…without you in it.  Here’s hoping there is a special place in hell for the bastard John Allen Muhammad.

Yeah, I was living in the DC Metro area during this pricks reign of terror.  Two of his victims were shot within a couple miles of my house in Stafford.

It sucks to be looking over your shoulder while pumping gas, trust me.  I look forward to the day when the Fort Hood shooter meets a similar fate.

These guys that kill in the name of Allah are such cowardly pussies.  They ain’t got the balls to face an armed man in combat.  So they seek out innocents as victims.  If I were Muslim I’d be pissed to have my religion hijacked by these wimps.

I’m sure we will soon see millions of adherents of the “religion of peace” marching in the streets carrying banners “reading not in my name!”.

Yep, any day now.

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It is on this day that Americans remember with pride and gratitude all who have given of themselves in defense of our great nation as members of the armed forces.

On Veterans Day, and all days, we salute, honor and thank you for your service.

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It was sorta like Lana Turner getting discovered at a drug store soda fountain at Hollywood and Vine.  Except I was having a brew at Goldfish in Itaewon as I am wont to do when killing time.  As mentioned before, this is a “open air” bar that is ideal for people watching.  I hadn’t considered that some of the lookees might be looking back.

Anyway, my solitude was interrupted when a 30ish Korean woman came in off the street and politely inquired in near perfect English if she might bother me with a question.  Well, I was fully expecting that she was going to do the “do you know Jesus” thing, but being nice to a fault I responded “sure”.  She thanked me and said she would only take a minute of my time.  I nodded and then she layed it on me–would you like to appear in a commercial?

I was momentarily taken aback because it seemed out of the blue.  But my instinctive reaction was to say no, and so I told her “no”.  She asked me to reconsider and said the photo shoot would only take one day.  I again responded “no thank you, just not interested”.  She thanked me again for my time and left.

Hmmm.  I don’t know why I said no without really thinking about it.  But upon reflection, I knew it was the right call.  There was no mention of money, but I’m doing all right in that regard anyway.  I guess I just didn’t see why they would want a fat old white guy in their commercial unless it was for the purpose of mocking me.  After all, I’ve not seen many waeguks portrayed favorably in Korean media.  And it likely would have been in violation of my visa status as well.

So, opportunity knocked and I said get the hell outta here.

More or less.

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inoculation today, so I should be good to go.

What?

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Rubbies were victorious against our rivals from Bless U Pub, Cake Mix,  tonight 19-15.  It was a sweet victory indeed!

I am on a real high because FINALLY I played some decent darts, contributing a 9-3 showing to our effort.  It’s been a long time coming.  Next week we have the Korean team XOX at Friends Bar.

We can beat ‘em.  Stay tuned.

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Tonight the Rubbies take on the Cake Mix boys at Bless U Pub in a first round playoff match.

We split our two games this season and we’re going to go all out for victory.

Details of the match tomorrow (or tonight is I’m still sober).

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Manila Bar that is.  There was a nice get together last to honor Natalie’s birthday.  I guess I’ll just let the photos tell the story…

Manila owner Teddy was our gracious host for the evening.

The birthday girl looking younger than ever.  Must be that taek-won-do thing she’s been doing…

Natalie’s new large-sized lighter was a big hit.  Matt is looking a little nervous. Why, it’s almost as big as a…er, well, never mind.

Revelers.

People hanging out.

Everyone’s favorite (especially Matt) Canadian, Margaret.

Jee Yuen proving once again that no Korean can resist flashing the “V” when being photographed.  What’s up with that anyway?

And of course there was cake…

This is a Filipino bar, so as might be expected, videoke broke out.  Here Mike and Lucky serenade the birthday girl who is either in a blissful state or in excruciating pain.  I’m pretty sure it was the former.  The pain came when I sang her the Gary Puckett classic “Young Girl”.

Teddy helped us out with piano.  He’s quite talented.

Becky and her main squeeze Mike.

And finally, a parting shot of me and the birthday girl.

We ate, we drank, we sang.  And I do believe a good time was had by all.

Happy Birthday, Natalie!

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Time for the Sunday morning look back.

Busy time at work as meetings and events filled my calendar.  On Monday we finalized plans to implement “normalized” civilian tours in Korea.  The initial tour will be 3 years now (2 in Area I) with a 2 year renewal.  Also, all tours are accompanied, meaning civilians will be allowed to bring family members with them.  General Sharp wanted civilian tours to align with the new military tour lengths, and we have now accomplished that to the extent possible.

