New experiences are a rare treat, and must be savored.
We live in a very confined world in theater – while I’m lucky to travel as part of my job, I will spend the large majority of my deployment on Bagram Air Field and the world defined by its borders – approximately 8 miles in circumference. There are only so many places to go on base, a limited number of new things to do or see.
I have purposely put off doing some things just so that I’d have something to look forward to later on, some new experience when the Groundhog Day syndrome acts up and I start to go a little batty.
There is apparently a Dairy Queen on post that serves burgers and other sandwiches. Izzy goes there at least once a week; his and other testimonials insist that the food is good – it is, at least, not DFAC food. I have never been.
There is also what’s called a Foo Store on post, near where the bazaar is held on Fridays; it's the inside of a container set up as a cramped store selling electronics and bootleg DVDs.
I went to the Foo Store for the first time today.
In Iraq, we had a bazaar open 4 days a week that sold little other than bootleg DVDs. They were inexpensive, and the variety of titles was impressive. The Foo Store does not match up to my experiences in Iraq, but it’s all we’ve got.
The prices are still decent, though a bit higher than in Iraq, but the variety is very limited. They, as in Iraq, tend toward selling seasons of television shows more than individual movies. The quality of all discs is questionable, as always – sometimes they work only in computers, sometimes they are dubbed in Russian, often they are shaky-cam videos taken from a theater complete with crunching popcorn and coughing audiences, and sometimes an hour into Iron Man you’ll find yourself watching an 80’s medical melodrama (as happened to Izzy).
It’s important to note, of course, that these bootlegs are illegal. Produced in China (I’m told), they are in direct violation of the FBI warning against copyright piracy that are faithfully reproduced on the bootlegs.
I buy a few movies, in the hopes that I’ll find the time to watch them, and I cross off one more thing I won’t be able to do for the first time out here.
