We're all tired of reality television shows (though I'm guilty of watching a few myself), but the previews for an upcoming show -- "I Want to Make My Child a Star," or something like that, which follows mothers and their little girls around to auditions -- have reached a new low, IMO.

One particular scary scene was a mother crying at her 7- or 8-year-old, telling her she *needed* to win while nearly suffocating her in her EEE breasts.

These kids are already exploited enough by their oarents; now this show is exploiting their exploitation.

Molly and I saw In Bruges last week. Though it started off kinda slow, it picked up to become a great movie. Any movie in which a character karate chops a dwarf in the neck is OK in my book. But be warned, the characters make a lot of fun of Americans.

A book I finished this week is War Dog, by A.J. Venter. It's about the modern mercenary -- but not the Blackwater type. If you need a mental image, think of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Blood Diamond. The plot of that movie was fictitious, but the setting -- the civil war in Sierra Leone -- is depicted to a tee. War Dog fills out that depiction. Mercenaries have gotten a bad rap, especially with the actions of Blackwater, etc., but organizations like Executive Outcomes have saved more lives than they've taken.

It was a typical winter in Korea -- 40 below. I was newly in the Army, and I was guarding a line of tanks with a wooden ax-handle. (They didn't trust me with a gun just yet.)

We were told to be on the lookout for ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers, because these allies had been known to sneak into our area and steal our stuff.

I noticed some movement at the far end of a line of vehicles -- something moving from one line to the next. When I rushed down toward the end of the line, I noticed someone's head hidden under an APC M-113 (armored personnel carrier).

I yelled, "Hey you! You need to get from under there now!" in my manliest voice, even though I was scared. I yelled this twice; the second time, I noticed the individual was trying to scoot farther back underneath the vehicle.

Faced with no alternative, I batted up and swung at the head. I heard a big thunk and realized it wasn't a head, but a helmet -- and then I heard some very foul language in english.

And then out crawled from under the tank a second lieutenant -- what we'd derisively call a "butterbars" -- that I'd never seen before.

He had me stand at attention and threatened me with every possible punishment for striking a superior officer. Even though it was 40 below, i was sweating.

But the outcome turned out to be in my favor: The lieutenant was not from my unit, and he had taken it upon himself to test the guards. His ass was severely chewed by my commanding officer for sticking his nose where it shouldn't have been, and I was given a pat on the back for doing my job.

The lesson here is that Teddy Roosevelt was half right: Instead of speaking softly, speak loudly -- but still carry a big stick.