Don't worry, Shaq, we've all done stupid shit before

Apparently Shaq, much like Elvis, has a little thing for law enforcement. It would also seem that officer Shaq and his cohorts made a major blunder, raiding the wrong house for child porno, freaking out some dude and his family.

I wouldn't be too hard on the Shaqster, though, we've all fucked shit up at one time or another. Like that time when instead of killing that Albanian terrorist, I killed an endangered condor, or that time when Sierra blew up that bus full of nuns instead of the 98 Degrees tour rig. These things happen, and you just have to let them, and the inevitable judgement of others, roll off your back. Don't let it get to you, Shaq. You're a good man regardless of this incident, or your free-throw percentage, or Kazaam!

Now, a lot of my fellow agents are probably groaning that I was even willing to bring up Elvis in the company of Shaq in this post. No offense to Shaq, but he's just trying to be a two-bit cop, while Elvis was an honorary federal agent, and is now, well, let's just say that now he's something even better than that.

See, Elvis realized that it's better to burn out than it is to rust in the music world, and instead of suffering in Vegas any longer than he had to, he hatched a plan. The plan was that while he was bulking up for his second career, that he'd buy a fat suit and keep singing, and then he would stage his death in the most undignified way possible, a way his most diehard fans would never believe.

This whole scheme was brilliant, and served several purposes. First, it threw people off on his new appearance, and second, since many people to this day doubt his death, the inevitable sightings of him would be written-off by most.

You've got to give a lot of credit to the man. Not only does he have more soul than any white guy who ever lived, but he's a calculating son-of-a-bitch.

So what's he up to now? Well, I can't tell you much, but I can let you in on one little exploit: You see, Saddam was no dummy. He knew that Tikrit was no place to hang out after the invasion. He took a bunch of cash and was long gone by the time the US Army cruised into Baghdad. Well, you can imagine Saddam's surprise when an older, strapped, American gentleman with killer sideburns strolled up to him on that beach in Thailand and crooned, "Well, you ain't nothin' but a hound-dog..."

A bet I'm not willing to make

Zulu recently saw this old article online, and ever since has been hassling me to make a similar bet with him.

"C'mon man," he said the first time, "I'm so heterosexual, that it completely wouldn't make any difference if I had C-cups, or D-cups... or Double D-cups! C'mon, man, bet me a hundred grand to get them."

Sexuality not withstanding, I have some real reservations about an agent, male or female, getting breast enlargement surgery. First and foremost, is the issue of hand-to-hand combat. If those things were to get in your way, they could cost you your life. It's one thing to have them as a natural part of your body and thusly deal with them. It's quite another to add them after the fact.

Perhaps even more so, though, is the issue of disguising your identity. I would think that going undercover might become more difficult when you're a man with perky, round boobs. Zulu's answer to that, of course, was that now he could more effectively transform himself into a woman. What that argument fails to recognize, though, is that we have never disguised ourselves as women, except for that one time as nuns in that catholic girls school.

I guess, this could potentially be opening new avenues in disguise, but Zulu is well over six feet tall, has a five-o'clock shadow by eleven, and has the biggest adam's apple of any man I've ever seen. I just don't think this is going to work.

So I'm going to continue to ignore his entreaties to bet, even though now he's offering to do it for no money, just a dare. I'm going to have to watch what I say now, I guess.

Sorry To Hear About Your Cat, C

Um, that really is too bad, C. If making photoshopped pictures of the cat is the way you want to go, then I think I can help.
Whatever you do, though, don't send them this one:

Ghengis Cat: DEAD

Fuck.

So I'm not one to keep a lot of friends. It's dangerous for them, as they may be targeted. It's dangerous for me, because most of the people I know are liars. And, to be honest, I just don't like that many people. But I do have some friends, and two of them, in particular, a couple that I care for deeply, former agents, actually, who got out of the business, sort of, asked me to do something for them... And that should now be my fourth reason not to have friends.

