I Want Peace And Quiet

It's never quiet here. If it's late at night or early morning or whatever, there is always the noise of trucks and humvees and diesel generators, helicopters, etc, etc, and you can never get that blissful feeling that complete and utter silence brings. Today I was sitting on the toilet and someone fired a rocket into our base and it landed nearby and shook the whole place, and of course the toilet I was sitting on. You want to talk about an instant clench of your cheeks. I want some silence!!

There are so few trees, like no grass, you can't lay on your back at night in the grass of course, and listen to the wind blowing thru the trees. And as you know there is certainly no peace here either.

I would really like to drive up into the mountains or wilderness when I get back, in my new sports car, and get out a couple of sleeping bags, and just lay on my back in the grass in the dead of night and look at the dark sky, and just take a deep breath of the pine needle and dew scented air, and play a little connect the dots with the stars. And drift off to sleep at my own leisure, without having a radio right next to my ear to update me about when we are getting back on the road, without having to worry about my next 12 hour shift to go to, without having to worry about a mortar or rocket landing in my lap and sending me away to the promised land before I'm ready to go, without stupid formations at all hours of the day or night.

I just want some 'normal' added back into my life. I want to drive down a road without looking at every pile of dirt or plastic bag or bush or dead animal wondering if someone has loaded explosives up into any of them with a remote detonator and is just waiting to kill me for no other reason than wanting to bring the typical Iraqi a better life. I want to step out my front door wearing blue jeans, a white tshirt and a nice polo or other type of shirt and go to Subway or Taco Bell or to go get a freaking beer.

I want to go to midas' house and play Need For Speed for 9 hours in a row and make monster trucks for shaner to drive around hitting cops with, I want to visit shoes' house and watch football and jump in the lake and drink more beer and piss nate off by playing poker in a completely unorthodox and ridiculous manner.

I know, all of this is coming, I'll be back soon, but wow soon can't seem to come soon enough. This place is not my idea of a nice place to live. Ever had to put moisturizing lotion on? How about on a Q Tip and then inside your ears? Now THAT is dry. Oh, you can say you've been to Baja California, or Arizona, or Mexico, or any of the other places that are within proximity to the United States, but I'm telling you right now, until you walk around with the temperature at 140 degrees and the wind turning every step into a medium powered sand blaster, you truly do not know what real heat is all about. Maybe the only good thing about not having your own vehicles to drive over here is not having to get inside and sit on seats that would very likely burn the skin off your ass cheeks, even thru denim.

I'm rambling now and I realize it, but oh well. I'm happy tonite, Nebraska won big *Yes, belly baby, sorry, football has begun, prepare for noticeable changes in my attention span on Saturdays and some Thursday nights* and I really don't have much to truly bitch about. But still, it would be nice to have some peace and quiet, and a beer, and some freaking Old Chicago nachos!!

Memorable Mike Tyson Tidbits

Most sports fans remember Mike Tyson knocking the crap out of people early on in his career. But there are also a lot of memorable quotes from Tyson:

“[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”

"Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!"

"My main objective is to be professional but to kill him."

"I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children."

After biting Holyfield he said, "This is my career. I have children to raise. I have to retaliate. He butted me. Look at me. My kids will be scared of me."

"You're sweet. I'm going to make sure you kiss me good with those big lips. I'm gonna make you my girlfriend."

"Low blows? Low blows? Huh! Motherfucker you're fittin' to die!"

"He was screaming like my wife."

"I could have knocked him out in the third round but I wanted to do it slowly, so he would remember this night for a long time."

"I paid a worker at New York's zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin. When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let me smash that silverback's snotbox! He declined."

"Anyone with a grain of sense would know that if I punched my wife I would rip her head off. It's all lies. I have never laid a finger on her."

"One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like a infantile retard."

"There are nine million people who see me in the ring and hate my guts. Most of them are white. That's okay. Just spell my name right."

"When you see me smash somebody's skull, you enjoy it."

"I try to catch him right on the tip of the nose, because I try to push the bone into the brain."

"How dare these boxers challenge me with their primitive skills? It makes me angry. They're just as good as dead."

"My power is discombobulatingly devastating I could feel is muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm."

"I just want them to keep bringing guys on and I'm going to strip them of their health. I bring pain, a lot of pain."

“I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain.”

[To a female reporter] "It's no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don't do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn't talk anymore... Unless you want to, you know."

“I ask this lady a lewd question because I'm in a lot of pain too. I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. And (Lennox) Lewis, I'm trying to give some of that pain to ya'll."

"All praise is to Allah, I'll fight any man, any animal, if Jesus were here I'd fight him too."

“ If Jesus was here, do you think Jesus would show me any love? Do you think Jesus would love me? I'm a Muslim, but do you think Jesus would love me ... I think Jesus would have a drink with me and discuss ... why you acting like that? Now, he would be cool. He would talk to me.”

