Hillah, Iraq.

The Justice League is planning a mission for tonight, but I am off the roster because I have to be up all tomorrow to provide air for the visiting Iraqi Prime Minister and various Coalition Generals. Speciously, this is a good thing as it means I don’t have to stay up all night, running around chasing booger eaters. However, a nice aspect of staying up all night, running around chasing booger eaters, is doing so makes the time pass somewhat faster than, say, just sitting around.

But today I was destined to sit around. The strange thing about sitting around is that the more one sits around, the less one is inclined to actually go do something. Finding something to do is a challenge because, plainly put, there is very little to do. I have found that I can only read so much, play so much XBox, or exercise so many times in a day. Having exhausted this Troika of Slack, I found I was not interested in anything other that sitting there being uninterested in everything I could think to do. I opted to replay Halo on my XBox, only because I wasn’t in the mood for the completely passive entertainment of a movie, but I didn’t feel up to actually making progress doing anything challenging. Replaying a good video game (which Halo is) is akin to rereading your favorite parts of a book. You don’t have to mess with the bits you don’t like, enjoying only those that are appealing.

The chow hall has a problem with members of Coalition Forces emptying out the more desirable drinks from the cooler. We rarely have Gatorade or Red Bulls, and the only drink boxes left are grape and banana milk. It is not uncommon to see various Eastern European soldiers leaving the chow hall with their hats and pockets stuffed with bottles of Gatorade on the rare occasions that KBR does stock the coolers. We have mentioned this problem to KBR, who responded today by posting signs on the cooler doors stating that there was a two drink limit per person per meal. However, the signs were posted only in English, which doesn’t help because the only twenty English speakers on the camp are the ones who pointed out the problem in the first place. KBR promises that the sign will be posted in other languages soon.