Still Angry

I think I thought I saw you try

2009-12-03T19:24:00.004-06:00

I'm debating one of Matthew Yglesias's typically moronic and ignorant commenters about a fundamentally silly topic (hypothetical future Iranian nukes against non-existent US forces not actually in the Middle East today), if anyone cares. The first of so far two rounds is down at comment #33.

It rather makes me miss the Slithery D v. Publius days.

Synopsis

2009-12-01T18:52:00.002-06:00

So to recap the last few weeks:

On November 4th the girlfriend came into town, for the second time in a row when I was on or just coming off staff duty (which requires me to spend the night at work), which contributed to our second fight at first sight.

On November 5th we attended my former battalion's formal ball, which ended in her crying in front of the assembled officers and many of the soldiers and NCOs before leaving with my worst enemy, who I presumed, not without considerable relief, that she was going to bang in revenge. This proved not to be the case.

On November 6th we got back together, not least because she wasn't due to leave until the 15th.

On November 7th we attended my brigade's formal ball, which went considerably better; even the shocked looks and commentary from witnesses of the penultimate night's events were amusing.

On November 12th the accumulated incompatibilities and annoyances of living with me resulted in a dinner conversation that implicitly acknowledged this relationship wasn't going to work. Several hours later her umpteenth reversal on this point caused a huge fight. Mistakes were made.

On November 13th I visited the police. That night and the 14th I stayed at a friend's house. I wrote an ill advised blog post about the events of the previous night. I took it down.

On November 15th I took her to airport on reasonable speaking terms. I also had staff duty again, marking my third night in a row not sleeping in a real bed and my fourth night without proper sleep.

On November 16th I attended the Hail & Farewell for my former battalion. I got home at 2230. As usual, I got up at 0430 the next morning.

On November 17th I finally finished Call of Duty: ~~Red Dawn~~ MW2. This had been the cause of some friction the previous week. I didn't go to bed at a terribly reasonable time.

On November 18th I attended the Hail & Farewell for my new battalion. I got home at 2200 this time.

On November 19th I attended the fourth going away speech of our outgoing battalion commander; he had nothing new to say, but he said it at considerable length. I got home a couple of hours late, but nothing too drastic.

On November 20th I arrived home and left the apartment only once in the next 48 hours.

On November 23 I got up even earlier than usual for a brigade run. It lasted an hour. Casualties approached 50% overall, and greatly exceeded that in the support battalions. Ten days into running after 45 off with a severe case of tendinitis, I lasted longer than I expected, and then took comfort in the awesome disaster at the rear of the formation that I became part of as each unexpected additional loop broke the hearts of more soldiers, a few company commanders, and even most of the brigade staff. On the drive home I spoke to the ex-girlfriend for the first time since she left.

On November 24th I attended the mandatory change of command ceremony that my friends skipped. It was cold. I sat next to the most annoying and verbose lieutenant in the Army. The outgoing brigade commander elected to ride a horse during the ceremony; of the four people who did so, he was given the smallest, fattest, most mulely looking beast, and proved unable to control it for a long time as it came to a stubborn stop and then turned circles while his bosses and replacement confidently cantered along. This may have been a metaphor for something.

On November 26th I flew to Texas for Thanksgiving. My step-father's annoying family were there. My sister brought her hobo hoard for dinner. There was barely enough food. I spoke very little between dinner and my departure on the 28th.

On November 29th I decided to finally unpack the majority of my equipment from Iraq that has sucked up half of my living room space for two months. It now looks like I moved in at least a week ago.

On November 30th I signed a form acknowledging that I have staff duty on Christmas day. Apparently my commander's intervention got me removed from the duty schedule on New Year's Eve.

Today I finally felt like blogging again.

Fit to print

2009-11-29T09:06:00.003-06:00

Is there anyone except people who exclusively read the NYT who doesn't know that part of the "speculation" about Tiger Wood's car wreck must necessarily include the tidbit that less than 48 hours earlier word leaked on the internet of a forthcoming Inquirer story claiming that he's been having an affair?

