delirium

fantastic! we need more people like me around, simpletons who like simple explanations. my previous post appears second when searching for help :)

i had a horrible night - the only word that seems to cover it is delirium. it was too hot, everything felt wrong, things were biting me and i was restless and agitated... then the morning came, and a slight breeze calmed things down and let me sleep a bit.

what a pity that i still woke up exhausted. i was a bit embarrassed to discover that i'd forgotten was day it was - or was going to be - and had arranged to meet with the kid while i was still up north...
whoops...

i needed the coffee just to manage the walk to the gate. the dog tricked me into walking back, wondering if i was supposed to leave her outside :P

i managed to score a ride from the gate instead of having to wait for half an hour for the bus - i don't know who engaged who in a meta-political conversation, but the last topic was environmentalism. i made a snarky comment about vegan impotence just before getting out, only to be informed that the man's daughter happens to be one of them...

i sat chatting with my cousin and sorting out frequent flyer miles, diving back into arthurian legends every time another customer clamored for her attention. once we were done i said goodbye, and went to find somewhere for lunch.

i suspect that the shuwarma place i sat down in wasn't the healthiest of the lot. just another potential source of strange bacteria *sigh*
and the bastard threw in a fair amount of eye-watering hot sauce without asking :@

the bus ride back to tel aviv was pleasant, although my neck was giving me trouble. i managed to read a bit, at least :)
i walked from the bus station to work, performed a quick knowledge transfer to the new developer and spent the next couple of hours struggling through practically undocumented and stupifyingly complex code.

it's *good* code, but that doesn't help at all. what also doesn't help is our boss - i don't know if i've mentioned it already, but he has this super-creepy habit of sneaking up behind us and watching us work until we get that paranoid "i'm being watched" sensation and slowly turn around. i didn't think much of it until i heard someone else complaining...

eventually i found myself following a trail and getting some initial results, so the day wasn't wasted, at least.

---
i walked home, contemplating the last thing singer said to me (about me always talking about myself) in context of the general israeli habit of anti-communication interrogation (firing questions non-stop so as not to actually share anything). the correct response to the triple "okay thanks and you?" suddenly dawned on me:

"i'm frustrated."
"why?"
"because i don't feel like you're actually talking to me."

the sad thing is i know that'll get an opportunity to use that soon. i'm going to do my best, from now on, to not share until someone else has started a dialog - and to walk away from the almost-traditional awkward pause instead of filling the gap.

---
nystire and his wife arrived earlier than scheduled - we sat at cafe hillel across the road, because it's kosher. unfortunately for me, it's kosher milk so there was nothing on the menu that i could order. i settled for coffee and they sat with me afterwards when i went for calzone.

the evening with the two of them was most pleasant, and quite educational :)

i'm amused no end that i ran into the guy who flirted with me a while back and had a fairly comfortable conversation with him, and then ran into heeblet - also a fairly comfortable chat.

i'm pretty disappointed that i'm not ready to blade yet. two weeks in a row is killer!

instead, i spent the evening trying to convince my wine installation to handle fallout 2 - nope, same old bug. at least i can be proud of myself for having figured out all the other stuff, like setting up scripts to loop mount iso files... that sounds much more interesting than it is :P

according to the matrix, it would appear that the big pocketbook notwithstanding, the kindle is the way to go...

i still don't have a solution to the problem of obtaining an ebook version of the norton anthology though. i hope nystire can find it!

i just spoke to SxS, and i just started getting excited about hitting florida in two weeks' time. a specific point: inception on their nine-story imax ^_^

---
speaking of nystire: he's linked to a new breakthrough.

"in 1882 i was in vienna, where i met an american jew whom i had known in the states. he said: 'hang your chemistry and electricity! if you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility.'"
- hiram maxim, the man who improved upon the gatling gun.

lasers will definitely allow us to kill each other more efficiently - at last!

---
the stubborn south african anti-israel stance is embarrassing. reading that feels a bit like watching david coltart on hardtalk.

this video is a bit worrying - arabs religious protection in the states has gotten a tad extreme, if you ask me. and while things are worrying me - how about some threatening moves?

oh. those must be their "peacekeeping" forces :/