contract stars

i spent the rest of the evening connecting between different api's, and generally enjoying the fact that i have a job where i get to *think*. w00t!

i now know which bus stop to stand at, so i had time to read through most of my contract. ignoring the excitement that i received it after i dropped the bomb, it r0xx0rs!
it's primary focus is on professionalism and acting with care regarding client info. and i understand the word fiduciary. thank you, business degree!

i stepped off the bus into a perfect evening, with a shiny sliver of moon in front, stars everywhere - the dust-storm's over! although i'm still carrying bits of it in my poor, tortured lungs. things'll be great until the next one :P

it's kinda funny, but i feel like hopping around and singing: "i'm going to sleep before 12! i'm going to sleep before 12!"

ooh, goody!

mostly, at least ;) i ate too much chocolate during the afternoon, and coupled with other milk products during the day it didn't do me too much good.

but i won't lie and say that it wasn't worth it ^_^

i overslept this morning, but fortunately not by too much - i made it to the base more or less on time (read: half an hour late, but nobody noticed). the mongoose took my photo for the visa application, and the kid and i spent the morning working on annoying bugs. tradition. suffice it to say that our interactions with the lice responsible for our servers was far from becoming of civilized people.

but then, we're not really so civilized, are we? nobody is. the meaning of the word has been drowned out by the clamors of backward barbarians who know that they're at the peak of whatever "sociable" ladders they've erected for themselves.

our team went off to visit one of ours who's been sick / suffering for a week, so we took her out to a great little iraqi restaurant (jewish people who fled iraq, for those wondering), and we stuffed ourselves on fabulous food. i went off afterwards to find a non-obtrusive spot to smoke in, and was called back - i didn't realize that i'm not the only one in the team who smokes! neat!

i spent the afternoon trying to print that id photo, and then trying to fax it to kibbutz cousin (who's my travel agent). eventually we got that right, but it was a ridiculously complicated procedure!

brother bear (one of the guys in our team) and i finally fixed that problem from wednesday, and i left *just* in time to catch the bus to work.

...

i had that dreaded meeting with the boss. i explained to him the situation with the code, and he called in the lead - who confirmed what i'd said and actually took it a step further... so i'm not alone. we have a solid plan of action set up for the rest of the week.
AND i informed him of my holiday requirements...

...

which didn't phase him a bit. so i - am - HAPPY. i've got my contract to read over, and am spending this evening working on connecting to a db server that's apparently down. so i'm actually spending this evening theoretically connecting to said database :P

i just met the mongoose outside for a smoke-break (he's taking a course that's across the road)... that was fun. i've also just found out that my first boss (the one who owes me about NIS 3000 and hasn't been in touch in a while) has been overseas all this time, so i suppose it's kind of forgivable. but i did warn him that i only work for money now, so that's the last project he'll have me for.

the kid and i were wondering how we ever survived before learning about using the ctrl button with the arrow keys to skip words. that's one of the first things i learned in the army, probably the only thing of any import that i'll be taking with me!

i'm gonna go pour black slosh into my lung-troughs. and then i'll do what i get paid for.

hyperchilled

i bussed through to spot's, bouncing to wicked beats all the way. we took a walk to the coffee shop we never got around to paying at, sat down for some, paid for both times, then walked to get toasted sandwiches.

i spoke to my mom at length - trying to get through to the states from canada has been scratched off the list of possibilities - and i'd heard such good things about american prisons! what a bummer :P

so basically, if i don't get the visa, i'll just go halfway around the world and not enter the usa. some other time. whatever. we were talking about possibly spending a week in london - another week there certainly wouldn't hurt me in any way ^_^

thanks, moonflake and schpat, for keeping me up to date with what's not hot in sa - i could actually keep up my end of that conversation with my mom!

while walking back - intending to take the bus home - we passed a really nice coffee shop, and sat down for a second round.

and your boss thought that was pr0n!

by the time we left, i wasn't so sure about the buses (i've stopped worrying about whether that's one 's' or two), so i took a cab home. i have NEVER, in my ENTIRE life, seen so many red traffic lights. the driver was going just slightly above the speed limit, and that didn't help in the slightest. another testament to the thoughtfulness of traffic planners.

mother - fuckers.

that put me back 10 more sheks than i'd expected, but i'm rich now, so what do i care? :P seriously, tomorrow's going to be interesting as far as me keeping my job is concerned. i have to tell the boss that we're stuck, and also that i'm already planning on taking 2 weeks vacation in the next two months. i've been there a week and i'm already worrying about being fired :(

either way, i'm still happy about the work i *did* get done today, so i'm going to sleep well and deal with things in the morning.

clickety-click - *buzz*

stolen from www.owlhouse.co.za

so far, i've spent the day actually doing what i set out to do - and LOVING it! i woke up straight into rebuilding the file that i forgot to send myself on thursday night... and, as usual, i've built it stronger and better than before.

now i've done pretty much everything i originally planned, limited only slightly by the lack of functionally maintained by the faulty api. that's not my fault, so i can't see how the boss can be disappointed with me.

i could be wrong, but i hope not.

so now that that's done, i've got bugger-all to do while waiting for the evening to arrive. it's been a dusty, cloudy day... maybe taking a nap is a good idea ^_^

it's been sooooooo long since i've enjoyed working!

ooooooh yes - i've been introduced to twisted system. outrageously funky beats!

supplies!

	well, that was a surprising evening. we began by taking a taxi to the lincoln, and spent the next 3 hours playing AWESOME
pool. we were joined by the kid about an hour into the session, and even he played well :) (so proud!) highlights of the evening included the waitresses... as usual... and some exceptionally good games. we finished off with 5-second speed-pool, which was great fun!

the kid dropped spot and me [i can't believe i wrote "i" first. "i"! what an idjit! - ed.] at the lizard, where we intended to pop in for 10 minutes just to say hi.

the lizard was at full steam - the music was mostly great, there were many, many stunning girls... the atmosphere was superb. we finally left around 5.45am. after a long night dancing and having fun. the mermaid and her cute friend showed up - looks like spot might be able to go a round with her friend... i keep thinking i made the wrong decision about whose phone number to get way back when i met them :P

it's definitely shower-and-bed time, i have a lot of serious work to get through when i wake up.

during the slow walk back a couple of drug-related thoughts went through my head: watching titan ae, the fifth element, and other great sci-fi films in a movie marathon on lsd; and in a kinda-similar vein, a "trip" to the zoo. must be done. one day.

whoops - forgot!

i was in the shower this morning, and i had that kook definition from moonflake's linkage in my head.

and all i could think of was how perfectly scientology matches up with that definition. interesting.

gorgeous gargantuan!

super-foxy

and to think, her voice belongs to drew barrymore. i just watched titan ae, and i cannot believe that it's taken me this long to get around to one of the most stunning movies i've ever been transfixed by.

they just got it right.

i woke up late morning - unexpectedly, and i couldn't get back to sleep. she sms'ed me to tell me she was thinking about our break-up, and reminded me in the course of our quick text-conversation of the night her father tried to get us to stop seeing each other.
mnsl also sms'ed me at some point, but i'm ignoring her.

i spent my waking hours shopping (okay, that took about 10 minutes), running laundry (i've pretty much emptied my laundry basket! it's been weeks!), and watching gargoyles - the awakening (all five parts). titan ae was the cherry on top (bad metaphor, i don't like cherries), and now spot's on his way here. this time we're going to leave first thing to go and play pool, or i'll just pass out again.