One doesn't need to believe or endorse that story to think the false claim might have come to Mrs. Woods attention on Thanksgiving and led to him tearing out of the driveway after 2 a.m. in such a state that he immediately crashed...or even did so deliberately. But you'll never know if you only read the Gray Lady.

It's such a big mistake, lying here in your warm embrace

2009-11-06T00:11:00.002-06:00

Today's Rilo Kiley song is The Good That Won't Come Out, in honor of my epically horrific public breakup tonight at my recently former battalion's military ball.

It's (probably) about being trapped in a doomed situation and being too afraid to escape it

Let's get together and talk about the modern age.
All of our friends were gathered there with their pets
just talking shit about how we're all so upset about the disappearing ground.
As we watch it melt....

It's all of the good that won't come out of us
and how eventually our hands will just turn to dust,
if we keep shaking them.
Standing here on this frozen lake.

I do this thing where I think I'm real sick
but I won't go to the doctor to find out about it
Cause they make you stay real still in a real small space
As they chart up your insides and put them on display.
They'd see all of it, all of me, all of it.

All the good that won't come out of me
and all the stupid lies I hide behind.
It's such a big mistake
lying here in your warm embrace.

Oh, you're almost home.
I've been waiting for you to come in.
Dancing around in your old suits going crazy in your room again.
I think I'll go out an embarrass myself by getting drunk and falling down in
the street.
You say I choose sadness
that it never once has chosen me.
Maybe you're right...

Let's talk about all of our friends who lost the war
And all of the novels that had yet to be written about them.

It's all the good that won't come out of them
and all the stupid lies they hide behind.
It's such a big mistake
Standing here on this frozen lake.

It's all of the good that won't come out of me
And how eventually my mouth will just turn to dust
If I don't tell you quick.
Standing here on this frozen lake.

'Cause you're just damage control for a walking corpse like me - like you

2009-11-02T18:26:00.003-06:00

Today's Rilo Kiley song, Portions for Foxes (CD quality file), is dedicated to the wife of one of my soldiers, who accused another one of them of rape this weekend under highly questionable circumstances. I got to conduct the administrative, non-legal, investigation today. Which is good, because I'd hate to prejudge the results of the rape kit just because she's previously recanted another rape accusation and [...] and [...].

Portions for Foxes is a catchy, upbeat tune about a trainwreck of a relationship.

There's blood in my mouth 'cause I've been biting my tongue all week
I keep on talkin' trash but I never say anything
And the talkin' leads to touchin'
and the touchin' leads to sex
and then there is no mystery left

And It's bad news
Baby I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news

I know I'm alone if I'm with or without you
but just bein' around you offers me another form of relief
When the loneliness leads to bad dreams
and the bad dreams lead me to callin' you
and I call you and say "C'MERE!"

And it's bad news
Baby I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news

And it's bad news
Baby it's bad news
It's just bad news, bad news, bad news

'Cause you're just damage control
for a walking corpse like me - like you

'Cause we'll all be
Portions for foxes
Yeah we'll all be
Portions for foxes

There's a pretty young thing in front of you
and she's real pretty and she's real into you
and then she's sleepin' inside of you
and the talkin' leads to touchin'
then touchin' leads to sex
and then there is no mystery left

And it's bad news
I don't blame you
I do the same thing
I get lonely too

And you're bad news
My friends tell me to leave you
That you're bad news, bad news, bad news

That you're bad news
Baby you're bad news
and you're bad news
Baby you're bad news
and you're bad news
I don't care I like you
and you're bad news
I don't care I like you
I like you

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

2009-11-02T18:17:00.001-06:00

For ten years, Boulder residents have staged a spontaneous “naked pumpkin run” on Halloween, in which dozens of runners (150 last year) don only shoes and a pumpkin on their head, then jog a four-block route through the city.

Fail.

Least. Informative. Lede. Ever.

2009-10-31T10:01:00.002-05:00

Way to go, AP:

BEIJING (AP) -- Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo sure know how to make a comeback.

Who? Comeback at what?