Anyway, they used to be in the game, but found that it wasn't serving them spiritually. They felt fomenting coups and carrying out assassinations weren't really the kind of legacy wanted to leave, and that instead they'd like to give back to the World in a more positive way. So they came to me one day a few months ago and told me they were going to join the Peace Corps.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you here and tell you that I told them I thought it was a great idea. In fact, I bust out laughing in their faces and told them that they were a couple of damn fools! I asked them what they were going to put on their resumes, that they're fuckin' super spies fluent in 14 languages, deadly in the martial arts, proficient in many weapons, and advanced in their ability to torture and maim? Yeah, I can see some bleeding heart looking at that and saying, "Oh yeah, these guys would be perfect to go clothe orphans in the Sudan, great!" I told them that they'd be better off joining something called The War Corps, if such a thing existed, something where they could give back by slaughtering the crazed troops of warlords.

They weren't having any of it, though, and told me that their minds were made up, and that they'd "forged fake pasts for themselves in order to make a new future." I'm not making that up either, they actually said that shit.

Then they asked me if I would take care of their cat, Ghengis, for them while they were gone. Now, I usually try to avoid that sort of awkward social transaction, but in this case I just said, "Sure, whatever," because not only was I so disgusted I could barf, but I totally thought they weren't going to get in anyway.

Well, I was wrong on that count, and two weeks ago they gave me the cat, all teary eyed, and made me promise that I'd take good care of him while they were gone, and send them pictures of him and shit at the holidays.

So they drive off in the hippie van that they send to pick up the Peace Corps turds, and I'm stuck there holding this damn Chinchilla, who looks longingly at the bus for a moment, and then hops out of my arms to go eat grass, or whatever the hell cats do.

Anyway, things were going fine with the cat. I was giving him squirrels that I shot, and little sips of whiskey while I cleaned my guns. I was actually starting to get attached to the little bugger, and then the other night he went out and didn't come back in the morning like he normally does.

I immediately knew something was wrong, so I gave G-Force Ghengis' scent from a tuna-fish sandwich and we went out looking for him. We didn't have to go far before we found his coyote-chewed remains.

Fuck.

And yesterday they called on the sat-phone to ask how he was doing.

Fuck. Fuck.

And I didn't have the heart to tell them, so I lied, and said that he was great. I even made little mewing noises into the phone.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

So now the question is what do I do now? Do I tell them? Do I keep lying? Do I photoshop pictures of him at Christmas to keep them going?

I am so screwed.

How do you think this looks?


Fuck.

How Not To Play Poker

This guy is great. I laugh every time I see one of his videos. He's a classic in the poker world for his posting of his piss-poor playing of internet poker. To give you an idea of the caliber of this player; he used to play $2000 buy-in no-limit games and by the end of his short-lived career he was down to $200 buy-in games. You can find more of his videos on YouTube by searching for Tuff Fish. To those aspiring poker players out there, here's the morale of the story; try not to let your emotions rule your decisions.

Precarious Situations

Last night I got a chance to visit one of my favorite hang-outs; the Albuquerque Press Club. I don't often get a chance to visit the PC, as it's a bit out of the way of my usual daily routine, but I usually will swing by if I have to hop from Vegas to New York for some reason. The Press Club's a very low-key institution, which is good for someone looking to keep a low profile, and if you pay the 15,000 dollar membership fee, you get a number of worthwhile percs, including unlimited plays on the jukebox. So I put The Best of Frank Sinatra on loop and started sipping on some rye whiskey. This chick I've never seen there before is talking to me at the bar. We end up talking about poker and this leads to Scrabble, and she pulls a board from out of nowhere and wants to play. I should have been a bit suspicious at that moment, or at least the moment when she wanted to play for $100 a point. But I was a bit drunk and had about 30 grand in my pocket and I'm not easily intimidated so I agreed. I'm sure you could see this coming, but it turns out the woman was some kind of Scrabble champion, a serious hustler. We played with a 30 second timer, which is really the only way to play Scrabble in my opinion, and the difference in points at the end of the game was multiplied by a hundred. We played 3 games and I was into her for 12 grand by the end of it. I knew I was in trouble in the first game when I spelled 'MIRE', thinking I had effectively cut off the triple word score, and she immediately comes over the top with 'QUAGMIRE'; I felt like someone had punched me in the jaw. I was fucked from that point on. Then, to add insult to injury, at the end of every game, this girl who I thought was very proper and polite would yell out "Ship it!!! Holla!!!" and flash some kind of gang sign.

