Well, had to drive back to Norfolk two nights ago through Pennsylvania during the unholy ice barrage that crippled the state for days. I usually take I-83, it's a little longer, but much less crowded. Of course, there was an accident that closed 581E, so all of those guys were now in my way. Moving so slowly that your car loses airstream and the snow begins piling up on top of it is a pretty depressing experience. The slow accumulation over all the windows makes one feel as if they are the last bastion of light being subsumed by the unending wrath of frigid oblivion. After getting 30 yards in as many minutes, I opted for the turnpike to get me to I-81 in Harrisburg. Much less traffic out there, which was something of a double-edged sword. I-83 had so many cars that none of the snow could reach the road. No such "luck" on the pike. I didn't think much of it since the roads had been plowed an hour or so ago and were still drivable if you were careful. What I didn't consider was that the off-ramps hadn't been plowed since the Carter administration and had turned into convoluted, Seussian frozen death traps. Naturally, I didn't arrive at this conclusion until I couldn't merge back on. Of course it wasn't like I realistically had a choice. I had to get off the highway sometime.

Anyway, I braked down to about 20 before my tires started skidding, I had to take my foot completely off the brake before I got traction back so that I could steer and take the exit, and from there I had to navigate the winding labyrinth leading to Harrisburg. The ramp was pretty much ice covered in slush, so I didn't really even have time to assess how boned I was before I started going off the road. The nice thing about front-wheel drive is that you can direct force where you actually want to go rather than whatever random direction the car happens to be facing at the time. I got through the first curve okay, but my car didn't feel much like turning anymore after that. I got turned the right direction eventually, but continued moving the same way I was before. Moving sideways being a rather uncomfortable experience for me, I accelerated just enough to stay in the road and get the car going straight again. Of course by then I had run out of road in that direction as well since the ramp curved around by about 480 degrees. I knew that if I turned I would probably lose traction again, but I saw the tail end of the guardrail directly in front of me. Guardrails are typically put up in front of ditches or Stygian pits of endless torment, so I figured that something bad awaited anyone traveling in my current direction and I was in no mood to find out exactly what. I went for the prize behind door number two and turned again, successfully, more or less. I ended up oversteering and swinging around into the median.

The collision was hardly dramatic since I did manage to slow down a fair bit. I wanted to step out and get a damage report, but I saw a truck coming down the ramp. Considering that it took most of the length of the ramp and a concrete wall to get my mid-size sedan to stop, I wasn't banking on him being able to do anything to avoid turning my car into a compact. I backed out and made my way forward. Fortunately I had ample time since the truck had also taken the ramp at terrified-of-frozen-death speed. Unfortunately my car was making excruciating grinding and scraping noises, probably related to how it just ate a big chunk of dividing wall. I managed to get off the road out of harm's way and pull into a Waffle House without further significant disaster. I called around to let people at work know I'd probably be late and had a big greasy bacon sandwich because hey, 'when in Rome' etc.

I was starting to get really bummed about this whole escapade when I came back out to take a look at it again. When I did though, I found that the damage was pretty superficial. A big ugly scrape on the bumper, no big deal. It's not like I paid $3600 out-of-pocket to get this car painted a month ago or anything. And it turns out the noise I heard was just some piece of plastic that had come loose from the wheel-well and was scraping against the tire. I tore that off and proceeded to let Mother Nature know she could kiss my ass. Traffic had thinned out significantly by then because of the numerous radio advisories across the whole state letting everyone know that they had best not go outside lest they risk being molested by voracious yetis. I instantly began to regret that I had forgotten to clean off my wipers before I left. They moved, but were nearly frozen solid. Before long there was an audible thump as the ice wipers hit the rapidly aggregating deposits of ice from the snow and sleet they had pushed to either side of the windshield. I managed to shake those off at the only rest stop I encountered in the entire state of Maryland, once again getting a grand tour of a place where snowplows fear to tread. By the time I reached the VA border it was nothing but freezing rain and my car was coated in a thick layer of ice that was encrusted with shards of previous ice layers I had smashed off the windows and windshield with my fists. I'm glad I had gloves, because I found manual de-icing to be very cathartic and enthusiastically partook in a round of it whenever I stopped. I would likely be getting a good look at my knuckle bones right now had I engaged in such fisticuffs bare-handed.

The traffic report in Virginia was, and I quote: "Frozen conditions and the holidays have kept the roads pretty empty, except for I-95 South which has all lanes backed up from Fredricksburg all the way to Davison Army Air Field." So comforting to know that I'm on the only road in the state that has traffic problems. And that I'm using it to get around a bunch of water, so I really have no alternatives. Somewhere along that particular trail of tears I cheated my way into the restricted lanes through some injudiciously placed temporary barriers only to have Karma rain on my parade by having the lanes end and re-merge after five miles. Of course, the universe could've taken vengeance on me in the form of multiple moving violations, so I guess I can't complain too much about the exact form that divine condemnation took in this case.

There wasn't an obstruction in the road or anything, just the logistical problem of a tremendous stampede of cars on the same road all at once, most likely the terrified masses fleeing DC upon hearing of the incoming icy wrath of Shiva. This meant that traffic got moving again relatively quickly, only about 45 minutes. It also meant that there was no bottleneck that caused the volume of traffic to decrease. So there was still a massive caravan of pissed-off and/or terrified motorists on the roadway, it was just that this tightly packed cavalcade of snowpocalypse refugees was now moving at highway speed. Ten feet from the car in front of you and 18 inches from the tractor trailer to your right while going 60 MPH is a great environment to be in when your car starts melting and begins shedding giant frozen shards in all directions. I was getting worn by then, so I was certainly grateful for an environment conducive to my staying awake. It's a bit tough to nod off when your train of thought sounds like "Okay, I am extremely close to the other several dozen fast-moving cars that I can see and probably a few more that I can't. I have to focus here because there's no margin for error and if any of us screws up we're all going to end up as the croutons in a giant twisted metal salad so I've got to- OH SWEET HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS WHAT THEFUCKJUSTHITMYWINSHIELD!" Typed that by holding down the shift key the whole way, FYI. Cheating and using caps lock just didn't feel extreme enough to convey the traumatic fear-seizures that these conditions induced. So anyway, yeah, alertness level: Long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I'm pretty use the en-route heart attacks that I suffered were small in severity, but they were far to frequent for me to regain any sort of peace of mind.

I arrived home in a state that could debateably be called alive, my nine-hour drive having taken on the upper side of 14.5 hours. I looked at my watch to discover that it was five minutes to tomorrow. I had to be up for work in the morning. I was setting my alarm when I realized that we've changed naval bases and muster times since I was last aboard, so I had absolutely no concept of how long it would take to get to the ship or when I was supposed to be there. There was also a staggering lack of people that would answer their phone at half-past sonofabitch in the morning to convey this key information to me. So I took a random stab at it and went to bed for a few hours. I slept eventually, I think. I had trouble relaxing for some reason. There is a gap in my recollection of that period though, so I assume that I either slept or lost consciousness from heart palpitations and diffuse cerebral hypoxia.

Apparently I chose wisely by picking an unreasonably early time to show up, as the duty sections moved around and I now had duty, beginning five minutes before I arrived to work. Twelve hours of watch? Interminable periods of sitting in a chair and not being allowed to fall asleep under pain of death? Bring it on! What do you think I was practicing for yesterday? I got to sleep relatively easy for my between-watch nap, but woke up feeling pretty shaky. Lots of mucous and cold-like unpleasantness all hitting me all at once. It appears that some yuletide pathogen has capitalized on my stress-enfeebled state. That or I've been sick the whole time and didn't run out of adrenaline until just this morning.

Oh, also after I got off watch and went to morning quarters I found out my Workcenter Supervisor, Maintenance Group Supervisor, Assistant and Leading Petty officer, and Leading Crew Chief all went on leave at the same time. That, plus my recent advancement, made me the most senor person in the plant. It also means that I am ALL OF THOSE THINGS for the rest of the leave period. Good thing I know how to do almost zero of those jobs.

That which does not kill me...

merely postpones the inevitable.

Well, I wanted something short to stop that long-ass whiny journal from wasting a ton of space on my userpage. I kinda fucked up that 'shorter' part, but anyways, here are my thoughts on Looper.

Before we begin, I'd suggest you see this movie. It has a very unique flavor that's pretty easy to contaminate with a lot of preconceptions. So if you're thinking about seeing it or are at all on the fence, go see it, and then come back here and enjoy talking about it. If you've seen it already, or need more convincing than that, stick around. I'm keeping this part spoiler-free so that everyone can get something out of it.

First off, Looper makes a good first impression by having a very solid and believable vision of the future. I wouldn't call it quite hard sci-fi, but it jibed with my sensibilities a lot better than most. It's fun to look at societies and technologies that are fundamentally and wildly different from the ones we have now, but it's ludicrous to suggest that this is the way the future is actually going to happen. Since most future-focused movies claim to make exactly this suggestion in their exposition, that's the lens I tend to inspect them with.

For all the advancements humanity makes, there are a lot of things that don't change, and in all likelihood won't change in a few decades from now. If you compare today to the past, we still have farms, shops, cars, roads and buildings and such that very much resemble their predecessors. Anyone from 1980 would be able to look at my 2004 model car and say "Well, that's a car." or even my computer and say "Well, that's a computer." So it makes more sense to say that these things will still recognizable 30 years from now. Different, more advanced certainly, but not so drastically different that you have to explain to the audience what they are. Cell phones in the movie are little transparent squares with a glowing interface. Display screens can be folded up to store in your pocket. Billboards are animated with sound, and respond to people near them. None of these are such jarring changes that their presence or mode of operation has to be explained, so it all flows with the story. I rather liked the fact that currency has gone back to blocks of precious metals in the future, that's actually a prediction that the current economy is dangerously close to achieving.

The premise of the movie was quickly and neatly explained by the main character near the beginning. A bit blunt, but it certainly kept the exposition moving along. Sixty years from now, technological advances have made murder nearly impossible to get away with, but they have the benefit of time travel. So anyone needing to commit a murder has but to toss the victim in a time machine and send them back thirty years to a simpler time and have a past assassin off him and complete the then relatively simple process of disposing of the body. Ah, the good old days...

I wasted a great deal of time during the movie thinking of all the things that are wrong with that premise, and I suggest that you avoid doing that by reading my summary and then just going into the movie with an open mind regardless. First, really? That's the only practical use for time travel? I get that this is an organized crime syndicate that we're talking about, but offhand I can think of a dozen more effective ways to monetize time travel. That's probably a bit higher than the national average, but I spend a fair bit more time thinking about such things than most. Regardless, this cabal isn't exclusively murder focused, so if there were easy opportunities to grab more cash you'd think they would take them in a heartbeat.

It's not like there aren't lucrative opportunities to be had. A couple hundred bucks in the hands of the right software programmers working out of their garage and you could own half the country by the time the future rolls around. Stock speculation, peddling miracle cures, selling fancy future designer drugs in a world where they aren't illegal and only you know how to make them, and even Biff's half-baked horseracing scheme are all infinitely more effective uses of the technology. This is such a tremendous waste of potential that I have trouble accepting it. Do these guys use their personal Lear jets to fly to Denny's and have breakfast every morning?

Hell, even if somehow murder becomes the world's only profitable enterprise in the future there are many much more effective ways to kill people and dispose of their bodies with a time machine that have far smaller chances of messy complications than this way. You could send someone back to Siberia three seconds before the Tunguska impact or Hiroshima on the day that is the reason you recognize the name of that city. Even if the time machine can't take you to a different place, setting aside the fact that it absolutely can based on the fact that it hits a fast-moving target (Earth) with 100% accuracy, then you could just send someone back to a time when the Earth was a blazing ball of magma, or was populated by millions of future-stool-pigeon-eating dinosaurs.

How the time travel works specifically is never gone into either. That's always a carrot for sci-fi audiences, but there's hardly the briefest flash of that eye-enhancing ketene-rich goodness . The time machine is literally kept hidden in an old shed for most of the movie, and the rules are never properly explained. It's one-way, and the progressive effects of changes to the past are demonstrated a few times, but beyond that, it's just stuff that happens. And you know what? Both of those things are okay.

Old Joe (Bruce Willis) spells it all out for Young Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt) in a quote that bears repeating.

"I don't want to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it then we're going to be here all day talking about it... don't worry about it."

This effectively resolves the scene with his younger self, and also can be interpreted as a message to the viewer. 'We could spend all day talking about the ins and outs of time travel, but I have a story to tell, and that's not what the story is about.' This applies just as well to the whole premise of the movie. 'Look, the future mob needs people dead and they're using time-assassins to do it. That's freaking cool and you should stop worrying about the practicality of such an exercise and pay attention to the story.' Suspension of disbelief is really important to your enjoyment of the movie, and it appears that the director was very much aware of this. Just the right nudges are given to keep your attention where it needs to be so that you can get the most out of the story. And it is certainly a good story.

The plot is very character-driven. It's something that I like to see and use often in my own writings. It's nice to have a pretty, well-developed world, but something interesting has to be going on in it. The best way to accomplish this is to build the characters first and then construct and populate the world with the locations and devices needed for the characters to play out their story. This leads to the kind of shortcuts that made me wince initially, but I won't deny that it's a great way to tell a story.

To that end, the focus of the movie is very narrow. It just follows a few relatively average people through their lives in the near and far future. Sure there's a fair amount of murder, but nothing very earth-shattering on a large scale ever really happens. That aspect was a refreshing change actually. Sure it builds up tension and excitement when the world is at stake, but sci-fi and fantasy are oversaturated with that as it is. It's becoming formulaic. 'Oh really? The quiet, unassuming farmboy just happens to be named Ziradien McBadass VonCometpunch? I wonder what the gypsy fortune-teller is going to have to say to him?' This is a small story in a larger world, and it feels much more personal for it. The tension comes from that much tighter focus and from the fact that you're close enough to really care about the characters. I like getting really deep and introspective on a small situation sometimes, and really, what's more introspective than a character meeting himself?

Now, I wouldn't be critiquing if I didn't complain about more stuff, and everyone knows that it's not funny to like a movie, it's all about watching someone get all worked up spewing bile about nothing until they give themselves a hate aneurism for your amusement. An easy feat, as this movie is by no means perfect. The thing that hits me pretty hard in hindsight was the bafflingly pointless addition of telekinetic powers. That was a big wrench into the machine of the whole "reasonable future" thing that I liked so much earlier. The abilities have almost no significance and fill a plot niche that could've been easily filled by... well absolutely nothing actually. Everything that they use the psychic powers for... okay, the one plot-relevant thing they use the psychic powers for could've been substituted for ordinary personality characteristics. This would've actually made the story a bit more relatable and would be much less jarring. As it is, it just looks like mass-market pandering in what was otherwise a very smart and original movie. 'What? Oh, the kids are into superhero movies these days? Well throw some of that X-Men crap in there. That ought to trick a few of 'em into watching it.'

The other thing that left a bad taste in my mouth was the near-Kubrick level of attention to detail in attempting to get the Old Joe/Young Joe dynamic to work out. I say 'near-Kubrick' because it's clear that a tremendous and highly obsessive amount of effort was expended, but it didn't actually work the way a Kubrick film would. In order to make the premise seem more plausible, Joseph Gordon Levitt had elaborate makeup that made him look more like Bruce Willis, supposedly. I didn't see it. That is to say, I didn't see the resemblance to Bruce Willis. I absolutely saw the makeup. Throughout the movie, I did notice "Why do Joseph Gordon Levitt's lips look like they were rendered 'Tomb Raider' style with a really low number of polygons? Why does he have awkward Spock eyebrows that look like poorly-designed motorcycle aerofoils mixed with abstract modern art sculptures? Why does his skin tone look like a mix between sun-bleached leather a latte that was forgotten in a hot car for a week? Why does his-EUGH! Why is everything about his face completely wrong‽"

So the net effect of all this painstaking effort was one part completely unnoticeable with one part sickeningly noticeable. Not a positive effect in any way shape or form. It might've worked with another actor, but Joseph Gordon Levitt just recently pulled a Gerard Butler and started being in every movie that came out for an entire season. Dark Knight, Inception, GI Joe, Stop-Loss, and probably a handful of others I can't think of offhand were all fresh in my mind. He's everywhere, so I know his face too well for a drastic makeup job like this to pass without notice. I bet that before I started really thinking about it I was subconsciously wondering what the heck was wrong with his face for the whole movie. Every moment of that confusion and unease was wasted time. I was perfectly ready to accept the fact that Joseph Gordon Levitt grows up into Bruce Willis as a story convention. Is it reasonable? No, but 'rocks in glass houses' time assassin people. You asked me to swallow some pretty bitter medicine in terms of story elements, and now you think that eyebrow-shape is the last straw that will finally collapse my suspension bridge of disbelief? Kudos to anyone that actually followed that devastating 30-metaphor-pileup.

I heard after seeing the film that Joseph Gordon Levitt had watched several Bruce Willis films, studying his style and mannerisms in order to more effectively share a character with him. Good on him for being a dedicated actor. That little touch at least had the decency to pass without notice instead of ruining the experience. He handled the role well, and I bet he could've done even better if he didn't have to yell "Go-go Gadget Face!" every morning when he got on set. Stripping off the face-condom he was wearing in every scene probably would've had the same effect on the movie as Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt having a shorter name would've had on this review.

And after all that, they didn't even get it right. My OCD-fu was clearly stronger than that of the makeup artist, and I noticed that Bruce Willis' ear lobes dangle while Joseph Gordon Levitt's are attached. Developing gangling ears over the course of a lifetime is not genetically possible, so apparently he sustained some very precise, perfectly symmetrical earlobe-related injuries in the interim. You know how people say "Well, I wasn't really trying." as a safety net in case they fail horribly at something? That way it wasn't their lack of skill that made them completely screw the pooch, they just weren't trying, because who wants to actually try anyway? Well, Looper's makeup team was clearly trying their asses off, making the fact that all this effort was completely unnecessary, and failed at what it was trying to accomplish, and went the extra mile to also fail at a number of things that it was not trying to accomplish, all the more tragic.

Bastille-prisoner-level acts of obsession like this only work when everything is exactly perfect. In cases like this, you've got to go big or don't go at all, and I would've much preferred that they didn't go at all. There was a montage scene of the intervening 30 years where Little Joe grows up into Big Joe, and it was fantastic! It really tied everything together and had a lot of stunning visuals. The makeup there was actually very convincing and worked well in the context of the story. I knew what was going on, so I actually understood that he was starting to gradually look and act more like Old Joe. This was a great place to showcase all the makeup talent. In a perfect world, all the rubberfaces would be confined there where I had but a fleeting moment to recognize the intent, and no time to waste tearing them apart like an energetic puppy with a new slipper that has a poorly-chosen skin color palette.

