Blazing Saddles & Barbeque

This has been one helluva a week! I was meaning to do this post a few days ago but I had been too busy and too tired to do it. Wednesday we had a command visit from our company's commanding officer, LtCol Baker. Great guy and the visit went well too. It sure kept us busy and on our toes though. Wednesday I worked all evening but Thursday was the day we had everything planned for. We started the morning off with some horseback riding. I was lucky enough to get the horse they were training for racing. I had to keep that thing in check most of the time cause he wanted to take off on me. It was a lot of fun though and I gotta a little sun while I was out there. Then we had lunch at the ranch and took a break for the afternoon.

Later in the evening we went go-kart racing. Those were by far the fastest go-karts I have EVER driven! By testiment of my crashes, it took me a while to get the hang of it too. Regardless, I still came back to beat two of the guys. All I'm sayin is next time the rest of the guys better watch out cause I'll know what I'm doin. The next day I was sore as hell from the horseback riding and the multitude of go-kart crashes. Then on Saturday we had our barbeque here at the house for some of the embassy employees and their families. It went off great, the food was good and the beer plentiful. It did rain, but in typical Brazilian fashion it only lasted for about 20 minutes and quickly dryed up. Afterwards I went to a club with the other Marines and a few of the employees and called it a night after that. And on a sidenote, I got tickets to the Lenny Kravitz concert here on the 19th of March. I'm not the hugest Lenny fan in the world. I liked his first few albums more than his recent stuff but concerts rarely come to Brasília. So it's something different to do plus lots of my friends here are going. So it should be fun. Well that's it for now and I'm spent. Cpl Compton out.

Daylight Losing Time

That's what I call it here in Brazil because it's quite the opposite of saving daylight. Here's a little background for you. Daylight savings time was brought around during one of the World Wars, I don't remember which, to help increase productivity and decrease electricity costs by giving people more hours during the day that the sun was up so they could continue to work and keep lights turned off. But instead of moving the clock forward tonight, it moved back an hour. So the days here are shorter now. And it's not even the same friggin' day the US does it. Brazil is on their own program, that's for sure.

This means I get the luxury of standing an extra hour of duty tonight too! Yay for me! Well I have a lot to do tonight after I get done farting around on here so it's not so bad. Should go by quickly. I drank a two liter of Coke earlier tonight and I have enough money on standby to get two Cokes from the vending machine.

Last Friday we ran to the embassy from our house for the first time since I've been here. It was around 5 miles or 8 kilometers...my legs still haven't forgiven me yet. I have to get out there and run more often. And this coming week is going to be a very busy one. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to put up and tell you a little bit about what's going on. That's it for now, get out of here.

Valentine's What?

Another year and another Valentine's Day passed by uneventfully. Hell, I don't know if I've ever done anything for Valentine's Day. I couldn't do anything this year even though I wanted to because of work. We were supposed to have some inspections today...those got canceled but I still had to work tonight. So it pretty much put an ax into anything I might have wanted to plan with the girl I've been seeing the past two weeks. We are going out tomorrow though so maybe that'll make up for it, but I doubt it would just be the same. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, and this is kind of late coming by news standards, but the MPAA has shut down another BitTorrent site. This time the victim was LokiTorrent. Not only did the MPAA shut it down but they replaced it with a graphic saying "You can click, but you can't hide." In response a site posted a similiar graphic, observe:

They pretty much hit the problem on the head at that site. The MPAA can't continue with it's current business model and expect to make the same kind of profits it 5-7 years ago. Because of the evolution of peer-2-peer networks and the internet's ability to deliver content to the consumer the way THEY want it, it will never be the same. The bigwig moguls at these company's are going to have to realize this and adapt or continue waging this futil war against websites and peer-2-peer developers. Every time they shut down a service, a newer and more flexible one springs up in it's place. Napster begat Grokster which begat Kazaa which begat BitTorrent. So keep it up MPAA and RIAA, keep digging that grave in which you're burying yourselves. Or wise up. Your choice.

Year Of The Rooster

Today marks the beginning of the new year according to the Chinese calendar. Which happens to be the year of the rooster, which is also my birth year. Not that I really give two shits about Chinese horoscope b.s. but I stumbled upon that earlier today. Today is also lent which is the end of Carnival. I imagine things here at work will get back to normal next Monday after everyone recovers.

Yesterday we had an evacuation drill for the first time since I've been here. It went well for the first time considering not everyone was here. Me and the newest Marine in the detachment finally got our radio callsigns. Mine is pretty funny, but unfortunately is not something I can talk about on here due to OPSEC. That's it for now, Corporal Compton out.

Carnival, This Ain't No Mardi Gras, Bitches

I don't think my liver has ever had to work as hard as it has these past 5 days and I think it's starting to revolt. My body parts are going to form a union and strike in the next couple of days at the pace I'm going at. With Carnival right around the corner the city has definitely kicked it up a notch. The bars are open all day now and you better believe they're occupied. Two of the guys I work have gone to Rio to enjoy the festivities...lucky bastards. Which means the rest of us have to work everyday. That's not as bad as it sounds considering that it's real quiet here since everyone is off for the holidays. Ain't a whole lot else happening here.

So as you can tell I've decided to leave the blog up and running until I'm ordered to do otherwise. Hopefully that won't happen nor the events that pursued this unfortunate Army-dog for blogging. Also, head over to this site for some transcripts from some prank cyber-sex sessions if you want a good laugh.

Lastly, I would like to say congratulations to Justin on his new job with AirTran. To you sir I give you 250 points for getting out of that trap known as Gainesville. It's like a star that goes supernova after high school and if you stick around too long the resulting blackhole will keep you there for infinity. And let the record show, that I have nothing against Gainesville but the nature of small towns like that can keep you from reaching your full potential I think.

Afghanistanimation

This week has been pretty normal so far. I did get two interesting bits of news. At our weekly meeting our commander gave us some guidance that came from headquarters concerning websites run by Marine Security Guards. I'll have to check, but if my commander feels like this site violates those terms I might have to take it down or change the content. I hope neither of those happen. The other piece of news is that today he told us that either the newest Marine or myself is going to be nominated to go to Kabul in Afghanistan for four months. Every detachment in South America has to submit one nominee so it's not likely that either of us would get picked. But the possibility is definitely there I guess. We'll know pretty soon what the verdict is, probably in about two weeks if I had to guess.

(There's a lot of 'stans on that map!)

And to the person who corrently identifies the origin of the title of today's post will receive 10 points! Submit your guesses in the comments. And if you post anonymously make sure you include your name.