At the end of the third game, we get a spectator; this very loquacious guy who's watching and commenting on our play. I strike up a conversation with him afterwards and I immediately get a feeling that this guy's in the Business as well. He mentions quite casually some trips to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and his explanation that he works for one of the large phone companies doesn't quite ring true to me. So I start the exchange that has been used as code between unaquainted operatives for a few years now, "I used to work for a company that put me in some precarious situations." And he responds with the correct response, "Precarious situations is my middle name." [By the way, I've talked with Hyde and C about this, and the likelihood, however small, that someone actually has 'Precarious Situations' as a middle name, makes this exchange rather dangerous.] So to make things absolutely certain we have to go through the whole strip search thing in the bathroom, make sure no one's wearing a wire, which is really sexy when you and a female operative have to go through it, but just plain awkward when it's a dude.

So it turns out this guy's operating mainly in Uzbekistan, helping with the border security there, turning Uzbekistan's Special Forces into a lean fighting machine. It's a small world, I say, as I tell him I was in Uzbekistan not a month before. And it turns out we even have killed some of the same peoples. He invites me to Uzbekistan for this kind of 'coffee house' open mic night thing he's got going on in Tashkent the third Sunday of every month. I promise I'll show up and tickle the ivories, even though in my experience the Uzbeks aren't very friendly to me. But he loves partying with the Uzbeks; despite being Muslim, he points out, they interpret the Koran in a certain fashion and thus are only prohibited from consuming alcohol made from grain and grapes; when it comes to potato vodka, they have no problem. He also tells me he's got this great 'harem' of Uzbek women over there that think he's some kind of Russian prince. He's making all sorts of jokes about how he's got the Muslim's version of paradise and he didn't even have to die as a martyr. "Except none of them were virgins," he adds with kind of a chagrined look on his face.

Anyway, small world. It's always heartening when you happen to run into a fellow agent out of the blue. Makes the world feel like a much more connected place.

Midnight Cowboys

There's a strange trend that I've been noticing lately and it involves cowboys. I started noticing this trend after I saw Brokeback Mountain a few months ago. By the way; a very good movie, even for someone like me who's ridiculously heterosexual. I think it helps to be very comfortable with your sexuality to enjoy this movie. I mean it helps to be someone who's had sex with a ridiculous amount of women, like I have, to really sit back and relax and enjoy the beauty and melancholy of a movie like that. Some people say that I'm too comfortable with my sexuality, but that's just absurd. You can never be too comfortable with your sexuality. When you've had sex with as many women as I have, you kind of reach another plane of existence. You become comfortable in any kind of situation that might make other, lesser men, nervous, like hanging out in Greek bathhouses, in lockerrooms after soccer games naked with a bunch of guys, chilling late night in the VIP rooms of the really upscale gay clubs in Prague. But a lot of people, including my good friend C, put me down, saying me being comfortable in those places doesn't explain why I frequent them as often as I do. ["You don't even play soccer," he said to me yesterday. Which is true, but you can really work up a sweat watching if you're not in the shade.]

The fact is that I don't need to explain these things, because I've had sex with almost as many women as Wilt Chamberlain, and when you reach this level of existence your sexual behavior is as unexplainable to other, untransmogrified people as is the behavior of a Buddhist monk who has reached enlightenment unexplainable to the everyday masses of hoi polloi. The fact is that I will admit it; I could have sex with a man in a tent in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night just like in Brokeback Mountain, and I would wake up in the morning without even the possibility passing through my mind for the shortest moment that I might be homosexual. That's how comfortable I am in my sexuality.

