bouncy happy thursday

i scratched my watch again on my way home last night. i'm really upset about it, and there ain't nothin' i kin do.

i slept great, but missed my bus. i still made it on time to inspection... barely... and this time the big-boss discipline officer stopped, looked, and carried on without any response. cool.

today is the first day that the kid overslept. we got a call asking if he was in, and i called him before responding: he'd *just* gotten up, at 9am. a bit shocking, really :P

the dude's been pissing me off more and more, and i'm getting to the point where i'm ready to file a serious complaint. my teammates have been trying to get rid of him, too, so at least i'm not alone with this.

i was sitting with the branch secretary when our section's other TL walked past, and asked me if we were doing the marshmallow thing. i'd totally forgotten, so i hurriedly organized some, and we ended up making 11 cups of marshmallow hot chocolate in a single batch. fun, and appreciated ;)

by the time the kid had arrived, it had turned into a serious beach day. the serious beach day vibe got to me: immediate and powerful weekend dementia. i couldn't convince our entire team to go AWOL, so the kid and i went off for lunch to a great little sandwich shoppe on ibn gvirol, then to azrieli for ice-cream.

i finished neuromancer - superb. again. superb. [and so on...]

our branch commander walked in to inform us that we have a new programmer joining our team. i got all excited. and then i learned that he won't be replacing me. that SUCKS.

we spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up, the kid and i went off for "supper", and then it was time for work.

the annoying coworker walked in earlier with his significant other. and she's extremely... umm... significant. and dog-butt ugly, too. the combination of the two of them sitting together is disquieting.

other than that, it's been swell. i've even got it together to give my mother general power of attorney of my affairs in sa... should'a done that a long, long time ago.

i'm good. i have written permission :)
this sounds cool.
photoshop. gotta be photoshop.

dreamland oasis

spot and i were almost at the balcony last night when i realized that i'd packed everything except my uniform. we had massive (330g) burgers (with real hamburger lettuce + tomato + onions + bacon), a couple of beers, and a long chat about how batshit insane the last few years have been.

when we left the balcony at 2 / 3 / i don't bloody remember, the manager apologized for us coming to a really crappy reggae night. we enjoyed ourselves anyway - both of us trying to enjoy the cute bartender, but i regress :P
i cannot believe that girl i want to make you sweat is a ub40 song.
either way, most of the music was great.

i was wasted after the long walk home, but i showered and completed a full pre-dentist flossing / brushing, and crashed. wake-up was hard, but we made it to work at 7.15. i changed into uniform, and from there i went off to the city officer.

i was treated by the guy who fixed me up after the uzi accident (i can't find the actual post :S), and he informed me that i don't have receding gums. what i *do* have are teeth that i've worn down with aggressive brushing, and i need to move to sensodyne-style pastes and a special weekly fluoride gel. sounds fun. but at least my gums are fine.

[after having a good laugh, i started feeling bad. don't follow this link if you're eating, alright?]
respect this man's choppers.

i did a bit of shopping, then returned to base. everybody else had worked through the night, some were sleeping, some still going on in a daze. and i had absolutely nothing to do. and i couldn't sleep, because i was the only person without a good excuse. i read and missioned the entire day. and dozed when no-one was looking - catching little dream-pockets which were always terminated abruptly.

that sexy captain came by to say goodbye - she's just been released. i went after her to get her number, but as i approached four guys popped out of nowhere and accosted her, so it became super-awkward, and i just carried on. nystire arrived on base a bit later, after "supper" accompanied me in getting something from my apartment, and then came with to work for a short while.

i'm bloody unhappy. sleep-deprived. the work i have to do right now is frustrating as hell.

cute stuff.

s'true, ek se!

good lord. and i always thought it was an urban legend. no more for me, then.

i'm breaking my head over database synchronization. like, bad timing = missing data = unnecessary headache. at least the replacement for my provider contact is getting things moving, i don't feel like i haven't achieved anything today.

evicted!

on my way out last night, my boss unwittingly made a disturbing reference to the air force transfer (that he doesn't know anything about)... and then questioned me as to how long i plan on continuing to work here. it was all very weird.

i got home last night, and found a large envelope by my door. no, it's not really an eviction notice. it's actually the new rental contract - but it pretty much amounts to the same thing. the rent is $150 more than we'd agreed to. i spoke to him this morning about it: on the weekend, i'm checking out two apartments in my old building, and during the next week i'm moving into one of them. then i'm giving him three months notice, and i have to begin hunting for a new home :S

i really didn't work a lot today. i slept badly last night - my neck's buggered, not helped by an attempt (before fully registering the severity of the problem) to do pull-ups. i got strange looks when i set a squeegee up against the wall with the tip of the handle pressing into one of the strained muscles... apparently leaning on the odd-looking set-up and rolling my eyes wasn't appreciated too much.

i read a lot of neuromancer today.

i made one of my teammates help me read a printout of all the army regulations regarding seconded soldiers. it was a sucky thing to do, but it did have some amusing results :)
for instance, i know now to behave myself if i'm ever sitting on a naval vessel.

i spent a while sitting and flirting with our branch head's cute secretary. the bull walked in for a meeting, and asked me to organize him some coffee. when i walked in with it (to a meeting with others as well), the branch head was startled... the bull explained to her that if i'm going to sit and hit on her secretary, i may as well make myself useful.

that was kinda embarrassing, but to good effect ;)

i've read a lot of stuff tonight. in particular, it's totally worthwhile reading the last few posts from moonflake's blog, as well as zenstar's.

whiners. mob justice is a great solution! (eve online)
singapore sets up country-wide wifi access. jealousy makes me... umm... jealous.
phaser set to *murder-death-kill*: studying star trek? awesome.
cancer cure?

i missed it?! what a jerk!

i can't believe i've kept forgetting to post this: thursday night, as i walked out the building, i looked in the direction of the security guard. he was just returning to his seat... wearing no pants. i shit you not, like we all suspect the newsdesk readers of doing, he was sitting there wearing his security shirt and a pair of boxers.

back to today:

i had a fairly good start to the morning. most of the day just sort of dribbled by. nothing really interesting happened. aside from the dude really pissing me off - he aggravates me anyway, but having somebody sidle up to me pointing and singing: "you're from south africa, and i'm not; you have AIDS, and i don't" in that childish sing-song voice that little children use, while constantly tapping my leg...

