Boxing Week

Alright, I'm home and I've fallen behind on this. I know I have tens of... well tens of tens of readers haha that are hanging on to my every word and have been left in the dark. For that I'm sorry. The good thing is that since days have passed I will speed up with the details haha.

First off I've adjusted to Ontario time with ease considering it's a twelve hour time difference. I'm back to the swing of western life with no cash haha. Wake up, pop tarts and a raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese, get ready to start my day. I was allowed to use Mitchell's Playstation 3 to catch up on two months of missing Fallout: New Vegas haha. At first I spent all my free time playing but realized I have other things I need to do!

Christmas was good and as I didn't ask for a lot I got what I wanted haha. Honestly I was just happy to be home, but as my family doesn't know what exactly to get me I make a Christmas list with as many things I can think of that I could use. It takes the guess work and some fun out of the gift exchange but it guarantees no disappointment. The bad thing is that I'm somewhat disappointed when someone reads my list and decides not to get anything I mentioned. Call me a jerk but if you know me you know what I like and you don't need the list, but if you don't know me that well, or you're not sure what I'd like, the list is a backup.

Luckily I got everything I wanted. I got Restrepo on DVD which is the story of Sebastien Junger, a reporter embedded for months with 2d Platoon, Bravo Company, 2d Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. I re-enact the exact same unit, but 1st Platoon, which is forty different people than 2d Platoon. The story focuses on the death of Juan Restrepo who was their Platoon medic, the building of a base which was the tip of the spear and named after him. Building the base changed the dynamics of the valley and I'm sure saved lives of the US troops. It follows a few missions until the end of the 173rd's tour. Junger wrote a book called "War" and his notes went in the book, but the combat footage he recorded is in the DVD, so it's a great companion to the book. What I can't get over is the fire fights. Imagine a tiny base that holds fifteen troops and almost half of of them have light and medium belt fed machine guns, so that's a hell of a lot of rounds. When in contact they literally fire tens of thousands of rounds for every enemy round fired in their direction. So many rounds have been fired that the troops walk kicking brass everywhere and the fighting so fast and intense troops fly out of tents wearing boxers and crocs to respond to enemy action. As you can tell I like this movie :)

I got a chapter's gift card which will pay for 173rd Airborne books so I can absorb more knowledge and become more powerful then you will ever know! Alright I made that last part up, but it's so I can learn more and thus reflect and educate more. I also got $100 and candy which is always great, same with the money haha.

Dinner was standard but good with turkey, stuffing, cranberries and all the other normal stuff. My aunt dropped by and that was the closest time our family dinner was ruined. It wasn't ruined but uncomfortable. My aunt has been through a lot, from the death of my grandpa, to accidentally burning their house down, a battle with osteoporosis, depression and bi-polar. My uncle was transferred from London to St. Thomas and so my aunt went with him leaving everything she knew behind. On top of it her kids who are now grown up have disowned her as she has a lot of issues and the latest upset was my uncle left my aunt and is getting a divorce leaving her disabled, unable to work at sixty and hundreds of dollars worth of medication to pay for. All this just before Christmas.

She called at 4pm and my mom doesn't want to turn her sister away so gave her the green light to come over. I honestly dislike my aunt, hate would be too much, but we were close as a family, moved in to town near her and for seven years didn't hear a word from her so sadly overtime the things that brought us together have faded. I hid from her as much as I could as she's a handful to handle one on one. I come up and she hounds me for information. I'm carrying stuff out for dinner and shes following me everywhere I walk. She talks a mile in a minute and during dinner talked at least forty-five minutes and my family couldn't get a word in, just give the occasional "yea", "wow" or "okay". She talked how horrible my uncle is, how she's working for rich people, she has a book being published and honestly I took it all as a grain of salt as it was mostly psycho-babble. After dinner my mom gave her some money and my aunt quickly left to go back to St. Thomas, not to spend anymore time with us. The rest of the night was spent trying to sort things out from dinner but overall the day was good.

Boxing Day I hid from the malls, 27th I picked up some Vietnam books on sale, 28th was my Dad's birthday and we ordered Chinese for dinner, the 29th I finally went to the gym! It was good to get back but I lost muscle mass and replaced it with fat haha, which is the exact opposite of what my goal is haha. It'll take a few weeks to get back in shape and I pulled the muscle in my knee so now that I'm home I'll see a doctor as now I'm afraid it might not heal properly and won't cost me $80 to be seen, thank you Canadian Government!

Today I hung out with Brit and as she's new to London I showed her around town, how our bus system works and just chilled on the couch which was nice.

As of tomorrow all I'm doing is booking a doctor's appointment and taking things easy.

Now that I'm home I think I'll change the tone and topic of my blog to stuff I have to get off my chest and off my mind or anything actually news worthy in my life, which now that I'm home isn't all that much compared to touring a far off land 14,000km away!

Coming Home

I'm watching guys in blue sweaters getting their asses kicked on a sheet of ice, against white guys from Atlanta. I'm watching the Leaf game, in my living room, my friend Mitchell playing Playstation 3 and I'm home.

Tuesday night at 9pm I tried to get to sleep, waking up Wednesday at 2am, finish packing the last stuff and called a cab at 3:30am. I thanked the mamasan for being so good with me over the two months and headed to the airport. I know the route to Tan Son Nhut Airport as I walked the route one long day, so having a cabby drive down dark allies in wrong directions, taking weird roads, etc kept me alert but I made it to the airport and cheaper than I paid going from the airport to the hotel. I caught my flight to Hong Kong and took off at 6am. 

We hit HK around 8:30am and I had a few hours to kill. I looked for an Aussie restaurant I found last time but it must have shut down. Now last time I was in HK I had a hard time finding a place to eat. This time I didn't as the McDonalds was finished being build. It's kinda sad to see, before hand all the Asian places were busy, but with McDonalds they were all dead and everyone was in line for the Western fast food place. I had the best tasting Big Mac in my life! Tasted like home! I found my gate and got ready for my long flight, HK to San Francisco.

On paper it looks long, but honestly with all the time changing, the entertainment and starring out the window it seems to go pretty fast. Half way through my flight I spilt a can of apple juice on my lap. DON'T FALL ASLEEP WITH AN OPEN DRINK! After flying over Japan we flew into international darkness and followed it until we were off the coast of California. 

My pants were dry and I went through San Fran security. I talk to immigration and was grilled. The guard wanted to know why I went to Vietnam. Your job is to make sure I'm not brining in drugs, dirt, tainted meat, etc into your country? I study the Vietnam War. What did I do there? How did I get the money to go? What do I do for a living? etc. It was just annoying as I knew it went beyond his job's purpose but as I wanted to get home without a problem and not taken into deal with homeland security just because the guard was a jerk haha. 

I got up to the new scanner, the full body X-ray that has a guard see you naked from another room in the area. They wanted my belt, and without my belt on my shorts would fall off. I'm ushered into the machine and you have to spread your legs and put both arms in the air. I told the girl that if I let go of my shorts they will fall and I'll be naked in front of two hundred strangers. As she was so nice and sensitive to my fears, she told me to let that happen or be dismissed from the machine and get patted down. In retrospect I should have let my shorts fall and show everything off to the security bitch and a room full of strangers. I should have bent over and exposed every inch of my body to security so they're sure that I have nothing on me. Instead I took the pat down haha. It took ten minutes for them to come and he had to fill out paper as to why I didn't want the scan. I told him I have no problem with airline security or the machine, I just didn't want my pants to fall haha. 

I got the pat down and it was thorough but still professional but made me late for my flight to Chicago. It was boarding and I had to run from Gate 501 to Gate 83. I honestly have never ran so fast in my life! I was ducking and weaving through families and thanks to the walking escalator sprinting on it brought me to around 25km/h. I made my flight but I was one of the last four people on. I had to make that flight so I was beat after almost 24 hours being awake but I wanted to go home! Since I was last on my flight all the carry on compartments were taken and I was too tired to throw people's shit out of my space. I took some awesome pictures over Nevada, Utah and Colorado but cloud cover took over near the Great Lakes and we landed in Chicago.

I watch American Dad on TV, and Roger the Alien says "Confusing? You know what's confusing? Changing planes at O'Hare Airport!" That alien is correct! My flight going to Vietnam we landed at Terminal One (T1) but as it was a domestic flight we landed at Terminal Five (T5). Hong Kong has five-hundred gates, but it's all one building. Sure it's a long walk but you only have to go past security once. O'Hare has five terminals, an outdoor subway system and five different sets of security which doesn't make sense. I got off my flight around 5pm at T5, walked a long walk to the luggage section and was in T1 and couldn't turn around to go back down to T5 and not go through all the security all over again. I had to figure out what terminal I was in, what terminal my gate was in and what terminal I can find food in. You can't find any maps or any information to help you out but I remember from my first time there I found a map on the monorail, and I did find a picture of the route, that I was now in front of T1 and needed to be in T2. I headed that way and went through security, but it was the two metal detectors and my pants were allowed to stay up so I was happy. I found a different Chili's location and ate. I waited an hour for my flight and there were about twenty people going to London which I was somewhat surprised about. Sure there's no problem filling a flight from London to Chicago, but why were people coming to London? Haha. O'Hare was busy with aircraft landing every thirty seconds and take-offs in between. We had trouble finding a clear runway and taxied for twenty minutes around the airport and we were part of a convoy of waiting aircraft driving around waiting for 4,500' of runway free for two minutes. The pilot came on and put us at ease saying he plans to fly, not drive to London haha. We were airborne and thirty minutes later we were in London.

