DOUBLE PACK OF CHEEZ DOODLES!! YAAA!! (Audio NSFW if your coworkers speak Norwegian)

April 8, 2012 6:30 PM

"This is day 86 on my full return South Pole Expedition 2011/2012. I'm quite hungry and about to pick up my last cache by my second pulk which I left on the way in. As a part of my motivational plan I have on purpose not made notes on what goodies I have left behind in the cache, and on this last one, I didn't expect very much." --Aleksander Gamme

My first post to the blue, and it seems exceedingly unlikely that I could be the first to post this, but I searched and searched and found nothing. Mods, I fully expect to see this deleted because "cheez double".

Aleksander Gamme is a Norwegian freelance journalist, skydiver and mountain climber. He has climbed Mt. Everest, has skiied across Greenland several times, and runs an expedition business. Here is a summary of his trips. Aleksander's facebook page. His webpage and blog.

I first found his video at reddit (yeah, sorry), and he was convinced to do an AMA.

He hints that he has masturbated at the South Pole.

Worst day on the trek, day 6. He lost his thermos and a drinking bottle, broke a ski on the sledge, fell down a sastrugi, and experienced a whiteout.

For entertainment, he took 3 iPods and a Samsung Galaxy for watching movies in the evening.

posted by QuakerMel (28 comments total)

A few points about the video:

1) Wild Norwegian hair is awesome.
2) The pause after he gets done screaming is ... perfect.
3) I want some Norwegian cheese puffs now.
4) Turn on the close captioning (labeled CC) for more awesomeness.

P.S. Never apologize in advance
posted by Mercaptan at 6:36 PM on April 8, 2012 [7 favorites]

This is really awesome.
posted by koeselitz at 6:53 PM on April 8, 2012

I went on a 5 hour hike this weekend, and I ate my one Clif Bar before I even finished the first mile.

This guy is amazing. If cheez doodles felt they ever needed an advertising campaign, the job is done.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 7:06 PM on April 8, 2012

What was the third item that made him so excited? Gummi candies?
posted by thecjm at 7:14 PM on April 8, 2012

So this is what Pingu is up to now. I've often wondered. Thank-you.
posted by howfar at 7:26 PM on April 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Crazy Vikings.
posted by stbalbach at 7:52 PM on April 8, 2012

Yeah I want the Cheesy Poofs!
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:14 PM on April 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

What kind of Viking doesn't store some Djungelvral or Hockey Powder in their snack stash?
posted by kmz at 8:17 PM on April 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Technoviking loves snacks.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:35 PM on April 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

I kept worrying that his shouting would attract some sort of large South Polean land carnivore.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 8:37 PM on April 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I kept worrying that his shouting would attract some sort of large South Polean land carnivore.

A shoggoth?
posted by howfar at 8:41 PM on April 8, 2012 [8 favorites]

Yo can get OLW Swedish Cheez Doodles in the UK at least, and yes they are OSSOM when you want something cheesy.

And Swedish. They're Swedish. The macho man might be Norwegian but them doodles are ours.
posted by dabitch at 9:10 PM on April 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

Oh man that is so great! It is difficult to imagine how high a spot chocolate occupies in the sphere of heaven if you haven't been hungry and without any for several months.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 9:21 PM on April 8, 2012

It is difficult to imagine how high a spot chocolate occupies in the sphere of heaven if you haven't been hungry and without any for several months.

I was at a Rainbow Gathering once where a guy traded a Costco pack of Hershey's Special Dark bars for an entire sheet of blotter hits.

Chocolate has unspeakable worth when you're away from civilization.
posted by hippybear at 9:55 PM on April 8, 2012

Ahem. Cheez Doodles. Yes. Amazing. Quite. I haven't seen those in decades. In my fair off and exceedingly well-spent childhood, Cheez Doodles are what we had in America.
posted by Goofyy at 11:24 PM on April 8, 2012

What was the third item that made him so excited? Gummi candies?

