BunkBlog

British Kids asked to blow each other
I can’t believe I missed this article when it was new.

I can’t believe the Cool 2B Real site is still up. You’d think after all the bad publicity and outright mocking, they’d have pulled the thing by now.

From Fred On Everything this morning:

The function of psychologists is to serve as secular priests for an irreligious age. They provide comfort for people who want reassurance from insipid hand-holders who smell slightly of some inner truth. They form a vacuous clergy relentlessly certifying the obvious. Talking to one of them is like being patted on the head and having your face wiped with a warm moist rag. It doesn’t accomplish anything, but you feel attended to.

Asked to characterize the sniper, [the psychologist] said, “Well, I think we can say that these killings are the work of a disturbed individual….”

Oh.

I received this insight with gratitude. It was comforting to learn that serial snipers weren’t normal. It is well that we have psychologists to study these truths.

FAA Considering Passenger Ban

WASHINGTON, DC–Seeking to address “the number-one threat to airline security,” the Federal Aviation Administration announced Monday that it will consider banning passengers on all domestic and international commercial flights.
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Yeah, I took one of those silly quizzes to wake up this morning.

Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla
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Cary Tennis has lots of folks writing him letters this week. A few highlights so far:

Avoid musicians and artists at all costs unless it’s solely a one-night stand.

I fell in love with someone who balances me and makes me happy, not someone that sets me afire because I know that kind of passion is part delusion and always temporary.

Stop calling severe psychological disorders “charming personality quirks.”

If you are a 45-year-old woman and you are dressing like Shakira in public and it is not Halloween, please stop.

Divorce – Parents longing for the freedom of their youth came and left like so many callers at a child’s wake. Some talked to my friends about it, some didn’t. None stayed for very long. All claimed needing to “experience life.” The effects are still being shown to this day — all of my friends either stay in relationships no matter what the cost or leave them no matter what the benefits.

To youth today, everything is a bloody drama.
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Cthuugle, a parody of Google, contains all the sites you want about the Old Ones…
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From today –

I played my ass off last night. And it was good!

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Wanting to get my grocery shopping for the week done early, I hit Safeway at 9am on Sunday. Picked up a bottle of 1999 Beringer Gamay Beaujolais, to go with the French Country Bake I’m making for my little dinner gathering this week.

“Sorry, I can’t sell you this until 10 o’clock on Sunday.”

Is there a state in the Union that has no restrictions on alcohol sales on the weekend? I feel like I’m in the 18th century at times.

Oh, well, I still forgot the lemon for the hefeweisen and I was planning to pick up the crusty bread Tuesday afternoon anyhow.

Sexual Playground

Please work it into your conversations as possible. Thank you and have a surreal day.

From BlooJanuary‘s journal…

I must say, I’m all about being a whore. That’s important. Sex is important and delicious. You should fuck as many people as possible at all times. BUT DON’T BE DIRTY ABOUT IT.

An attitude more people need, obviously. hehe
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The boy has been repeating the tagline from the latest Carl’s Jr commercial all through dinner.

Doan bodda mee, I’m eating!

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For and other folks down in Gitmo…

David Letterman’s Top Ten Taliban Complaints About Camp X-Ray

10. “Three meals a day and none of them are goat”

9. “‘Death to America’ T-shirts only come in cotton/poly blend”

8. “Can’t get used to this whole warm bed, cooked food, running water thing”

7. “Lying American propaganda makes it seem like Taliban is losing”

6. “Television only gets one channel and it’s CBS”

5. “Achmed totally stole my skit idea for camp talent show”

4. “Have you seen the bathrooms? I’ve lived in caves with better facilities”

3. “Haven’t gotten one X-ray”

2. “Just because you’re a bearded nut in Cuba everyone assumes you know Fidel”

1. “Dude in next cell keeps bragging he used to be head of Enron.”
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From The Onion

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Described To
Sioux City Relatives
SIOUX CITY, IA – At a family reunion Monday,
Phillip and Melissa DiResta of Orlando, FL,
attempted to convey the taste, texture, and
general deliciousness of Krispy Kreme
doughnuts to their Sioux City relatives.
“They’re doughnuts, but not, like,
doughnut-doughnuts,” Phillip told second
cousin Jon Colangelo. “They’re not like the
cakey, Dunkin’ Donuts kind, but more like,
you know, the ones that are more like bread,
only fried or glazed or something.” Over the
course of the next 10 minutes, Melissa cited
nearly a dozen other popular pastries for
comparative purposes, prompting Colangelo
to express hope that a Krispy Kreme outlet
would one day open in Sioux City.

While I was in Omaha, I finally had the opportunity to partake in what has been described as a near-orgasmic experience, akin to the ambrosia of the gods made dough. Um, I don’t get it. They’re just light donuts with double glazing. Seriously, I’d rather have an apple fritter.

Although, the chocolate-cherry cream filling was quite nice. 🙂

Here’s a great smart-ass view of LiveJournal users: Ten Types of LJ Users.
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This Korean ad is hilarious. The small amount of speaking is irrelevant to the joke, so don’t be daunted. I’d just like to say that the Korean TV scene has obviously changed an awful lot in the 4+ years since I last was there.
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Well, I was planning to put up some KMFMS shirts and such on my site, but I’ve since found out that someone beat me to it years ago. And here I was thinking I was clever and stuff. I’d hate to tread on someone else’s toes, so what should I add? Anyone have a suggestion for something rude and nasty, and maybe even not military-related? 🙂
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Monday –

This is a favorite anecdote that I share with folks I know. Back in 1992, I was in the Army at Fort Ord, based in lovely Monterey California. There was a junior enlisted fellow that worked in the supply room, and he had been working there before I arrived at the unit. After a few months, I found out his story, and it was a doozy.