in international environmental kinda news (from the last 6 months), pascua lama conflict reaches a climax, and then chile approves glacier gold mine.
i only found out about this because i received chain-mail (one of the kind that you're supposed to add your signature to) from tgtbt. it's a bit late for the signatures - chile's government has demonstrated that it really doesn't care much for those, but i felt like sharing the disappointment in our fellow humans.

money makes the world go round. 1.5 billion is peanuts for these fuckers; the only possible explanation i can think of: these are bad people. rich bad people. they should have their cash stripped away, and be sent off to live on one of those farms for a couple of years.

then they should be shot and buried in unmarked graves.

pop! goes the

right. back to that travelling (but please bear in mind that i'm exhausted, a bit tipsy, and still suffering serious sinusitis).

i left on time yesterday. i picked, again, the wrong bus to wait for. i got there ten minutes before it was due to arrive, and stood there for 50 until it actually did. that SUCKED. i arrived at the train station 15 minutes before the next train, so i went into azrieli center and got myself take-away japanese food.

i've since learned that you can only use a soldier's id to get a train-ticket once per day in any given station. i was fortunate that there was a soldier with a spare ticket to help me out. that was truly sucky, and it's a stupid system. anyway, i got to work half an hour late.

i was quite tired, hence the previous post. the night was long and arduous. i even tried to get some work done, but to no avail.

i was wrong about the times... i only left work around 6.30am. i got to bed about an hour later, and then had to crawl out of bed at 10.30 to make it to the base on time. at least it was a beautiful day, so i didn't feel too bad.

lunch sucked. or at least, didn't make a very good breakfast, either. fortunately somebody brought marangues to the office, and those were sugary and tasty.

i spent the afternoon dealing with problems and being kinda frustrated. i was reprimanded by my commander for passing out at my desk for 10 minutes. the day got hot and sticky. i'm very glad that the air-conditioner blows directly onto my head.

i played a bit of soccer before hometime. i found a hole on the court by twisting my ankle - i'm hoping it's not too serious. it's a bit sensitive at the moment :(

i went straight to work; ran into a really cute girl on the bus that i haven't seen since varsity days, who's very serious about being an actress. i didn't ask for a number. she didn't ask for mine.

i met up with yogi at work, and got a serious tutorial. between the two of us we figured out that the api that i'm supposed to work with is retarded. mostly useless. i stayed at work with the lead programmer until midnight, the both of us trying to understand what we have / don't have, and what's possible.

it turns out that he's looking for an apartment with the same specifications (specifically location and budget) that i am, he seems alright, and so it looks like i'll be included in the apartment hunt he's doing. as it is, i'm getting sick of this one. i've been informed that it's going to take until the end of june to move me, and quite frankly i'm hating the lowered water pressure and the ceiling caving in, and the contant works and the stray cats crapping all over the stairwell. this place has gone from awesome to not-very-nice, and even though it's temporary, i don't have the energy to deal with this right now.

and i find the bus lines in this area to be lacking in dependability and general usefulness.

i went past the lizard, stopped in for a drink and a chat. the only person missing was the mongoose, so i left him a rude message to let him know that he let me down :P

i chatted with lucky on the way home. she's just been downgraded to mnsl (maybe not so lucky). i never have the energy to deal with people who get too serious, or develop a sense-of-humour failure. not only that, but during the last couple of days i've found myself growing bored - like something's missing. it might have something to do with my referring to her with a dog's name, and beginning to feel it's appropriate. i'm so annoyed about the phone "conversation" that i moved her number to my blacklist.

whatever.

i'm now dying from exhaustion, and i still have to shower. i advise checking out moonflake's linkage, which includes linkage to zenstar's blog.

ooh! iterative linkage! THEY'RE MULTIPLYING!!

good night - finally!

the jello experience

i'm still quivering like it. that was absolutely terrifying. i passed out at my desk, and was woken up by the manager shouting at me to answer my phone. like something out of a bad nightmare, i hazily picked up... and then went completely blank - i couldn't remember the words!

i wish that had only been a bad dream. one of the guys had to jump across and cover for me. that was aweful.

i'll post about my travels later.

where to now, charlie brown?

i slept extremely well last night. unfortunately, my morning wasn't so great. it involved my computer going down to an unrelenting barrage of pop-up ads from hell, and then me dropping my fully-stocked and semi-open toiletries bag in the loo.

good grief!

lucky dropped me off at the base - about half a minute before my usual bus arrived: "hey! weren't you on the bus?!"

firstly, we sort-of dealt with the problems from yesterday. then we discovered a ton o' problems in our old systems. and then we began some more of that always-welcome learning the new systems.

fortunately, i got given a break, and i went off singing (beautiful morning, i had my mp3 player) to pay my electricity bill. then it was back in time for lunch.

lunch. huh! we had to fight for food today; they simply forgot to feed us. and the food they eventually brought through was crap. after 'lunch', i went with the dude to roll my own cigarette (it's way more fun), and i surprised myself with my creation. and i put in a decent filter, which is a first.
due to it looking a bit suspicious, we decided to take it all a step further and found an abandoned underground tunnel on the base to smoke in. i'm definitely going back there with my spraypaint >:D

once i got back, the kid and i spent the afternoon solving problems in the new systems. they're actually quite well put-together, and it was enjoyable!

the afternoon minus about an hour or so, that is. we had an ultra-boring set of speeches. at least the munchies they provided were alright. i swiped a quarter-watermelon for one of the guys in my team, and he didn't want it, so i used that to pass the time during queries :P

i left late to continue working on a fix, then made my way home. i've just finished a load of washing, am entering the shower, and then it's off to work.

grumbling back at me

who forgot to bring the guidey-chippie-thingy?!

well, i almost got my work done tonight. i got blocked by the damn api - a completely unexpected and arbitrary error where i've done exactly as the api reference TOLD me to do. silly sods. unfortunately, that specific function is the only one that (theoretically) will allow me to complete the task as specified.

that sucks ASS.

so i'm rather frustrated. other than that, things were fine and dandy. i'm slowly getting used to the idea that the kitchen at work is worse stocked than that at my helpdesk job. so that's what i'm going to tuck into tomorrow night. i'm working till 5am, which means i only need to arrive on base at 12pm :D

AND i miss inspection ^_^

i left work around 10.30, and decided to try my luck using busses (and not walking at all). i bussed through to the central station, and from there home. on the way, i discovered that the bus that takes me straight home stops right across from our office block. next time :$

now it's shower time, and then lucky-time - my word, that sounds aweful.

get away from that monitor!

what i wanted to do all day

last night was great. lucky slept over, and waking up together felt really good. it's what i've been praying for for a very long time.

aside from the ceremony for holocaust memorial day, and a couple of breaks here and there, i spent my day dealing with bugs and trying to install a mandatory piece of software on my army pc.

nothing doing.

and we performed miracles to get halfway there. unfortunately, it looks like my pc just doesn't want to run this shit. i cannot express just how frustrating the millionth reboot can be. although i'm sure you've all been there - at least at some level.

at least, figuring out that the bug wasn't our fault was most satisfying.

so yeah, i'm at work. my pc here's being used (the boss just promised me that by thursday i'll have it back again), so i'm just clearing up a few details with the guys before they leave and i resume my nocturnal labouring. nocturnal labour. that makes me happy.

teased, soaked, milked, occupied

it was a stunning morning. the weather was fantastic. i hummed my way to the base.

then the clouds came and it began to rain. i had a haircut this morning, i supposed that was a good thing.

