If You Play Atari Too Much, Real Life Begins To Look Pixelated And Silly

Thank you everybody for your kind comments on my last post... I appreciate that. My Dad emailed me today to say that people were asking if he'd heard from me, and he hadn't, and was moved to write and make sure I was ok. So I guess that last post was so depressive that it had people fearing I was, as threatened, lying in a ditch somewhere in Baghdad with a syringe full of Drain-o hanging out of my arm. I'm sorry for worrying everybody, but never fear, writing in a public forum such as this does tend to bring out the worst in me, and I may have gone too far with the whole junkie suicide thing. I assure you all, it was merely a form of writerly juvenile self-indulgence, not an actual threat. If I ever decide to off myself, I'll do it in a much more cowardly fashion, like the running car in an unventilated garage thing. And since there are no proper garages around here, you can relax, knowing that it's impossible for me to purposefully check out for the time being.
At any rate, We are now completely moved out of the 600 Man Camp where our contract was terminated so rudely last week, and are now a large happy crowded family in the much smaller GBG camp. I bought a Flashback Atari 2600 console at the PX this week, which has about 40 original Atari games built in, and have spent the last few days re-acquainting myself with Pitfall, Asteroids, and River Raid. So you can see I've been extremely engaged.
We are also in the process of slowly sending Romanians home, and should have them all snug in Bucharest within the next two weeks, except for a contingency of about 30 to keep our camp running until such time as we get more work, or the home office decides to completely give up in Iraq. Which brings me to how all of this affects my future...
Apparently, the home office believes that we can still get other work, and also apparently believes that they want me to be a part of it. As unlikely as this sounds, it is indeed true. So I was asked today to go to Romania for a week to take care of a few things... they want me to speak to GBG's lawyers in order to give them a clearer picture of what happened at the 600 Man Camp in the last few weeks we were there, as they are going to take our ex-client to court. And then they mentioned something about putting me in Marketing... which scares me a bit. I told them that I was a horrible salesman, the worst you could ask for actually, and yet they still sounded serious. So if my visit to Romania doesn't turn them from this silly idea, I will then be returning to Baghdad to do some, um, marketing and junk. I myself don't really believe that there is a future for GBG in Baghdad... everybody here knows Phil, and will be very reluctant to enter into any business with his company due to recent events. But, as I was saying to myself only a few hours ago, if they want to keep paying me the stupid amount of money that I tricked them into paying me to sit in my caravan and make phone calls, I will be happy to oblige for as long as I can get away with it. They will catch on about me sooner or later, and I dare say there will be a day of reckoning for me then, but once they've made that wire deposit, they can't take it back. Nyah nyah.
So I may be leaving for Romania this saturday, depending on ticket availability, and I will of course have more to say on that when I know more. And if all goes as they seem to want it to, I will be back here a week after that. The whole thing is so speculative right now, that I really can't guess what will happen, so I won't. It looks as though, at the least, I will be here until the end of April.
And that's that. TTFN. ITMFA.

Comments

[hooligan]

Naw, marketing is the easiest thing in the world. It's different than sales. Do it! You'll be good at it; you have a good facility with language, which is all you need. What the hell is ITMFA? Just curious.

[hooligan]

Here, I'll school ya: this is either a) how to market, or b) how not to. Take your pick. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11810404/
My suggestion would have been to launch a big PR campaign BEFORE bombing the shit out of said country, but hey - I'm not in charge.

[hooligan]

Never mind; I googled ITMFA. Nice. We're working on it, you know?

[Dad]

Thanks Mike... it's always good to know what you're up to just so we can be prepared!! For what I'm not certain. For sure you have a knack for, as John says, "landing on your feet," but marketing?? I think uncle Rob predicted well and before too long you'll be dealing in insurance or something. Fly low to Romania - too many things happening near that part of the world these days. All of us here in PA send our prayers and our love.