Mantra
I came up with something. It hit me like a brick. A simple description of what's been driving me for the last couple years. It was like I realized exactly what I've been trying to do for so long.
I will fix what others have broken.
It's my new personal track record, mission statement, and endstate.
Manga
Have I ever mentioned that Katie's the best wife ever?
She told me a couple weeks ago that she got me a Sandman book. Neil Gaiman's an outstanding writer but I've never read any of the Sandman series so I was expecting a trade paperback. She said it wasn't an actual Neil Gaiman story but a Death spinoff by a fan author. Okay, not unheard of. The package shows up and there's a manga inside. Then I read the cover. It's the Death book Katie got me. It's a manga. I will never insult Katie's choice of gifts for me because she knows what I like and she's never wrong and I enjoyed this but she got me a freaking manga. I think that's so funny. It's a Death manga. It's totally not serious and it's pretty good but I had no idea Vertigo published mangas at all. It also made me realize why mangas are always so thick. They're mostly one or two panels per page or one big panel and since it's a condensed comic format that'd naturally increase the number of pages. I breezed through the two hundred pages in a half hour. Like I said I'll never complain about it because it's from Katie and I enjoy it but I had no idea I'd ever own a manga in my life.
So here's a little primer on manga for those of you who are clueless. They're what was/is hot in Japan. Black and white strictly, either based on an anime or eventually having an anime based on it. They're the size of a regular paperback book and printed on cheap recycled paper. They're also the literary equivalent of birdseed. Lots of zany art, not a lot of content.
Cat pee
That's the smell that comes wafting down to our dungeon room. The smell of cat pee. It's great, really!
In the Army, you can pick your job based on your test scores but you can't pick where you're stationed. In the Air Force you can pick where you're stationed but you can't pick what your job is. So when people in the Army want me to hook them up with internet in their rooms I have every reason to tell them no besides the obvious ones of "you don't need it" and whatnot. If these guys are so concerned about getting constant internet access, they should've signed up for a signal corp job. A job that guarantees you constant phone and internet access. And it's not like we're the only ones hooking ourselves up and screwing everyone else. Every shop does it. Supply never runs out of toilet paper or Dr. Pepper. Personnel never charges themselves leave dates. Operations always gets first choice of where they want to live. Everyone sets themselves up with what they have to benefit them the most. So cry me a river when I have intenet access in my room and you don't.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'd like to remind everyone that I have the best wife ever. I'm so sugared up from Valentine's Day candy that I'll never get to sleep. I'm counting numbered days. If this month doesn't get over with soon I might explode.
“Home” sweet “home”
I'm back where I'm supposed to be. I can't say this is home or "where I belong" so it's "home".
I got my packages today. Two of them were waiting for me when I got here and the third came today. Food package from mom and Valentine's Day and fun stuff from Katie. Katie sent me so much goofy Valentine's Day stuff that I feel like a total ass for only sending her a tiny short video from here. Like maybe I should've tried to send home a bootleg movie or something. There's not a lot of fun stuff outside of bootlegs out here really. I guess I could've ordered her something online but she'd know almost immediately what it'd be. Oh well. Being deployed sucks.
PT belt
So I'm spending a couple days here at a much bigger, nicer base. It has pizza hutt, burger king, a big MWR, a big PX, and movie theaters. But with a big nice base comes people with lots of power and little to do. So last night when we got to the DFAC, the guard asked us where our PT belts were. Uh we're not from around here so we didn't bring them. So we had to sign in on a piece of paper saying we didn't have PT belts and we weren't from here. Kind of weird, but whatever. Then I went to the MWR. Again, where's my PT belt? This time there was no piece of paper. I simply couldn't use the MWR after dark without a PT belt. Ugh. Okay. So the PX is right next door, I thought I'd check the price of a PT belt and weigh the
Flight cancelled
Well I'm still here tonight. Flight was cancelled. Rescheduled for early tomorrow morning. What a pain.
I don't have anything to say and I didn't feel like updating today. I just wish Katie were awake.
Fight Death
In the last three Castlevania's you've had to fight Death. It's like tradition. You take the tour of Castlevania, you fight Death. It's part of the tour. Death in Dawn of Sorrow is nowhere near as hard as Death in Aria of Sorrow. And he doesn't really look like you'd imagine Death to look like. More like a guy in a purple/brown robe. What in the hell? It's impossible for me not to compare Dawn of Sorrow to Aria of Sorrow because it's the direct sequel. I know I complain about the game a lot too but if it sucked I wouldn't be 7 hours into it and still playing.
So tomorrow I leave the base. This is by no means a bad thing because I'm going to a bigger base with pizza hut and a real PX and real showers. I'm going to get some computers repaired but this is also a pre-R+R R+R for me and the lieutenant taking me. We plan on spending an overnight there, maybe two so we have plenty of time to sham and sleep and relax. And we're flying so no threat of getting blown up. I'm taking a fully charged nintendo DS + games, a full MP3 player, and two books.
So the countdown is beginning. My R+R leave date is set for early March. I intend on spending three to five days at home in Ft. Campbell before making the trek up to Springfield, where Katie and I'll probably stay for just shy of a week. So count the days. I know I am.
Fuck you
I don't curse. Often. Not as much as I used to. And it's easy not to curse in typing, it's a little harder not to in person. But I almost died laughing at this comic strip.
I think it's the fact that it's a dog and he's wearing a variety of outfits.
Where do you want to go?
I've been busy tonight. First, I spent an hour playing Castlevania trying to get my Ghost Dancer soul maxed out to level 9. Victory! Now I can eat souls for breakfast!
Then I spent an unhealthy amount of time goofing around with 43 Places. I wrote unflattering reviews for Heaven and Hell and a middling review for Earth. So now I've crapped on 43 Places and 43 Things. How can people not see the humor in writing about your experiences in Hell? Or how pooping turned out for you? Anyway you can read my "comic genius" at 43 Places and 43 Things.
I gotta go to sleep. I've got two hours of reading to do tomorrow.
Something new
So I'm posting from a Firefox plugin called "Deepest Sender". Besides sounding like a porno title it's for making blog posts without actually logging into your website. It works with Livejournal and WordPress and other things. I just thought I'd try it out. I can't really see why I'd need this because if I'm using Firefox then I probably have intenet access and can just go to my site and do this "in person" but whatever.
I'm at work and not doing anything and I kind of have to poop.