Sans Epicity

 ------------------------ 8:43 pm ------------------------

OmniSZ: Man I'm starving.
------------------------ 8:47 pm ------------------------
DrumsTenshi: Eat your boss
OmniSZ: Wouldn't mind eating this pilot actually
DrumsTenshi: :o
OmniSZ: She's bent over in front of me like 3 times
DrumsTenshi: lmao
------------------------ 8:52 pm ------------------------
OmniSZ: I mean she's old and junk, prolly at least 50
OmniSZ: But she's a colonel, she could be my sugar mama.
------------------------ 8:56 pm ------------------------
DrumsTenshi: :o
DrumsTenshi: Do it.
DrumsTenshi: Pinch that ass
DrumsTenshi: Then get the moneh
OmniSZ: Or a court martial.
OmniSZ: CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE
DrumsTenshi: Maybe both!
OmniSZ: Haha, that would be sweet.
OmniSZ: Get out of this bullshit job then have some bitch buy me a new 
cell phone every few months.
DrumsTenshi: :-D
------------------------ 9:06 pm ------------------------
OmniSZ: So me and the guys play this game on the truck where we switch 
one word of any movie title with the word vagina to see who can make the 
funniest title.
DrumsTenshi: Vagina Express.
OmniSZ: The Green Vagina.
DrumsTenshi: The Vagina Redemption
OmniSZ: Lmfao
DrumsTenshi: Black Vagina Down
OmniSZ: Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinkin' Your Juice In 
The Vagina.
DrumsTenshi: ...ahahah
DrumsTenshi: The Devil's Vagina?
OmniSZ: My personal fav
OmniSZ: V For Vagina
DrumsTenshi: XD
DrumsTenshi: lmfao
DrumsTenshi: XD
OmniSZ: Vaginas of Our Fathers XD
DrumsTenshi: No Vagina for Old Men
OmniSZ: LMFAO
OmniSZ: Big Trouble In Little Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Scary Vagina
OmniSZ: XD
OmniSZ: Vagina Movie
OmniSZ: Diehard with a Vagina
DrumsTenshi: If we made videogames we'd have
DrumsTenshi: Vaginas of Liberty
------------------------ 9:16 pm ------------------------
OmniSZ: Lmfao
OmniSZ: It gets better
OmniSZ: Call of Vagina
OmniSZ: Metal Gear Solid 2: Vaginas of the Patriots
DrumsTenshi: ahahah
DrumsTenshi: Little Vaginas
OmniSZ: XD
OmniSZ: Ace Combat 6: The Unsung Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Vaginas of War
OmniSZ: Lmfao
DrumsTenshi: Call of Vagina
OmniSZ: Too many games just have one word titles.
DrumsTenshi: Hahah
DrumsTenshi: Vagina Hero
OmniSZ: XD
OmniSZ: Oh back to movies for this
OmniSZ: A Series of Unfortunate Vaginas
DrumsTenshi: Hahah
DrumsTenshi: Vagina Quest
OmniSZ: Lmfao
DrumsTenshi: Vagina the Barbarian
OmniSZ: XDDD
OmniSZ: Once Upon A Time In Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Vagina 'em up
OmniSZ: LMAO
OmniSZ: A Bug's Vagina
DrumsTenshi: bahahahah
DrumsTenshi: Vagina Fuzz
OmniSZ: Nice XD
OmniSZ: How To Lose A Vagina In 10 Days
DrumsTenshi: fghjaglhjafha XD
DrumsTenshi: Vagina Tucker Must Die
OmniSZ: Lmfao
OmniSZ: Ten Things I Hate About Vagina
------------------------ 9:28 pm ------------------------
DrumsTenshi: Vagina and stitch
OmniSZ: Gone With The Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Vaginas in the Outfield
OmniSZ: LMAO
OmniSZ: Back to the Vagina
------------------------ 9:47 pm ------------------------
DrumsTenshi: Whoops, back
DrumsTenshi: Journey to the Center of the Vagina
OmniSZ: Nice!
OmniSZ: The League of Extrodinary Vaginas
DrumsTenshi: *L*
DrumsTenshi: Oh snap videogames: Vagina May Cry
OmniSZ: LMAO
OmniSZ: Dude I can't believe we've been doing this for an hour XD
DrumsTenshi: I have a billion movies in my house that need renaming!
OmniSZ: XD
OmniSZ: *gets a label maker*
DrumsTenshi: Vagina Thunder
------------------------ 9:54 pm ------------------------
DrumsTenshi: Or better yet, Tropic Vagina
----------------------- 10:02 pm -----------------------
OmniSZ: Lmfao
OmniSZ: The Never Ending Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Ferris Bueller's Vagina Off
OmniSZ: XD
DrumsTenshi: The Perfect Vagina
OmniSZ: Single White Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Vagina Rising
OmniSZ: Fatal Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Kill Vagina
OmniSZ: Vagina In the Rye
DrumsTenshi: lmao
DrumsTenshi: A Tale of Two Vaginas
OmniSZ: Lmfao
OmniSZ: Brokeback Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Silence of the Vaginas
OmniSZ: Jurassic Vagina
DrumsTenshi: The Vagina Collector
OmniSZ: Lmfao
DrumsTenshi: Vaginas: Aftershock
----------------------- 10:12 pm -----------------------
OmniSZ: My Best Friend's Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Three Men and a Little Vagina
OmniSZ: Two and a Half Vaginas
DrumsTenshi: That's a tv show!
OmniSZ: Okay that one doesn't count
OmniSZ: How about
OmniSZ: Saturday Night Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Summer of Vagina
OmniSZ: Diary of a Mad Black Vagina
DrumsTenshi: omfg XD
DrumsTenshi: The Vagina Strikes Back
OmniSZ: Vaginas on a Plane
DrumsTenshi: The Fast and the Vaginas
DrumsTenshi: : Vagina Drift
OmniSZ: The Incredible Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Almost Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Courage Under Vagina
OmniSZ: Behind Enemy Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Vagina at the Gates
OmniSZ: Boondock Vaginas
DrumsTenshi: Indiana Jones and the Vagina of Doom
OmniSZ: Lmfao
OmniSZ: Indiana Jones and the Crystal Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Indiana Jones and the Vagina Grail
OmniSZ: James Bond: The Vagina Is Not Enough
DrumsTenshi: VAGINAPUSSY
----------------------- 10:22 pm -----------------------
DrumsTenshi: Sky Captain and the Vagina of Tomorrow
OmniSZ: Austin Powers: The Vagina Who Shagged Me
DrumsTenshi: Iron Vagina
OmniSZ: XD
OmniSZ: Dude, Where's My Vagina?
DrumsTenshi: Lost in Vagina
OmniSZ: Grandma's Vagina
DrumsTenshi: Charlie's Vaginas
OmniSZ: 8 Crazy Vaginas
DrumsTenshi: The Last Vagina
OmniSZ: The Land Before Vagina
DrumsTenshi: I'm tired of this, despite all the laughter @_@
OmniSZ: Haha
OmniSZ: I need to save this convo and put it on my LJ
DrumsTenshi: doo eet
OmniSZ: Okay one more cuz the guy buy me just said it
OmniSZ: Epic Vagina
DrumsTenshi: *L*
----------------------- 10:42 pm -----------------------
OmniSZ: Omfg, okay one more
OmniSZ: Fun With Dick And Vagina
DrumsTenshi: AHAHAH
OmniSZ: XD

