what's her name?

the only problem with the work completed last night: forgetting to change to target of the alert sms's from myself to yogi. two of our servers went down today, and were sorted out, and each state change i had to forward the sms's to yogi manually. there's something eerily primitive about sending them without using my apps :P

our local smelly hobo terrorized the bus this morning. he's seriously offensive, i don't care what his derangement is. he can transform a practically empty bus into "standing room only" in under three minutes.

---i achieved legendary status today, when i produced (as usual, now) my "spirit of the IDF" poster during inspection. the big-boss discipline officer (not the cute girl) walked through, and stopped to check me out.

"what's this?" (part of his job description is controlling his smile, but there's definitely a slight upturning)
"it's my 'spirit of the IDF'."
"don't you have the little one we provide?"
"yes, but you know i have problems reading hebrew." (at this point he's actually smiling. i'm at breaking point, and people around are giggling hysterically)
"so what? this version is in english?" (it's obviously not in english, big smile now, i'm starting to smile. and shake a little, if i don't play this right, i get court-martialled)
"no, it's just that the bigger letters make it easier for me to identify the words."

at that point, somebody on the other side of the court shouted "he has strong belief in the spirit of the IDF!". everyone burst out laughing, and he just made some strangled noises and moved on to the next person.

instant hero ^_^
the only problem is now i have to carry the damn poster around all the time, 'cause he's going to try to catch me out. totally worth it.

---morning coffee - a girl i'm friendly with took a cigarette from me, lit up, and said: "your name's <totalwaste>, right? you don't know what mine is, do you?"
i was stumped. i guessed something kinda close, but that didn't cut it :S

when i got back into my office, i received an IM from our branch secretary.
"hi, i'm the new secretary. do you remember my name?"
DAMMIT! not - even - a clue! and she's super cute, and i've been flirting with her for weeks now!

the kid and i took a walk to sort stuff out, then returned to break our heads over the ass-backwards snapshots that our predecessors defined. it was all very confusing.
after having a huge fight with the mongoose over the phone, over something INCREDIBLY moronic, our team went out for lunch... i had excellent spaghetti and meatballs (it's been years), and a good chat with the kid afterwards.

i passed out in the car on the way back to base, and it took a while to get my head together once we got there. when we walked into our office, our resident DBA just *happened* to be sitting there <evil grin>, so we pulled her into the fray. at least we weren't alone in scratching our heads, but she eventually managed to figure it all out, and presented us with possible solutions.

i paid for her time with marshmallow hot chocolate. hell, i made for the entire team while i was at it, and we still have marshmallows left >D

during this time, i got a call from an apparently very cute camps-bay girl staying in israel for a year. it's a bit odd to meet a person over the phone for the first time, but i impressed myself by lasting almost 10 minutes - and i ain't no talker. sounds like a cool bird ;)

between the kid and myself, we managed to get the issues all sorted out, we did it the way it was meant to be done (ie. understandable. efficient.), and what was left of the afternoon was fairly quiet.

a few of us went off to "supper" early, and had a really cute and playful fight with some pretty course girls pushing to get ahead of the queue. the food was alright, the view was pleasant, and the sense of "thursday afternoon!" was strong :)

almost at work, when nystire hopped on the bus in his spanky new uniform. hah! they stripped him of his rank! [nystire: i know. nevermind.]

we spent about half an hour talking (missing spot on the elevators was unexpected, but murphy's always at it), organizing and drinking coffee.
i forgot the name of the really cute girl that works at the coffee shop. after she screwed up all our coffee last night (too much cream, not enough coffee), i gave her extremely specific instructions on how to prepare the four different cups. when she asked if i wanted it strong, i replied that i want my brain to explode from the overdose.

she made that coffee *just* right ^_^

---my charge's mom (haven't heard from them in a while) is going crazy: this kid's just been offered a really decent job in the army, and he wants to turn it down because he doesn't want any part in killing anybody.

so i've agreed to have a nice, long chat with him over the weekend. aside from the IDF's overzealousness in "purity of arms" (funnily enough, the first major section in "the spirit of the IDF" that i can understand), the whole point of serving in the army is to protect life, not destroy it. and this is one kid who could definitely use army-style guidance.
i suppose this can be seen as me doing some community service... no?

aside from remembering to change the sms targets, and a couple of calls to the states - my contact's leaving the provider, so i'm dealing with a fresh 'un, my evening's been pretty quiet. another 45 minutes, and then i'm off to chill at the balcony, and probably call it a week :P

a lightening-fast week that followed a blazingly fast one? crazy. what's going on? is the world spinning faster?

spot and i had a rather amusing conversation on his way out. if you're in an elevator and the cable snaps, sending it plummeting: assuming that you're not screaming like a little girl, if you jump up - can you lie plastered to the ceiling?
got me thinking of being pushed out of a plane at 10,000ft in a box with the bottom weighted... you could charge big money for the ride ;)

nutter.
throw away the spoon
israeli crap proves useful
soothing the serial killer
earworms