Shattered Faith

So McCain has been going on forever about how inexperienced Obama is, and now he chooses a VP canidate with less than two years experience as a Governer and a mayor of a small Alaskan town prior to that. Oook. I’m assuming his tactic was to attract bitter Hillary supporters. Now while Ms. Palin does indeed have a vagina (I’ve seen it) I’m not sure that a staunch conservative, pro-life, etc etc woman is going to do the trick. At least if McCain wins the election and dies we’ll have a pregnant princess with no experience to run our country. That’s kind of cool.

All of us night shifters are switching to day shift the day after tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it in the least. We’re going to have 9 people here with very little work to do. I don’t want to sit in a chair staring at these douchebags all day, that’s not my idea of a good time. The work climate has been pretty bad lately, with one of our guys getting HR complaints againsth im (he deserves it thought because he’s an assface). Our manager has been stalking around late at night trying to catch us sleeping or participating in other tomfoolery. CJ and I were in our connex last night around 8:30, and we weren’t actually sleeping. Our manager comes by and pulls on the door, but doesn’t knock. We keep it locked so he didn’t come in but we thought we heard something - I wasn’t sure though. About 30 seconds later we hear it again. I get up and unlock the door and see him standing there. Today we get into work and our foreman told us that our supervisor (so many fucking bosses) said that Mr. Manager came by last night and said “we took awfully long to answer the door and looked like we were sleeping”. Well no shit we took awhile to answer the door YOU DIDN’T FUCKING KNOCK. I think someone needs to work on his room/building entry protocol.

Joey sent me an article today informing me that Estelle Getty died at the age of 84. Poor Sophia. Had I been part of a Golden Girls dead pool I would have lost off the bat since she is the youngest out of the four. I would have put my money on Bea Arthur or Rue Macahalan. Oh well, at least we have three more. I’ll be sad to see them go. At least Betty White is immortal in my eyes and will never die.

I’ve been here for a few weeks and have gotten into a schedule of work/sleep/rinse/repeat. I wake up around 3:30 to shower and get ready for the day, leaving my room for the bus around 4:50 (this is PM since I’m on the night shift). I’m at work until 6:30 in the morning. By the time I eat breakfast and get back to my room it’s usually 7:30, which leaves me very little time if I want to get any sort of decent sleep before work again. I really want to fit the gym in there but I’m not sure where. I was thinking of waking up around 2 and doing it before work, but actually getting out of bed is a bitch for me. After work I’m usually tired (13 hour work days will do that to you). Problems, problems. I think I’ll try the former. I dont really have shit to do until my PS3 and TV get here anyway. I was at the PX last night and found a lone copy of Lucas on DVD. I snatched that shit up quick, went home after work and watched half of it before passing out. It was still glorious. What a great movie.

Haim > Feldman but Feldman’s movies > Haim’s. Make sense?

So this other dude named Mckinley got off R&R the other day. I kept getting told horror stories about how he flips out and has anger management issues. Turns out he just whines and bitches a lot. He already got into two altercations with Assface, but that was because Assface was being an assface. I tend to get along with people so I’m not having any issues with him. He still sucks though.

I get paid on Friday!

Ok. So for those of you who don’t know, but I think the majority of you do, I’m back in Iraq. Not with the military this time. My friend Brandon contacted me a little while ago and said he had been talking with a recruit for KBR who is interested in sending a team of 4 people over to Camp Anaconda to work on communications equipment. One year open contract at $108,000 for the year. Lots of money, chilling with friends, in a place that really isn’t all that bad? Check.

It started off well enough I suppose. I flew down to Houston for a week and a half of processing. Brandon met me at the airport and I checked into a Wyndham Hotel. I had a room to myself complete with a smoking couch and a seperate TV for my smoking couch. I called it my smoking TV. It wasn’t bad at all unless you count the $10 a day they charged for internet access. We sat through hours of meetings, paperwork, medical examinations and other bullshit during the rest of the first week. After that we were on holdover status and just waiting for our flights. Ok.

The first bump in our plans arose when I was put on a flight and Brandon wasn’t. Sure, no problem. He’ll meet up with me. I left on a Wednesday (I think) from Houston and flew to London. We had a couple hours to kill so I went to customs and immigration and got my passport stamed just so I could go outside and smoke. Plus more stamps on your passport are cool. I watched people drive on the wrong side of the road and speak funny while I enjoyed a coke that only cost me about $4 with the exchange rate. I went inside and sat down at a cafe to have a beer whilst British people around me ate traditional English breakfasts. I don’t know how people can talk shit about all the fattening stuff American’s eat. Have they ever seen a traditional English breakfast? An Egg, Sausage, Bacon, Hash Brown, Toast, Baked Beans and half a grilled tomato. Freaks. Baked Beans. You could order just baked beans on toast if you were so inclined. What the fuck.

