electric BASTARDS - FRY!!

wow - i'm trying to remember yesterday:

i walked past the armoury on the way to my office, and there were 7/8 girls there that i know well, and just greeting all of them in a manner that wouldn't cause offense was a mission. fortunately, i only managed to offend two, but that was because the adorable french girl got priority :P

first item: the kid and i have discovered lots of things we never wanted to know about the byte datatype in java. it's a bloody annoying type. and java has no unions!

i suppose the primary highlight of the day was our branch head walking into our office when i'd *just* opened my eyes after a short nap... i snapped to and began explaining our present situation. i'm STILL way impressed by my level of coherence.

contrast that to this afternoon, when our section commander caught me napping, and i couldn't get anything right.

yesterday's lunch: sat down with the mongoose, s'belle, and the dude for humus. much silliness ensued.

volleyball was great. i actually got some useful playtime.

yesterday at work. we were all wrong. the actual requirements are MORE complicated than anticipated. it took about 3 hours, sitting with yogi and the boss, to get to a rough estimate of what's going to happen.

-- main story moved to end of post --

today i had my medical audit. i woke up at 5.30, got to the med base at 7, and was sitting there at 8am for my appointment (at 8). i only got called in to see the auditors around 10. why? because.
a slight delay would have been excusable - i had to reprint my recommendation, which took 15 minutes, but come ON!

when i finally got to see them, things went smoothly. they caught on to my lack of hebrew incredibly fast, and that seemed to lend them a more understanding attitude. as the one said once they'd authorized it: "if you don't speak, then you're not lying to me. you've done well!"

anyway, i'm officially a profilnik - my med profile is now 45. that means that i'm not fit for duty requiring physical activity, just for sitting on my ass. it might help me get out of reserve duty (although i'm theoretically not supposed to do that anyway), but i'll only know tomorrow.

i got back to the base, spent the afternoon sorting stuff out. i signed off my last will and testament - it basically tells the army to figure out who's my closest kin, and toss them all my worldlies. SEP.

after waking me up, my section commander revealed that he has the same problem with storytelling that i do: major sidetracking. i spent half a sidetrack just wondering when he'd notice that it wasn't where he began.

i got to work, Sorted Stuff Out, and went for a meeting with ze german (my ex-flatmate). it was a good meeting. not a lot else has happened... but i'm blogging everything just in case i can't later. i'm doing that because...

-- main story --

i left work around 10.45pm, absolutely broken. all i could think of was showering, getting to bed, and waking up on time. oh, and having a few quality moments: i was going to do the internetting thing, play some empire at war, and do something outrageous. like walk home from the bus stop in uniform, drinking a beer and enjoying a smoke (the beer part is totally forbidden in uniform).

our corridor was pitch black. not a blinkenlight anywhere. not even a reflection of one. i unlocked my door, opened it, flipped the lightswitch...

and nothing happened. i had absolutely no power in my apartment. my apartment is designed in such a way that no light goes through to the bathroom AT ALL, and as i thought about this, my cellphone beeped and flashed to remind me to organize everything for the audit before going to sleep.

life is all about timing.

guess who doesn't know where he left the torch. guess who doesn't own candles. guess who's cellphone battery was almost dead.

completely shocked and bewildered, i knocked on the neighbour's door (11pm is not the time to be doing that). he answered the door, and i disbelievingly explained my situation to him. he pointed to his ceiling: large, gaping hole straight through. and concrete bits all over his kitchen. WTF?!

we began phoning all responsible, and my bastard level just rose and rose. they weren't getting any politeness out of me. i demanded (having just woken one of these pricks up) that he sort out something immediately, and he apologized profusely and explained that nothing could be done until morning. "oh, so you've fucked me over completely, and that's just the way it is?". i spent a while just venting, and making him feel bad about apologizing instead of helping. and in particular making them feel bad about screwing over a soldier. fuckers.

nothing to be done, my neighbour was nice enough to let me use his shower. i returned to my apartment, abluted to the light of my cellphone (which is more than annoying), and tried to sleep. it was too muggy to sleep without a fan (:@), and from about 3am it was too cold (but i was too wasted to move). and all the time i was too agitated. my alarm going off at 5.30 was almost a blessing. unfortunately, i STILL couldn't see anything.

on my way back from the audit i started harrassing the contractors, and they've promised me that i'll have power when i get home. like i'd start trusting them NOW. now to look for a new place to live.