Well, it's about that time again.  I've re-upped, after much deliberation, so now that I'm in for another four years the deployments will continue to come, probably growing more frequent as time passes.  If there is a god, we won't do something stupid like get into a pissing contest with Iran so that as soon as we give up on Iraq, there's another economic sinkhole to funnel all of our money into.

In a stroke of good luck I'll be going back to Manas in September.  The deployments through January, however, and it gets to be very damn cold over there in the winter.  I hope all my new cold weather gear issues, since I don't even know if I'm going to be wearing ABUs or DCUs while I'm over there.  Either way the money will be nice.  Being married means tax free dependent-rate BAH along with family separation.  I'm thinking the money I make over there will be spent refinancing my truck and stomping out one of my credit cards, with a little left over for a new toy.  Probably a gaming rig, something high end so I can enjoy D3 when it comes out *___*

Also, Dez, stop being addicted to Maple Story >:|

Dreamed about E'lise again.

Doesn't happen often, but when it does the dreams are always of a disturbingly lucid, consistent, and sexual nature.  This was probably the most lucid, consistent, and sexual one yet.  I haven't spoken to E'lise in years, and if I ever see her again it'll be too soon, but sometimes I wonder if these dreams are indicative of the fact that a seething, angry letter is not proper closure when you're prepping an exit plan from your life for someone else.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about her at least occasionally.  I don't think that's unusual though, as I did know her for five years.  However, by and large she's a part of the past, and most definitely a part that needs to stay there, and these dreams make me wonder if even after all this time I've really gotten over her or just stuffed all the unpleasantness I associate with her and her kind away somewhere and let it ferment.

I'm gonna go play Dawn of War.

One more week, I can last one more week.

I've already started outprocessing, and in one week it's gonna be wheels up and on the way to England. 18 hours there, then it's continuing on to ... well, home. I've got a lot of readjustment to do, and people say that getting settled back in can be stressful, but I'm just not seeing it.

I think the only thing I have to worry about is the fact that they towed one of my cars that I abandoned on base. That'll prolly cost me a little, but it's not like I want that piece of shit back so they can have it >>

After that it'll be finding out where they sent the rest of my mail, then furnishing the apartment and the rest... just settling in.

Halo 3 will be coming in while I'm still on leave too, so I'll probably end up paying more attention to that than food and sleep. Oh, and they also announced (probably some time ago) that DMC4 is no longer going to be a PS3 exclusive! Take that dick in your mouth, Sony.

Anyway I've been spending too much money over here lately, so I'm going to go do something productive with my time for a bit.

I'm getting short, and it's starting to affect me mentally. I've only got 21 days left here, and though it seems like a fair amount, it's nothing compared to 131, which is how many I'll have been here for when I leave. Unfortunately, there's talk of yet another extension once we get into the thick of it, and the next time I come here it'll likely be for six months. As it stands, our cops, cooks, and everyone else are already doing 180 day rotations.

Just gotta hold out for 21 more days. I can swing that, I think. I'm still slotted for two more tax-free pay checks, on top of 800 dollars or so in safe pay when I get home and an 800 dollar tax return. I plan on finally getting off my ass and furnishing my apartment, so instead of sleeping on an air mattress I'll have a real bed. I'm hoping I can find some divorcee who's getting rid of all of her (husband's) crap, as I've learned that in the military, the opportunity to profit from another's loss is ever-present. It most often comes from people directly out of tech school who've bought things they can't afford so they have to get rid of them shortly thereafter. One of the new guys in the shop had to sell his PS3 for half of what he paid when he was going to go delinquent on a phone bill.

Sadly, I wasn't there to purchase it.

In other news, some of you may remember me ranting about my boss, way back when. Well, he's gone. He's been voted off the island, and in his place is a freshly-promoted Master Sergeant. I'm holding out hope that this guy won't be as big of a douche, as he's also from Elmindorf, and he's a C-130 guy as well. Only time will tell.

Anyway this entry is shorter than normal because the days are starting to blend together and everything I've already said during the past four months is applicable here.

