In the Den of the Moldovan Bear

I had been wandering around Mogadishu for several days looking for work and getting no love from the locals. Five years ago a well-known international mercenary such as myself walking through Mogadishu's Bukhara Market would get solicited for work in about ten minutes, but hell I must have gone through the damn Bukhara Market fifteen times already this week and not gotten any work. There's too many god damn mercenaries here, and just not enough work or money to go around. And they don't out-source much here- if there's killing to be done, the Somalis just hire other Somalis to do their dirty work, instead of going with more professional, international mercenaries that would do better jobs. The Somalis' close-minded, provincial way of thinking really bugs me, but there's not much I can do about it.

I was however fortunate to come upon a pair of UN relief workers, whom I robbed and then beat the hell out of. They had food and medicine and a little money, so that tided me over for a few days. But when that stuff ran out, I went back to the Bukhara market, hoping for a break.

So I was scanning the crowd, debating whether or not I should just take a random passerby hostage in an effort to get a little ransom money, when suddenly some ass-hole stuck a gun in my back.

"Doan move, McStallen!" said the gunmen.

Immediately I recognized the voice- it was Crotop the Moldovan Bear. He was a moderately successful trial attorney in America for several years until he was deported back to Moldova. Enraged over the deportation, Crotop turned to a life of professional international violence.

Crotop became a well-respected mercenary, and we eventually crossed paths in Chile. I was guarding my old buddy General Augusto, who has been a victim of alot of unfair, biased international press. There were alot of people out to get General Augusto, and some of them paid Crotop to lead an extraction team into General Augusto's house to kidnap him. But Crotop's point man tripped a claymore out front and that alerted us, and we opened up with a couple of .30 calibers from the house- it was a real turkey shoot. We got about half his team right there on the front lawn, and the rest retreated. The mission was widely considered to be a huge failure for Crotop, and he had alot of trouble getting work for the next six months or so- rumor had it he was even black-listed by the entire Latin American mercenary community. So needless to say Crotop was not very fond of me.

Anyway Crotop took me at gun-point to his compound in northern Mogadishu. He sat me down in a chair and tied me to it.

"If you're not CCCP, you're not shit!" he roared as he pointed to his T-shirt emblazoned with the words "CCCP."

I wasn't in the mood for Soviet propaganda.
"What do you want, you poor-man's-Romanian?!" I demanded.

"I want American women. Get me late McStallen. You know American women. You introduce me and get me late. I doan know American women, and I doan know what to say to them. But you do- so get me late. That's all I want now- American women. All I want. Get me late." he said.

Well, let me tell you, that is a tall order- I only know a few American women, and the possibility that any of them are currently in Somalia is extremely low. Compounding matters was the fact that Crotop is a bloody social retard and it's tough finding any poor girl to pass him off on.

I asked him if he had tried J-Date or some other on-line service, but that only enraged The Bear and he fired a .45 slug right by my ear.

"YOU get me late. No J-Date. No mail order. You McStallen- You get me late!" roared Crotop.

I told him I'd get him a girl if he let me go, and that it was "laid," not "late." He told me I had 48 hours to produce "American women," or one of his underlings would whack me. He put a couple of tails on me, and I embarked on a presumably hopeless search.

McStallen and the Devil

So we went to this traditional Somali nudie bar and I had a few Genessee Cream Ales and was feeling a little bit tipsy. I bought the captain a few lap dances and he seemed pretty content. It looked like everyone was having alot of fun, but suddenly an explosion went off outside and a giant ball of fire crashed through the window of the titty bar.

People were panicking and trying to flee and trampling each other and it was a big mess. The captain escaped by crashing through a side wall and left a cartoonish silhouette in the spot that he exited. Then I saw a man in a wheel chair helplessly burning up, and I started laughing. But I quickly covered up my grin when I realized it was in poor taste to laugh at something like that. But a few seconds later I caught myself laughing again, and once again I had to compose myself.

The smoke and flames began to clear a little, and low and behold, who should appear but the Sacramento civil servant. Two skinnies rushed at him swinging their machetes, but the civil servant fired his eye-beams at them and they instantly burst into flames. Then the civil servant turned its attention to me.

I aimed my BAR at him, and he once again fired his eye beams, this time easily melting the trusty weapon that I had killed so many people with. The civil servant got with-in a foot of me and I tried to look away but couldn't. This demonic figure was about 5'10, and sweating profusely. He had horns on his head, and was wearing a badly singed L.A. Rams sweatshirt. He had very hairy horse-like legs, hooves for feet, and an evil fork-shaped devil tail.