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****SPOILARRS BEYOND****

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This first part is just filler for people with poor self-control that couldn't stop themselves from reflexively reading the first few lines. It seems foolish, but that exact problem happens to be one of my numerous character flaws, so it would be very hypocritical of me not to cater to it. This ending is one of those hot-button ones where the wrong five words will completely ruin the movie forever until the end of time like some sort of magic plot-ruining Adamantium bullet, so I wanted to make sure such details were well defended. So umm... I am the very model of a modern major general I have a very... Kay, I think they're gone now. Good thing too, I hate those guys.

Awright, so one of the biggest holes that I saw was the murder of Old Joe's wife. The whole setup of the movie hinges on how hard it is for the mafia to murder people in the future. Thus, while on their way to murder Old Joe, the mafia also blunders into indiscriminately murdering his wife as well just because she happened to be there. Okay, not only did they set themselves up for a Bruce Willis right-hook face-bashing extravaganza by making sure that the last thing he saw before they tried to kill him was them murdering his wife in their home just because she was an inconvenience that happened to be in front of one of their guns, if you have to suckerpunch spacetime in order to get away with murder, might you want to plan things out a little better to maybe economize on the number of murders a given operation entails?

I find it difficult to believe that this elite group of professional time assassin assassins (People that murder professional time assassins, or regular people that murder professional time assassins, shame that English is glitched like that...) could track down the exact location of someone that has been living off the grid and traveling all around the world for 30 years, but not take the time to... maybe scope out the back porch and see that his wife is out there, and then execute their task in a way that would prevent them from being seen, or maybe have a plan for if she sees them that's a little more sophisticated than "Immediately shoot her in the face while Bruce 'Vengeance Machine' Willis is watching". It's Storm Trooper syndrome, or Boba Fett syndrome if you want to look at the original and not the knock-offs that were predictably just as useless as the original. If I'm supposed to believe that this is a super-sophisticated team of organized criminal masterminds, you have to show them at some point being something other than completely incompetent or the threat has no teeth. I mean really, Bruce Willis went to mafia HQ and Bruce Willis'd a full third of them before he even took a hit or broke a sweat.

The point above where I was trying to say it without saying it was that the kid didn't have to grow up into freaking Magneto to be a threat as The Rainmaker. This could've very easily just gone the John Connor route where he simply possesses the qualities that make him a good leader, and will allow him to gain enough influence in the future to become a threat to the time assassins that are trying to off him while he's still a harmless little kitten. Except he's not a harmless little kitten here. He's a cracked-out horror-movie freak-show that can insta-gib you with his mind. That was enough WTFsauce to overwhelm a lot of the more delectable flavors of this movie.

In the end though, the point where Joe not only closes his own loop, he incinerates it in the fire of Mount Doom, is incredibly satisfying. Thanks to the way time travel works here, it's not a cop-out 'Oh, none of it ever happened' ending, it's a beautiful 'I stopped it from happening' ending. It was the perfect conclusion to this journey. I absolutely loved the way the end monologue so passionately demonstrated how we're all the hero of our own story. And that stays true even if Young Joe is the protagonist and Old Joe is the antagonist and both Joes are kind of the antiheroes of the larger meta-story that went on. Comprehending that last sentence awards additional improbable understanding points to the meta-metaphor bonus above.

The fact that Old Joe created the problem that killed his wife and drove him to murder children in the past to prevent, and that only Young Joe can stop it, was mind-blowing. In that instant, it was as if Young Joe was the only one in the parade of time that could see all of the marchers from above instead of each event in sequence. He could see the cliff that this train was headed for and he had only a second to prevent the tragic chain of events. That moment felt like all the mind-screw of Inception packed into a couple seconds. I haven't felt exhilaration like that in a long time. It was both inspired and inspiring.

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***Close Spoilers***

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I did it at the beginning and I'll do it at the end. I would highly recommend this movie and if you've seen it I would highly recommend that you recommend this movie. It's a great story with compelling characters that have well developed arcs, it's entertaining and thought-provoking and has a great message that was handled well. Bottom line is, you'll never find a perfect movie, but you can certainly expect to find one whose faults are worth looking past.

So, about a month ago when I was coming in to work I got Indiana Jones'd by one of the shipyard's automated access gates. Someone that was headed out had to turn left to get into the outbound lane. He pulled out and had stopped right in front of me because he didn't feel like waiting his turn to merge. I heard the gate starting to close and honked at him. He didn't get out of the way quick enough and now there are big wolverine slashes running all the way down my passenger-side door and rear fender, which got crushed in a fair bit, from my trying to drive through the closing gate. He certainly stopped being lethargic and indecisive about the time it came to leave base and get out of sight before I could get any way to identify him, so I had nothing much to tell base security. They said they'll talk to him if they can find him, but I haven't got any grounds for a real complaint anyway. They say damage was caused my the gate, and thus my negligence. There's a big sign that says "Do not enter gate if obstructed" for exactly this reason. Apparently the timing of the 'entry' and 'obstruction' are immaterial. He did flee the scene without so much as a wave, but that's not really enough to justify the measures that would be needed to track him down. The security cameras are all pointed at the outside of the gate, and there's nothing to distinguish his white sedan from the dozens of others like it that transit the base on a daily basis.

And so I went back to work for another day of administrative toil, wasting time and trying not to get fired. I was glad to leave it behind for the weekend. To that end, I was relaxing and chatting at a barbeque at my friend's house on Saturday. We'd gotten all the cooking done before the storm rolled in, so we considered ourselves fortunate. Naturally the thunder from that same storm concealed the loud crunch that came from someone's decision to make my trunk smaller. When the party broke up, the car parked behind me had a few scrapes in the side and a broken mirror, whereas I had a smashed tail light and crushed rear quarter-panel. Naturally there were big, jagged scrapes all along the driver's side of my car from where they decided they'd best not stick around and let the cops identify their drunkenness/drug smuggling/lack of insurance etc. The cops had two units there within five minutes of my call, giving me an even better idea of the type of neighborhood my friend lives in, but we really didn't have a lot to tell them. No one had seen or noticed the crash because of the storm. It likely happened hours before we noticed anything, giving the vehicle that we have no description of all the time it could ever want to get well beyond any reasonable search area. So that'll be a second time I won't be hearing from my assailant again. I was in the process of pulling together the money for body and paint work from the earlier incident, and I'll be in the hole for these repairs as well if they can't find the guy, so there's that.

The cops said that I shouldn't drive until daybreak because I was minus one tail light and turn signal. My friend said that I could pass out on his couch until then. I went back inside and did a handful of shots of whatever happened to be available in order to accomplish this. You know, since I wasn't going to be driving home anymore. I figured I'd just chill and make all this tomorrow's problem. 'Hmph... tomorrow me is so screwed. I've been pawning my problems off on him for years'.

Some proof that God has a sense of humor... I found out that this same weekend, my roommate's car was towed for a parking violation. So I got to take my busted-up car to retrieve his from impound. From there we dropped by the dealer so that I could get a proper damage report. I had them assess the trade-in value as well, just to see if any potential repairs were actually be worth it.

Dealer put the repair cost at $7,200. Seeing as the car's trade-in value is around $4,500, this suddenly made scrapping the car entirely a much more viable option. This is such an idiotic reason to toss a car though... It's perfectly functional still! It would even be legal with a new tail light. I went with an alternative. Part of the reason that I bought this car is that it's used extensively by police and taxi services around here. Means that scrapyards have big ol' piles of them all over the place. Finding a useable bumper or whole quarter-panel is a bit ambitious to expect, but lights, fasteners, hardware, and possibly some of the plastic moldings can all be dug up with relative ease.

My friend felt bad about what happened and found someone that could do the bodywork. His instructions of "Drop off the car and $1000, I'll take care of it." were not the most comforting thing I've ever heard, but that's what I get for living on the shady side of life. Maybe I will buy real insurance someday. Probably after I turn 25 and it starts costing less than my car.

Repairs were completed on time for about $3200. That hurt, but I'll get over it. The repaired spots are primed, so I still can't drive it because if recent weather is any indication, it will rain constantly until the onset of winter.

I had an appointment with a spray shop to get it done. This was, naturally, the day that the XO decided we needed to do a command-wide urinalysis sweep for drug use. I'd say it was "surprise", but all drug sweeps are surprise ones, such that people don't have the chance to 'purge' or implement other countermeasures. That's something which has made the process utterly unbearable for me. I need some time to prepare. I've never used drugs in my life. I don't even like to drink a lot of caffeine. I have to have some time to drink dangerously large amounts of water though, before I'm ready to provide a sample. I just... can't perform with an audience. I never knew what a crippling weakness that was until I was in the Navy. They could take anything else, anything. Hair, saliva, skin, blood, bone marrow, a liver biopsy, whatever... I'd have no problem with it. But having to pee in front of someone is excruciating for me and I know that I'm not the only one. Unfortunately our illustrious commander also decided that it was necessary to keep the proceedings a secret from the security personnel that have to perform the collection, so they didn't have the manpower or materials readily available to collect 3,400ish urine samples. Add that to the waste management system work that shipyard is doing, leaving only a handful of working heads scattered about the ship, and you have yourselves an extra-large, industrial-grade catastrofuck.

Being prescient of the fact that everyone's day just got completely ruined, I called the shop and cancelled. That way they wouldn't be waiting for me. They said they didn't have any other openings that week, but it wasn't like I had options. It took a frustrating amount of time to get through to them on the ship's phone lines, because cell phones aren't allowed in shipyard. Because our ship somehow becomes more secret when contractors and shipwrights are tearing it apart. Though peeing in a cup was now the most important thing I could be doing that day, I still had real work to accomplish, so I got right to that. In theory, getting in line first-thing would get you out sooner, but I knew better than to try to apply logical assumptions like that to military protocol. I banked on about two hours before they actually figured out what they were doing, and another beyond that before the lines started to move with any sort of measurable speed. So I went off to be productive for awhile and then went to lunch. The lines are always terrible when lunch first starts, but I was hoping that today there would be enough people in the urinalysis line to dilute the chow crowd somewhat. No dice. There were plenty of personnel on-board to adequately support all line-based evolutions throughout the day. It was, in fact, much worse due to the fact that no one was allowed to leave the ship to eat and because a big chunk of the food-service staff was in line to pee.

I almost decided to give up on that line as well, but today was line day, I might as well bite the bullet. I had my notepad with me as always so I worked on my novel some while I was in line. I had joked for some time that reading a book was insufficient to pass the time in the numerous lines that preclude anything on the ship that anyone wants to do ever. The wait times were so long that you could write a book while waiting in line. A few years ago that stopped being a joke. My novel crossed the 100,000-word mark not long ago...

After lunch I found out which pee line I was supposed to be in. There were easily 200 people standing in that line, stretching halfway across the mezzanine. I didn't even look for the end of the line. I went to the front and asked people what time they got in line. 0930. Zero-nine-bloody-freaking-thirty. So the wait time at present was three and a half hours. Or it would be, but there's that dangerous 'logic' thing that I have to check at the door every morning. I asked the person in front how many people had been ahead of him when he got up there. Seventeen.

And so I left. The fact that he had an exact number illustrates the amount of time he spent staring at the back of their heads with nothing to do, and I wasn't really feeling up for that. The fact that it took hours to do seventeen people meant that everyone else up there was even more hopelessly screwed. I had already resigned myself to not getting home at any reasonable time, so I went back to work. The biggest and most important item of the day (or so I was informed) was our vent-space. Sit tight now, because it's going to take me awhile to put into words exactly how mind-bendingly stupid this arrangement is. Reactor Department owns several topside spaces because... well just because. I can't even get a straight answer as to why. I think it's just because of our zone inspection program. From time to time the ship's departments get together and audit each other's compartments. Having oversight from outside the department gives much more accurate monitoring of each room's material condition, and thus the ship as a whole. Make sense so far? Give it time...

No one but Reactor Department personnel are allowed into the rooms we work in because you need clearance and a nuclear-specific NEC to go down there. Thus, no one from outside the department can come in and inspect the reactor plants. Instead of having this be one of the many, many occasions where Reactor has entirely different policies than the rest of the ship, the decision was made to just assign Reactor Department the upkeep of a half-dozen random rooms all over the ship, so that the other departments would have something to inspect when inspection time came. So that's it. There's this room somewhere in a dusty corner upstairs that's not ours, that you can only get to through four other rooms that aren't ours, that we don't even have keys to, that we're not allowed to use, and yet we're responsible for it. It was discovered last week that this room was full of water. This is, of course, now our problem for the reasons I just gave which you may or may not have been able to maintain the willing disconnect from reality long enough to understand.

No one knows exactly what the source of the water is. A piping inspection had turned up a steam leak in there awhile ago, but that got fixed and there's no sign of it today, or so Engineering says. Most likely it's condensation. There is a fair amount of steam equipment in that room, and one of the walls is a superstructure wall, meaning the skin of the ship. Superstructure walls are cooled because they're exterior, and because of their connection to the hull, so the ocean acts as a heat-sink for them. It doesn't mean that makes the room a pleasant place to be. It's a humid, unventilated room that's hell to be in. What it does mean is that one wall is much colder than the others, so condensation forms on it. The theory that we have right now is that condensation just built up in the room in the course of the several months that elapsed since anyone last gave a damn about it. Logic can indeed be applied to the nature of water, try as the military might to make it conform to their distorted notion of reality.

So... four inches of water that needs to go away. Too shallow for eductors, and it doesn't threaten the safety of the ship, so Damage Control Division won't let us use their pumps. That means shop vacs and buckets. A lot of work, but not insurmountable. The problem is that we have no place to put the water. The nearest sink or working toilet is one deck up and a hundred yards aft. I was put in charge of this water-removal project. I was meant to be supervising, but since all but two of the people I had to work with were in line to pee, I had to take matters into my own hands. Four decks down from the room in question, there was an overboard discharge connection for the DC pumps we weren't using. It was right in the ladderwell that (eventually) led from the room we needed to empty, but the discharge fitting was too small to dump buckets into and navigating all those stairs holding buckets would've been agony. So I got a roll of Tygon tube from the shipyard and a funnel. With a little time on the monkey-bars and some duct tape, I managed to rig up what was pretty much a 45-foot beer-bong that led from the ladderwell to the outside of the ship. That cut out all the stairs. We could just walk the buckets out to the ladderwell and dump them down.

I didn't really expect it to work, but I was bored and had nothing but time, so I wanted to do something ridiculous. I thought for sure that someone would stop me to ask what the hell I was doing, particularly since one of the pee lines had gotten so long that it traversed the ship and then went all the way up this ladderwell because it ran out of room room on the main deck. No one really batted an eye though. There are all kinds of hoses and cables from shipyard running through those hatches, so no one really thought anything of it when I was taping up one more among dozens. Apparently everyone just assumed that what I was doing was authorized and carried on about their business. I assumed that the funnel I came up with was too small and that this would take forever, but it was the best I could do with limited manpower and it would be a hell of a lot less work. I got a surprise when I started pouring the buckets down though. Once the tube was full, the siphon that was created by the water flowing down created a powerful suction at the funnel. The water was drawn through the tube with amazing speed, even producing some rather aggressive slurps at the mouth of the funnel. It actually became kind of fun. The mere fact that I was being allowed to do this at all made me feel just the slightest bit giggly. I mean, no one would approve of this if they knew. Even though it's just water, this violates a handful of environmental regulations and probably the Status of Forces Agreement. All around there was this sense of 'Holy shit this thing actually works' along with a childish sense of enjoyment that comes with playing in the water. Of course there was also a certain amount of schadenfreude that comes from constantly trickling water over the heads of dozens of people that are all waiting in line to pee.

We got through about 75 gallons in two hours. After that we decided that we were pretty much exhausted and just the three of us having to do this alone was bullshit. I left my little triumph of engineering set up such that hopefully others would be able to make use of it. That didn't happen of course. In the course of the week, someone that either figured out what was going on there or needed Tygon tubing for something took it down. No skin off my nose really. It wasn't like I paid for any of the supplies. I noticed that in the course of those two hours I was still looking at a lot of the same people in line, so that told me the urinalysis effort was still totally boned, so I went and took a nap. Berthing is one of few spaces where air conditioning still works; the showers don't, so the best I could do to de-sweat was just hang out in the cool air for awhile. Woke up for dinner, still a pretty big line for the aforementioned reasons, but I made it through again for another meal and took another crack at the line. If it were possible, it was even longer at 1630 than after lunch. I thought about getting my Nook and folding chair, but I figured I was up for gaming the system a little first.

I went up to the front and found out that part of the problem was that we were divided up by last name, and R, S, and T are super-common letters for last names to start with. Just as I got up there, they made the decision to make a separate line for those three letters and put U-Z in their own line. Thanks to my help in disseminating that information, I got to be fifth in the new line. A mixed blessing because I didn't really have to pee. I went before getting in line because I knew that I'd have to go by the time six hours had elapsed and I got to the front anyway. All that time spent working and sweating all my fluids out had made my kidneys get stingy though, so I was in a bit of a spot. Fortunately getting through five people still took 45 minutes, so I had just enough time to get some water through the pipeline.

I knew that failure to perform would mean going through the line from back in the way back and I wasn't about to let that happen. If I drank enough to get to the point where I had to pee badly enough to make this happen easily I could rupture something by the time I got through the line again. This had to happen and it had to happen NOW. I don't know if you've ever had the privilege of desperately forcing yourself to pee when your don't need or want to, but I'm pretty sure that the experience violates the Geneva Convention. It could certainly be used to torture information out of me. I had trouble walking as I made my way back from the bathroom because I had brute-forced the cooperation of some very sensitive inner workings. It was a victory march though, because my ordeal was finally over. Except not really because I still didn't have a way home. I had to wait another several hours for one of my friends to finish so that I could ride home with him. I got home around 2030. I would've stayed on the ship, but we're not allowed to sleep aboard unless we're on duty, so I can't keep any clothes or bedding there. Flopping into my own bed at the end of all that was pretty satisfying though.

The next day was spent catching up on all the stuff that urinalysis the day before had screwed up and was pretty uneventful but the day after that, the real fun began. I had the First Class exam that morning. That meant getting up at 0400 to get there on time to start the process of numerous inevitable admin delays which mean that I could've gotten there three hours late without missing a damn thing. I think I did pretty well on it, and my performance evaluations are okay. The time I spent on assignment to a small department kinda hurt me on those. '1st of 7' isn't nearly as good as '4th of 80'. It's my first time up for it, so my odds aren't great, but I can't complain too much.