But back to the cowboys. Ever since watching the movie, I've noticed that every cowboy I see tends to behave in a rather effeminate manner. I mainly see cowboys at the poker tables. That's pretty much the only place I have occasion to see them; you won't run across too many cowboys in Pakistan or North Korea. But from the cardrooms of California all the way to Macao, there are effeminate cowboys all over the place. I don't know if the movie caused a lot of the gay cowboys to come out of the closet and a lot of the straight ones to go into hiding or what, but it's gotten to the point where I see someone with a handlebar mustache sashaying around in an oversized cowboy hat, a bootlace tie slung around their neck, cowboy boots and spurs, I just think 'Gay'. I can't count the number of times I've been sitting across the felt from one of these cowboys and they announce 'All in' in a very feminine voice and I can't help but think there was something sexually suggestive in the way he said it and the way he looked at me (I usually fold in those instances because I've found that's a useful tell). Very strange, though. It makes me wonder if there's always been something about the ornate and frankly quite fruity way cowboys traditionally have dressed that have always attracted those with a homosexual leaning to this profession. I'd like to hear from the readers here; keep your eyes open and let me know the next time you see a cowboy. Judge his sexuality and report back. This is good material here, and anyone's free to use it as the subject of a thesis paper or something like that if they wish.

New Set of Wheels

So we haven't seen the White Ghost in about a month, as he's been holed up in the shop. All we could hear was the welder going non-stop, but we couldn't figure out what he was doing because he had the "Do not FREAKIN' disturb" sign up. And when he puts up that sign, you know it means keep out for real.

So this afternoon we're out back shooting hoops when all of a sudden we hear this monster rumble, and the 6 inch-thick steel doors on the shop swing open to reveal this monster!
So you might be thinking, "big freakin' deal, it's a big white garbage truck." But oh no, my friend, it's a lot more. Check out the inside...
This thing is totally pimped as hell and ready for action. Above is the awesome living room for partying with the groupies, and we've got a first rate kitchen...
And the perfect bed to wake up next to a hot Russian agent...
And on the back we've got a place to store our dirt bikes!
This is pretty much the pimpest ride ever. What you can't see, of course, is the custom V-24 engine under hood. The thing goes 0-60 in 3.8 seconds, and can cruise at over 200mph. It's also fully armored, and has computer controlled machine guns pointing every direction. It can shoot oil slicks, and has several guided missiles that can pop out the top. State of the art!
White Ghost really outdid himself this time. Zulu and I are definitely going to round up some poon-tang for him this weekend.

Former agents all over new media

It's not just Hipster Pit that's jumping out of the game for blogging, but another former agent, Nova, is now trying to break it big on YouTube. Frankly, I don't get what hanging around coffee shops with your iBook, or running around town with a handycam has on riddling French operatives with bullets. I guess maybe some folks just burn out on the life.

Anyway, I probably shouldn't say anything about this, but the Nova thing (or "Lisa Nova", as she's now known) has had Zulu kinda torn up. They were kind of an item before she left for LA, and I know that her departure really had him thinking about what the meaning of true love is, and where it belongs in your life. I don't care how many terrorists you water-board, occasionally you hit a lull in activity and consider the warm embrace of a woman who truly cares about you... but if you're pros like Z and I, you get that shit outta your head and get another bucket of water.

BTW, I can't be too hard on ol' Nova, she did blow this shit wide open on Diddy and his relationship with Burger King.





Much respect, LN.

Big thought for the day

I was strolling today through a market in Phenom Phen, and got to thinking about all the ancient and beautiful cultures there are in the world, and how the people in those cultures generally feel comfortable in their skins and their place in the world. Meanwhile our western culture thrashes about, grabbing snippets of custom and belief from a variety of sources, trying to build some semblance of meaning in our lives. While others are content to exist as themselves, we constantly feel the need to create ourselves, and in so doing we drift further and further from where we started, all the while trampling the people that we borrowed from. If there's a parasite in the world making things worse for all, it is us, it is western culture. We are the problem that we are so desperately trying to solve, it's just that we can't see the problem for what it is.

Anyway, that was my big thought for the day, but I couldn't dwell on it for too long. There's a lot to do today. I need to kidnap a political dissident in a couple hours, and then I'm probably going to be up all night torturing him. Gotta get back to the hotel and grab a little cat nap.