The next flight was on Emirate airlines to Dubai. The flight was much more comfortable than the one to London. I managed to get the counter guy to give me a bulkhead seat so I could stretch my legs out. We had little personal televisions where you could watch whatever you want. They had a decent selection of movies and TV shows. I only ended up watching a little House and Seinfeld. I stayed a day and a half in Dubai at a place called the Hallmark hotel in the business district. We were tripled up in rooms and I was given a cot about half the size of me. Many people went out during the night to clubs and picked up prostitutes - I opted to stay in. One guy decided it would be a smart move to bring the girl back to the hotel. He got caught and last I heard was being sent home. Apparently there’s one of those guys almost every week. Dubai seemed like an interesting place and I wouldn’t mine checking it out sometime.

The next flight was from Dubai to Baghdad International Airport. We had a Russian staff on the flight and I don’t think they spoke English. Baghdad Intl Airport was a trip. The air wasn’t on so it was hot as balls, and it’s the first airport I’ve seen that you could smoke in. It was old and looked like it was last decorated in the 60’s/70’s. It had those old school flight information boards that flipped down, not any type of digital one. It still had flight information from Baghdad to Chicago, Barcelona and some other cities. I’m not sure the last time that airport was actually used for commercial flights. It was just odd.

I stayed at Camp Liberty in Baghdad for a night before getting a morning flight to Camp Anaconda. I was put in transient housing for two days until me and this douchebag I’m stuck with got claimed by our section. His name is Leblanc but Brandon and I gave him the moniker Assface Leblanc while in Houston. He’s loud, rude and doesn’t shut up. We have nothing in common and I don’t enjoy his presence. Originally he told us he was going to Talil but was redirected to Anaconda. Great.

and finally speaking of redirections. I finally get to access the Internet here and Brandon sent me an email saying that redirected him from Anaconda to Q-West. What the fuck. So now I’m stuck with Assface and wont see Brandon at all. Our plan fell to shit pretty quickly. I’ve been emailing him back and forth trying to figure out a way to get him transfered over here, but I don’t have high hopes at the moment. It sucks but wasn’t the fault of either of us. I’ll just have to make the best of it. If things suck that badly I can always quit and come home, so that’s nice. This is rather long so I’ll elaborate more next time.

I’m here in Iraq. Again.

I don’t have any time, so I’ll post properly once I get setup here.

So the semester has been over for a little while now. I ended up with one A, two A-s and one B for a semester GPA of 3.59. I could have done better, but I suppose I’m content getting Deans List again. The B was in computer programming. Fuck that class.

Alli and I went to see Prince Caspian the other day. I enjoyed the first movie and this one was good as well. Surprisingly violent for a PG movie (albeit sans blood). Some of the characters were a little flat, it had bad writing at parts, and I found the Jesus moments irksome again. I understand it’s not going to be a Lord of the Rings. The director isn’t all that fantastic, and the book was one of the weaker ones in the series. However, for what it is, I liked it. 4/5. I’m a whore for fantasy.

Continuing with movies Andrea and I went to see Baby Mama last night. The previews seemed funny enough but I went in with little to no expectations, which I think worked out in my favor. The cast was good (Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin). It had some funny moments but wasn’t mind blowing at all. Certainly not going to be the best comedy of the season. 3/5.

Earlier this week I drove up to Connecticut with my sister to visit my dad. We didn’t do a whole lot but I had an enjoyable time, I kind of liked just lazing about. On Tuesday we took a nice drive up into the Berkshire mountains in Massachusetts. It’s so unbelievably gorgeous up there, I love it. We stopped at my old summer camp and briefly walked around the grounds. We couldn’t go too far for fear of being kicked off, but it was nice to see the old bunks and such. We saw some nice lakes, drove through Stockbridge, and enjoyed milkshakes at a Mcdonalds. The drive to and from wasn’t bad, except for some odd lane switching needed to stay on certain interstates. I hauled ass the majority of the time and luckily didn’t run into any cops. Alli told me she was up in New England as well, but she was doing something for work. Lame.

I really want this semester to end. Every teacher decides it would be in their best interest to pile shit on their students the last couple weeks. Unfortunately Teacher A apparently doesn’t know that Teacher B did this, nor do they know that Teacher C did it as well. Bah.

Guillermo Del Toro has been confirmed as the director for the two Hobbit movies. I think that’s absolutely awesome. Peter Jackson would have been great, of course, but I can’t think of any other director that I would rather take the helm since Jackson was out.

Maybe I’ll post some more when I have all that free time during the summer. I have a wedding to attend in June, and possibly a Cyndi Lauper/B-52’s concert as well. Early July will see myself off to Maine for a week. I’m looking forward to relaxing before school starts up again.

Don’t you love it when you stumble upon a song you’ve never heard before and it’s the greatest thing ever created? I just did that moments ago:

The song is called “A Different Story” by German singer Peter Schilling. Now I’ve known about good old Peter for awhile, he was the one who did the one hit wonder “Major Tom” which I’ve always loved. I don’t know how I’ve missed this song. In my years of listening and loving 80s music I somehow managed to miss this gem. But now I have it. And I’m listening to it. And all is grand. This shit right here is the reason I love 80s music so much. It’s just way too awesome.

Yes. Finally. My Siouxsie Sioux cherry was popped this past Saturday… and it was fucking EPIC.

