Spending lots of time in his house? Yea, I dont see much potential for trouble there.
er, yeah. picking out everything for his master bedroom, for example.
Master bedroom isnt for danger-seekers.
Newly separated people should doing checking out the strength of their kitchen counters and dining room tables.
Master bedroom isnt for danger-seekers.
Danger-seekers are in the slave bedroom.
A couple around here advertised a S&M Bed & Breakfast with a gyn chair complete with handcuffs attached to the wall.
Maybe Danger Man wants one of those?
I just think everything needs more knife missiles (see iain m. banks, passim). but he does want rattan along the iron fencing at the top of the wall, for more privacy, which he refers to as a sniper screen. right.
Some of his time is spent meeting with warlords in Dubai, because they all live in Dubai in luxury penthouses, even the Taliban ones.
That's canonical for an Afghan warlord. Basically, Dubai is a city of war-profiteers that's maintained by slaves.
People go there on holiday!
8: Do they have a "No shooting in Dubai" rule?
7: I thought maybe "missles" was some sort of pun.
What gets shot in Dubai, stays in Dubai.
8: true. To the point that, while banks in the West collapse because of terribly complicated things to do with securitised mortgage product valuation methods and wholesale short-term interbank lending market liquidity shocks, Afghan banks collapse because "powerful men just took all the money and used it to buy themselves big houses in Dubai".
11: Except for Mission Impossible 4, unfortunately.
The detail that makes it extra great to me is all of them have to have three extra rounds on them at all times, to cap themselves before they get taken prisoner.
You'd think they'd hire better shots.
I didn't even know it was legal to do that. Because where's the encryption software coming from?
The US used to ban the export of 128bit encryption software. Don't know if they still bother, and presumably there are plenty of companies outside the US that sell it.
The style he wants is easy to execute
You can take the merc out of Afghanistan...
Don't worry, at some point in the project you will find out that he pees sitting down, and he will no longer be crush-worthy.
14: I know, but one round could jam, and then you never know; three is like total insurance you're going to blow your head right off. I agree that only the first one is likely to be used, if any are. it doesn't seem like they lose a lot of people, though. they're like executive outcomes but for aid work, sort of. but he brings back jewels. loose gemstones? I wanna star sapphire! he's also getting me an amazing rug (I'm paying for it, but the price difference is so great I can get a huge antique for very little.) but probably women who don't want to have sex with you shouldn't ask you for star sapphires, or burmese rubies. not really sporting.
So, is this post actually asking for advice about whether you should take this job?
I think standard rifle-eating practice is to set the M-16 to burst fire, which uses three rounds.
I thought the two questions were:
1. Is she going to break his heart?
2. How many times is he going to try to have sex with her?
It sounds like you've already agreed to do it. Is that correct?
Also, don't you have a partner? Will she be working with you on this?
will's got it. I already agreed to do it; it's my thing rather than my partner's, although I will use some of our suppliers and knowledge and will put it on our site as an example of work done, presuming it turns out well. but is he going to seriously fall in love with me and be miserable? or hit on me in a way that makes it impossible to go forward with the project? he's not drinking, obviously, so there's that. but I've had stalkers before, and that's no fun; he just strikes me as the type who might lose it.
Super clear boundaries. Zero flirting. Minimize time spent together.
20: It disturbs me that you know that, although it disturbs me more that now I know it.
I don't think there's much useful advice to give here. For someone else I didn't know asking this question, I'd be worrying that they were going to screw up and fall into having an affair they really didn't intend to have. You, on the other hand, have a long history of people falling in love with you, and that kind of screw-up doesn't seem to be an issue for you.
So the only things to really worry about are whether he's going to get hurt, or whether he's going to behave badly (ranging from uncomfortably all the way up to dangerously), and I don't think there's much we can tell about that from here.
If you do it, I might spend more time thinking about exit strategies from the job than you would normally -- anything that would make it financially or practically difficult to quit at the drop of a hat is probably a bad idea. Do you know any other decorators who you could refer the job to in the middle if you wanted to bow out?