Enviga - The secret is out

Well, Coke unveiled Enviga today, which I guess brings our little experiment to a close. Enviga is a new green tea beverage that actually burns calories by accelerating your metabolism. Seems that you can burn about 60-100 calories per can (we seem to be averaging around 75 cal/can).

We've actually been experimenting with the stuff on Michael Stipe for the past few years. He's all into his green tea, so we got a junior operative to pose as his "personal spiritual assistant" (eliminate the "spiritual", and that's all it is) and feed him a can once a day after yoga. Stipe is such a nut that he actually calculates how many calories he needs to stay alive (1 creepy stage show = 873 calories), and only eats that much food. So a can of this stuff a day and you can see why he'd start wasting away.

In case you were wondering, Stipe got picked for the project after releasing Up and Reveal back to back. We took a poll around the office, and collectively found him more expendable than Bono. Which was totally a good call, as Pop appears to only have been an anomaly.

Welcome aboard Corey Lidle?

Let's look at the facts about Corey Lidle:

1. Not that popular with the fans
2. Not that popular with his peers
3. A taste for adventure
   
4. A quick study with lots of physical talents
5. Famous

Now, I'm not saying that I know anything about this, but let's just say a guy with those characteristics wanted to get into another, perhaps more clandestine, line of work. Maybe he might get in contact with some people who might rig his plane up by remote control, throw a couple of drugged-out unsavory characters at the helm, smash the plane into some empty apartments, and arrange for his passport to be found on the street.

Again, I'm not saying I know anything about this. But Corey, if you're alive, welcome to the team.

Reunion

Yeah, Hipster Pit was cool. It was good to see her again. My favorite memory of her from the old days was the time we sat on top of that burnt-out hotel in Baghdad during the Shock and Awe invasion, watching the bombs go off, drinking chiante and feasting on brie and a fantastic seafood bisque. Talk about front row seats. The U.S. military put on a fantastic show that day. There was that pure adrenaline-filled excitement those first few days of battle, much like the passion and excitement of an opening night on Broadway.
And it was a sausage and squash lasagna she made, C. Get it right. It was delicious. The contrasting textures and tastes of the squash and the italian sausage was really a beautiful thing.

An evening with the Hipster Pit

Yesterday was a good day. Not only did we get G-Force back, but we got to spend the evening with the Hipster Pit, a former operative and fellow blogger, who's now pursuing a writing career in Chicago.

It was sad when Hipster Pit left the organization. Her wit and penchant for violent outbursts against captives kept us all in good spirits even during the darkest of times. She also makes a mean sausage and eggplant lasagna, which we were fortunate enough to have again last night.

Having G-Force back made us all really happy as well. Seems that he had merely gone undercover to infiltrate some drug dealers. He didn't catch anybody, but he did bring us back some wicked shit, which we partook in during our game of Scrabble. Hipster Pit abstained, which may account for her come from behind victory.

G-Force Missing

We got back from the latest mission not elated as usual, but in fact a little down. Sometimes there are just things you see that make you hate life and the people living it. The only sure way to get out of such a funk is some good booze, some meaningless sex, and some quality time with man's best friend. Well, check and check on the first two, but it seems that G-Force went MIA while we were gone.

It's been going on three days now and we're all a little worried. If you have any knowledge of his whereabouts, drop me a line. In the meantime I'll keep cruising the pound. Springing a dog out of the pound isn't nearly as sexy as extricating an operative from an unofficial Russian gulag, but I'll do whatever it takes to get our boy back. Even if it means stooping to putting up flyers.

180 Degree Turn

So Zulu and I are sitting in the back of the van on Friday morning in China Town thinking that this has got to be the most retarded mission that we've ever been on. Like, c'mon, this chick is selling fuckin' Faberge eggs? And the thing is, she's good at it. She's made $43,000 while we've been sweating our balls off in the back of the van for a day and a half. [Oh, and by the way, Z may make fun of my G-strang, but it's not as if he isn't sitting there balls-ass naked, so don't even start...]

