I've made a terrible mistake. When you wake up and say "I've had enough" --that's when you leave, right? Well, I said I had enough of 84 hour work weeks--then announced that my last day would be in two weeks. Dumb move. Now time is crawling like you wouldn't believe-although, I did have my first Hazmat spill in probably 6 weeks today. A storage container shifted while being lifted by a crane, spilling some paint that was stored inside. It was red paint--so the insides looked like something you'd see on CSI: Milwaukee or whatever the show is nowadays. It wasn't flammable paint, so my services weren't needed but heres a pic:

Not very exciting, I know, then a helicopter flew right over and made everything worth it. I love ADD! This is what a helicopter looks like:

Yeah, I still find helicopters cool, even after 15 months. Not much new going on otherwise. I may cut out of here (Iraq) after I finish some reports I've just been asked to do. I'm ready to sit in bed and watch TV and drive fast and eat fast food. Yeah, fast cars and fast women, that's me. My friends call me The Cruiser. "They should have called you The Dork" ......Gotta love John Candy, RIP!

Old School!

Most of the people here put a strip of tape to identify their radios. I decided to Van Halen-ize mine. Looks RAD!

The Materials Department of the base is going to be audited soon, so they voluntold me to help. It's the most rediculous thing I've been asked to do in a long time--count bolts, pipes and electrical equipment. I've done that the past 3 days, but today they have us handwriting the numbers down. It's like someone handing you a phone book and telling you to copy it by hand. I don't think I'm going to help tomorrow--Phuket!

Nothing new to add except that the General Tso chicken I ate last night has officially declared war on my intestines. I surrendered unconditionally and took an Immodium, condemning myself to a day of constipation tomorrow. On the bright side, in two weeks you won't have to hear about my bowel movements.

General Tso.......Colonel Sanders.......what's the deal with chickens in the military?

Sometimes You Just Gotta Say Phuket!!

Phuket, Thailand

Its been another rollercoaster of emotions today, I thought I was elligible for another R&R before I quit, but I just (5 minutes ago) found its not going to happen. I had it all planned: I was going to have 10 paid vacation days in Phuket, Thailand--where you can get steak and lobster dinners for $5, beachside hotels for $25 a day and new mysterious strains of STD's for even less! If you're lucky you might get some sort of hybrid STD where they'll name it after you. Of course, I was planning on sticking my feet in the sand the whole time. And drink. I was going to wear adult diapers to the beach. I figured they would serve as a decent flotation device as well as being a "was that a fart or turd?" containment system. I'm shattered. I picked Phuket just so I could say it constantly. Phuket! I bet it even gets funnier as the day goes on.......Phuket! I was going to get out of here within 10 days--but you know what? Phuket! I still can!

Galveston, Texas

When I get home I'll just drive the 90 miles (or 6 pack) to Galveston! It's water....and sand....and used medical waste and dead fish. Phuket!

Ok, maybe I won't be going to Galveston. I've had bad luck there anyway. It's where I got my first ticket ever--"clinging to a vehicle". It was like a $300 ticket! Just for sitting on a bumper!(of a car that was moving). I was like 15 years old. I also got a ticket for speeding on my way there a few years later--got me for speeding and no seat belts. Oh, and I got another ticket for leaning out of a window while driving down The Seawall while strumming a guitar a few years after that. That one was funny 'cuz as the motorcycle cop was making us dump out our beer, he grabbed one and drank the whole thing! He said he wanted to make sure it wasn't seawater! Phuk da po-lice! Boo-yah!

We had a dude fall off the top of a two story building today. Not cool, he was a pretty cool guy. They medi-vac'd him out a few hours ago, being HAZMAT, I washed the blood off the ground. Hope he's ok.

Since I can't go to Thailand, I guess I'll go home. Can't believe it's really going to happen-- I'm thinking within the next12 days or so. Will I keep blogging? Of course! What else am I gonna do, have a life? I'm still gonna milk this gig as long as I can, its not a hard job, but it'll be nice to do things that you take for granted. Like popp'n the top of a cold frosty brew! Yummmmmmy. Man, think'n like that is gonna make me leave tomorrow. Wanna hear something weird? Our cans have pull tops. Just saying. I still can't believe I can leave anytime now.