Tuesday I chaired the Joint Labor Affairs Committee with my Air Force, Navy, AAFES, and Dragon Hill counterparts.  This committee is tasked with managing all aspects of our Korean National labor program.  Our big item this time was finalizing plans for the 2010 wage and benefit survey.  Exciting stuff, no?

Wednesday was the USFK Civilian Employees of the Year Honor Guard ceremony.  The event is hosted by General Sharp and my office is the proponent.  It is the signature event for civilian employee recognition and it involves lots of detail oriented work over a significant period of time.  And since it directly involves the USFK commander, there is no margin for error.  We pulled it off without a hitch, even the weather cooperated.  The commander was pleased, and that of course pleases me.

The Korean contingent of the Honor Guard marching to Knight Field, their US counterparts have already rounded the corner and are out of range.

The 2009 USFK Civilian Employees of the Year.
Thursday was more meetings about staffing up what will be the replacement for USFK in 2012, KORCOM (Korea Command).  More of a money issue than anything else right now, as there are quite a few military to civilian conversions that need to happen now with no funding forthcoming until the KORCOM actually stands up in two years.  A classic Catch-22.

And finally a longish meeting involving a civilian who volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan and her current unit cannot afford to let her go.  So, this will require 3-star engagement and a memo to the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense.

Am I going to miss all this when I retire next year?  Lord help me if I do.

Given the somewhat stressful nature of my week, I stayed home every night and vegetated.  Unusual for me, but I needed the break.  I’m pretty much burned out on everything right now, including surprisingly enough, darts.

I did play in the Dolce tourney Friday night without much success.  I’ve been in a season long funk and we have a tough first round playoff match with Cake Mix at Bless U Monday night.  Here’s hoping I can bring some game.

Last night I went to Manila but that will be the subject of another post (which you most likely will have read before getting to this one).

And now I am enjoying my lazy and rainy Sunday morning at the keyboard.

Ain’t life grand?

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See it here.

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How high can it go?  Talk about your jobless recovery.

Republicans argue that an unemployment rate higher than it has been in more than a quarter of a century is evidence that the Democratic agenda isn’t putting Americans back to work. They say the situation will be made worse if Congress and President Obama enact a health care overhaul that will require $1 trillion in tax hikes and entitlement cuts to expand insurance coverage.

“Ten-point-two now makes it hard for the majority to sell their agenda,” said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

“All I know is that Speaker Pelosi is trying to force her members to vote for a bill that the American people have soundly rejected,” added House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Democrats counter that their agenda has kick-started a recovery on Wall Street, even if it hasn’t trickled down to the job market yet, and that Republicans are putting what they’ve begun at risk.

Trickle-down economics?  Trickle-down economics!  Has it really come to this?

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UPDATE:  Watch this.
Yesterday, I posted on the heresy of anyone who deviates from the Obama party line.

Of course, hypocrisy walks hand-in-hand with heresy…meaning those branding others as heretics are most likely hypocrites.   Funny how that works out.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs helpfully provides a useful example of this phenomenon in response to this weekends march on Washington by those opposed to Obama-care:

“I will continue to say what I’ve said before. You hear in this debate, you hear analogies, you hear references to, you see pictures about and depictions of individuals that are truly stunning, and you hear it all the time. People — imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11. Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler.

Hopefully we can get back to a discussion about the issues that are important in this country that we can do so without being personally disagreeable and set up comparisons to things that were so insidious in our history that anybody in any profession or walk of life would be well advised to compare nothing to those atrocities.”

Yes, let’s imagine, shall we:

Plenty more where those came from, but you get the idea.  Oh, and you won’t want to miss this gem.
And these demonstrators got a free pass from the media, whereas one ignorant person shows up at tea party rally and everyone there is a racist hick.  Or worse.  Yeah, Jon Voight gave a speech at the demonstration and it was all Gibbs could do to keep from humming the Deliverance theme.

It’s bad enough that we have a bunch of incompetents running the show in Washington.  Did we have to get incompetent children?  Spoiled, petulant children.

God save us.

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Well, this is indeed a special Friday.  It’s a military “training” day–essentially an extra day off.  For us civilians, it’s a “liberal leave” day, meaning we are encouraged, but not required, to take the day off.  Hey, I don’t need much encouragement.  Glad to do my part.

Today is also special of course because it is once again time for the “Yoja of the Week” feature here at LTG.  So, here she is:

This week I offer a popular Korean actress, Ms. Kim, Tae-hee.  I found her at a blog called Yein Jee’s Asian Journal.

Enjoy.