around lunchtime something unpleasant happened to our systems. instead of going to a goodbye ceremony-thing for one of the guys in our team, i stayed behind to fix the problem. when i finally left, it was POURING with rain. and i arrived completely drenched.

i was starving - and there was plenty of pizza. not good pizza, mind. i ate a lot. i completely forgot that i'm lactose intolerant. that happens sometimes.

the discipline officer called me up to participate in the ceremony for the day of remembrance - my commanders refused to let me go! that's a first :D

i spent the afternoon feeling like crap. i kept passing out during the multitude of lectures we received. too - much - hebrew. i hate having to listen to long, irrelevant speeches anyway.

i went straight to work. i discovered a lot today, but the api that i'm using isn't too helpful, and i spent most of my time staring at the screen, or testing the software, to see if i could come up with any meaningful solutions. it looks like i've managed something, but i'll only find out tomorrow.

i met a south african working upstairs, and thinking it would be cute, greeted her with "aangename kennis". turns out she's afrikaans, and mine didn't last too long :$

oh, and they closed off access to the smoker's corner, which kinda sucked.

i've just arrived home, i'm waiting for lucky to get here before i shower (i don't want to keep her waiting outside). in the morning i have to leave the landlords a key to my apartment, they want to come and do some drilling.

great.

success

well, that went well ^_^
i got through quite a bit, things are looking good. i ran into some old friends on the upper floor, and just enjoyed doing real work!

i hate filling in forms. i have a few to handle now, and i can't figure out where to begin :(

i spoke to my mom on the way back... she didn't realize that the visa application would take so long. i have no idea what's going to happen, all i know is that we need to get everything sorted out soon so that i can begin asking for permission to go.

i was talking to her when i got on the bus, so i just stood and finished the conversation before paying the driver. he got really upset, and i got really irritated because he was interrupting my call. dammit - i don't look like the kind of person who'd hop off without paying, and i was standing next to him the entire time, so let me make my call in peace! dammit!

he told me that bus drivers in england wouldn't have let me get away with that. i told him we're not in england. i thought that was pretty succinct. some twat behind me made a comment, which i skillfully ignored. i thought that was appropriate.

fuzzy logic and fantastic fun

watashi no me!

well, this weekend was a DOOZY. supper on friday night was great, then SxS and i went through to yogi's. i passed out watching spiderman 2, after being reminded what a crap film it is.

off we went to ru55's place. we spent the entire morning in hysterics; i thought my eyeballs were going to be squished down my nose from laughing so hard! anyway, we didn't get any sleep at all. about 3pm i returned to SxS's, where i had a shower, shaved my beard (shaving an actual beard is always frustrating), and then we went missioning in herzeliya pituach.

we returned after some shopping, had a goodbye-feast for SxS, and then yogi gave me a ride to ramat hasharon. i slept over at lucky's... neither of us got any sleep, and it wasn't for lack of trying. it was simply too hot and muggy.

i snuck out of her place at 7am, and caught a bus to the base. as i walked into the main gate (and past all the military police), i received an sms from our client unit complaining that all our systems had crashed... standard sunday morning procedure, i guess.

the day was horrible. the weather was complete crap, i was exhausted, and we got lectured in army-hebrew, only slightly less understandable than the real thing. that sucked. we had lunch with sbelle... she quite got on my nerves, to be honest.

i was frowned upon by my coworkers today - i passed out at my desk for an hour. i really couldn't help myself. it did make me feel a little better.

at 17.30 i fucked off home, changed into normal clothes, and then hopped a bus to work.

my new office is AMAZING. i liked it before, but i didn't realize how impressive the building is until i went upstairs for a cigarette. we have to stand on the outside stairwell of the 18th floor, and that has a STUNNING view.

anyway, back to work. i'm actually getting paid for this ;)

travelling... or not :S

i woke up a bit late this morning - seriously overslept. felt like crap, actually. the shower more than made up for it, however. i always forget just how amazing it is.

my cousin came to the kibbutz to pick me up, and we went through to afula. it was on the way that i realized that i'd forgotten my passport. that stinks. so we made no progress with my visa application.

i changed into uniform, and hopped on the bus to tel aviv. it was mostly empty, so i got a bit of shut-eye. i switched busses to get to the givatayim mall, to discover that the book-stores there hold nothing of interest to me. i walked home, ran laundry, played some gta, did some work (although i had problems with the demo code i'm running, and eventually gave up when it refused to connect to the server), ate a bit, hung out the laundry, got back into uniform, and left for ra'anana.

nothing like the israeli bus service to increase one's blood-pressure. i eventually got sick of waiting for a bus that probably wasn't coming anyway, and took a taxi to the next stop, where i made it onto the last bus. after a bit of a mission through side-streets, parks and alleyways, i've arrived at SxS's place. and eaten biltong.

so things are alright :P

kaalvoet oppie kibbutz

ek se.

that's what i'm here for

lucky came around, and we sat and talked for a couple of hours. but really talked. we never seem to have enough time to get it all out :P

i got into uniform - it's weird playing dress-up, especially if it's not for purposes of sex - and went through to ramat hasharon with her. i got myself some shuwarma... it's the first time i've ever been told to sort my salady bits out myself... and my clumsiness (that's been showing itself the last few days) reached its peak: i made a mess.

hmmm. that could all have been written in code.

but it wasn't.

i then took a bus (hence the uniform) to herzeliya, from there to pituach, and then to afula. i needed to sleep on the bus, but i couldn't get comfortable. thank goodness i'd brought some music.

i arrived on the kibbutz in time for dinner, and then chilled and chatted and watched mindless tv. my favourite. the most interesting soap-opera plot i've ever heard:

woman (a) walks into the house, overhears her mother (b) talking with another woman (c). (c) refers to (a) as her daughter, and (a) bursts in and confronts the two of them for lying about her parentage and not telling her she was adopted. after much hullabaloo (the word just seems appropriate in this context), (a) is informed by (c) that both (b) and (c) are her parents... (c) impregnated (b) accidentally before having a sex-change operation, and (a)'s father-figure was (c)'s best friend who stepped up to the task of raising a child.

genius!

i've been arbing online, and i've gotten my feet a bit earthy outside (^_^), and now that i've had a 25 minute chat with lucky on the phone - it must be a sign - i'm going to get ready for bed.

au naturale

cry freedom!

monday night:

i got myself all packed up, and went through to ramat hasharon. due to a faulty decision making procedure, i ended up getting there an hour later than anticipated. i met a couple of south african girls of my eldest niece's age, one of them is in the army, and one of them is the sister of one of my youth-movement guides (from way back when). what bothered me most of all is that i didn't recognize their accent at first :$

i got to yogi's, we sat and chilled for a bit, and then SxS and grootbek arrived.
"oh. i see you brought grootbek."

just then, lucky called me to say she was outside. on my way out i ran into mmf, so all we had to say was a quick "hi", and then lucky and i went to get some food. thank you, pizza slice! hawaiian is still my favourite.

we went back to lucky's, and i managed to annoy her mother even more. it's not *my* fault i didn't see her, she was sitting behind the stairs!

i spent the night - that didn't impress her mom too much either...

in the morning, i walked through to yogi's, to wake up his fiancee and mmf, and we had a great coffee session.

yogi arrived, and the two of us went shopping. rather serious shopping. then we went back to pack (it took forever!), and we finally left around 4.30pm... instead of 2pm... nevermind. we picked up SxS, and then we were off.

the drive was looooong, and i got confused with the directions - we ended up getting there by the LONG way around the lake. fortunately, there weren't too many cars waiting at the entrance, and we got sorted out fairly quickly.