Oh wait, I got Vanessa to talking about cock and she admitted that she, quote, loved the taste of it, end quote. With as long as I've been out here even her dick-warmer is starting to look appealing >>

21 days. My standards can hold up for 21 more days ;-;

So I went on the fishing trip today, and I have to say that it is one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. It was a two and a half hour ride in a van with shot shocks across roads that looked about as safe to drive on as nails and broken glass (on the way back we happened upon a head-on collision between two vehicles just after the fact), but once we got out to the gorge and the river it was just awesome. I've never smelled air that clean, and the river was run-off from the mountains so the water was as clear as crystal, even if it was also as cold as... well, just-melted snow. I've got a few pics, and I would have had more but Chris' camera has some weird USB port that I didn't have a cable for. Hopefully I can get those from him later. So let's see what we got from Luu's cam...


Here's the gorge from as soon as we get there...


One more of the gorge...


Here's the crew we went out with. The guy on the left in the red shirt is our wing king, pretty much the highest-ranking official on base. To his right is 'Kate,' whom we called Kate simply because her real name is impossible to pronounce (same with 'Jane,' our translator.) The gals beside Kate are our hostesses, the ones that had us into their home (pictured in the rear) for lunch. A three-course lunch that left me so stuffed I didn't even bother fishing the second half of the day. Instead, I sat on the rocks and tried not to nod off. The food was incredible, homecooked as it was, and we did the whole 'lose the shoes and eat on the floor bit' and everything. Very authentic experience eating lunch in a concrete shack while cows moo in the background. Had borsht for the first time, some other stuff that I couldn't pronounce, and some of the best damn bread I've ever eaten. The guy with the rabbit ears is Chris, one of the fuel cell guys from the shop, the only black guy present is probably me, and to my right you can see our command chief (in white) and Luu, the Asian Sensation.


Here's Luu getting suave with our translator, who happens to be the biggest fucking cutie pie in the history of the planet...


And lastly, the day's catch!



Now, I'd like to emphasize something here, with the above picture. When I say, 'the day's catch' and post a picture of a single fish, I'm not joking. We, five men, five upright-walking simians with opposable thumbs, 500,000 years of an evolutionary head-start, fishing poles, hooks, nylon line, and instruction from the natives, managed to catch a fish.

It was still a blast though. We almost got to go horseback riding but the horses were out at the pasture, so we just killed some time fishing instead, then headed back to base. 45 bucks well spent, especially since it got me out of work for a day. I may take a shot at getting on the road one more time before we leave. For now though, I'm worn out @_@ See you guys later.

Alright, so I've been offline for a couple of days due to some stuff going on around the base. No, we're not getting mortared or anything like that, but our host nationals were doing big important host national type stuff, and for a short while all of our vendors were unable to serve us in their full capacity. To be more specific, I couldn't have anything but ham and cheese in my omletes and the cafe's been closed :<

So, down to business, because quite a lot has been happening lately.

Firstly, I would like to congratulate myself on being promoted. Not just any promotion, however; unlike the promotion to Senior Airman, which is given simply for time in grade as an Airman First Class, the rank of Staff Sergeant is given after you take two tests, and its weighted as well. Time in grade as a SrA, EPR (that's enlisted performance report for you non-military types) scores, medals earned, all of that is also weighted in. After the second attempt, I've been selected. We had about 36,000 test, and 15,000 were promoted, which averaged out to around 41% promotion rate, which is astoundingly high. If it weren't so high, I probably wouldn't have made the cut.

You know, considering I didn't study any of the test material and finished each 100 question test in about 10 minutes.

Now I'm kind of at a crossroads. I honestly didn't expect to be promoted this soon, or at all, given that I'd planned on getting out when my six years were up. This new stripe kind of throws a kink in my plans. Once I sew on here in about four months, I'll be a non-commissioned officer. There's a HUGE difference between an NCO and an Airman, not so much in authority as in expectations. I'll have to look a little sharper, take more initiative, and be in charge of things. I'll likely even get my own troops soon, so that means all that supervisory training I bluffed my way through will come into play too.

And I don't want to do any of that shit :< I liked being a SrA, damnit. But, complacency kills, especially in maintenance. Having made staff after being in for five years sets me up nicely if I want to keep climbing the corporate ladder, so to speak, and the extra pay (around another 200 dollars a month, plus more for BAH and BAS) is certainly an incentive, but I've got to step up. My job performance has always been good, but now it's going to have to be fan-fucking-tastic. I only hope I'm up for the challenge.

So anyway, go Team Me. In an unrelated note, I've now got 27 days until I come home, which is one day shorter than a full menstrual cycle. I think I can last that long, though I'm getting kind of annoyed that a care package someone sent me hasn't showed up yet, and if it doesn't show up before I leave then I'm just not going to get it at all :( Well, I guess it'd be here next time I came to Manas, which is a certainty now, but I want it now, not then.

Also, not sure if I mentioned it, but for the record my credit card is also paid off. It's absolutely astounding how much minimum payments will FUCK you over. I had 2,500 dollars on my credit card, which, for anyone with a steady income and no other debts, isn't a huge amount of money. Instead of being smart and paying several hundred dollars a month, I only paid around 70. After interest was figured in, I'd paid on that card for six fucking months and still had two grand left on it. Since I'm getting paid tax-free here I just went ahead and dropped the other 2 grand on it and finished it off, but now that I've got 2,500 dollars in credit I'm probably going to just rack the expenses right back up :D Not that the original 2,500 dollars went to a bunch of junk I didn't need. The first 2.5k paid for my car in full (Cindy, my beautiful yellow Cadillac El Dorado *_*) and the next 2.5k ish will furnish my apartment. Since I'm, you know, tired of sleeping on an air mattress and eating on the floor. There's bachelorhood and then there's just plain fuckin' sad >>

So, promoted, credit card paid off, coming home soon... am I forgetting something?