We landed which was somewhat scary as London was overcast and you couldn't see out your window until you were 100' above the ground. We un-assed the aircraft and got in line to speak to the one customs agent working. Eventually another one came out and the line started moving. It's my turn and I get the normal questions with no problem. He knew I was a tourist and asked if I had a laptop and camera which I did. They asked me to take them both out and turn them on, puzzled I complied and for ten to fifteen minutes he searched all my pictures, videos, documents and anything else he could find on my computer and I'm shocked and puzzled. He asked if I knew what he was looking for and laughing I admitted I was curious. He explained that people go to SE Asia to produce, buy, sell child porn, graphic violence and computers could be used to launder money. He asked me about my picture of the one million dong and about other pictures. I had nothing to hide but I was shocked to think I was to be searched for child porn. The thought just makes my skin crawl. I got customs paperwork to claim my purchases that I made and shipped home, and I have about $750 of it that's tax free. Honestly I figure buying US Army equipment from a country that doesn't have a purchase tax and buying one collector to another informally I figured the whole damn thing would be tax free haha. I had everything shipped as gifts as they were gifts, one person to another and I'll be pissed if customs wants their slice of the pie. Business to business like Moore's Militaria in Texas I know I'm getting taxed for that. From one eBay seller to myself though, I get mad if it's taxed as I see it as if it's like a garage sale instead of a business, same with the Army kit I bought at the markets.

Forty minutes after I landed I walked out a free man and my family was waiting and worried, asked me why I took so long and I didn't want to get into it. I was beat and wanted to get home. We went to my sister's who lives near by and I answered questions for about an hour and had my first glass of chocolate milk in over two months, which was good! I got home, showered, got somewhat organized and unpacked and started adjusting back to life at home. My mom talked to me for a few hours and I dismissed her at 2am as it was late haha. My family was happy to see me and I was happy to be home. My bathroom and room were straightened out and I found Raspberry Viva Puffs and Nelson Macroons as I had been craving them haha. I started opening my shipments from Vietnam and getting stuff organized and fell asleep around 4am. I'll do a blog in the next few days filling you in on the details of me being at home, which isn't all that news worthy haha. I gotta post this before my computer dies so I'll see ya later!

LSA Oil, Nuoc Mam and Zippos

You know, I always tell you how my day was, but I never ask how was your day? It's awfully rude of me. So how was your day? Did you get up to anything...?

I can't hear you... Did you do anything at all? Anything? I hope you woke up today, cuz that's something.

Jump in anytime...

Alright, I guess you did nothing. My Turn!

Yea I did nothing... Not true! I woke up! I ate fruit salad for breakfast! I hit Ben Thanh Market and talked to Hien. Picked up something for someone which is a surprise, so everyone think that it's for you and then be crushed when its not! :D Naw it's for someone who didn't get a zippo, and no Mitchell I already you a cheap shitty one but it was only $.20CDN so I had to pick it up for ya. You like rainbows right?

I talked to Hien for awhile and wanted to know my thoughts on what would help him learn English and for his kids. I know history and military stuff haha, but I just told him to practice speaking and listening in English with Westerners to help with speaking and listening, and to help with reading and writing in English, to practice reading and writing. You can read the best book ever on how to play poker, but you won't get better without playing a game of poker (which is still not a sport, show more hockey!) We talked for three hours again haha so I had to go eat, pick up our box of Vietnam items to ship home and head to Phuoc's

Got to Phuoc's and we did inventory, sorted everything out and boxed it. We weighed it, took the measurements and called for a quote. It will ship tomorrow, I'll pick up the bill, I have a list of everything and who has what and that'll be my homework for my flight home, figuring what percentage of shipping everyone owes and at 19kg the shipping cost was, if I remember correctly $321 plus the $50 bribe so $371 divided by weight. Brit, Chris and myself are the three heaviest. Kirshin, Lt and I think a tie between Sam (zippo + 3 canteen covers)and Josh (map+poncho, but I'm not charging you for a single map which is like $.25. I can waive that fee, Merry Christmas!). Turns out I can't ship LSA Weapon Oil or Nuoc Mam fish sauce via Air mail due to them being liquid so I have to see how much it'll cost to send four little bottles by sea. If it's more than $10CDN I'll leave behind the fish sauce for my former Kitchen staff and empty the LSA oil bottles, wash them out and toss them in my ruck haha. I paid Phuoc, it should ship tomorrow and I can pick up the bill at 2pm. I'll also get an online bill and as soon as I get a tracking number, you guys will get it as well and I'll post it in the Bravo Facebook forum for our eyes only. Sorry Eric, Heather, Mitchell and everyone else!

The only other thing I had today to meet up with Hoa at 6pm so I had a little time and did some packing practice! Yea in 20 mins I was packed, minus laptop and things I need tomorrow like tooth-brush, clothes I plan to carry on with me, laptop, etc. I met up with Hoa, explained the American War in Vietnam, then she wanted to know about the US and Iraq haha. I told her what I tell myself to sleep at night and not worry about being randomly invaded for no reason, although I did tell her all Canadians know deep down inside the US will invade us, the only question is when! We also talked about cultural differences and she was shocked to find that women in North America want tanned skin, as in Asia the hottest girls are pale as whiteout, but like I've said before you can have ivory skin and be fricken hot, all depends on the person. Three hours passed and she had to catch the bus home and I'm here now eating a Toblerone bar and cooling down. I wore one of the Adidas breathable t-shirts I bought from the other day and why didn't I discover them fuckin' 51 days ago!!! They work a lot better than cotton which I have to struggle to get them off.

Tomorrow, last day in Nam! I'm meeting up with Hien for coffee before I go, I have to see about shipping the oils via sea mail and hit the Diamond Plaza for one last thing before I go, stuffed crust pepperoni pizza at Pizza Hut. If I need an excuse, which I don't, it's that I'm about to start 26 hours of flying, and I should do it on a full stomach. I gotta drink some Orange Mirianda before I leave, swear at a moto driver haha, thank the guest house staff, finish downloading as many movies as possible, as of right now I'm almost done downloading NCIS Season 3 and 4 and I think that's about it really, everything else I've already done, except maybe do a B-52 on the Rex Hotel patio in time for the Five O'Clock Follies! Other then that I've done everything that I wanted to do, although I did want to see more but that's out of my control. I will miss this place of bartering, cheap labour and products, being a giant and sending ladies swooning upon sight haha.

I look forward to my family, great friends, the guys, my dog (that little shit haha), the gym, pop tarts and cream cheese bagels, baked goods,  hot ladies, being surrounded by kit, the vast resources I call a library and time to do what I love with the people I love. T-minus 34 Hotels :)

Politics, Scammers, Threatening People and Ghosts!

A man and his girl friend are in bed playing, and the man jokingly started to smother her with a pillow. She stops struggling and he takes the pillow of her face and she's limp. Suddenly she bursts alive with a big smile on her face but the mood has been killed. They get up and talk for a bit, it gets dramatic and sappy and he proposes to her. She's so happy and accepts. He puts a necklace on her and go back to bed. They start getting back to playing, and he gets the pillow out and smothers her again. She goes limp and he takes the pillow off her face. He waits for her to spring back to life. He waits, and waits but the seriousness of the situation starts to take form. He starts to shake her and she doesn't respond. He freaks out and tries to think of what to do. He grabs a blanket, wraps her up and carries her outside. He starts digging a shallow grave and dumps her in.

So how was your day? Mine was decent, got my fruit salad and free coffee as a reward for getting to the cafe before 11am. I head back to the hotel to start planning my day, figure out what to do as my only plan was to go out with Hien to experience some Vietnamese culture (he does know I've been here for seven weeks right? haha). There's a few buildings SW of my area I saw on my way to the Mekong Delta I wouldn't mind investigating, but I went back to the market to see Hien, the Zippo Hien. I've mixed things up in the last few blogs as I've been calling him Hanh haha. Maybe I should have just stuck to calling him Tran haha. We chatted for an hour or two and he reads the news so we talked about Wikileaks muhahaha, which lead to freedom of speech, which I didn't have the freedom to talk about, so we kept it really hush-hush and I made sure nobody was around me.

I explained that in Canada that I have the freedom to say what I want about anything without punishment, as long as I'm not violating another persons human rights. I can say that I don't like Obama because I don't think he's a good leader, but I can't say that I will kill him (and I'm not saying that now) as that is illegal, as well as I can't say that Obama eats babies because it's crazy and likely untrue, it would be slander and I could get in legal trouble from him. I explained that the wikileaks guy is in trouble because he is releasing information that is classified by the government, and he has freedom of speech, but if it puts peoples lives in danger I think it's considered illegal. Won't get deep into it as we didn't either. He told me that he read in a Vietnamese news paper that US troops are raping and killing young girls in Iraq and Afghanistan. I paused and calculated how I should handle this. How do I kindly say that his government controlled newspaper is full of shit and untrue, that it's just trying to make the US look bad and say it in public? He mentioned that US troops are getting in trouble with prostitutes, alcohol and drugs. I softly explained that it was a problem with some troops in the American War here in Vietnam and if troops did get rowdy with cheap women and drugs it was because they thought they could die the next day, and if they did die the next day, they wanted to have a good time before they died. I did mention that now in Iraq and Afghanistan that the culture is very strict, that women known to be prostitutes would probably be killed for their actions and US troops would be in serious trouble with the military as the military doesn't want their troops to get sick from disease or fall victim to drugs so that they're always 100% effective. I'm sure some troops would love to have a drink, some FOBBIT (forward operating base creatures that never leave the safety of the base, modern day version of the REMF - Rear Echelon Mother Fucker) probably wants to get high in the rear as they likely don't have much else to do after they're done work for the day but combat troops in the US Army have a 14 month tour. Canadian troops have a 6 month tour in Afghanistan and both have to stay clean, alert and out of trouble during all that time. They can have some fun at home but until then it's all business and the military has learned from the American War in Vietnam and doesn't want to go through the trouble that some, not all troops got into back then.

We made plans Tuesday night to have coffee and so I can meet his friend, someone who took history at university and I told him I could for an hour or two, but a few hours afterwards I'll be getting ready for the airport.

I headed back home and walked through the park, but this time I kept my eye out for Westerners talking to Asians. Oh! Might help if I mention that I posted a warning about scammers in Ho Chi Minh City and my story on the Lonely Planet travel Forum. If you're going somewhere on vacation, you buy a Lonely Planet book about that country and learn pretty much everything you need to know, it's a travellers bible and they have a forum to keep people up to date on info instead of making a new issue of every country every year. I got an email from someone wanting to know if they could post my story on their blog. I checked it out and this guy, a Western photojournalist living in Vietnam and his blog is pretty much dedicated to hunting down the Filipino mafia which is exactly what it sounds like, Filipino people operating a scam and crime syndicate in Saigon. It has tons of stories on different scams, locations they hang out, many that I have visited and follow up stories. He also posts pictures and video of scammers and has a police officer friend that investigates these cases. I let him post my stuff, I also gave him a video that I shot of the two old ladies, which he went through and got still images of each of the old women. He explained that they have purses and hats so they can hide their faces if need be and most scammers have people on lookout as well.

