「やめよう、ポイ捨て」

どこへ行っても、日本語の字読める。日本からの車がなんとなくここにある。例えば、大阪からのゴミ収集車見て、日本語で「やめよう、ポイ捨て」って書いてある。タクシーも変な事が書いてある。タクシーの後ろに「秋田商売」とかが書いてある。だからあっちこっち行く時に、色んな練習できる。

俺のルームメートはアホだ。22歳で、アメリカの南の方から来た田舎者だ。いつもうざい話し方でバカな事言ってる。よく大きな声で変でバカな事言ってるからよく恥ずかしい。解決：イジメ。怒ったら何も言わないからいじめる。他の解決あれば知らせてください。

今日、アフガ二に話しかかれた。ダリ語が分からないからやっぱり何言ってたか分からなかった。アフガに見える？そう思わないけどアフガにに話しかかれた。不思議。

最近、外にいる子供はちょっとうざくなって来た。何か産んだり、靴をみがいたりすれば、お金あげる。でも、何もしてくれないで、「ユー　ギッブ　ミー　１　ドッラー」と何回も言われるのがうざい。かなりうざい。役に立ってるダリ語習った：「ボラボラ！」って「行け行け！」という意味だからよく使う。一昨日、子供が来て、「1ドルちょうだい」と言って、あげた。でもあげたら、「ありがとう」と言わないで「Give me 1 more dollar」って。警察の給料が毎月＄３０くせに、1ドルあげたらもっと欲しかった。びっくり。

今日また子犬と遊んだ。

最近タバコいっぱい吸ってる。何でか分からん。

それで以上だ。

日本語で書いてみるよ(This is in Japanese so it might not show up)

日本語で書けるかどうか分からん（字が読める事）。辞書もないから間違いいっぱいあるよ。ごめん。とにかく、今アフガニスタンにいる。何でかというのは簡単です：お金～～！何もしないで、生活保障もらうよりいいよ。いい経験だからまじで嬉しいよ。写真もあるよ。見たければ、ここをクリックしてください。

今の仕事はコミュニケーション専門家です。辞書なくて正しい言葉分からないから説明はめんどくさい。でも仕事好き。9月までいるけど、戻るかもしれない。（9月にアメリカに帰って行って、友達の結婚式と高校Renunionに行くよ）。いい仕事探せばここに戻らない。また日本に戻りたいけど、英会話の先生はしない。政府に関する仕事が最高だと思う。

いい事：お金使えない（食べ物、Etcが含まれる）、いっぱいSaveして旅行したいよ。旅行友募集中。

じゃ、以上っす。ニュースあればここにポストします。またねー

1 little 2 little 3 little Indians...

...And when I say "Indians," I dont mean "injuns," I mean people from India. Ok, so today was eventful in the fact that I was fairly busy for most of it, and when I wasn't busy I was doing two of my favorite things: Playing with a large puppy and discussing kilometers to the litre (of gas) in my car back in the states. So yeah, we showed up to the pink house (cuz its pink) and they have a really cool puppy there. I don't know his name, but he's gonna be an enormous dog. Anyway, I played with him for about an hour and a half, until he got mad at me and started attacking me. Then he got tired of attacking me and he went outside and ate some chicken. In any case, I saw one of the coolest things ever outside of the pink house. For those of you who dont know, a satellite dish covered in heineken can aluminium is something to behold. I went up on the roof and played up there for a few hours, and it was hotter than hades. However, there was a nice view of a castle right there that looks quite biblical. After being scorched for a while, I went down and watched cricket. I don't understand the rules of cricket, so one of the magic Indians sat down with me and explained the rules. I call them the magic Indians (there's 5 of them) 'cuz when I first got here the big deal was to get them out to Afghanistan so they could solve the internet problems. Cuz let's face it, when people dont have internet they shit themselves. Then when they have internet, if it's slow, they shit themselves before their underwear can even dry up. (See previous post about some of the people around here to get an idea of the type of people who might shit themselves daily.) After we talked about cricket for a bit, he asked me many questions about how many kilometers to the litre my car at home gets. I'm fine with miles - km conversion, but I dunno how many litres there are in a gallon. I know how big a 2 litre bottle is - that's about it. So he debated for a while about the size and we continued watching cricket.

When we were leaving, a little Afghani kid walked up and asked me for a dollar. I usually dont give it to em. In the words of Robert Heinlein, "The worst thing you can do for a starving person is give them food." *Give* is the keyword here. Maybe I forgot about that little line I've been throwing out every so often these days, but I felt like being in a giving mood so I gave the kid a dollar. And unless "Thank you" in Dari is "Give me another dollar," I think I learned my lesson (again.) A dollar here is probably a day's salary for his dad, and all he can say is "Gimme another one." He's lucky I'm not in the business of kicking kids in the abdomen, or he'da had a rough rest of the week.