Anyway we're sitting there listening to her banter with some closet homo when all of a sudden the light bulb comes on over my head. I turned to Zulu and said, "So while we're listening to this crap, where are we about as far from as possible?" And without saying anything we just looked at each other and knew. So I pulled on my clothes, grabbed a crappy windbreaker from underneath the passenger seat, sheathed a 6" blade, and announced, "I'm robbing the place."

As strange as that may seem, "robbing the place", is actually a common term in the business. The idea is that if you go in on an operative as a common thug with a violent streak that they'll be forced to play their hand.

I pulled a stocking over my head as I dashed up the stairs to her residence and kicked in the door. She was curled up on the couch talking to the latest schmuck and I brandished my blade while shouting, "Give me the fuckin' eggs!"

The shock of my entrance and my waiting for a read of her mood left a rather uncomfortable silence in the air, and just before I thought it had gone on too long, she shrieked. With that, I turned towards the large egg off on a table in the corner.

It was a large, glorious thing, and what immediately drew me towards it was the fabulous sheen it had, which afforded me a view over my shoulder as I approached it. This polish, I knew, would allow me to see with advance warning any strike that this potentially deadly assassin might level upon me.

But none came. As I approached the egg, in its reflection I could actually see her soil the couch. And without even laying my hands on the treasure, I turned, bowed to her, and exited.

I jumped in the back of the van and shouted to Z to hit the gas. He called back that we were heading to the theater district to get the chutes from a safe house there, and then would be on to Teterboro. Despite making the combined drive in an amazing 43 minutes, the time passed interminably for us.

Given all the TSA bullshit, our conduct at the airport could potentially be the most difficult part of our plan. Zulu's associations with P. Diddy had afforded him the opportunity to ride on Diddy's new Global Express, and Z had done his best in those interactions to get to know the pilots and the FBO crew at Teterboro. He's a master of the social interaction, and had managed to create an aura of more association with the plane than any casual passenger should have deserved. At any rate, as we drove to the safe-house he called ahead and convinced them to have the jet fueled up and be waiting for Diddy's imminent arrival.

Arriving at the airport we sweet talked the ramp crew and drove our van right out to the waiting plane, saying that we were getting the plane ready for Diddy, and then proceeded to load our gear as inconspicuously as possible. As I stayed to finish up, Zulu went in to the pilot's lounge and convinced a jet pilot to come out to check out the plane. Once inside we knocked him out and locked him in the lav. We then hopped behind the controls and within minutes were wheels up and headed southeast.

We were burning a lot of time to get where we were going, but we were executing as well as we could with the resources at hand. Still, it was scheduled to be a four-day stakeout, so chances were reasonably good that we'd arrive in the middle of whatever was happening.

As we neared our destination we prepared our gear and started looking at maps to decide on where specifically we were headed. Zulu had read all the intel and had narrowed the region down to about a 300 square-mile swath that was mostly in Pakistan but included some of Afghanistan. I then studied the region with my Special Forces trained eye, and picked our insertion point. With chutes on and weapons loaded we opened the bathroom door and let the pilot out.

I must say, when Zulu and I are fully outfitted for battle, we cut as impressive and menacing a figure as any men alive, and for the second time in 17 hours someone soiled themselves in fear of me. Z and I decided not to embarrass the guy, though, and took no notice as we shoved him at gunpoint towards the locked cabin.

"Listen carefully," I said, "In ninety seconds a small explosive on the other side of that door will blow and let you inside. The plane is trimmed out and on autopilot, and the baggage door is open. Close it, as we'll be gone by then, and plot a course for Kuala Lumpur. We've cleared the airspace for you. Refuel there and take the plane back to New Jersey. We'll square up with Diddy later." With that we turned and headed down into the baggage compartment.

The roar of the wind was deafening, but we held on and waited for the countdown to finish on our watches. When the displays turned all zeroes we were out the back of the plane and plummeting towards the Khyber Pass. We waited until the last possible moment to pull our chutes, so as to minimize our time as easy targets, and set down moments later on the rocky mountainside.