Super clear boundaries.
Someone should run for president pushing a new plan for a plexiglass border fence.
And what Will said. Maybe bring one or the other of the kids along with you a fair amount?
I see no possible way that this situation could end in a shooting followed by a cross border escape.
It is likewise completely implausible that cigarette boats might be involved in any such post-gunplay escape.
Also note that this closely tracks one of the Furio subplots from the Sopranos, I believe maybe Season 3? Except Husband X doesn't seem too much lime Tony Soprano.
32: And if that's not at least a remote possibility, then, what's the point?
Vicarious thrills, lovely.
How will your husband respond to his own inevitable suspicions, how old are your kids, and how distasteful do you find the prospect of covering your tracks and lying?
I bet if you tell your friend your answers to these, that things will sort out without damage.
An actual written contract that pays you out in stages and spells out everything clearly would be good.
You should probably include the standard provision of "No sexual favors are included in this price. See optional star sapphire rider."
my husband's not suspicious of me; he's suspicious of the dude. he has well-founded faith in my chastity. I have never even kissed anther boy since the day we started going out. 'night all! there's no one I could hand it to...maybe my partner, actually.
You should probably include the standard provision of "No sexual favors are included in this price.
Right, because we definitely have to keep discussion of such things out in the open.
If you really want a star sapphire? (Putting aside the obvious solution if you really want a star sapphire.) If Husband X would go for it, have him ask Stalker Client dude if he can hook Husband X up with a deal on a star sapphire for you as a surprise. If his feelings toward you are still mostly friendly benevolence, Husband X should get the same deal from him you would have gotten, you get the sapphire, and I think having Husband X approach him about it sends a pleasantly non-hostile "Back off, Jack" signal.
Except Husband X doesn't seem too much lime Tony Soprano.
More of a bananas Foster type.
Also, what is risk to Hubby if Danger Man gets obsessive? ie But for Hubby, we would be together!
40: clarity and transparency are her friends!
41: hmmm, intriguing. and I get a star sapphire out of it too. there's always just buying one with the proceeds of the job, but that's not the same as someone smuggling them out of the country and having tiny leather sacks of them to spill out in your hand. treasure!
Um, I'm not sure how serious you're being about the sapphire thing, but do you really want what are in all likelihood blood gems?
Hard not to think Afg is just going to be getting worse. I was in Kabul during the attack on the Intercontinental in late June, we had a dinner guest over last week who was there for the British embassy attack, and last night there was that US embassy attack. There's a vector there, in terms of intensity and security of the target. Downtown Kabul, as good as it's ever going to get.
Did meet some SF guys, who seemed to be members of a different, and superior, species.
46: Considering all the suffering involved, it would me wrong not to enjoy the gems.
27: I saw the technique mentioned in several articles about PTSD in the military several years ago.
But does his job indicate moral failings?
For fucks sake! Obviously stealing and facilitating stealing is a moral failing.
"wetworks" Killing? That's what the word in the context of mercenaries implies to me.
I can't really overstate how disturbing I find this post. I've been at bars and parties where this type is present (southern Africa is crawling with them), listening to them boast about raping cockteases. Never in such blunt language, never more direct than "if she writes the check I'm going to cash it." Just implication, maybe just posturing with nothing behind it. Your husband is right. You are playing with fire.
I guess there's just a tiny feeling in my gut that it's dangerous.
Listen to your gut.
I'm conflicted about whether to post this. Is it too inflammatory, or too earnest? But for fucks sake! I know this kind of man. Southern Africa was crawling with them after the Bush War. I know people whose families were murdered by these types. I know women who found them exciting and dangerous and ended up beaten, possibly raped, or pregnant and abandoned.
For fucks sake! Obviously stealing and facilitating stealing is a moral failing.
If the OP is anything to go by, he's a security contractor working for NGOs. So not so much stealing.
Who also has a sideline in dealing illegal encryption software to warlords on Dubai, I think. But that part of the story was a little confusing.
