When we PCS’d from Germany, my parents bought me this game: Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom for my 10th birthday. This was the first time I had seen a game cartridge.

Understand, this was back in the day when we still used a tape deck to load programs onto the computer — it took about 30 minutes to load a single program. We hadn’t gotten a disk drive yet (the venerable 1541). You would type LOAD “PROGRAM NAME”,1 to load from the tape (LOAD “PROGRAM NAME”,8 for the disk drive).

After my presents were unwrapped and we were done celebrating my birthday, I obtained permission to play my new game. Oh I was so excited. A Buck Rogers game! I couldn’t wait to play it! So, I turned the computer on and plugged the game cartridge into the slot on the back.

The game did not appear on the TV (black & white) that the computer was connected to. In fact, there was a whole lot of nothing on it. I turned the computer off and back on again. The game still didn’t work. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had destroyed the game before I ever had a chance to play it by plugging it in while the computer was turned on. I did not get to play the awesome Buck Rogers game. Young Anonymous Soldier was a sad little boy.

Fast forward to today. I’m over on Macupdate.com to see if there’s any software I want to try out. I spot a Commodore 64 emulator. This isn’t the first time I’ve had an emulator for the 64, but it is the first one I’ve used on the Mac. So I’m playing around with it and poking around an FTP site for old games that I remember playing, when I FIND BUCK ROGERS!

Of course, I had to try it out! I wasn’t able to play it when I first got it twenty-two and a half years ago, but I sure as hell was going to play it now! Anonymous Soldier became a happy man! I launch the emulator. I load the cartridge file. The game starts! I begin playing! Yay!

Then I very quickly realize that I would have enjoyed this game much more twenty-two years ago than I do today. The graphics and game play are horribly simple — even for the standards of 1985. Jumpman and Lode Runner (the next two games I’m going to download!) had better graphics and game play than Buck Rogers did.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disappointed. I knew that it wouldn’t compare to what we have today. After all, this was back in 1985, and it’s now 2008.

But I played Buck Rogers

As soon as I get that resolved, I should be able to bring registrations back online.

Time passes very quickly here in Iraq, which is a factor in my not having posted anything since 3 Oct 07. My day consists of a twelve-hour shift, after which I’m tired and not in much of a mood for doing anything beyond chatting with friends and family. It’s been nearly 7 months since we deployed and there are still 8 more to go. The upshot of that is that my bank account is very happy.

Big Update!!
I made cut-off this month, so I will be promoted on 1 Mar 08. It’s been a long time coming and I’m looking forward to it. Saturday just can’t get here soon enough for my taste.

Politics:
I’m very disappointed in this year’s crop of candidates. McCain is going to be the Republican nominee. Ugh. We may as well have a Democrat in the White House if, God forbid, he gets elected. The only one of the three that I would rather have in the White House is — brace yourselves — Hillary.

Here’s why: McCain is a Democrat in Republican’s clothing. McCain-Feingold (assault on freedom of speech), opposed President Bush’s tax cuts, will take us into Iran… I could go on.

Obama: Socialist. Need I say more?

Hillary is a devil, yes. But I say, “the devil you know…” I no longer believe that she will win the nomination, which will leave the race between McCain and Obama. I will vote for neither man. I think I’m going to write in Condi on my ballot.

Security:
As I’ve noted before, I’m fortunate to be in a relatively peaceful area. We’ve lost only a few Soldiers (last time the brigade was in Iraq, it lost many) since September. The security situation here is stable and improving. Improving slowly, but still improving.

The locals are wonderful people. My interactions with them have only been positive, and they genuinely want a better life for themselves. They disagree amongst themselves how to go about that, of course; but then again, so do we. It’s the terrorists that are making life miserable for the Iraqi people.

Miscellaneous
I had a Soldier talk to me about an issue regarding his orientation this evening. I had no idea that he was queer as well, but I think I allayed his concerns. I also passed him the link to here, so he might show up. Show him a warm welcome if he does.

The writers strike is finally over and now I’m finally able to get season 2 of Jericho from iTunes. It’s two episodes into the season, and so far it’s an interesting turn of events; although I wish they had concluded the battle between Jericho and New Bern rather than start the season off the way they did. Oh well.