Despite our precise execution, we were still spotted as we dropped in, and were forced into an impromptu gun battle, which we handled swiftly. Their fire also alerted us to the cave we were looking for, and we made quick time over to its entrance, dispatching of the guards and slipping our way inside.

Likely you've got a picture in your mind of what one of these Al Qaeda caves looks like. And probably you're thinking crappy cave-man shit. You'd be dead wrong though. These things are about as opulent as anything you'd see on MTV Cribs. Zulu and I were sneaking down the corridors past plasma TV's, designer furniture, and a kitchen outfitted with the latest Viking ranges and Sub-Zero refrigerators. We're talking pimp here.

At any rate, as we reached the deepest bowels of the structure, we could hear the conversation going on in the chambers beyond a pair of intricately carved doors. "PAGES! PAGES!" shouted the slightly drawling western accented English, "Whatever, it doesn't matter, we just need something to happen to get us over the Foley thing."

Zulu and I kicked open the door, and with four quick rounds from each from our XM8's we were the only living men left in the presence of Osama bin Laden and Dick Cheney.

All the color drained from Cheney's toad-like face, and for the third time in 24 hours someone soiled themselves to look at me. His thin lips started to move, but no sound came out.

Zulu and I fixed our steely gazes on the two most evil men in the world. We'd seen some pretty hard characters over the years, but never two like this.

As Cheney attempted to emit what one could only assume would be a croak, I strode across the room and delivered a rifle butt to the his head, knocking him unconscious. I reached down to pick him up and threw him over my shoulder. Bin Laden and I then locked eyes, and after a moment of mutual contemplation he nodded his head to me, and I did the same in return. The acknowledgement between us was more than just an appraisal; it was an admission that while this minor chapter had come to pass that the story was yet to be concluded on another day.

Zulu and I exited to Cheney's waiting Blackhawk and took him back to Kabul.

A lot of our conservative readers are going to wonder why we didn't kill bin Laden that day, while many of our liberal readers will wonder why we didn't kill Cheney, and then there are the independents, who will wonder why we didn't kill them both. What all those groups don't understand is that there is a fourth path, the apolitical path. Some people will come across this fourth way and go mad, others will find God, and then there are people like Zulu and I who will take the fourth path as far as it will go, and find the truth.

Unacceptable Idiocy at Poker

Seldom do I make a mistake at poker that makes me just want to beat myself silly afterwards. But tonight I got involved in one of the higher limit games I've been involved in in my life, and made one of the most rookie mistakes a player could make. The game is pot-limit omaha, with 10-20 blinds; a big game; when I first sit down, a guy wins a 5000 dollar pot. Anyway, to make a long story short, I bet a ragged board all the way down with just a pair of deuces and a wheel gutshot. I get 2 callers all the way; they both call for 75 on the flop, and they both call for 200 on the turn; I feel they are very weak, but I never for an instant consider my 2's could somehow be good. The flop is AJ4, an 8 on the turn, no flush draw at any point, so it's hard for me to consider them having too many draws out there. Whatever, it doesn't matter. The point is the J pairs on the river and everyone checks it down. I immediately muck my 2's, thinking there's no way they can be good. As it turns out both of the guys had very similar hands and picked up 2 straight draw wraps on the turn, and K high ends up winning it. So basically I just forfeited a 970 dollar pot for no real reason. That kind of shit hurts more than anything, because you know it's your own stupidity that cost you a very large amount of money, and not someone just getting lucky on you. I immediately left, knowing that I was in danger of going on tilt after my stupidity. I was up 300 bucks, but not in the least consoled. First time in a long while when the phrase, 'I need a drink', came very strongly into my head. And that's what I did.

Pathetic Stake-Out Today

So C's pretty much recovered now and they sent he and I to New York to set up surveillance on this suspected Chinese operative. This woman Mai-Ling was supposedly having meetings with someone in the Defense Department and everyone wanted to know more about this. Allegedly information about nanotechnology was being leaked; and this was nanotechnology related to warfare; the kind of stuff that the government doesn't want you to know about. We're talking microscopic machines that replicate themselves from any known materials, machines that with a little more tweaking on the part of our scientists could turn mountains to dust in a matter of minutes; the so-called grey goo scenario. So needless to say, everyone was a trifle concerned.