You had the power all along, Matthew!

500th Post

Dontcha hate checking a blog everyday and there's no updates? Me too....It's just that there's just nothing going on and nuth'n to write about. I have to start getting rid of stuff soon and send other stuff home. That stuff will sit in my storage unit with the other stuff I haven't seen in 3 years. Damn, I gotta get a real life........

Dang, you'd think I'd actually prepare something entertaining for my 500th post. It's only my 500th post because for the first few months of blogging, I didn't know how to put more than one picture on a post so I'd start a new post for a new picture. There's always a way to fix things.

My journey to become my Dad is well on its way, the hair on my head is disappearing and showing up in weird places--like the 2 inch nose hair I pulled out last night. I could have made it into a nice French cartoon character-style moustache had the hair been split. At least it's not growing out of my ears. Oh, and my chest hair is going gray. WTF is up with that?? In addition to all that, I'm starting to enjoy playing Solitaire on my laptop-- ZZZzzzzzzzz! Last night I watched one of my Dad's favorite movies---well, I didn't finish it (and not sure if I will)--Paint Your Wagon with Lee Marvin. My Dad would sing the songs from the movie in his lovely baritone, but I always thought it was, like, the background music-- I didn't know the movie was a #$!*#^%ing musical!! It's part of the "Best of" Clint Eastwood compilation I bought at the Hajji video store. Not sure what else I can add to that except, Clint, what were you thinking??

Tonight on CNN:

Did 80's New Wave Band "Flock of Seagulls" cause the crash of US Airways flight 1549?

In depth coverage tonight at 8pm Eastern time.

Love, Iraq Style

DATE PALM

DATE? PALM!!

Good Genes

I was going thru the pictures on my computer, seeing what I could toss out, when I came across some of my daughter, Alexis. That's her and my equally cute nephew, Will. Lex has NEVER taken a bad picture in her life, she sure didn't get that from me. In every picture I take, I either have 5 chins, a stupid look or my eyes shut. Even as a toddler, Lex had a perfect little pudgy face and perfect smile. I happened to find the sonogram of her as a fetus in my pictures folder...........

I think I should send her to model school, they'll teach her the proper way to vomit and survive on 400 calories a day.

Khaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Now Welcoming B-list Actors in Heaven

"I need toilet paper!"

I GOT NEW SOCKS, BITCHEZ!!!!!

Man, I LOVE new socks. It's like having your feet kissed with every step. It's like floating on air. It's like.... really good to not have athlete's foot. All my socks are this grayish/brown that won't wash out, and I think they gave me athletes foot. I don't know how I could have even contracted athlete's foot, I get tired just walking by the gym. I noticed it last night. My feet had been kind of itchy and, well, they've been stinking pretty bad. I've never been flexible enough to get my nose anywhere close to my feet, but after clipping my toenails last night I happened to smell my fingers.......yuck. I know, I know--Its just that I'm running out of things to write about, bear with me. Whoa! I'm afraid of bears!

Notice the sock bag has a zip lock top. You don't want those socks getting stale.

I bought another collection of DVDs at the Hajji shop. Apparently there's some new technology where you can put like 12 movies on one DVD, and it works for me, so I got over 50 Clint Eastwood movies on 4 DVDs. I had bought the Robert DeNiro collection last month, but I never realized how many stinkers he has made. Showtime? Rocky and Bullwinkle? He must've been having a bad month at the racetrack. At least with the Eastwood set, I can relearn the lyrics to Paint your Wagon and sing along with my Dad when I get home. Speaking of Dad, I've noticed that I'm slowly turning into him, I find myself playing solitaire on the computer for hours at a time. Dude, insurance seminars are funner than that! Stop it.