i never liked the playground as a kid. i don't really enjoy it as an adult.

i was exhausted during the afternoon. it didn't help that one of the civilian women in our section just came back from europe, and was handing out superb chocolate. i sat there, feet up on my desk, daydreaming about coming back to sa...

and just as i was leaving the office, a girl called looking for someone else. we had a really interesting conversation - this whole "meeting girls on the phone" thing is getting to be a truly odd habit.

the bus to work tonight was packed, and i was squished into one of the doors with my oversized bag. the doors on the extended busses are automatic, and they detected my bag and refused to close. the bus driver shouted at me, but there wasn't anywhere to go (this went on for a few stops), and then some elderly woman began calling "soldier! soldier!", while pointing exaggeratedly behind her. yes. i *KNOW* it's the bag. are you offering me your seat? no? THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP!

it's been 2.5 years already (i think, too lazy to check). tonight i finally watched my last two fights. they're bloody hysterical - some parts i'm filled with pride, some with shame... i'm fairly confident i've improved since then :P

lesbians?!?!
WHAT?!
AFTER ALL THAT?!
NOOOOO!!!

spot informed me earlier that he overheard, completely at random, that resurrection and tesla are lesbians who like the cock^[1]. godhelpme WTF can i do?? i think i'm going to call in the morning and claim that my phone was stolen or something equally retarded...

*groan*
*slaps forehead*

^[1]that reminds me - he's a tad annoyed about me seeing clerks 2 without him. maybe this news is his obscene and evil form of revenge.

bummer
whoops!
vote for colbert!

work, work, work

well, i've learned a bit about asterisk, and about a package called text2wave. and about how farkin' cool mysql is relative to oracle - just the date/time functions alone make it a far more pleasureable experience
^_^ + :S

to all those responsible for [cthfuchsia] Digest Number 171: ohmigod too much time on your hands. but at least i know when international talk like a pirate day is this year (19/09 - i'm normally not in the know). and PLEASE strip all the trailing crap, you bastards!

nystire pointed me to slashdot's Iranian Heavy Water Nuke Plant Goes Online Today. har-dee-har... oh. not yet.

right. home-time.

brain-gargling

dali said it best: half an hour to wake up this morning - half an hour resetting my alarm, wanting nothing more than to sleep the day away.

i missed the first bus, along with another soldier from my base, so we went from stop to stop until deciding to go back to the original one and wait for the next to arrive. annoying.

nystire and another from his section left today - with a fun goodbye party-type thingy. aside from that, and working a little (and feeling really sick after lunch. i dunno.), i had a long chat with my previous SC about finding me a replacement. he basically tried to prepare me for disappointment, but told me to look for anyone who knows anyone etc., which is going to be trying to say the least.

now to learn about telephony systems.

i like surprises

friday's post:

so i left work last night, and on the way to the balcony i ran into a guy i was friendly with in varsity. turns out he's a lawyer in the government office - good to know :)
and it's always nice to catch up.

i continued on to the balcony, and spent a couple of hours having a really nice chat with the cute bartender. turns out that in the army, she was a user of the application the kid and i have been moved to. that makes her one of the first people outside of the army who has a clue what i'm doing... i couldn't stop smiling about that - and the fact that when she found out, she wasn't laughing at me :P

she made me promise to come on tuesday night for a reggae event - sounds fun! i had a really funny conversation with the dj: i explained to him that i've been trying to find the song by tool that's simply one long tease. he cued up a cd, gave me his headphones, and i gave him the thumbs down. the second track he played was it, the second i gave him my approval, he reset to the beginning of the track and switched over from the main sound. awesome ^_^

that's how my weekend officially started, i decided it was a good time to call it a night and get some sleep. i said goodbye, and took a taxi home - seriously talkative driver :S
as i got home, i discovered i'd received an sms from the mongoose informing me that it would be wise to make my way over to the lizard.

*sigh*
i'm hopeless, sometimes. so i began walking, and halfway there caught a taxi. the drive was so short, the driver told me to pay however much i felt like paying. so i told him i'd give him whatever coins i had... i had 7 shekels, and the base cost is 9, so he got pissy. i offered to pay him 10 with a 50 note, and he grumbled something and kicked me out the car. i couldn't stop grinning.

the party ROCKED. HARD. loads of stunning freaks, the music was aggressive and superb (i keep forgetting that the lizard actually does have a decent sound rig), and eventually i got kicked out with everyone else at 5.30am. i was super happy when i remembered that it's FRIDAY, so there are busses! i hopped on the bus with my shirt off, the bus driver turned off the lights so that my tat and piercing wouldn't bother anyone else :P, and when i got home i had a quick shower and hopped into bed.

i woke up easy on friday afternoon, and did some shopping before getting to work. most of the time i was here was just arsing around online, and chatting to friends on messenger: i just have to make up hours for the 15 minutes here and there that i lose each day. the boss called, asked me to set something up, and i explained to him that we'd have to wait till sunday for spot to get in.

soon after, spot called, and talked me through accessing the live database: it was then that i remembered that the changes i make there take effect immediately - there was no need to recompile anything, transfer anything, interrupt processes. so i actually did something immediately useful, which made being here worth it.

organizer came into the office to ask if i needed a ride home, so i hopped to it (hence abandoning this post, this is where i left off), because i had all my army gear, and a huge roll of poster paper that would've been a bitch to carry while walking.

today's post:

on the way to the car he informed me that i was having friday night supper with his family. i acquiesced, and he dropped me off at home to shower, shave and dress, and then a friend of his came to pick me up. 650cc bike, that i swear sitting on the back of it felt like i was sitting on a goddamn couch. comfortable, with huge bars to hold onto, and he gave me a proper crash-helmet - speeding on that thing was a rush and a half. and i didn't get chinese eyes from it >D

on the way into organizer's building, my charge's mom called. she told me i hadn't been available earlier in the day: don't bullshit me. my phone works just fine, was on the whole time, and even if i had been using it at the time, i would've gotten the missed call. and if there was a problem, then call again. *if* this is something that's important to you. if not, then don't waste my time. she promised to call around noon today. nothing doing. sod it, then.