Bought some Fallout Boy CDs. Never listened to real emo before, and it wasn't what I was expected. It's hard to imagine someone cutting himself while listening to something so nauseatingly upbeat, but I have to admit a few of the songs were really catchy. Then I realized they were specifically engineered from the ground-up to be stuck in your head for days. I know this because I got This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race stuck in my head for about three days straight. I almost threw a towel on my head and charged one of the SPs at the gate in hopes that he'd put a bullet in me and end the pain.

I also bought Riviera: The Promised Land. It's a quirky RPG ported to the PSP, and though it feels overly-simplistic and frustrating at times, it's got loads of charm. I'm also amazed at the sheer amount of voice acting in this game; I'm not exagerrating when I say every line of dialogue in the game is voiced. The conversations, the NPCs, even the fucking narration text between stages. You can listen in either English or Japanese, and while I normally prefer Japanese voice actors because I can't really tell if they suck or not when I don't understand what they're saying, the American dub here in this game is more than just competent, it's great. Which is nice, when every fucking line of dialogue (see above) is voiced.

Watched Malibu's Most Wanted last night, nearly shit myself laughing. Yes, I know it's a stupid movie, but you can't help but feel bad for Brad ('scuse me, B. Rad) after everything he goes through just trying to be himself and convince people he really is a hardcore street gangster straight out of the 'Bu. Casting Kal Penn as 'The Beast From the Middle-East' was also classic. Fun with Dick and Jane wasn't too bad, but I'm starting to get really fucking irritated with Jim Carrey, that goddamn canuck, landing roles playing the s/o to some of the hottest female talent in Hollywood. First Jennifer Tilley, then Jennifer Aniston, now Téa Leoni? And he gets to make out with her and grope her and everything :| I need to be an actor.

So I think that's about it, anyway. Been watching a lot of movies to pass the time, and all in all just really looking forward to coming home after a mostly peaceful, uneventful trip *knocks on wood*.

Man, sometimes I hate these planes. Yesterday I had to pull and replace an elevator snubber, which is more or less like pulling a baseball bat through the eye of a needle, then putting it back, then securing it with two bolts and cotter keys while working through a space so narrow your fingers can't even fit through it. There are a lot of times when I feel like the engineers all sat down and said, "Alright, how can we design this plane to fuck with the people that are going to maintain it fifty years from now?"

I mean, why are we even flying 50 year old planes? When you really think about it, the tanker world got the raw end of the deal. Cargo planes like the C5 have been manufactured as recent as the late 90's. The F22 is brand-spankin' new. B2 bombers are far more recent than 50 years back. It's like we have all these high-end aircraft with all these technilogical advancements, but the vehicles that are vital to keeping them in the air, the tankers that refuel them, are the oldest, most decrepit pieces of shit in the world :| I'm cross-training and working on C5s.

So aside from work woes things have been pretty static. Sleeping for 10 hours a day really helps pass the time. In just a few days I'll have less than a month here, and once I have less than 20 days I'll probably start doing backflips and singing Hammer Time. This trip hasn't been all that bad, but after 100 and something days here I'm ready to come home. I'm ready to eat real food and go to the mall and I want to sleep on my own bed in my own apartment and I want I want I want x-x

It's so nice knowing I'm going to be back here again next year, and probably for six months this time. I hate supporting this war when the people wanting you to fight it want to spend as little money as possible as well. We used to only come down here for 45 days at a time, that's it. A month and a half. That's the perfect rotation. Enough time to get a feel for the place and feel like you accomplished something without being stuck there for a third of a year.

Anyway the website's almost redone. The first time around took forever, but now that I know what I'm doing and the basic framework is already established, it's been going smoothly, when I can peel myself away from Starcraft. And Starcraft 2 will be out next year as well *_* I can't wait for that. Even though it seems like the developers themselves have a hardon for the Protoss. The promotional material shows a few Terran units and structures, no Zerg units or structures, then an assload of new Protoss stuff. Ghey. They're my least favorite race, but I play them anyway because they're the strongest.

Anyway I'm done bitching for the moment. Back to SC :D

If pink is the only color you have? GOD I HATE YOU MANAS AIR BASE.

But I guess it's not so bad. My Zune may be the faggiest shade of pink this side of GLAAD, but I like it more than my iPod. The screen is actually the right size to watch movies and anime on, were I so inclined to do that when my PSP screen is even larger and sharper, and the interface is much simpler. Plus it supports JPEG backgrounds, so I can have pornographic wallpapers on an MP3 player, which has been my lifelong dream.

So my time is winding down, and I'm starting to get the itch to come home. 36 days left is only a little more than a month, and in a week I'll have 29 days. 29 days is jack shit compared to the 100 however many I've been here. I've learned it's better to count the time you've been there for the first half, and the time left for the last half.

What's been going on lately that's worthy of note, aside from my acquisition of yet another toy...

I chatted with Dez and we decided to simplify our roleplay setting by hacking out some unnecessary rules. I'm still somewhat wary of being fully freeform, but I'd like to think the best of people before I jump to conclusions. I'm sure a freeform room will work just as well as any other as long as it's run properly. Besides, even rooms with rigid, time-tested rules systems can go to complete shit if they're run by asshats.

No offense, Marcus >>

Oh, and here's some advice; if you ever go to a country where the water is 'non-potable,' take that to heart x-x I haven't drank any of the local water since I've been here, though I do brush my teeth with it so I figured it wouldn't be a problem to ingest a bit. I was at the chow hall, got some ice made with non-potable water, and had it with Coke. I didn't even EAT the ice, just drank the Coke with it. Two hours later, FLAMING BUTT PISS OF DEATH. Now I know why they say don't drink the water in Mexico D:

So aside from nearly shitting out my intestinal tract, this trip has been getting more pleasant by the day. In about 36 more of those days, it'll be even MORE pleasant :D I just found out that my safe pay upon returning to the states will be nearly a thousand dollars, coupled with my tax returns from state taxes, all the tax free pay I've been getting here and various other mission-related pay bonuses... man, I'm gonna be sitting pretty. I think I'll hire the most expensive prostitute in Washington and do a line of coke off her ass.