"I'm just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life, too. I think it's un-American not to go out with a woman, not to be with a beautiful woman, not to get my dick sucked”

“I may like to fornicate more than other people -- it's just who I am. I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of my most of my money, can I at least get a blow job without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?"

"I'm on the Zoloft to keep from killing y'all."

"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."

"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."

"I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. So every now and then I kick your fucking ass."

"I just want to conquer people and their souls."

"I can sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating."

Please Buy This Car, We Won't Try Very Hard Though To Sell It

AutoTrader.com is a website where a seller pays a fee to post an advertisement online to sell a car. Many of the cars that are advertised are at dealerships. One that caught my eye was an advertisement for a bright yellow (obviously not factory paint) 1993 Eagle Talon DL. The car had ugly seats colored yellow and black, a big silly looking spoiler wing on the back, cheap aftermarket rims, and aftermarket Walmart style fog lamps.

The 'Car Details' portion of the advertisement went as follows:

1993 EAGLE TALON STREET RACER, FAST & FURIOUS WANNABE
CAR FOR THE KID THAT HAS EVERYTHING BUT A FUNCTIONING BRAIN,
PERFECT FOR THOSE DATES WITH BIG GIRLS WEARING TIGHT CLOTHES
FOR THAT 10LBS OF CRAP IN A 5LB BAG LOOK. R U TEEN ENOUGH
TO DRIVE THIS 1? GET IN HERE WITH YOUR STEPDADS $

Wow, as soon as I read this I wanted to immediately go out and buy this car. What an amazing car this must be for someone to describe the car this way. The truly funny thing is that, according to the ad, it's a dealership selling this car, meaning someone actually paid to post this on the website.

I read further, and under the description of 'Exterior Paint', I find this:

Black
Tennessee Blue Metallic
Bright White
Banzai Blue Metallic
Bluish Red Metallic
Deep Green Pearl Metallic
Medium Quartz Metallic
Radiant Fire Red

Now, I don't see yellow listed anywhere in there, so I have to assume that, if you mix all of these colors together you get Bright Tennessee Banzai Pearl Effervescent Yellow? I guess I just don't remember my primary colors from art class as well as I should? Oh well. The ad went on further to describe the engine of the car as 'disappointing', of course bolstering my desire to buy the car even more.

Click here on 1993 Eagle Talon to read more about it, and maybe even buy this beauty, that is if I don't get to it first!!!

Another Episode of "Why Baseball Sucks"

I have such a hard time finding any real interest of value when it comes to Major League Baseball. Oh sure, I shouldn't complain too much, my Oakland A's are currently sitting on like a 9 game lead in the American League West, their largest lead since 1992, and may end up with a double digit lead by weeks end.

But in the meantime, on the other side of the American League, you have the cheating stinky Yankees making yet another run at the post season, and the Red Sox once again (save for one season of course) faltering and falling apart when crunch time hits.

An extremely frustrating aspect about the coverage of MLB by the sports media, is that the fucking Yankees and Red Sox take up probably 75% of the overall coverage and talk on local and nationwide sports shows, and it's just ridiculous. This past 3 game set where the A's swept the Red Sox is a perfect example of the stupidity of the media when it comes to the Yankees and Red Sox.

The A's are baseball's hottest team right now, with the best record in August and the best record since the break. They are 8-2 in their last 10 games and are once again making their usual yearly second half of the season push for the playoffs. Yet their wasn't even a mention in the game summary about this, or even that the A's swept the Red Sox. No, it was about how the Red Sox were 2-7 in their latest road trip and how far they have fallen off the pace from the Yankees.

Now, just to understand, I am not a Red Sox hater, I am a Yankee hater thru and thru. When the Red Sox took 4 straight from the Yankees after spotting a 3 game lead to them (which, in my opinion is far more humiliating than just a 4 game sweep), I was cheering them on. But by proximity to the Yankees, and by being arch rivals, I'm beginning to really dislike the Red Sox too.

I find myself hoping and praying year after year that the Yankees somehow do not make the playoffs, with their grotesque payroll, cheating style of 'go steal every good player we can from every other team' aquisitions, and MORONIC fans. Yet year after year the bastards get into the playoffs anyway. I am probably not the only person who would say that they would rather see the Yankees NOT make the playoffs than have the team they follow even get into the playoffs. That's how much I dislike them. They represent all that is wrong with sports.

It's likely that it will be the Yankees, Detroit Tigers, and A's winning their divisions in the American League, with the Minnesota Twins taking the wild card. I can't imagine anything that will keep the Yankees out, so again stuck watching them cheat their way into the playoffs, but of course I will laugh once again as the overpaid pile of shit franchise gets beat because they are a collection of misfit superstars, and NOT a 'team' that can actually play good enough ball to win it all.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

A manic stunning scene
I'm taking notes
Your taking me away
Into your false reality

Leech - Eve 6

H2O Anyone?

Well, we loaded up bottles of water all stacked on pallets, onto our flatbeds last night. We were out there from about 2200 till about 2 in the morning. That was okay though, it would have been so much hotter to have done it during the day.