It was my duty day, and I'd heard that my watches had been changed to let me take the exam. 'Entirely too good to be true.' I thought. I really hate being right sometimes. Originally they had removed one of my six-hour watches, and before long I found out that they had just moved them later in the day so I had to stand both of them. So after I returned to the ship, I slogged through some paperwork, ate lunch, stood watch, and then, of course, found out that I have to do maintenance between watches. We had to wait about 90 minutes to brief the work because other stuff was going on. I got everything ready and then spent the rest of the time quietly brooding. The maintenance brief near midnight had me at a whole new level of not giving a fuck. All present thought that my aggressive sarcasm was actually pretty funny. I'd had much time to work on all my clever snipes at the process that got me into this, so I was actually quite the showman for a few minutes there. And so I got to work with minimal further delays. We had a whole host of problems with the maintenance that I won't go into because the internet knowing what's wrong with our ship is bad. Suffice it to say that we'll be weeks in fixing the thing, and it took hours to determine that. I took a nap, and then stood six more hours of watch into the next morning.

My supervisors were kind enough to recognize how completely boned I had gotten on Thursday, and so they gave me Friday off. Which was of absolutely no use to me because I was still on the ship. No one else had the day off and thus no one could drive me home. I couldn't even go back to berthing and sleep because I wasn't on duty anymore! So that day passed with odd 'well since you're here' jobs and just my being a miserable zombie and trying to make the day go faster. I finally got to 1530 and the cut us out so I could get the hell out of there. If you've been keeping track, that's over 34 hours of work with two of sleep in the middle. I slept for most of Friday, and at long last I have my first two-day weekend in recent memory to assemble myself into something resembling a human being again. I was telling a friend of mine this story over a couple beers and, apart from laughing quite a bit, he said that he knows a guy with access to a paint booth. I saw the job he did on my friend's stock-car and it looked pretty solid. It's still bright and smooth even a few years later. I'm going to see if I can make that work. Hopefully my car doesn't come back with a racing stripe and a giant Tide logo...

And at this point I've given my friend a month to get his contact together and get my paint job done. In that month all he managed to do was get fired for being fat and stupid. He consistently forgot about it even though I called constantly to remind him and ask about it. By the end it was to the point where I was calling him three or four times a week. It would've been different if he had just said he couldn't work it out, but every time he kept saying he would do it if I'd just give him a little longer. I drew the line in the sand at 1 month and started looking for bodyshops that were open in the time that I had to work with. There aren't any, because I don't get out of work until four. I found one that was open on Columbus day though, so I took my car in there. Naturally the only day I had available to do this was the day of the monsoon, so all the time I spent trying to keep the primer form getting wet or dirty was completely shot.

I was swiftly reminded of why getting the job done by a friend of a friend was so important to me when I was handed the $3,550 estimate to repaint the car. By this point though, I was damn tired of this crap and really wanted my car back. So I accepted immediately. The guy at the shop said it was the fastest turnover he'd ever seen on a decision like this. It was pretty funny to watch his face when he asked for my insurer and I told him I'd be paying for it out of pocket. I'd say the expression was priceless, but I now know for a fact that this particular facial expression was worth exactly $3,550 to me. I think it actually made him kind of suspicious. Of course if that didn't do it, the salvage parts from the police cruiser and at-home body repairs certainly did. Thinking back on it, it probably does look like I'm trying to cloak a hot car to cover my tracks. Good thing I took all the cocaine out of the running boards before I drove it to the shop.

So, where previously I had a car that I could use if something unexpected came up and I really needed it, I now have a car that will be totally unavailable for nine days. Therefore, by law of causality, something unexpected immediately came up. I was assigned to a simulator run this morning. It's something I haven't done in a year because it burns up a whole day and my plant couldn't afford to give me up for that long. But something changed, or more likely, someone screwed up, or even more likely, I'm the only one still qualified to do it, or some combination thereof. I've been doing okay with getting to work without a car all this time because I live with some guys from the ship. The simulator is at a different base, and none of them had to go to it. So I had to get one of the people actually going there to drive me.

Typically I don't mind simulator runs. They can demonstrate a lot of things in the trainer that you'll never see anywhere else and it's pretty informative. The equipment there is so realistic that you can actually suffer punitive actions from safety violations committed on the virtual reactor plant. The same way pilots can get grounded for crashing a flight sim. That's what I was there for actually. Someone was standing their final evaluated watch, so I had to be there to stop them from committing any reactor safety violations. And that was my only purpose. I was told bluntly to fold my arms and watch her fuck everything up unless she was about to do something that would critically jeopardize the core. It was excruciating. At any given moment there were a dozen things I wanted to fix, and not just with the under-instruction Reactor Operator, with everybody. We've been shutdown in shipyard for two months now, so everyone really sucks at everything.

As much as I really could care less about regulations (I could care less, but that would actually be a lot of work for me to push that bar even lower, so I'm sticking with my present level of not caring) I still like to see things done right when it's actually important. You know, like when we're pushing the buttons that keep all of the zoomies from shooting out of the core and Spider-Manning up everyone's DNA. Or when we trip the valve that stops us from clam-baking everyone in the engine room with 400-degree steam. People think I'm apathetic because I'll draw a hand turkey on the paperwork and fold it into a hat (Metaphorically) but that's just because I know what's bullshit and what's not. Despite what the brass claims, no one has ever died from my using 10^x notation instead of E^x notation.

So that's how I spent my morning; agonizingly standing there and watching an RO that I helped to train for this fail at her job. I broke up the tension a bit with my usual sarcasm and by pointing out the flaws in the simulation to the overseers. Turns out that place wasn't designed to accurately simulate the consequences of accidentally isolating the entire steam system and dumping half the ship's electrical grid. Clearly these guys were not prepared to deal with our caliber of operator.

We reviewed 'our' numerous mistakes, and by 'our' I mean 'everyone but me' because I wasn't allowed to say or operate a damn thing even though I knew most of this stuff, and then got a reset of the training scenario. She hadn't screwed up any reactor-safety related things yet, and I had just reviewed the scenario with her, so she was much more confident about her actions this time through. Confident enough to shit all over reactor safety before I could pull her hand away from the button. Everything in the sim room is recorded, so it's nice to know that "Punch the damn plant out before I do it myself!" was recorded for my progeny. That did effectively communicate my desire that she perform an emergency shutdown though, and we continued with the drill set.

I can't be any more specific with the scenario for obvious reasons, but it was just circumstance. The way that second run went down it kind of set her up for this. She's not a bad operator, she just got overwhelmed. They throw a whole bunch of insane casualties at you rapid-fire in there and it's enough to wear on anyone. Still, we're not getting another operator any time soon, so my whole morning was shot. The light at the end of the tunnel being that everyone pretty much realizes that doing sim runs sucks, so you get the rest of the day off. Unless you're me.

Yes, it seems that no one told the people that needed to be told about my absence that day, so my newly not-qualified reactor operator had to drive me to the ship before she went home so that I could start my day's worth of work at noon. In parallel to this, I was trying to work on a way to do something fun over the weekend, because for some reason I felt the need to relax and de-stress somehow.

Now I'm going to have to back up here because no issue that I have is an island and try as I might I can never properly weave together all the threads of the vast soul-crushing bullshit tapestry that comprises my life to give anyone an accurate picture of exactly how fucked I am, but I'll try to widen the focus enough here to give you some idea of what's going on. Think of it as a soul-crushing bullshit placemat.

Recently we've had several very costly mistakes and safety-related near-misses. The Captain is seeing a pattern and he's dropping the hammer to put a stop to it all before it gets any worse. It means the pressure is on and everything had better be perfect from now on. That's pretty much how the Navy works. Every successive time someone screws up something the punishment for that thing gets worse. It works as a deterrent I guess, but I don't see it as being fair. Two people could do the exact same thing wrong and get radically different punishments just because a lot of other people had been screwing that thing up recently in person #2's case.

That's how the consequences for any alcohol related incidents have been incrementally raised from literally nothing to almost nothing beyond what civil law commands to pretty much execution over the last decade. It's a stressful way to work. I've always drawn comfort from the fact that the Navy doesn't persecute honest mistakes too harshly. Now though... there have been enough mistakes that negligence could be the only cause. So any mistake is now assumed to be the result of negligence and irresponsibility even if it was someone with a previously immaculate performance record. I very much dislike having the sword of Damocles hanging over my head when I've a schedule to keep. The bright side is that the Captain flat out stated that safety and due diligence are far more important than our schedule. So I now have a Commanding Officer's mandate to tell people not to rush me. Even recourse to report them if they do. I realize that this is more patronizing doublespeak and that I'll be getting chewed out for being behind schedule a few weeks from now, but it's a nice though for the moment.

Not all of the incidents recently were within our department. As a matter of fact a great many of them happened elsewhere, and some were committed by shipyard workers. "One team, one fight" though, so we're all under the microscope now. I can't really give the level of detail that would offer a complete picture because the internet doesn't need to know what's wrong with our ship. That's why I said "There were problems" instead of "This one thing broke off and smashed through the floor and then rabid monkeys etc. etc."

The standard punitive measure for mistakes of this nature is disqualification, sometimes permanently, such that you have to go through the certification process all over again, which takes months. Unfortunately this solution is a lot like debtors' prison. It only works as a threat. When you actually follow through on it, it falls apart. Particularly in cases like this where the leadership is trying to turn around a trend by ramping up the severity of the punishments. That means disqualifying more people for longer. The problem is obvious to anyone that's not an officer.

I've never really talked myself up too much as a sailor. I'm pretty unprofessional and I'm not too much into the whole Navy scene. I'm a pretty good technician though. If found out recently though that I'm apparently completely bloody inscrutable, as I soon found myself as the only qualified maintenance tech in my reactor plant. We need a minimum of three to support some maintenance items, so my supervisors would step down to help me with those. The hammer-dropping tapered off when the brass was confronted with the hard fact that giving anyone else the axe would bring all work to a complete halt. And in that limbo is where my workcenter has been for weeks now.

So having been identified by this very literal process of elimination as the only competent person in my plant, all the work falls on me. And I am of course, saddled with the ever more crippling work-control measures put in place as a result of all these incidents. Here I was before, complaining about the lengthened workdays and sitting around doing nothing all the time. I guess that'll teach me a lesson...

Awhile ago, a friend of mine invited me to a costume-wedding. I did not know such a thing existed, but right there on the invitation it said 'costume required to attend'. I thought that sounded pretty cool and I asked  acefox27 if I could borrow his fursuit for it. There was a furmeet that weekend, so he was reluctant to give up his suit. I told him to forget about it, but he said that he'd still let me use it if I could loan him some money to use to hire a lawyer. Apparently he's fighting some very severe traffic violations right now he's got a journal about it if you want more detail for whatever reason. I agreed, enthusiastically so. I was ecstatic at the prospect of wearing that suit again, particularly at such an interesting venue. It was then that I started to get my hopes up and feel excited, which I promised myself that I would NEVER DO, and apparently for good reason.

This week, I was shifted duty sections to take the place of one of the many people that got fired. Naturally this left me with duty on the day of the wedding. I could get around that though, I'd just have to trade duty days with someone. People do that all the time. It's actually the only way to take leave now. We're stretched so thin that you have to get other people to cover all the duty days you'll miss while you're gone, and then make them up when you come back. I went around and asked everyone that was still qualified Reactor Operator (it sure as hell didn't take long) if they could cover for me. No one would do it. I offered to take two duty days in return. Still no takers.

It's not that no one was willing to help me. At least half expressed remorse at not being able to help out, but they just couldn't do it. Most people said the same thing. "I just did a duty swap recently. It was horrible. I can't go through that again." I sort of see where they're coming from. We have duty once every four days, with 12 hours of watch on that day, plus a normal workday. That's an 18-hour day in most cases. Swapping means having duty days every other day, or two consecutive ones. That's where we're at. We're all so strung-out that a change in schedule, a simple inconvenience would push us over the edge, it would just be too much to handle.

I still can't get over this though. I haven't done a swap in years and do you know why? I wouldn't have thought a thing of doubling up duty days to get this one off, and do you know why? Because I never DO anything! I'm such an exhausted shell of a man by the time all of this is over that microwaving a meal, wasting a few hours on the computer and passing out sounds like too much work. And NOW what? The one time, the ONE TIME I want to go and DO A THING, actually go out and try to make my life suck less, to enjoy an opportunity that would make me very happy and will never come again... and absolutely everything, every aspect of my career shits all over that idea.

Ace forgot to bring his fursuit to work, and that's just as well. I had his money, and here's how that conversation went:

"Don't worry about it. You keep your suit. Take it and go have fun on Saturday. You're a topsider so you're actually allowed to have fun. I'm a nuke so fun is for other people. I don't get to have that. You know what I have? Money. Stupid fucking paper that they have to give out so that people will keep putting up with this abuse. Stacks and stacks of little green reminders of the life I used to have that I get to sit on while I watch the clock and wait to die. Take it! I hope it buys your freedom because it sure as hell can't buy mine!"

It was the tail end of a very trying day. None of my roommates knew that I would be at work, so they had all left by then. I was looking at facing a night on the ship and he couldn't even help me because his license had been suspended. Someone else that got stabbed with staying late to do all this work walked by then and saw me yelling at Ace and stopped to ask what the problem was. In the first fortunate event that I remember ever happening in the last month, he was able to stop me from probably saying something I'd really regret later, and give me a ride home.

I still can't believe I blew up in his face like that. That's not something I do. Not seriously anyway. I use words like those as an outlet when I just can't take this nonsense anymore, but I know how to stop it from getting out of hand. Or at least, I knew how... I'm only recently realizing how quickly these words stop being funny when I change my tone of voice. He seemed to understand though. He's facing thousands in restitution and legal fees, and possible jailtime, so I'm sure he's also not having the best week ever. We'll joke about it later. Hell, we joked about it some right then. I guess that's a good sign.

It's taken me two days now to describe how bad yesterday was, but today actually went okay I guess. It was still quite a lot of work, but I pushed through it and actually felt kind of good at the end. How it shook out in the end was that pretty much everyone became my assistant. They did all the auxiliary tasks preparing for the maintenance and the paperwork after, everything you don't need to be qualified to do. That way, I could go down to the plant and find everything ready to go for me to get to work. Considering that admin delays and watchteam briefs and paperwork normally eat up an hour or two on every operation, that's a noteworthy difference. The work I did today would've taken the division at full strength a week. We just finally figured out that we have to change the way we do things if I'm going to own this plant by myself. It's pretty satisfying actually. I had to smile when I heard that my supervisor nearly cried at morning quarters yesterday when he heard that I wasn't going to be there that day. I am good at this, and I'm going to keep being good at it no matter how many times the rules change.

Also I got surprise cupcakes. Hard to call it a bad day when cupcakes land in your lap first thing in the morning.

The gigantic con journal was eating my page, so I turned it into a filk that will probably do the exact same thing since it's a rather long song as well. Ah, whatever. Here's a summary of my Anthrocon experience to the tune of Winter Wrap Up!

Three days of anthro coolness
And awesome fursuit games

I thought I'd never have the chance
But my Chief found a way


But I couldn’t very well give up
By then it was too late

Against all odds I made it here
For once I liked my fate


The crowd is certainly a surprise
There’s furries everywhere

Really makes me feel alive
Too excited to be scared


Where do I start? I'm new, you see
What’s a brony to do?

How do I fit in with this crowd?
I haven't got a clue!


AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
Let's grab up all of our gear!
AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!

'Cause I'm gettin' outta here!
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here!


Here I thought I was prepared
How could I ever guess

That like a giant cartoon fox
Was how I’d end up dressed


I looked like a fool
And I embarrassed my host

Couldn’t help it at all
‘Cause I was blind as a post!


AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
Let's grab up all of our gear!
AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here!

AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here!


Not too fun a place to be
So very hot and dark

Not quite what I thought it’d be
Diff’rences are stark


Not the way I thought I’d go
Drowning in my sweat

Good thing the finish line is near,
Think I may need a vet!


AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
Let's grab up all of our gear!
AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here

AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here!


The end came far too fast for me
Don’t want to leave these halls

But now my time out here is done
Once more my duty calls!


DC’s a wreck this time of day
Not looking forward to the drive

Guess I’d best be on my way
Before night I must arrive


AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
Let's grab up all of our gear!
AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here

AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here
'Cause I'm gettin' outta here


So now I know what I must do
Though I want to stay here...

I've got to get back home now
Get myself to the pier


No time to say goodbye to friends
It seems so unfair!

Such sweet beginnings, bitter ends
But can't wait to come again,
Can't wait to come again!


AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
Let's grab up all of our gear!
AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!
'Cause I gotta get to that pier!
AC Wrap Up! AC Wrap Up!

'Cause I gotta get to that pier
Gotta get to that pier
I gotta get to that pier!

Well my ship went underway right as I got back so I never got a chance to say anything, but in case you were wondering I did indeed have a great time at the con. Okay, all of this is going to take a really big effort to get down in writing, but I’ll see if I can begin at the beginning and get to everything. Super-long post-con debrief go!

It was really cool to meet some people in person at long last. Even just the chance to say hi and shake someone’s hand makes a big difference. There’s always a certain level of detachment to conversing with people when you’ve only seen their written words.

Hardly anyone that wasn't from the Cross-Time Café forum knew who I was, but that’s to be expected. It’s not like I’m a big name or anything. Furs from Virginia that I’ve met in person on multiple occasions often don’t remember me. I'm looking at you  osee_desantis ^_^ It’s become kind of a running gag in the local group. We’re thinking of changing my furname to “That guy” because no one remembers me when they hear my name, but when I show up they always say “Oh yeah, that guy!” It was so strange to be hanging out and doing things with people I’d known for 45 minutes like that. We were talking about what to order for dinner and as we went around the room for a vote it went: “Skova? Juju? …new guy?”

I got a big surprise at the Graymuzzle/Milfurs breakfast though. I met Dasher Cheetah there. He’s been a fan of my work on SoFurry since… before it was SoFurry, and I never dared to hope that I’d actually see him. He didn’t even mention that he was attending. After breakfast, GeneseePaws heard that it was my birthday, so he made me a little index card sketch of my fursona. It was too bad the laminating place in the Den was closed by then. I’d like some better way to take care of this…

I was as excited about the writing panels as I was astonished by their existence. I’m not an artist or a fursuiter, so I tend to get left out of some big parts of the fandom. Yet the con had a dozen panels all about creative writing. I went to as many as I could and I learned a great deal. The panelists seemed intrigued by some of the things that I came up with during the writing exercises and I contributed to some very lively discussion. I also probably contributed more than I should have to some intractable fanboy/nerd arguments, but those were fun too.