Competing at their first event since winning the 2007 world title, Shen and Zhao claimed gold at the Cup of China on Saturday with a landslide victory. Their score of 200.97 points was almost 15 ahead of reigning world silver medalists Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao.
''Our goal is the Olympics,'' Zhao said. ''That is why we're here ... to reach our goal step by step.''

The Olympics in what? Something with points, I guess.

Japan's Nobunari Oda won his second Grand Prix title of the season, beating world champion Evan Lysacek. Akiko Suzuki of Japan was the surprise winner in a lackluster women's competition, while Olympic silver medalists Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto easily won the ice dance title.

Why were a Formula One race and ice dancing happening at the same event?

Shen and Zhao retired after winning their third world title in 2007. But the two-time Olympic bronze medalists decided to try one last time for that elusive Olympic gold.
Though they were rusty in spots, their free skate to ''Adagio in G Minor'' showcased their power and their passion. Their triple twist was huge, and their lifts were smooth and featured unique positions.

Oh! I don't know how a piece from "Ice Skater Journal" got lifted without any modification for a general audience and reprinted in the New York Times.

You're gonna crash on the barrelhead son / You'll regret the things that you done

2009-10-29T17:02:00.003-05:00

John O'Quinn has died, not too far from where I once lived.

I'm selling people things they don't want when I don't know what you need

2009-10-28T21:38:00.002-05:00

This blog, obviously, has been somewhat adrift of late. Lacking any better ideas, I'll go back to that old volume (output, not readers) standby, music blogging.

My latest music obsession is Rilo Kiley, discovered some months back on Yglesias' blog. I like Jenny Lewis' voice quite a lot, and find something nicely romantically forlorn (or straight up interestingly depressing, on The Execution of All Things album) in a lot of their lyrics.

Today's sample is A Man / Me / Then Jim, one I just came to new appreciation of today.

Lyrics:

I had one friend in high school recently he hung himself with string
His note said
"If livin' is the problem, well that's just baffling."
And at the wake I waited around to see my ex first love
And I barely recognized her, but I knew exactly what she was thinking of
We sat quietly in the corner whispering close about loss
And I remembered why I loved her, and I asked her why I drove her off

She said
The slow fade of love
Its soft edge might cut you
And our poor friend, Jim
Well he just lived within
The slow fade of love

A woman calls my house once a week; she's always selling things
Some charity, a phone plan, a subscription to a magazine
And as I turned her down, I always do, there was something trembling in her voice
I said
Hey, what troubles you?
She said
I'm surprised you noticed
Well, my husband, he's leaving, and I can't convince him to stay
And he'll take our daughter with him, she wants to go with him anyway
I'm sorry I'm hard to live with, living is the problem for me
I'm selling people things they don't want when I don't know what you need

He said the slow fade of love
And its mist might choke you
It's my gradual descent
Into a life I never meant
It's the slow fade of love

I was driving south of Melrose; I happened upon my old lover's old house
I found myself staring at the closed up door like the day she threw me out
"Dianna, Dianna, Dianna I would die for you
I'm in love with you completely, I'm afraid that's all I can do"
She said
"You can sleep upon my doorstep, you can promise me indifference, Jim
But my mind is made up, and I'll never let you in again"

For the slow fade of love
It might hit you from below
It's your gradual descent
Into a life you never meant
It's the slow fade of love

Down

2009-10-15T16:33:00.005-05:00

This is a strange one.

The mystery appeared to be deepening in Fort Collins.
The authorities were investigating whether Falcon Heene could have been in a box attached to the bottom of the balloon. According to The Associated Press, one of the boy’s two older brothers had seen him climbing into the box before the balloon lifted off. But the box was not attached to the balloon when it made its soft landing in a field in Adams County, Colo., about 20 miles northeast of Denver International Airport.

Kathy Messick, a spokeswoman for the Larimer County Sheriff’s office, said that the box had been attached with pegs.
Ms. Messick, briefing reporters on the Heene family’s narrow, tree-lined street jammed with emergency vehicles, said that the authorities were now searching the three counties — Larimer, Weld and Adams — over which the balloon flew.