friday night supper was excellent. after the meal, chilled watching mindless tv for a bit, and then he gave me a ride back to tel aviv. i called the dj up, and misunderstood the time he told me to get to the party. i arrived an hour early... so i walked back to the balcony, again with the cute waitress. had a guiness, and a fun half an hour or so.

then i walked back to the club, waited a while outside, met up with the kid, and we went in... to an okay party, with okay music. none of us were impressed, but there were definitely some good moments. some annoying kids gave me a reason to get aggro, and then good songs would come along that let me release it in a bloodless way.

invigorating.

we left around 3 / 4am, to sit at my coffee and talk for a while. and chat a bit with a girl who upset me afterwards: beautiful face, and a body that screams "I LET GO". or "WIDE LOAD". i hate massive disproportion on a pretty girl.

the kid gave me a ride home, and i slept until early afternoon. i woke up, and spent a while sticking the poster paper over my glass doors (sweatier work than i'd expected, but at least the sunlight won't heat up the apartment as much).

after demolishing a really good mango, i took a taxi to ibn gvirol, and walked to dizengoff center. i hung around for half an hour, then discovered that the guys i'd gone to meet had meant dizengoff circle, which isn't the same thing. so i missioned there, bought my ticket to clerks 2, and went to see it.

i can't understand something: why the hell do they overfill the coke cups? all it means is that when i pierce the top with a straw, it overflows, and when i get near the end i tip coke all over myself. it's infuriating!

clerks 2 is totally awesome. if you ain't seen it, go now! and if you haven't seen the first one, THEN BLOODY WELL DO SO, YOU RETARD. i can't believe that out of four people, i was the only one who had. fucked up!

we missioned off to mike's place for sundowners, and i had some chilli-fries too. we met a girl from los angeles, who's converting to judaism... it was a very interesting conversation - she seems so typically american. and i had to really enunciate, because i couldn't be arsed to speak americanese, and it took her three tries to understand anything i said.

i've just walked here, and am posting and mailing. once done, i'm off to the lizard, then home to begin an exciting (and exiting!) week.

i discovered yesterday that receding gums are caused by aggressive brushing. and that there's not a hell of a lot i can do about it at this point :'(

barney rumble
praise be the lord!
whatever happened to skipping the country?!

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

i - am - EXCITED!

work last night was great - i finally got an app to work... it makes me happy to go through old code, and find it not only readable and commented - but unintentionally easily reuseable ^_^

after waking up to a sense of accomplishment, i got home to find my apartment having been entered and abused. not badly, by anyone's standards. but it's enough to know that somebody's been there, and moved things around, and broken a couple of useful things here and there (like a towel hook, for instance)... i called my landlord this morning to complain, and he requested that i kindly relax the sarcasm, and yes, he'll speak to the builders.

WTF? they're working ON THE OTHER BUILDING?! i got snarky, and he gave me some bullshit about them working on both buildings >@
and i'm so bloody paranoid that i had to perform a full-inspection of the apartment when i realized what had happened. and of course i got jumpy at every sound.

anyway, aside from that, today was an awesome day. i overslept, and woke up 10 minutes before the bus was due to arrive. i still managed to make it in time to watch the bus drive off (go me!), and the alternative usually-horribly-cramped bus arrived only mostly full.

we had some interesting work to do this morning, the kid's busying himself with making me proud. our section was treated to a presentation of oracle's newly-acquired-we've-changed-all-the-labels analytic engine (it was siebel's), which turned out to be a lot more interesting than it sounds. the presenter, our oracle POC, is the POC for my alma mater, and we've worked together in the past. in fact, i've complained about her here in the past, but today she was not only friendly and professional, but helpful too. and she's already helped me trace the bastard who left midway through a c# project to go to australia, and left me to pick up the pieces. who's apparently back in israel... i have an opportunity to let him know i'm decidedly unimpressed.

today i got told that when i'm released from service, i won't have a problem getting a job at oracle. i don't think oracle's prepared to pay me the kind of salary i'd demand for wasting my time. they probably wouldn't like my attitude too much, either.

after lunch, the kid and i jumped around sorting things out, and then i was left without much to do. i've started trying to organize myself a replacement... with my SC's permission, i'm going to drive my previous commander nuts (something i have plenty of experience in) until he conjures one up.

the kid and i spent our last half hour on the base eating and discussing how we're going to make my replacement's life the equivalent of boot-camp from full metal jacket. he will learn, and he will learn HARD. we don't have time to fuck this up.

work tonight has been trying. a bug surfaced in a package that's been live for ages, and it took hours to find it. it really sucks when it takes a mind-bendingly specific chain of events to break something that runs under every other condition just fine. the worst thing is, looking at the problematic line after the fact: there aren't any other ways to break it.

and i learned how to access mysql databases from excel. great. and spot wasted ages dealing with pompous bastard irc "gurus". eventually some guy just caved in and helped out. but the process of getting there was rediculous. i friggin' HATE those kids.

good mood's back!

i want it

where am i?

like a stoned dog, i slobbered through the day. from the retarded wake-up (hah! used the word correctly!), and the glassy-eyed bus ride, to glaring back at my monitor uselessly, to slowly wading through the waking dream that is the intense heat and humidity of these horrid days.

i went to the post-office this morning to pay my electricity bill. i had to wait 20 minutes to get to the teller, only to be told that it wasn't the actual bill, it just *looks* exactly like it. with a note in the corner that says that the amount is so insignificant, that it'll be added to the next one.
FOR THAT YOU SEND ME A REPLICA OF A BILL??

i was dazed for lunch, but managed to get "food" down. i almost wrote that i made it through lunch without throwing anything heavy at the guy sitting opposite me talking non-stop crap, but i didn't actually have the energy to go through with something that intense. by heavy, i mean heavy like a fork or a knife.

i had problems after lunch... a system that we use went down, and we discovered that the guys who "take care" of our servers had accidentally revoked all our access to them. half an hour of shouting at the monkey before essentially giving up and doing things the hard way.

nystire has all but left our base. good luck! and congratulations!