This is my favorite song from John Michael Montgomery:

My Dear Son, it is almost June,
I hope this letter catches up to you, and finds you well
Its been dry but they’re calling for rain,
And everything’s the same ol’ same in Johnsonville
Your stubborn ‘ol Daddy ain’t said too much,
But I’m sure you know he sends his love,
And she goes on,
In a letter from home

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain’t scared and our boots ain’t muddy, and they all laugh,
Like there’s something funny bout’ the way I talk,
When I say: “Mama sends her best y’all”
I fold it up an’ put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an’ get back to work
An’ it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home

My Dearest Love, its almost dawn
I’ve been lying here all night long wondering where you might be
I saw your Mama and I showed her the ring
Man on the television said something so I couldn’t sleep
But I’ll be all right, I’m just missing you
An’ this is me kissing you
XX’s and OO’s,
In a letter from home

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain’t scared and our boots ain’t muddy, and they all laugh,
‘Cause she calls me “Honey”, but they take it hard,
‘Cause I don’t read the good parts
I fold it up an’ put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an’ get back to work
An’ it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home

Dear Son, I know I ain’t written,
But sittin’ here tonight, alone in the kitchen, it occurs to me,
I might not have said, so I’ll say it now
Son, you make me proud

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain’t scared and our boots ain’t muddy, but no one laughs,
‘Cause there ain’t nothing funny when a soldier cries
An’ I just wipe me eyes
I fold it up an’ put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an’ get back to work
An’ it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home

So, stay tuned — I’m back!

Before I leave, however, I will ensure that I have a copy of Unsilence’s source code so that I can update the site and fix the blog registration bug. I haven’t been able to do that due to how extremely busy I’ve been, but I will fix it before the year is out. I’m probably going to have to have someone else upload the new code, but it’ll be in place so that we can start accepting registrations again.

I will be in Iraq for the next 15 months and while I do know where I’m headed, I’m not going to say. One, because that would violate OPSEC; and two, because that would be giving too much personal information. By the end of the month, I’ll be in Iraq; and the next time I post will be from Iraq. I plan on posting as often as I can without getting caught with an unregistered blog, but I first have to see what the network situation is down there. I may end up having a trusted person do the actual posting for me if it seems that I could get into trouble for not registering An Army of 1 in 10.

See you guys on the flip side!

No, I won’t post any spoilers here, because I would like to be able to live long enough to deploy to Iraq.  I will however, say that the book is very good and is a fitting end to the story.  The tale of Harry Potter, in my opinion, is more than a children’s story; it may have started out as one, but Rowling has nursed it into one which transcends the generations.

In this, the final chapter of the saga, people do die — characters who have been around since the beginning (and not just human characters…) as well as those who were introduced later in the series.  As for whether or not Harry Potter dies, all I will say is that Voldemort uses avada kedavra against him.  Draw your own conclusions or read the book.

SPC Kube was killed by a roadside bomb as he manned the gunner’s turret in a humvee on its way to a meeting between religious rivals.  His platoon sergeant, SSG Byron-Griffin remembers him, “What are you doing here? You’re a baby.’ He looked me straight in my eye, with his chest poked out like he does, and he said, `I’m 17, and I ain’t no baby. I’m a man.”‘

May this young hero rest in peace.

Christopher D. Kube:  b. September 7, 1988  d. July 14, 2007

This week is going to be a short work week for me because I’m currently on quarters for 48 hours due to having oral surgery yesterday.  I don’t go back to work until Thursday.  And I go on leave on Saturday for two weeks.  Man, I’m getting a lot of time off!

I’ll need it though, because it won’t be long until I deploy for 15 months to Iraq.  I still haven’t figured out how (or if) I’m going to post to A1in10 while I’m downrange.  I’m sure that I’ll figure something out  which won’t compromise my identity.

I still need to update the site’s codebase to fix the registration issue, and I will get that done before the end of July. I plan on leaving the site in a self-managing state before I deploy in case I’m not able to do so downrange. Once I deploy, I’m probably not going to be able to do any updates or add any new features, so if there are any wordpress plugins you would like to see on the site, now is the time to get your suggestions/requests submitted.

Oh yeah, I’m still looking for a webcomic viewer — anyone know of any?