Anyhow, Toggles' point and perspective is well taken. I was talking to a regular Army guy at the gym, just back from Afghanistan and who doesn't know what he'll do next, about the various contractor types. He said that the job pays a lot but attracts some of the worst and scariest people imaginable. It just drives me crazy that the US gov't in bed with so many of these mercenary contractors.
OTOH, I don't know what a "Walt" is but I'd guess that there's also a chance that this dude is massively bullshitting and exaggerating about his life.
50: I didn't want to go here of my own accord, given that my firsthand acquaintance with anyone remotely dangerous is zero. But I am kind of glad someone said it. This sounds (on the basis of no actual knowledge of anyone of the sort on my part) like someone you either don't want to be around at all, or if you are around them to have them think of you firmly as a nice-married-lady-with-kids. A flirtily ambiguous relationship with someone like that would scare the crap out of me.
I'd guess that there's also a chance that this dude is massively bullshitting and exaggerating about his life.
I was out drinking with a friend in Samoa once when she got picked up by a Scottish guy who, later in the evening, showed her a bunch of passports in different names and spun her a bunch of stories about what a scary dude he was. Always kind of wondered if he was in fact scary or just a convincing storyteller.
(After they wandered off together, I spent the rest of the evening with a guy who purported to be a NZ sewage engineer. I like 'em stable.)
Improper sewage treatment would kill more people any group of dangerous guys.
Just, wow. My life is boring as hell, apparently, despite the occasional visits to BDSM clubs.
"Missiles" is misspelled in the post title, but not in your 7.
Oh LB, you are so naive. NZ sewage engineer is my go to fake identity for scoring chicks. Works like a charm in Hollywood nightclubs.
60: I probably should have been a bit more explicit about that.
I like 'em down to earth.
I like to know they can handle themselves when the shit hits the fan.
52: Which is weird, because high quality encryption software has been readily available for years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_United_States#Current_status
NZ sewage engineer is my go to fake identity for scoring chicks.
Sewage engineering is the new dog rescue. Or maybe that's the other way around. I haven't been single in such a long time that it's all begun to blur together.
All I know for sure is that ~40% of teenaged girls have masturbated a sewage engineer.
it seems highly unlikely that alameida could be missing the letters over the lintel--286-point Lucida, I believe--that spell out STAY THE FUCK AWAY.
but I only see them through reading her post, which is not exactly artless.
if the post is sincere, it's implausibly clueless; if it's insincere, it's a rather advanced form of trolling; if it's an early draft for a piece of fiction, i like.
if it's actually a request for advice--if, that is, a smart self-aware person could write that description and still not know what to do--then [gestures wordlessly at big letters]
OTOH, I don't know what a "Walt" is but I'd guess that there's also a chance that this dude is massively bullshitting and exaggerating about his life.
That is pretty much the definition of a Walt. From "Walter Mitty".
.
Oh come on! She has known him for five years and previously "broke it off" with him without major incident.
Her odds are better than even of not getting seriously hurt as long as she keeps very good boundaries.
I like the idea of some accountant reminding himself to "absentmindedly" pat his breast pocket whenever the hot chick is around.
71: I do think this is probably right, I'd just be scared about anything that might blur the boundaries at all.
if it's actually a request for advice--if, that is, a smart self-aware person could write that description and still not know what to do--then [gestures wordlessly at big letters]
Yep.
Just, wow. My life is boring as hell, apparently, despite the occasional visits to BDSM clubs.
This means alameida wins, right?
OMG, Alameida, this is so funny to me right now. I arrived in Small Town almost a month ago and have just been going around freaking people out constantly without meaning to. Then, all of a sudden yesterday, some hypermasculine, handsome guy comes up to me very quickly on campus, stops me, asks me who I am and what I do and asks to sit down with me for a minute, and he's giving me that attitude like "I'm super-aggro and this is me being very friendly and calm and normal, see?" and I'm suddenly having this major panic attack, because this is pretty much everyone who's ever been seriously attracted to me for some reason I can't at all figure out, and I'm trying to be polite but I'm getting a real "I've killed people" vibe from this one. But he sees I'm in the midst of some work and clearly having trouble breathing, so he excuses himself and is gone. I look him up later and, with his history, this is definitely, absolutely someone who has killed people, possibly a lot of people.
