Happy Birthday to our very own Bigwig. Bigwig turns older today though, honestly, I’ve lost count on which one this might be. I can barely remember my own age any more. Happy Birthday, Brother. Hope you have a good one.
As part of…..Bible School, or Father’s Day, or some such occasion, Ngnat presented her mother and I with a number of coupons good for various things, such as “A big hug,” or “Cleaning my room.” Very cute.
One was for “Seding the Table.” Even Cuter!
So last night, I redeemed it, giving it back to her with an attached note, which read “echo table | sed s/table/”table with plates, utensils and glasses”/
Neither she nor the Sainted Wife thought it was as funny as I did.
This month’s loan goes to Lualuai Niutua, of Samoa.
Lualuai Niutua is a 22 year old single mother with two children. She has two years of experience as a food vendor selling to the general public four days per week. She earns a weekly net cash flow of 600 Tala (~250 USD). SPBD loans are Lualuai’s only access to capital because she was has not qualified for a loan from traditional banks. She is requesting a loan to to purchase chicken, tomato sauce, flour, a new gas oven, potatoes, cooking oil and salt, as well as to purchase cement and iron roofing to renovate her small house. She has received two previous loans from SPBD.
Johnny Depp to Play ‘Riddler’ in ‘Dark Knight’ Sequel
So apparently Silflay Hraka is going to become the place on the internet for speculating about who should play what super heroes of villains in the movies. I can see Depp as The Riddler but, honestly, haven’t they already done Riddler? Batman, in my mind, has more interesting nemeses than Riddler. We’ve had Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow (my favorite and done poorly in my mind) and Ra’s al Ghul in the last two Bat films. I guess Riddler and Penguin are the two most well known villains remaining, minus Catwoman. If they stick to the (senseless) formula of doing two villains per film, the next film should pretty much take care of all the well-known Bat villains.
Personally I’d love to see something different. Batman versus somebody else. And only ONE somebody else. None of this “we have to have two villains in the damned movie” crap. My mind is on Victor Zsasz.
Why? Because I think it would be damned interesting to see Batman opposed to one guy that doesn’t want to take down Gotham. He’s not fighting for the city. He’s just killing people, one at the time. It’d give Batman a chance to return to his detective roots. Probably wouldn’t be all that interesting from a “let’s blow shit up” perspective, but might get a little more mentally involved.
Anyway, peruse the list o’ Batman adversaries and see what you think. There’s always Mr. Freeze or Poison Ivy. Not too interesting as far as I’m concerned. Both were pretty much ruined in “Batman and Robin”. Though I’d like to see Patrick Stewart take a turn as a more cerebral Mr. Freeze.
The article above speculates as to who might replace Peter Weller as everyone’s favorite metalloid police officer. My vote is for “The Dark Knight’s” Two-Face/Harvey Dent, Aaron Eckhart. He’s got the cleft chin for it and didn’t do a poor job in DK. He has the added benefit of being fresh off a huge mega-hit movie.
Weller will be a tough act to follow no matter what as he is really etched in my mind as the perfect RoboCop but…whomever it is, I’ll probably see the movie.
The latest from LTC Bob.
Hey all-
At least one correspondent out there asked about our recent “honored guest”…
We didn’t see him here, although he put in an appearance down in the IZ (the old “Green Zone”).
On the way in from Kuwait, he was also at MND-SE (Basra) where LTC Al Mategrano is working. Al is supposed to be up here running our Ops Section, but is on “TDY” in Basra on another mission.
Anyway, he got in on the Big Visit, and also received…yes, a Senator Obama Coin for Excellence. (ed. note: A what? This, maybe? Later That Same Day Update: That’s NOT the coin)

Larger version here.
That’s Al just to the Senator’s left. The big machine they’re standing in front of is a Buffalo, one of our engineer route clearance vehicles. The cage is defense against RPGs, the big arm has a spork on it to interrogate IEDs. Some other stuff on there as well…
Maybe we could turn the aquarium trade loose on the non-native Lionfish in the Atlantic.