speaking of which, the bull called me into a meeting with some of the big boys. our systems are about to take a 90ᵒ turn, and we have four months in which to get it sorted out. that's a lot of work, and we've officially begun. we've been waiting for this point for months now, and i'm really amped now that we've reached it ^_^

the air force transfer is now out in the open.
the bull used it to pressure the guys in the meeting to keep the time-line to under four months, and he used it effectively. i felt myself go bright red when i realized what he was saying, and quite a few impressed eyebrows were raised in my direction
(:$ + ^_^)

at this point, totalwaste goes off for a cigarette. as he's going through his phonebook removing irrelevant numbers, he releases an obnoxiously loud fart, whose echo reverberates throughout the stairwell. a well-dressed ethiopian woman steps through the door at the most comically effective time, and there's a moment of silence when our eyes meet.
she cracks up laughing, then rushes off down the stairs to the ladies bathroom.

so i went straight to my pc, got some things going, and then came to work work (not a typo).

i have just had one of the weirdest experiences. a few years back (20/04/2003 - my first ever journal entry), SxS and i were in eilat, and i was introduced to a cute friend of his. a while ago, she added me to her messenger list.
the first conversation we had was a few days ago, where i reminded her that we'd met before. talking to her now - i've just discovered that my name was added to her list when she joined the company i've just left... that's just the weirdest reunion i've experienced.

reminds me of sunday, running into a druze guy i did basics with at the entrance to my original base. he's a lieutenant now - and been in the army all of one year. we had a good laugh, he can't let his charges know that he's been in the army less than them :D

the is-it-a-planet story isn't over
biotech driving computing? it's all biology to me
american soldiers with toys: and i thought our army was bad

nobody to save me

it really wasn't a bad party. good lookin' wimmen, great place... the music was great. just great. it was great club trance. not psy trance. it's now past 4am, and for that i sacrificed my sleep for the night.

urgh.

i work with the tick.

no, not that one. the other one. spot. i can't have a serious conversation with him if he's smoking. he does this weird hiccuping thing after every drag. it's bloody hysterical. when trying to not hiccup, he does other amusing tricks. and he gets impressed with himself when he doesn't do anything strange.

it's better than his old jaw-wiggling thing, which really upset the guys in our client section during his service. and all the while i keep thinking of a friend of ours from taekwondo, who translated the hebrew for "twitch" into "the unwanted moving".

pandora has figured out that i'm a raging metal-head. i dig it.

on a work-related note, one actually related to work: i got through all sorts of interesting crap tonight. and was reminded of how nice it is to go back to my old code... which is commented. and readable anyway. go me!

now we're off to a trance party on the beach. this is possibly the dumbest thing i could do when i have to be on base early in the morning. fuck it! have a baby!

oh captain, my captain

too bloody hot. yes, it's a heat wave, and yes, it's SUPPOSED to be hot. but the humidity - OH THE HUMIDITY!

i did get a ride to the base this morning: a guy i know saw me at the bus stop, and decided i was worthy of a comfy seat, aircon, and decent music.

aside from that, this morning drove me nuts.

a) the ars at the armoury: i saw one of my teammates sitting there, so i went to join her. she told me they'd been waiting for an hour to relinquish their weapons. another girl tried talking to the asshole, and he started shouting at her.

i called the bull - and woke him up (he was guard commander, poor sod. i can't do right by him). we called our TL, and he told me to go and check with the security officer. i walked into his office, and did so.
"i've already released them."
"then why are they still sitting there?"
"you don't believe me? here." he dials - then screams: "didn't i tell you to release the guards?!"

thank you, speakerphone. i heard the idiot mumble "yeah," and then put the phone down. by the time i'd returned, he was slowly letting them go. prick put my back up again.

b) the kid and i went to get coffee. on the way back to the office, we saw the base's medic (yep. only one.) being helped to carry a really cute girl who kept fainting on them. i guess it's the heat, we had one of those last year, too. there were already quite a few people there, so we figured we wouldn't be much help*. i tried flagging down a car as it drove past to take her to the clinic - the driver was the sexy captain from aeons ago, thought i was saying hi, waved back and carried on.

hmmph.

i didn't recognize the next car's driver, but he thought the same thing. waved back, carried on. that was frustrating.

* in retrospect, that was not an intelligent assumption. we're probably far stronger than the kids there, and it's always better to muscle in to help out the damsel in distress. i spent the rest of the morning beating myself up about it.

we spent as much of the day indoors with the air-conditioning as possible. not taking too long to finish my work, i spent most of the morning, and afternoon, reading and doing pull-ups. pink floyd in the background. very american beauty.i did a lot of pull-ups... all proper ones (all the way down, all the way up), and i'm feeling good about the fact that i'm not really feeling it ^_^

nystire's brother was on base, much amusement in the recounting of good-ol' sa stories.
*sigh*

we saw my tallest a few times today - it's incredibly easy to make him run away: simply shouting "my tallest!" still gets him to change direction mid-step and walk faster and with his head-down. but everyone can see we're calling to him, because we're pointing and waving at the same time!
his girlfriend was on base today - she's in our client section, i asked them loudly and impolitely if they could please stop discussing our work in bed. hopefully the shock that registered on their faces will translate to less of this underhanded business going on.

the sexy captain made another appearance later on in the day, came to say hi while i was talking to someone else. all i got was a kiss on the cheek - but the respect that crept into the guy's voice was touching :P
there's a tradition in the israeli army of putting the major's rank on your beret if you sleep with an officer during mandatory service... to calm him down i had to show him that mine's clear of insignia :(

i had a long chat with my TL over "supper", all about the afore-not-so-much-mentioned air force transfer, and it's all very positive. he's as supportive as he's unhappy about it. the rest of the conversation involved the new, and generally very pretty course girls.

hah! it's vapor-ized! (phantom gives up on their console)
waiting for the outcome now that spacex and rocketplane kistler have won the prize...
and "the robots are coming" just looked interesting

homeward bound

it's been a rather long night. got a whole stack of interesting new work. gave spot more work to do. i'm developing vi twitches: when i use notepad, i automatically press esc, then :wq. not very helpful under windows.

the saddest thing is that i'm posting when i don't actually have anything meaningful to post. i need to stop this.

i've got that paedophilic feeling...

so i took a long, overheated walk home, showered, and got picked up by my cousins to go through to the other cousins. she was the only person who wasn't around - the rest of the family, some down from england, and quite a few family friends were there. tons of food. and GOOD food. it was a really good meal.