I’ve missed my past two chances to see Siouxsie live. The first being a reuinion show of Siouxsie and the Banshees in 2002, while I was in Saudi Arabia. The second being an ‘evening with Siouxsie’ featuring Banshees songs and songs from her side project with her (then) husband Budgie, The Creatures. I had math class that I felt I couldn’t afford to miss. To this day I still can’t tell if my priorities are fantastic or retarded. When I heard that she was touring for her first solo album (at the age of 50!) I emailed Joey and told him he’s going. He had no choice. It was kind of pricey with the ticket master charges tacked on but totally worth every penny. We got to the venue around 8:30 or so since the tickets claimed it started at 9. This ended up not being the case and she didn’t take the stage until 10. It was a relatively long wait and I started getting pissed until this:

It started. The lights dimmed, the screen went up. The band took to their instruments and then eventually she walked out. Good God did she look fantastic. It completely blew my mind. I don’t have many friends that understand my fascination with this woman and her music, but being able to finally see her in the flesh was an experience. Her mic was fucked during the first song, although it got better towards the end of it. Subsequent songs sounded fantastic - she still has it. Even though her voice has dropped considerably. Her new material is more catered to this change, but she played 4 Banshees songs that sounded fantastic. Hong Kong Garden(which she announced is now 30 years old, released as a single in 1978), Night Shift, Nicotine Stain and Dear Prudence (yes, it’s a Beatles cover). Here is a short clip of the Dear Prudence performance:

Here is a video of “About to Happen”. You can see how fabulous she looks. I apologize for the video, as the cameraman decided it would be fun to sing along. Apparently he does this will all his videos after browsing his collection. Regardless - Awesome.

All together, it was amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better show. I started to get a little teary eyed at one point, and I’m not kidding. I don’t do shit like that, but now I can somewhat understand videos of little girls crying for the Beatles. Well, they went a little overboard. I don’t preach Siouxsie to others, as she’s an acquired taste - but to me it doesn’t get better than this.

My whole weekend was a lot of fun. I went up to the city Friday evening so we could go out for Tim’s Birthday. We ate at some Texas BBQ esque/Whiskey bar place in Brooklyn. Meat, Meat and more Meat. Ribs, Brisket, Pulled Pork, Sausage and baked beans that had more meat chunks than beans. Excellent. Afterwards we went to a bowling alley for some more drinkage. In fact, the majority of my weekend was drinking which is alright with me. The Subway system is absolutely retarded and I missed my original bus on the way home so I had to sit around for 2 hours at Port Authority. Oh well, not enough to bring me down from my high.

Yay.

I’m done dick dancing and I’m on a new workout/eating regime. It’s been a week, but I’ve done… decently I suppose. I went out to eat twice and I need to cut that shit out. I know you can find at least one thing that’s semi healthy when you eat out, but the temptation is too much - I don’t have the will power. Avoiding it all together would be a better bet. I had Egg Beaters and Tuna for dinner, along with a banana and strawberry yogurt. Yum.

I’m going to head over to Andrea’s soon to play Rock Band. They just announced that they’re working on licensing some Journey songs, which would make my life complete. They have 200 downloadable songs in the pipeline for 2008. Needless to say, Harmonix (the creator) is going to be sticking their grubby paws into my wallet for quite awhile.

I’m trying to sell my Sony PSP so I can buy a Sony PSP. Well, the newer, smaller, nicer one. Someone is interested and offered $100, but I’ll find out tomorrow if the deal will be sealed. The new one will cost $160, so I’ll essentially be paying $60 for a smaller frame and some other extras (TV-Out, etc). Not a bad deal. Much better than any douchebag that actually purchased the new Macbook Air. $1800 - $3000 for a laptop that is smaller than any other but has less power, lacks an optical drive and does not have a user replaceable battery? Way to go Apple.

Time to shower and be off.

Still enjoying my vacation which consists of doing absolutely nothing. I took my car into the dealership yesterday to get some routine maintenance done, as well as check out some other things. Lo and behold the total bill will be around $1000. I needed new tires (which is true) and new brake thingers (which is true). I’d be pissed, but considering the car is 5 years old and I haven’t pumped really any money into maintenance at all yet I don’t think it’s too bad.

I’ve seen Juno and Sweeney Todd recently. Both movies were fantastic and I highly recommend checking both out. Juno went from a very small release to being #2 in the box office right now, so it looks like it’s on it’s way to being this years Little Miss Sunshine (I think Juno is better). Sweeney Todd was fantastic, and I’m not saying that because I’m a Burton/Depp fag (both have had their ups and downs). Yes, Burton recycles the same cast again - but they fucking sing! and do it well! It shows what a talented bunch these actors really are. Adding Alan Rickman to the mix just makes it all the better. They’re by no means professional singers, but they really do a fine job. Even if you don’t like musicals I suggest you check it out. Plus there’s buckets of blood which should satiate the juvenile in everyone.

This video made me laugh out loud. A lot. It’s a fake interview with Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Superbad, Juno). Check it out.

I still can’t get rid of the shit comments. Damn you wordpress.