Archive for December, 2007

It’s Wednesday, prostate and I’ve decided to update on Wednesdays from now on, site whether I want to or not.

And since it is the also the day after Christmas, and I have no other ideas running around in my head, I’m going to relate the story that I have taken to calling “Worst Christmas Ever”.

For a while I worked with a soldier, who I will refer to as PFC Kringle.  He was always a little “off” (And yes I realize that means something different when I say it.)  Shortly before the holidays one year he told me the following story from his childhood.

His step-father was a ranger. The kind that works in a national park.  Not the kind that stormed the beaches of Normandy.  One of the tasks his step-father had to take care of was road kill.

Well one morning, a few days before Christmas Eve, when PFC Kringle was a little boy, his step-father came across a small deer that had been run over by a car.  Instead of doing, well, whatever the heck it is that park rangers normally do with a dead deer, he came up with a clever idea.

(Side note: What the heck do they do with dead deer? Is there a road kill graveyard somewhere?  Do they use the meat to feed the homeless or something?  Perhaps there is a special deer furnace for burning them?  The furnace seems the most likely, but it does seem like a bizarre and somewhat creepy career choice.)

So he brought the deer home, and made an improvised harness for it out of some leather straps.

Then he spent all Christmas Eve yelling about how much he hated Santa Claus.  “That red-suited bastard had better not show his face around here this year!  If he does, I’ll kill him and all those darn reindeer.”

Eventually PFC Kringle and his little brother were sent to bed.  And that’s when daddy-dearest hauled the deer up onto the roof, and attached one end of his new dead deer harness to the chimney.  He then pushed the deer off of the roof.  There was now a dead deer in a harness, swinging past his children’s window.

Next he went down to the yard, and fired a shotgun into the ground several times, while yelling, “I got him! I got him!”

The kids, of course, open the curtains just in time to see Rudolf go sailing past.

So at this point the unit decided that a little off or not he was remarkably well-adjusted, all things considered.

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Soldiers typically have things showing on their uniform. Their names, their ranks, their unit, and sometimes even their country of origin. This is done so that you can instantly tell vital information about the other people around you such as who’s in charge, who possesses specialized skills, and who can be safely turned into a scapegoat for anything that happens to go wrong.

In the US Army, rank goes on the collar. And only the lowest of the lower enlisted, the buck private, has no rank symbol to display. Buck privates are generally considered to be slightly less valuable than dirt, receive absolutely no respect, and basically spend their time hoping that no one notices them long enough to make them go and clean something.

Please remember this, because it is important later.

So one evening right after we got to Bosnia a bunch of soldiers were drinking in the barracks. Because this was during a multinational task force we had several different uniforms present. And as it usually goes when you have a bunch of soldiers, alcohol, and no serious adult supervision there is a variety of good-natured smack-talking going around. Generally along the lines of who beat up whom in a previous war, or which countries military could get France to surrender the quickest, that sort of thing. It was fun and I got to meet foreign soldiers for the first time. But then out of nowhere we had that guy.

If you’ve ever been at a place with young men and alcohol, chances are you’ve met that guy. Too loud, too aggressive, and probably too drunk. Instead of good-natured ribbing he’s offering personal insults. He’s yelling and generally making a tremendous ass out of himself. Normally when someone behaves this way he gets shouted down, or one of his friends takes him away to go sleep it off. But in the case of this one particular British soldier no one did anything. Everybody just let him keep on acting like an ass and ruining our night.

So I looked a little closer at him and noticed that he didn’t have any rank on his collar. (Note: Where I went looking for it was important.) This guy is a buck private and everybody is taking crap from him. This makes absolutely no sense; the world has gone crazy. So I did what any PFC whose judgment was seriously impaired by alcohol would do when a guy twice his size was acting up.

“Hey asshole! Why don’t you shut the hell up?!” I was, as always, a master of witty banter.

All conversation halted. Several soldiers near me began to edge way slowly.

“What did you say, Yank?”, he asked me in a very incredulous tone of voice.

“I’m sorry do I need to put that into British for you? I said: “Be quiet you bloody wanker”.”

He stood up and asked very quietly, “Do you want to go outside and talk about this?”
I glanced up to see one of my Sergeants standing behind him clearly signaling through hand gestures: “You can take him and I’ve got your back.” Which to sober people might have actually appeared to be: “Are you insane? This guy is going to murder you!”. But I had consumed enough alcohol to know what he really meant.

So I looked this guy square in the general direction of his head, weaved a little, and boldly announced, “I sure would. Let’s go.”

He looks stunned for a few seconds, and then just starts laughing. Crisis averted, he decided that I was his friend now. He shared some strange licorice tasting booze with me and acted decently for the rest of the evening.