Her odds are better than even of not getting seriously hurt
I like those odds!
I look him up later and, with his history, this is definitely, absolutely someone who has killed people, possibly a lot of people.
War veteran or alarming criminal record is what I'm coming up with here.
Health insurance industry claims denier.
76: The first sentence of this comment doesn't seem to go with the rest of it.
I'm just wondering how they sniff me out, even here, this far from Super-Aggro Paradise.
How secret can the ops be if you can just look him up like that?
Special forces includes many branches that we would not consider to be secret ops, but you can fairly easily determine who is special forces.
We should refrain from passing judgment on the guy until we hear more about his ideas for the accent walls.
but you can fairly easily determine who is special forces.
I can?
83: It's actually the wording of several previous, uh, positions and their proximity to one another, alongside having previously been involved with someone in a similar profession who described his job in certain ways. Even the description of his normal military role is very "I killed people," but next to other things, it's more like, "I eliminated people." Just talking about it makes me nervous, and I've been jumpy all day today.
86: If you're looking at the basic description of their military service, that is. It's not a secret.
I mean, obviously I'm crazy. We all know that. But part of my crazy is a really really accurate sense of the potential for someone to be very scary when they want to be. With the previous guy, he had been lying about what he did to everyone, but I kept saying, "It just seemed like he was definitely trained to kill." Next time I saw him a year later, I saw the gun he now carries under his clothes all the time. That guy didn't scare me in the same intense way, but there was a... way of being?
87: You could try hanging around the local sewage treatment plant, and see if there are any nice, single, engineers.
Even the description of his normal military role is very "I killed people," but next to other things, it's more like, "I eliminated people".
With extreme prejudice? Or just ordinary prejudice?
90. Would the local one do, or would she need to move to New Zealand?
Depends on how she feels about sheep, I suppose.
And get a Nice Guy? Better off with the merc, I say.
||
"Slavery in the end turned out to be a good thing for everyone. Because then we wouldn't know that treating people like that was wrong. And without slavery, we never would have had a Civil Rights Movement that showed racism is bad. Thank goodness for history books because then I never would know that racism existed before."
|>
I arrived in Small Town almost a month ago and have just been going around freaking people out constantly without meaning to.
What's freaking them out? (Besides the sex-talk example from the other thread.)
Better off with the merc, I say.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz!
55: I'm glad. I don't have an accurate calibration on my feelings about contractors/mercenaries since my personal experiences with them have been uniformly bad. I could be grossly misjudging the guy, but I'd feel like seven colors of shit if I didn't say anything and something bad happened.
97: Don't dress like them, don't talk like them, don't walk like them, don't get their jokes, don't enjoy casually clueless racism and homophobia, etc. There's just a vibe of "why you gotta be so different?" around here that I'm not used to.
You could teach them to be informed racists.
56: IME, it's that killers dig chicks, and have no fear of rejection. So while another man might walk on by, he won't. Also, killers don't settle down, so they're very single and very aggressive about it.
100: Everyone I know who went to that college is gay and left wing (that is 3 [three] people, but still). And it's like a 50K+ city, right? Is it really so provincial?
100: So it's just like NYC then?
101: That's actually totally my educator's response to racism. It's a really unnerving thing to do socially, but when someone does the "Why do Chinese people all gotta act like blah?" or "How come black kids are always doing this?" I like to respond with "It's funny you should mention that; it's a stereotype that originated around the time that..."
Is it really so provincial?
It's funny you should mention that; it's a stereotype that originated around the time that . . .
103: well, everyone I know who went there is former Mossad. And they all have a thing for Midwestern shiksas. So there.
