Afishionados,

Life on the Lincoln marches on, hence the lack of much updating for the past month here on OFAL. Apologies. But thank you to everyone who continues to visit, including all the new folks upset about my Barbaro post. The fact that you have proven my power to truly upset complete strangers on the Internet cheers me up.

And now for something completely different.

On my way out the door of my apartment building last week, I discovered a pile of very old toys at the bottom of the stairwell. At first I didn’t think much of them, and I just assumed that perhaps a new tennant had temporarily left the toys there as they moved in. Then I remembered that it was 4:30 in the morning and nobody moves in that early.

Only a few toys existed: an old Mighty Mouse doll, a Smokey the Bear doll and a tin rocket ship. The stuffed animals were in pretty ragged shape, but the rocket is in excellent condition. Aside from the astronaut’s head, “television”, and various small parts of the rocket, the toy is all metal. It has a battery compartment which looks to hold “C” or “D” cell batteries, but I have not yet tried it out.

I’ve Googled various phrases and searched on eBay, but I haven’t been able to uncover any further information about the toy. I’m curious about it, especially since it’s in really good shape. It makes me wonder why anyone would just abandon it in an apartment stairwell.

Afishionados,

Remember the Navy Cash Card program? Well, it’s up and running onboard the Lincoln, now. The card slots on the vending machines have LCD screens that scroll and flash little messages across them.

One of the vending machines sells cigarettes. I had to look twice at the machine’s scrolling LCD panel, because I wasn’t sure that I was reading it correctly. Upon closer examination, it turns out I had.

The LCD message was simple: “Hungry?”

Afishionados,

These next few weeks may be quiet around here for a while. The powers that be onboard the Lincoln have decided that the Reactor Department needs to be in a Port and Starboard duty section. What this means is that I have duty (i.e. a watch or some other “job”) every other day. But wait, there’s more! The even higher powers that be have determined that the Reactor Department also needs to do a “fast cruise”.

“What’s a fast cruise?”, I hear you asking.

A fast cruise is where the ship goes absolutely nowhere but you pretend that you are at sea. So I am stuck onboard the the world’s most evil and most hated ship until Friday or Saturday. Joy. I may get a half day off this weekend, but then this process starts all over again. There is no end in sight as to when this schedule is projected to end.

I better go. My cell is dark and the candle I made from my earwax and dental floss is just about burnt out. Gotta save some more for later this week.

Effeeshiunedus,

I sev a cummerceeel oon telefeesiun tuneeght fur zee Svedeesh Medeecel Center. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! I vunder vhet zee ducturs zeere-a luuk leeke-a? I feegoore-a sumetheeng keend ooff leeke-a thees. Um gesh dee bork, bork! I hupe-a zee ducturs ere-a better et medeecine-a thun zeey ere-a et cuukeeng.

The sticker in question.

Afishionados,

While driving home from a bookstore today, a red Pontiac Grand Prix raced up beside me and wanted me to roll down the window.

After doing so, a man with a shaved head asks:

“Are you in the military?”

“Yea, what of it?”

“Do you realize that you’re breaking the law?”, he says.

“Ummm… no?” I wasn’t speeding. All my tail lights worked. My registration on my plates was current. What was this guy talking about?

Baldy replies, “That sticker on your car. You can’t have it on your car. Are you in the military?”

I thought we had gone over this? Did you not hear me the first time? And then I saw it. An Army sticker. Clearly I was dealing with a moron.

“Well if he wasn’t such an asshole maybe I wouldn’t have to put stickers like that on my car.”

“You better pray that your commander doesn’t ever see it,” he threatens.

Laughing at him, I reply, “Yea, thanks, I’ll pray. Fuck you.”

My only regret is that he couldn’t drive behind me longer, so that he could read my other sticker, too.

Afishionados,

Life at work gets worse and worse as time goes on, so when I finally do get to come home I want to relax and enjoy myself.

I tried to watch Batman Begins around 3:00 P.M. today, but I wasn’t even ten minutes into it when I get this knock on my door. It was my pissy neighbor with a cane and he wanted to bitch about his pictures on his wall shaking because my bass was “too much”.

I wouldn’t have minded the bitching if it weren’t for two simple facts:

1.) The movie was not that loud to begin with and
2.) Limpy plays his country music all the time, and it’s so loud that Hank Williams Sr. can hear it.

I think the next time I go shopping I’ll buy a Gregorian Chant CD and put it on continuous playback. I’ll turn it up just loud enough, and then spend the whole weekend in Seattle so I won’t be around even if he knocks. We’ll see how much he likes that instead of Batman.