The Cat is out of the Bag

I've been snitched on. I forgot that Terry, one of my supervisors, reads my blog--ooops. So disregard everything I've said in the past about being bored or surfing the Internet, it never happened. My blog posts weren't how I wanted to announce my retirement from working in Iraq, but since its out, I can finally rip on Terry!

Terry was always thought of as "special"around the office. Even in his first few months at Camp Liberty, we noticed his uncanny talent to befriend inanimate objects and talk to them. He has the ability to talk about anything, and will, for hours if not interrupted. I once heard him talk about bananas for a whole 12 hour shift to a cardboard box.

Anyhoo, looks like I got about a good month or so of Iraq, then I'll go back to Texas and sleep on people's couches until school starts. Cool.

I figured I'd better write something or people will think I've gone all INXS and hung myself in my closet. What, too soon?

A light at the end of the tunnel?

"Run to the light, Matt!"

I've decided to quit in the last week of February. That'll be just short of 16 months in Iraq. I've had enough and want to get a decent vacation before I start school mid-March. It's nice to have something to shoot for and the timing will enable me to give my managers a month to find someone capable of reading magazines, surfing the Internet and watching movies for 12 hours a day. OK, I do inspections and other stuff, too.

My brother, of all people, recommended a book that I just received in the mail from Amazon--its The Dirt--a book written about Motley Crue, one of my favorite bands from the '80s. I've been reading it (during work breaks and lunch**cough cough**) for a few day's now and, whoa- I thought I was bad. The book is full of great bedtime stories about band members drinking their own urine and fellow rocker Ozzy Osbourne snorting a line of ants off a sidewalk.........Sweeeeet!

Things are changing here. Bases all over Iraq are getting turned over to the Iraqiis, but I think ours will stay Coalition staffed. Our guards are leaving and being replace by Iraqiis which doesn't exactly make us sleep much gooder. Yeah, I said gooder. I saw a group of Iraqi soldiers touring the camp in brand new "old school style" green camo uniforms, which I thought was weird since there is so little green things here. Except the tops of the palm trees, maybe that's where they'll hide.

Moneywise, I figure by the end of February, I will have enuff to pay for school/lodging, bills and maybe some new back tires for my 350Z (don't know where that tread keeps disapearing to). I guess the penis reduction will have to wait. I am also making plans to stay at my friends villa in beautiful Sandinista-free Nicaragua. Ole'! That'll be fun. 2 weeks of anti-Iraq to chillax, fish, party and make Americans look even more like assholes! Do they have bail bondsmen in Central America? Guess I'll find out. How do you say "soap on a rope" in Spanish?

Murder in the Oval Office?

"She was furry and about this big"

FIRST CAT GOES TO THE LITTER BOX IN THE SKY

Washington D.C.-- President George W. Bush's cat died under suspicious circumstances after choking on a hairball earlier today. India, who was named by President Bush in honor of our 19th state, died of "acute hairball asphyxia" according to Dr. David Charles Diller, Senior White House Physician. Sources say a suspicious note was with the body when found this morning.

India Bush was born 18 years ago to a single mother in an Arlington, Texas SPCA and rose to fame as the top White House feline for both of George W. Bush's presidential terms. White House spokesman Gary Goettee describes the cat as a fun loving prankster who enjoyed chasing grasshoppers, balls of string and watching NASCAR.

"India had no enemies that we know of" said President Bush at a news conference held in the Oval Office, "Well, except Pakistan--maybe its part of Pakistan's strategery of provoking India to death".

FBI agents were investigating paw prints found near the scene.

The cat will be buried with full honors at the Presidential Pet Mausoleum in Spokane, Washington this Sunday.

BREAKING NEWS.....

SOCKS CLINTON ARRESTED FOR MURDER

Acting on a tip, FBI agents raided the New York home of former President Bill Clinton to arrest Socks Clinton, his cat. Socks had been considered a suspect after investigators found kitty litter stuck in his paw that matched kitty litter found at the crime scene...More news as it comes in........but first:

Was there a second hairball involved??