we found ourselves a perfect camping spot: right next to the entrance to the beach, about 30m from the dancefloor, about 40m from the toilets, and about the same distance to the food stalls. and the excitement from the previous couple of weeks, amplified with the excitement over my first trance party since new year's, made me a very happy person.

highlights:

1) amazing music, dancing myself silly
2) great people
3) the whole camping-under-the-stars thing
4) running into a girl from the vortex, who has more new year pictures!
5) passing out for half an hour on the beach
6) warming up to 5000 bpm (only slightly exaggerated)
7) as usual, waking up early with a pounding beat
8) swimming in the lake, then bouncing on the shore to dry off
9) i'm a child when in possesion of a watermelon and a spoon
10) great frisbee (even if i did make a few embarrassing mistakes)
11) going for a swim with hundreds of crazies lining the beach and fooling around in the water
12) using our neighbours to slow down the process of striking camp

lowlights:

1) a bunch of arsim breaking into the party via a hole next to our tent. none of the security were interested, and aside from being violent, these kids don't exactly have respect for other people's property. the last thing we wanted was to have to guard our area the whole night
2) yogi and SxS wanted to leave as soon as they woke up, it was a real mission to get them to change their minds
3) getting sunburned. i was being careful! the weirdest bit is that my chest is burned where my overalls were open. that makes sense. but how in blazes did my back get burned?!?!

i decided i didn't wanted to stay there by myself, so i went back with them. i stayed at SxS's for a few hours, to shower and chill (and eat like a pig). around 9pm we went off to the mall to get his car from his sister, then we went through to black steer to meet yogi and his fiancee.

a good s'effrican restaurant

to quote the magic pudding: "Eat away, chew away, munch and bolt and guzzle,
Never leave the table till you're full up to the muzzle."

we ate so much food, that by the end i was literally forcing the food down. the boerewors was okay, the monkey-gland burger was fantastic, and the dessert was dangerous.

after fighting over the bill, as usual (;)), SxS gave me a ride home. and complicated my weekend: i was going to spend it on the kibbutz, but he's leaving on saturday. so i'll just have to spend it in ra'anana.

lucky woke me up around 11am - good thing, because i'd already slept too much. and now the day begins - err... as soon as she calls back...

accepted!

waking up this morning wasn't quite as good as yesterday... but anyway...

it was an exceptionally boring day in the office. having said that, i shall continue on to the highlights of my day.

highlight 1: quitting time
around lunchtime i hopped the fence (gate closed for the holidays), and made my way to work. i sat down with the boss to have "the talk", which went smoothly and obviously a lot better than expected. the only condition he has stipulated is that i work next week, and that i'm available for emergency overloads in the near future.

i informed my new boss: "welcome aboard!", he said.

highlight 2: volleyball
we played some good vball today, it was a lot of fun.

lowlight:
it's that time again. i can't help wondering what the response will really be.

unintentional courtesy of haaretz

as an aside, i don't usually react to the bombings in the typical fashion of calling up every loved one - if something happens to one of them (everybody hopes it won't, and it's always people who have family and friends), then i'll find out anyway. just to note that this is the area i walked through on thursday night - these attacks are planned to be close and personal. what can you do?

i tawt i taw...

me in five seconds

after showering, i went shopping for supper-ish foodstuffs. i've managed to offend the store-owner, who, as much as he obliged my need to shop after he'd closed up, wouldn't so much as look me in the eye. that sucks. all because of a cute pit-bull that wasn't there.

i almost feel bad. but i don't like feeling under pressure when someone wants to show me kindness. that's not very kind, in my opinion.

i did a bit of research into the work i'll be doing when i start on sunday, and it doesn't look too complicated. it's a bit weird, but that's industry-specific for you.

i'm off to bed now. i'll try to leave the mouse alone when i get to the actual falling-asleep bit.

lazing in bed

the sleeping beauty galaxy

well, lazing in bed didn't last too long, but i do have the following to say: this is the most comfortable sleep i've ever had when sharing a bed. and when we woke up, it was raining outside, and we all know how it feels to have to get up when that happens.

i took that walk yesterday - i had a long chat with my mother on the way, she told me to pass on a message to lucky's mom that i attended the right school and know how to chew with my mouth closed :P

btw - turns out that tgtbt got accepted into berkeley as well. WOW. that's quite the impressive list of potential universities she's got going there.

i ordered two tickets to v for vendetta online. i'm always uncomfortable putting personal details and credit card information up for grabs, but i did it anyway. only after the payment went through - i'm such an idiot - i realized that i wasn't 100% sure i'd chosen the right cinema theatre. the theatre's name is "peer", but the only road in tel aviv with that name is on the wrong side of the city, and in the middle of a complicated maze of side-streets. eventually figured out that the name has nothing to do with the street. quite the relief, that was :$

hey moonflake - do you remember your response when we discovered that i'd be taking a course in logic? just goes to show.

lucky came around, after talking a bit we drove to the theatre. we were met there by spot and crasher - lucky's not too fond of crasher, he's not the most socially ept person i know. our seats were separate - we were meant to be more on a date. good thing lucky doesn't seem to be too keen on the dating thing, just another positive notch for her :)

let me be clear: v for vendetta is a wonderful movie. it's the proper movie version of 1984, and it's done brilliantly. the story, the script, the casting and acting, the cinematography; it's all simply wonderful. i'd been misled into believing that it was an action movie, however, and there was probably a total of about 5 - 10 minutes of action. it was all great, though.

-- i've been listening to simon and garfunkle, and bookends theme just came on, reminding me of girl interrupted. --

after the movie we discovered that the coffee shop we owe money to was closed, so we dropped off spot and went to the lizard. we had a good time, but it was late and we left after about 20 minutes or so.

we came back here, brushed teeth, set the alarm, and put on invader zim. come on, i had to. and it was appreciated! ^_^

and so we skip to 5.45am. the alarm went off, i turned on the hot-water cylinder, and we lay in for about 20 minutes. then it was time to shower (just me, unfortunately), get dressed, say goodbye, and head off to the base. it was rainy but warm - my favourite - and i didn't even take my mp3 player with me. i spent the morning basking in the memory of waking up next to somebody i actually like, and seems to feel the same way (it's a bit early to be making assumptions for either of us - but it's about the sensation more than reality), with rain pattering on the balcony and a peaceful day ahead of me.

in fact, i had bugger-all to do today. so aside from the first hour that i was locked out of my office (i spent that visiting the girl-farm and talking a lot of crap with friendlies), i spent my day clearing email. and laughing at psychotic american, whose emails are unintentionally hysterical. one of them was so amusing i called up spot to read it out, and i had to keep pausing when neither of us could control our laughter. my co-workers wanted in, but it didn't really translate without a bit of history.

i spoke to the kid about his work, and got a good opportunity to pass on some wisdom gained from some of my more upsetting experiences working in the industry here. makes the memories a little less painful when they turn out to have a purpose.

i came straight home, and ignoring about 20 minutes of exercise while watching K1 2005 finals @ tokyo, i've just been arbing online (ask zenstar is bloody brilliant. thank you zen!), and am about to hit the shower. i don't feel like thinking any further than that.

gonna kill somebody!!!

bloody murder

noooooooo!! it's not fair! it's not right! i was under the impression that i had the entire series of prison break - i just discovered that i only have half of them! that SUCKS!

so i called up the kid to complain, and he's informed me that the series isn't all out yet... so i've got to wait for the next disc. that's going to kill me.