I was somewhat inspired and kept an eye out for Westerners. One girl was being questioned by two girls, then three, five, seven and a small mob formed around her as I took random pics of the area around the area. Turns out they all looked like university studies and figured seven girls couldn't all get away if they jumped the one girl. Due to the website I figured out what Filipino people look like in comparison to Vietnamese, the subtle differences in their faces. Filipinos skin tone seems to be darker than Vietnamese and now I can pick them out of crowds. I found a group of pinos hanging out on the main path of the park, waiting for tourists to walk by. I saw Fuckstick again but I don't know if he clued in that it was me. I kept an eye on them, but couldn't get up close and take a good picture of them and their faces without them knowing I'm taking a picture of five scammers faces at the same time haha. No trees or plants I could pretend to take pictures at. I did a lap around the park and discovered that each tree is numbered and I accidentally  found the 173rd Airborne tree. See, I can't go without a blog not mentioning them! I found the 101st Airborne Division tree, the 82nd Abn Div tree, the 25th Inf Div, 23rd Inf Div, 9th Inf Div, 5th Inf Div, 4th Inf Div, 1st Inf Div and I guess I can include the 1st Calvary Div too. I'm not going back to take another picture of a number one spray painted on a tree haha. I also took pictures of the 335th Assault Helicopter Company (flew the 173rd everywhere) and the 174th Assault Helicopter Company which from 1967 to 1971 gave troops around An Khe and Bong Son occasional support as they were attached to the 1st Cav Div. With my tree hunting mission complete I figured out a way I can get Fuckstick's face on my and not be obvious. I was walking around with my camera in hand all the time, even when not taking pics so I started recording and walked past him close enough to get him and I also had a bag to somewhat conceal the camera until I needed it out. I uploaded the video, played it frame by frame, print screened the frames and blew them up. With that I sent them to the guy with the blog and he'll post them.

I had some time to kill before meeting up with Hien and I had nothing else to do here so I did something I haven't done in a long time. I did some research! Arthur B on my facebook, a former OH-6 Loach helicopter pilot went to the Casper Aviation Platoon facebook page and said he was a fan. That came up on my news and I've been meaning to look into it, so finally someone became a fan, or joined a group, or did something that was useful and that I wanted to know about! Finally! haha. When the 173rd was organized in Okinawa Japan in 1963 it TOE (table of organization and equipment) it was suppose to have eight UH-1 Huey helicopters. Instead it had four OH-23 Ravens which are small scout helicopters, looks like the skinny ones from TV's MASH with the big bubble top, two U-6 Beaver light observation airplanes (which are Canadian made, you know, from a time when we made airplanes) and one UH-1A Huey. They were sent to Vietnam May 5th 1965 but only sent the two Beaver, which later were given to another unit and in return got two Hueys (one UH-1B and one UH-1D which was a troop carrier Huey) Nov 7th, 1965. The role of the Casper Aviation Platoon was to give 173rd Brigade and Battalion leaders C&C (Command and Control) aircraft. When the troops got in the shit, they would hover over the battlefield to see whats going on and to co-ordinate the battle. The 173rd Brigadier General Williamson wanted an aviation company directly attached to the 173rd so they can get up and go anywhere without tons of planning and co-ordination, like when battalions were chopped in half in Dak To, calling a local helicopter unit to pick up and move a few hundred troops last minute would have taken forever, luckily US Generals agreed and gave Company A/82nd Aviation Battalion to the 173rd, which later they'd be known as the 335th Assault Helicopter Company "Cowboys" letting the 173rd carry 160 troops into combat on 16 UH-1D's and being escorted by 9 UH-1B's armed to the teeth with either six M60's, eighteen 2.75mm rockets and a 40mm automatic grenade launcher OR the 40mm grenade launcher, forty-eight 2.75mm rockets and two M60's. Fucking Eh ;) When I finish it I'll post it. That's one more thing I'm looking forward to getting back home, having time to sit on my ass and rock and roll on reports while I watch Futurama and American Dad on Teletoon at Night haha.

I hit Zoom Cafe for one of my last meals, massive cheese sticks and a bacon cheese burger with two big onion rings on top. I met a British tourist that just landed in Saigon two hours earlier. He asked if I had any tips and I told him I've been here for seven weeks haha. I unloaded all the useful info I could think of, from 90% of Vietnamese girls in clubs are prostitutes, to Bobby Brewers shows American movies, to bargain your balls off anywhere you go, watch out for scammers, ignore people trying to sell you shit as talking to them is a waste of time and breathe, settle on a price before getting on a moto, etc. It was this time a guy I've dealt with before at the same time, same place came up and grabbed my shoulder and started massaging it, then asked if I wanted a massage. I said "No, No, No, get off of me!" I kept talking to the British guy and he told me he just came from Cambodia, and for $300 you can fire Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) and for an extra $75 you get to aim at a goat! Yea! You can also throw grenades and play with an AK-47. The rumours are true! The massage fuck came back fifteen minutes later and he grabbed my shoulder again. I grabbed his hand and asked him "Would you like to keep your arm?" He looked at me and I told him "If you do, get your fucking hand off me or I'll rip it off you!!!" He got the message and he mentioned something in Vietnamese to someone nearby and gave me a look. He better not try it again because I'll be hazardous to his health and leave him with the medical bill. Oh I could easily pay it for sure, I would gladly to fuck him up, but I won't adding insult to injury.

I met up with Hien and we moto'd to the movies and met up with his friend. We get in and we're on the 2nd floor, but the lights are out and to get to your seats there isn't the little ramp or slope we all secretly know and love, so some people tripped down the stairs but I luckily used a little girl as a crutch. Wait, I mean I held seats and felt with my foot, yea... turns out it was a play! We had no idea what play it was, but luckily it was a horror play. the intro I used was the first act. Dude proposes to his wife who is poor, but he has a rich lady lover and they plan on moving to the US. His girlfriend finds out and he kills her. She comes back to haunt his ass, and out of the seven scary parts, two made me jump, all of them being "pop out of no where" spooks but the audio was so loud that it sounded like an explosion, but really it was the sound of a lightning strike, but so fucking loud, plus the lights go super bright and flash. The scene wasn't scary, but the blast of sound just makes you deaf. Making it worse there's two hundred Vietnamese people all around you that SCREAM at the top of their lungs, so the sound isn't just in front of you, it's fucking everywhere! haha. Without the booming sound it wouldn't have been scary. The rest of the play is him getting scared and it was the sister and brother of the girl avenging her death and at the end police take him away, surprisingly with a pistol, which is the first gun, real, airsoft, cap or toy I've seen here. All the guns I've seen were either police or behind glass haha. I grabbed a Toblerone, came back here and wrote this!

Tomorrow I'll get shit shipped out I promise and 6pm I'm meeting up with Hoa. Other then that I might check out the SW area and take a few pics. Till then I'll see ya later

Alien Invasion!!!!!!

Having a problem thinking of a creative way to start off. I'm personally tired of saying "Well I woke up, did this and that" so I think I'll start off with something exciting. I just got back from seeing Skyline which is an "aliens invade earth" sci-fi movie. It didn't do great in theatres which explains why it came out in November and it's already on net flicks. People say "oh it's like independence day and cloverfield!" Go figure!? How many different times can you have aliens invade? Should we put down war movies because We Were Soldiers was like Hamburger Hill because it was a big battle? Haha.

Anyways yea, it had aliens invade, a small band of people trying to survive it, one by one they die, the military helps out and you're not sure how it'll all end. It's the details in between that you have to look at, and I like alien movies. How do the aliens work? Is it a mothership situation where if it goes down do they all fall like drones? Does Will Smith have to fly an enemy ship into the mother ship and have Jeff Goldblum upload a virus and the whole world is safe? I think the situation has evolved and become more realistic. Cloverfield was good because it's just everyday people trying to survive, the military fights, the cast try to get away and in a real alien invasion not everyone get away to a deserted island. Sometimes the ending isn't all sunshine.

The aliens work like this: Beams of light are shot down, and they attract people, like moths to a flame. Then the people are sucked into the air and into a ship. People can only get away if someone stops them from going outside to the light. Those that stay inside have to be quiet as the mother ship sends out seekers to search for more humans, like in the new war of the worlds where that long metal snake thing with the big eye look for Tom Cruise and his kid. If found the people are grabbed and they're brain is removed but we don't know why yet. A few main characters die including one that was essential which I found odd. He was the reason the other main characters were there in the first place haha. Sadly, the cute brunette was killed with him, and the bitchy girl lived. It's suppose to be the other way around! Cute girls live, bitchy ones and ugly ones die! Maybe it's trying to change that, but why her :(

You hear aircraft fly over, and it's Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with sixteen hellfire missiles, but oddly enough they work in air-to-air situations which wouldn't work in real life, as they are laser homing which means the target always has to be painted accurately with a laser or else the missile will miss. Hey, it's just a movie I know. The seekers which are flying dudes fight the UAVs and there's a few new stealth UAVs in the mix. Big aerial fight with no humans being shot down but you'd like to see the UAVs do some damage. A stealth UAV makes it past the seekers, it's clipped and on fire but it opens it's bomb bay doors and fires something! It's some sort of aerial nuke launched at the mothership and blows that bitch down sadly taking out half of LA in the process! Or at least a neighbourhood or two. Everyone hugs with joy but it's only an hour into the movie so it can't be all good news or a super short movie and the mothership is regenerating and more seekers and big walking guys come out and they're mad! More cast is killed, US Navy Seahawk helicopters drop off a few Marines on the apartment roof with Anti-Tank missiles and .50cal anti-material sniper rifles, M82's . They should have had some of the new hi tech looking .50cal machine guns and set up a small position, as the M82 packs a punch but one at a time and ten in a mag. They run to the rooftop and they're just about to get picked up and the helicopter crashes, like at the end of Transformers with Sam and the cube. They give you hope and shoot it down. Somehow one of the big walking guys walks up a building  and takes out the Marines. I forgot to mention the seekers and big walking guys can regenerate too as long as they're brain is intact. It's just the cute couple left over, the Pacific fleet is just outside LA but for some reason no US Naval aircraft are in the fight, only US Air Force F-22's doing gun runs. Cool scene where the big guy that got the Marines is about to get the couple, and the F-22 is doing one last gun run (20mm vs. big thing that can regenerate :S) but the F-22 is winged, catches on fire, crashes on the roof, bounces over the couple in slow motion and knocks the big guy off the roof.

