It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder. A widespread investigation of funeral homes, morgues, and hospitals has concluded that the unburied dead have been returning to life and seeking human victims. It's hard for us here to be reporting this to you, but it does seem to be a fact.

sometimes i...

...sometimes i worry about zombies.

i don't know, maybe i've grown up a bit. or a lot. the damaged-doll women i still adore. it's the fake drama and obvious narcissism, the constant over-analyzing of the mundane, the play-by-play of the moments which could be better spent doing that i can no longer stomach.

sometimes i want to ask them if they're anything but the sum total of their liters of ink and metal-filled holes. i mean, the image so carefully built is supposed to project or hint at something bigger, something more real, some sort of end-product, right? the image itself isn't supposed to be the point. it's like religion, you're supposed to be changing the insides and outsides to eventually arrive at some sort of halcyon perfection; the religion is the road, not the destination.

where are we going with all this? what's it all for, all the constant inwardly-focused energy and concealed cries for attention?

i used to be the worst about this. maybe i burned myself out. maybe i was such a head dweller that i finally became sick of myself and just moved the fuck out. out into the world, where we all really are.. i guess we realize that at different times in our lives.

We're all dancing to the same sad song.

i often dream i have and use telekinesis. at least once a week i awake from a full night's sleep comprised of opening doors, beers and enemies' bodies with the invisible steel fingers of my mind. this ain't your run-of-the-mill masturbatory Jedi-worship and it ain't your daddy's Nailed God loaves-and-fish type shit (though the latter is more appropriately known as transmutation). it's the rated-R mind-of-crawling-strangeness danger-to-the-dimension power, kind of a terrible and amoral force of non-nature, feeding itself on the fears and peon-worship of the proletariat.

i'll wear your panties and small intestine as a hat as the contents of your skull is blown to atoms by my hot, sexy, wonderful mindflaying power, baby. behave.

then i awake for my bagel with coffee and feel just fine.

-pb

Rome is simply amazing on, in and throughout so many levels. i haven't the words to express the gamut of wonders, curiosities and, indeed, frustrations i've experienced in the last several days. i fully expected to learn much about its history, art and architecture (which i have) but did not expect to learn so much of the language in such a short time. crypts, catacombs, pub crawls and the normal art, monument and museum tours have filled my days here. i'd also be leaving out important information if i didn't give the Roman women (and the greater Italian, as there are lots of those here during the holiday season when a lot of Romans are not) much deserved props for being scantily clad (if a bit aloof and borderline tease-happy) goddesses.

i also didn't expect, despite many assurances, to run into the very Roman price of everything imaginable. when in Rome, pay the amazingly exorbitant and inflated prices the Romans do. an American expat told me the average Roman makes 21,000 euro a year, which is like trying to live in NYC on about $32k. lament the gulf between the haves and the have-nots in America all you want, but realize this ancient city, among others, has had over two millennia to enrich one set at the expense of the other. the US has its flaws, yes, but our standard of living, even with $4 gas and $7 milk, is top notch. enjoy it.

all in all a fruitful and relaxing (despite the miles and kilometers of walking everywhere) experience.

i'll be reluctantly returning to work in Iraq in a few days. work hard, play hard.

let's go already.


-pb

access to the cracknet is spotty. very, very spotty. we're supposedly trying to bring...whatever...to this country and we still can't, after 5 years of trying, provide more than a 56k uplink that doesn't take a dump twice minute. i'm a tech geek. i mainline RSS feeds, blogs, torrents and geeky slashdot news for breakfast. i don't need it, say, like a smackhead needs the white pony, but crawling around the 'net at 1991 speeds does sort of offend my sense of geekness. we're better than that. i know it.

when i connect now it's either from the anemic crap i'm writing your from or some Puritanical all-fun-stuff-is-blocked-by-the-government version of the tubes. eh. whatevs. if i've only learned one thing since jamming all my worldly shit into a 10x10 storage room, giving my car to my mom for safe keeping, sacrificing my cat to Bacchus, buying a backpack and jumping a mil flight for the desert, it's that i can live with less than i ever thought possible in the states.

one thing i can't (and won't, goddamn it) live without is the scent and tender skin of beautiful, lusty, tatooed women. hence the vacation next week. rejoice, Rome, the pb's got some love to give. lots and lots of backed up, gotta-release-very-soon-or-who-knows-what-may-come love.

-pb

just for all those who've seen my name light up in their friends list for the first time in 18 months, i'm in Baghdad working at those gnarly computer things for The Man. been here three months now and have seven more to go. taking my first vacation to Rome for 9 days starting Aug 4. advice on what to see in Rome is welcome and appreciated. i like graveyards and cemeteries (yes, there is a difference), crypts, Baroque, forgotten tunnels, b00bs, coffee, b00bs, plays, over the top movie theaters which happen to not smell of dirty socks and ornate anything.

-pb