103: I know exactly one lesbian on campus (who just arrived like me for a year), and zero gay men. I know one black person, no latinos, one Indian, no East Asians. The only single person I know also just arrived for a year.
Scratch that; I know two single people, and neither is T-T.
and zero gay men.
So what is L/a/b/$, chopped liver?
I think it's important to be aware of how scary dude perceives alameida's husband. If he thinks of her husband as a good guy, he'll be more likely to accord him respect by respecting her. (This is very similar to what was discussed in the earlier "hey baby you gotta boyfriend?" thread. That thread was here, right?) Sexist, unfortunately, but he's doubly immersed in sexist culture.
Scary military guys: no better friend, no worse enemy.
And they all have a thing for Midwestern shiksas.
Nearly all the men in my family married Midwestern shiksas.
I arrived in Small Town almost a month ago and have just been going around freaking people out constantly without meaning to.
Just for some variety, you could start telling people that you moved into academia after a career as a mercenary and see how they react.
Getting back on topic, I think 19, 50 and 69 all get it exactly right.
And wait a minute, I detect another whiff of bullshit.
3 suicide rounds for your M-16? So after you've emptied your last mag towards the enemy to no avail, you're going to pop the mag out, carefully insert the last three rounds, and eat the last burst yourself? Rather than go to single shot, take careful aim, and try and kill three more?
Isn't this sort of badass also supposed to be packing a handgun? Sure, eating a .45 might not be quite as reliably lethal as a 3-round burst of 5.56mm, but way, WAY easier to execute.
Also, I'm a little skeptical of the capture versus suicide calculus in the first place, but I admit I don't know what kind of treatment a prisoner in this situation would be facing.
"scary" assumes facts not in evidence. She enjoys his company, has managed contact levels previously, and is speculating about accepting gifts.
My reaction was the same as 50, minus the first hand experience with mercenaries. It seems like the best that can be said about this guy is the people who typically hire him are good guys, and his business selling encryption software might be legal. None of this manages to override the basic idea that "paid killer flashing big gemstones" --> "Stay away."
But it is possible that I just don't understand what the OP was asking about.
I don't know what the Taliban are up to these days, but the Mujahedeen used to torture and mutilate Russian prisoners and leave them lying around to scare other Russians.
In addition to staying away from mercenaries, I also recommend staying away from people who make up stories about being mercenaries.
115: 3 suicide rounds for your M-16?
I remember after the failed coup vs. Gorbachev, reading that one of the plotters was found dead, having committed suicide by shooting himself three times in the head. Like you, I did not take this story at face value.
120: No, that's a very different thing.
The later M-16 models do have a one-pull-of-trigger-fires-three-round-burst mode, so the 3 rounds makes sense.
It's the reloading the empty magazine and offing yourself with a longarm while in the process of losing a firefight that seems unlikely.
I know...no latinos
Wiki: In 2000, 24.34% of [redacted] residents were of Puerto Rican ancestry. [redacted]
Surely regardless of the software's standalone legality, it is aiding and abetting if he knows they'll use the software to commit crimes with.
123: It seems pretty easy to have no knowledge of that.
He told her about it! Though I suppose there are types of "corrupt business dealings" that are not technically illegal.
You could argue that steering a central Asian warlord into corrupt business dealing counts as moral improvement given the alternatives.
She's considering Burmese gems (unless that was a joke); everyone decides for themselves which businesses, objects, and people are savory and which aren't, and reasonable people come to different conclusions.
127: I've decided that you're less savory than Walmart, BBQ-flavored potato chips, and Hitler.
One assumption I am making is that alameida wants less grotesque insanity in her life, and that this is part of the reason she got sober. If she's actually worried her life was getting staid and boring, well that changes everything.
everyone decides for themselves which businesses, objects, and people are savory and which aren't, and reasonable people come to different conclusions.
True.
I'd point out on the side that on Burmese gems, it seems rubies do not benefit the regime significantly: page 8.