i'm going for a walk. i'll get some fresh air, maybe cool down a little. hmmph - maybe pop a couple of caps in someone's ass.

fixed bead karma and titanium nipples

well this one is going to be a real doozy.

simply superb

today began fairly early, around lunchtime. not that there was any food to be found in my place; so be it. i ran a load of washing, and watched another mind-blowing episode of prison break - my heart aches knowing that i'm almost finished the season
:(

i was wearing my weights, i stretched, and i touched and broke my bead-necklace which i'm ever-so-fond of. i managed to piece it back together, and burn the plastic just right to keep it tight... i'm obliged to suspect that this somehow undid the bad luck it's been providing me.

i hung out the washing, then took a bus to dizengoff. i spent the long ride amusing myself with observation games. pity i've got nothing to compare myself against.

the main roads of tel aviv were PACKED with throngs of weird people and good-looking (yet skankily-dressed) women. i made my way to the tattoo parlour to meet up with spot, and when i got there i was forced to make a decision about getting that piercing: it's not the first time in the last few weeks that the desire has overcome me. so i now have a shiny new titanium nipple-ring.

i was worried about it bleeding like the last time - it barely bled at all ^_^
the instructions i received completely contradicted the previous ones i received, so i'm wondering if that wasn't a cause of the problems i've encountered...
anyway, i consider the piercing +5 karma.

and aside from spot forgetting and hitting me in the chest, i've managed to keep it protected most of the day.

we took a walk in the sunshine to the farthest-north beach, where we met up with crasher and some friends of his. after a while, which included meeting some cute girl-friends of his and taking a long walk for some breezers, we started playing volleyball.

the volleyball was great fun, and we talked a lot of crap. so much so that one of the guys got offended and walked, which was a bit sad / stupid. when we finished, we all met up at one of the guys' house - he lives ON the friggin' beach. stunning pad. it was there that i began to take a more serious interest in this girl who'd been playing with us. let's call her lucky.

lucky is sporty, about my age, intelligent, interesting, and pretty much fits my bill when it comes to just about everything. so spot and i invited her for coffee when everyone else disappeared, and we went off in search of some. we found a good spot (terrible with the nicknames and everything), and we talked for hours. i really didn't notice the time go by.

we left when we were forced by a bomb-scare, promised to come back as soon as it was over to pay (we didn't, we'll have to go back soon - i feel shitty about it), and lucky drove us to my place (stopping to let spot grab some clothes). spot showered, so lucky and i got some private time, then i showered, then we went off to her place.

she lives in a really nice place in ramat hasharon. unfortunately, the three of us managed to push every wrong button her mother has, and spot and i got chucked out. how embarrassing!

so spot and i hung around the totally dead street while waiting for lucky - that was when i realized that it was already around 1am. DAMN. when she eventually rocked up, we walked to a pub to find it closed, then took a cab to tel aviv to meet up with crasher and a friend of his.

lucky and i had a good time just sitting and talking, and the music was great. the guys decided that it was time to bar-hop, so we moved on. lucky and i went off to get some food (i hadn't eaten the entire day), and were halfway through an excellent steak-salad when the guys decided that it was time to move on. buggrit.

then it was home-time. the story got a bit complicated, eventually we settled on my going with to ramat hasharon to drop her off, and being returned home on condition of payment for petrol. i had to draw cash, and crasher took a wrong turn and went over those sharp metal spikes the wrong way.

he missed the spikes by about a millimetre.

that was bloody lucky. i've returned home, now i'm going to buy some salt, shower, clean my metal, then go to bed.

it's been an excellent day.

i wanted 288,

but all i got was 390. shameful.

tasty

i found tel-aviv's version of chinatown on my walk to the party. i walked through all the extremely dodgy areas, and was reminded of home. i have to check out the oriental stores at some stage.

the party was at a private residence that was larger and more stylish than most clubs. we drank, we watched the basketball game (we won by a hair), we drank, there was funky music, and then i decided it was time to go home. early, mind - about 11.30, but i just wanted to sleep.

and i got invited on a date with this girl who i originally met at the hosts' wedding. she's not really my type as far as looks go, but personality-wise she seems a good fit. i may also have found someone to go looking for an apartment with.

i passed the lizard on my way home. tonight was a techno party, but it was smoother techno than i'm used to, and for once i found it rather nice. i spent a lot of time gabbing, ran into one of SB's friends, and then crasher arrived and wasn't allowed in (private party). so we went missioning around tel-aviv.

we eventually found a really nice pub, and sat down for a couple of beers. and some talk of algorithms. i got hit on by a cute girl, but then things went from "going alright" to "not going at all"... it's definitely me :P

on the way back to the car, i stopped for a serious roast-beef sandwich (for all the jews reading this blog: no, i'm not keeping the whole passover not-eating-bread thing. suck it.), and we spent the rest of the night (until 5am, when i got home) debating vegetarians and evolution.

as i've said countless times (and thank you moonflake and zenstar for the recommendations and loans): everyone should read terry pratchett - the science of discworld (both parts). everyone. subjectivity is all-powerful, awareness of that subjectivity is crucial. oh - and until a realistic and tasty alternative to eating meat can be offered, i'll stick to dead-cow's bum. thanks anyway.

hell, if it comes down to controlling animal over-population - just give me a spear... and a napkin.

and FFS, someone has got to get the message out that there is a distinction between killing and murder. PLEASE.

focus

last night i did both - i crashed watching the 3rd episode. i resumed when i woke up, and now have 3 left before the end of the season. the awesome level has surpassed dangerously high, and is now approaching chuck norris and mr t. as they walked into that bar.

i'm only stopping because i need to shower, and then take a walk to a birthday party.

observational

super-green!

i took the long-ish walk to the bus, bussed to herzeliya, then took the long-ish walk to the relatives. couple of things of interest to me:

1) her. i'm actually confused as to how i feel about her. and i think the same goes for her. there're definitely residual feelings, but there's also something definitely negative hanging around.

2) my extreme exhaustion. i may not have gone to bed, but singing and keeping up with conversation wasn't easy. i got weird after a while.

3) the food. there - was - so - much - food. and it was all great. i stuffed myself. and then had dessert.

4) homesickness. well i'll be darned if i don't miss doing the passover thing with my direct family. the differences are slight, but the primary one is the volume of shared history. it's a bit strange to observe that same volume from the outside, like i did tonight. it just reminded me of what it's like back home.

5) my gift. i actually managed to get something appropriate. it was a tad expensive, but the appreciation was well worth it.

6) the drive home. i drove. we had a laugh.

overall, the evening ordeal was an excellent one. primarily influenced by point 3.

you may have observed a new addition at the top of the sidebar. fine, zenstar. you got me ;)

i've just watched the 2nd episode of prison break. pure, extremely bloody, genius. i can't decide if i should crash or watch the next one. probably the latter.

er - anybody viewing this through rss, PLEASE do me a favour and open the page itself. just once. just so i can see my map lookin' pretty-like.

owl's, tickets, flying

inspired by zenstar

i got home around 5am, and crashed instantly. i woke up dead / dying around 11, went to the bank, and fucked off to dizengoff (ooh! it rhymes!).

i gots mah ticketses to doof! w00t! i had some coffee with a brownie, saw some awesome yet totally inappropriate things to buy (i'll have to go back for a jhonen vasquez squeeze toy), saw SB, talked a LOT on the phone, had a good chat with my tattoo artist, and then made my way back.

i got in touch with a guy i used to be fast friends with, and haven't seen since '97 - he's been here 6 years, gotten married and divorced (with two kids), and served as a sniper. i think it's about time we swapped notes :P

i feel GOOD. now i'm gonna shower (for more details, see my comment at zenstar's), then i'm off to herzeliya for the major passover meal! and booze!

winner! by a bush!