I missed the one on publishing, which is the one I was most excited about since that’s a big gap in my knowledge. That’s okay though, I’ll figure it out when I get there. As one of the panelists said: “Just write. Write the damn book! Editing, formatting, revising, publishing, marketing… all that takes place after the book is finished and if you worry about it now it’s just going to bog you down.” I gleaned that and many other pieces of useful advice and I plan to hit the ground running when I next get the chance to work on my book.

Not having a room was rather stressful, but I got through that okay. I don’t know many people, but apparently I know some key players.  wolfboy1 has been con staff since forever, and  AceFox27 is a huge poppyfur that’s friends with even huger furs, he even introduced me to Lav 'n Der Shep and Uncle Kage. So through them I got friend-of-a-friended into a different room each night. It was a logistical nightmare, but I was overwhelmed by their hospitality. I couldn’t believe the shear number of people that were willing to share their room with someone that they’d never met just because they’d heard I was a good guy. I suppose it certainly helped with meeting new people. Though in the future I’d prefer not to learn someone’s name and then sleep in their bed in the same night….

Friday was an insanity marathon. For most of the day every hour had two things I wanted to be at. I only made it to the Dealer’s Den for a half-hour before they closed because I was so busy. Jenner’s panel got stabbed with the timeslot opposite the opening ceremonies somehow. That was a difficult decision to make, but I’m very happy with my choice. It was poorly attended of course, but it was great to hear Jenner talk about his creative process and what was going on in his head while he was writing Doc Rat. There’s always so much going on that doesn’t make it to the page.

I may start reading Endtown now because they made it sound so interesting. And of course I got to meet Level Head there too and we chatted for awhile. During the introduction panel for people that have never been to AC before, Dr. Conway was talking about etiquette around performers and he mentioned that “We have certain… luminaries, from within the fandom that tend to generate a fervor which we must be careful to control. Sarduyon has a very large following, Jenner, the creator of Doc Rat made a very long journey to be here with us today…” Heh, so how about that? I know a luminary.

I watched the Sarduyon performance just because that timeslot was open, and boy was I glad I did. This guy is some kind of savant alien wizard. Sarduyon is a famous Japanese fursuit acrobat that came to the con as guest of honor. Yes, you heard me right. Fursuit. Acrobat. At the same time. Most people have trouble navigating stairs in a fursuit and he was up there juggling, doing contortionist tricks, and balancing in places you should not be able to balance a regular person, let alone one that can barely see and is wrapped in a quilt. I believe in his spare time he knits while wearing boxing gloves and a gasmask. He was a fantastic showman and the crowd really loved him. It was interesting to hear Uncle Kage talk about the scramble that happened when they realized he doesn’t speak any English. Naturally he doesn’t talk as part of the show, but of course there was information that needed to be exchanged. There were some last-minute drafts in to the con staff to patch up that problem.

The two improv panels were both amazing and slightly disturbing, but in either case it was the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time. It’s a very interesting look at a slice of the very… diverse, demographic that furry cons attract. I spent my fair share of time on stage and got a few good laughs, all-around an amazing experience.

Saturday’s schedule was a lot less populated, so I actually got a chance to go down to the Dealer’s Den and the Art Show. I said hi to some of my favorite artists, visited Jenner again and browsed around some. It was an interesting spread, but not much really caught my eye. I did track down an Applejack cutiemark pin though. That was the only thing I saw that I was like “OMG I have to have one of those.” I saw someone wearing a Rarity one and actually stopped him to ask where he got it. Fennec said that I was his favorite fan ever, largely due to the fact that I actually shut up and got out of the way if someone was trying to buy something.

I met a few artists that I liked and let them know that they were awesome. I chatted up for awhile at his booth,  chibi-marrow showed up to ask about my uniform and I akwardly interjected about how much I love her art like the true smooth operator I am. My favorite reaction by far was  tsumezyzco:
"Oh yeah, I watch you on FA! You do some amazing work."
"Oh... so you look at my porn. I really did not need to know that. At all."
:P

He was a really good sport about it and he had a killer Metal Gear Solid cosplay. He gave me a neat shell casing keychain too. Be sure to ask him about them if you see him anywhere. He's got a whole bag.

AceFox and I went to the Milfur breakfast in uniform, and neither of us saw the need to change right away. I discovered something interesting as we walked about the con ‘in costume.’ I had forgotten what it was like to be in uniform in a place without any military presence. The uniform was a magnet! I had gone through the con wholly overlooked up until that point, but now I couldn’t get a hundred yards without getting noticed. Everyone had something to say. A lot of people wear military jackets or accessories as part of their fursonas or as cosplays, so the first question everyone had was if our uniforms were genuine. From there it was all manner of things. Where were we based, what were our jobs, had we ever met this one guy, could I boss Ace around? (I’m a Second-Class Petty Officer and he’s a Deck Seamen, so yes.) A crowd gathered at one point. 2 Gryphon’s boyfriend even showed up and we got to have a similar conversation with him. I was somebody all of a sudden.

There was kind of a lull after lunch since everyone was getting ready for the fursuit parade, and I ran into Ace again. I hadn’t seen him all day. We caught up on what was going on and such. He asked if I had any plans for the fursuit parade. And other than “Watching the fursuit parade,” I didn’t. He talked about how one of his other, other friends had just arrived, and brought with him a set of Terrence and Philip suits from South Park. And that he was going to be Terrence instead of his fursona. And then…
“Hey, you’re about my size…”
“…Wut.”
“Aww what the hell, it’s your birthday and I have another suit to be in. Would you like to be AceFox during the fursuit parade?”
“O.O *Squeak* Yay?”

Of course I said yes, eventually. Now if you’re keeping score, which I couldn’t since I didn’t have enough fingers at the time, you’ll note that on my birthday, I went to AC, my first furry con ever, and then, the first time I ever wore a fursuit was in the AC fursuit parade. That’s like kicking off your pro wrestling career by getting hit in the face by a trash can filled with cement. I’m surprised I didn’t explode.

At first it was like… exactly what everyone says it’s like. It’s crazy hot and you can’t see a damn thing. I couldn’t wear my glasses in it, so I was trying to gain all my navigational information from a small patch of blurry dots. I walked the parade route later and kept getting flashbacks of my vision being surrounded by darkness. It was rather unnerving and it took me a minute to push past it. I mean, I’m not claustrophobic… yet. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but be damned if I was going to let this thing beat me. I might never suit again after this parade, but I was going to do the damn parade.

Ace, being a thoughtful mentor, walked me to the elevators and then promptly wished me luck and went to put on his other suit. I guess he’s a ‘Learn to swim via pushing in the water’ kind of instructor. So I just went for it. I tried to stay conscious of everything and be very careful. Nothing ruins your day like getting your tail caught in an escalator after all. I mean, if I hurt myself I’d just be like “Whatevs I’m young and I have TriCare,” but I could hurt the suit. I’d never forgive myself for that. Ace did something very kind and demonstrated a tremendous amount of faith in me, so I was feeling a little pressure from that. And yet, nothing terrible happened. Nothing even particularly inconvenient happened. I walked around just… doing my thing and saying hi to everyone. Giving high-fours and free hugs all around. I could do this! It wasn’t that hard, at least in the technical sense. It took some getting used to though.

It’s hard to overstate how awkward it is to be a straight guy in a fox suit. The reputation of both foxes in general and this fox in particular led to a lot of… a certain kind of attention that I wasn’t necessarily in favor of. I got over that though. It’s not like I had a choice. You can’t say no to people when you’re in a fursuit. The enthusiasm that people have when they see you is very infectious. And of course trying to explain this to everyone would be a huge drag, and break the magic. Ace talks in suit all the time, so it wasn’t like I felt I shouldn’t, but I kind of preferred not to. I think I understand the people that never talk in suit a little better now. It’s fun to express yourself in other ways, and it really suits the character. So to speak…

I made it to the assembly point for the fursuit photo comfortably early, since I didn’t want anything to go wrong. I had the chance to get some more water and mingle with the other suiters. Kage was there giving helpful advice that pretty much amounted to a countdown and saying “Don’t die of heatstroke.” I found someone that I had met at the improv panel that went by the name of ‘SuperJew’.  knifesharpener had an absolutely stunning fursuit, and I let him know it. He asked if I would sit with him and his friends for a minute and just like that I had a new group of people I just met to hang out with. We sat and talked, trying to follow Kage’s advice about our continued survival. Then when the assembly call came out, we got each other suited up and shuffled to our places.

The parade itself was amazing. My amateurism amongst all the other suiters showed through quite clearly, but I was having far too much fun to care. Everyone probably thinks that Ace is completely retarded now. For 20 minutes I was a giant, fluffy orange ball of cracked-out insanity. One would think that the idea of pacing yourself while under a severe heat-stress threat would be rather obvious. Not to me! After a whole parade of running and jumping around and being a complete jackass, I got to the home stretch where my legs decided that they were no longer on speaking terms with me. It took maybe 10 or 15 minutes of rest in the Grand Ballroom to get myself back together to the point where I could walk straight again so that I could find Ace and hopefully get out of this thing alive.

Naturally there was a giant elevator line, so Ace asked if we could take the stairs. I was feeling confident and I wasn’t too Pinkie Keen on staying in the suit any longer than I had to, so I went for it. Not my greatest idea ever. I misjudged two steps as one and hit the floor pretty hard. The soles of my paws were pretty thin, so that was not fun. Everyone looked up to ask what the loud thump was. Oh nothing, it was just my bones hitting concrete at high speed. I got lucky and my foot hit squarely, so I managed to get my paws underneath me and not eat a bunch of stairs. My ankle stopped hurting after awhile and I learned a little bit about overconfidence.

I met  willowrabbit on the way back that liked ‘my’ suit and I ended up hanging out with him after I escaped it. We went to Space and saw the concert, and then chatted in his room for a little while. He gave me some free porn. So thoughtful! How did he know?

In any case, by now you can probably find like 50 youtube videos that each have about three seconds of me in them if you’re inclined to look. I’m the orange fox. No, not that one. Not that one either, the other one. No, not the fourth or fifth ones either. Okay, that really doesn’t narrow it down at all… here we go. I am, in fact, the very last bright orange fox in the parade. You can get a glimpse of me at about 17:50 in this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCBCWOq-2qc
It was recorded close to the end of the parade route, so I wasn’t bouncing off the ceiling anymore. I’m sure some of the other ones have me being ridiculous.

Anyway, I got cleaned up and went back to the con. I made it in time for Uncle Kage’s story hour and soon found out why everyone in the universe wanted to go see it. The line ran all the way across the convention center. Kage has some very unique perspectives and a lot of age-won wisdom to share, and it was a privilege to partake in it. He had a very interesting and provocative opinion as to how the furry fandom came to be and I felt like I came a little closer to understanding it myself by listening to him. And of course his stories and stage presence are both hilarious. As I listened to him talk I started to realize how much he looks and speaks like our Commanding Officer. This is horrible because the next time I see him in person I’m probably going to start giggling and have no way to explain myself.

When I got back  titus101 and  wolffit had found out that it was my birthday so they offered me some free drinks. They had a rather disturbingly large collection of liquor with them, but I wasn’t about to turn down an offer like that. So I got drunk and then went to the Brony panel. That’s another one of those things that really should’ve gone horribly wrong, but somehow didn’t. I actually saw Tiger-T again there.

I’ve heard a lot about it, but actually seeing the scope and size of the Brony phenomenon was another experience entirely. The first thing we did was hold open-mic for everyone to share their brony story, because everyone has one. I didn’t get to tell mine because they cut the line off at 25 people. Otherwise we’d be there all night. They had one of the writers there for Q and A. I forget his name, but he was an Applejack fan, so we got along great. I posed the Nightmare Moon/Night Mare Moon question to him and he responded with.
“A little of column ‘A’ and a little of column ‘B’. Possibly a little of column ‘C’. And of course a little of column ‘Pinkie Pie.’ Everything has a little of column ‘Pinkie Pie.’”
Not sure what I expected to hear, but it was still interesting to get to talk to him.

From there we had some videos and more pony talk, then a swag raffle. I got a few compliments on my voice during the sing-along. The Rarity suiter that was there asked me not to stand next to him anymore because I was making him look bad by comparison. I felt a certain sense of accomplishment at beating some professional Bronies at their own games.

Not all the songs went well of course. ‘Art of the Dress’ and ‘Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000’ both went something like “Agh! SomanywordsBRARGLEFRAGLE-sales ponies non parlay!” Though I did turn a few heads by actually keeping up with the spoken parts while everyone else jumped to “Cider, cider, cider, cider…”
But the other ones? “Smile, Smile, Smile”? Nailed it. “Winter Wrap Up”? Nailed it, unfortunately. “Cadence’s Aria”? Nailed it. “Gotta Share”? Not included, mercifully.

It was two in the morning before the panel finally broke up. I crawled into bed hoping for a quiet day tomorrow. Heh, now if that wasn’t tempting fate I don’t know what is. I got a call that woke me up around 7:30. Our departure had been moved up and my leave period suspended. I had to be back aboard by that night. That was… something of a concern seeing as I had to retrieve all my stuff from a bunch of rooms that I don’t have keys to and then drive all day on a few hours of sleep. Whee…

I managed well enough. I would’ve been in big trouble if it weren’t Sunday. The traffic was a lot lighter, especially on the PA turnpike. That and it meant that I could park at a bank to sleep for a little while without any problems. I got back to the ship a little late, but I didn’t miss the pullout, so nothing bad really happened. I’ve been catching up on sleep every chance I’ve gotten since then. I took two naps the following day, bringing me up to about 12 hours and I’m still exhausted. I tried to stay inconspicuous. They had learned to operate without me for awhile, so I was hoping that I could stretch out the period where no one notices that I’m back for a little while longer. There were a few people that mentioned they thought I wasn't coming on this underway, but the grace period didn't last long.

All in all, Anthrocon was an absolutely mind-blowing experience. Entirely worth the cost and all the crap that I had to go through to make it happen. I had wondered how people managed to utterly bankrupt themselves going to cons, or how relatively successful artists could attend and just barely break even. One of my roommates at my house had just paid rent, so I had $380 cash, which I had thought would be insane overkill. I ended the con with about $60 cash and I had put about $290 on my credit card. I didn’t even book any rooms and I only spent $2 in the den. So I can certainly see how someone could end up blowing a great deal of money on this, particularly if they attend on a regular basis.

I suppose this puts another check in the column of reasons for me to leave the service after this tour. It took a very precise alignment of the planets to spare even the 2.7 days that I managed to spend there. Though I glimpsed another, rather startling window of opportunity while I was there. I saw a flyer for the “World’s Last Furcon” in Rochester NY December 20-23 and I thought “That’s 45 minutes from my home, and during my Christmas leave. I could totally go to that!” of course that thought was immediately followed by “Holy crap I just prioritized a furry con over seeing my family at Christmas. When did I become a terrible son?” So… I’ll certainly remember that one, but it remains unlikely that my next con will be anytime soon. Which is good in a way. I’ve had just about all I can take for the immediate future.

I just found out that I will be attending Anthrocon. Apparently.

A friend of mine,  acefox27 that works for a normal department said that he was taking a week's leave to drive to AC, and asked if I planned on doing the same and would like to come with him. I laughed and explained how hilariously understaffed reactor is and how you need to actually have a damn good reason to request leave. If it's not birth, death, or Christmas, you may consider your request denied. Yet, since I had nothing to lose, I sent up the paperwork a few weeks ago, mainly to prove him wrong. Well... oops. It just so happens that it's my birthday that weekend and that was just barely reason enough, it would seem. My Chief was like "It's your birthday? You realize that's a fucking idiotic reason to request leave, right?" As expected, but then me said. "Well, you've been doing good work and you've never requested leave yet this year, and you only asked for five days. Bah, what the hell, have fun!"

Have you ever seen a dog catch its tail? He grabs it in his mouth and then there's this look on his face like "OMGIGOTIT! What... what do I do with it?" I've simply presumed failure for so long that success has completely blind-sided me and I have no idea what to do now! I never planned for the eventuality where my leave request wasn't immediately thrown back in my face. I've never been to a con before, so I'm actually kind of nervous now. Obviously I'm still going to go. I'd feel tremendously stupid wasting this tremendous, nigh-impossible opportunity. So... see you at the con?

Inclement weather has delayed our pull-in, prompting Ace to leave for Pittsburgh without me. Not that I blame him, we could easily be out here for another whole day waiting for another mooring window. I've told him that he can make it up to me by finding me a place to sleep. I neglected to book one, once again on the assumption that I would not be going. They held onto my paperwork for two or three weeks. Usually that only happens when they're trying to figure out how to politely tell you to go pound sand. Consequently, news of my success came at a rather inconvenient time. Driving in circles waiting for the sky to clear is not particularly fun, but I suppose a trip that starts like this can only go up from here.

So, um... Anthrocon meme I guess!

Q: Where are you staying?
A: Bluh... hopefully not sleeping under a bridge.

Q: When will you be arriving and leaving?
A: 13th-17th times still up in the air.

Q: Who will you be rooming with?
A: Yeah, didn't plan this very well, did I? What a time to be victimized by success...

Q: Where will you be most of the time during the day/s?
A: Definitely going to be hitting up the writing panels, other than that, wandering/we'll see.

Q: What/where will you be eating?
A: Don't care. Anything's better than ship food.

Q: Will you be having a room party?
A: I'll have a room?

Q: Will you be drinking and/or getting drunk?
A: Maybe a little.

Q: What is your gender?
A: Male.

Q: How tall are you?
A: 6'2" and pretty thin.

Q: If I approach you, will you chat with me?
A: Depends on your approach. If you get your landing gear down and locked, manage your angle of attack and extend your ailerons then you should be clear to land.

Q: If I see you, how should I get your attention?
A: I know my username is an unpronounceable lummox. I go by 'Beau' in person.

Q: How many furry conventions have you attended?
A: None! Evar!

Q: Do you own a fursuit?
A: None! Ever?

Q: Can I hug or snuggle with you?
A: Sure, but like... ten-second rule if I just met you, K?

Q: How can I find you?
A: Well... I've posted pictures before, but that probably won't help since I won't be in uniform for the most part. I wish I could think of something more distinctive, but this is a very difficult crowd to stand out in. I wonder if that white leather jacket I got at a yard sale back in Charleston still fits. Probably too hot for that anyway. Blah, here's a mugshot of me with my mom and sister. Hope that helps, if you find me, you find me! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v.....s/DSC00141.jpg

Q: Can I buy you drinks?
A: Yes, but remember that I only drink sickeningly sweet fruity chick drinks.

Q: Can I look in your sketchbook?
A: Yes, but it's imaginary.

Q: Can I draw in your sketchbook?
A: If you have a good imagination.

Q: Can I take your picture?
A: Okay. Just bear in mind that I have no "good side" and my hair is always doing something weird.

