NOT DEAD YET: A Dispatch From Baghdad

OK, THIS BLOG ISN'T DEAD ... YET. In the short term, I'll still be posting random stuff when I feel like it until I figure out what I want to do with this blog. And for my friends who think the "Not Dead Yet" lede-in might be a bit insensitive, it's referring to this blog and not my hometown buddy/freelance reporter David Enders, who happened to talk to me via Google Chat this afternoon from the Iraqi capital. (Go buy his book.)

2:15 PM me: are you still in baghdad?
David: yeah
i'd be clinically insane by now if it wasn't for IM
8 pm curfew blows...
2:16 PM me: it's a life line, for sure
play some eucher
2:17 PM David: forbidden by the militias
me: cards are forbidden by the militias?
David: in some places
me: batgammon?
David: not sure
me: what about online porn?
2:18 PM David: tacitly accepted
this is an arab country
2:19 PM David: in fact, i'm pretty sure a good part of the [population] doesn't know computers have any other use
i'm only half serious
the haifa street guys claimed to break legs and such when they caught people playing cards
i don't know what the other militias think about them
2:28 PM me: it seems like you wouldn't want to piss off the men with the guns

David wanted me to note that the Haifa Street Guys not liking cards thing happened last year. But still ... it's a war zone. You should be able to pass the time when you're holed up the way you want to and not having to worry about armed militias and the like. Is Go Fish taboo too?

David, hang in there. Be well.