Things are grim and the alien ships are gaining ground, the Pacific fleet at sea is in flames. The couple hold tight, have one last kiss and are sucked up into the ship. Shows that all over the world cities are in flames but then shows what happens to the people who get sucked up. These arms scan each person and their brain is ripped out. The brains go up a tube and are implanted into new aliens and they jump out the ship into action to get more brains.

Now, interesting thing here. The main guy at the beginning saw the light and went towards it, but his buddy pulled him to safety. After seeing the light your veins get all visible through your skin and you kinda go blind from the light for a bit but return to normal. His girlfriend which before the crazy shit admitted she's late and probably pregnant, later goes through the same thing. The guy is aggressive, and wants to head out to the ocean as there's no ships over there, but another guy, some random survivor challenges him and they get into it. Main guy wants to go out trying to survive, random dude wants to sit and wait. Random dude is fat and main guy is average, but main guy dominates the fat random dude and picks him up, which normally he shouldn't be able to. After he mentions that when you first see the light you feel so powerful so that makes you think that since he survived seeing the light it gave him some ability. Later a seeker has his wife and he jumps on it and starts ripping it limb from limb which is cool. It does take him over but his wife hacks out its brain. So the couple get sucked up and into the ship, the main guy's brain is ripped out and put into a new alien dude, but something is wrong with him.

His wife is scanned and confirmed pregnant so she goes in a tube somewhere else. Now the directors did Alien vs. Predator: Requiem which involved a half-predator, half-xenomorph alien (yea I'm an AVP expert too) hybrid that instead of having a second set of teeth to chomp through skull (alien quality) he could jam a tube into females mouths and implant eggs directly instead of having to do the whole alien queen lay millions of eggs and wait for someone to walk by. Anyways I'm getting side tracked but I think most women, or at least the pregnant ones are forced to give life to new aliens in this movie. Just making the gross female bearing alien eggs connection. Maybe it turns the directors on, who knows. The main guy's brain now in an alien hears his wife, comes in and kills the aliens doing that to the women. His wife freaks out but he's passive with her and touched her the way he use to with a human body. She makes the connection and a big dude comes in to stop him. Credits roll but it shows the good alien kicking ass, so it's taken things is a cool and new direction which hasn't been done! It's been confirmed there will be a sequel and it's already in the works so I look forward to that.

Lessons: In hopeless situations like that, where there's waves of regenerating aliens, you're low on supplies, there's no more water and you know you're fucked, I'd want to spend one last good moment with someone I loved and execute her (with her knowing I'm going to do it for the benefit of a quick and painless death) and myself to be saved from limb ripping, bone gnawing, guts splattered all over the new wallpaper horrible death. Another benefit to this is that our brains would not be used in new aliens used to harvest more brains for aliens and give them more power. I also believe with all these alien invasion movies we need to start investing in the space arms race, but not for taking out Russian spaceships, but whatever is out there. Need to create a weapon that can generate a short lasting black-hole with limited range so that a mother-ship before it enters Earth's atmosphere it can be sent somewhere else and hopefully far away! Or, we can set up a base on the moon and have the moon as an observation outpost. We can stay low and when the mother-ship goes past earth, black-hole missile fired. Think of it as a giant black-hole claymore and Earth is the bait. Come on, if we can send people there and drive a friggen car on the moon forty years ago, why can't we set up a small outpost with a Space Marine Recon Element. Let's get super powers to donate a small fraction of there GDP towards this, so it's an Earth unit, and not like the US is claiming the moon as a sovereign state, although, there is a US flag still flying up there. I'm just saying to have an Earth force so that it's not just the US's responsibility, although we already know we'll leave it up to them. Maybe have it as a UN policy, as it's the United Nations. Have Chinese, Russian, US, Indian, Japanese, European Union and at least a few Canadian Space Marines up there, much like we all come together with supplying and maintaining the space station. I'm on to something, and you friggen know it! :P

Alright, less revolutionary events. What I did today muhaha. My morning was the same as usual, but I made it just in time to get free coffee at Bobby Brewers, home to my fruit salad haha. I was going to bring some stuff over to Phuoc's shop to get ready to ship but I wanted to hit Ben Thanh Market, get another work out shirt for dirt cheap and visit with Hanh before I left. I forgot when I sent in my N/75th Ranger patches in to be done, so I dropped in and they were ready. I picked them up but they didn't have my blue print and they looked good so I stuffed them in my pocket and off I went.

I hit the market and found the sport shirt aisle, I was grabbed into the usual booth, demanded my arm was released and once it was I checked out there stuff. In retrospect I should have told them off, maybe tomorrow. I checked out their shirts looking for a colour I liked. I went all through their colours and nothing stood out to me. The one girl said "why you come to market if you don't know what you want!?" I told her I knew exactly what I wanted, just in a colour that looked good. Yea, it'll be fun going back before I go home haha. Down the aisle I found something I liked. It's weird the things imprinted in your brain as a child. I had an F-14A Tomcat toy, and why I love the aircraft to this day (brainwashing), but it was from the Jolly Roger squadron who's colours are black, white and yellow. I picked up a black shirt, yellow stripes on the arms and some white tossed in haha. Used my same barter tactic and the girl wanted me to pay $18. I said $7 until I got $7 and left happy haha.

I saw Hanh and I didn't intend on staying long as I wanted to take everything to to Phuoc's and get that over with. I told him about the snowstorm, he wanted to know about the arctic, he had a map of the US and showing the populated parts of Canada and it had London on the map so I had to show him where I lived, showed him the 401 Highway, mentioned I was behind renaming 172km of it ;) showed him where people vacation in the US, you know, Idaho, New Jersey, Atlanta, all the places we drop everything and pack our bags for! We talked about 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, US history and driving in Canada compared to Vietnam. My ass got numb and turns out I spent three hours talking to him haha. Plus the fruit I ate four hours earlier left my stomach so I need something else. I said goodbye but if I had any free time I could come back to chat, but I am getting ready to leave the country haha.

After buying the shirt I was low on cash and broke, so I had to find a bank that will give me a cash advance. I trekked towards my usual place, SCB Bank. I had to walk back home, get my neck safe as it has my passport and visa in it, walk to SCB bank with a heavy pack and starving stomach and it was closed. Fuck. So I had to hit my #2 place, Dong Ha bank which was a few blocks the other way. They were open, I got my money and I trekked past SCB bank and chowed down on KFC haha, maybe a bit too much with a crispy chicken combo and a large popcorn chicken. Plus the Disney channel was showing "UP!", the movie about the old bastard that strings balloons to his house and goes to where his dead wife wanted to go, so i could at least digest and watch it haha.

I then hit Phuoc's and unloaded my kit but since it was 4:30pm and the shop closing at 5pm I couldn't bring over my box. He suggested I brought it Monday morning and they open at 8am so I want to get that all over with asap. I came back to my room and checked out the N/75 patches. I had to look for my blueprint and I have to go back and get them changed. They better be able to ship them to me too or else I'm getting my money back. I saw Skyline and already explained it. I honestly liked it, sure it wasn't the best movie ever, but provided new ideas to the genre and really isn't that what movies are suppose to do on top of letting us forget our lives for ninety minutes?

After this I might watch some American Dad or the third Universal Soldier movie, see how things can get much worse haha. Tomorrow I might hit the market again and I'm currently invited to see some Vietnam movies with Hien, one of the university students. I'm cool with him but ready to kill him if I have to muhaha. Hope it's war related and I can tell him how things really happened not being surrounded by strangers haha. We'll see what happens and obviously you'll hear about it. Take care.

Old ladies, AK-47's and Coconuts

Now that I have your attention and confusion...


I got four days and a wake up. I'll be happy to step on that freedom bird and have it take me to the land of the big PX. The PX was the Post Exchange, more or less a department store on base and used to describe home. My time in Vietnam is short, making me a short-timer. My time is so short I could parachute off a dime. I'm so short I gotta reach up to tie my boots. I'm so short I wear Asian condoms as a raincoat. Alright, I'm not that short muahaha. I'll be happy to go home and see my family and friends, to be back to Western food that's more than hamburgers, to get back to the things I took for granted, like Subway, the gym, signs that I can understand, a visible police presence and above all Canadian women haha :)

There are things that I'll miss though, from bartering, to knowing how much a taxi ride will cost before you enter and the fact that there's a lot of items here that we have at home, but at a fraction of the price. It lets you know how much we're getting jabbed at home, but then again we're getting paid $10/hour to push buttons compared to $.10/hour. I'll miss having buying power haha. I'm going to miss crossing the street here. I can cross six lanes of busy traffic here in seconds. I'll miss motos going around you while at home cars go though you and at three times the speed.