Q: Do you do do free art, trades, commissions, badges?
A: Sure! I'm not an artist though, so "free" is about what my art would be worth...

Q: Do you have a table in the Artist Alley / Dealer's Den or a panel in the Art Show? If so, what are you selling?
A: Nope

Q: Do you plan to volunteer?
A: I'm sure I'll be plenty busy enough.

Q: What's your goal for the con this year?
A: Once again, no idea. But I'm pretty sure this is going to be awesome.

I know that no one here probably reads Surviving the World and no one is anywhere near as excited about this as I am, but I know that I'm as excited as I am and this will get that longass journal off my page so you're all going to get the chance to hear about it. The author of the aforementioned photocomic was taking a week off because his wife had a baby, and he ran my guest comic (link) in his absence. This is probably the closest thing to art I'll ever do ever, so I figured I'd make the most of it. Enjoy!

That old 'Tales from abroad' journal has been up for too long, so I'm replacing it with another unreasonably long journal that I'm going to leave up for too long. Hypothetical people keep asking me what webcomics I read, so I'm going to talk about that for awhile You all know I love FreeFall, but I've got a pretty solid list of webcomics that I actively follow. Most of them are best described as being for/about: "Furries," "Nerds," Or "Cynics" so I guess I'll categorize them based on that, perhaps a comparative intensity rating of some sort... Many of them are combinations of two. I'm always looking for that magical comic that seamlessly combines all three. I'll throw down with a summary and a quote or two, since a long list of links doesn't tell you much. It's not much of a directory if there's no information now is it? Yes, it seems like a long list to read, but you can put it in perspective by comparing it to the amount of time you'd spend looking at all these comics yourself. Trust me, it's a lot.

Furthia High (FFFF, N)
A comic by Quetza Drake about a world where genetic engineering has made everyone in the world into furries. Everyone except the main character of course. Getting a bit into Cerberus syndrome territory insofar as explaining why he's still human, hints at a dark past and the like. It's sort of sci-fi, but the author frequently admits to forgetting that it's set in the future, so it doesn't enter into the plot much. It's not sci-fi the way FreeFall is where it's frequently a focus. It's more technically sort of sci-fi the way that 'the West Wing' is technically sci-fi in that it describes a hypothetical future.
Bruce Renard: Oh hamburgers, I missed you so! My mouth will never let you out of its sight again!

XKCD (Cx10, Nx10)
A stick-figure comic with a couple recurring themes and characters, but no real plot to speak of. Many strips are one-offs that are almost invariably enough to make you think AND smile. Mousing over to read the title text is a must. A lot of the jokes about coding and programming go over my head, but the writer has such a wild, fanatical sense of humor that it's always worth reading.
The Hat Guy: If you're quick with a knife, you'll find that the invisible hand of the market is made of delectable invisible meat.
Title text: "Of course there's a character limit to how much this window can display in Firefox so if you're using that browser to view this titletext then..." After looking up the source code for the page to find the rest of the titletext, I found that it concluded: "You have to look up the source code in order to read it."

Order of the Stick (Nx9000)
A more sophisticated stick-figure webcomic. This one is about Dungeons and Dragons. You've probably ran into it a few times if you stumble blindly about the TVTropes wiki on occasion as I often do. Tropers are often madly in love with OOTS, even though I discovered the latter first. Maybe it was destiny... Anyway, it's pretty troperiffic because of the way it loves to poke fun at game mechanics, fantasy elements, and storytelling devices in general. The characters have mentioned a number of tropes by name. I won't link any of the tropes in case you have stuff to do with the rest of this week and can't afford to be distracted.
Durkon Thundershield: I stay 'ere because it's me duty. And bein' a dwarf is all about doin' yer duty, even if'n it makes ye miserable. In fact, ESPECIALLY if it makes ye miserable!

Dominic Deegan (NNN, FF, Cx1/2)
A classic, hand drawn B+W. For a long time it was the closest I had ever gotten to the mythical "all three" as far as content and focus. It's a fantasy epic of sorts, with a world that sprawls ever more by the day. It tells the story of a rather disillusioned seer that uses his powers of foresight to Batman Gambit his way past a whole slew of villains and challenges. Mookie has a really playful personality and a flair for puns, alliteration and other forms of irritating but endearing wordplay. The lore and magic is very well developed. Doesn’t have a manual as far as I know, but there's much detail in the story itself.
Nimmel Feenix: Katya... your country has made me immune to boobies.
Oracle customer inquiry log: #208: Is this going to cost a lot of money? #209: Your scarf is pretty. Can I have it? Please? #210: Hey, where you goin’? You never answered my question! How much wood would a woodchuck... Um, What are you doing with that steak knife?

8 Bit Theatre (NNNN, Cx10)
Now concluded after a successful run of approximately 176 Million strips. As the title suggests, it’s a sprite comic, using mostly graphics from old Final Fantasy games. It lampoons the faults and tropes of the game it's based on, DnD, and fantasy role-playing in general. The four-man team has a wonderful contrast of personalities, each more ludicrous than the last.
Black Mage: Apparently it is not considered socially acceptable to force a blind man to walk over a flaming spike pit on a stringy rope bridge, particularly if you give him a little push at a critical point. HA! Who's mom's favorite now!
Red Mage: You murdered your own blind brother?
Black Mage: Well it would've been cruel to let him live after what I did to his eyes.

theOatmeal.com (N, Cx10)
It's not a webcomic, but it's on the web, and has comics, and I like it, so it goes here. It's a diverse blend ranging from practical advice "How to use a semicolon" to trivia "15 Things Worth Knowing about Coffee" to... uh... some adjective that properly describes a comic titled "THE MOTHAF*CKING PTERODACTYL!" It's a great way to burn up a few minutes and get a good laugh. Unlike most of the other comics I read, there's not tremendous archive shock that will smash the life out of you as soon as you look at it.
"If you mention war, politics, or global poverty you'll find a barren vacuum of opinions. If you bring up what kind of smartphone you have you'll spend the next hour enduring an obnoxious holy war. What you use an ANDROID AH MAH GAHD I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU!"

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (NNNN, CCCCC)
A one-panel comic, well it started that way. The newer ones are either one-panel or large enough to make a poster out of, or possibly wallpaper a battleship. Either way, some very interesting subject matter. It's rare to find a place with jokes in equal proportion about sex, relationships, and also philosophy and astrophysics. Sometimes both at the same time. It has a mouseover extra too. Usually graphical. Back in the day, you had to pay for it. All you have to do now is mouse-over the red button. Presumably while feeling guilty about not paying.
Gynecologist: You know, I don't know why this just popped into my head, but do you want to see the pictures of my trip to the Grand Canyon?
T-Rex: *Heroically throws itself in front of a meteor to protect a chinchilla* Save yourself mammal!

TwoKinds (Fx9000, C)
I'm sure you're familiar with this one already. I got into it because I couldn't stop hearing about how it was tha Greetast webcomic EBEHR! And that I was angering Zalgos by not reading it. I will admit that it's by far the prettiest comic I read, bearing in mind that my list contains THREE stick-figure comics and an NES sprite comic. I got suckered into reading the whole thing by a crush I developed on Natani early on. Excitement was likely not the reaction that the author intended when they made the big reveal of Natani's gender... Is that a spoiler? Nah, you should know that by now.
King Adelaide: Many physicians informed me that my wounds were lethal. I chose to ignore them and continue living.

Subnormality (NN, CCCC)
Cracked.com kept linking me here. And it's pretty much what you'd expect to find on a site like that. Observational sarcasm kind of humor. One of my favorite kinds really, you'll note it's a recurring theme in the less-upbeat comics on this list. I never got into this one too much though. It was actually a little depressing after awhile.
"The theory of Democracy is that the people put those who have the greatest aptitude for the position into office. However, election campaigns are so difficult and expensive that it really puts the people who desire power the most in positions of leadership. Sounds okay on the surface until you realize that complete sociopaths desire power the most."

Surviving the World (NNN, CCC)
I've picked this one up recently and I'm still figuring it out. It's probably the only comic whose art style would be within my abilities to do. Has a daily schedule and actually sticks to it for the most part, making it a tremendous rarity. It's a one panel "Make a point" kind of affair. It's done by a college student, so college is a common subject. Having never been to university, I can't speak to the accuracy of some of the things said on the subject, but I still find them pretty funny. Dante has an interesting perspective that I like. His comics are in competition with XKCD and SMBC for best graph jokes. Occasional political soapboxes, but he's very calm and rational with his opinions. I usually agree with or at the very least respect the points he's making.
Political Halloween costume idea: Zombie revolutionary.
"What do we want?"
"BRAAAAAAIIINS!"
"When do we want them?"
"BRAAAAAAIIINS!"

The Cross-Time Café (FFF, N)
A collective collaboration by a number of artists, it's really just a fun sandbox for the artists to play in. It's easy to tell that the contributors are all good friends and I think the comic is much better due to that trust and camaraderie. If you manage to become a fan of one or all of the contributing artists, this one is certainly worth a look. I like just about everything about it except for the fact that it's difficult to have someone catch you reading it, particularly during working hours. Have you ever tried to explain this thing without sounding completely insane? It's utterly impossible. "Oh, that giraffe just needed the spare parts from the giant coyote gundam robot to fix the automated steam engine that makes fried carnival food. It's that simple!" Of course, I frequently have difficulty not looking insane.
Tora Kiyoshi: I didn't go chasing after your tail. Your tail came looking for ME!
*Beat-panel*
Mizzkitti: Every time I play that back it sounds worse.
Tora Kiyoshi: I know. I'm rather proud of that.
***
Mizzkitti: Why did you name my tailpuff Endin?
Tora Kiyoshi: Because I'm romantic... and I believe that every tail should have a happy-
Mizzkitti: No, please. Stop there. Please.

Cyanide and Happiness (CCCCC)
Another stick-figure comic, plotless, the sort that might appear in a newspaper. If the world had very open-minded newspapers. Plays with situational irony a lot, and has a lot of simple slapstick and setup-punchline ones. This one's good for times when you DON'T want to think. I don't follow it as closely as I used to, but it's not a hard thing to catch up on.
"Dude, you can't feed your dog razor blades."
"What? Nawww, you're thinking of chocolate."

SSDD (FFFF,Cx10, NNN)
Interestingly, a friend recommended this strip to me when he heard that I was looking for that magical 'FCN' combination and I must say that it most certainly delivers. It's tough to draw a bead on this one at first. You'll pick it up a lot faster if you speak British better than I do. There's not much to distinguish it at first. At a certain point about 100-150 strips in it suddenly shot off into the sky and became completely unlike anything else I've ever read. There's time travel and sci-fi, which is history if you're from the future, and even several parallel storylines always in constant danger of running into each other. The cast also has some very interesting, compelling characters. Actually the cast is almost nothing but interesting, compelling characters. And, a rarity, the nature of the plot (An anarchist revolution) makes occasional political commentary actually fit! It's a miracle. This is a recent acquisition, but it quickly became a favorite.
"Are you ever going to give up that ‘consequences for my actions’ thing that you do?" –Norman gates

The Perry Bible Fellowship (Cx9000)
Don't let the title fool you. This is definitely not a kid's comic. It's definitely a black sheep of the group in that it favors very dark, surrealist humor as opposed to a lot of the more whimsical entries on the list. You know that one, really poignant strip that a good comic will have once in awhile? The one that can make a point, make you think or laugh or get an emotional reaction without so much as a single speech bubble? That's PBF about 20% of the time. In fact, I'm using a stellar example of that in place of a quote. It's a short archive, I made it through it in a day, and it was absolutely worth doing.

Carry On (Fx10, N)
I got suckered into this one recently by the Cross Time Cafe. Nothing really stands out about it, but I noticed that I would sit and read until some undelayable obligation like food or a fire came up. That counts for something. I read through the entire archive in two days. During some of that time I probably should've been studying or working... or sleeping... but such things are only apparent in hindsight. I tried to stand up a minute ago. I couldn't. Normally this would concern me, but I've got a few more things I need to do on the computer, and besides, my chair has wheels!
Mama Grrsn: CHILDREN! GET YER GRUBBY MEATHOOKS OFF MY LAMP!

Some of the ones that I no longer keep up with are "Looking for Group," a world of warcraft comic that has a forsaken warlock very similar to Black Mage. "Least I could do" by the same author; that one's much bigger on the N's and the C's, it's kind of like "I hope they Serve Beer in Hell" if you've ever read that. "Dungeons and Denizens" is another DnD one that had some promise. It's told from the monsters' POV, so it's interesting and has its moments.

There are others, but if they didn't come to mind readily they must not be that great. Also the list is depressingly long already. Though there's a very simple reason for that. I was stuck out there in a Godforsaken faceless desert for seven bloody months! If it has not yet become patently obvious to you, I became incredibly bored!

Marseille, France:

This was another quite lengthy port entry, but I've actually got a fair bit of time to spare now that we're out of range of all that terrorism that had us working so hard through deployment. So I suppose I can talk about France a fair bit. I didn't really do much there. But I can say that I did nothing, and it was awesome!

I had a first-off liberty pass thanks to my aviation warfare qualification, so I hit the ground running. Of course, those things are a lot less useful when we're actually moored and the difference between first-off and last-off is about 30 minutes. The passes were about to expire anyway, and it would appear that everyone else knew that because the first-off line was tremendously long. There's a lot of logistical nonsense to get though disembarking though, so any edge you can gain is very valuable.

The weather was orders of magnitude nicer than I was led to believe. Now I'm quite happy that we ended up staying in southern France. From what I hear, Paris was chilly and depressing, the way England was when we were there on the way in. For us, it was bright and sunny the whole time.

The first big snafu was money. There were no currency changers pierside, and the fees of those we could find in town significantly outweighed international transaction fees at ATMs. The ticket machines at the metro coughed up all our credit cards. You run into that kind of thing sometimes. As I've observed it, European credit cards are all standardized with smart chips that make the system a lot easier to work with internationally. Their absence sometimes baffles even human clerks, and machines? Forget about it. So we got to go back to street level and wait in line for and ATM, then wait in line at the ticket machine. Again. The subway trip took about a minute, whereas preceding logistics took about 20.

The ticket machines at the train station were similarly disagreeable. They kicked our cards, and took cash, but not bills. Now, I realize that they have larger denominations, but trying to scratch up enough coins to buy my 32 Euro train ticket would still have me wearing a drawstring pouch of doubloons at my belt.

Anyways, nice little ego boost at the ticket booth. There was a tremendous line there. Lots of foolish Americans in similar predicaments. Their stumbling left me plenty of time to string together a few sentences in French that had us in and out in seconds, with plenty of time left to make the gate. Even time enough for a victory beer before boarding call. I got a brand called 'Desperados.' It's a tequila flavored beer. Had I known that ahead of time I likely wouldn't have ordered it. I've never been much for beer, and I've a blazing hatred for tequila, yet somehow tequila-flavored beer... not so bad!

So we made the train. Quite crowded that time of day. We didn't even get to sit together. It was about a 2 ½ hour ride, pretty solid, but not too bad. Southern France has some beautiful countryside, even during the "winter." I didn't really mind the trip. I've always thought that train riding was part of the experience. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ridden on a train outside of Europe. So it's certainly something that was worth doing, if only to put some miles between us and the port. I dislike the drunken antics of sailors near the portage as much as I'm sure the locals do. And I'm sure that the people of Marseille would get their fill of it before long.

We got into Nice and thanks to some help from Google maps we wandered eventually to our hotel. The pedestrian directions beta is an interesting tool, but the maps themselves were a fair bit more useful than the directions. We missed it the first time because it's such a tiny place, maybe twelve feet across, and it's sandwiched into the causeway like all the other buildings. It was pretty small on the inside too, but better than the cabinet I normally sleep in. Maybe next time I'll bump it up to a three-star so we can have a place with some toilet paper...

Our room had one of those little terrace things facing the street like you always see in the movies. It was pretty much a bay window you could walk through with a railing in front of it and a few inches of space to stand on. I thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever. I really wanted to get onto one of those ever since I saw the streets lined with them in Spain. I was really hoping someone I knew would walk by so that I could wave to them from up there. Of course, my plan to distance myself from the Navy had worked quite well by that point.

I had heard about La Cote D'Azur before in French Class, so we decided to head there. The Promenade des Anglais featured prominently as well, and fortunately they were in just about the same place. Navigation was pretty much a matter of finding a good view and figuring out which side of us didn't have mountains on it. Good theory, but it seemed as though every side had mountains on it for awhile there.

We found a place to eat down there on the beach. I ordered Diabolo because it was a word that I didn't recognize. When I ordered it, a long string of words followed that I didn't catch. Such can be the hazard of leading with French. It causes people to believe that you are fluent as opposed to competent. I recognized a few of the words a fruits and realized that he was asking what flavor I wanted. I said "Du citron" and he nodded and walked away. I was ready for an unpleasant surprise thanks to my blundering, but I got a delicious and interesting response to my order. Diabolo is a preparation, not necessarily a drink. What I got was a bottle of sweetened seltzer and a cup of ice with an infusion of fruit on top, lemon, as I had requested. Mixing the two together left me with a most agreeable result. I made sure to write the word down so I could order it a few more times later.

After lunch we climbed a mountain. Montee Lesange I believe it was called. It wasn't too hard. There were stairs. Great view from the top though. Made it easy to see why they called the place 'The Azure Coast.' We went back down and had a closer look at the beach. It was a pebble beach, that I knew, but I thought that the rocks were a bit ambitiously large to be called pebbles. Still a very nice beach, we spent some time there and then walked down the promenade until dark.

We missed the early train waiting in the ticket line, so we had two hours to kill. We went out to get sushi, of all things. The return was otherwise uneventful and we made it back at about midnight.

The tour the next day was pretty cool. Lots of waiting at the start, and the food tent was closed, but such is the nature of the Navy at times. First up was Le Chateau de Lourmarin, and old fortification that survived to the modern day because it was converted into a private residence some centuries ago. I'm glad we paid extra for the interpreter. I'm competent enough at French, but I'm certainly not going to follow a native speaker for too long. It was interesting to hear about the goings-on at the chateau back in the day. Some beautiful countryside out there too.

Next up was Roussilon. An interesting little village where we had another great meal out on the patio. I mean, with a bright sunny day like that, how could we not eat outside? It got downright warm when the sun got up under the awning. We toured an old quarry out there. I know it sounds boring, but the place was swiftly being overgown, making it more of a nature walk. The red sandstone bedrock is unique to the area and makes for some very interesting landforms.