I've always wanted to do that, just once.

Snagged some swag at the boardwalk sale today. Got a handmade chessboard for my pops that he may never see because it's nice and the more I look at it the more I like it, got something jade for a certain someone, and snagged some computer programs and music for myself. I love software piracy *_* Adobe Creative Suite 3 was 10 dollars. It has Dreamwaver, Photoshop, all that shit.

I also got some music; all the Apocalyptica albums for 5 bucks. I don't even listen to Apocalyptica, but goddamnit if I can have all the albums for 5 bucks, I'm gonna have all the albums for 5 bucks.

Outside of that, nothing particularly exciting has happened in the last 24 hours, so now I am going to make myself scarce so I can eat before work.

*bamph*

What a week it's been.

Thankfully aircraft work's been at a minimum, more or less. Captain Redball (so dubbed for her habit to call us for emergency maintenance [redballs] over stupid shit that's not even broke) struck again, this time whining about the stab trim wheel coasting a turn after she lets off of the switch, but only while spoilers are up. Newsflash, Captain Redball, the spoilers and stab trim are completely independent from one another. Also, after thirty or so attempts, I could not duplicate this mystery discrepency, and even if I could, the wheel's allowed to coast for 600 degrees, and one turn is only 360. Go die in a fire.

</greek>

So aside from that, most of my time at work has been spent avoiding the higher-ups and locking myself in the back to veg out in front of Starcraft. I totally forgot how much fun it was to live for the swarm and all that, since the Zerg are totally better than every other race in the game. Even if they suck at everything since their only strength is how flawlessly they can execute a 'human wall' offensive. I tried getting my hands on a patch but I forgot how worthless this connection was. It's a miracle I can even check and update my journal.

In other news, Vanessa has been surprisingly tolerable for the last little bit, even after I called her one of the rudest nicknames anyone's ever been given. She's tall and has the body of a sack full of oranges, and she also welds metal in support of the mission (read, gets bitched out for every bass-ackwards make-work project supervision can think of while serving no other purpose), so we call her the Welderbeast. I've already vented about this bitch in the past, but today I saw her looking at Halloween costumes and she wanted to go as a ballerina in a tutu or something and all I could think of was that a tutu on her would look like two sticks of half-melted butter wearing a frilly collar.

Tomorrow's the next boardwalk sale, so I'll be heading over there. This time around I'll actually be buying souveniers, so if anyone wants something let me know. Most of the stuff is culturally relevant, like rugs and shoes and North Face jackets that normally cost 300 dollars but are 20 here because Kyrgyz get them from the Korean outlets. I wish I could offer a catalogue of shit to choose from, but I can't :D

Went over to the Spanish hangar for a party today too. I was on shift so I couldn't drink, more's the pity, but I did score some weird Spanish dishes I'd never seen before, and some slammin' bread. Annoyingly enough, my dipshit supervisor, despite the fact that he's supposed to be working 12 hour shifts, cut himself loose three hours early so he could go over to the other hangar and get plowed. Thankfully he didn't get the chance to drink too much, as he's really a fucking retard when he gets drunk enough and the last time he got blitzed I was on the verge of beating his ass and telling him some other brown people did it when he woke up.

Also finally got off my ass and formatted my new computer. This marks the first time that a recovery disk has actually worked, and it worked well. I can even go back to playing Bejewelled again since the free trial reset :D

Anyway that's all I've got for now. Or maybe I have more, but I've been up for about 16 hours and the eyelids are getting heavy =_=

Man, I haven't done anything like this since I ripped on Stained like over a year ago, but since I just got a new CD that is apparently the magnum opus of all black metal, I'll be giving it a few listen-throughs and deciding whether or not they live up to the hype, which mostly consisted of Marcus going "LOL THESE GUYS ARE GR8 BUY NOW", only in coherent English.

The CD in question is Blackwater Park, the fifth studio album produced by Opeth. Since I like really heavy stuff, I figured this would be right up my alley. I spent MONTHS downloading it on this shitty connection, and it just finished last night. So, I grab my iPod, load it up, snap on some headphones, then head out to the running track, prepared to be blown away!

Only, I wasn't.

It kind of... lacked that heavy impact that most of the other guys I listen to has. It was heavy, but not fast, which is usually what I prefer to listen to. Take Soilwork's earlier stuff, In Flames, even Trivium to a lesser, gayer extent. That's not to say it was all bad, of course, just not what I expected.

So where to start... first off, the music is incredible, from a composition standpoint. These guys play some unconventional riffs that are technically complex enough to be interesting, but not annoying. Some guys, like Douchebag Darryl from Pantera, are so technical it's boring, and I'd think reading the sheet music would be more entertaining than listening to the shit. The drums aren't quite as heavy as I prefer, with only a few spots of double-bass work, the fastest of them being in the first three minutes of the album, but the timing signatures are very unique when they break away from 4/4. When I read about these guys a few weeks ago, I read that they actually incorporate jazz into their style, and I had no idea how this work before listening.

It works well, as it'd happen. The drums, when not doing the heavy metal bit, are mellow and complex, going slowly enough for you to take in every fill the guy throws at you. As well, some of the tracks feature a jazz-style guitar being played during the interludes, which, much to my surprise, also works very well.