after supper, after a very serious game of table-tennis, i sat chatting with the kids (aged 18 and under). her little sister is 18, and is going into the army soon; her best friend is in the same situation. thing is, i've known them since they were 12 years old, and her friend is now legal, and cute. that's just such a weird feeling. like, i feel like i kinda know how michael jackson feels. hell, one of my best friends turned 26 today... that's means that i'm gonna meet that age in a couple of months... that's 8 years between us.

dodgy. and enticing. dammit.

on the way home, resurrection called. as there were other people in the car, i just kinda of "mm hmmm"ed and "ah ha"ed my way through the conversation... no mention of menage-a-trois... the last thing she said to me before saying goodbye?
"i just called to hear your voice"

uh oh. RUN AWAY!!!
HELL no. not going there. uh uh. fat fucking chance. and there go my hopes for a chance with tesla, too. spot - trust me bro, NOT worth it. well, actually, maybe in your case... no. and no.

i got dropped off in south tel-aviv, and walked through a particularly dodgy area to floranteen (that's as close to transliterating it as possible). met up with spot and some friends of his, then when spot disappeared we went to another bar. nice place. eventually we split up, and i walked a while then took a cab home (strangely enough, i only took the cab after i left the dodgy area. i must be bored).

i slept almost all of saturday. this book i'm reading in hebrew is getting rough - i'm seriously struggling. eventually i did get up, and went to the lizard for a couple of hours. new management => no more free drinks for me. and that makes me a sad panda.

today was hot as hell, dusty as hell, and humid as hell. and it had me traipsing soddenly around my original base, running a "forms hike", trying not to sweat too much into my food, and being interviewed by my cow of a commander. she really sucks. but not really really - sexual favours might have made it worth it. no, wait, i take that back. she's 'orrible.

her secretaries did treat me to a bit of fun, though - the only thing that was missing from their tussling (and they're cute) was mud. although at one point i did have to step in to remove a pair of scissors (thank god they understood the phrase "it's all fun and games 'til somebody loses an eye"). i did remember my manners, and thanked them for the show when i left ;)

the afternoon was half work, half fun 'n games. i'm hoping to get a copy of the photo of me doing pull-ups with my chair between my legs (i managed quite a few). most of the work i have to do at the moment is clean-up, some of it is mind-bending, some fairly straight-forward. at least we have time. too - much - time - on - our - hands. but nevermind.

oh - and this looks like fun.

flawless victory

chitty does it again - this is worth a special link.

Subject: Actual letter sent by the UK's Inland Revenue Department

Dear Mr Addison,

I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt
reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the
points you raise. I will address them, as ever, in order.

Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a
'begging letter'. It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a
'tax demand'. This is how we at the Inland Revenue have always, for
reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the 'endless stream of
crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox
on to the doormat' has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally
not seen the other letters to which you refer I would cautiously
suggest that their being from 'pauper councils, Lombardy pirate
banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers' might indicate that your
decision to 'file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies' is
at best a little ill-advised. In common with my own organisation, it
is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a 'lackwit
bumpkin' or, come to that, a 'sodding charity'. More likely they see
you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute
to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.

Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of
truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay 'go to shore up the
canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services', a
moment's rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion
that the government in any way expects you to 'stump up for the whole
damned party' yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor's
disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are,
in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is
spent on 'junkets for Bunterish lickspittles' and 'dancing whores'
whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for
example, 'that box-ticking facade of a university system.'

A couple of technical points arising from direct queries: 1. The
reason we don't simply write 'Muggins' on the envelope has to do with
the vagaries of the postal system;

2. You can rest assured that 'sucking the very marrows of those with
nothing else to give' has never been considered as a practice because
even if the Personal Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer
medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any
way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to
point out that even if you did choose to 'give the whole foul jamboree
up and go and live in India' you would still owe us the money. Please
send it to us by Friday.

Yours sincerely,
H J Lee
Customer Relations

i don't usually receive such good ones. i felt i had to share.

eeny-meeny-miny...

well, it was jagermeister, but nevermind. the organizer and i went off to zinc; he's friends with the manager, and we got hit with round after round. in addition to the pint of guiness i'd ordered. i consumed a large quantity of seafood-pasta, but it wasn't enough to cancel out the visual noise.

we went to the lincoln - spot and i have put up with weeks of being told how "we'll see"... i won 5 out of 5, and the only reason there weren't any complete whitewashes was because i didn't want to hurt his feelings more than i already had. unfortunately, he noticed that i deliberately took impossible shots, so it didn't really help :P

he dropped me off at home, and i showered and crashed. lord knows how i made it out of bed 6 hours later, to dazedly make my way to meet nystire, and go and look at this apartment. it still needs to be renovated... which will take months... but it looks good, and it's in a great area. afterwards, we went for a slow walk (including a rather good bagel breakfast), and a stop by the tattoo parlour. the guy who did my tattoo was shocked when he saw my nipple-ring:
"when did you do that?!"
"erm... i came to visit... and you weren't in..."

i have to get the colour redone as soon as the humidity drops below that sweat-doesn't-evaporate point. thank you moonflake, for defining that so nicely ;)

i spent about half a sweaty hour with resurrection, and walked out of her room straight into tesla. who looked like she'd just gotten up, walking around half-asleep in a shift... OMG she's too sexy for words. instant *DOH!*, i totally messed up there. i sat with the two of them over coffee, then walked a bit with resurrection before making my way to work.

guess what was on my mind :S
i spoke with yogi about my predicament when i got in, and he gave me the solution that i hope i have the balls to carry out: i simply have to suggest a threesome. and take the slap in the face if that's what's coming to me, or take the glory (well, maybe not glory. maybe just the satisfaction of shagging such a gorgeous girl. no, no. definitely glory).

anyway, i managed to do something incredibly useful here at work... i'm actually quite proud of myself. hell, what i just did made my week of faffing worthwhile ^_^

from DailyComedy:
Arrest Made in Ramsey Case
Police have arrested 41-year-old John Mark Karr in connection with the 1996 murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. Karr says he killed the little girl accidentally, though admitted to drugging and raping her.


whoops. but Anna Konda is totally awesome.

now to go home and shower, and then i'm off to her place for supper.

about time, too

well, okay, it's not really his karma catching up with him. it's these people.

ha - i'm still laughing at the organizer. he was sitting eating pizza somewhere, and this girl walked in:

he's head over heels. no shit. when i asked why he didn't do anything about it, he told me that he froze with the pizza halfway to his mouth... and that was it.

i got stuck with a piece of code that really should be simple - but then, this isn't the first time i've worked with the provider's apis. i kinda expected this. doesn't make it easier to swallow, however.

and now - off - to the weekend!