2 in a row!

zenstar has me almost convinced to add a clustermap to my page, but i get the feeling i'd be left disappointed. nevermind.

mid-morning madness

w00t! i finally posted some pics:

dec 24th
dec 25th
dec 28th
dec 29th
jan 4th

please note, i didn't post all the pics, and they're certainly not at their best quality (i resized), but they do serve to illustrate a little better.

the night's been somewhat annoying. example caller:
"i typed that in lower-caps"
(on plug-ins) "oh, i thought it was something i'd received in the email and had to physically plug in"

girls in uniform

all my base are belong to her

i woke up excited, happy; anticipating my holiday! it got off to a good start - it was a beautiful spring day today. i got locked out of my office, so i arbed for an hour and then discovered that i can climb through our window.

we had major problems in our systems today, but from 10am we had no connection to our client base so we simply couldn't do any work. "we" is theoretical, as the kid was on alert the whole day.

we had a gathering of lonely soldiers for a drink (as in, alcoholic), and a couple of gifts. when i got back to our offices, i approached our SC to discuss one of the problems we had during the week. suddenly i was caught up in a serious discussion about the future of our section's work, and my opinions weren't overridden. it took about an hour to reach an understanding, and i walked back to my desk completely satisfied. i *like* our new section.

i had two lunches, so that the kid wouldn't be eating alone. that was the beginning of the rediculous amount of flirting that i engaged in today. today was just filled with all the cute girls on base, and plenty of interesting opportunities. after an ice-cream run, i was put on a track to begin learning about our new systems; i decided i'll get started on sunday. i went off to play volleyball.

completely made up for my disappointment yesterday. we played for about an hour, with a sexy girl on our team...
spuzz: "hey! stop staring at her ass and focus on the game!"
me: "i can't help it!"
sexy girl: "hey! don't stare at my ass!"
me: "does it really bother you?"
sexy girl: "not really - carry on ;)"

every few minutes another looker would walk past, and the game would carry on without me while i got the time. i really need to get something real going on, this is getting silly :S

spent the last hour wasting time, then bussed home. i discovered that i have titan ae, which i haven't seen yet, showered, and then bussed to work. waiting for food, exhausted, and we've already begun the shift. BUT - i don't have to go to the base tomorrow. i'm on holiday until sunday. then from wednesday till next sunday i'm up north and partying hard. how can i not be all excited?!

pool, bugs, chinese, work, drink, photo

damn, we're good!

the kid and spot picked me up, and we had an awesome night of pool. i was completely bombed by the time i got to bed.

the entire day that we were on base, we dealt with a major problem in our system: SABOTAGE. wtf?!?! somebody with access deleted a crucial part of our system. we don't know when, we don't know who. it took all day to get it back up and running.

our systems:

it was extremely gratifying to learn that the guys in our new section don't expect us to deal with these kinds of problems, so from now on we're going to make a point of doing our jobs to the letter. and fuck them.

we went to visit someone from our section who's just had surgery (same op that i had on my nose), and we all ordered chinese. we learned that if you order szechuan, you don't automatically get rice. fuckers. not the best meal, but would've been pretty good. spicy as hell.

i didn't have time to play volleyball, as i went straight from the base to work. more skew than straight, i suppose - i stopped off at home to pick up some clothing.

i told the boss i wanted 4.5k... so i got 5k plus travel and food expenses covered.
^_^ nice!!!
i officially begin on the 23rd, just as soon as we're past the holidays. i'm rather excited!

i ran into wr at the lizard, who was about to begin a shift. so i stopped in for a drink and a chat, then made my merry way home. i've just uploaded all the photo's from south africa (FINALLY! the mongoose passed them along!), so i can now get around to inserting them in the appropriate blog posts.

i'd do that now, but i'm bloody tired, so i'm going to bed.

on eggs, the army, and a tan

chocolaty goodness

horrible, horrible wake-up. i got to bed around 3.30, after shaving and showering. my alarm didn't even enter my dreams for a full ten minutes, and then it was a serious rush to wake up SxS and get dressed. he dropped me off at a good bus stop, and i hopped on a bus that happened to contain the kid. we then took a walk to the meeting place on the highway - they have a place there that provides free breakfast and coffee to soldiers, which was awesome.

we got picked up, and had a long drive up north. we struggled on the puzzle a bit (i'd memorized it), but to no avail.

we arrived at an AWESOME, HUGE base to go and see our systems in action. some of it was boring, some was a lot of fun. it's a beautiful base, with fantastic fighter-girls all over the place. and tanks and things everywhere. i could handle being on a working base ^_^

breakfast in the major's office was good. we learned all sorts of things about what we're going to be doing, and it definitely wasn't a waste. got to see a bit of the real army, too - that felt good.

and extremely amusing: sucking on an easter egg while walking through the base; everyone was certain it was a real one :P

then we changed into civvies and took another long drive. we got to some mountainous nature reserve, and had a really good (and soggy) hike. we stopped for a solid meal, then hiked back down to sit at a pool with a nargila and good coffee for a couple of hours.

overall - a really nice day. our new team is great, and we didn't stop talking and laughing the entire day. it's an unbelievable improvement over the last group!

i discovered today that the guy who interviewed me expects me to simply rock up and begin working tomorrow ^_^
i'm really excited!

looooong drive back south, the kid and i singing along to his mp3 player.

*pause* i just got a phone call from my new TL to crap on me for not calling to tell him i got home safe... i told him that next time he should make sure that i understand that that's what's required of me :P
cute.
*end pause*

we split up at ramat aviv, and i took the bus to the city officer. i wanted to see a doctor (not feeling 100%), and i got told that i could only see one around 1am. sod off! so i came home. now i'm going to shower, and then it looks like some pool is in order.

apropos the puzzler: turns out we overcomplicated the riddle, and we had the right idea the first time we tried! we just never completed it! NOOOOOOOO!

a puzzling evening

my brain!

the braai was excellent - amazing food, and TONS of it. the whole family was there, it was fun.

she gave me a ride to ramat hasharon, and i walked through to yogi's parents' place. accosted on the way by some lady who stared at me, and when i greeted her demanded to know where we know each other from. when she realized that we didn't, she just turned around and walked off. charming.