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Global warming (now known as climate change since the Earth has not in fact warmed for the past ten years or so) is fast becoming the new religion of its zealous adherents.  Woe be to anyone with the audacity to question the tenets of the faith of those who believe in the coming apocalypse.

The One has made it clear that, just as Fox News isn’t legitimate news, anyone who disputes the scientific “consensus” of global warming is not a “real” scientist.  And they will be dealt with accordingly:

Last month, President Obama gave a somewhat chilling, if somewhat ignored, speech on climate change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He stated that any scientific debate about the magnitude of global warming is unscrupulous, decrying “those who . . . make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.”

Then, the president talked tough, saying, “We’ll just have to deal with those people,” language familiar to anyone who knows the vagaries of Chicago politics.

The time for debate is over, so sayeth the Messiah.  There can be no dissent.  Unbelievers are heretics, and well, with this unusually cold weather, what better time to re-institute the fine tradition of burning at the stake?

We have not seen this kind of deviation from scientific orthodoxy since the days of Galileo Galilei.  You remember him, don’t you?  The fool actually believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun!  The powers that be dealt with him harshly for ignoring conventional wisdom, and we should learn from that lesson as well.  Arrest them! Burn them!  We will not tolerate naysayers!

Although an argument can be made that the Sun does revolve around the Earth.  Just sayin’.

UPDATE: Global Warming Strikes Korea

Photo from ROKDrop.

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Just horsin’ around.

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Today some lucky visitor to LTG represented my 100,000th page view.  Congratulations!  You win equal shares of my gratitude and sympathy.  Yep, that’s just the kind of thing this blog is known for.

Now trust me when I tell you that 100,000 page views is no big deal.  No doubt some blogs achieve in a day what it took me nearly five years to accumulate.  But hey, those big blogs don’t serve up the personal service and consistent poor quality you have come know and expect here at LTG.  I only manage around 50 visits daily, but then again, just how many die hard masochists can one blog expect to attract?

So let’s see what we can discover about this mystery reader.  According to sitemeter, number 100,000 joined us from Marietta, Georgia USA.  What brought this visitor was a link at ROKdrop to last weeks “Yoja of the Week” feature.  See?  There was a method to my madness–who can resist gazing at a beautiful Korean woman?  Anyway, I hope my guest was not disappointed.  I do note that he or she did not stick around long enough to look at anything else I had posted.  Which may indicate a highly evolved intelligence.  Most people need to see three or four of my inane ramblings before they realize that their first impression was entirely correct.  Good job Marietta!

As long as I’m in sitemeter, let’s see what other useful nuggets we can find.  Well, no surprise that the leader in referrals to LTG is ROKdrop.  Those linklet’s really drive traffic.  Thanks guys.

My most read post recently was the issue involving Juicy bars and prostitution.

My most commented on post was written way back in April 2005 where I tweaked the noses of European snobs (is that redundant?) as economic weaklings.

And I’ve had visitors from all corners of the world (I thought it was round?), including in the past few days: USA, Korea, United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Canada, Kuwait and The Netherlands.  Yeah, I’m bad.

Anyway, I have my fits and starts but I do appreciate spending time with y’all here at LTG.  Thanks for reading!

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Sorry for the break these past couple of days.  Just a general case of the blahs brought on by who knows what.  I know, blame it on the weather!  It done turned cold here in a hurry.  Yesterday was downright blustery and my weather pixie tells me the current temperature is 27 degrees.  Brrr.

We completed the dart season with a make up game on Sunday against Kaibigan of Friends Bar.  We did the game at Gecko’s, which although far from my favorite venue, is light years nicer than Friends.  Actually, my issue at Gecko’s isn’t the playing conditions, it’s the service.  I’d call it slow but that wouldn’t be accurate.  It’s glacial.

My dart game remains as cold as the weather.  I contributed a 3-6 performance in a losing effort.  We did take enough legs to clinch a playoff spot where anything is possible.  Actually, over the course of the season, we beat every team once.  It’s just that our margin of victory in those games was much smaller than the deficit of our losses, i.e. we tend to win small and lose big.  In the playoffs that won’t matter and we are certainly capable of fighting our way to a championship.  We just need to put it altogether, and me finding my game would be a big help in that regard.

Busy at work as well, with several big events on the horizon.  10 months to go.

Thanks to ROKdrop for the linklets.  I feel bad I didn’t have anything “fresh” to offer all the readers he sent my way.  Ah well, I expect most of my loyal visitors anticipate being disappointed which makes the occasional surprise all the sweeter, right?

Right?

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