Anyways this isn't my goodbye note, but I'm starting to think of things I'll miss. The streets seem so alive here. I feel the culture is more friendly here, that at home on a crowded street during rush hour you are surrounded by people, but you are alone. It sounds weird but when I got here I was so happy to see white people. I don't know the language they speak, or their name or anything about them, but I know they're from the West and we probably have things in common. Suddenly I wasn't so alone. If I had to I could talk to some fellow white person or Westerner. We'd be walking down a street, metres away from each other but I felt more at ease because if something happened, I could yell for help and I knew someone would understand me and increase my odds of help. I don't think I can properly describe it, but I generally feel people aren't as warm at home. Sure I'm surrounded by people that can understand me, but I think if I needed help at home, that compared to Vietnam, I would less likely get that help where as if people could understand me in Vietnam, there'd be more people willing to help someone out. I just view the Western world more dog-eat-dog, fend for yourself, sink or swim than Vietnam. Maybe decades of war pulled the population closer together? That it's been so long ago that Canadians had to grip hands and suffer together that now there's next to no suffering we've lost the importance of standing together and helping each other out. We see glimpses of it at home, when the Red River floods a community fills sandbags together for hours. Wildfires in British Columbia band communities together and welcome displaced strangers into your home. On 9/11, Dartmouth airport took a huge amount of US Air Traffic and found places for people to stay and sleep until the situation was sorted out. As odd as it may seem, maybe decades of war the Vietnamese people, or those that remember their country at war, taking in a stranger to your home, sharing your dinner with them and giving them a place to sleep was common place, that it was a learned behaviour and taught to the next generation. Overtime it might fade, as it has in Canada, but in the moment here it's good. Maybe Canada will get it back when China, Russia or the US invade to rape us of our vast resources and lack of defence to protect it. Maybe positives can come from negatives such as war.

Alright, down to the details you've been waiting for! I had fruit salad today! I had my coffee, had my spider stopper boots on as I was going to Dan Sinh Market. I didn't find any nylon ammo pouches for Chris but the back up plan was that Moore's have them for $5 more than I could have gotten them for, and maybe in better shape (ex: not sitting in the sun and rain for forty years). I did pick up '60s Canon Canonet QL19E Camera for the Lt (Lieutenant) of our group Sean, which Lt is his nickname, much like Sam and a few others call me "Doc". It looks good and I was told it's still working, which I can't test or prove but the guy selling it is a good guy. I bought like 70% of all the Army stuff our group got from his sister and if his sister tried to rip me off he told me to let him know. He just had a side booth of radios, cameras and other old odds and ends. Plus if it came down to it I could beat the hell out of him, but for $18 even if it doesn't work it's still a nice shiny good condition forty year old piece of kit. I did one last lap of the market and I left it for good. Everybody there knows me there as I've been hunting there for so long, and found so many good deals.

I plan to bring everything over to Phuoc's military shop and get everything ready to ship tomorrow. We take everything out, do a manifest of all the shit in the box haha, seal it up, weigh it, his son who has the shipping business calls in the box's stats and gives me a price, to which I pay, get a tracking number, crunch the numbers of who owes me how much for shipping according to weight. Kirshin bought a zippo, so he won't be paying the shipping cost for Brit's steel helmet and webgear. I'll email everyone their costs and send them the tracking number so if they wish they can see it cross the world. I think last time I talked to his son he mentioned there was now a two week method of shipping instead of the four day we did last time and if it saves us all money I'm all for it, unless you guys want to have a pre or post Christmas meeting, or we could do something in Jan, get together for the winter moral meeting and just hang out while I deliver everyones stuff.

Back to my day! Woo-hoo! Here we go! After the market I came back to my room, loaded up all the maps and some small stuff (pens, paper, markers, a few books, a little Buddha, compass and three zippos) and hit the post office. I also wanted to hit Ben Thanh Market to see if they had an Adidas shirt I liked, which I saw at the Russian Market. I dropped in, starting looking and then the flood of hands and people asking me to buy began haha. I'm a lot quicker now, one women grabbed and me and I quickly snapped for her to let go and she did. I would have kept walking but she had some Adidas stuff, just not what I'm looking for. I know what I want, and it was an Orange t-shirt with black stripes and made of that new breathable material. At home it's ridiculously priced but here, as it's made in Singapore it's a lot more affordable. I found someone else and after going through the same song and dance "what you look for? what colour? what size? how many? this what you want? what about this? etc" after sending her husband to bring what I call bale of shirts (it's like 30 individually wrapped t-shirts in every colour bundled together, like a hay bale) found what I wanted.

I regret not video taping it, but it was a classic bartering event. I knew this t-shirt was at the Russian Market and the seller said he'd give it to me for $7CDN before bartering down meaning it costs even less! She told me she could give it to me for $18CDN as I'm the first customer of the day and I bring her good luck, or what she hoped for good money. If I know I can get it somewhere for a certain price, that's my limit. My tactic is "I can buy this exact item over "here" for $7CDN, so if you can't match that, I'm going there" The price went from $18 to $15, to $12, $10, $8 and me holding my ground at $7. She kept asking how much I was wanting, I kept telling her $7 hahaha. At $8 she said it was her final. I took one step backwards and she said $7CDN. Victorious.  Honestly now that I think about it, I should probably get another at that price haha, my Day 1/Day 2 shirts for the gym. I just don't know what colour as I got my favourite, orange and the black stripes remind me of the old NHL All-star Jerseys from the '80s I grew up watching and yea I'm sure you naturally thought of a Tiger, which was my second though as that's how my brain works, hockey, then African animals. Makes sense though since I'll look as majestic and run almost as fast. I'm becoming more funny too, trying to have more fun with people before I go. Some lady asked if I wanted to buy some Armani boxers and I apologized to her since I don't wear any and YOU wouldn't either if you had to spend +50 days here haha. Anyways when I get into -20 weather and walk to the gym I'll have two layers on so it'll make up for my non-wearing them here. That's my boxer economics Sam :)



I headed out towards the Post Office and there was a girl with an umbrella. In Vietnam, the more pale you are, the sexier you are, which is generally the opposite of the West, mind you, you don't need to be tanned to be sexy ;) She told me I look really white, like I was from Europe. At first I took it in disrespect and then clued in that it's good here, except not to me as I rather be tan. We chatted and I said I was from the US, and I had my camera recording. Kept my story the same, just that I was from New Jersey as I smelled a scam. This girl was new at it. She followed the same pattern, using the opposite sex as herself as the person travelling. It's mostly guys that talk to me and their sister is going to North America. She was a girl and it was her brother going. She couldn't think of what he was going to do for work in the US haha. It was weird, it was her birthday and the party was at 1pm and she wanted me to come to it and talk to her brother. I'm going to the post office haha. She tried to get me to go and I humoured her, but eventually I told her I can't go to someone's house and just as usual the conversation died and she went hunting for the next guy. It's funny because as we're talking I was thinking "If this wasn't a scam, this is how porn starts, some random girl inviting me over to her place on her birthday to talk to someone I'm pretty sure didn't exist", me and my luck :P


I hit the post office and I have two yellow envelopes with the stuff in it. One is just maps, the other is the misc shit. I miss that in Canada you give an envelope to a postal clerk, they weigh it, see where it's going, the shipping I want to use and BAM! pay the price and off it goes. I go to the envelope mailing desk but as it's going to Canada for some reason I have to go to the desk with a lady shipping a crate worth of Marlboro cartons of smokes and some guy wanting to ship a TV to Germany haha. The clerk has to see everything that I have so I had to dump it all out which is great in a busy post office. He sees the zippos and I told him there's no gas in them as I want them to be shipped. He opened one and somehow got it to light, so I put them a side. Hanh, the zippo guy asks if I want free fuel but I don't as I'm not going to use them and they're going home, but I guess he gave me a live one. I have the two envelopes and sadly I had to fill out two sets of forms. After doing one set and taking fifteen minutes I ask if I can get both shipped together, I don't want to write my home address six fucking times haha. He said he could and I'm thinking they'll have the cardboard envelope like FedEx has which is bigger to fit things, but still thin. I add the other items to my first set of paperwork and have to declare value for insurance. I have about thirteen maps and each was $5 so that's $65. Their worth though, if they got lost I'd have to buy them on eBay for $40, so I declared $520CDN. That's my shipping economics Sam :) My misc shit was $50CDN as it included the overhead transfers I slaved over mapping out the Dak To Campaign battles so if it gets lost, my time is worth something and I need to be compensated. I signed off that these amounts were accurate, as to me they are.

I squeeze my way to the clerk, as thats how Vietnam rolls, not by FIFO - First in, first out (thanks Harvey's abbreviations!), no order, no line, just like the evacuation of Saigon, 1975. Now, have you ever seen someone do their job, and just fucking rock at it? I mean it could be me garnishing a double bacon cheese with everything under fifteen seconds (Now I'm thinking Harveys haha) and someone see's it and is all like "Damn! That guy can move!" There's a guy at the post office like that. He must be a lifer, probably early forties but he packs and tapes your packages, which sounds like a small role, but he covers your box in tape (sick your mind went there) so that if it's raining a little during unloading the aircraft, your box will be fine, or if the aircraft has a bird or lightning strike and crashes in the pacific then your box will be the last to get waterlogged and sink into the abyss. I've dubbed him Le Duan, as he looks like a Le Duan to me, and he just rocks at his job, flying, a crescendo of tape tearing, a brown blur being spun around and is quickly coated in blue packing tape. It's weird that I remember the box taping guy I know haha, but he was so good at his job that it stood out. He probably wakes up, puts on his uniform and believes that with every box that he tapes with care, another persons package arrives in great shape. I also think it's pride, sure it's a small role, but it stand out. I had a shitty job washing dishes, but I was proud of my work, I gave 120% and the sea of dishes disappeared and the bus bins were empty. Shit job but I gave it my all and it was noted. Alright, enough about boxes people. I hit the Vincom centre, as the only other thing I'd eat in the area is Pizza Hut but it's expensive so I'll save it for later and hit up Popeye's Chicken, which I still find funny it's in Vietnam.