From there our bus made the impressive climb up to Gordes. It too boasted a castle. That's how a lot of these little hilltop towns came to be actually. A castle was built on the highground as a more defensible position, and before long a town cropped up around it. It's amazing to see on approach. What may as well be shear cliffs for their sharp grade are seen dotted with houses and buildings stacked like Lego bricks. All the old cities are like that; very densely packed and economized for space. I suppose it's also quite interesting that every city even has a historic district the way they all do. There's always that section that used to be the whole city, undisturbed since antiquity, and then the urban growth around it.

The castle wasn't much to look at because the majority of it was closed to public access. But I was awestruck by the cathedral we found. It wasn't anywhere near the main square, but I got there. It was as simple as following 'Rue d'eglise' really. There was a profound sense of silence in the sanctuary. It seemed at once to be a vacuous emptiness and a sound in itself. It was as if I could distinguish this from any other silent place if I were blindfolded, such was the indescribable air of the place. I said nothing the whole time I was there. I felt compelled not to. Never have I been so conscious of the sound of my footsteps, or any other sound I made for that matter. It was a most profound atmosphere, as is appropriate for an ancient house of God I suppose.

I was pretty tired by nightfall, but the last stop was absolutely worth going to. My Grandmother was the last big hole in my shopping list. I know that she loves lavender, her whole house smells like it. I had been looking for some the whole time. They didn't even have any at the perfume shop I went to in Nice. Fortune smiled on me and our last stop was Chateaux Du Bois, a lavender plantation and distillery. The place where the world gets its lavender from. I think she'll be very happy with what I came up with. I had to cut myself off at that place. They had a lot of great stuff there. They got just about all the last of my Euros.

Once back in Marseille we had some time left, so we took a walk down the main strip that they had decorated for Christmas. Our last meal was at a restaurant at the end of the road with an old fashioned brick oven, wood fire and everything. Of course I got a pizza. With goat cheese even. Interesting stuff, they certainly were generous with it. Menu darts got me a Kir Royale to drink. I guess it was our waiter's favorite thing in the world, because he seemed really happy to hear me order it. Not sure what I was drinking, but it tasted okay. There was white wine, I know that, and some grenadine I think. I wasn't much in a mood to analyze it.

I got back to the ship and slept for about ten hours, went to duty muster, and then slept for about six more. A very simple weekend out, but I was glad for the time off.

And that's all I have to regale you with from my world terrorism-fighting tour. Thanks for reading and I do hope you enjoyed hearing about it as much as I enjoyed living it.

Tales from Abroad: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Our Two portages in Dubai were a bit strangulated by some big-brass crackdowns. Liberty policies are of little tactical significance, so I can tell you a bit about them. A lot of ships in the strike group have been having alcohol problems ashore. C5F has taken an interest in our reputation. That's 'Commander, Fifth Fleet' by the way. His dispatch was that unless we clean up our act, no command attached to our battlegroup will be permitted to take liberty in any Fifth Fleet ports.

C5F encompasses most of the Middle East and anything that touches the Indian Ocean, so that would mean much less fun time during our deployments. To prevent that from happening, our strike group commander issued General Order 01-11. If there are any alcohol-related incidents on any ship in Dubai, liberty will be revoked for the entire battle group. To prevent THAT from happening, our CO said that there will be no drinking in Dubai other than the drinks served on the pier by Navy personnel. Violations will result in securing liberty for the entire ship.

My take on it was: WHEN this happens, because there is no IF involved in that assessment, I don't want to be stuck with ~$180 worth of unrefundable hotel reservations that I get to look at while I sit on the ship and be mad at life. So I didn't book a room this time. We'll see what kind of teeth all those directives have because two guys, from Reactor no less, came back to base drunk on day three. Liberty was still on for day four, so the world might not have ended. They didn't cause an incident really. So the battlegroup and C5F consequences might not be triggered. All they did was drink when the Captain said not to. And one of them rushed the sentry post. Dumbass. Would've been cooler if they shot him. But you can't really justify IDing someone as a credible threat when they can barely walk. Hopefully this will only screw them and not everyone.

Just as you've heard from the media, the United Arab Emirates is in an area rich only in oil and sand. Internet connectivity is one of the many resources that they are cripplingly short on. Hotel rooms are really the only place you can get a reliable connection with only a moderately fascist content filter. The base has wifi, but there's not a network on earth that's designed to handle the kind of traffic that pier was seeing. Really sucked because I was hoping to get in touch with home.

Thusly, my chances to get at the internet were few and fleeting. The best public network I found was at a Seattle's Best at the Mall of Dubai. I managed to check my civilian e-mail and IM some friends, but the HTML codes that Facebook uses were too much for it to handle. It all fell apart after about 45 minutes, during which I accomplished much less than I ought to have. On the plus side, I'm pretty sure the iced Chai Tea latte that I got was made with powdered angel wings and unicorn tears. It was just about the best thing ever.

Anyway, the rest of the port was not a disaster, and I'd love nothing more than to go into detail regarding that.

Other than being the largest mall in the world, the Dubai Mall doesn't really have much going for it. Once you finish with all the attractions and spectacles and ridiculous stuff, it's really a terrible place to shop. If you don't want overpriced trendy clothes or diamonds you're pretty much hosed. The Mall of the Emirates beats it out by a wide margin. There were stores that I actually found myself wanting to go into and they didn't have a criminally baffling layout designed to keep you there until the end of days.

I've been looking for massage oil for my Grandmother in just about every place I've been around here. I thought it would be easy since I see all these places just wallpapered with soaps, aromatics, beauty products and the like. I'd get weird looks from everyone I asked. I thought that it was just a language barrier or somesuch. Turns out I've run into something high on the expansive list of obscure Muslim taboos. Apparently you're not supposed to rub someone's back unless you're a professional, so such products are not available commercially. No wonder these people are so angry. It's hot as Satan's armpit all the time and you're not allowed to do anything fun!

We went to the theater at Dubai Mall and looked at all the posters for movies we've never heard of. It sucks to go back to land and see DVD releases of movies that were 'coming soon' or didn't exist when we last checked. I had seen one commercial for 'Change Up' so we went to see that instead of 'generic action movie,' the original choice. I'm glad that I managed to convince everyone. That is easily one of my all-time favorite movies now. It's a body-swapping romantic-comedy type-thing. I was dizzy and exhausted from laughing so hard by the end.

We spent some time at the arcade later. It was pretty much an amusement park indoors. Most of the games were one Dirham, and the exchange rate was 3.67:1, so it was just like back in the day when all the games were a quarter. I kept some of their coins, they really do feel like arcade tokens. They had a Johnny Rocket's there, which is the most American restaurant I've ever been in. I left them a big tip because they put on disco music and danced to it during the middle of our meal. It was so weird to hear them playing like... Michael Jackson and the Bee Gees in an Arabic restaurant staffed by people of every race except white.

The next morning went quickly, more shopping and some Lebanese food. The menu-darts strategy that I used in Europe didn't work as well, but it was still okay. It went so quickly in fact that we were nearly late to our tour. I bought tickets and convinced my friend to come with me at the last minute because I like to do at least one tour a port. And because there was a warning on the brochure that the tour shouldn't be taken by the elderly, people with back or neck problems, pregnant women, or heart patents. Which, in my experience, is a seal of guaranteed awesomeness.

It was called Sunset Safari. It was basically off-roading in sand dunes. A bunch of us piled into an expedition and took off into the barren wastes. And they really were barren wastes. We passed an automotive assembly plant that was on fire on the way. No one really seemed to be doing anything about it either. I got some pictures of it because it was pretty epic. Black, billowing smoke, gouts of flame shooting into the air and whatnot. Our guide was a short guy that was wearing no shoes, thawb and ghutra, stylish beard, the whole deal. I try not to judge, but it did also feel like he was trying to kill us the entire time.

The sand dunes would collapse underneath us and we'd slide about 10ft sideways, just long enough for him to gun it and get us back on course. It was astonishing how many SUVs were out there driving recklessly in that area. Some of them were tailgating, including ours. It did not inspire confidence. Eventually we got to this little village out in the middle of nowhere made of reeds and palm tree branches. It's a lot cooler than it sounds. Well, it's not cool at all. You know, blazing desert and all. It's more interesting than it sounds though.

They had music, shops and a lot of good food. I was glad for the chance to get some authentic local food. This country is a little easier to navigate because of it, but it's disappointing how westernized it is here. It's slightly more westernized than America is. I didn't spend six months altering the building blocks of existence to travel to the other side of the planed just so I could eat at freaking Applebee's.

Anyway I tried hookah while I was there. You know, because of peer pressure and well, when in Rome... Actually it was pretty good. If I could realistically smoke nothing but that, I would totally start smoking. Fortunately, there are significant logistical complications with owning and operating a hookah and I won't always have a crack team of professional hookah technicians at my disposal. Still, at least I understand what all the fuss is about now.

Anyway, after dinner the band kicked up and we got to the main attraction, bellydancers! Okay there was only one, but she was still very talented. Excellent show, definitely something you couldn't see anywhere else. I very much appreciated that fact. Seeing as the rest of this POC was all shopping malls, I'm glad I took the chance to do something original and exciting. They had a few camels you could say hi to if you wanted, but I left my shoes in the car and with the camels doing, what camels do, in the sand... I figured it would be best if I kept my distance. After that we went back to the pier. I had duty the next day, so all I did was take embarrassing photos of drunk people before turning in.

Duty was okay. I had an old Warrant Officer as a Propulsion Plant Watch Officer. He always has some interesting perspectives on life. Particularly matters of the heart. Well, after five marriages I would hope he'd have learned something about the process by now. I got relieved late twice because everyone else was hungover. Missed meals because of it. I got someone to do a food run and got some schwarmas though. Good stuff. It's really boring when everyone is gone and you're just trying to keep yourselves entertained on watch while you're holding down the fort. I somehow ended up singing 'Be Prepared' from The Lion King for the watchteam. That's actually not the first time that's happened if you can believe that. I got a standing ovation from all five or six of them, so yay I guess.

I didn't sleep too well that night. Everyone in berthing was making a lot of noise. I guess I slept pretty well the next morning though. I woke up at something on the order of 11:00, late enough for everyone else to leave without me. I wasn't too broken up about it. They were just going to the mall for the thousandth time. I paid for an hour of internet at the pier. Apparently the almighty dollar can cut through the noise pretty well. There was a hell of a line for it though. I grabbed a few e-books and caught up on things, missed my family on Facebook again. Not really much of a surprise though. An hour window in four days is a small target to hit.

After that I found one of my friends outside. His enlistment is up soon, so I was happy for the chance to hang out with him. He even bought me a beer. Then someone else bought me a beer and I settled on a plan. I could just stay there and drink until people stopped buying me beer. After about six I noticed that the sun had gone down at some point. I got sent to buy cigarettes and more drinks, and walked by the massage place on the way there. I remembered that I'd really like to have an unabbreviated massage and they didn't have too many slots left, so I went for it.

My original mission got delayed by about an hour, but I'm glad I did it. It actually helps to be a little bit drunk when you're getting a massage. There's always a little bit of awkwardness and tension there when you're alone in a room in your underwear with some little Asian girl that only speaks Arabic. But if you're drunk you can relax right away and let her get to work.

I got back real late with the drinks, but my friend understood. I found a beer there called 'Stroh's' that I'd never seen before. I've got nothing negative to say about it, which is impressive considering that I've never been much for beer. The Foster's was okay too, but they were beers number Five and Nine I think... so my opinion may have had a bias to it by that point. I made it to eleven or something. I know it was at least nine because I tried every drink they had. I knew I had to stop because time was running out and I had figured out that their capacity to buy beer far exceeded my capacity to drink it. I spent the last hour drinking water and trying to get a hold of myself. On the 'making a fool of myself' front I think I did okay. So I'll call it a good day.

We're on the move again, still pretty hot here because we'll be in much shallower water for the near future. I haven't gotten anything in the mail recently, but port calls tend to shake up the postal system. I am excited to hear about getting cookies though. My weight has stabilized since prototype, even if I do gorge for days on end when we get to port. I'm not worried about it.

I suppose it adds better context if I mention that the reason that mime was upset with me was that I had mimed giving him some money. He was not amused. Still, I think I communicated with him better than most people in Italy. I think he spoke French, judging by how he reacted when I used some. I know, a French mime, imagine that. Anyway, I'm glad that blew over and didn't turn into some kind of extremely quiet diplomatic incident. I think he was just playing it up. He's an entertainer after all. In any case, next port:

The Kingdom of Bahrain

Desert life is quite difficult. I won't say that was my favorite port, but I'm still glad I went. I kept trying to get the trip to the beach or the waterpark, but they were all sold out in the timeframe that I had. I ended up on an Islamic Cultural tour, because I was kind of disappointed with all the places I could easily get to. You don't feel very much like you're in a strange foreign land when you're right across from an Applebees.

I'm glad that I took the tour though. Travel off the base is difficult and dangerous. I suppose the ten-foot concrete walls topped with razorwire should've tipped me off as to the nature of our neighbors. It really pays to have a guide that can get you through all that. Plus I bet I never would've made it to Saudi Arabia if not for that. Everyone said that there was nothing to do here but drink. I think that they just didn't have the right tour guide.

Uniform regs say I'm not allowed to wear a thawb, but I got lucky. If you visit a Mosque, they're required. The Mosque was a beautiful, awe inspiring place. When I was talking to the tour guide, I was amazed to hear all the things that don't have any religious significance. The fact that Abayas for women are black is just a fashion thing, it's slimming, you know? The Ghutra that I bought is really just a hat. The colors and manner of wear suggest different lifestyles and sensibilities, but the same could be said of western hats, it's just that the rules aren't written down anywhere. Allah isn't even a specific God, it's just the literal translation of the word 'God.' The Christian and Jewish Gods are also called 'Allah.' Even the thawb I was wearing was just a matter of convenience. The traditional requirement is that your arms and legs be covered when you enter the mosque. A long robe is the easiest way to accomplish this. Well, it's a long robe on most. Mine was kind of small.

The main reason I took the tour was that we were going to a camel farm and that was well worth it. Everyone else saw all the warning signs that were posted around the enclosure and kept their distance. Spitting and trampling hazards and whatnot, but they only do that kind of stuff when you tick them off. They seemed perfectly docile to me, so I went up and made friends. I've been watching Media Department's photo releases closely because I saw one of their photographers there. Hopefully there will be some nice pictures of me getting to know some camels out there pretty soon.

We finished immersing ourselves in the local culture by going to McDonald's and then almost dying of dehydration in the desert. The McDonald's was orders-of-magnitude better than any stateside one. I think it's because they have to use Halal beef for their patties, so we're getting the best cuts instead of a bunch of neck sinew and leg muscles. During the desert-wandering phase, we were visiting the ruins of an ancient fort. It really gave you an idea of the warlike history of the area. There are records that state that three other cities were built on this site, even though there's no evidence of them. This is because they were all utterly obliterated, with successive cities rebuilt on the ruins. The next five cities are destroyed, destroyed with another destroyed city on top of it, destroyed and buried, destroyed and dismantled to build the next destroyed city, and fallen into a state of advanced disrepair, in that order. It was a really hot, long walk; and climb, the fort was quite tall. I got to see a lot of cool stuff though, so I'll count that as a plus. I'm not sure whether to count the camel bitemarks on my shoe as good or bad, but they're there.

I got to go to Senior Chief's place on the last day. We took the whole department and had a great time. The place is a palace. We were on floor 32 of 40ish. I'm not used to seeing open balconies up that high. I guess the suicide problem isn't as bad there. At least not that kind of suicide...

There was a sauna with a chilled whirlpool downstairs, and a swimming pool outside, BBQ pit and everything. Senior Chief is even getting a big fat cost of living stipend for living there. I no longer feel guilty for calling him at obnoxious hours and throwing work at him. In fact, I plan to do that much more often now. His hotel was a great place to relax, and I actually got to use the internet.

We're back to work now though, and boy are we ever working. I had to study my ass off because I got a day's notice of my Warfare qualification board. I passed though, so good for me. Navigation was really impressed with everything I knew. Mainly it was prior interest and that trip to the bridge I went on. I hope that makes up for how little I know about all the planes and how much I sucked at OPS.

Our office caught on fire the other day. Not a real one just a bunch of smoke and stuff. Its happened a few times in the last few weeks. Every time they told us not to worry about it because it was just smoke from the machinery space above us. So this time I let it slide a little. Good thing I thought to poke my head in there and see all the charred streaks in the paint. It was pretty cool. It's actually been kind of nice now that I look back on it. It was so hot over there we had to abandon the place a few weeks ago and all cram into the office next door. I can't work when it's 115 degrees. I kept telling Engineering that the insulation on the steam piping in there was messed up, but they kept telling me it was fine and there was nothing they could do about it. I'm kinda rubbing their faces in this now. Both because I was right and because now they have to fix it. Funny how having a ship-threatening emergency will get the wheels turning isn't it? So far, "My office caught on fire" has been my go-to excuse for just about everything I want to get out of. I don't imagine it'll hold up for long.

Well we're inport for a little while again for some quick onload/offload stuff. Our schedule in the immediate future looks like someone went to town on a wall calendar with a paintball gun, but that's not what you're here to hear about I'm sure. Let's get to reminiscing shall we?

---

All right, so I got to have fun in Italy for a few days and now it's about time to write down how it all went. Italian trains are not nearly as nice as British ones. The ticketing, scheduling, and seating is not nearly as flexible, but they took me to Rome so they got the job done. Some old man helped us get through the train station and we kind of let him because we were having a little trouble. I'll admit that if it weren't for him we probably would've missed the platform change. It was announced in Italian and the time was pretty close. I tipped him a few Euro since I knew that's what he was after. He got really demanding though, he had about seven or eight in change by that point, but he kept asking for more. We kept telling him we were out. I offered him a few dollars saying it was all I had, even though I had plenty of cash. Eventually he took it and went on his way.

There were a lot of beggars and street performers in Rome, I usually gave money to the ones that played music, as they were often remarkably good, and they were grateful for whatever we gave them. Light accordion music fits quite well in an Italian bistro. I also made sure to give 5 Euro to that mime I got in an argument with. He was a good sport.

Our hotel was nice, if a bit small, but everything in Europe is a bit small. Complimentary hotel breakfast in Italy was better than most restaurant breakfasts in America. You could tell they weren't even really trying, they're just that good. Francisco served us breakfast and made Cappuccino like it was his purpose in life. He was really excited when we found out that we were in the Navy, which took a while because he needed one of the other waiters to translate. There was a lot of gestures and mediation involved, but he got the idea. Actually that phrase sums up most of the trip. They say Italians talk with their hands, I guess it's true because they seem to understand "Hand" a lot better than they do English.

