Time to live your life vicariously though a really bored dude working in Iraq; not like you have anything better to do, right? Y'know....looking at what I've written so far (and not having any idea what to write about) it makes me think---we really don't use semicolons in English enough. Sure, someone thought highly enough about semicolons to put it on computer keyboards, but who invented the semicolon?--the Frankenstein of punctuation, anyway? I like to think of semicolons as the kid that always got picked to be team captain in dodgeball. Their hybrid pedigree made them the elite: They're not a colon, but I'm sure they still think they're better than a comma. I'm sure they look down on other punctuations and say things like "Oh, yeah. You're a period. A freak'n DOT! Wow, they really pulled out all the punches when they invented you!--sheeeeesh!"

What I really don't understand are those upside down question marks you see in Spanish. What do those mean!? Why are there no upside down exclamation marks? Would that make the sentence a whisper?? And how do you pronounce an upside down question mark? You can't say it backwards--'cuz its not backwards--it's upside down! Colons don't have to worry about things like that!

And why is a colon called a colon anyway? Didn't they get the memo that the word was already taken by the "poop-chute"?! And isn't a semicolon what you get when you have stomach bypass surgery?

Allright, I think I'm onto something.....when will I ever use the thing above the 6 on my keyboard? It's a ^?! WTF is that for?? Other than for keyboard smiley faces, I think they're useless. Seriously, I know some people read this blog--what does ^ mean???

Then there's the ampersand--&! Need I say more? Did someone drop some spaghetti on the keyboard!? That's just a weird symbol. I think writing "and" has got to be a lot easier than drawing this thing. It looks like one of the knots I learned in Boy Scouts. If I was paying attention, anyway.

As my eyes continue down my keyboard, I'm fascinated by another key.....@! At?? Have we really become so lazy that we can't take the time to write a simple "t"?! Yes, the circle is fun to add, but its still longer than writing a T--It's like, "Damn! We really saved a lot of time not writing that "T", you wanna go grab a beer and wait for the sentence to catch up to us?"

I really planned on posting various pics from the last week, but I forgot my camera in the office and don't feel like walking over there, so this is probably gonna be a run-on sentence; but at least I got a semicolon in properly! Goodnite....

Man, I just discovered the coolest show--The Sons of Anarchy! Damn, it's the best! It's got chicks, motorcycles, beer, guns, meth dealers and gangs all wrapped in a sweet little 50 minute package--it's just like driving through Detroit! The actors are great--It's got Peg Bundy from Married..with Children, some kid that looks like Kurt Cobain as the main character and Ron "Hey, why the long face?" Perlman from.....uh.....some damn show in the 80s where he played a lion or something........(he was Hellboy,too!)

I got the first season of Sons of Anarchy at the Hajji shop yesterday and I'm already running out of episodes. Been watching them back to back and staying up way too late. Gotta learn to limit myself........baby steps, dude, baby steps. I think it's currently in its 2nd season now--anybody know? Does anybody even read this blog?? No? That's what I thought!

I've been here in Iraq for almost 5 weeks and haven't used a real toilet in the last 3, but at least they clean the Porta-Crappers thoroughly like 5 times a day WITH A PRESSURE WASHER--which, coincidentally, is the only way I'd ever use one. They shoot those things with 300 psi of pure Iraqi spring water! But the problem with their cleaning method is that after they wash the whole thing, the desert sun makes the inside of the shitter like some kind of humid, plastic, rain forest. It's like a desert oasis, complete with blue water and exotic animals such as the elusive Iraqi corn-eating sewer snake.....Damn, did I just revert my blog into poo stories again?? Yeah, bare with me, I know things are lame here, but I'm trying.

So they cut off access to Blogger at work, I can only blog in my spare time (oh! the humanity!) so I do what I can, when I can. But in my defense, I DO take pics so I have lame material to post later :)

I just forget to do anything with them!

It's fall in Baghdad and all the sandbags are in bloom. The weather still gets up to 100 degrees, but it's a nice 100 degrees---not like home in Houston, where even the billboards are sweating. My days usually start around 0530, when the gate guards shoot the .50 cal machine gun at God-knows-what. As a HAZMAT technician, I spend my days inspecting power generators, fuel tanks and trying to understand what my Indian helper is trying to say to me. I must say "What the hell are you saying?" to poor Nookesh 48 times a day. Then I beat him with a cobra. It keeps me entertained, him too. Keeping busy makes the days go by faster, hell, I've already been here...for 7 Snore Strips!It's cheaper than a calendar

My nights are usually for the gym. After 8 months at home in Texas looking for a job and eating comfort food (I got REAAAAAL comfortable) I decided to dedicate myself to getting into some kind of shape, other than round. I've been to the gym 5 times in the last 7 days. Each time I've ran/walked (ok, walked) at least 2 miles and now I'm about 10 miles outside of Baghdad and all by myself. More later...

Todays WTF Treat of the Day:

Damn, the name says it all, it was waaaaay too sweet. What stoner came out with the idea of chocolate PASTE? C'mon! It's like they ran out of ideas! Maybe next they'll come out with Block of Chocolate. This delicious treat was basically cake frosting wrapped in plastic. Something tells me the inventor likes jam bands, outdoor festivals and Crocs.

I spy... with my little eye.....something........BROWN!!!

WTF Product of the Day:

Apparently turds grow on trees over here and someone decided to make a refreshing beverage out of it. Dr. Pooper anyone? Doh! That was bad.

BONUS ITEM!