My leg felt good so I walked back past Ben Thanh Market and through the park. I wanted to record people asking me about Canada because there loved one was going to work in a hospital there aka scammers and me messing with them. My main motive was to sound serious and tell them that Canada is dangerous for Vietnamese people and completely bullshit them with a straight face, as they were bullshitting me with a straight face as well. I just wasn't going to rob them haha. An older lady from Thailand was talking to me and wanted me to sit down and talk. I hit record on my camera and she asked about the amount of life on my battery, and I said it has plenty of time. Note that she didn't tell me to turn it off. Her "sister" came by and sat on the other side of me so I'm in the middle of them which isn't the best position being surrounded. I'm still recording and they ask me questions and I answer, we get to the point where I mentioned that a lot of people are asking me about people moving to Canada. You can view the reaction in the one girls face like "Fuck, he's not new at this!" and they kinda lean away from my camera. The one says they should go and I let them. The one leaves and the "sister" wanted to see my camera, so I show both sides to her and she wanted to see with her hands. I turned it off. I told her she can't see it with her hands as I'm a tourist and she could just run off with it. She gets pissy and I told her I deleted it. She still wants to see it and starts grabbing for it. Well I Jason Bourne it outta there (yea, he's a verb now). I zig-zag through the park instead of a straight path, best method to avoid accurate gunfire or older ladies who can't manoeuvrer as well as you. I didn't think she was chasing me, but I knew she was mad and they work in teams, maybe she was in contact with another team? I take my battery and memory card out and place them in my neck safe and dump my camera in my ARVN ruck. She was yelling and I was already forming a defence that she tried to steal my camera and that's why I'm beating feet outta dodge if I'm stopped. I cross a busy intersection and use the traffic as a buffer, I snaked down an alley I knew lined with tourists, so if someone gives me trouble over a camera, I have a small force of other concerned camera lovers at my defence. I take a main street, weave down a side street and turn into my alley to my hotel. By the way I'm still in paranoid mode, head on a swivel, waiting to get attacked, confronted or busted. I make it in my hotel, smile at the mamasan cleaning as usual and everything is cool. I make it in my room, lock my door and set my door stop, turn on the AC and fans as I'm dripping and hide my camera in my "bank" where I keep my cash. I'm still paranoid thinking that someone is a few minutes behind me and I hear the mamasan talking to someone at the door. Then it clicks in my head I should take the video off the card. What if I'm busted, my room is searched I have my camera, my battery and my video card in the same place. I take just the card and toss it in my laptop, now I'm uploading files on a possible time limit. I upload it and erase it off the card. The card is now safe, but what if they search my computer? It'll be sitting right there! So I upload it to my google pics account and take it off my computer so at least if I'm in shit, my computer is free and I have a copy online, which once something is online it's next to impossible to take off. It's 4am and there's nobody to talk to about it. Thankfully Sam left his MSN account on and I had to spill the details to him, just to get it out of me and despite probably thinking "um... what the fuck?" when he woke up I thank him for his computer being there at the moment, as after that I could let it out and take it easy. Making things more interesting, I had to meet a friend in the same fucking park an hour later! haha


I was going to meet up with Hoa, a girl that was with the group of university people asking me questions and working on English at 5:30pm. On my way I took a few fake photos to put something on my card, in case for some crazy reason the same people were in the park and I got in trouble, that I could easily show I have nothing on the card but pictures of the sky, a few trees and my thumb on the lens and they tried to steal my camera! Muhaha. Alas I worried for nothing but still self preservation is important! Remember that kids, making an alibi isn't a waste of time if you think you might need it! I did consider leaving my camera, and I did leave my wallet, but I figured that if someone wants to talk to me about Canada and call me their friend and have me go to their house but doesn't want their picture taken then they have something to hide. If they let me take they're picture I'm still not trusting the bastards, but I have something I can use against them. I show up early and I saw my buddy Ian again, the guy who was working with Fuckstick and Bitch! He was on a cellphone and walking away, but I was hoping to walk into view and have him come to me as a target, as it would be too weird if I went to him and sought him out. He went off and I gave up, at least I know he's back on the saddle trying to scam more people. We might meet again I hope. I wait for Hoa and something must have came up as she didn't show up.

It was dark and 6pm so I forged for food. It's to the point that there's hundreds of food options out there for me, but I can't think of anything new I'd like to enjoy or anything I'm dying for. I honestly swept my whole area looking at every menu and after about 45 minutes I find found the first place I ate at in Vietnam and right now the name escapes me but it's across from my alley. The food is good and so are the prices, plus I had a craving for their coconut ice cream. One funny thing did happen though. I was checking out a menu at one place, and the host/moto parker greets me, I say hi and flip though the menu. I find nothing interesting, thank him and move to the next place. I'm checking out the next place's menu and a girl comes up to me from the last place claiming I ordered a meal and walked away. I though to order a meal I would have to sit down and have someone write down what I ordered? If you have "Hi" and "Thank you" on your menu how long do they take to make? I'll have the Hi with no tomato, and I'll take the Thank you well done. I head back to my room to grab my cash and head to my first Vietnamese food place called "Eden" on De Tham which is a tiki/bamboo themed place. I've never eaten upstairs so I though I'd go up there as downstairs was picking up. Upstairs it was dead. Ever go to church, or a community centre and walk into a big but completely unused room? I did tonight haha. I ordered two chicken burritos for 55,000VND, which is good compared to me paying 70,000VND at an overpriced place and that was for each burrito. Now I believe things happen for a reason. I'm sitting upstairs in an empty forty seat dining room and since I'm up there my waiter it hanging out up there, but he's asking me all these questions and I think HE kinda liked me. I know I rock but I don't roll that way haha. Anyways I was mixed between bored and uncomfortable. Then something happened. I hear someone come up the stars and five sexy Aussie ladies come sit across from me hahahaha. From one extreme to the next, times like that I believe haha. My coconut ice cream comes, and last time I had it, it was just a bowl of vanilla/coconut ice cream, no big deal. They drop a massive shaved coconut in front of me, the inside had the original coconut scraped out, so it's just like a big hollow bowl, then filled with coconut ice cream and the rest is whip cream and chocolate sauce. All the Aussies starred at it wondering what the hell it was haha. I told them and said I'm just as surprised, last time I had it, it was just a little bowl haha so naturally a few had to order it as well. Their food came in, mine came out and I headed out.


I came in here, had my shower, started this, had a chocolate and before had a cream soda craving and hit the shop and go. I saw a friggen sweet, souped up, tricked and blacked out motorcycle, not a moto, but a real motorcycle. It looked like something one of the Four Horsemen would ride, I mean when their horses were in the stable and they go out drinking and pick up some cold as ice ladies or something, I don't know. I saw my previous hooker friend working that I forgot about haha. I saw her one day in the park, secretly thanked myself that I didn't do anything with her as the sun was up and I didn't have a drink in hand, so we just recognized each other and I kept motoring. I got my fix, the cashier tossed in a bagel or something in my bag and thought it was some trick like "Lets toss shit in his bag and hope he didn't hear the bag ruffle and charge him for it". I said no thanks and then clued in that it's 11:30pm and they said it was free. Thanks for giving me what turned out to be sweet potato bread and hopefully it'll taste alright, not filled with some cream thats currently turned haha. I forgot it was 11:30pm again when some guy asked if I wanted a moto ride, then asked if I wanted weed. Wait, I won't get on a bike with you, but I will pay you, to give me a bag of green shit for me to line my lungs with. Let's do it! Haha fuck no. Even if I did trust him which I haven't seen him selling Zippos at Ben Thanh Market or cleaning hotel rooms in my guest house, at home I would get a ticket. Here I would get a 7.62mm round in the face.

Oh! That reminds me! I saw my first AK-47 today, and not behind museum glass. I was walking from the Vincom Centre and found myself moving towards the Rex Hotel and I crossed City Hall. Oddly enough City Hall has two guardhouses in front, and one guy inside I think was cleaning an AK-47, or a Chinese Type 56, same-same.


Alright, quick plan for myself tomorrow, kit inventory, take it to Phuoc's shop, hit Ben Thanh to get another cheap yet sexy Adidas work out shirt, get the shipping quote, hit the bank for the last time in Vietnam, go see Skyline at 7pm at my breakfast place as it has a movie theatre upstairs, blog and email receipts to everybody!

Now that I'm high on Berry Mirinda and Toblerone I'll watch Jean Claude Van Damm try to act in Universal Soldier III, yes, they made a III! Night!

Know your Toblerone Scammer's English!

How many times can I start off doing the same old thing? You know, the "Well, didn't do too much today..." intro haha. Fuck it, I'm mixing it up. I just got in from dinner at Cafe Zoom and picking up a Toblerone bar. If you're in Vietnam it's you're only fix for chocolate in terms of size and price. The only other chocolate fixers they have are Mars bars and Kitkats, but at 24,000VND and you get twice as much chocolate in a Toblerone for only 10,000VND more. That's right, I know chocolate economics. I like Zoom Cafe and it's new and fresh, that's why I keep coming back. The menu is kinda selected though. They have the normal apps, cheese sticks, onion rings, potato skins, etc. Other then that, it's burgers and Mexican food which I wasn't impressed with. If I don't want Mexican it's... you guessed it... Burgers! Haha. Don't get me wrong, they make the best burgers I've had here but I gotta find a new place as I've had all their burgers. The bad thing is that I've been here for six weeks, each night hitting up a new place and I can't think of a place I'd like to come back to, other than Pizza Hut, which I'll have to hit before I leave. I've eaten everywhere in my neighbourhood, and outside of it is Vietnamese food which I have no interest in which is odd since I'm in Vietnam right? Haha. I've exhausted local resources and might have to do some hunting tomorrow instead of just wandering down the local strip.

Before dinner I watched two VN war documentaries I just happen to find torrents for, in my quest to rape the hotel's bandwidth while I still can haha. The first movie was "Know Your Enemy - Viet Cong" which was a thirty minute video of a propaganda film of the Viet Cong found in Katum, 1967. Anyone know what unit found it? Fucking right, the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Wasn't sure how I could work them into tonight's blog and then bam, mentions them in the video. Anyways it's a dog and pony show of the Viet Cong killing members of the Civilian Irregular Defence Group. The CIDG was a rag tag unit of locals. When the US or allies cleared a village that was known to harbour the Viet Cong, the people would be moved to a safer location called Strategic Hamlets which was a good idea. The bad thing is that looking at them they conjure up images of Jewish concentration camps with barbed wire. A village would be moved and they'd be trained on how to defend themselves if attacked and were given weapons. I could be wrong but I think each village had a radio allowing them to call for help to local ARVN, US or allied troops. The bad thing about the idea is that the people have lived on that land all their life. Their family have worked that rice paddy for hundreds of years. Farmers are buried beside their field so that after they are gone, their spirits can watch over it. Well the video shows the VC attack a village and afterwards the locals through a big party thanking the VC for saving them. Bull fucking shit haha. The magic of editing haha. The point of the video wasn't to take their propaganda but to learn other information about them, at least that was what the host said. I find it a little hard to learn about the enemy while he's spoon-feeding you what he wants you to see. You can only take it like a grain of salt but keep what you saw in mind.