The next morning my sergeant sat down with me in the chow hall.

“What on earth made you think you should start a fight with that guy last night?”

“You saw his collar Sergeant, he was a buck private, and I’m not gonna let a private talk to us like that.”

“British uniforms are different than ours. He’s not a private. He’s an NCO and he’s in the SAS. You’re only alive because he thought you were funny.”

“Oh.”

And if you’ve read the list, you can pretty much guess what the next two instructions were.

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So a few years ago I saw Terminator 3.  To say that I thought it was a bad movie would be a mild understatement.  It was a train wreck with opening credits and a soundtrack.  It’s so bad that I actually enjoy the other movies less, ambulance knowing that part 3 exists.

But next month there’s going to be a TV show, anesthetist and I’m kind of excited about it.  I mean sure it’s on FOX which means that they’ll kill it at the first sign that it looks decent, but they lined up a good cast and the previews make it seem pretty interesting.

On a similar note, it appears that there will soon be a new Star Wars live action show.  And despite the fact that each of the three last Star Wars movies made T3 look like Shakespeare, I’m still looking forward to that too.

I am positive that I am not alone in this phenomenon.  Nerds have become the equivalent of those housewives you used to see on Jerry Springer.  The ones who, despite years of abuse, keep going back to the same violent men because, “This time he promises he won’t hit me any more.”

Movie Viewer : Oh my god! That movie was terrible! What the hell happened to it George?

Mr. Lucas: (Gives a vicious glare)Yeah.  What happened to it?

Nerd Audience: It fell.  Down the stairs.  Twice.

Mr. Lucas: That’s what I thought….now get back in the kitchen and fry me up a pork chop you geeks!

Now I have a mental picture of a trailer park filled with a collection of white-trash nerds…and which I have now passed on to you.  Your brain probably now feels about as clean as Lindsey Lohan’s bicycle seat.  Pleasant dreams.

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I have discovered some people that I heartily approve of.

FUN for Our Troops.

They are taking donations to send video games to deployed soldiers. As I may have mentioned before on this site, deployments are boring. Soldiers need things like books, magazines and video games to keep both out of trouble and sane.

So check them out and if you can afford it, donate something. I also decided that 10% of the proceeds from my soon-to-be erected internet t-shirt store will be going to this particular cause. So if you don’t buy a squid t-shirt then you hate our soldiers. (And you probably kick puppies for fun too. In a fursuit.)

And on a similar note; I have a link to the site of the artist who made the nice squid picture.

Kirk Charlton’s Art Is Here

Be advised that some of the pictures are not safe for work.

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It’s taken a lot longer that I was hoping but the order for t-shirts is finally going out.

Here is the the final art that’s being used.

I’m getting t-shirts and mugs, and the store should be up in about an a few weeks. (Just in time to not be able to order them in time for Christmas!)

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Don’t you hate it when people become reasonable just when you have come up with an awesome way of dealing with them?

I have an example. My wife recently went to visit the doctor. While doing the whole checkup thing, he gave her a brief thirty second lecture on getting more exercise and eating better. Pretty much what happens with most people when they visit a doctor.

Well it turns out that he didn‘t think that this was part of the regular doctor visit. He thought that the brief lecture on a healthy lifestyle was far above and beyond normal doctor behavior. So much so, that he charged extra for it.

I’ll repeat that real fast in case it didn’t sink in properly.

He charged my wife extra, on top of what she paid for a checkup, because he gave a brief lecture on healthy lifestyle.

He felt that this exceptional service was worth forty-five dollars. I know doctor’s services are valuable, but that’s more than a dollar a second. It’s not like my wife asked “Could you throw in an extra lecture for me this time?”

We were a bit surprised to receive a second bill for what we believed to be a normal doctors visit. My wife called the office to complain, and I wrote a letter.

Dear My Wife’s Doctor,

I understand that you charged us an extra $45 dollars for the brief discussion of the importance of nutrition and exercise. Even though every single doctor in the U.S. gives that speech at every visit, you saw fit to charge an extra fee for it.
Well fair enough, you do deserve to be compensated for your time and effort. However I have a suggestion. In the future, maybe, just maybe, if you stop trying to attach extra fees to the bill in the hope that people will pay them without question; you will probably get more return patients. With a steady flow of return patients you will have more regular income and will not need to rely upon cheap tricks with your billing department to make ends meet.

Enclosed you will find my bill for “Business Advice” set at the very reasonable rate of $90 dollars. Please pay at your earliest convenience.

But no, before I could send the letter, the doctor’s office went and apologized and canceled the bill.

Inconsiderate bastards.

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