Online Training. Yay....

Among the many things I have to do for my trip to the Philippines is online training.

There are few things that deaden the soul faster than Army online training. Take all the things that you think the Army is about -- working as a team, having adventures in foreign countries, jumping out of planes and helicopters -- and drown them all in a meaningless pit of apathy and boredom. That's what online training is like.

You sit at your desk for hours just to get a certificate that nobody cares about -- it's just to check a box that says you're "allegedly" trained. The one I'm doing now is like that. Ostensibly, it's about how to evade and survive on your own, and what to do if you're captured.

At first, you're like "whoah, this is hardcore," but after you finish you realize that you really haven't learned a single thing. But hey, what can you honestly learn about survival and evasion from sitting at a computer in an air-conditioned room? If that were even remotely possible, we'd have been plugged into the Matrix a long time ago. ("Whoah, I know kung fu...")

Still, there are some light moments, such as this page about means of exploitation. Apparently, one of the ways bad guys exploit captured good guys is by poking them in the mouth.

And check out this little piece of magic -- this guy is somehow firing real bullets with his blank-firing adapter on. This guy may be a hazard -- shooting a weapon that normal physics would blow up in his face -- but hey, it's a miracle!