Apparently balloons are big around here. I saw one drifting along as I left work today. No children were observed falling from it.

Update: Disappointing.

A six-year-old boy thought to have been carried away by a helium balloon in Colorado was in fact hiding in a box in an attic at home, an official has said.

Larimer county sheriff Jim Alderden told reporters that apparently Falcon Heene had "been there the whole time".

And from Twitter:

#balloonboy, imma let you finish, but Amelia Earhart had one of the best disappearances in flight OF ALL TIME!!

and

Yo Balloon Boy, I'm a let you finish, but Anne Frank had the best attic hideout spot of all time.

And one to grow on

2009-10-15T14:45:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow postdeployment block leave ends; it's also my last official day with my current company and battalion. On Monday I report to the artillery battalion headquartered 50 meters from my current company office for a job TBA.

As a going away present tomorrow I get to do the end of the week arms room inventory, a task that normally requires a few hours, that since our return from Iraq has taken little more than one hour, and that tomorrow, if they decide to open and unpack our sensitive items containers that just arrived, will take all day plus some.

Thanks, guys.

Faith in humanity rises 2%

2009-10-12T10:33:00.002-05:00

After longer than I care to think about, Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" has finally fallen out of the #1 selling slot at the iTunes store.

To #2. And replaced by Britney Spears.

Boooored now

2009-10-09T14:09:00.002-05:00

Fort the 1+ occasional Iain Banks fans reading this, you can safely skip Transition. The three star ratings are correct.

Following Matter, this bodes ill for his future sci-fi output. I confess I haven't kept up with his more conventional weirdness of late.

Paths not taken

2009-10-08T09:55:00.004-05:00

My original orders after school were to 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, which is currently in Afghanistan and popping up in the news quite often in recent months as they suffer casualties. Here's an article on allegedly low morale with some choice quotes.

“We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose closest friend was shot dead by a renegade Afghan policeman last Friday. “I need a clear-cut purpose if I’m going to get hurt out here or if I’m going to die.”

Sergeant Christopher Hughes, 37, from Detroit, has lost six colleagues and survived two roadside bombs. Asked if the mission was worthwhile, he replied: “If I knew exactly what the mission was, probably so, but I don’t.”

The only soldiers who thought it was going well “work in an office, not on the ground”. In his opinion “the whole country is going to s***”.

The battalion’s 1,500 soldiers are nine months in to a year-long deployment that has proved extraordinarily tough. Their goal was to secure the mountainous Wardak province and then to win the people’s allegiance through development and good governance. They have, instead, found themselves locked in an increasingly vicious battle with the Taleban.

They have been targeted by at least 300 roadside bombs, about 180 of which have exploded. Nineteen men have been killed in action, with another committing suicide. About a hundred have been flown home with amputations, severe burns and other injuries likely to cause permanent disability, and many of those have not been replaced. More than two dozen mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) have been knocked out of action.

By contrast, we in 1-67 AR suffered five KIA due to enemy action (in one catastrophic attack) and another dead in an accident (all six in my company), plus roughly half a dozen evacuated with not too serious gunshot or shrapnel wounds after spending the last half of the deployment in the most dangerous current area of Iraq.

I recall thinking when I made the trade to come to Colorado back in January 2008 that one of the downsides was that a deployment to Iraq was going to be slightly more dangerous than one to Afghanistan

Conspicuous consumption

2009-09-08T00:14:00.003-05:00

Since returning from Iraq three and a half weeks ago I have acquired the following big ticket items:

A television
A computer
A car
A girlfriend

So far these have cost me more than 90% of what I earned in Iraq, although with the exception of the last they are nonrecurring items that shouldn't hurt going forward.

I will continue to advise my soldiers not to do what I have been doing. I have been particularly disapproving of car purchases. Tomorrow should be interesting.

James Marsters news

2009-08-23T11:55:00.001-05:00

Buffy fans may be interested to know he's been cast as in the new Battlestar Galactica spinoff, Caprica, and he is dead.

e-lementary

2009-08-18T15:21:00.002-05:00

I believe it was on the last blog I discussed my peculiar love of the number 37, and how it crops up surprisingly often in fiction or daily life when people are called upon to invent a number, probably because 3 and 7 seem psychologically random (they aren't end or middle points on the 0-9 continuum) and also have religious/magical cultural significance.