I thought I found comedy gold on this "Hot dog in a can" item, but just couldn't do anything with it. Nothing seems to work--but since I paid $1.50 for it, it's going on the blog. Feel free to make your own joke and give me credit for it.

The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Product of the Day

This is going to be a new addition to my blog, its the....

Daily Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Product of the Middle East.

There's a half dozen little markets all over the base that sell product that make you say:

WTF?

Nothing says "afterschool snack" to me like a milk flavored (excuse me, flavoured) piece of wax that smells like cheese. I would've slashed your tires if you gave me this for Halloween. Yuck, think I lost a filling on that one, it's going in the garbage.

This one tricked me. I thought I was getting chocolate milk--hey, it sounded good at the time. Our milk in the dining facilties say CREAM, so I figured this was along the same lines, um....no! Like the label says: Faroookah jaheel muhuatta bin asam--oops, I mean THICK CREAM. It was just that and beyond! It was a cross between cake frosting and chocolate flavoured butter. I ate two boxes--better than Ex-Lax!

By Golly, I'm Gonna Write an Update!

Greetings! I've actually been incredibly busy and getting settled in to my new surroundings the last 2 weeks--only to be moved again. Tonight I moved from my sweet-ass two bed bungalow to a 12 man tent--it's straight outta M*A*S*H, I'm waiting for BJ and Hawkeye to walk in. Luckily there's only 3 other guys here who will hate me tomorrow because of my sonic boom snoring. I just spent the last two hours moving shit around, buying a rug and making walls out of sheets. It was just like making a fort in my room back when I was a kid-- 'cept I didn't put a "NO GIRLZ ALLOWED" sign on my curtain/wall (I don't want my tentmates to get the wrong idea).

Here's my suite. You won't be seeing it on an episodes of "Cribs" anytime soon, but it's my new home, don't knock it! Besides, you can't knock, my doors a sheet, duhhhh!

Here's where I'll cry myself to sleep every night. I've always wanted wood floors in my place, you usually don't see 'em with knotholes, scorpions and rusty nails, tho. The square on the top right is my window--which has a wonderful view of a pallet of water covered in dust. This place would be $2500/month in LA.

The other day I went for a drive around our base and took some pics....wanna see? No? Then don't look....

I love this one...it's called The "Victory over America" Palace. Saddam had it built after Daddy Bush pulled the plug on invading Baghdad in the first Gulf War. Hmmmm....for some reason, they never got to finish it...those cranes haven't moved in....let's see...when did we invade again?

Another view, Saddam needs to cut his yard! He's got a few more palaces like this on base, all of them around bodies of water. Why do we say bodies of water? I don't know either!

Custom skylights courtesy of cruise missiles. Thanks Tom!

This is pretty cool, it's the backside of Saddam's children's playhouse, it's called Bedrock cuz it looks like the houses on the Flintstones. But it didn't taste like those delicious vitamins I use to eat like candy. MMmmmm, yummy...It's made of fiberglass and is now covered in graffiti from about 200 different military units from all over the world, none of which spell very well.

Well, this was fun. I guess under the right circumstances, I can still blog. I was worried that I'd have writers block and uh........hmmm.

Uh. Muh. Gawd, it's HOT here. I'm paying for the fact that I spent the last 7 months in air conditioned comfort and it really sucks. I just signed up for a week of internet, but since I've forgotten how to truly blog, I'll just give ya'll a rundown of the last 24 hours:

We checked out of our hotel rooms last night at 2am and basically did nothing productive for the next 3 hours when we were dropped off at the airport.

Went to the duty-free (I love saying that!) shop and contemplated hiding a bottle of Johnny Walker Red in my underwear. Settled for Cuban cigars-but did not shoplift them.

The Eastern European clerk at the duty-free (FREE THE DOODIES!) was very interested in my last name. I told him it was Italian, he gave me my stuff and said "Gracias" and wished me "Buenos Dias".

I just returned from a 1/4 mile walk to the store and internet company. My socks are like wet sponges and my underwear feels like a petri dish. Remind me again, why I signed up for this again? OH, YEAH. YOU FAILED OUT OF SCHOOL! I guess thats a good enough reason.

(sidenote: Below, I added some pics that I took yesterday from the roof/pool of the hotel where I gave myself 3rd degree burns)

Captains Log / Star Date 9.12.09

3:36 PM Dubai, United Arab Emirates---

I'm sitting here in the hotel lobby trying to figure out how to restart my blog after 7 months off. It's not easy, so bare with me. I've paid for an hour of internet usage, but have wasted the last 19 minutes typing, correcting, erasing everything I've written--all while picking the crusty desert boogers out of my chapped nostrils. Luckily, the nose picking really shortened the line for this particular computer, so no one is waiting.

(15 minutes left now)

Yeah, this is not gonna be easy. Maybe if I had some pictures to add, things would transition better, but I can't do it on this computer. I DID take some pictures while at the pool today. The pool. That was a genius idea. I decided to celebrate my first day in the desert with a trip to the hotel pool. Mind you, an hour out there is equal to about 4 hours at the beach--so I limited myself to 2 hours. Stick an apple in my mouth and I'll look like the main course at a luau.

Tomorow I head back to my original base in Iraq to work with some really cool people. I'm actually looking forward to being busy--(something I KNOW I'll regret saying in about a month). The last 6-7 months I was there, I spent at a tiny camp where nothing ever happened. But I'm sure you all knew that, right? Damn, my hour is up, can you believe that??