A few more pictures from work

I snapped off a few more pictures of the helicopter at work the other day. The boys were telling me how cool they thought it was, so I figured why not. It’s a shame they don’t let us maintenance people fly with them, I bet you could get some awesome pictures of the country side from the air in that thing. They go all over the penninsula when they’re out doing whatever it is they do. Sometimes they even bring the penninsula back to us, mostly in the form of weeds in the engines and mud on the tires. Air crews are such generous guys.

My stupid television hasn’t arrived yet. Actually, the first one I orderd from AAFES was canceled, I guess they discontinued the model like a day after I ordered it and didn’t bother to let me know for the next few weeks. And when they did, it came in the form of a phone call at 5am. I’m suppossed to be getting a refund. I’m still waiting for my refund. Do yourself a favor, don’t buy things from AAFES online.

Febuary is coming to a close, thank God. I’ve been out of money since more or less the first week of the month, I made the mistake of going to the commissary when I was hungry. I knew better, this isn’t my first time around the block, but I was in a hurry so I just went ahead and did it against my better judgement. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say I had crab legs for dinner last weekend. Hopefully I can exert some self control in March and have some money left over to actually leave my dorm room once in awhile.

 Print This Comments (0) Posted in Korea by Bryan

Retro Rockers Action

For some mysterious reason, I still have access to my webmail account back at Little Rock. I get all the emails I would as if I was still assigned there. I received one a couple weeks back in regards to Jason’s wife, Saadia. For better or for worse she is exiting the Air Force, and decided to throw a party at the enlisted club to celebrate her departure. That’s the beautiful thing about parties, you can throw one for just about any reason. Riki went along with the Scalias and sent me some pictures. Wish I could have been there guys.

In other news, Myspace. I hate Myspace. I don’t even know why I hate Myspace exactly. Maybe it’s the horrible profile pages that are amongst the worst constructed web pages ever. Maybe it’s the weird bar like singles culture that permeates the thing. Maybe it’s just because so many other people like it and I have a tendancy to shun things that are popular, who knows. What I do know is that Riki discovered Myspace, so by default, I also have been sucked into it. “Discovered” is probably not the appropriate word, it’s more like “married”. She’s attached at the hip to the thing these days. Oh well, who am I to judge? Maybe one day there will be a job that pays people to post to Myspace and she’ll become a millionaire, you never know.

Not much else going on .. I bit the bullet and purchased one of those new fangled XBOX 360 things off of ebay. It should arrive in the next week or so if all goes well. Work has slowed down a bit, which is a welcome relief. It’s hard to imagine, but I’ve been here two months already. At least time is passing quickly. I’m taking my mid-tour trip back home in July, and it can’t come soon enough. Korea is great and all, but Arkansas is starting to look better and better daily. Someone remind me again why I volunteered for this assignment?

 Print This Comments (1) Posted in Internet, Korea, Night Life by Bryan

Thank God wasps are small

Courtesy of The Loom, this has got to be one of the creepiest things I have ever read. Apparently there is some wasp out there that turns roaches into living zombie egg hosts.

“The wasp slips her stinger through the roach’s exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently uses sensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach’s brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach’s antennae and leads it–in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex–like a dog on a leash.

The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp’s burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.

The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon–which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.”

Ya .. once again I’m reminded how blessed I am to be human. At least we just shoot each other.

 Print This Comments (3) Posted in Random Cool Stuff by Bryan