This soldier, PV2 Gardner, was not a supply specialist, but a communications specialist. Since we had no commo section in the battalion (they had been moved to higher headquarters two years or so earlier), I inquired as to why Private Gardner was here, issuing paper tablets and computer disks, rather than assigned to a unit where he might have the chance to connect up some radios and telephones.

Well, he had been on assignment to Korea a couple years earlier, leaving at the same time as the rest of the commo folks that had been assigned to the battalion. As he outprocessed the battalion, division, and post, he did everything as normally expected. Then SPC(P) Gardner got to the housing office, and they were in the middle of a big inspection. The housing folks, looking at his ship date, realized he could stand to wait, while the bigwigs that were breathing down their necks would not wait. “Go home and we’ll call you,” he was told. Ever obedient, he went home and waited.

After his report date had passed without incident and he was still at home waiting, he decided he’d been forgotten. Normally, a soldier would be forthright and get back to the offending party as soon as possible, and certainly before he was late for his next assignment. This is referred to as being Absent Without Leave, or AWOL, and is not a good thing. Well, Gardner just stayed home and collected his Army pay for a while, then went out and got a civilian job as well. With his two paychecks, he was doing pretty well for his family. One day he got a phone call.

The Housing Office needed to speak to him. They had some news for him that he’d been waiting on for a while: his new government quarters were ready for occupancy. Yes, this soldier moved from off-post housing to on-post housing while still AWOL from his unit.

After two years or so, the commander wondered why he kept getting Leave and Earning Statements for some guy he’d never heard of named Gardner. He started a low-key investigation, and after 4 months got the answer. Now it gets really weird.

CPT Isham was hoping to get picked up for Major that year, and was doing everything possible to maintain a spotless record of command until the board convened. Obviously, having someone AWOL for 2 years without reporting it would be a bit of a smudge on one’s record. So, when CPT Isham finally caught up with SPC Gardner, he brought him back to the unit and charged him under non-judicial punishment for Failure to Repair. This is the military equivalent of not showing up for work on time, hardly the same thing as being a deserter. Desertion is defined as being AWOL for more than 30 days under normal circumstances (it’s immediate for those in special security positions), and 29 months was certainly more than 30 days by any calendar.

Gardner received a particularly harsh punishment for his actual charge, and was reduced in rank from a promotable Specialist (nearly a Sergeant) down to a Private-2. He was also fined a month’s pay and kept on restriction for 14 days. Since his job had been erased long prior, he was put in the Supply Room to give him gainful employment while he lost weight. You see, he’d put on so much tonnage while he was AWOL that he no longer was anywhere near the weight standards, and you can’t transfer to a new unit when you’re overweight. Or at least, you couldn’t then.

All would have been relatively normal at that point, if Gardner wanted to resume his military career. He didn’t. If a soldier who has been in more than 6 years gets kicked out of the army for being overweight, he gets severance pay. Our intrepid hero just kept that weight on until they had no choice but to send him back to civilian life, a few grand richer even.

All this seems to explain the reason for the title of this essay, but I’m not done yet. His attentive wife, upon looking back on the accumulated earning statements, realized the army had screwed up somewhere back in the beginning of this adventure. While living in an off-post apartment, a soldier is given a set amount of money for his pay grade and an additional amount for the area where he lives. Monterey is an expensive area, and Gardner had not received all the Variable Housing Allowance he was “owed” for his time off-post. Yes, that’s right folks: while spending 2 years sucking up unearned military pay, the boy actually had the gall to ask for some extra money. Since the commander had not charged Gardner with desertion, he was considered to have been on active duty in good standing the entire 2+ years he was playing basketball with his sons all day. The man actually got back pay for the time he was not at work!

Now, if that isn’t a gigantic pair, I don’t know what is.

I love Texas. I suppose it’s the same anywhere with a strong cultural identity, but I’ve spent more time in Texas than anywhere but California and Korea, so I’ll fixate on Texas.

There is a common phrase heard by anyone not from the South, when we are visiting Texas: “Where y’all from?” With major emphasis on the from, naturally.

My best “Where y’all from” story is one from a couple years ago. I was stationed in Texas, as an instructor at the intel school. (No, military intelligence is not an oxymoron, you cretin. Come up with a more original slam, ok?) We instructors would often go out to dinner together, when we were working evenings. This particular night, we went to the Catfish Corner nearby. Oddly, the Catfish Corner is not on a corner, and in fact is not even in sight of any street corners. But, it is alliterative.

So, we go to the catfish restaurant (and restaurant is a generous description), noting as we arrive that they are having an all-you-can-eat special on catfish and quail. I don’t eat enough to ever feel that “all-you-can-eat” is a good deal, but a couple coworkers did. So, Chip asks what quail tastes like, since his Ohio-born self had never tried such a delicacy.
“It tastes like dove,” replied the waitress, pronouncing dove in a way nearly impossible to describe in mere roman letters, but something like “du-uhve”. Extra long, with some breathiness in there.
“And what does dove taste like?” quipped friend Chip, while visions of the bird of peace bounced in my head.
“Where y’all from?”

It had never occured to her, apparently, that there was anyone who had never actually tried eating doves. Go figure.