As for the vocals, they're also very impressive. When you listen to death metal, black metal, doom metal, or what have you, the singers usually carry the lyrics with a guttural roar or a high-pitched screech. If they sing, they're usually capable at best, and embarrassingly bad at worst. Most heavy metal bands start out with the death growl as their only vocals, then incorporate melodic singing as they gain popularity for a more accessible sound that appeals to a wider audience (e.g., selling out). With Opeth, the singer has a deep, robust growl, but rounds it out with a singing voice that's not only competent, but actually damn good. He can sing better than a lot of mainstream artists who aren't even metal bands, like Linkin Park and Seether. It doesn't feel like the melodic vocals were added on as an afterthought, but rather, worked in seamlessly along side the intelligible growling.

Something else I found I liked was the fact that the accoustic parts of the songs were performed with real instruments and added to the track, not detracting from it by feeling tacked on. A lot of times accoustic melodies in the middle of a heavy metal track last for only half a minute or less, and add little to the song other than some masturbatory twinge of self-indulgence. Take Trivium, who typically has at least four tracks that are 2 minute long, repetitive loops of the same grainy Sampletank strings and sampled piano (I know this because I used Sampletank myself :D)

There's also the track length to consider, as some of the songs are in excess of 8 minutes long. At the very least, it's 8 minutes of music, beginning to end, as opposed to, say, The Mars Volta, who have 20 minute tracks that are 2 minutes of music and 18 minutes of whooshy, jingling 'ambient textures.'

All in all, not blown away, but impressed nonetheless. Next on my list is Mastadon!

Well, that was the general idea when we put this piece of shit together. There's always this smug sense of satisfaction that a true cynic gets when he says, "This won't work," for a month straight and gets ignored, only to have whatever he said won't work not work like he said it wouldn't. I'm pleased to announce that this ugly-as-sin biohazard of a cooking device not only folded in and melted itself as we tossed wood in, but is so shabbily put together that I honestly think it'll fall to pieces the next time we use it.

HOWEVER, I'm hoping it won't fall apart until we try to roast a pig with it. It was so much trouble to actually get a pig flown in from Germany for this roast that the icing on the cake would be the whole thing collapsing in a pile of half-melted slag and ruining an event that's been planned months in advance. Just so you can get a feel for just how big of a piece of shit this thing is, I've included pictures :D




And the glorious 'after.'



And here's me being pleased with the results.




And for no other reason than I like the scrapbook function, here's a sunrise in Manas.




I'll be sure to get more pictures when we actually attempt to roast this pig. The results promise to be disastrous :D

[00:00] *A-P*: sup nigga
[00:00] Devin: Not much fag.
[00:00] *A-P*: cool, im hella bored
[00:00] Devin: Are you in a hotel or something?
[00:01] *A-P*: yea, gay as crap
[00:02] *A-P*: theres a couple of fine... Breezys here. lol Hey, whats a dope adventure game for the 360 i could bye
[00:02] Devin: Grammar Quest. It teaches you how to not sound like a complete douche while using IM clients.
[00:03] *A-P*: lol. I hate this shit. I would rather talk on the phone.

Oh Amazon, you wily and inconstant provider of merchandise! Yes, I would love to order (and to have within one week) my own copy of the 87th remake of Final Fantasy for my PSP, as I've already played through all of the other PSP games I brought with me (save for Armored Core: Formula Front. That game is programmed to be impossible to beat). Sure, I'll breeze right through all of the form-filling-out and payment information queries, and I'll go ahead and put my APO address in here as well.

Oh wait, what's that? You only ship SOME things to APO addresses and not EVERYTHING you offer? Let's scroll down the list here. You won't ship...

Kitchen appliences.
Electronics.
Flammables.
Software (including games).

What? No software for Devin? Sad face, Amazon, very sad face. Here I am, enduring the blazing 85 degree heat and working an entire 8 hours a week more than I normally do to combat terrorism in all of its facets, and you can't even ship to me a game to make what little downtime I have more enjoyable? For shame. Amazon.com, I dub thee 'Communist Social Party Nazi Hammer-Sickle Swastika Doo-Doo Head.com,' as this name fits much better than a word that evokes images of six and a half foot tall female body builders or a river where big snakes live.

So, to anyone reading this, how about a little help? Any stateside friends (preferably ones with a paypal account for ease of the transferring of the moneys) care to pick up this gem of a game for me and mail it out? I'll tip if it gets here before I head back to the states.

Anyshit, the last week has been life in hell. It's like I can't catch a fucking break around here. Everytime anyone has work, I have work. If fuel cell has work, I'm out fire-guarding (read; standing around to make sure that if they pass out from the fumes someone's there to call the ambulance). If sheet metal has work, I'm out removing panels and picking up popped rivets so the engine doesn't suck them in. If A/R has work... well, I am A/R so that should be a fairly simple set of dots to connect. Every day for the past two weeks has been show up, work, eat, work, go home, sleep, get up, show up, work, eat, work, go home, sleep.

Finally, though, it seems as if there's a break in the storm. Our problem birds have been fixed up into tip-top shape, and tomorrow neither of the Head Honkeys In Charge will be around, which should make for a fairly relaxed day. God knows I need it. If this ops tempo keeps up I'm going to start sacrificing co-workers to whichever deity strikes me at the moment. I might even sacrifice someone to the god that doesn't exist according to atheists.

Other notes; Night at the Museum is an awful good movie. I don't mean that in a contractual sense, so much as in the sense that it is both awful and good. It's awful in that it's formulaic, cheesy, and has Ben Stiller in it, but it's good in that it's a clean family flick worth a few laughs and with some snazzy special effects. First time in a movie that I saw someone playing fetch with a skeletal T. Rex. I wish I could do that. Also, after discarding it as pop-synth bullshit, I've gone back and listened again to the album Figure Number Five, by what who most of you know to be my favorite band (Soilwork). The verdict; it's still a load of pop-synth bullshit, but only compared to their earlier and latest album. FNF remains my least favorite Soilwork album, but by virtue of being a Soilwork album and my blind-eye product loyalty, it is still better than half the other shit on my iPod. Somehow, Kittie is on there. An all-girl metal band may sound like an awesome idea, but the 'hate the penis' vibes are palpable with these chicks. I bet I could find a Kittie shirt at Hot Topic, right next to a spike-studded, two-headed dildo.