Looked like Gott & Blandat to me.
posted by Authorized User at 12:48 AM on April 9, 2012

Humorously, all of his extra equipment was in a Vinmonopolet bag - this being the only place you can buy liquor in Norway.

Mercaptan - the Norwegian ones aren't really any different than any other ones you've had...although they probably taste better after 80 days on skis.

Authorized User - Heresy! That's some kind of Swedish monstrosity. Here, it's known as Godt & Blandet. Although eating them after being in a deep freeze for a couple months is almost guaranteed to break your teeth.

Fruknøtt? Really? If it were a Waters Mandler, I would understand. Or even the staple of Norwegian mountain hikes - the Kvikk Lunsj.
posted by grajohnt at 4:32 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

My god, he's just... so HAPPY. *wipes tear* Something about a grown man shrieking in absolutely unrestrained joy makes me happy too.
posted by WalterMitty at 4:53 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

kmz: "What kind of Viking doesn't store some Djungelvral or Hockey Powder in their snack stash?"

A non-Swedish viking.
posted by brokkr at 5:52 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

There's something in the pauses - the brief pan of the unbroken horizon, the empty flat frozen nothingness in every direction, the utter silence broken only by the wind hissing over the snow - that is...unsettling.
posted by echo target at 6:55 AM on April 9, 2012

A shoggoth?

I was thinking along the more mundane lines of a South Polean Polar Bear; I hadn't even considered shoggoths.

From the looks of his surroundings, he's safe from the fauna described in The Mountains Of Madness. If there's a sequel entitled The Extremely Wide, Utterly Flat Plain Of Madness, he might want to give it a cautionary read.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:26 AM on April 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

No polar bears in the South Pole. The apex predator there is the leopard seal.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:44 AM on April 9, 2012

predator schmedator, leopard seals are pussy cats. this one tried to teach a photographer how to catch and eat penguins, since he was obviously too stupid to feed himself.
posted by QuakerMel at 7:56 AM on April 9, 2012

Oh, I know there aren't any polar bears there that anybody's seen yet.

Did you watch the video? Do you have any IDEA how difficult it would be to spot a polar bear against all that white space? I'm just not convinced of the accuracy of the South Polean Polar Bear census.

Anyway, being the only living thing--heck, the only vertical object--in that vast waste would give me the heebie-jeebies. Anything that IS out there that gets people is going to come get you, just because there aren't any other candidates.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 8:56 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I read about a polar mountaineering trip that took longer than expected. The climber was so hungry that when he finally arrived back at his food cache, he happily devoured a whole stick of butter.
posted by exogenous at 10:20 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I did not know that seals could eat people.
posted by newpotato at 11:35 AM on April 9, 2012

I'm sure they could eat them.

Whether they could hunt them down and kill them, that's another question altogether.
posted by hippybear at 8:45 PM on April 9, 2012

From Wikipedia:

Attacks on people

Leopard seals are potentially highly dangerous towards humans, but attacks are rarely reported. Examples of aggressive behaviour, stalking and attacks have been documented. Notable incidents include:

* A large leopard seal attacked Thomas Orde-Lees (1877–1958), a member of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 when the expedition was camping on the sea ice. A large "sea leopard" of approximately 12 feet (3.7 m) long and 1,100 pounds (500 kg) chased Orde-Lees on the ice. He was saved only when another member of the expedition shot the animal.

* In 1985, Scottish explorer Gareth Wood was bitten twice on the leg when a leopard seal tried to drag him off the ice and into the sea. His companions managed to save him by repeatedly kicking the animal in the head with the spiked crampons on their boots.

* In 2003, a leopard seal dragged snorkeling biologist Kirsty Brown of the British Antarctic Survey nearly 200 feet (61 m) underwater to her death, in what was identified as the first known human fatality from a leopard seal.

Leopard seals have shown a particular predilection for attacking the black, torpedo-shaped pontoons of rigid inflatable boats, necessitating researchers to equip their craft with special protective guards to prevent them from being punctured.[12]
posted by QuakerMel at 8:56 PM on April 9, 2012