to stop the robot insurrection or play it safe and expect just that. I don't like taking chances. Not when robots are involved.

Robot Children? This is my nightmare!

And, speaking of things to take, like chances, I am doing everything I can to wrap my brain around what I can and cannot take on this trip. Working the whole bare minimum angle isn't my strong suit. I once took four bags for a three-day-trip. All of it was necessary. Especially the life jacket. In Nevada. I learned by example, though, so it isn't all my fault. Mom used to pack six to eight bags for a week-long vacation. We're talking luggage that most little people would call two-bedroom condos with ample room to run around and do little people things, like save Middle Earth. And make delicious cookies. And solidify plans to go as the seven dwarfs for Halloween, for the twelfth year in a row. I get to be Snow White, sometimes.

Anyway, this will be a remarkably difficult process for me, I'm sure, but it will be done. It must be done. Here's a list of other remarkably difficult things for me:

• Dancing while sober
• Dancing while intoxicated
• Seeing the point in shows like the Bachelor, Jersey Shore, and Rock of Love 78: More Than A Feeling
• Watching anything involving Jimmy Fallon
• Being told not to watch anything involving Ryan Reynolds
• Winning an “Under Six Feet Tall” Competition
• Arm-wrestling Goro from Mortal Combat
• I want a hug!
• Understanding free-form interpretive clogging
• Winning a “Doesn't Look Like Superman” Competition
• Being told not to make any more lists
• Fighting a bear and a lion simultaneously – if it's mano a bearo or mano a liono, it's cool, but together, they are fierce
• Surviving an encounter with a Spetznaz
• Surviving an encounter with Chuck Norris
• Surviving an encounter with Barbara Walters She's in attack mode!
• Making this blog interesting and fun to read

We'll just have to see if I make it out of packing for Europe alive and without too many scars. I expect tears though, lots of them. I haven't quite settled on what I will bring as my photo companion. What is a photo companion? I'm not glad that you asked, but I'll still tell you. It's an item that I will take along with me and I will display in photos at each of the major tourist attractions. It's kind of like that gnome for travelocity, but with much less exploitation of gnomes. Poor little useless gnomes. So, in essence, I would stand in front of, say, the Eiffel Tower, with a strange object, like a typewriter. My picture would be taken. My camera would be stolen. And I would have a memory that would keep me laughing well into...a month later. Here is a list of possible ideas:

• A toaster
• An action figure that bears my resemblance
• 
• A hanger
• Four rolls of duct tape
• A checkerboard
• A baseball signed by “The Macho Man” Randy Savage
• A tube of Fixodent
• A bar of soap with an obvious bite in it
• A half-eaten Snickers bar
• A pack of Mentos
• A lightsaber
• An inflatable guitar
• A box of Honey Nut Cheerios

Oddly enough, this is also an exact replica of Macgyver's weekly grocery list. All of these things can be combined to make a bomb, defuse a bomb, incapacitate an evil henchman, change the climate, make an all-weather parka, plug the ozone, stop Britney Spears from having a nervous breakdown, resurrect the dead, harpoon a whale, harpoon Michael Moore, go back in time, and rescue orphans from a teetering school bus driven by a nun. Macgyver likes to stock up, in case all of those very things need doing. Smart man. Also, smart = crazy! Look into those beautiful brown eyes, the eyes of a man that can kill you with no more than a twisty straw and a Burger King crown

I'll get to packing, you get to...whatever it is you do. Badminton, maybe? Lame

Next post: The Daveparted, Starring Chomanardo DaveCaprio