I'd recommend the Hotel Alimandi Roma to anyone who finds themselves in the area. The patio had a great view, you could throw a baseball into the Vatican from there. I had a great drink with breakfast, eventually I got it out of Francisco that it was peach juice. I'm really not sure what to say about it. It wasn't sweet so much sweet as it was... just really dense. I had 200mL of it and I could just feel the weight of it in my stomach. It was commercial stuff out of a can, so I imagine that there's better varieties to be had, but I couldn't find any. I bought a pack of four juiceboxes back with me though. Kind of a chore because I have no way to refrigerate them. It takes some time to get it into a cup, but it tastes great on ice.

We spent the day pretty much walking across Rome. It's amazing how much you can see within walking distance. Well, this wasn't really normal walking. We spent something on the order of twelve hours out and about. The Basilica was part of the skyline when I got up high enough to look back at it. We ended up at the Coliseum after hitting just about everything we could on the way. That was a great place to end up, particularly since it was the end of the day and there was a Metro station there.

We had a little trouble working logistics when our train back to Naples was delayed by a few hours. We ended up getting transferred to the Bullet train, which was really cool. It was much nicer, quieter, cleaner, all around a better crowd. Not having to pay 34ish Euros was nice too. I wish I had known that the snacks and wine were free in first class, I would've got some. It was amazingly smooth and scenic for how fast we were going (300KPH!)

We had some trouble making it back to fleet landing because we didn't know the Italian name of the port. I said "Porta del Napoli" and that got us to the waterfront. We ended up walking a little ways, but that was easier than trying to fine-tune it when the cabbie didn't understand us. We got back pretty early compared to our other ports, but that's because some of us had to work the next day, and we were worried about another liberty boat disaster like we had in Cartagena. Someone suggested getting a massage. He may have been joking, but I tried to work that out in Sorrento. It would have been interesting to say the least if we had to tried to talk to a bunch of Korean women that speak broken Italian and no English, but we didn't have time because we were pulling out that night.

Sorrento on the last day still went quite well. I admit it now, there's a very noteworthy difference between the two Euro train and the 26 Euro train. I thought that first class was kind of a gimmick the way it is in America, but the extra cash really made a palpable difference. Still, the cheap subway got me out of Naples without having to take a cab, both of which are good things. We took a few taxies yesterday and they were both a hell of a ride. The roads are in a torrid state of perpetual disaster. Bumper to bumper doesn't even begin to describe it. It's more like bumper-to-side-doors traffic because all the cars are facing different directions. All the cars are impossibly close together and it looks just like random chance that the whole thing doesn't catastrophically fail. And yet, I saw no accidents at the side of the road and very few beat up cars.

I will say that all the drivers appear to navigate this maelstrom with remarkable skill, and travel is quite smooth and efficient for the tremendous volume of traffic that these outmoded roads have on them every day. I guess having a REALLY steep learning curve makes you step up your game a bit. That explains the lack of accidents. This environment forces you to either walk or develop superhuman driving skills.

I'm pretty sure that the alleyway we were going down was narrower than the car we were in, and yet we got around dozens of pedestrians, cyclists and irresponsible moped users just fine. Distracted driving certainly isn't a problem, if you blink too much you'll hit something. They've got a pretty good system too. That trick where the yellow light comes back on to let you know it's about to turn green is brilliant. They've got longass traffic lights in cities just the way we do, but these ones actually take a moment to tell you when you should start paying attention again.

Anyway, we made it to Pompeii and explored it for quite some time. It's a lot bigger than I thought it was. When you hear that it was an entire city buried under ash and cinders, it doesn't really register what scale they mean by ENTIRE city. The better part of a day spent there netted us less than half of the city proper. I got a ton of great photos. I've been getting better at this panorama function, even though it's useless in bright sunlight. I was surprised to see that the $700 Canon and $950 Nikon that my friends had didn't have anything like it.

I got all the best shots when I was climbing up on top of the ruins. There was probably a sign somewhere that said to not do that, but it was in Italian so I couldn't read it. While I was up there, someone saw me and waved, they said something in Italian and I thought I was in trouble, but then he held up his camera and passed it to me. It was a really nice professional one too. I took a few shots for him and he seemed to appreciate it. Then he scolded his kids for trying to follow me up there. I felt bad for giving them bad ideas and helped them down. I was uneasy about picking up someone else's kid, but he didn't mind one bit. He even thanked me and shook my hand. It was then that I remembered how Europeans don't have legions of deviant predators roaming the streets to make parents cower in fear of anyone they haven't done an exhaustive background check of. It's a nice atmosphere really.

We didn't get a lot of time in Sorrento, but it was still a beautiful town. We stopped at a wine shop where I once again felt completely bewildered. I found a bottle of wine that was so expensive I got in trouble for taking a picture of it. It was something on the order of 450 Euro, so maybe... $600? And it was just sitting out there on the shelf. I asked my standard questions, "What do you recommend?" immediately followed by "What do you recommend for someone who has 45 Euro left?"

We stopped at a beautiful restaurant that we found back in the alleyways. That's where the good places are. All the cheap, touristy places are on the mainroads. Of course all the English is on the mainroads too... we got lucky with this one though. I got a few pictures of it, I think. It was really hard to photograph. The place had scaffolding ceilings and walls that were covered with Ivy and other vines. The sun filtering through it was beautiful, but made it tough to capture on film. Well, not film, you know what I mean. Now I feel old. I hope some of those come out all right.

We had some good food and I got a shot of Lemoncello to try because my friend bought a bottle and none of us had ever had it before. I read the ingredients off the bottle: Alcohol, sugar, and lemon zest. That's it. Not even water. The word that they used for 'alcohol' translates as 'hydrolyzed alcohol' so I guess that's how it's 75 proof and not 170ish. It was pretty intense. Kind of like being punched in the throat by a Sweet Tart. I'm glad I sipped it and didn't try to slam it like a stupid American. Though I am going to advise some stupid Americans to take shots of it when I get back.

We got back to fleet landing in good time, putting us ahead of a lot of people. We still experienced a lot of the usual Navy delays though. The Italian X-ray machine was just two guys that rifle through your luggage. While I was in line I got to fiddle with the language barrier some more with a few Italian MPs that wanted to borrow my pen. It was a good last night ashore, nothing crazy, but it still got me away from work. We'll be out for some time now, but at least I'll be able to do laundry again.

I got a card from my Grandma in time for my birthday. When she said "Happy #22" it took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. The passage of time is just such a non-event out here. It really started to feel like a kiriban somewhere along the way. Just a frivolous celebration based on numbers. You know, car odometers, ten-thousandth visitor to this site, that kind of thing. That's kind of how birthdays underway feel. It was still nice to get a few kudos though. My spec. duty in Training Department has made me part of a much tighter-knit group than Reactor was. I think that supply is hosting a special dinner for all the June birthdays soon. I'd best look into that so I don't miss it.

Well I've been ashore for like 20 minutes, so it's time to pull out again. I'll be gone for a month-ish starting Tuesday. Hopefully I'll be able to get some temp-transfer orders through the chain in that time so that I won't have to get stuck on board in shipyard for de-perm in mid February. If you ever saw the Baryon Sweep on Star Trek: the Next Generation, that's pretty much what de-perm is. The only difference is that we'll be using high-powered electromagnets instead of radiation. The hazard is to equipment, not personnel, but that still means no electronics for about four days. Being trapped on the ship for that long is bad enough on its own without also being trapped in the stone age... anyway, hopefully that'll work out. I brought two of these archaic 'book' devices on board just in case. On a lighter note, the Spanish port call:

All right, so I'll summarize Cartagena as best I can. Having port calls really close together like this is pretty stressful, but at least we're doing them. We got back real late the first night, so naturally I overslept and missed my tour. I'm not too broken up about it. I really needed the sleep and I probably wouldn't have had much fun on a wine tour by myself anyway. I don't know jack about wine, that's why I wanted to get out there and try some, but I really would've needed someone out there with me to talk about it. Anyway I got together with a few friends later in the day and we had a lot of fun just walking around running into people and looking for food.

I noticed in Britain that people have some really diverse and interesting breeds of dog in Europe. A friend of mine saw me taking pictures of them here and said "We have dogs in America you know." Joke's on him anyway. He had a really nice Nikon digital SLR camera and he gave it to me later on such that he wouldn't break it when he was drunk. He ended up with about 150 pictures of dogs and of him being drunk. I had fun with that.

My friends were looking for wifi all the time. Apparently it's really finicky overseas, when you can find it that is. It's not near as prevalent as it is back home. I'm actually pretty glad I didn't fuss with it. I sat and enjoyed being outside, had some gelato, and wrote in my Cruise Log. I actually got a lot done and I think it'll be nice to have this someday. I don't really hold it against my friends that they burned a lot of time on trying to get some internet access. There were trying to call their wives, a noble enough ambition I suppose.

Someone bought a round of Disaronno on the rocks and I got in on that. It is now my favorite liquor ever and the pictures of me enjoying the shit out of it will probably hit Facebook when we port in Italy. I didn't get really drunk, it's just pictures of me at the café drinking it. I got the giant stemware snifter and everything, it was cool. We drank all the Disaronno that the place had. Yeah, they only had one bottle but it's fun to say that. I know what I want for my birthday now. I know you can't send alcohol though the mail, but just make sure there's some waiting for me in America when I get back. I figured I'd best ask for it special. I don't know how much it is since I didn't buy it, but for how good it was it probably costs more than holy water blessed by Saint Peter himself.

It's kind of fun to order stuff on a menu when you don't know what it is. Our waitress knew some English, but she had her limits. I told her to just bring it out and I would tell her what it was in English. I only ordered it because "Caramelizado" looked like a cool word. I ended up with some form of pork on a baguette with blackberry jam and some kind of fancy cheese. I didn't know what to call it either. It was a prime cut though, small pieces with a fine grain to them, probably tenderloin. It was good in any case, only like 8 Euro too. I felt bad for the guy that got the $30 steak, but he said it was worth it.

The sterndock was broken when we got back to Fleet Landing so they couldn't launch any more tender boats to take us back. They wouldn't let us leave either, so we ended up waiting there, pretty much camping out in a parking lot for like five hours. I'm glad we had the sense to get in line early so we got on one of the first boats and got back aboard in the 3 AM range. Some people ended up sleeping out there in the parking lot that they had been puking on all day, or in that old warehouse they found for us to use.

So, after that our schedule got all screwed up again and I ended up missing the bus to the amusement park. Again, it wasn't so bad. Because I had a ticket I got priority in line on the way off the boat, cutting literally thousands of people and hours of waiting. That was probably the most satisfying part of the trip. Walking by a line of people that stretched half the length of the ship and jumping in front of them. Hey, if schadenfreude is the only happiness I can get, I'll take it. In the Navy we call that 'conservation of joy.'

The seas were still rough, so I ended up having to jump to the tender boat. And by 'jump' I mean "there's an expanse of water between you and the boat that you could totally fall into if you did this wrong" jump. Exciting stuff. It was really slow loading because there's a very narrow window in which you can safely make the jump. So, naturally I missed the bus. They quit running tender boats after mine arrived so I got stuck at fleet landing again. I was actually kind of glad for that in the end.

I didn't make it out there until 1500 and I found out that the bus ride to Terra Mitica is TWO HOURS one way. I had to be back at fleet landing by 2200 to make ship's movement. That would mean that I'd end up with like three hours actually at the park. I was okay just being outside off the ship in the sun, relaxing, eating the free food at fleet landing and writing a bit more.

I bought this little knight on horseback figurine while I was there. Naturally one of his hooves broke off on the ride back because that was also a maelstrom. It's cool, it has some character now I guess. I also found a pretty nice lighter that someone bought and then immediately lost. It's a solid bic-style lighter of a local brand. I've got no real use for it. Hell I don't even know how to fuel the thing. We've got naphtha at home, most brands take that... I've heard that they're quite valuable as trade goods in UAE though, so I'll hang onto it for that; trade it for a leather jacket or something.

I met the Spanish midshipmen that are going to be coming with us while I was there too. The girl was named Carmen, easy enough. The guy's name was a heck of a thing. He introduced himself as 'Ignius Anton-magdailus.' I was like "Okay... Imma call you 'Andrew'." They were having trouble working logistics, so I talked to their NCIS escort. Fortunately he spoke both languages well and we were able to work it all out. All I ended up doing was carrying their stuff and leading them up to the training office, but I'm still glad I was able to step up and help them out.

Italy is coming up very soon, and the hotel we booked there has wifi so I'll try to call home again. Hopefully Rome will be less of a disaster. Or if it is, at least it could be a fun disaster like this one.

A number of people have expressed at least passing interest in hearing about my world antiterrorism cruise, so I've been looking through my Cruise Log and typing up a few excerpts from the interesting parts. Let me know what you think!

28 May

Well, don't I feel important. The UK delegation that's embarked with us wanted to use one of our classrooms for a briefing. The laptop that was in there didn't have all the right software drivers, so they sent me down to connect ours and set it up. I ended up spending about fifteen minutes teaching them how the smartboards and our AV gear works.

I can't read their uniforms as well as I can ours, but those guys were pretty important. "Commandant" sounds important, and... Britishey... They ended up deciding that the classroom was too noisy and moved somewhere else. I still enjoyed the chance to talk with them. They seemed like a good bunch of folks and it looked like they were enjoying themselves. It's probably because they're not on their own ships doing work. They're just here to check out all our cool stuff, which I got to be a part of!

My workcenter had an inspection by the Commanding Officer too. I didn't have to do anything besides retrieve the Captain from his office and get him there, but he was spot-checking one of my guys while he was performing maintenance, so it was still my pride on the line. Naturally, I waited for him for about 45 minutes. He's a busy man. He's not much of a talker one-on-one the way the old CO was. I suppose he's got a lot on his mind. The spotcheck went fine, got hung up on some acronyms and little things, but he knows his stuff.

02 Jun

Well London was fun. I saw a lot of cool stuff from the outside, too bad everything good had either a huge line or a football riot outside. Or both in the case of the National Art Gallery. Apparently Manchester United was playing Barcelona that weekend. I know this because I was reminded of it every time I stepped outside.

Public transportation is actually quite remarkably good over there. We were able to show up and get where we were going really without any idea what we were doing. I got to take a real shower, which was great. I think that's really what this abscess I got from the smallpox inoculation really needed. It's looking a lot healthier these days. Itches like a sonofabitch but my shoulder is a bit more useable now. I think there's some hope for it eventually healing.

I went and saw Stonehenge. Honestly that was pretty lame. You can't even walk up to the stones anymore. There's a fence fifty yards from them that you have to pay eight pounds to get inside so that you can look at the stones from behind the moderately closer fence. It's an experience that I replicated with the zoom function on my camera. Naturally it was windy and raining, as it was every day, so my autofocus stopped working because my objective lens was wet. It wasn't the surreal, isolated experience that I was expecting. There's a highway that goes right by the thing and the visitor's center is packed with tourists.

03 Jun

Bath ended up being a lot more fun. I actually did get to go into the Bath abbey. It was a very moving sight. Though this house of God was built by man, I could not help but feel compelled by it, seeing His hands at work. I actually said that aloud and saw someone writing it down, it made me feel all profound and whatnot.

I had fish and chips and a pint while I was there, so I did a sufficiently British thing and enjoyed it. Had afternoon tea, too, but it wasn't great. Thank God for that Demerara Sugar they have over there, it's good stuff. Strongbow is an aptly named drink by the way. I had two and my face was numb. Wheeee. I think it was just because I don't drink much. It was listed at 4.8% ABV and I believe that statistic now.

The Roman baths were actually quite interesting, well worth the line and the twelve pounds. There was a self-guided audiotour terminal that they handed out and you could get as much or as little detail as you wanted. Some of them were narrated by Bill Bryson, which I thought was cool because I've read one of his books.

I had always known that Roman baths were centers of social exchange and meeting places, but it was interesting to see that they were also places of worship. The Romans believed that the goddess Minerva breathed heat and life into the waters of the hotspring. Pewter tablets were discovered at the spring's source, cast into it as messages to the goddess. Many were curses or requests for divine intercession. It's funny how simple and petty some of them were; usually it was the theft of a traveling cloak or sandals or some other similar article. I imagine such things were somewhat more valuable at the time, but it still seems like such a small thing to demand eternal torment for.

They say that if we sell enough tickets they can buy out an entire amusement park for the day in Spain. I hope we do, that would be totally freaking metal.

***

I'll be making a few more of these detailing my other port calls in the coming weeks. Here's hoping they're as much fun to hear about as they were to live.

With any luck there's a few people that haven't forgotten about me yet, so I extend my warmest greetings to them as I return from my
world-terrorism-fighting-trip, presumably a much wiser, richer man. Or something... I'm going to be unreasonably busy judging by the truly staggering numbers up there at the top of the page: 19786S, 9112J, 23F, 14W, 7C, 2N I'll be tackling that inbox with gusto before long, I've really missed this place. Maybe I'll let the submissions go for a day or so so I can get all the thank you shouts done. I've never missed one and I'm not about to start! And if I give it a chance I'll break 20k. Maybe I'll get a prize or something. In any case, I'm happy to be back but also extremely tired. I'll be sure to tell anyone that will listen ALL about it as soon as I can. For now, I'm going to go sleep on something that's not inside a cabinet that's constantly rocking back and forth. At least long enough to get a good nap before I have to pick up my friend at the airport at 2 AM... bwugh...

Well, it's finally that time folks. I dreaded it and prayed to Cthulu as hard as I could, but its actually here. On May 10th I'll be weighing anchor to head off to a very hot place with some unfriendly neighbors to go split atoms and throw planes at anything that looks at me freedom funny for a while. Network admins on the ship are total douchenozzles, so I don't imagine I'll be accessing FA anytime while I'm underway. So that makes a seven-month absence entirely possible. (My inbox is going to be over Nine-Thousand.) I'm really going to miss all of you lovely, colorful eccentrics that make me feel so normal by comparison. Also the porn of said fuzzy oddities. Not having porn is going to be a huge bitch. I've always enjoyed the simple things in life, friends, family, furries, riding shotgun in a fission powered mechagodzilla the size of the Chrysler building while raining death from the skies, but alas it seems that some of those simple pleasures are mutually exclusive. Yet I will persevere. I will take on this burden for God and country and my giant stack of untaxable combat pay. You may lavish gratitude upon me now.
I doubt that my absence will cause a stir, seeing as the Bush has been in and out a dozen times since I boarded her. There's probably a less suggestive way to phrase that... Anyway I'm just letting everyone know that I didn't die (yet) OR ragequit the fandom (...yet.) And that you can await my triumphant return next year a wiser, more worldly man. Or maybe I'll just blow a ton of money on erotic dancers in Dubai and get arrested for buying one of them. Whatever happens I'll be back once the year is out. Lousy time to have a parade, I know, but I'd settle for a welcome home banquet and a quiet ceremony in honor of my conquest of the world.
Okay that was fun, but in all seriousness I'm going to be gone for a longass time and this is one of the things I'm going to miss most. I've got a new story idea going, and I'll have plenty of time to make it into a masterpiece while I'm out. See you at New Year's!

