Got a New Ride

Daddy bought me a new Mitsubishi Pajero with the twelve speaker sound system. It's my first car, up until now I've been driving my dad's old Mercedes. The new car has got most of the bits and bobs mentioned in the instruction manual except for the ASTC traction control thing, DVD player and oddly enough it's missing the floor mats. The bigger bummer is that I've got to wait about a month for the license plates. I'm not sure yet how I'm allowed to drive it until I get those.

Dad tells me that with this car I represent him and his status among the people at the plantation. Today, he had a serious talk with me about how I must get dressed up in a dishdasha with a towel and turd on my head. We agreed that I will when he comes over to visit next month.

The final episode of Noor just finished airing on tv. It's an Arabic dubbed Turkish soap that Nahida as well as most of the girls here have been hooked on for the past month. I no longer have to share my tv at ten in the evening and I no longer have to think twice when calling girls.

My cousin who helped my pick out my car just called. He's leaving to Amman at four in the morning by car and invited me to come with him reminding me that I've got a British passport and therefore can get a visa at the borders and that also Iraqna lines operate in Jordan with no extra roaming fees which means that dad can call me and not know that I've left Baghdad. It's so tempting. He'll go check out how much the floor mats over there cost.

Ramadhan's getting close. That means it's a rush to the booze shop to get supplies that will last a month. Friday afternoon realizing how dangerously close I was to the deadline, I headed onto the main street to hook myself up, but with no luck. The booze shops were closed in my neighbourhood and the guy that sells nuts next to two of them told me they're not going to open till the end of Ramadhan. Obviously, at that point I was very very worried.

Later in the evening, my cousin showed up and with him I took my first ride with my new car along with my three Anime friends (Mos, Miz and the other one) in the back. We went to the other side of town and got a box of Corona beer and a bottle of Tequila. Didn't get stopped once on the way, got stopped twice on the way back and yet didn't have to show the car papers. Actually, the guys at the checkpoints were really friendly. The first one told me to hurry up after he asked what the box in the back was. At the second one, my cousin jokingly offered the beer that was in my cup holder.

Mos, by the way, will be leaving to Syria in a couple of day and then off to Toronto I believe. His family applied for immigration eight years ago and it's finally time for him to piss off. Good for him. That makes last night the last time he'll be sleeping over at my house. Now, I'm a bit worried about how I'll be getting my hands on some anime without him, or the motivation to play the Wii.

I've got a new problem with work. New government requirements state that the paddy seperators in our rice mill need to be switched from the crappy locally made ones to the newer Chinese made ones. That's going to involve over hauling the whole production line and I'm not understanding much about it. Right now, we've got two installers the local one who is dodgy and is offering a relatively cheap solution and the other that Nahida and Fozzy met today who comes highly recommended and even showed off a great mill to them, unfortunately I didn't come along. The second guy would make us dig deeper into our pockets and wants us to decide whether or not we want him by tomorrow.

Ideally, I would be wanting to make a financial feasibility study or something. Not sure I know how to do one of those in the first place. I don't think doing a shoddy job of over hauling is an option. So that leaves the options of not operating this year or going all the way. Trouble is my dad would probably chose to do it on the cheap.

I'm getting hungry, got to see what I can find in the fridge.