Way back when (before 9/11), when I lived in France, a friend and I used played pub quiz 3 or 4 times with a French mercenary soldier--or at least someone who claimed to be one. We never saw him outside of pub quiz, but he was a real asset to the team. We never knew how seriously to take him, having never really until then thought that "soldiers of fortune" existed in the modern era, let alone drank in Irish pubs in Paris.
The sale of BBQ-flavored potato chips does not benefit Hitler significantly.
But m/tch, have you tried BBQ flavored Hitler? Turns out to be very savory.
Huh, I had figured that everything was like the jade mines:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/69806498/heroin-epidemic
or "Thai" teak logging. But if Thai authorities tell the US that no border guards were bribed....
133: Wouldn't anybody in the French Foreign Legion technically count as a mercenary?
But m/tch, have you tried BBQ flavored Hitler? Turns out to be very savory.
Nah. Too smoky.
(I'm sorry)
(I'm sorry)
Too soon.
It's never too soon to apologize, VW.
We asked whether he was in the French Foreign Legion, because that I had heard of. But that's actually a unit within the French military and can earn you citizenship (or an ugly death somewhere, but, 6 of one....). A mercenary is working for a private, for-profit organization.
Sorry for 122's redacted info. I thought that had been discussed in public. My bad.
OT: Somewhere in the last three or four comments, my net nanny decided the Mirrored Shoes thread was too dirty to let me read it. I am consumed with curiosity.
The word pussy has now been used repeatedly.
Time for science. Exhibitionist. That is all.
145.--Great, now LB won't be able to read this thread.
145: Why do you hate science? It hadn't been used before LB put up 144 on this thread.
Are you telling me her filter doesn't recognize the use/mention distinction?
We must have the same net nanny, set to the same filter.
136: Yup, the same GAO report specifically mentions that virtually all jadeite comes through Burmese government auctions, but rubies are mined on a small rural smuggly scale.
I'll find out what you perverts were saying when I get home.
Do the filters respond to kitty? Haunches? Cooter? Jugs? Ass? We know that asshole is OK. I guess that running all of these together in the same comment will not help disambiguation.
Ooh, how about if one of these words is randomly added to the title of each subsequent post.
I am still able to read this thread, if anyone's trying to calibrate.
69: "Letters Over the Lintel" would be a good name for something or other.
"Letters Over the Lintel" would be a good name for something or other.
It sounds like a "Sleepless in Seattle" knockoff.
And I can still read this. I'm starting to think the net nanny does get the use/mention distinction.
I heard there's a sex tape of the net nanny, leaked by her ex-boyfriend. Hypocrite.
Bayesian filtering, most likely:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_spam_filtering
Try the following page and its links (or don't try, one of them is anatomical with photos, I'm not trying to be rude) to see if your filter recognizes allowed domains:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy
Scunthorpe problem is the other phrase to look at.
So, maybe mirrored shoes indicated the context was not neutral.
167: That poor guy gets blamed for everything.
158 and 164, I think. I am Megan's neighbor.
No no. Of the other thread. Except now I'm back in to both. What a fascinating digression!
Hey, I'm "the Walt" around here, motherfuckers! Fuck Walter Mitty. He's a goddamn faker. I'm the real deal.
About the three rounds, I'm with H-L on the skepticism (in 115 and 121). Not so much about the intention - I assume there are very good reasons to want to avoid being a prisoner at all costs - but on the ability to carry out in many situations where it would be necessary. It seems to play into a fantasy of control, that even when overpowered and facing defeat, you will still be able to control exactly the time and manner of your death.
Danger Man's occupation sounds a little odd. I know a metric ton of people who work in development NGOs, and while some of them do - controversially - employ PMCs, it's got to be a very small number that uses mercs for armed mobile escort work in areas so dangerous that the US military can't go there. A small enough number that I don't think a whole job doing that can be a thing.
I'm gullible, so I believed it, but the three rounds thing does sound like the really effective little detail a talented bullshitter would put in a story.
173: Are the people you know in Afgh? Seems like that could be a wholly different story.