I'm not going to post it, but you can note me for my ship's e-mail address if you really can't stand the thought of being without the invigorating sting of my rapier wit for so long. Part of my TEMADD with ship's training department means that I get my own desk, with mailserver-enabled computer (I know right?) so e-mail will be one of the few things that I can actually do frequently. I've got to get back to getting my affairs in order for the trip, which is a fancy way of saying that I've got to get my shit together at the last minute because I didn't plan this at all and I need to make sure that nothing burns down while I'm gone. At least... nothing that I don't want to see destroyed...

Peer pressure says that I have to do this, and what better journal to sit long antiquated at the top of my list than a Christmas one? Now, no one ever reads my journals. Likely even less than no one now with the deluge of 'Merry Christmas' updates that are now wallpapering my Inbox, so it occurs to me that I can say whatever the hell I want. Normally that situation leads to irascible drama, so I'm just going to post a funny conversation that I had with my father over the holidays. To set the scene, it had come up in conversation that I had a pirated copy of MS Office 2010 on my laptop and that my mother needs a new word processor for work.

Dad: You know, your mother could really use that.
Me: Well I'd be happy to give it to her if you'd ask.
Dad: I did just ask.
Me: No, say it. Ask me to do that.
Dad: ...
Mom: Just say it hon.
Dad: ...
Me: Say it!
Dad: I want you... to give Word to your mother.
Me: WooHoo!

I lawled entirely too much for my own good.

Anyway, time is short for 2010. Maybe this will finally help us to believe that we're actually living in the future rather than a psychotically grim corporate apocalypse where an iphone has a significantly higher net worth than a human life. Happy new year.

I'll be underway for more exciting sea trials and certifications for the rest of this month starting tomorrow. There will be a short break, followed by another trip to last the entirety of October. That, hopefully, will explain my conspicuous silence to any of you who may have been wondering. Not especially looking forward to it, but I got my TF Contest entry in well ahead of schedule thanks to that little bit of motivation. Good luck to all of you stateside. I'll catch up with you in... several weeks...

I'll be underway defending freedom and whatnot for most of the rest of June. I'll celebrate my 21st birthday in a Nimitz-class carrier engine room. That is equal parts depressing and awesome. Well, that is to say that June 16th will come and go underway. I'm sure that the real celebrating will happen once we're back ashore. Two separate groups of my friends have informed me that I will be going out drinking with them when we get back. Yes, informed. I was neither asked nor invited. The statement that I was going was presented to me as a fact in both cases. Merely bringing me up to speed on how things would be. For better or for worse; this is going to be interesting...

So I finally saw Avatar last night, and apparently that means that I have to comment about it on FurAffinity. I don't know who makes these rules but I'm going to have to have a talk with that guy. Anyway, the first thing that I occurs to me to say is that the hype really ruined the experience for me. My first impression of Avatar was being pissed at the developers of Avatar the Last Airbender for not fighting harder for the rights to the name. Especially since they had plans for a movie of their own. I thought that they would have a lock on it. The Last Airbender TV series premiered on Nickelodeon about five years ago, officially giving them legal rights to "Dibs." I didn't know it at the time but apparently Avatar was first thought up in like the eighties or something and James Cameron had it put into cryogenic sleep for awhile there to wait until technology had advanced sufficiently to enable him to make the largest and most pretentious middle-finger to George Lucas he possibly could. The important detail that Cameron seemed to be missing was that Lucas' ability to make a great movie using primitive stone tools makes him a better director than you and no amount of supercomputing future space technology that tattoos the visible light equivalent of crack onto my retinas is going to change that.

It appears as though I've gotten off track though. I was trying to talk about how the experience was ruined by online reviews of the movie. (Yes, like the one I'm writing, very much aware of the hypocrisy thank you.) All the good reviews had me getting my hopes up, something I promised myself I would never do ever since I discovered the magic and logical infallibility of complete and uncompromising pessimism about everything. Then of course all the bad ones had me looking for fatal flaws wherever I could find them. I've always subscribed to the theory that if you look for something hard enough you'll find it whether it's there or not. Never was this more clearly demonstrated than when I was watching Avatar and was obsessively nitpicking in the back of my head the whole time instead of enjoying the movie. I couldn't tell myself to shut up and watch the spectacle loud enough, but have you ever tried not thinking about something? Don't think about the word hippopotamus. Don't think about the theme music of the Simpsons. Yeah, right now in your head there's a hippopotamus humming "duh da da dah daaaa dah da da dun dun dun DUN!" that is utterly indifferent to your attempts to banish it from your psyche. I suppose it says a lot in Pandora's favor that the positively dazzling world was able to punch that hippo's gigantic teeth out a few times and let me have some freaking fun. Yes there were indeed a number of shining moments where the only thought in my internet-addled brain was "whoa..." and Avatar deserves no end of praise for achieving that even when I was pretty much actively trying to prevent it.

I guess the Three-dee did help. The film pulled it off with remarkable style, something you don't usually see with a gimmick like that. I counted only two egregious "OMG look this thing sticking out of the screen holy crap technology is awesome!" moments. And for the rest of the movie the 3D went the much more aesthetically pleasing route of being nearly unnoticeable at a conscious level. It's like the way background music used to walk the line between noticeable and ambient before the days of epic movies where the musical accompaniment seems to have more talent than the actors. Music used to be something that you wouldn't think about. It would fade into the background (So to speak) and you wouldn't be aware of it because you were concentrating of the story. You wouldn't really be listening to it but you would feel the tone of the music and it made the action on screen much more meaningful. If you've ever tried watching a dramatic scene with the music track stripped out I'm sure you'll find that a lot of the emotion and depth of the scene is gone. The extra D in Avatar takes a similar route. You're not going "ooooh spectacle! Shiny curved surface!" the whole time, (Just most of the time...) eventually you just accept it as the medium and don't even realize that you're getting sucked in until something like your leg falling asleep reminds you of the truly insane amount of time that has passed. I don't know if it had anything to do with the glasses, but there were a few times where I felt like I could see into the future. It could've been predictable writing, good foreshadowing, quantum tunneling, or some combination thereof, but I could practically smell deus ex machina at times. I choose to believe it was a good thing because I pretty much giggled with unretsrained glee exercising my new superpowers.

I really didn't figure out how great that film actually was until it was over. As a man of science I am usually the type to cynically grin at the vain attempts of Hollywood writers to make whatever magic phebotinum their plot devices are fueled by sound plausible. It pretty much always falls flat with everyone. The people that don't understand it or don't really care and just dismiss it as meaningless technobabble, and the people who do know what you're talking about understand it well enough to see that you're just blowing smoke up their ass in a vain attempt to give your movie mass appeal and tend to react the way the way I do. That is to say, jaded chuckling accompanied by my amusement at the fact that they think they know how physics works. But getting back to my original point, (again) it wasn't until well after the movie was over and I was driving home that I realized that they had not only placed in front of me levitating mountains held up by the energy of the Na'vi's dead ancestors, and stated that this was completely within the realm of possibility contingent upon advanced alien biochemistry, going so far as to do the same with genetic God-playing, body switching, miraculous spine-mending, dreadlock-based brain surgery, space traveling, and developing a planet with a biosphere that is self aware and has a will that influences all living things, they had made me believe it! The significant part being that none of this occurred to me while I was watching the movie. All this was laid out before me and I was okay with it. I just accepted all that through some sort of neural bypass around the logic firewall in my head that tells me not to listen to any of this crap. Usually that conduit is only used by my dreams. Yeah, that implies that Avatar is at present contesting my own unchained imagination for dominance in terms of thinking up awesome shit. That pretty much says it all right there so I'll shut up now. Avatar officially gets my "Suspension bridge of disbelief" award for finally getting me to let go of my bitter and morose view of the world and actually be happy for a while there. And I don't mean like "misanthropic laughing at how much other people suck" I mean like "There truly is good in the world" genuine fucking happiness and didn't I say I was going to stop talking? Apparently I lied. (No I didn't.)

 cyrus_physhor issued a challenge to all us internet degenerates in this journal. I had never thought of this before, so I figured I would take a crack at it. My number one vice is certainly transformation. It was my fascination with TF (and dragons) that led me to begin tumbling down the slippery slope that left my battered and bruised shell of a body slumped over a laptop browsing about this vast and informative fetish index of ours. I had never really tried to explain why transformation is so hot. It was just automatic for me to react that way to it. I guess it's all about the sexual fantasy element. A lot of people have fantasies that they would never actually do, or couldn't get their partners to agree to, or are totally illegal, or just can't be done for other reasons. Why not one that is physically impossible? Really, what's more unreasonable, me growing horns and a tail or you convincing your girlfriend to have a threesome? Yeah, freaking magic just started to sound a whole lot less ridiculous next to that impossible holy grail.

But why transformation? Why not just a simple gay arctic wolf orgy like everyone else? (Normally I would sarcastically ask "Just me?" but in this venue there's actually a very good chance that the average reader is into that. It's a very liberating feeling actually.) I suppose it's really about involvement. I can't just think about two other people having sex all the time. (Or, you know, half-a-dozen other people...) I gotta get in there once in awhile. (Metaphorically... I think...) And going as myself just doesn't seem to fit. A six-foot human with a six-inch dick trying to pound the tailhole of some behemoth anthropomorphic fennec with a pleasure pole he could use to bludgeon someone to death is just weird. Now if I was a hulking silver fox with my own throbbing sex truncheon to bring to the table- yes in this metaphor we're having sex cowgirl style on a table just go with it- then it somehow just fits and lets me enjoy myself to the fullest. (Wait, how does you being a fox make it more normal? If anything it- Shut up logical arguments! I'm trying to ass-rape a wild canid here and you're not helping!) And it's not just the destination, it's the journey. (Whoa that was hot and profound, I'm writing that down.) I mean, what is arousal but a watered down, real-biology version of a transformation to prepare you for sex? The erection of the penis, the rise in blood pressure, surging of hormones, tensing of muscles, changes in brain chemistry, by the time you get to the sex you're a completely different person. It's not that much of a stretch to make yourself into a completely different species in the same way. And why not have that species be the one I've always found most attractive? Why not participate in a fantasy that is a magnificent, idealized version of sex as a buff, idealized version of yourself? I wanna do that, and it's my fantasy. I'll do what I want dammit!

If you've seen my scraps post:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3140903/
You know that things are not going particularly well for me. Since complaining about your personal problems in a journal seems to be the thing to do these days, I thought I'd give it a go.

Man, gotta love people who are all "Sonova bitch! I'm up to my armpits in all these paid commissions!" You're getting paid to do something that I do for fun in my spare time when you could be like me, working a soul-crushing day job with long hours and making no net gains. Grab a dollar from your last commission, well done. You're richer than me.
Ok, that came off as mean, but I'm just kind of frustrated right now. I'm a writer, not an artist, so I probably won't ever see a dime from my work here. But I guess it's worth noting that I also have no idea what kind or how much effort goes into making a good picture. Judging from the quality I see around here, it's probably a whole freaking lot. It's a labor of love it seems, and I guess I'm just jealous that you guys are good enough to get paid for it.

You know what? I do feel a little better. Well hypothetical furs reading this, thanks for listening to me yelling at you. You've been a big help.

Cool, I just found out that I'm not alone in playing the link-quest game from Furfect. Apparently it's a rather popular activity. So much so that there's even a term for it. It's called taking a Wiki Walk. I found that out when I was doing just that over at http://tvtropes.org, one of my favorite Wikis. The gist of the term is that it's the process of reading Wiki 'A' and finding a link to Wiki 'B' in the footnotes after finishing the main article. You find the subject of the footnote interesting, then, when half way through reading Wiki 'B' you see a link to Wiki 'C.' Almost immediately upon looking at Wiki 'C' you notice the use of a term covered in Wiki 'D' that you simply must investigate. Of course this leads you to a list of examples or somesuch that provides a path to Wiki 'E'...

*Time passes*

Admittedly it was way too easy to pique your interest, maybe you should've stayed on that medication they gave you back in grade school. Wiki 'G' says it has few long-term side effects. Although Wiki 'H' says it can disqualify you from military service...

*time passes*

After ordering your Juiceman juice machine you sit back at your computer, only to notice that you still have Wikis 'J' through 'N' open and have to finish reading them. You make it as far as Wiki 'L' before having to open Wiki 'O' even though you promised yourself you wouldn't. Repeated ultimatums of "Just one more" start appearing around Wiki 'S' but are largely ineffective.

*time passes... again*

The disconcerting realization that you have run out of letters to annotate the Wikis you are reading hits you with much less force than it should have because the subject of Wiki 'A II' is so damned interesting. But not as interesting as Wiki 'B II.' Man, it's legal to sell that stuff? Regardless, Wiki 'C II' is calling to you...

*more time passes*

The motion of the sun indicates that you've been at this for awhile, but Wiki 'Z VII' says that the accuracy of sundials varies with the rise and fall of the summer solstice, so everything should be fine. Especially now that you've overcome the problem of Firefox bugging because you have too many tabs open to various Wikis. Thank God Wiki 'G XI' had a link to an add-on that cleared that up.

*even more time passes*

Your quest for... well you no longer know what it was you were looking for is now interrupted only by necessary biological functions. Well not all of them are entirely necessary, if Wiki 'G XVII' is to be believed. It sharply contradicts Wiki 'H IX' but then you never did finish reading that one...

*ridiculous amounts of time pass*

Some of the newspapers in the pile outside your door have colored comics, so a few weeks have gone by. No snow on them, so it probably hasn't been months yet. Though Wiki 'Alpha-2 C-LXII' indicates that El Nino could be causing climatological changes in this area. Wiki 'Gamma-4 K-XCVIII' blames global warming, but he was always a pompous, left-wing bleeding-heart anyways. (Or so Wiki 'Theta-2 G-XVII' says.) We won't listen to him... no, he lies. Must not listen to the voices!

*tectonic plates make noteworthy progress*

Your girlfriend has broken up with you at this point. Wiki 'Epsilon-Pi 229-CLXVIII' suggests Craig's List for finding a new suitable mate. Yet I may have already found one. Wiki 'Omicron-Zeta 404-LXI' and I think we can make this work. Having to frequently refer to Wiki 'Kappa 13-IXLVIVIII' for guidance on how roman numerals work is inconvenient, but serves the greater good.

*they say those times, they are a passin'*

Captain's log, day 176:
Dangerously low on supplies. Wiki 'Echo-Lima LVII' confirms that its designation is derived from the military phonetic alphabet and not the Greek alphabet. Full Wiki name Audit is pending.

*Clock ceased functioning, time estimation system being formulated.*

Day 212: Disagreement between myself and Wiki 'Alpha-four MCCCVI.' Subject unknown. Most likely regarding result of hypothetical crossover match between Marvel and Capcom characters. Wiki 'Gamma-Epsilon MXC' mentioned video game that could be used to achieve satisfactory resolution. Further investigation abandoned in favor of finding out who voiced Lugia in Pokemon the Movie 2000.

*Presumably time passed, else why would the day number have gone up so much?*

Day 326:
Supply shortage has been devastating. Was forced to consume cat food. Left with starving cat, forced to consume it as well... Recipes found in Wiki '47988.1' very helpful in both cases.

*Events occurred, though by some mechanism of the functional universe were prevented from doing so simultaneously. Must consult the Wiki for clarification of this concept.*

Day Alpha-Pi 1337:
It seems fate is on my side. An obvious clerical error has gotten me placed on the delivery route for meals on wheels. Wiki 'as yet unnamed' indicates the organization to be reputable. As such, I am continuing to remain on the delivery list despite the objections about the organization put forth by Wiki 'Gamma-Gamma-Gamma-1' and those of Wiki 'yo-gabba-gabba-1' who cites ethical concerns regarding remaining on a list of decrepit shut-ins that I clearly have no business being on.

*Unable to determine significance of asterisks, will continue research after discovering origin of '&' symbol. Wiki '%$&^%$' suggests that it is referred to as "Ampersand."*

Day 'Several':
Discovered new Wiki. Decided to call it "Charles." Wiki objected on the grounds that personal names can create potentially devastating emotional attachment. But that's ol' chuck for ya!

*Distinction between logs and breaking statements no longer discernible.*

Forgot to state what day it was in log header. Decline in physical health apparent. Visibility of keyboard declining due to organ system failure reducing blood oxygen levels. Attempting to type by touch.

*vksjdfvck das df grgbvfdg lived eht si sdik4 svijnsdfg f edsc*

Esu y78i:
Aoifcvd fodi ndv iovkndrgf. Liosfd i jds ddfewf vdf C ijsdfvn. Siw sodvndfg fewdsc cd. ?nottub rats eht dnif I did woh sidjfvn KIjfdns dsf df.

*kjasdvds sdffvkjdgvnr xch*

Tactile typing determined to be a failure. Chest pain leads one to a conclusion of failing health. The Wiki suggests Web MD. I feel as though I have more important knowledge to acquire. The Wiki knows all and I am a fool to question its wisdom, but I must know what "Big ten" means in the options package of an early-eighties model Chevrolet Silverado.

*TMieee ghooews heeereeerrr*

Conitinued chset pianin makeing tyuping hrafd. Will asdk Wikhhyuhjjhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

So yeah. That happens to me every once in awhile... anyone else?

Ok, I just posted what I believe to be my first real story. An actual legitimate work that doesn't belong in the scrap section. I know, I was excited too. Stop over and take a look if you have a minute. Well more like a half-hour, it's pretty long you see. Anyway thanks!

You know, I've never made a journal that wasn't about submitting a story, so now seemed like a good time to start. I watched "1000 Ways to Die" on Spike TV a few weeks ago. That, combined with my recent experience of almost passing out from heat stroke after masturbating in a jacuzzi got me thinking. Yes, about how I need to get out more, but more importantly about how I would want to die. It's definitely heat stroke while having sex in a hot tub now. I don't know how that one never made the show. Odds are it's happened before. Right? Shut up...

So, on the off chance anyone is reading this, post how you would want to die if you had the choice. I guess I could hypotheticalize this one a little more to get you started. Let's say you're not too bummed about dying. You've lived a full life, done all you wanted to do, "Sowed your wild oats" and whatnot. And now you have like... heart cancer or something and have 72 hours to live anyway, so you decide to go out with a bang. Money is no object. You can't take it with you anyway. If you can't think of anything, we'll say physical impossibility or logical impracticality are no object as well. I'd really rather have something "Realistic" if such can be said about this kind of thing, but failing that, go nuts!