The other video I watched was done by History Television Australia on Long Tan. I've been there already, seen the battlefield but sadly I found this video after I went there. Hearing about all the details, the time line and action from the men that were there made me appreciate it a lot more. Before hand all I knew was it was Australia's first big battle with the enemy and they faced a larger force and survived, but took 18 KIA and 24 wounded. It's not a lot in the bigger scope of the war, but it was the largest single loss for Aussie troops. I'll quickly go through it. An Aussie company of around eighty troops (I assume they have different troop sizes than the US as a US company is 120 troops) entered the Long Tan rubber plantation. Rubber plantations are dead flat and span out for a few hundred metres and the biggest rubber tree might be a foot wide. Due to the shade from all those trees there's next to no grass to hide in. If you're in there, there's no way to hide. The company makes contact with a platoon sized enemy force and take a handful of KIA in the first few minutes. The enemy force grows to a company size. Aussies call artillery from the Royal New Zealand Artillery Regiment. For every VC killed by artillery, two take his place and keep fighting. They call for reinforcements but there was nobody to send, they were running low on ammo and most troops saved one round in their pocket, so that if they were to be overran they could kill themselves instead of being prisoners. The Aussie HQ didn't want to send helicopters but hearing the battle most went anyways to kick out ammo to the troops, not to slug it out and fight so I assume they didn't get in too much shit. The company loses two radio men and the only one left is with the Company HQ which was behind the front line and supporting the fight. They find themselves heavily outnumbered and soon outflanked. They send an Aussie troop of M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC's) with big machine guns. The video played radio communications from the fight, and I think that's what got me. Hearing a radio man scream "If we don't get those tracks (the APC's) in twenty minutes send them back to base, since we'll be fucking dead!" and calling in artillery "They're... they're getting in closer... drop those rounds on our own position!" The base radios back to the platoon in the most shit that it's too dangerous and they radio back something like "I have six men left against a hundreds of VC charing at us! I'll take the fucking risk!"

It's hearing the fright and despair in their voices that just sends a shiver right down my spine. The Viet Cong have three walls of fire around the Aussies and they're getting ready to close the lid on the "box" and move in to finish them off. They're low on ammo, their medic is out of supplies and morphine, men are in such pain they're biting their tongues and lips off and I forgot to mention it's pissing rain too. Nobody has a bayonet as they weren't issued yet, so those who are out of ammo are ready to swing their rifles like clubs. The VC line up and start coming, and thank fucking god the M113's just make it in time and cut down the VC. The troops ran out the back and laid down a base of fire while the .50cal machine guns snap trees in half and luckily it broke the VC's back and they fled. Eighty troops took on two thousand five hundred enemy troops and killed 245 and wounded 150. The Aussies took 18 killed, 24 wounded. All twenty-two sent to the aid station, the lone medic did his job and they all survived.

Now looking at the war, 18 KIA isn't a lot and the Aussies lost 521 KIA from 1962 to 1972. It was their first big fight. Still in comparison the 1st Calvary Divison's first big fight they lost around 400 troops but mind you they were 25,000 compared to the Aussie's 400. I tried to think about it though, the impact and I looked to Afghanistan. We have around 3,000 troops in Afghanistan and at the time of Long Tan, Aussie's strength was about the same. I thought about going from losing one or two guys in a week or two, to losing eight-teen in three hours and that would rock the country. I'd personally flip and see how fast I can get processed for service and I'm sure some did just that as well. While we're on the topic a Canadian died in Vietnam, but in an Australian uniform. Ronald A. Scott died Sept 10th, 1965 from small arms (rifles) and was an Australian Advisor with 3d Bn, 6th Reg't, 2d ARVN Division up in Quang Tri, which is just south of the Demilitarized Zone. Just reading his file and he's from New Westminister BC. He was a Volunteer and was a 2nd Class Warrant Officer and he's buried in Sydney Australia. I'm assuming his family settled there.

Okay, keep going backwards haha. I had lunch at KFC, and I only do it because I'm in the area and there's next to nothing else. I finally saw they had Popcorn Chicken and figured I'd test it out. I feel better saying I tested it out, like in the name of science, like it has a higher purpose than coating my arteries haha. I hit the market. Now I know you're asking yourself, wait... which market did Jay go to? Which one has he spent hundreds at? Which one does he see plenty of full grown rats, and in one case a monster spider? That's right! Dan Sinh Market! I picked up a map for Josh, got Chris a nylon belt and circled the market for a good forty-five minutes hunting for those nylon ammo pouches I saw yesterday! I couldn't find them. Guess they're like the VC. Naw, I have one glimmer of hope that they're in the shop of a guy who wasn't there today. Tomorrow I have to pick up a sexy '60s Canon camera for the Lt. so I'll check it out again. Tomorrow is my last market day and I'm not going back as I hope to ship everything out this weekend before my freedom-bird takes me away Wednesday morning at 6am. Today was a sort of land chance day, so I picked up some US military money troops were paid in, to avoid the Vietnamese from getting their hands on US cash, but ironically enough I was buying it from a Vietnamese lady! I also picked up some LSA Oil to sit in my helmet bands, you know, since I now have three helmets and only one head, but the others are for the FNG's I'll recruit, or just a lone uniform for someone who wants to try it out.

I forgot to mention that yesterday while I was going through a shitload of maps, there were some white boys behind me checking out the fake ass zippos. I was planning on warning them that they're fake, made locally and in the last five years, that Bugs Bunny and Mikey Mouse weren't on the Vietnam Era ones as the troops only saw Charlie Brown and Snoopy comics in Stars and Strips magazine. That's why the one girl is knocked up and cursing Charlie Brown, and Snoopy dressed as the Red Baron on Era zippos. Good thing I read Brit's book before coming :) Anyways the girl asked them where they were from. They said... wait for it... CANADA!!!!! I spun around and blurted out "Where in Canada!?!?!" and they were from Victoria Island! I told them I'm from London, Ont and it took me six fucking weeks to find one of our own abroad. I told them I thought I was the only Canadian in country haha. I quickly warned them about the zippos, how I'm here because I've studied the war for seven years and how I collect all "this" shit as I spun around aiming at anything green and for sale in the market haha. We chatted for a bit and they wanted six zippos for $25Cdn. They only had Cdn which I advise against. When you come here, trade it in for VN Dong asap, as it's easier to figure out if your getting fucked over than converting it. I had to tell the shop keeper Cdn is on par with USD and they debated buying. They did the smart thing and walked away, much to the girl's frustration. She said "USA buys good, but Canadians dinkydau except Jay" hahaha. I just explained that Vietnam is really different from Canada and when you first get here you know how much you'd pay for something at home, but you have no idea how much anything costs here, even more so at a market with no price tags or compare. A 1967 tri-fold E-tool runs around $30, but I got mine for $25 and some guy wanted me to buy his at $80 haha. Also I've seen mint condition helicopter pilot helmets. The first I saw was $400, the second was $600 and the one I saw yesterday and took pictures of it on me was $200, which I considered for a few seconds haha. I plan on getting a motorcycle eventually, and I'll either wear a helicopter, or most likely an F-14 Tomcat VF-84 Jolly Roger Squadron pilot helmet for it, so that's why the thought floated between my ears. By the way I had my spider killers on and luckily I didn't see any. I saw at least four rats though.

Before that I hit the park to meet up with a Vietnamese friend. I suck at names but I know his name is Hien as that's the Zippo dude's name, not the made up name I threw on him "Tran" haha. I met him in the park at 9am, which I don't love getting up early haha. I was there for 8:45am and a guy read my shirt, asked me where I'm from. Today I was from the US of A. He asked where and I said Maryland, because of the movie "1969" last night with sexy Winona Ryder (she's still in my head ;) haha). He asked where's that and I said near New Jersey. Well he had a surprise for me. He has a sister going to New Jersey to work in a hospital (fist to palm... here we go again!) I told him "Wow, are you serious? What are the odds!? You are the 9th person in Saigon that has told me they have a sister going to work in a New Jersey hospital. I mean most people come to the US and go to New York, or LA (he mentioned San Diego, but why would anyone go there!?) and that I find it amazing!" He thanked me, shook my hand and quickly fucked off. After that I down where I was going to meet Hien, and I met someone who I recognized, but didn't recognize me! I saw Ian, the guy that worked at the Cambodian casino that would let me win at Super Pan 9, who worked scamming with Fuckstick and Bitch! I didn't clue in until he walked away, and I thought about chasing him down to talk to him, but didn't wanna bail on Hien.

Hien showed up and we talked, told him my home town got 4ft of snow in two days and he flipped, as most Vietnamese do haha. He had some English homework he wanted me to check over. His teacher is a foreigner and figured if it made sense to me, it would make sense to him too. Soon I had a following, at its largest of six Vietnamese people listening in on my English presentation. Hien had to write an essay on an easy question, if money brought happiness. Pfft... I can write that in my sleep without using my hands. Yea that's not suppose to make sense, don't worry about it. I read it over and it was good, I understood it 100% and just had to tweak sentence structure around so it flowed a bit better, and I kept giving Hien options so he maintained control, not me running off and taking his essay in another direction and I honestly really enjoyed it. The others watching, which some told me they were taking English at university I'd check with them to see if they understood what I was doing or changing and why. After that I asked the usual "Does anyone have any questions about English or Canada?" haha. That's my trademark as I don't have too many questions about Vietnam. I did ask what muc chien was as it's a meat sold on the back of a bicycle and when my Canadian brain reads chien I think of dog, which is eaten here. To my relief muc chien is squid taken to a meat slicer and shaved real thin. Hanging on the back of a bike it looks like a stomach or intestinal lining and I kept looking at the "chien" part dreading the worst.