But now I see that 100/e also rounds to 37, which is the optimal number of objects to sample in a set of 100 objects of unknown quality to maximize your chance of picking the best one. Very cool.

Got away

2009-08-18T14:37:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure what I think about this.

Back in the USSR USA

2009-08-16T18:05:00.002-05:00

I have returned to Colorado Springs, and nothing appears changed, except that one of the two girls at the coffee shop I used to frequent five times a week radically changed her hair.

I am in the slow process of putting my life back together. My car will eventually be released from durance government in a couple of days, if I can get the registration renewed and overnighted from Texas in time. I move into more apartment than I need but only a sliver more than I wanted (two bathrooms? really?) on Saturday, and then will need to spend a material fraction of the year's pay I have sitting in my checking account on various new and improved furnishings before belatedly finding somewhere productive to park the balance.

First stupid purchase: a MacBook Pro. What happened to this? Let us never speak of it.

With a bang, then a whimper

2009-07-25T13:42:00.003-05:00

Even allowing for dust storm delays, I will almost certainly be back home, deployment complete, in less than a month. With a very little luck I will not go on another mission before then, and will hold the questionable distinction (one of many) in our battalion of leading the last platoon to be attacked, as well as the last one to be go outside the gate.

The attack was a small pipe bomb that ineffectually blew up right in front of me and right next to my lead truck...the 18th in the larger convoy, and the first time US forces had been attacked during curfew in the six months we've been here.

In what I sincerely hope was the last time anyone serving as QRF had to do anything, yesterday I had to chase some ~~kids off my lawn~~ teenagers and their sheep outside our base's outer concertina wire perimeter. It ain't pasture ground, guys. Not that I could explain that, since my interpreter chose not to be findable in the fifteen minute window I had to respond to the call.

Nevertheless, my sudden transformation into a homicidal rage expression and loudly profane threats of impending death, combined with a modest twitch of my rifle barrel, finally convinced them to vacate the premises after an extended mutually incomprehensible session of babbling and arm waving at the signs they were standing on the wrong side of that read in Arabic "deadly force authorized." As a buddy commented after, "everyone speaks barrel to the face." Not something I literally tested, but given how much I scared my own medic standing next to me, not necessary, either.

Goodbye, Mosul. Try not to mortar me too much on my way out.

Waking up is a strange reason to diiiiiiiiiiie

2009-07-14T05:03:00.003-05:00

I first saw "Auto-Tune the News" in installment #2 a couple of months ago on Razib's blog and found it brilliant in parts, but uneven. Now the series has gotten positive mention on Slate so I thought I'd revisit it. Whoa! #5 and #6 are much more consistently brilliant.

Inadvertent utopias

2009-07-04T01:47:00.001-05:00

Troy Patterson invents Remote Roulette and makes me laugh:

81 IFC. RoboCop! Director Paul Verhoeven was clearly looking through rose-colored glasses when peering at the future of Detroit, but the film otherwise holds up well as a story of crime and vengeance—at least the stretch between Leeza Gibbons' cameo and the initial firing of the Cobra Assault Cannon.

The shortest path

2009-06-30T04:59:00.003-05:00

As of today US forces are not permitted in Iraqi cities except under certain extremely limited circumstances that bear very little in common with the assumptions my brigade commander has been laboring under for a very long time. Shockingly enough, Maliki actually meant what he's been unambiguously shouting for months on television.

So I shouldn't be going into Mosul ever again, barring some truly extraordinary circumstances. This is a good thing. Alas, the Army is not going to let me sit on my ass for a month or send me home earlier than planned, so I will be operating somewhere else, just outside Mosul. The most direct route, passing through the city, would get me there in just over an hour, and would take perhaps half an hour with good roads, better suspensions, or no traffic.

The indirect route, which is the one we have to take, is estimated to require something very close to and quite possibly exceeding five hours. I will be ascertaining the exact time quite soon.