SxS met up with us there. we had a drink, said hi to yogi's 'rents and soon-to-be 'rents-in-law, and then we went through to yogi's. i spent a while reading up on texas hold'em strategy, then mmf joined us. he introduced us to godtower, which is friggin' insane.
insanely good, that is. you must try it.

we've been stuck on level 12 for hours. driving us nuts. it's now late - in a few minutes we're off to SxS's place, where i need to shower, before crashing and waking up at 6am to meet with the section... that's gonna be hard.

extreme fading

shameful waste

the combination of luc besson, milla jovovich, and eric serra is simply superb. the messenger kicks ass! i'm shocked to see that the top user comment in imdb is so negative :S

spot rocked up just after it finished, and after quickly catching up we started watching AvP. i passed out about halfway through, i simply couldn't keep my eyes open. i woke up during the fantastic four, then crashed again. i showered, with the intention of going to play some pool, but was still wasted and eventually just threw him out (politely, i think) and crashed. i can't believe i was so tired!

i've just discovered that i'm working an incredibly inconvenient shift this week... i'm going to have to sort all this shit out pronto.

in an hour or so, i'm going off to her family for a braai, which sounds like fun - or at least tasty ;)

a real tourist trap

whatcha gonna do?

leoni is AMAZING.

i was woken up by my american charge's mom (mac - a kid i worked with for my community service). i guess the main point of the call was to wish me a happy passover.

really, really nice people. very messed up, though. i'm very glad that i made such a good impression on them - unfortunately i'm in a place right now where i really can't make real contact. and to be honest, as much as i enjoyed working with them, i don't see myself having enough time for them. every time they call i feel guilty about not staying in touch - and especially about knowing that i won't be staying in touch.

i'm amused to hear that mac's coming out of the closet - i had to try and explain to his mother that it's nobody's fault, and hopefully she'll understand one day that it's neither here nor there as far as success / failure as a parent / person goes. and i can't help wondering if i've somehow influenced him as far as self-acceptance and confidence is concerned. that would make me proud. but that's probably not the case. him turning out to be gay would explain a lot, though.

i've just finished watching bad boys for the first time in years. i friggin' love that movie, much like the fifth element. speaking of which, i'm about to watch the messenger - the story of joan of arc, and as i said, i've been wanting to do that for years.

slowly place shades over eyes

what was that from fallout 2? oh, yes...

rule 1: wear protective eyewear (years of living in the vault can make one's eyes sensitive to sunlight. failure to do this can result in EXTREME eye damage!

my interview:

well, it looks like my year and a half of living in the vault has possibly come to an end. i was interviewed by both the programmer and the boss, and they're both eager for me to get started.
not only is the work intriguing, and involves real programming, but the salary is decent enough that i could afford to move into a normal apartment in a good area.
and i'd be working with yogi, which is a plus, and a couple of floors down from a few good friends from university. the hours are practical.
the only issue left, in light of the recent positive stuff from my tech-support job, is how to quit while keeping things on friendly terms.

here's hoping that there aren't any evil bastards waiting for me at the entrance with Big Fuck-off Guns.

daily report follows...

i got home and to bed around 3am, and made it to base in time for inspection. my army day was broken up into the following segments:

1) getting some actual work done

2) formally becoming a part of the new team. our TL and i had a long, and rather interesting talk. not only does he seem to understand our situation, and mine in particular (and he actually seems eager to assist), but he has plans to use our previous experience (the shit that got us moved) and use us for r&d. that would be fucking grand. all-in-all, outlook postive.

3) so many girls. so little time. once again, it would be nice if one of them would respond in a manner indicating that it would be wise to focus on her.

4) proving, once again, that i'm not a sucker for army bureaucracy - i finally sorted out the final problems that beset us during the move, and all it took was a personal touch and the ability to identify and get through to the right people. and the willingness to hike around the base - upstairs and downstairs and all through the town, as it were.

5) fun volleyball.

*pause to remove scratchy eyelash from eyeball*

6) formally being introduced to the new branch head. she didn't pay any attention to my being late (i had a good excuse, but that's not a good start), and we had a good chat in which she explained the differences in attitude between her and our previous branch head. outlook positive.

i went straight from the base to the interview. beautiful offices. everything looks professional. the people behave professionally. i've summarized the rest already. one thing i absolutely love is that i fit in completely to that sort of environment. i have no reason not to exude self-confidence. that makes me happy. and it makes me feel like myself.

yogi waited for me outside my place, i hurriedly changed into civvies, and we headed for ra'anana. his fiance damaged her knee badly today playing volleyball, so that kinda coloured things. we all went to his apartment, where i snacked and crashed, for the first time in years, on the universe's most comfortable couch. i'd forgotten what that's like.

i was woken by SxS - he's back! he woke me up with beacon easter eggs, those things are, without any doubt, the most brilliant invention. EVER. we went through to tel aviv, milled around and met up with some friends, and then went to an incredible bar that happens to be about half an hour from my place. really stylish, great music, and a lot of good-looking wimmen.

i'm now home. and about to shower. and then sleep like a baby. this weekend is already awesome. i even have a good-quality copy of bad boys.

oh - and see my comments.

divine and electrifying

lightning, lightning (amplified), and some simply superb photography - i know some very impressive photographers.

my nap sucked - i just couldn't find a happy place. my laundry finished between my alarm and the snooze function, which was most fortunate. i took a taxi to work, and spent the last two hours speaking to the new girl (new-yawker), eating (not the best food), and on the phone to yogi:

tomorrow i'm off to be interviewed by yogi's new boss. new start-up, based about 15 minute's walk from my apartment, working in development. that would be a brilliant way to work through the next year. in addition to that, SxS is coming tomorrow, and it'll be good to see him again.

so, work has begun. we're finishing at 2am, i dunno whether to go home or to base. now to waste some time. and not in the requiem for a dream sense of the expression. which reminds me (!) - i finally got hold of the messenger - the story of joan of arc... it's only taken me 5 years.

sundown at midday

well, for me at least - i'm off to work in a couple of hours...

i've decided to steal the idea of a relatively relevant picture for each blog, just 'cuz.

still sick today. the wake-up was good, though - first into tel aviv. it was a nice-enough spring morning (although the rest of the day was miserable and wet), and i managed to sort out my shit at the city officer, the immigration office, AND the immigrants' bank, and still make it to base by 10.10. i'm well impressed with myself.

after an hour or so, the kid and i gave up on the idea of giving our new SC access to our systems. it won't really matter, but it is aggravating. i had humus for lunch with the mongoose, and then returned to the office for some physical labour (apparently i'm super-skilled with a hammer and nails).

and i had a very serious chat with one of the cute girls from the "farm". i was doing fine, being exceptionally smooth - yet overt, and she still somehow missed the point. the conversation turned philosophical, and i left her hanging. tomorrow i'll find out if that had any effect.

all-important office summary: in spite of my ill-health, i managed more pull-ups today. aside from a few here and there, and then a set of 7 - which is more than i'm usually capable of (sad for a soldier, i know), i did an additional set of 5 with my legs horizontal, which was hard on the abs but gave me some serious satisfaction :)

then we all went off for bowling.

i'm normally alright, today i just sucked the big one :( our new section is way more fun than the previous one, and the incredible chocolate cake once we were done just made it all worth it. fine, that was partially to do with the unbelievably sexy waitress who stood around with us while we ate it :P

we got a ride to a relatively useful bus-rank, and a couple of buses later i was home. on the way i met up with someone who might prove to be a good connection when it comes to getting our systems sorted out, so i'll just have to pay him a visit tomorrow.

now i'm going to shower, nap, and then head off for work. i'm not sure yet how practical sleeping on base is going to be...

goodies:
who's in?
hah! i can do that myself!
sounds like fun
silly sods
always of interest
honestly?

like a rash in an intimate area...

my day was bitterly abused by my continuing lack of health and neverending hassles with our systems.

on my way out the door for a smoke i noticed that everyone except the kid and i had gathered around a pc for "educational purposes". i asked my usual question: "is this a private party, or can anyone join?", and the response was "private". so i went out, and two minutes later got a phone call to join them. when i went back up it was explained that they simply hadn't understood the question. i suffered an hour of crap that i didn't understand, and spent most of it bouncing a balloon around and into everyone. sucked anyway.

although the new section is a vast improvement over the previous one. the mongoose tried to teach me to draw a superhero today. i just sat there in awe, and he couldn't understand what was so impressive. "but it's just circles and lines!"

right.