He stared me down and bellowed, "I believe you have something that belongs to me, and I want it back!"

I held up the fantasy sports binder and pointed at the name tag on front, which read "LA Sports Buff."

"Is that you? Are you the 'LA Sports Buff?'" I asked.

It nodded and coughed up mucus on its face.

"Well the binder can burn in hell!" I growled, as I threw the book into the flames.

The civil servant howled "NOOOOOOO!!!!!" and put its arms over it's eyes. The book quickly incinerated in the flames, and when it did, the civil servant spontaneously combusted in a poof of smoke.

One of the skinnies approached me and asked what all this was about. I told him it was a long story and that he should mind his own god damn business. I grabbed an AK-47 that had been hastily discarded in the fracas, and left the bar. It was time for some sight-seeing.

Terror on the High Seas

I made it to a port in northern California, and boarded the SS Petros, a large Greek freighter bound for the horn of Africa. I asked to see the captain- he was a large burly man with a goatee and mustache, wearing a dingy Dallas Cowboys hat. I offered him 15 cases of cigarettes if he'd let me tag along and drop me off in Mogadishu, and he said "Sure!," but that I also owed him a lap-dance when we got to Africa. I gave him a puzzled look. Once he clarified that the lap-dance was to come from a stripper and not from me (I was merely to pay for the lap-dance), I felt relieved and agreed. So here I was heading to Somalia, by way of the southern shore of Africa, just like the great Vasco De Gama.

But things aren't going well. The civil servant I meant at Kinko's -well, I stole one of his fantasy binders- I just had to see what kind of insight this dark spirit had. His binders contained numerous legal pads that meticulously out-lined 4 way fantasy trades involving players like Smush Parker, Brad Johnson, and Eric Moulds, to fantasy owners named "Hapless Kyle" and "Evil Rick Y" and "Lazy Brian" and "Flakey Mike," plotted NFL schedules for the next 68 years, identified the penis size of every kicker in the AFC, and even outlined an assassination plot of Gray Davis.

Once we made it to the Indian Ocean, we noticed that we were being followed by a small black vessel. The vessel eventually got within 1000 feet of our ship, and that's when I realized it was that same blasted Sacramento civil servant, pursuing us half-way around the world like a cursed ghoul chasing a stolen sacred relic. His eyes were burning red with rage, and he had a maniacal grin on his face. Although he had a coat and tie on, by God I don't think he was wearing any pants.

As the civil servant followed us, several of the crew of the Petros became ill, and one even fell overboard and drowned (he was a Turk so no one even tried to save him or throw him a life-preserver). So the civil servant was scaring the shit out of the crew, who believed he was some sort of evil spirit seeking vengeance upon us. The crew begged me to throw the fantasy binder overboard in hopes that would end the civil servant's pursuit, but I refused them. I persuaded them that violence was the proper and only solution for this scenario. So when this demonic figure brought his craft a little closer, I opened up on him with my BAR. I got him with a few rounds and he let a fiendish howl, and then he pulled his craft back out of range and eventually disappeared into the horizon.

We thought we had lost him for sure and we drew course to settle into port as night fell. The captain reminded me about the lap-dance, and we were preparing to dock and head into town for a night of debauchery. But then the unthinkable occurred....Pandellos, the first-mate, caught a glimpse of the civil servant- there he was maybe 3 miles out to sea, like a dancing devil, back-pedaling through cone drills on the top of his craft in the moonlight, seemingly oblivious to our presence. And from our vantage point it appeared as if he had grown horns, hooves, and a tail. We figured something big was about to happen.

The captain told us to batten down the hatches and to prepare to defend ourselves. We aimed the ship's .88 deck gun at the craft, and the crew armed themselves with whatever sorts of rifles, knives, bottles, etc they could find. But at just that moment an overwhelming fog descended upon our ship. Many of the men began to cough and cry, but fortunately it cleared up after a few minutes. We then looked out upon the haunted sea preparing to open fire, but to our dismay the civil servant and his craft were nowhere to be found. The captain stared with awe for a few minutes, but then instructed the crew to dock and head into town to buy lap-dances and cigarettes. "No doubt." I said, as I followed them into town. No doubt.