Mai-Ling was posing as a Faberge egg dealer, meeting with potential business contacts in New York. (For some reason the Chinese seem to think the most ridiculous cover story is usually the best, and I have to say that this does seem to work for them most of the time. Though I do remember once they went overboard when one of their agents was posing as a flamboyantly gay rodeo clown. I'm pretty sure someone got fired for that idea.) Several of the eggs had been found to contain microprint military research inside of them, and this was how Mai-Ling was transporting the information back to China.

So C and I are set up all day today in a completely tinted-out, busted up 'Lee's Laundry Services' van in Chinatown outside this woman's apartment, trying to blend into the environment. And for anyone of you who know about stake-outs, that shit is not pleasant or glamorous in the slightest. With all of the surveillance equipment in the van, there's barely any room to move, it's hot and humid as hell, you're dripping sweat, it's hard to breathe, and, if you're working with someone who ate a rather large Mexican meal the night before and for some retarded reason had the leftovers for breakfast, things can reach a point where you're ready to say fuck the fate of the world, I'm retiring to a chalet in Switzerland.

So we're there for 12 hours today, listening to her phone conversations, which we'd tapped the night before, and being completely miserable. All she talks about all day is Faberge this, Faberge that, talking about her god-damned eggs more than a woman with ovarian cancer. She's talking to the Victor Mayer company in Germany, to some potential buyers in Manhattan, to some Wall Street guy who's making some ridiculous inquiries about 'Faberge egg salad' (by the way, wtf?) and just generally she's boring as shit. And after a while I'm pretty convinced that something is wrong here and she's just a regular old-fashioned Faberge egg dealer and we've got some bad information, or else someone else is doctoring her eggs. C's of a different opinion, though, and thinks she's just really deep undercover.

'Uhhh,' I say. 'If she goes any deeper under cover, she's going to be selling Faberge eggs for the rest of her fucking life. She'd really have us fooled then.' C conceeds that we may be wasting our time, especially since the search of her apartment the night before didn't yield any results.

"Do you think the donkey punch would be allowed under Bush's revised Geneva Conventions?" C asked out of nowhere. He's prone to non-sequitors during stake-outs. I assume it's a rhetorical question and say nothing.

To make a long story short, nothing at all happens all day except for C and me learning entirely too much about Faberge eggs, and me filling up almost an entire 2-liter soda bottle with my urine. Also, seeing entirely too much of C because he likes to strip down to a thong during these things because of the heat.

End of Internet Poker? (for Americans)

Bill Frist has almost succeeded in getting his bill passed by Bush. If this passes as it is expected to in about two weeks from now, it pretty much spells the end of United States citizens playing poker as they've been accustomed to. I have friends who get most of their income from playing on Partypoker and the like, so this is pretty big in the circle I hang with. Fortunately for me, I've been concentrating on the live casino games in the past year and this won't effect me much, though I would definitely like the opportunity to play on these sites again. It is too bad the party of smaller government feels the need to regulate morality and limit our choices yet again. Here is a rather humorous letter I found in one of the poker forums, where Bill Frist animosity is at an all-time high:

Senator Frist
Did you pass that bill because you were mad I hit that gutshot on the river against you? Well you shouldn't be you fucking idiot. You gave me 8:1 pot odds with your wimpy little bet and we all know your scared conservative bible bearing ass was folding to me if any flush card hit the river... And did you know whenever you bluff you put your hands on your balls to remind yourself that you have them? Yeah, you do. You suck. Your a dumb non creative retarded guy who doesn't have the thinking skills to make decisions for himself, so he just goes the conservative girly man route. And thanks for the easy money, I took it to Atlantic City and banged diseases infested hookers all week without protection. CUZ THATS HOW I ROLL.
--EaglesFan1

Who knows? Maybe Frist did lose a bundle on internet gambling and is a bit sore. I wouldn't put anything past him. We all know he has no problem killing cats and dogs.