I was cruising the list of blogs Hope has listed on her site and came across this video over on A Soldier’s Perspective. The video was apparently created by something called the 545 Project (no clue). I usually hate those crappy YouTube videos put together with crappy music and ham-handedly designed to send some kind of political message with all the subtlety of a fart in church, but this one kinda grabbed me. Just make sure you turn your speakers off.
Quick post courtesy of the great people over at IAVA. Thanks to their efforts, service members who were retained in the military past their ETS, retirement or separation date may be entitled to $500 per month “overtime” for each month affected. You have to apply to your military branch no later than October 21, 2010. Here’s the IAVA video that explains it:
This doesn’t have anything to do with the military, but I figured “what the hell, it’s my blog.”
I am a computer game geek. I have been playing computer games since my Dad bought me an Atari 800back in what ever year those came out. I am not into X-Box or PS3. I own a Wii only so I can play stuff with the family (and I have a Wii Fit collecting dust). I play games from damn near every genre, but my favorite games are RPGs (the ones with elves in them) and first person shooters with stories. Unfortunately, it’s been a long time since a really good game from either genre has been released. In fact, the last great RPG was the Baldur’s Gate series, and the last FPS that really gripped me was Half-Life 2.
I am really psyched about two games that are set to be released next month: Dragon Age: Origins and Modern Warfare 2. Just check out the trailers for each:
I haven’t looked forward to a game release like this in eons, and there’s two hopefully great ones coming. Yeah, I know tons of people are pissed about the server issue with MW2, but here’s a little bit of blasphemy for you: I don’t play multi-player, so I don’t care. And I wish Bioware had been able to hang on to the D&D license, but I have faith they have created a world worth playing in.
I also play MMOs, and up until a year or so ago I could have claimed that I have played just about every commercial MMO that’s come out – and even one that wasn’t released. I played MUDs in college, Neverwinter Nights back on AOL in the early 1990s, Meridian 59, and Ultima Online. Everquest hit and I was addicted for YEARS. Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Earth and Beyond (beta), and on and on. Currently, I regularly play Eve Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online and recently started checking out Aion Online. Yes, I know, I am a massive geek and if I wasn’t married would probably never get laid. One game I could never get into is the 900 pound gorilla, World of Warcraft. Basically, I find it pretty boring and full of people I’d never willingly associate with in real life.
So yeah, that has nothing to do with the theme of this blog, and from what I understand it’s a cardinal sin to deviate from a blog’s theme. But I figured my readers (all 2 of them – thanks Hope and Coffey!) might want to know a little about me. Oh, and I almost never watch TV except for Hell’s Kitchen (they’re casting now!), Kitchen Nightmares and The F Word. And I have an autographed photo of Gordon Ramsay and it’s the only celebrity autograph I own. Ok, enough for now.
Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who appeared on a show called “Ukraine’s Got Talent.” I’m only marginally aware there is a UK and American version of the show, and I had no clue a Ukraine version existed until I saw this. Regardless, I think this is one of the coolest videos I’ve seen in awhile. Simonova uses sand painting to tell her interpretation of the story of the invasion and occupation of Ukraine during the period 1941 – 1944.
I’m not the artsy type so it’s no wonder this type of expression is new to me. What does this have to do with current events in Iraq and Afghanistan? Not a damn thing.
A New Mexico judge issued a warrant for the arrest of a National Guard Soldier for a charge of driving under the influence (DUI or DWI – driving while intoxicated). The National Guardsman, Jordan Pratz, missed a court date on September 14, 2009 which resulted in the arrest warrant.
The problem is the Soldier is, and was at the time of his court date, deployed to Iraq. The Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office asked the judge for the warrant, claiming it was necessary to ensure the statute of limitations did not elapse. The DA was gracious enough (and I’m being sarcastic here) to permit Pratz to turn himself in upon his return, else he faces arrest. So, as this National Guardsman gets nearer to completing his year or fifteen months, or whatever amount of time he is deployed – assuming he makes it home - he can look forward to getting off the plane, hugging his family, and then going to jail. That’s just wonderful.
People who drink and drive really piss me off, because they put other people’s families in danger for an extraordinarily selfish act. The deaths that occur due to DUI are preventable, pure and simple. But honestly, you can’t compare the case of Bob Imadrunk who blows off a trial date with that of a National Guardsman deployed to Iraq. It was impossible for Pratz to make his court date, what with the war on and everything.
I have no idea if Pratz is guilty of the crime, (and a quick Google search will show you that not everyone arrested for DUI is guilty), but let’s assume he is. Deployed troops have a tremendous amount of stress on their minds as it is. Everything from worrying about getting killed/maimed or getting others killed/maimed, to stressing about problems that occur at home that the deployed fighter can’t do anything about. The idea of having to fight next to the guy whose head is not in the game scares the bejesus out of me. Plus, you all know how everyone gets kinda crazy as they get closer to redeployment, imagine how’d you’d feel if you knew your CHU-mate was stressing about going to jail at the end of the deployment.
I have a hard time swallowing the argument that an arrest warrant was the only way to handle this situation. This smells to me more like it was the “easier” course of action for the DA – and we all know how government-types prefer easy over practical.
If Pratz is guilty of the crime then after his day in court he needs to pay the price just like anyone else. My problem is he is having to pay a bigger price solely because of his status as a deployed Soldier.