TGIT and The Flaw

today was a thursday. a week that flew by frighteningly fast, and one in which i didn't do nearly as much as i would have liked. most of today was relaxed, and i spent it playing spider solitaire, uno, and reading neuromancer.

i did work as well - all the horrible shit i had to deal with yesterday? i received new instructions: undo the most complicated of those changes (invalidating most of the really nasty comments i'd included), in order to redo them in a completely different way. which led me to the discovery of *why* the code was so badly written... or re-discovery... the f-star-ckers who wrote this shit were SO stupid, that they added a few radio buttons, with the same meaning as the constants they'd already defined, and gave them completely arbitrary values. and then worked around that.

*that* requires a bullet to the head.

the only other thing that interested me today is the quantity of pull-ups i did. i even did some of them while gripping my chair with my legs, and taking it with me ^_^

so that was the army day. it looks like i'm meeting up with resurrection tonight, and tomorrow nystire and i are off to view an apartment. now to get to work. i'm so bloody lazy though...

oh, and please notice, i've "upgraded" my template (although i used ms-paint, and i suck). just because.

beef sammich

the battery for my mp3 player died on the bus home last night. everything was eerily quiet until i walked into my apartment.

i found waking up this morning incredibly difficult: i was having totally spanktastic and fantesticle dreams based on tokyo drift. it involved my father's (now brother's) mercedes sports car after some insane mods and decal work, with me being particularly badly behaved behind the wheel.

*sigh*

it was a pleasant day today. in the morning, we went to "celebrate" the dude's birthday, and were treated to a long, completely bullshit speech where everyone who knows him was grinning like an idiot because we were certain he was doing it on purpose. i spent a large part of the morning figuring out how those bastards that i replaced had gotten their spaghetti-code to work, and realizing *just* how stupidly they'd done it. then i went off with a girl from our team to azrieli, to meet up with a friend of hers for lunch.

guess who had a roast beef sammich for lunch.

okay, three guesses. and the first two don't count. [sorry, it's been a while since i got to say that]

i came back to an afternoon of pink floyd (there're more of us than them. hah!), and i finished one of the nastier upgrades we have for the next quarter. i watched a really disappointing group of "soldiers" abysmally attempting to march in formation - these are desk-jockeys, you twerps, not real soldiers! i had more coordination when i was five!

neuromancer kicks ass. again. better, even, if that's possible.

i had another roast beef sammich for supper (i asked for the sammich-surprise, and surprise! it's the same as i had earlier!), and have just received a list of new projects.

it's 22 degrees, and i'm freezing. when i expressed shock (perfect temperature is 22 degrees, after a fun conversation with cuz (don't panic), so apparently i really have acclimatized :S
the tail-end of our conversation:
totalwaste says:
i can't wait to break out the army jacket and gloves, and thermal pads, and wear two pairs of socks, and special rain-pants, and have my cheeks turn blue
and right now, i'm just sweaty and icky, and i can't be arsed to move in case i sweat more
cuz says:
there is something to be said for extremes, though
totalwaste says:
yes. they suck
cuz says:
yup. that was it exactly.

and helping charif with an insane c project - i can't believe they gave these poor bastards a full application for a homework assignment. gives me a bit of exercise, though ;)

messy code

amazon's comments aren't very helpful:
real-time
dsp
looks like i'm in need of a gibson-style chip to slot into the port in the back of my head... oh, right. i don't have a compatible port. i *knew* i shoulda gone sony, huh? :P

aside from that, i've managed to clear a few hurdles tonight in one of my projects, and i'm pretty much ready to roll. with that, i bid myself adieu...

pretty girls on the bus

my response to moonflake:
nobody had a problem with IVF because there aren't enough movies featuring an IVF-bred "human" as the cause of a catastrophic event. what we need is a series of successful movies showing luddites as the cause of our downfall. (not exactly what i wrote, and i'm only rewriting it here because i'm not sure it was posted correctly)

if you haven't clicked on the sidebar link to don't panic, do so now.

the fun bit for today: the mongoose informed me that he was reading an article written by SB, in the israeli men's magazine. i skipped off to buy myself a copy - seriously sexy photo, and an incredibly amusing read. (no, that's NOT her in the picture above). the terrible thing is that i suddenly realized that i forgot to call her on her birthday last week. :S

my day in two paragraphs: i was surrounded by sexy girls on my way to the base this morning. most of the day was spent with various cute girls on the base. went for lunch with the team (ate good, but all-too-cheesy gnocci) where a couple of the waitresses were foxy (got eyed in return, but no action taken), and i was squished between lookers on the bus to work. let's just say i did a lot of appreciatin' today.

the rest of the day was mostly spent dealing with disgusting code, fighting with the idiot girl in our team because she can't stand pink floyd (and i received an awesome gift of most of their albums from nystire and his teammate this morning), and the kid and i are officially at the end of our secondment again - indicating that we've been in the new team for ages (alright, like six months, i'm too lazy to check).

now to buy myself a book of amazon.com, and hope it's a good one (i need DSP and realtime... any suggestions?).

cute tip
why do i always miss this kind of thing?

holy socks

i missed my bus last night :( so i'm kinda in a hurry now...

got a call as i got home - the annoying dude not only arrived late, but forgot his key. fortunately yogi managed to find someone else to sort out that shit, but the conversation we had was none-too-pleasant.

i accidentally left the hot-water cyclinder on again. DAMN, that's annoying.

i put on socks with uncomfortably large holes this morning, picked up my laundry, hopped on the bus, and to be honest, most of today was none too interesting. aside from terrible punning, from which the acronym for my soldier-status suddenly became "hamas" ("chayal mesubach", or "complicated soldier")... that turned out to have unusually entertaining results :P

oh, yes. GREAT volleyball. i may be smelly, but i'm happy and smelly.

other than that, i had that chat with my landlord, and things seem alright. in any event, nystire has found a potential apartment ^_^
work has been quite productive, pandora's helped out ;), and it's time to go home.

