March 2011, Brad Cougle Kiwi?

March was awesome and awesomely bad. Good things included finally getting residency, shooting another commercial, a visit from my mom and seeing STP (Stone Temple Pilots) my favourite band of all time. Awesomely bad = TV show got cancelled. So a little on the up over all.

Brad Cougle - New Zealand Permanent Resident - March 15, 2011. A long haul, which began in June 2008 to get my temp residency and eventually my permanent. Happy to answer questions on this if anyone is thinking about getting residency. Happy days.

Shot a commercial that will air in April with probably the most famous Rugby player in the world, Dan Carter. Nice enough guy. See the commercial next month!

Mama Cougle in Auckland to see what the hell her son is doing. Had a good two weeks with my mother when she crossed the pacific for an end of March early April Visit. She had been here before for my motorcycle crash, but we never made it to Auckland and the North. Lots to do including visiting Waiheke Island, the Sky Tower and Piha with a couple of rounds of golf and a few good meals sprinkled in. Oh, and I sent her on her own to the top of NZ for a two day adventure which I believe she enjoyed quite a lot.

Mike and Mom working out how the Lion Rock got on Piha beach.

Child abuse in front of the lovely Kitekite water fall in Piha!

Mom and I climbing up Lion Rock

Cool automated driving range at Takapuna Golf Course, but not a cool automated swing. Mom, still hits it straight most of the time though.

A meal at Auckland's Sky Tower which is a must do on a nice evening. $65 gets you a ride to the top and a 3 course meal at Orbit, their rotating restaurant. Highly recommend it as it cost $28 alone to simply take the lift to the top for just a look around. Forgot I have a fear of heights...

Initial shock as the lift's glass doors opened to a view of the city from high above.

More height issues to overcome as I walk across a glass floor. I wasn't the only one struggling with this.

View from the Sky Tower with the Harbour Bridge in the background.

Returning back down in the lift. Much more comfortable at this point.

Mom, conquering Cape Reinga (top of NZ)

STP live at the Vector arena. I knew about this show a month before it was coming, but decided not to get tickets as I'm not the biggest fan of huge venue shows and tickets were $100 each.

Fortunately as I was searching trademe for discounts on trips for my mom I came across two tickets for $40 each still available 1 hour before the show started. I'll have that! Got both tickets for $30 total and headed to the concert trying to get another to join on the way. Got to the doors figuring I could just flick a ticket to someone standing around, but everyone was inside already. No one to sell to and no one had answered my call so it was a solo mission. Nothing two quick beers couldn't fix and the blast of "Plush" as I enter the room. I didn't care who was around me as I slid in to a STP coma! Swarms of satisfaction warmed my soul as I took in Plush and many more tunes from my college years.

Interstate Love Song - The video is really only for me as the quality is weak and I'm singing badly over top of it, but it's my favourite song so I thought it better get on the blog.

Other notes from the month:

Night at Waikaraka Speedway. Phil and I joined my flatmate Cuzzy for a night of mud flinging crash up derby for the hardcore! This is where the toughies hang...

For those who don't want "Mud in their eye"

Red necks crossing the ocean, that can't be, this must be a different flag right?

Bit of vid on one of the races. Dedication required as these guys make very little prize money and pay a lot to keep there $100,000 cars going.

Exploding table, WTF! Watch the video for a better explanation. The short version is this glass table collapsed on it's own while I was downstairs directly underneath. I thought the bbq fell over or something like that, but not the implosion of our glass table.

Black Jack dealer. I was accepted to Black jack dealer training at Sky City Casino (the only casino in Auckland), but turned it down after they wanted me to pay $335 to have an indepth Internal Affairs investigation in to my background which envolved too much info from me and people I know. Too bad as I wanted to gain this experience for a idea I have in mind.

Bad news of the month, my first TV show creation was cancelled March 22, 2011 after making it to the sure thing stage. Unfortunately the production company I was working with refused take TVNZ's direction and tidy up our script to their liking. They just didn't seem interested in spending time on the show and felt the fight was too uphill.  TVNZ decided to cancel it. A very disappointing waste as the Show would have been great, but at least I walked away with a couple of bucks and a fantastic learning experience.

The hardest part is that as the co-creator I can't take the show anywhere on my own. The Production company is happy to put the show on hold with a secret plan to take it to TV3 for a pitch down the road. "Starting on the 3rd floor and falling to the 1st seems like a big drop, but it isn't as you already know where the 3rd floor is." The good news is I have decided to push forward and create 3 more shows. Let's see what happens...