They asked how does Christmas work in Canada, and I told them what it meant, and what it is now, which are two very different things I feel nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and getting free shit, but that's what it's turned into, free stuff and turkey day for me instead of the Holy religious day. I'm not personally bothered by the difference as my beliefs don't line up with the holiday's religious meaning, but I thought I should try to explain the original meaning, about how Santa was born in the desert, and the Reindeer came bearing gifts to him, and in return he took care of them, went on sleigh rides with them and using his magic powers visited everyone in the world to give cookies and milk to everyone, and in return everyone builds a snowman in their front yard and worship it every afternoon until it melts. Once it melts Christmas is over and after that you are allowed to pray to whoever you like. They all understood and I asked how Tet works. I have an idea but just wanted to see if I missed anything. It's the Lunar New Year, everyone drinks until the morning and goes to bed, then the rest of the day is spent with family reflecting on the past year, shooting fireworks to scare off bad luck and the first three people who visit your house after the new year has started determines how your year will be. Yes that means if you have a shitty year you can blame it on the mail man, or some door to door salesman or even better Jehovah Witnesses!!! Haha yea, I know, driving the bus :)

Before that I had my breakfast and woke up! Tomorrow I'm meeting someone else at 5:30pm as I don't want up early again haha, hitting the market one last time and possibly brining our shit to Uncle Phuoc to be boxed better and start the shipping process. Again after I ship it I'll do the mail and email everyone their shipping costs so you only have to send me one payment each.

What did I forget to mention... Oh! At Zoom Cafe some guy grabbed my shoulder and was squeezing it, asking if I wanted a massage. It took three quick and sharp "Get your hands off me!" before he understood haha, I plan on recording a video of me fucking with the vendors who want me to buy their purses while I'm eating my dinner, moto drivers and scammers before I leave here and one of my English "students" told me I'm beautiful which I thanked her and politely shot down. I'm in the wrong place, the women love me and I want nothing to do with 98% of them haha. Be hard adjusting to home where it's the exact opposite situation muhahaha :P Take care!

Wynona Ryder, Vengence and Tips

Well today was my test day for my knee and it was alright. I had my breakfast, hit the bank as I was going to do some shopping for Chris and Sam at the Dan Sinh Market. Sam needed canteen pouches and I needed to finish shopping for Chris's stuff plus I had to check out maps haha. I put on my socks which I now hate as it's 34 degrees out but for some odd reason I feel more secure with boots than my Crocs when it comes to the threat of spiders. I'm still paranoid at the market, or any other un-kept market place.

I headed straight to the map place. Seems like they have an unlimited amount of maps, just more and more every time I show up. It's almost to the point where I think they just keep giving me the same ones hoping I'll buy them. I've honestly have gone through at least two hundred maps but now I'm a pro at it. In the top left corner it names the provinces and most maps were from Dak Lak, which is where Ban Me Thout is and Kontum, which is home to the city of Kontum and Dak To. I could have picked up all the Kontum maps but I don't have the cash and I can't exactly lock down all of the 173rd's battalion's movements in the province, so it's too much of an undertaking (for now muhahaha). You open it up and take a look at the map and since there's so much land I look for international boundaries to the west. If Laos is there, it's the northern part of SVN, Cambodia then it's middle or south. After that it's a hunt for water sources like Mekong (South of Saigon), Ia Drang (Central Highlands), Cam Lo (near DMZ). Then if there's no clue I look for roads, Hwy 1 is the North-South road from Saigon and Hanoi so that's eastern SVN, Highway 19 is Qui Nhon to An Khe to Pleiku, Hwy 512 runs though Dak To and Ben Het, Hwy 548 runs down though the A Shau Valley, etc. The good thing is that Vietnam doesn't have a lot of major highways so it kinda makes things easier, except around Saigon. After that follow the roads to cities, if there's no cities check contour lines close together which will show major hills in the area or numbers which is the peak elevations. Nui Ba Den is by Tay Ninh, Hill 861 is east of Khe Sanh, Marble Mountain is Hoi An, etc. If none of this helps me, I just say fuck it and move onto the next map as it probably wasn't what I was hunting for hahaha.

I didn't find any maps for me but I found some I Corps maps Josh might be interested in so I got them to save them. I picked up three beautiful canteen covers for $45 for Sam. Most of them had buttons ripped out and then restitched, so I'm a lot more cautious buying for others because if it's shit and they don't want it, I'm stuck with it haha. I found a rough looking but 100% authentic and a 100% mint but reproduction belt for Chris so I'll let him pick. I had to settle for the repro one so at least he has the option now.

My knee was getting sore so I headed home after KFC for lunch. I came home and watched "1969" with Keifer Sutherland and Robert Downey Jr. It's about a small Maryland town in 1969 and that's the year it changed because of the war, the hippie generation, female empowerment, drugs and music, etc. Sutherland and Downey are in college to avoid the military draft, but Downey is flunking out and Sutherland is a hippie who needs to set his soul free, or something haha. Sutherland's older brother is a Marine going over and proud about it. Their Dad is a WWII vet and wants his Marine son to go. Their Mother isn't all that excited but supportive. Sutherland and Downey come home from school as it's summer and they want their "Summer of Love", but Downey gets into drugs which I though was interesting, not sure if he made the movie before or while he was in his drug phase. Sutherland wants to get away from town and let the road decide his fate but his Marine brother is listed as Missing In Action. Downey doesn't want to go with Sutherland as he's afraid that the draft board will follow him. They both take it upon themselves to go to the draft board, break in and steal their files. Sutherland escapes but Downey is caught, but it brings him some closure as he doesn't have to run. Sutherland and Downey's sister, sexy Winona Ryder (short, brown hair, ivory skin and yea, she's just friggen hot) and they are going to run off together. They visit Downy who's in prison but working out to get ready for the military, which he's sure he'll be forced into but he's pissed they're together. Sutherland and Ryder ("I'm an easy ryder dreaming of Winona" - Kid Rock haha) head towards Canada but last minute decide to stay in the US to fight the war. It's then confirmed Sutherland's Marine brother is killed in action (KIA) and the family has the funeral. I thought it was a good movie up until this point... Sutherland speaks and more or less says "We (him and Ryder) are going to the courthouse to protest and get Downey out of jail so this (Sutherland's dead Marine brother) doesn't happen again!" and one by one all the towns people follow them, march into town and they let Doney out of jail and it ends.

I think it did a good job showing a little slice of the changes of the era and it had a great soundtrack. The ending was just kinda hokey to me haha. If eighty people protest at a court house, that doesn't turn over the legal system. The other thing is that now that Downy is free but not in college the draft board will just draft him again. Plus it somewhat clashes with my beliefs but I won't really get into that, but it gives the message if you fight against the draft then the draft will end. I disagree and they'll just draft someone else, it won't end the war it just spares your fate and sadly forces it upon someone else. What if that person who was drafted catches a bullet that was meant for you? I also liked that it focused on a small town, and it was said that support for the Vietnam War would fall not when caskets came to New York, LA or Chicago, but when they come to Noxubee Mississippi, Backus Minnesota and Gallup New Mexico where everyone knows everyone and one death rocks a community. In the one documentary I saw it talked to people in a small town, who's boys joined the National Guard and was part of an Artillery unit that was shipped to Vietnam. It was fine until their firebase was overran and a town of two-thousand had to bury seven of its boys. The community's heart broke and they were proud of their boys and understood what they tried to do, but they wanted their other boys to come home before more died.

Overall I liked it, just the end was a little preachy and phony to me. I rather come up to my own conclusion than be spoon-fed someone's opinion, that's all. I watched American Dad and I love Klaus, the fish who had the brain of a German Olympian transferred into a fishes body so the US would beat Germany in the 1986 Olympics. He's ignored and not used a lot, unlike Bryan in Family Guy, but when he does pop up I like it. I guess I consider him an underdog which I can relate to at times. Anyways he had an awesome quote and Facebook won't let me write a note, so I'll post it here. Klaus sleeps in a fishbowl and Steven (the son) and Roger (the alien, yea, there's an alien that lives with the family) take him to a water park and throw his bowl down the biggest tube slide. Klaus wakes up and flips out as he slides down and at the bottom says...

Klaus [After Steve and Roger throw him down a water slide]: Allow me to impress upon you the severe mistake you have made. For years my conduct has been largely benign. And yet, without provocation, you have severed our détente and forced me to unleash upon you the vengeful flames of a thousand suns. You shall curse your mothers for the day of your birth. For, go now, go, and begin your life of fear, knowing that when you least expect it, the looming sword of Damocles will crash down upon you, cleaving you in twain and as you gaze upon the smoking wreckage that was once your life, you will regret the day you crossed the WRONG FISH!!

Then picture a little gold fish with a thick and angry German accent screaming this. It's just an epic line, as good as Samuel L Jackson's pre-execution line in Pulp Fiction haha. Steve and Roger hid in the attic paranoid hiding from Klaus and his vengeance for nine months. They turn on each other, go to confront him and are blasted by...


[Nine months later...]

Steve Ok you win, just do it already!

Klaus Do what?

Roger Get your revenge!

Steve The water slide? the practical joke?

Klaus Ohh yes, I had forgotten...

Roger GOOD, good... us too.

Klaus But now that you reminded me...the humiliation I suffered that day will not go unpunished! My pain is the bubbling cauldron of molten steel that will forge the saber of your demise! I SHALL NOT BE DENIED MY VENGEANCE...HAHAHAHAHA

Damn, my formatting is messed up now. Anyways Roger puts three heavy books on Klaus's bowl so he can't get out and get his vengeance haha.

I headed out for dinner at Zoom cafe and after last night with the girl wanting me to buy her pizza it kinda sucked the fun out of it. She kept trying to cut in on the other servers and do things for a tip. Things were easier when I didn't tip and now tipping has fucked them up haha. Aw well, small detail in a day of activity. I'm here now, I'll probably watch a movie and go to bed. I got to meet a friend at 8am in the park which I'm not fond of the time haha but I should get up at a decent time anyways. Take care.