But it's not as bad as it seems, because I expect the return journey to be much faster. Medical evacuations are one of the exceptions allowing one to drive through the city, so my platoon sergeant and I have agreed we'll just shoot one of our guys in the arm or leg at the end of each mission so we can trim four hours off the trip home.

We'd always hoped you two kids would get together. Who is she?

2009-06-21T09:55:00.001-05:00

Gadzooks! I finally realized today that Christina Hendricks, the red-headed office slut of Mad Men, was also Saffron in Firefly.

I was not hugely disappointed with the cancellation of the latter show, but I do remember thinking after the two episodes she appeared in that it was a huge crime such a ridiculously beautiful woman who showed every sign of real acting ability wasn't a star. Alas, my relief that she finally got a break is mixed with sadness at realizing it was semi-reasonable that I didn't instantly recognize her - as gorgeous as the 2007 (and beyond) version is, something sublime was squandered in the intervening years she was making single appearances in nonsense like "Cold Case" and "Tru Calling."

See also Meester, Leighton, who should be better known as Carrie Bishop. Still, someday I'll break down and watch an episode of Gossip Girl just for her.

And you're not happy, but you're funny

2009-06-13T01:36:00.002-05:00

Boy, this deployment is getting tedious. The car bomber was a nice break, but it has been dead boring around here for some time.

For a while I had hope that my grenade baiting patrols through the most dangerous intersection in our part of town were going to pay off, but our idiot engineers who inspired me with their incompetence the last time they ate an RKG there actually managed to identify and shoot at the most predictable and dumb terrorists in Mosul on their last outing...without hitting anyone. I got to clean up their mess and wait for EOD to blow up the harmlessly dropped grenade, and they got to waste three rifle rounds and the most perfect opportunity to safely and predictably hose down those surprisingly effective fools with .50 cal machine gun fire. My chance at glory for bagging those guys on my own initiative (...or further infamy if one my gunners missed by 30m and drilled several holes clear through an innocent's house) is almost certainly blown.

On the domestic front, I did have a good 48 hour run where I pissed off our most dangerous platoon sergeant, received a really amusing attempt at an ass chewing from our semi-autistic infantry-brainwashed company executive officer, and then inadvertently revealed the laziness and/or incompetence of two captains (plus two innocent bystanders who also got blamed) to our battalion commander, but I seem to have stalled on the enemy development front since then. And while one of the innocent bystanders did threaten to eat my unborn children in the future, the rest have been disappointingly passive in their enmity.

I did come awesomely close to the greatest Army social fuckup of all time, but as usual disaster will flirt with me, but the bitch never puts out.

Me: So, why did Sergeant X [creepy, psychologically questionable guy] get his weapon confiscated this time?

[incoherent mumbling from the crowd that presumes I already know or doesn't hear my question]

1SG: And you know what? He says the doctor is going to sign off on him going home, but that's not what the doc told me.

Me: If he goes home, what about his wife? [He got married 6 months ago on leave to a 19 year old soldier a decade his junior who is deployed with the rest of our brigade elsewhere in Iraq.]

1SG: [somewhat condescendingly] The Army will always send her home in that situation, sir.

Me: What, if her husband goes crazy [-er] and gets sent back for treatment she's exempt from the rest of the deployment? That seems odd.

SSG T: No, you can't be in a combat zone if you're pregnant.

Me: [still not getting it, and deploying my standard joke] That's great! Does he know who the father is?

SSG T: Well, not him.

Me: Uh, what? Didn't it happen on leave?

1SG: He went on leave in January. She's six weeks pregnant. [It is clear all five people in the room think I'm an idiot and that I'd known this all along.]

Me: Oooooooh. [Later:] You know, there's a really funny alternate reality where I didn't ask enough questions to get through your collective assumption that I wasn't the last person to find out about this. In that world I'm going up to the most unstable soldier in the company and saying, "congratulations, I hear you're having a baby!" And then having no idea why my teeth are on the floor.

Them: [Stunned expressions, followed by laughter. Disappointed laughter, the bastards.]