Part of what takes so long is putting the side boards up on the trailers. We all carry enough side boards so we can make our flatbed into a cargo carrier type of trailer, but the side boards are in such crappy condition that it requires a lot of work to get them all into place, and then usually you have to use some cargo straps to secure everything.

Once that was all completed we all headed back to our tents and everyone played some poker. Now, I am a horrible poker player, and I cringe to admit this, but I forked over 30 bucks the night before last, and 40 bucks last night, in some sort of wallet lightening exercise that did nothing more than to reinforce that, yes, I do suck at poker.

I'm going to have to get myself a playstation game to learn to play the basics of the game, but I still think that going all in when I have two tens with another 10 out on the board was not a bad move, well, until the jackass to my left got himself a boat on the river, arggg!! The problem with this group of guys is that they like to go in for like 5 bucks before you see ANY cards, they are just betting on nothing, or if they have anything remotely close that might bring them a boat or flush or something, it's really irritating. And they are poor winners/losers too, bitching about everything. It's tough for me to play that way when I'm just having fun.

From now on it's back to what I was doing before: $5 limit per night, and don't play to win, just play to have fun. Oh, and don't anyone go sending me a playstation game or anything, I don't have time left here to learn the game all that well. I'll do that when I get home me thinks.

Time to go pack up my gear and get it on the truck!! Well, after the 40 minute walk back from the computer center that is :)

When Driving Is Like A Bad Video Game

I'm back out on the road again, which has been better for a couple of reasons, time goes by a lot quicker, and there are more things to do than when you are working nights, but it tends to be a lot more frightening, expecially in Bagdhad.

Bagdhad is a city of more than 6 million people, which is something a lot of people don't realize. So when you go driving around there are these HUGE buildings, and you see people standing all over, walking along the streets, even though there is a curfew, I'm certain it's difficult to enforce given the size of the city and the vast number of people who are there.

They have barricades all over the place too, probably made for vehicles not much larger than full size pickups, and there we are flying around at 45 mph down these tiny streets, weaving our way in and out of the barricades, lucky to have even 2 feet of clearence on one or the other side just to sneak thru.

It's like some sort of really bad video game, and with all the armor you wear on the ballistic vest, even the air conditioning doesn't keep you from sweating up a storm. It's just plain scary being there. As we drove thru one area there was rubbish and trash piled several feet high on both sides of the street, a place where they obviously have markets at during the day. There is no way you would be able to see a roadside bomb, it would be just too easy to hide, so you just say a little prayer and ask the Lord to please watch over you and the rest of the guys in the convoy, that it not be your time to go, that you can get thru this particular trip unscathed.

As we got to the end of that street, a blue plastic bag suddenly got sucked up and right in front of our truck, probably about the size of a medium sized garbage bag, and scared the shit out of my co driver and I. As we turned the corner and got back out on a more open stretch of road, you could hear both of us breathing hard over the whine of the turbo, and I looked over at him and he just said 'wow' quietly, and I shook my head in agreement. Little shit like that, anything that is out of the ordinary or unexpected is so damn scary here.

Thankfully we never had to stop in Bagdhad, as we have had to do sometimes in the past, because that's always an eerie feeling, you are in this HUGE city in a column of trucks that stretches sometimes for a quarter to a half mile long, lights all turned off, watching the bomb disposal units and their armored support moving along, checking suspicious areas of road. You feel like sitting ducks, and all you want to do is get a little bit of the safety that comes with moving down the road at 40 mph or so. Nothing is worse than just sitting there out in the open. Maybe that's my old infantry mindset kicking in, who knows, but I hate being a sitting duck.

Is it better to be out on the road than working at our operations at night? There really isn't a comparison. Being out on the road is what I'm trained for, but I was willing to put the hours in working nights because they needed someone to do it. What pisses me off is when I have questions about something and someone laughs about it or makes a 'Fobbit' comment (a Fobbit is someone who never leaves the FOB *forward operating base*, or in my case Tallil). I'll have more than 5000 miles on the road after this particular trip, so I'm hardly a Fobbit, so that really fucking pisses me off when I hear that, and on more than one occasion now I have had to lock someone up and let them know if I hear a specific comment from them one more time that there are going to be consequences, which isn't like me to do that but I'm fucking tired of their bullshit. Add to that the other SSG's on this trip basically leave me out of the loop on everything, and fraNk is NOT a happy camper right now.

I just keep thinking to myself that I've got about a month left in this shit hole country and then we'll be home. Oh and when we do get home I'm going to talk to JAG immediately and report a few gross violations of Army policy by my unit, things they have done that have moved others who I outrank right past me, basically stifled my ability to gain rank, and have also underutilized me here in Iraq. But that's all stuff for the future. Right now I just look forward to seeing belly again, and giving her a huge hug, and getting some semblence of normal life when I get back home. Although, our life has rarely been normal by definition of what others might consider normal, I like the quirky existence she and I share together, and I always will.