anger mis-management

i got some good work done tonight. i'm extremely pleased with myself. some of it got done in spite of some serious irritation: while in the middle of doing some tweaking for debugging, seriously into my train of thoughts, spot finished what must have been a very unpleasant phone call.

he screamed out in frustration (it appears), and i screamed back at him to shut up and let me concentrate. to which he began on a series of comments which did nothing to help me get back into what i was doing, each comment causing me to shout at him to shut it, which threw me further off track.

in the end, what i was doing took longer than it needed to, and i'm still pissed. then he walked out angry. amazing how that kind of thing can snowball. i can't decide if i'm more irritated with his responses or mine.

oh well. hometime, at least.

grand freakin' weekend

it has been a long, long, LONG time.

met up with the girls (resurrection and tesla) at the lizard, and we walked into the first techno party where i thoroughly enjoyed the music. simply brilliant. the girls and i danced, and sat and talked, until roughly 6am. tesla was looking absolutely fantastic - but i couldn't go after her after i'd already begun things with resurrection (who's not bad-looking at all, but it's all relative :P). the mongoose informed me at some point that the other guys there were beginning to get upset with me monopolizing the two of 'em... i told him they could get stuffed ^_^

anyway, we drank a lot, but not too much (i'm learning when to chill - and strangely enough, plenty of shots don't do as much damage to me as a pint of beer. odd.), and tesla disappeared when things began taking their course with resurrection (okay, i'll admit. i'd been hoping to go home with both of them. bummer). when the party began shutting down, and everyone was hinted at most politely to get the fuck outta there, we began moving in the direction of my place.

we sat talking on a bench for a couple of hours, then took a cab to my place. we pretty much went straight to sleep, and until midnight we spent the day alternating between dozing and shagging.

it has been a long, long, LONG time.

i haven't felt that comfortable with a girl since forever, and everything was just right. there's nothing i appreciate more than a woman who can put thinking out of the picture when it comes to the fun stuff ;)

around midnight, we took a taxi to her place, and i said goodnight and walked to the lizard, stopping for a sandwich when i registered that i hadn't eaten anything since the night before. the party at the lizard was great; i stood and chatted for a while, then walked slowly and merrily home and put myself to bed.

...

waking up this morning went way better than i'd expected. on the bus, i ran into my teammate who'd gotten carded thursday night; discovered that she'd properly managed to lose her soldier's id. that'll get her in shit. it was the friendliest bus-ride to base i can remember, and we got there in time to do the morning rounds.

a surprisingly large part of the day was spent arguing about that foxy russian girl i was introduced to the other day. everybody has a different rating system, and our CO's DYING to see what she looks like :D

we got some work done today, we got lots of fun stuff in too, and that air force transfer looks to be rolling onto the runway.

i've been at work for three hours now, and have only just finished catching up on emails and news. now for the graft.

oh yes... and linkage:
pandora is the most awesome thing i've come across. ROCKS!!
interesting commentary:

at age 18, most israeli youths enter the armed services, where a battery of psychological and intelligence tests identify the most intelligent and promising inductees. while their u.s. counterparts are still deciding on a major in college, young israelis are being asked to fly jets, oversee projects under wartime deadlines and conduct other urgent tasks.

great journalism - photo fraud in lebanon
israeli water tech
more paranoia: liquid explosives

broiled brain

guess who wasn't paying attention? again?? sunday's nasty wake-up was sunstroke-driven. last night another smack to the top of the head was felt, in all its glory.

that realization concerning sunday morning made it clear that the electronic security boys had the wrong guy - i wasn't on base early sunday morning, when the incident occurred. hah!

anyway, i came into work to write that last blogpost - what i failed to mention is that after speaking to the boss, i walked into my office. spot was snoring offensively, and the "lead" (who's now definitely in the dog-box as far as i'm concerned) was sitting there attempting, apparently for the first time in his career, to write documentation post-hoc. and after the shit he pulled with our provider previously, he had the gall to "joke" that he'd called them up to ask them how to do it.

i ***ing FLIPPED. it took five minutes to ascertain that he hadn't really done something that stupid. during that period of not-keeping-my-voice-lowered, spot finally came to, with a stupid look on his face.

"so, spot? how's the work going? not too hard on you, i hope?" i bloody well KNOW how much work he has to get through, and i KNOW how behind he is on everything, and he had the audacity to say that he had to wait for the "lead" to do the documentation before he could proceed. i must look REALLY stupid. maybe somebody tattooed "iq=age" on my forehead when i wasn't looking?

as i've said to the boss, i'm not interested in getting involved. no more babysitting for me, i got plenty of that in the army. all i have to say is that spot has really disappointed me for the last time. i'm simply never going to give him another opportunity to prove himself.

i left, bussed to the train station, where the kid picked me up. he's a little too enthusiastic about completing a DBA course for my liking... anyway, we had a fun drive to ariel - got completely lost in netanya somehow, and finally arrived at our SC's. nice house, great food, and we had a good time. my TL and i sat talking in a corner for a while, and i'm finally in the loop as far as section politics go :P, and i finally got him to understand where i'm coming from as far as the afternoon nap requirement is concerned - not that he's willing to let me, but he understands why i'm half-asleep most of the day.

during the drive, our provider called me from the states to approve something - i can't say that didn't make me feel important >P

we went through to ra'anana, intending to go to a really nice nargila bar; but one of the girls got carded. not only is it illegal / silly to not carry id in israel... we're currently at war. and this is a soldier. okay, a "soldier". still, WTF?

so the kid took me home, and i crashed.

nystire woke me up, all confused-like, and an hour later i met with him for breakfast and a long conversation. in retrospect, i'm rather impressed with myself for not just simply passing out; the heat really got to me. oh, and i discovered that the apartment i've been promised for the end of the month isn't nearly complete. i'm going to have a right-pleasant chat with the landlord this week (i need an emoticon for a snarl, do we have an emoticon for a snarl? anybody?)

i went back to sleep, eventually getting up in the early evening. i ate some instant-couscous (always good), and began reading (*GASP*) a book in hebrew (a real one! not for children!) about the first lebanon war. i'm struggling with words here and there, but aside from that it's brilliantly written, and interesting to boot. and to be honest, if i didn't have any experience in the army, i wouldn't be able to appreciate it properly.

