It's been a full day.

1) I instituted comment moderation. Comments will be moderated entirely at my whim. Deal with it. I will use rules. I do not feel the urge to share them. Be polite and you probably won't notice anything more than a delay in your comment posting. Sorry, but it was either that, or get cranky. I refuse to let me self-indulgent little writing hobby stress me out.

2) I shot a GAU. I forget the model number, we just call them "the GAUs" from the "DSU" which I forget what that means too. Anyway, the Marines who drive the little boats here invited me (and I wrangled an extention to the invite for my company commander) to go out to the range with them and shoot the 7.62mm 6-barrel minigun their boats carry. Oh. My. God.

It's like the world's angriest hornet is buzzing at the center of the world, you feel it in the soles of your feet and it shakes the entire boat. And the target piece of plywood disappears in a dust cloud, and at the end of your burst you can see daylight through the wood at 300 meters.

It's more fun than hunting feral dogs with a Mk-19.

3) I saw the medics over at Charlie Med getting ready for the costume party. Calm down, folks, it's next door to the chow hall, I wasn't there for a bad reason.

I was doing good watching the costumes, until the medic shows up dressed as Death.

Ummmm. . .

Can we not let him work triage?

4) According to the poll numbers one network was trumpeting, about 1/4 of the American population could give a shit less about the election.

Or more accurately, when asked which party would do a better job in Iraq, 11% were "undecided", but adding the Republican, Democrat, and Undecided numbers up, it totalled about 85%.

This seems to be more significant news than the 5-point spread between the Democrat and Republican answers, but no one said anything about it.