176: One of them worked with Medicins Sans Frontieres on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
alameida, didn't you kind of want the blog to say it was okay for you to rent a more expensive house than you could afford, last year? And that didn't turn out well?
I wasn't serious about wanting a star sapphire...no, I mean, I want one generally, but not from him, or at this very moment, or anything. I knew for a long time when he switched jobs from working nebulously out of the US embassy to private NGO guarding. I know they do guard USAID people at least sometimes, because my god-father is a high-up guy in USAID and he knew the company (happily and irrelevantly he's getting re-posted to jakarta to head up SE asia and thus moving out of pretoria, which he hates. he loves africa, he just doesn't want to live in pretoria. I'm so excited because I love him and will get to see him all the time!).
and I read about my friend's company in slate, actually, someone could probably find it via some combination of mercenary and aid worker without an anonymity breaking moment, though I hesitated to link to it. so they do exist, and do guard aid workers, though how it is that even MSF is willing to go to these places I don't know, or why the US miltary isn't just doing it themselves, so wtf?
it's only after a period of not having seen him for a while that my friend approached me to do this thing, and I said yes right away, and then I said, shit I should have called my sponsor, but she OKed it after a frank discussion. then I said, shit, I should have asked my husband, so I talked to him about it later when he was done teaching. he knows the job itself is something I'd love to do, and we could use the dough at the moment, so is OK, but will be happier the more time my friend is in afghanistan. and is big on my avoiding him as much as is possible while you're decorating someone's whole house.
it's just in the last four or five days (since I took the job on) that he mentioned either the jewels, or the selling cryptography to corrupt indonesian generals (I get to hear about it later today! since he flew in from jakarta last night), or the needing to go to dubai to meet warlords. nominally it's to arrange things so their convoy doesn't get shot? but...?
finally, I agree the extra rounds are about a fantasy of not getting captured, because of the difficulties in reloading mentioned. just also carry a glock, or turn your gun on yourself at the last minute! but it sounds like they all have tons of quasi-ritualistic preparations they do all the time (lacing up their boots halfway at night, sleeping with their weapons right there, having a go bag etc.) to try to convince themselves this is a normal thing to do and not stupid crazy.
178: just last week I talked my landlady into reducing my rent, for the first time in the history of this nation, because she has a warrant out for her arrest in singers (plus is getting sued by citibank for like 300,000USD, and three other things, but is safe in bkk) and so can't come back to find a new tenant, and knows I am trustworthy and putting my own money into the place. so it turned out to work out AWESOME in the end. she said, sipping coffee at the square 8-seater teak table in her palatial dining room, glittering with giant venetian mirrors.
ok, I just knocked wood 10 times. but still. you guys don't think I can make rational decisions, but i totally can!
putting my own money into the place
It sounds like a good rent-to-own possibility, if that's possible. Otherwise, eek.
but dude. duuude. this is the equivalent of the NYC rent-controlled apartment in the west village for $900. when something breaks, do you call attention to your illegal sub-letting self by grousing to building management or your erratic, impossible to contact landlady, or do you just fix it yourself and move on, hoping someday to inherit the precious, precious lease? the question answers itself.
Speaking of renting, I've noticed there's a family living in an old Cadillac sedan across the street. A girl of 12 or so, an adult man, and I think an adult woman as well - I've been trying not to stare too much in my information-gathering. The girl looks reasonably well put together - she's groomed and in decent clothes and appears to be going to school in the mornings - once out of the car you'd never know she was homeless. I think I've heard the father drunk and angry some nights, though again I haven't looked closely to see who's shouting.
My policy so far is to mind my own business; I can't conceive of any authority intervention that would do anything but make their situation worse. Any other recommendations for me?
you guys don't think I can make rational decisions, but haha fooled you!
105: Is there a standard lookup table of stereotypes and their origins I can memorize for the next such conversation I find myself in?
Sigh. I'm kicked out of the showering discussion again. What the hell did you say, Smearcase?