I live near the end of a cul-de-sac in on post housing. Unlike my battle buddy SGT Monobrow, who lives in the middle of a village along a well-traveled road, we get no through traffic. While he is hounded two days after mowing his lawn for it being too long, I had gone a couple of months while my wife was gone without touching the damn thing. Burnt brown Texas stubble was all I was left with, and no one cared. While SGT MB has to deal with people reporting him for leaving his newspaper on...

I live near the end of a cul-de-sac in on post housing. Unlike my battle buddy SGT Monobrow, who lives in the middle of a village along a well-traveled road, we get no through traffic. While he is hounded two days after mowing his lawn for it being too long, I had gone a couple of months while my wife was gone without touching the damn thing. Burnt brown Texas stubble was all I was left with, and no one cared. While SGT MB has to deal with people reporting him for leaving his newspaper on...

Link Have I been out of the loop? When did this story break? Link I guess it was just now, but still... Link Yeah, two hours ago. So, this is bad for us. If it's true, then Chalabi and nephew are on the outs. Chalabi is still seen as tied to us, and what does that do to the tribunal for Saddam that the nephew is the head of? If it's false, then is it actually personally and politically motivated as Chalabi claims. That would mean no headway gained with the new g...

Well, I don't normally do this, even to people's emails. I hate hate hate forwarded messages. This one is from my Mom, God bless her. I haven't checked the veracity of the claims made therein, but it was interesting enough for me to post. If you want to take me to task for it being inaccurate (which I have no idea if it is or is not), meh on you. Cut-and-paste commences........ Now: 709,000 REGULAR (ACTIVE DUTY) PERSONNEL. 293,000 RESERVE TROOPS. EIGHT STANDING ARMY ...

I'm not allowed to wear it backwards any more. Neither is SPC Blue Eyes (once she gets one). As a protest to this (and to the other uniforming "standards" recently implaced), I'm going to wear my Gortex jacket everywhere *except* in the super-air-conditioned work area. So, bleh.

Link I've been much too lazy about this (no, not the blog, but yes, that too). I heard about this contest many months ago, and had intended on making an entry. I just haven't set aside the time. My plan was to do some Arabic handwriting, but didn't have any specific ideas for what I should write about, or what handwriting style would be appropriate for the 17th century. I had mostly settled upon the idea of reverse-engineering some verses from the Koran, but I'm still not sure. ...

We weren't looking for a dog. Sure, the subject had come up before. We had a dog for about 12 hours one day, a stray that she had seen outside. They had bathed it, and named it, and then went to get it some dog food and to pick me up from work. But she had left it in the backyard while they were gone, unsure as to whether it was housebroken, and it had gotten out of the fence. We never saw it again. But he would still mention it, even a year later, which seemed pretty amazing consider...

I'm not sure from which blog I stumbled upon his, but later I saw mention of it on some Iraqis' blogs. The man, CBFTW Link , is an Army Infantry soldier currently deployed to Iraq. He seems to have pretty consistent internet access from a nearby internet cafe that charges $2/hour. He reads a lot, when not on OPs (a term he explains a couple of times for his less initiated readers), and he has a good narrative style. His grammar and punctuation are shit, but I can forgive a combat soldier...

I noticed, on my way in to work Saturday, something that shit on my morale. This isn't the type of shitting on my morale that I need in order to complete my tasks (which I plan on blogging about later), but instead the kind that makes me feel a little queasy. On the way in to work, we have to travel a road that leads to an airfield. This is the airfield that troops get flown out of on their way to Iraq. There are some fences along the route, and when the deployments first started, someo...

So, forces have conspired to put me on this topic, today. First, we talked about it at work. From the upcoming Batman movie Link starring Christian Bale, to McG (of Charlie's Angels "fame") being off the Superman movie. Of course, it's comic book day today (Wednesday is the normal day that comic books arrive at local comic book specialty shops, barring holidays and acts of Busiek). So, I wound up talking about this subject down at Book Stan'. From Catwoman (Halle Berry in an apparently...

First off, let me say that I haven't been to Iraq. I'm also (most likely, anyway) not going. At least for a year. And probably not while I'm in the service. Maybe once I get out, if I get one of those lucrative mercenary translator jobs there. Remains to be seen. But I have friends over there, both soldier and mercenary translator types. So, I'm experiencing some empathy for their plight. I watch one of my fellow soldiers worry about her husband day in and day out. I read blogs of so...

Everywhere I look, cockroaches. I have only recently realized that they're nearly flat for a reason, you know. They aren't really there, mind you. Well, not in plain sight. But they're just under the surface, waiting to burst out. Out from under the stove, from under the sink (or up out of the drain). Definitely out from under the covers of my bed (can't sleep clow... er, cockroaches will get me). Even the thermostat. Man, it's cold in here. But they'll crawl out if I touch it, y'k...

A few weekends ago, I was on the road. I forget where I was (exactly), or where I was going (exactly), but on the sign for Food at the next Exit, I saw an odd name: Kate's Kountry Kitchen. I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt. I thought that this was perhaps just taking alliteration to its illogical conclusion. I didn't assume they had un intentionally mispelled "country." And I didn't make the larger leap, either. But then, this past weekend, I saw another business (again, ...

I don't know if anyone has checked out his site yet (you should have), but SGT Hook (linked on the right) had recently lost his website hosting. Apparently, he got back up this weekend, and will be blogging again. SGT Hook is inactuality the 1SG of a US Army Aviation Maintenance Company: he's in charge of a bunch of guys who work on helicopters and keep them in working order. He blogs a fair bit, which is great, as he is currently in Afghanistan, having deployed there from Hawaii with his ...