Sucks to be a Picky Eater

I either need to stop looking at the meat I consume or become a vegetarian. My buddy gave me a microwave the other day, so I bought some microwave dinners to break up the monotony of eating at the same place every day. I got some chicken dinners and a couple of roast beef with smashed 'taters. Yummy.


If you've been keeping up with this lousy blog, you know what coming next. (If the picture hasn't tipped you off already) As I nuked the roast beef dinner, the sweet smell of processed meat and powdered mashed potatoes tantalized my senses as I tried to figure out how to work the satellite TV. I sat down on one of the chairs I inherited from my bud, eager to consume something not prepared by one of our fine Sri Laankan, Indian and Pakistani chefs.


Dammit. There it is. Another @$#%&@&* artery staring at me from underneath a thin coating of gravy!! HEY! An idea for my blog! I ran to grab my camera from my office, but in the meantime, the meat tube cooled down enough to constrict back to a less noticeable size. I decided to take a picture anyway, then sent the picture to Microsoft Paint on my craptop--to highlight the borders of the "meat tube". Now, when I send a picture from my camera to Microsoft Paint, it completely blows up the picture 500% and in high def--which immediately sent me into a gag reflex. I mean, I was this <--> close to puking while posting this picture.

CAUTION: The rest of the update just proves that I've been in Iraq too damn long.

How sad is it that I blog about the cardiovascular system of my dinner? You tell me, you came to my website! I almost wish that meat grew in trees. I would definitely grow a pepperoni tree. Or a bacon shrub.


As grossed out as I am by my dinner, I know I'll still have bacon tomorrow morning. I just can't imagine my life without bacon. Its like kissing an Angel. You know what I think is the best flavor in the world? When a piece of pepperoni gets just a tiiiiiiny bit burnt on the edges. Man, that tastes soooooooo good. It's like victory for your taste buds.

My brain hurts. I'm going to lay down.

December is Elwood Appreciation Month

I dedicate this update to my sweet little sister Jill, who posted these pics on her blog, giving me material to steal........

I want to tell you a true story. Its a bittersweet Christmas story about a girl, a lizard and a family looking for answers. Its also a fine example of what it was like to have ME as a big brother. Poor Jill grew up with 2 older brothers who were very creatively mean. Well, that's not exactly true--she also had "Jim"--our dead brother that was buried under her bed. (True story!) But here's the story-one that gets retold in my family every December:

Where's Elwood? A Christmas Lizard Tale

It was December 1985 and my little sister, the fearless hunter/gatherer of the family, had trapped a baby lizard somewhere in the back yard. Jill wanted to keep it as a pet, I guess, and threw it in an old fishbowl with approximately 9 pieces of grass and a stick--home sweet home! Well, a lizard in a fishbowl is only fun to look at for about 15 minutes, so that was that. Jill went on her way to hunt down bigger prey--like housecats. Little did she know that Houston would get hit with a rare cold snap that froze her little pet in his well stocked terrarium. Crikey!

Being the sweet brother I was (am), I carpe'd the diem and got to drawing out the scenario for her to relive for the rest of her life. The following pictures are of the (framed!) drawings I made in December 1985. The photo quality isn't so good, so I will narate:

That's a picture of Elwood above the mantle! Nice Touch.

The little lizard is saying "Where's Elwood?"

Mama Lizard responds that she doesn't know.

Found him!

(Notice that I signed my art.)

Here is Elwoods funeral. I really like the picture of Papa Lizard. He seems to be looking at the gravestone, which says "Killed by Jill Calonico December 9, 1985". Don't forget Jill--revenge is a dish best served cold according to Mr. Roark in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Did you know he was wearing fake man-boobs in that movie?? I always thought he was ripped. I digress.

KHAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaann!!

This series is framed and brought out by my mom every December along with the Christmas decorations. It brings a tear to my eye to be able to spread the Christmas spirit in such a special way!

Happy New Year! Soooooo......How ya feeling??