I suppose I should mention what we did last night too. We went over to the ISAF compound 'cuz the word on the street was that there was pizza and beer. ISAF are like the international security forces or something - it's a multi-national force, but yesterday we went to the Italian compound cuz they had pizza. They also had a little club set up, and it actually had the feel of a club, at least a club where everyone was in uniform and carrying whatever enormous rifle the Italian military is issued. It also had a very European feel to it though - ridiculously tight track suits, bubble-gum techno music, and people attempting to dance to it. We bailed at about 10:30pm, but not before I could get a picture with a bunch of Italian servicemembers. Fortunately, my predictions were wrong - we didnt get the shit beat out of us by a bunch of handsome Italian men, but on the plus side it looks like we might have something to do on Saturday nights. And we had good pizza. With corn on it. Just like in Japan.

More later-

Lame-ometer: Very high

I'm kinda bored right now, and I havent gotten a chance to put some pictures up yet, so I'll go ahead and rant for a second 'cuz I was listening to the conversation of one of the obese execs that sits around here all day and pretends to be important.

Ok, how lame do you have to be to retain your military rank AFTER you've exited the service?? And who's more lame: People who insist on being called their rank, or people who actually call them by their rank?? Around here, we have someone who is called "The General". What kills me, is he was never a general, he was a colonel, and even funnier, the guy who is the senior guy (senior to the general) is called "the colonel". So we have a guy called "the general" who was a colonel, and a guy called "the colonel" who is senior to the general. So now we have a bunch of dudes who maybe spent 4 years in the military sometime in the 1970s running around calling people "General" and "Colonel" (let's not forget Sgt Maj, too, he just got here) and kissing ass like it's cool. Have some pride. And stop eating. These guys weigh 500 lbs and make vocal noises when they breathe, which while amusing, makes me worried cuz I'm not CPR certified at the moment.

So I think I'm going to demand being called "The Reichsmarshall." Apparently it doesnt matter if you're called by something other than your rank, so I'm gonna take it a step further and see to it that it's acceptable to be called ranks from a different country's military. (Korean ranks sound lame, so I didnt pick one of those). Oh yeah, and just so my ass is covered, I'll ensure that it's ok to misspell things like "Reichsmarshall" cuz I have no idea how to spell it correctly.

More later when I get some pics on-
- Reichsmarshall Paul

Why make a blog? This is why....

Hey everyone. For those of you who don't know, I'm in Afghanistan right now. Anyway, a guy I'm here with made a weblog, and about 5 minutes into me making fun of him, he mentioned that it was more efficient than posting emails. I guess I can't disagree with him on that, so I figured I'd eat my words and make one of my own. I guess I'll make little postings on here, and try not to be too cheesy in an attempt to avoid being made fun of myself. If you want to see pure, unadulterated cheesiness, you can check his out. He has some good stuff in there, and stuff that I wouldn't bother putting in there, I,e. Nepalese food recipes, and waxing poetic about our trip into Little Uzbekistan (I made that up, and he didn't give me credit). First thing's first: check out my pictures page - by clicking here. I make updates every so often, mainly when I go bananas with my camera and decide to take pictures of kids or something. So here's a summary of what's been going on: I got here about a month ago; May 28thish or something, after a 12 hour layover in Vienna (which rocked) and being relieved of $210 in Azerbaijan (which didn't rock.. No one told them they're not commies anymore). So Azerbaijani airport workers are now #2 on my pantheon of international jackasses; North Koreans being in a huge lead at #1 and Canadians at a close #3. I guess I'll be here for a few more months; after that the sky's the limit. Maybe I'll come back? Maybe I won't? If you're 100% opposed to me staying here, then I'd suggest you assist me in some sort of employment, preferably in Japan (not teaching English, thanx). Anyway, things are goin good out here, and even if they weren't I'd probably tell you they were anyway, cuz announcing the loss of a digit or a limb on a weblog is a breach of etiquette as far as I know, so I'll keep my maimings to myself. To continue, I'm in Kabul, which is kinda cool. Like I said, I'll be in the states mid-septemberish, cuz I'm going to a wedding and then to my 10 year highschool reunion. That oughtta be interesting.

So what am I doing here? Nothing snazzy really. But we're very safe, we never cruise around by ourselves (which is how people get kidnapped), never walk anywhere, and we carry weapons so we're not exactly a soft target. We also avoid the regular places where internationals go (like the plague), so we're doing everything we can and never becoming complacent. That's about all we can do, and it's nice cuz everywhere we look there are people who ARE complacent and unsafe, so the idea is that they're much juicier targets if someone decides to get frisky.

So why am I here? It's good experience, and the pay's good. Collecting Iowa unemployment was cool and all, especially that part about sitting around and waiting for the DC folks to get their shit together, but this is better. And I obviously have enough time to myself to where I can sit around and write stupid weblogs.

Anyway, stay tuned for more madness as it comes. I don't expect anything really, but you all will be the first to know. Feel free to email me whenever about whatever, or post comments on here. More later--