What's new on the RP scene, some inquiring minds may wish to know? Well, not a lot. Sadly enough, it's been all I can do to even catch anyone I normally RP with online over the past week for all the stress I've been going through at work. With things calming down a bit, hopefully I can catch up. The chatter base is expanding steadily, though it has its fair share of "hay wuts up lol this room is kewl" and then the subsequent "*never shows up again*" going for it as well. I'm not surprised that a few people from Alt have been looking around as well, though thankfully the majority of them have decided not to stay. The biggest surprise was seeing someone I honestly couldn't stand rear his ugly, power-gaming head. Whether or not he still lurks in there I can't say, but as of now his silence is golden.

I'm not expecting too much of a turnout just yet, but the gradual growth of the room is much more comfortable than jumping right up into SPR would be. As it stands, just from a few weeks of having started up, a veritible ass-load of changes need to be made to the site, the rules, and setting to maintain continuity and keep things reasonably balanced. Unfortnately Windows Vista is on to my software pirating schemes, so I'll probably have to either buy Dreamweaver (and I shudder at the thought) or go back to working on my old laptop, which has been delegated as my pornography repository.

What else... my mother turned 43 a few days ago, me and my dad will be having our birthdays in a couple of months... my brother graduated and is moving with my parents to Georgia, where he will likely enjoy all of the freedoms I was never afforded at his age... and... oh yes, most importantly, I'm HALFWAY DONE. I now have less time to spend in Manas than I've already spent here, and it is with this mentality that I'm sure I can survive another... 60 some-odd days here.

Granted, I'll probably be coming back in January, but whatever. It's money. And this time I'll actually put all of my belongings into storage to milk that sweet, sweet BAH. That's 600 dollars a month, yo.

So I guess that about sums up... it all. Save for a rather awesome commission I'm getting done for one of my characters. Here's a sketch.




And in case anyone was wondering, I was totally serious about getting that game to me. It's thirty bucks, and I'll pay forty to anyone who gets it here.

Before coming on this trip, I didn't have a lot of experience working on the KC135 R model stratotanker that I've come to know so well and love so much. Out of tech school, I went to the ISO (isochronal inspections) dock, where I spent 8 months doing the same inspection every week. Didn't learn much.

After that I moved to a wheel and tire backshop, where I learned about wheels and tires. For three years. Yes, they are an important part of the plane, but you can learn all there is to learn about a wheel and tire assembly in two days. I got a few cool TDY's out of it, but all in all it didn't do me any good to spend three years away from the meat of my career field, then six months back into it before going on a deployment for four.

But I've been hanging in there, and for the past few days, I've learned something; fixing airplanes, really digging down inside of them to find out what makes them tick and why they're doing what they do, is hellaciously fun.

Take for example 1470, our resident shit heap. Granted, all of the jets are shit heaps to one degree or another; they're all at least 50 years old and they probably have hundreds of thousands of flight hours on them. 1470, however, likes to wiggle her butt in flight. She comes down, and the rudder is kicking off to one side, uncommanded. Over the next three days, Josh and I go through about ten different rigging tasks, hours upon hours of troubleshooting, and just when we've exhausted just about every option we have outside of changing the rudder (something I was not at all looking forward to) we found the problem. I could go into details, but since I'd be speaking Greek to anyone reading this anyway, I'll just say it was one of those forehead-palming moments and leave it at that.

If I could work A/R for the rest of my Air Force career, I probably would. Unfortunately I have no real say in that, so when it's time to either reenlist, crosstrain, or gtfo, the latter two are my first priorities.

So, for the first time this entire trip, I've gotten some real job satisfaction, even if trying to figure out what the hell was going on with this jet was a supreme pain in the ass.

Alright, so some of you guys may remember me from a brief rant about the fetid, rotting vampires I incorporated into my setting and the Sue who befouled my anti-cliche. That whole situation is still resolving itself, but it's relevant so it bears mention.

Before I get too much into it though, I'd like to go ahead and give props to anyone on here who runs their own room/game/setting, etc. This is the first time I've attempted it, and I had NO idea how challenging dealing with people can be, especially a certain person whom I'm hosting the room with. Now that that's out of the way...

What is the deal with people seeing a setting detail, then thinking that if they do the opposite of the established detail in question, it becomes unique and admirable? To be more specific, this game also includes angels. I know, I tasted a little bit of bile when my hostess suggested it too. Just like with the vampires, I tried to break away from the cliche a bit, because if anything can top a vampire on the emometer, it's a fallen angel. Instead of being divine, immortal beings, angels (called Elohim in this setting) are mortal-bodied humanoids who live in the mountains and have wings on their backs. They live, breathe, produce children, grow old, and die, just as humans would. However, for a bit of the angelic touch, they are also naturally inclined towards divine and holy types of magic, and have a natural ability to heal others. They are very religious (though in this setting they are not associated with the Christian God most people readily associate angels with), and part of their culture is that they are racial purists. They get along very well with members of other races, but the practice of producing children with any but their own people is decried and considered extremely foul. It says so right there on their race template, which I assume people read before making a character of that particular race.

So, someone explain to me why the first two Elohim applied for (one by the hostess herself) are halfbreeds? This... does not gel. People, it's not too hard to read what I typed! It can't be that much harder to adhere to the standards I set! It would have been one thing if the room had thirty of these little winged beauties scooting around, and one happened to be a halfbreed. You know, the exception to the rule, when the rule is that they do not marry or have sex out of their race! Instead, every one of these angels apped so far has been a departure from the material I presented.