An Incident at Kinko's

So I was just sitting there Sunday, listening to this old hick named Grampa Nuttelman spin yarns about his heroes like Bert Starr, Paul Horny, Marge Scott, and Teddy Higuera, and I just had it. I couldn't stay in that hell-hole another day. So I went upstairs, grabbed a back-pack full of clothes and my BAR, and decided to hitch-hike out of here. I am violating the terms of my plea bargain, but I just don't care.

I had been reading about some shit going down to Somalia. People have been running into those blasted Somali pirates again. Loyal readers will recall I had some trouble with a band of Indonesian pirates in July. And as many of you know, Mogadishu is to me what Mecca is to Arabs. So I just feel that's where I need to be- in the shit - in Somalia. So the plan was to go cross-country to California, and then sneak onto a freighter bound for East Africa.

I've made it to Sacramento CA, and I am in a Kinkos' copy store which features pay-by-the-minute internet access. So I am updating my blog, and sitting next to this well-dressed man in a suit who is scaring the hell out of me. He appears to be some sort of civil servant, but he is carrying many binders full of fantasy football stats and appears to be accessing numerous fantasy football sites. He keeps mumbling the phrase "Toma-oka," and is holding a nude doll of Steven Jackson in one hand, and a vintage WWII German potato masher grenade in the other. He's got a hunting rifle with an infrared scope in his back-pack- it takes skill to kill with a rifle- and I can tell this man is prepared to use it. I stared at him once out of curiosity, but he stared back at me- with this cold, lifeless look- like he was just seeing right thru me- I've seen it once before- about a decade ago in Srebrenica- and I could tell just by the look in his eyes that he had killed many people- probably more than me. Whoever or whatever he is, I know this evil figure parted ways with the rest of humanity long ago. And now he's starting to shake, so I can tell he's going to try something- so I'm going to log out in a minute and just try to leave real quietly- not make any sudden motions or anything like that. If all goes well I'll write when I make it to Mogadishu.

The Revenge of the Football Gods

So this Hmong trapper comes down from the mountains to re-supply his cabin. A couple of the locals spotted him as he left the general store and decided to harass him- you know how they feel about outsiders. But this trapper guy- he was pretty irritable and one thing led to another and then some shooting started. The trapper took a .22 round in the leg but managed to shoot his way out of town and headed back into the mountains. We ended up having to form a posse and track the trapper into the wilderness with some dogs, sleds and we even got this RCAF canuck to help out with his bi-plane. It was pretty damn cold- and God knows I hate the cold- but it was all worth it when we finally cornered the poor bastard and filled him full of lead. We let the dogs eat the trapper's body as a reward for all their hard work.

I think these strange Waukesha Lutherans with plastered-down hair are really taking a liking to me. They told me I did a great job on the death hunt of the trapper, and they were thrilled I was teaching their children the proper form and eitquette for hand grenade lobbing that I had learned during my black op days. So on Saturday night I was really feeling good about things and just trying to settle down for a good night's sleep. And that's when it happened- that's when I was visited by cursed The Football Gods...

First I noticed the smell of burning incense, and then three ominous figures suddenly appeared. They were each about eight-feet tall, clad in bed-sheets, and they were chanting apocalyptic predictions regarding the collective fates of my fantasy football teams. I grabbed the .44 from under my pillow and fired six rounds into them. Nothing happened- blasted slugs went right through them. So I jumped under my bed and tried to hide, and the sons of bitches circled my bed for what seemed like hours- chanting as they went. At some point I passed out, and I awoke the next morning in my bed hoping it was all just a dream. But my .44 was empty, and the days' NFL events confirmed the Football Gods horrific predictions...

Here's a summary of some of the doom and gloom...
Daunte Culpepper -Daunte injured his knee yesterday and is done for the season, proving that things can indeed continue to get worse for the pitiful Vikings. And if you just signed Brad Johnson, you're an idiot
Anquan Boldin -'quan had a nice TD catch but then bruised his knee and may miss some time
Mark Bradley -Bradley had an excellent preseason and was en route to a break-out game yesterday before he went down with a torn ACL. Season's over, rook
Priest Holmes- add "concussion" to the laundry list of injuries for the Priest. Does Larry Johnson get the start next week?
Randy Moss -Randy has a whole mess of injuries, and he is presently serving as a decoy, fooling both oppising defenses and fantasy owners alike
Jevon Kearse -the Eagles defense surrendered 564 yards and 49 points to the Broncos yesterday, as the Freak spent most of the game on the sidelines with a shoulder injury