odd day, i say

not bad, though. for me it began at 7am... i left the apartment at 7.30, and made it to the induction base by 8.05. in time for a sit-down with spot and the kid.

spot tried to help an aged uzbekistani to mail money back home. look, if you're in a foreign country, and you don't speak the language, and you don't speak an international one like... let's say... english, then you really shouldn't be waltzing around alone.

maybe he speaks russian. in which case, we must have been the only soldiers for 3km's around who DON'T speak it. either way, not too wise.

we met up with our TL, and had a tour of the facilities. for the millionth time. it was pointless, but we did get a free breakfast, and it was a pleasant way to spend the morning.

also - i've been walking around for a while now with our SC's beret. it has 20 years of his army experience behind it. now i appreciate all that, but it was a bit small for me. so i swapped it out at their quarter master's store. i feel bad because i know i should feel terrible, but i really don't care!

what a bastard!

we went to fetch a server. we were almost out the gate (and that's a bitch to carry), when they ran out to stop us. they realized what we'd noticed a couple of minutes earlier... they'd left all the backup devices attached ;)

when we got to our base (after a quick stop to get some more spraypaint), i went straight to the mongoose's section to get help with that excel stuff that was driving me mad last night. the south african there (eeyore) copied my code from a printout i handed him.

now, i WARNED him to save before running it. vb has this frustrating "feature" that if a program crashes, it closes the entire environment. he didn't take note of this, and crashed. and had to start all over again.

after about 20 minutes, we'd ascertained that my code was, in fact, 100%. worked fine. i have a personal problem with my system locale settings. WHAT A WASTE OF FRIGGIN' TIME!! not to mention stress.

i went back to our section. cleared out some mail. did a bit of exercise. translated an ex-soldier's cv into english (that provided many laughs). then we went for lunch. they provided lemons. when you put lemon juice over everything, you can pretty much ignore how bad it tastes!

walking into the mess hall, one of the major bitch discipline officers called me over. i was worried because her rather unattractive friend seems to be developing a crush on me. turns out she was curious about my goggles. now, i've learned to play it cool about legality. of COURSE they're okay with the uniform. *I* should know.

*a-hem*

anyway, so she gave me a ride about they look. her parting words were classic: "so you wear those FOR REAL?"

no. no i don't. *hangs himself*

after lunch, the kid and i went with the new guy in our section to play basketball. we began with "horse" - i don't remember who won, but it's a game for bastards. come to think of it, i think the kid won.

then we played a game i used to sk00l at in middle school, which was fun. and i won.

then we played another game of the kid's, which turned into a one-on-one when the new guy left. and i kicked his ass ^_^ ... all because SxS (with enough patience) and grootbek (by example of what not to do) taught me good D. i'm satisfied.

we were both wiped out afterwards, so i went to go clean up - still in sports shoes and not wearing my uniform shirt. i walked out of the building, still wet but more water than sweat, and ran into this girl i've been chirping ('F') the last couple of weeks. she's really cute, and seems friendly enough. i was talking to her when i felt something sharp in the back of my neck... nails. sbelle's nails. she just stood there and made the rest of the conversation slightly less comfortable.

suddenly our discipline officer rocked up. the girls were quick to suggest that i run and hide, due to my state of undress. instead i waved him over to discuss my kitchen duty for the week. out of the blue, the head of our base walked past. looked at me, asked me if i'd sorted anything out regarding becoming a base-janitor. that was too much - i burst out laughing, and the girls just stood there, in shock that nobody was giving me shit.

yeah :)

went back to the office, sent 'F' quite a forward e-mail (no response - awww...), and we started a team-game of gta. i got fucked up royally. when i'd had quite enough, i disappeared (upsetting the two of them, no more target practice) to sort out the kitchen duty. both my commanders tried to help, but to no avail. tomorrow morning i have to be there bright and early, and hope that enough people rock up.

and all because one guy is worth two girls in the kitchen. bullshit!!

the kid, superkama (kama is an academic officer - superkama is one of them from our section) and i went shopping for outfits for purim (the jewish equivalent of halloween as far as dressing up is concerned. based on a historic event). on the way, i managed to lose the torch i've had hanging from my belt since the wedding i got it from. very upsetting.

we went to many stores, and amused many people, but eventually we got more or less sorted out. superkama (who's on the large side, and has a great "ho, ho, ho!") is going to be santa-claus, and we're going to be elves. that's the shit!

i went past azrieli, looking for ears. didn't find a damn thing. so i bussed home. now i'm going to shower, and then in about 20 minutes i'm off to work.

a muslim just blew my mind.