It's much harder to outright deny these applications, because it's not a direct violation of the source in question. A pretty, flowery vampire when the rest are corpses is, but it is not impossible for an Elohim to breed with a member of another race, just extremely unlikely.

I'm determined not to let these annoyances ruin a new game that has a good deal of potential, even if it means I have to be a bit more direct with people who deign fit to disregard setting details so eagerly.

As always, thanks for the sympathetic ear, BRPS.

So I read an article on abortion today, or rather, a one-sided, left-wing, propoganda piece written solely for the purpose of justifying the removal of a living fetus from a woman's womb prior to birth. It was (supposedly) written by three women who'd all had partial-birth abortions for different reasons. One was because the child had a horrible deformity that would have left him invalid, the other was because the wife may have died, and I forgot the last one.

I dunno. Myself, I can't really say I'm pro life or pro choice. To quote Penn and Teller, everyone is pro life AND pro choice. It's whether you're for or against abortion that lies at the heart of the issue, so perhaps trying to typify people into groups because of their moral standing on the issue is a bit... presumptuous. I've learned that with abortion, there's typically no middle ground, which is kind of sad.

To clarify my own stance, I've always thought that abortion is very immoral, but my experiences are limited and I don't have medical knowledge to back many arguments beyond my moral objection to it. The only woman I've known to have an abortion said, word for word, that having a child while trying to go to college was an inconvenience. A comment like that saddens me greatly, because I consider that to be tragic loss of life. The girl was very sexually active, and though she took precautions, no method of birth control is absolute (save for abortion when it's abused and used as such). It's situations like that that make me feel abortion is such a terrible thing for this country to allow.

But there are other things that make me feel as if abortion is a legitimate medical procedure that can save lives. I don't know anyone who's had an abortion because complications from childbirth would have been life-threatening, but I'd believe it's happened if someone told me. As well, some birth defects are so serious that it's less painful for the family (and the child) to simply perform the procedure. Is it moral? I can't personally judge that for myself. I've never been in a situation like that.

In the end I still oppose the idea of what I view essentually as killing an unborn child. I oppose it strongly when it is used as a means to avoid the consequences of one's actions, and I think I could be more sympathetic in an instance during which a mother may have no other choice to make. People who oppose abortion probably don't consider the emotional and physical toll the procedure takes on a woman, no matter what her reasons for having it done. If it's used as an escape button, then I say it's just desserts. If it's used as a last resort, I can only hope the mother (and father) will eventually learn to cope with what they had to decide to do.

I say this because I have just cracked open L.E.Modesitt's "The Eternity Artifact."

This book, three pages in, is fucking ridiculous. I know that this guy is a 'best selling author,' and I know that I haven't ever been published, but I think I'm well within my rights to say that right now, he is smoking a cigarette beside a thesaurus with a bloodied asshole. I can't imagine what would cause someone to write, "L.E. Modesitt is one of those special authors who brings a great deal to his work: a love of words..."

I stop there. He obviously loves words. Consider the following;

"I stationed myself behind the podium, the representation of a practice significantly untransformed in almost ten thousand recorded years of human history-and for the last five, savants and pedants had prognosticated the decline of personal and physical-presence classroom instruction. Yet in all instances where ill-considered experimintation in technologically based pedagogical methodology had been attempted in an effort to replace what had worked, if imperfectly, the outcomes and the ramifications had ranged from social catasrophe to unmitigated disaster, even as my predecessors in pedagogy had predicted such eventualities."

What? It goes on.

"All forty faces were blank with the impermeability of incomprehension. When I had been in the service, I had believed that such an expression was limited to those of less-than-advanced intelligence. The years in academia had convinced me that it appeared upon the visages of all too many individuals in the adolescent and postadolescent years, regardless of innate intelligence or the lack thereof."

I can't read this shit. It's like taking something comprehensible, then opening a thesaurus and replacing every common word with whichever one is most uncommon yet still retains some semblance of relevance. It's complete and utter pretentious self-pleasing bullshit. I normally don't like ripping on other authors, but I can't get over how fucking audacious this guy is. He's expecting me to sit through 800 pages of this pop psycho-babble trash? I think it's time for another good old-fashioned book burning, and we should start with Modesitt and any other shit even remotely like it >:|

I wear short shorts :| So after finally getting tired enough of wearing my uniform even on my days off out here, I went and bought some PT gear. It's pretty standard stuff; a shirt, shorts, and a windbreaker, all of which are reflective, so I don't have to wear my reflective belt at night. That's a plus, because nothing makes you feel like a douchemuffin better than wearing a band of reflective plastic around your waist because you might not be seen when it's dark.

Only problem is these damn shorts come in plenty of sizes, but only one length; too short. I haven't felt like this big of a fag since that time I was having sex with Zack's mom and discovered she had a superfluous penis beneath her right breast.

What else...

There's the whole lol RP lol thing. I didn't think, honestly, when I first kicked it off that it'd be as fun as it was back in Alt, but insofar I've proven myself wrong. Maybe it's just the sense of accomplishment from having finally put together a room of my own, but there's still a lot more work to do. My biggest concern right now is establishing a player base (LOL HINT LOL).

I guess that's it for now, since I'm tired and should be in bed anyway.

Oh yeah, after like 40 days here I finally got a REAL call out to the flightline; had to go out and rig some flaps. It took about 12 hours, give or take, and there's a real sense of accomplishment when you're working out here. The plane I fixed taxied out later that night and flew a mission successfully :D It's a bit different than home base, where all the maintenance is routine and scheduled. Out here, you have a very direct impact on the mission.