The places I've lived have been less Seven Cities of Gold and more Seven Cities of Poop, but not just any poop-huge flaming Triceratops POOPY

Last week my wife asked me where we'd like to live next. The way her job assignments system works makes us feel like maybe we have the slightest bit of control over where they send us next even though we really don't. But there comes a time every two or three years when we play the little game and fill out our "dream sheet" of places we'd like to be sent. I told her to put the UK and then Japan in that order because those choices put me in geographic areas with a high probability of Iron Maiden concerts. I can stop dreaming about living for a couple of years in some awesome overseas location frequently visited by Bruce Dickinson because it won't matter. What'll probably happen is once all the paperwork is filed and orders are cut, her employer will end up giving us a choice between a base in friggin' North Dakota and one inside a volcano somewhere off the coast of New Jersey. I know how the assignments system operates-I used to work for those fuckers, too.

Damnit, I'm getting derailed again. This was supposed to be the post about Zoids but I'm remembering some things about other places I've been that make North Dakota seem all flowers and sausages. Some people might think spending a couple years in Turkey would be pretty cool and for the most part they're right, but I tell you those Turks took seriously their law against "insulting Turkishness". You couldn't even write on Turkish money or you'd be disrespecting the Turkish George Washington whose face is on all their lira. They're very sensitive about insulting each other, too. Everybody drove terribly but people were afraid to honk at each other for fear of hurting the other driver's feelings and getting a ticket. I think it was even against the law to curse at somebody. Americans may not have invented yogurt but at least we can flip each other off and draw penises on our dollar bills. It was so crazy that Turkish Hasbro changed the name of a toy robot from "Midnight Express" to "Euro Express" because Turkey is still sensitive about the movie by that name that they felt was unflattering towards Turkish prisons. Usually I don't concern myself with the politics of the countries I live in, but that was the first time I saw toy robots censorship and I found it intriguing.

1st appearance of the Deceptercons!

One great thing about knowing I won't be living in Rapid City forever is that I feel absolutely no loyalty or kinship with the local comic book store. They have done a terrible job of ordering the comics I want even when I tell them to. The last time I left on business I asked them to save me the issues of a certain monthly magazine and when I came back three months later, they never did. I suspect they don't even know much about comics because I saw them selling Amazing Spider-Man #289 as the first appearance of the Hobgoblin. Even after I told them their description was wrong they never changed the little sticker on the comic with the misinformation. Talk about indignant nerd rage-that pissed me off for weeks. Did I mention they close at 6 p.m. and aren't open Sundays?

So why do I keep going to this comic book store of infinite torments when they're incompetent and don't listen to me? Well I like our no strings attached relationship. When I go out of town for a couple months it's not like they miss me and I don't feel bad about buying comics from other cities. The best way to describe it is that we're comic book fuck buddies or they're like a cheap $4 hooker I go see every once in a while and she doesn't do anything right but that's expected.

I almost have a hard time figuring out which place was more of a suckfest between Turkey and South Dakota. Hopefully Buddha Jesus is keeping score of my suffering on his karmic balance sheet and I'll get to live next somewhere where there's more comic book stores and less robot censorship. I figure I deserve at least Japan after surviving Turkish drivers and all these missing issues in my comic book collection. Right now I'm praying that Buddha Jesus works in the assignments office at my wife's job and he can appreciate that Castle Donnington is my Mecca. Maybe planning the direction of one's life in accordance with Iron Maiden's tour schedule isn't what most people would do, but they don't call it a dream sheet for nothing.