I figure a little personal update is in order. Mostly because I am sitting home, waiting to hear from my beloved lazy sack of bones. He squeezed (yes, he has put on almost 15 lbs of squidge since we wed) into his Class A pickle-suit this morning and sauntered off to the promotion board- only three years late! It’s a long and bitter story, and I think I have touched on it previously. Let’s just say that the Army has plenty of jerks who are more interested in chasing their own personal gain than in helping their soldiers. My lazybones is quiet, but he’s a damn fine troop and the most decent guy I’ve EVER known. He doesn’t tend to fuss even when someone does him wrong, which is a shame. I get more fired up over this stuff than he does, by far! But anyway, I am waiting here for him to text or call and tell me how it went. Since I know he’s prepared and squared away, I am sure things went great.

I’m a little under the weather. The actual weather has been excellent all week. I feel like shit, however. The kids caught colds at daycare when I was in Toronto in the middle of the month, and I have been wiping snot noses for going on two weeks now- I was bound to get it. So three days of head goo came and (mostly) went, and now the crud has settled into my chest. The kids are coughing too, and I can do NOTHING for them but hug them, pat their backs and kiss their snotty faces. Stupid pharmaceutical companies and their lousy child-endangering cough remedies! My mother pumped me full of Vicks Formula 44, Actifed, and anything else she could convince me to ingest as a kid- and I turned out just fine.

Oh, stop laughing, I am really quite healthy when I am not the leading producer of lung butter in the European Union. And any mental problems I’ve got are the result of other weird childhood crap, a string of shitty relationships and a deployment to Iraq.

So anyway, we have been unable to take advantage of the lovely weather due to our nasty phlegm making party, and I fully expect the thunderstorms to come back just as soon as the gunk clears our bronchial tubes and such.

We’ve been struggling through random power and water outages here as well. They apparently decided that letting us know about the outages would be giving us an unfair advantage, allowing us to stock up on bottled water and all. Jackasses.

Also, a whole bunch of troops just got home. Good for them, yeah. But it means that most of them are acting like fucking morons, and the MPs are busy as hell, and that every store and/or office on post is clogged with a bunch of hooah-hooah motherfuckers, who all think that they’re hot shit. Yeah, okay, good job and all that but I was downrange when some of these clowns were just getting their driver’s licenses, or skateboarding to middle school. I feel old.

I gotta go hack up some goo now.

40%

Snatched up at SYLG.

Feminists get their panties in a bunch over a video game.

First of all, it looks inappropriate for kids- despite the “cartoony” graphics style. Check all the blood, and dead bodies strewn across most of the screenshots linked from the article. I wouldn’t allow my kids to play it just for the sheer violence content. How does that “create a new generation of fat-hating assholes”? (To paraphrase one of the sources listed.) In my opinion, this game should be hit up by the ESRB with at least a “Teen” rating (I was unable to find a rating for it on the site). By the time kids are teens they’ve had years of schoolyard experiences with fat-haters and bullies who will seize upon any perceived fault or difference to shame, ridicule and berate other kids for. As if that isn’t enough, they’re likely to hear tales of how obesity can negatively affect their health (from the education system, those fat-hating assholes). Fat-hating cities are banning fast food and transfats, requiring calorie counts on menus, and suggesting that it’s in peoples’ best interests not to eat until they balloon up like Mr. Creosote.

(be advised that this is a disgusting, graphic skit with bad language and a lot of vomit- watch at your own risk)

I’d also like to take this moment to call out Wyatt as a fat-hater, since he spent half of this year trying to lose weight (with quite some success)! We all know he didn’t do it for his health and fitness, but because he saw Mr. Creosote videos and played the Fat Princess game, and it made him hate fat.

100%ALCOHOLIC

Something about the recent comments over at Wyatt’s has gotten my gears grinding a bit today, and sometimes when my gears grind, I produce more commentary.

Of course I find the story about hecklers attempting to hijack a citizenship ceremony to make it a political protest to be despicable. But it was the comment about over 4,000 people losing their lives that tweaked my brain.

Those people didn’t die for George W. Bush. No matter what insanity people spew forth. Despite the fascism claims. We are not talking “Dubya’s Army”, “The Bush Marines” (heh, heh, bush), “The Crawford Ranch Air Force” or “George’s Navy”. (Though I hear that those are actually the names of Lego sets that George W. Keeps in the Lincoln bedroom.)

People do not join the military to show how much they love the guy in charge, see? Many of those killed joined several administrations ago- there are still folks who are on active duty today that joined back when that bonehead Jimmy Carter was in office! Hell, if I’d done according to plan after high school, I would have joined while Clinton was still in, and my desire to serve my country had absolutely zero to do with that jackass. And don’t take issue with the jackass part, kids. He’s a Democrat, that’s their symbol. I didn’t come up with it. I also am not responsible for his behaving like a jackass- braying loudly and trying to mount anything that moves. Hah!

It’s truly about wanting to serve the country, the friends, neighbors, families and strangers that we see each day. Wanting to be there when the shit hits the fan (heaven forbid) and stepping up to do that duty regardless of who you voted for in the last election. People don’t get that. I don’t think there will be a huge influx of new military recruits if Obama gets elected, folks- nor will there be a bunch of troops getting out if he does. The people who are willing to put their lives on the line are not doing it for one man… but all of the men, women, children and old farts of our land. While that vast number may include the politicians of this nation, it is not solely for their benefit. I doubt they could say the same for their so-called “service”. It’s all about money and power for them.

And people wonder why I dislike politics so much.

American food.

I made some (modified) buffalo wing sauce and slathered it on a pile of chicken breast strips that I had fried. Sure, if I inhale as I am bringing a bite to my mouth, it burns the lungs a little. But it is SO good. Greasy, spicy, hot tender goodness. Hell yeah.

Lazybones has been at work since early this afternoon and he won’t be home until early morning. This means that the kids and I won’t get to go watch fireworks, and since Lazy is working TOMORROW too, we aren’t going to take them to the carnival. Kinda sucks. They hate fireworks (scared them to death last year) but they would love playing.

Happy 4th of July, everyone. Freedom’s a lovely thing.