i can see where he's coming from though - i have that same faith that what i do when programming is so simple that any ape with a keyboard can hack it. i find my leet skillz with puns way more arresting. like cardiac arrest. heart-stopping. i should probably quit it now before i get found and firebombed.

i went off around 3.15 to a meeting with my tech-support boss, which was fun. we had a good chat - first time i've properly talked to him since i joined the army, i think - and he wants me to take on a bit more responsibility. there's also the possibility of me joining our in-house development team for small tasks, which would be great.

supper on base really got my goat. it's an automatic response, not even vaguely intellectual, to get riled by stupid little kids with higher rank and not enough hair on their faces to shave. i managed to block them from pushing into the line without them realizing it, and then took shit from a girl behind me because she was convinced that i intended to push in as well. i deliberately sat down at her table to have it out with her, but it really was all very silly and a waste of time.

we had an impromptu (rhymes with tutu) meeting with our new TL; i pretended to understand him and i assume everything will be fine. good thing for me that our previous TL explained to him this morning that i don't read emails in hebrew... that's the nicest thing he's done for me since i met him :)

and i suppose my pull-up status has improved, but i'm still not 100% and i don't want to push myself too much. it's hard enough just walking up the stairs.

great stuff:

thank you, mr. bush!
leave them pigs alone
my nads may actually be good for something!

boy, howdy!

that scene with angelina jolie and the cherry got stuck in my head ^v^

that was quite the emotional movie. i didn't cry, but it was a job well done in affirmation. yes, we're all okay. some more than others. i like to think of myself as perfectly fine. for a given value of "fine".

and hell, quality-wise the movie was just superb. terrific, even :)

now to take my philosophizing to bed.

oh, the humanity!

i still don't really know what that's supposed to mean. can anyone out there enlighten me?

listening now to shapeshifters - lola's theme. great tune.

i woke up kinda alright this morning, but i've been followed around all day by a really nasty cough. i did smoke considerably less than usual, so i guess that's a plus. and i'm guessing that if i'm infectious, our entire base will be feeling like shit tomorrow.

things done today:

personal meetings with both my previous branch head, and our previous SC. both went well. or - much, much better than the previous meetings. a few agreements to disagree ;)

i explained to our old SC that SWOT analysis is not an appropriate way to measure a person. i'm not a product. i think that's enough reason not to do it. just for fun, i went through with it anyway. he had one strength and one weakness. respectively: i'm professional, and i have trouble communicating with human beings. i taught him about techno-stress, and explained that he's right, but almost everyone i work with is like-minded enough to get me.

he wanted to know my secret vis-a-vis the amount of cute girls on base that hug me everytime they see me. i wish i knew how to get those same girls to sleep with me.

most of the day was spent missioning around the base to sort out my network connections and the kid's computer, which was proper fucked by the dude. it's so bad that it's being "dealt with" by the technicians in their own office, and we've resorted to stealing spot's pc from the old section. that's going down well...

and i had more problems with security clearance today. i explained to the new girl there that once she's found my name, she's to remember my face so that i don't have to go through all that shit again. i hope that sorts everything out.

so, i learned all sorts of uninteresting things about system lockdowns, and we eventually sorted everything out. the girls in our new team got all excited when they saw the shit in our system working... stuff that we just take for granted :P maybe it's not so bad being where we are. speaking of the girls, one of the cute girls is looking for an apartment in the same area i'm interested in, and i'm thinking of offering to move in with her :D

what i didn't figure out today was how to stop my pc from overriding the time i set it to. what the hell is it with windows 2000 and daylight savings time??

i played some volleyball at the end of the day; our new TL arrived with our bed (respect!), so i dropped that off at our old section before going home.

now that i've done all my net browsing *cough, cough*, and decided that i'm not going to find an untainted copy of soilwork - stabbing the drama anytime soon (fantastic song), i'm going to watch girl interrupted (thanks schpat), and put myself to bed.

it was a busy day, but definitely not a bad one. tomorrow will involve some work and organization, but i suppose i can deal with that.

the sickening

yep, i'm not feeling very immortal at the moment. in fact, i've been feeling like complete shite since i woke up. i can't decide if i've had the runs or have been blocked up, and my throat has been absolutely horrid. coupled with being roasted and unable to sleep - damn the new office...

speaking of sleep: one thing a soldier learns quickly is either a) leave others' belongings alone or b) claim them as your own. there is no c). none. uh-uh. nada. but for some reason, beyond soldiery comprehension, our new TL didn't ask whose bed it was that we hadn't packed away... and c) returned it to the quarter master's store. nobody had signed it out, which meant that it wouldn't ever have been noticed missing.

so we're out a rather good bed. fucker!

the kid and i spent most of the day doing nothing. we can't work, because since we moved offices physically our network connections don't work. interesting. our systems went down this morning and we physically had to go and sit with the DBA's... fortunately they have access, at least :P

i got my papers (woof!) for the medical review board, now i have to organize paying them a visit. can anyone tell me the name of the game where you draw a grid of dots, and two players take turns connecting them, in order to close off squares? we've started building it for multiplayer, and i don't know what to call it.

i had a fight with the information security desk - they wouldn't let me into the secured areas without an escort, and i haven't had a problem with that before. it took them at least 20 minutes to move my name to the correct list, just so that i could go down and talk to the people who i need help from. oh, and go and greet the fit birds in the girl-farm. they're our tech-support, they sit in rows in these horrible cubicles, kinda like cows for milking.

it was a fun visit.

i bussed home, ran laundry, watched orgazmo - less funny the third time - and it's shower and bed-time.

it was an ugly day. i still feel like shit. here's hoping tomorrow is an improvement.

... the old man is snoring

or about to, anyway. and he's bloody SOAKED. so he definitely needs a shower first.

last night, i took a taxi to the meimad, met up with a russian guy who got released from our base, and came back a month later as civilian labour. the party was insane, absolutely awesome! the kid joined a bit later on, and we moshed until we were both sore - both of us were still recovering from thursday's exercise :P

i discovered in the morning that lonely soldiers can get cash for transport from the city officer if they're in trouble - that's the shit! saved me an hour and a half's walk!

i slept like a king. i arbed the early afternoon with net stuff and gta2, then the mongoose and his family picked me up and we all went to their place. i asked for a piece of schnitzel, and instead got seriously fed (:$), then we went to be mallrats for a bit. we had some great humus (i couldn't eat too much, though), then went back to watch tv.

i'm having a bit of trouble with his sister - she keeps referring to me as her future husband, she's really cute, and although very young (barely legal), quite fun to be around. but she is the mongoose's sister. and that means i can't date her, i can only marry her - that's a bit too extreme, even for me ;)

we did get into an in-depth discussion of piercings (she just got a new one); i'm left desiring mine back even more!

the mongoose and i took a taxi to the lizard, i said hi to everyone, and then sammy picked me up and we went through to leo bloom's. great pub. it was a farewell party for one of the guys at work, and i think everyone showed up.

it began raining when we arrived. raining? now? wtf??

so it was an extremely talkative evening, with great vibes. nice pub. didn't see mntns there, though, and i was hoping to run into her. we went for coffee afterwards... sans actual coffee... and got involved in an in-depth discussion about gaming that we had to stop when we realized how late it was.

speaking of late - i thought everyone was pulling my leg about the time change, it being april 1st and all. we really did move one hour forward. it's now 01:45! it should've been 12:45!

sammy gave me a ride home - i got soaked getting to the car, and soaked getting from the corner cafe home, but my room isn't wet (surprisingly, what with my roof falling in and all), and i'm now about to shower and crash.