Story update: Wrote one about more of Maliki's fighting words. Read it here.

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DOGS: The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would not be happy. The stray dogs here roam Baghdad and the Green Zone like sewer rats. They're skinny, filthy, and always look a little lost. I'd probably try to take some of them in, care for them, give them a bath and feed them some doggie biscuits, but it would really hurt my image as a WAR reporter, which I'm desperately trying to fabricate.

BEER SHED: Hidden away in a dusty corner of the Green Zone is a small, non-descript trailer with nothing but piles and piles of beer inside. It's the Green Zone Beer Shed, or at least that's what I call it. Beer cases are literally stacked six feet high with nothing but a narrow two-foot isle to walk down. There is a small desk on one end of the trailer where some guys take your money. When I went there, one was Iraqi and the other looked Irish. I started talking to the Irish guy, but was surprised when he replied with a thick Iraqi accent. Weird, I thought. Later, I asked a friend about the guy, and I was told that southern Iraqis can be very pale-skinned and even red-haired. Crazy. I look more Iraqi that that guy did, I thought.

As for the beer, I bought one six-pack of Corona for $10. Those who know me will not be surprised to hear that, one week later, I have drank one, given two away, and three are still in my fridge.

HACKY-SACK: I went to the al-Rasheed hotel in the Green Zone today, the fanciest hotel in all of Iraq. It's actually not too bad, though painfully obvious that it was built in the 1980s. I was scheduled for two interviews, but the first guy bailed on me. So instead, I spent half an hour playing hacky-sack with four U.S. soldiers hanging out outside the hotel. They were all from Ft. Hood in Texas. Even in dress shoes and slacks and 115-degree weather, I still had a good time. The soldier from Orange County kept saying he wished he was in shorts and sandals. And another soldier kept doing round-house kicks in desperate attempts to hit the hacky-sack. Somehow, no one got hurt.

CHAOS: Long before I got here, I was told that nothing goes as planned in Baghdad. There is always confusion, uncertainty, and last-minute changes. Though there are plenty of examples I could cite, the curfew fiasco this week illustrates the point pretty well: Two nights ago, rumors spread that a five-day curfew would be imposed on the city in light of an upcoming religious festival -- that meant all vehicular traffic would be banned. Not cool. How were we supposed to get to the Green Zone? How were we supposed to do anything? I figured I was in for a week of lying around watching DVDs all day.

But then in the afternoon the wires reported that the ban applied only to "two-wheelers and hand carts." We were lucky: McClatchy employees don't travel on two-wheelers and we've never found that we had a need for hand carts. The wire story said local TV media had misreported that the ban applied to cars. But then in the evening, our security guy, Kevin, got confirmation from whoever it is from the U.S. military that is always telling him top-secret things that the ban WOULD include cars. First it was cars, then it was just carts, and now it was back to cars again. This was all especially frustrating since I was planning on visiting an Iraqi police station early the next morning (for a story, not to turn myself in). So I went to bed thinking, "bummer."

Then, at 8 a.m., Kevin knocks on my door: "We can go." Kevin got a memo at 5:30 a.m. telling him that the ban doesn't include cars. I was happy to hear it, but obviously frustrated. The Iraqi government kept on changing its mind, apparently, and all of Baghdad was trying to keep up with its indecisiveness. So we made the trip to the Green Zone, where I was supposed to meet up with some folks to go to the police station. But then I found out that the trip was cancelled. Nothing here goes as planned. Nothing.