Notes

[patgund]

Finally got around to seeing "Transformers - the Movie" Not nearly as sucky as I was afraid of.

Note - Qatar is not that rocky or that rundown looking. And the US military base there is a far cry from open showers and the like. I kept going "Qatar? Yeah, right......"

However, the obnoxious telephone person?? Yeah, that's QTel alright.

Comments

[tepintzin.livejournal.com]

I have heard that the Transformers live-action is MUCH better if seen on small screen than big. For one thing, you can actually see the robots which I assure you you can't in the movie theatre.

I haven't cracked open the Sword & Sorcery Movie Pack. When I do, you shall receive a Full Report. Of course, it's so cheap you might want to get it too; Amazon sells it with a bundle of thirteen gladiator movies over which I'm already drooling.

[electorprince.livejournal.com]

Seconded. The first time I saw it was on a bootleg DVD in Baghdad, and I remember turning to one of my soldiers and saying, "The land of Qatar, brought to you by people that have never ever once laid eyes on the land of Qatar."

I'd have killed to be stationed at Doha for two years. I could easily have adapted to it.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Understand. Doha is actually fairly easy to get used to in places, (I had some friends on base that occasionally "porklegged" for me).

Even the few tribes living out in the wadis didn't look that run down or scruffy, and that kid on base?? NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL!! A Qatari boy that age would be spending non-school hours getting driven around in his land cruiser and playing video games with other boys his age. Not playing wallah boy for US troops. Please!!

If I didn't know already that they filmed those scenes in New Mexico, the Raptors, Ospreys, and Nighthawks on the flight line would have been a dead giveaway.

But damn if that phone operator wasn't spot on.

Side note, about a month after I got back from Doha, I went to a con in Dallas that another expat from Doha was at, as well as Alan Dean Foster, who was writing the novelization for "Transformers". He picked our brains for a couple hours about Qatar, and we ended up giving him some riyals we had