around 9pm i began walking through tel aviv, searching for an atm that was not only open, but had cash. that turned out to be quite a mission, and i eventually got to the lizard (that's a real round-trip, btw) around 10.30pm. good, eclectic selection of music, fun-looking crowd, and the girl from last weekend just called to say she'll be there in another half-hour or so. i'm only here because the mongoose has begun working already, so it was kinda boring and i am addicted to the intarweb :/

ah, reminders of home: the mongoose prepared me a suitcase, and a jaagermeister/redbull with the shot glass upside-down in the regular glass... i miss the m bar!

impressive!

solved

!

i was right, i had been doing it wrong. i got frustrated, went and sat on the stairs for a smoke, when inspiration smacked into the back of my newly-shaved and slightly-toasted noggin'. i figured it all out, and left with the organizer just as the annoying dude arrived.

good timing!

scored a ride home, with some extremely interesting dialogue, and immediately showered, brushed teeth, and went to bed.

this morning i woke up early for the inspection, only to discover when i got there that it'd been cancelled. i didn't get the email - apparently i no longer belong to the mailing list of our unit. oh, well. no more inspections for me, then.

-- PLEASE BEAR IN MIND, THIS BLOG IS FOR MY PERSONAL USE AS A JOURNAL, SO I'M ALLOWED TO LEAVE CRYPTIC MESSAGES WITH NO EXPLANATIONS. DEAL WITH IT - YOU'RE JUST A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION (or is that the other way around?) --

worked kinda hard this morning, and did some escorting regarding a really unpleasant story that's not mine to tell. it's a sucky story. there was good news for me in the same chapter; but that's all in the air anyway, a little touch-and-go and i-don't-know. but i'm as excited as he's unhappy... i'm now wondering if he's going to convince me to be otherwise.

a few of us went off to lunch at my original base again. afterwards, i went to the shooting range, just for kicks. thoroughly enjoyed it.

back to base, back to work. that cute girl and i sat for a bit, and seem to have unofficially agreed not to persue. i think. it's all very unclear.

and that discipline officer? i didn't get a chance to use a line i'd thought up during inspection (due to lack of inspection), but i ran into her in the evening, and managed a pretty good introduction ;)

our electronic security boys thought i'd done something wrong, and sent me a really cute report (with my picture and everything) about it. i managed to demonstrate that i hadn't done anything wrong; it was a bit awkward because i *knew* i hadn't done anything wrong. and the strangest part is i was actually elated when they agreed to let it go.

i came to work to discuss some details and write this crap, now i'm off to meet with the kid. on the bus here, i was eyeing a really pretty girl standing near me; that was all. she smiled and said goodbye as she walked off the bus - made me feel good ^_^

stole the link from moonflake's comments: dance monkeys dance - i've seen it before, but a reminder is always good.

scary little girls; enticing women

today is the israeli equivalent of valentine's day. apparently there's no particular reason for it being on this specific date, but whatever.

not quite the first time i'm mentioning it. i pretty much don't shut up about it, but every now and again it creeps into my blog. i spent quite a lot of time with a great girl on our base today... amusing conversations and a little bit of physical torture, interspersed with a semi-massage and a head-rub (i shaved my head ^_^)... and then a conversation in messenger where she told me that i should rather go looking for girls my own age.

that *hurt*. i lie. that *really* annoyed me.

half-asleep, i made it to base almost on time today. i sat outside my office for half an hour, having stolen a sandwich from the guys downstairs and having a smoke. when i walked in, our whole section was sitting in my office, one of the guys giving a lecture.

whoops.

the tension was half-broken, half-increased, when one of the girls began singing "happy birthday" to me. funny as hell, though.

not-quite awake, and having missed half the lecture, and the lecture being in hebrew, i was in over my head. after about 10 minutes i dispensed with the heroics, and went missioning around the base. i got back to my office just as the lecture was finishing, did a bit of work, then went and got my hair thrown off.

we had a really good lunch just outside our base. my commander was laughing because every cute girl who walked past us greeted me, and he told everyone about something that i did yesterday that sounded way more impressive than it actually was. after such a strong story, i was actually too embarrassed to tell them what i'd whispered into the girl's ear to get the response i did (and, in context, the response wasn't as interesting as i would've liked) - so they just assumed that i have some super-secret and perfected technique... for getting whatever it is that my commander *thinks* i got out of it...

i kind feel like george costanza from seinfeld.

some of the afternoon was interesting, some of it wasn't, and here i am at work.

because spot reads this, there's a bit of office-politicking that i can't reveal... there will be no tipping scales on my watch. if he reads this, it'll drive him nuts, which isn't such a bad thing. my aim is to give spot an anneurism before he hits 25.

anyway - that spillage i mentioned yesterday? we performed testing on the data... and it's PERFECT. i'm thrilled and pissed off at the same time. so i sent through a formal request for an addition to our provider's api, and we're now negotiating the additions.

in the meanwhile, i have to figure out what i'm doing wrong with another of their api functions. this time, it's almost guaranteed to be my fault :S

it being the day of love and all... that dead-sexy waitress that didn't pitch a couple of weeks ago? she managed to get my number from spot (thank you spot, you've actually managed to do right once again), and called me up. we're now on for friday night, a completely open date. yay! TOOK BLOODY LONG ENOUGH.

and now to do some actual work.

two months = spillage

i arrived home last night around midnight. spot disturbed me midway through a mango (a really good one!) to ask about the weekly trance party that i've been aching to go to. bastard. he just informed me that it was excellent.

as i got into bed, i received an sms from my commander, and two minutes later yogi called to scream at me about spot fucking up something i'm not involved in at all.

i guess nobody likes the idea of a well-rested totalwaste...

anyway, i suffered yet another crap wake-up this morning. i arrived at base on time though, and spent as much of the morning relaxing as possible. there was a bit of work to be done, but hey :/

lunch was big-time disappointing after yesterday's... there was no work to be done in the afternoon, so i spent most of it reading. exceptions: a visit from a friend of mine, during which he introduced me to an absolutely stunning russian girl who's just begun a course on our base. so young, and apparently none-too-bright, but a complete knock-out.

oh, yeah. and me having to inform my TL about something i've been doing behind his back. turned out that he did know, just hadn't said anything - and he seemed alright with it :) (*phew*)

i began re-reading neuromancer - damn, but william gibson's writing is TOO good. i suddenly realized that it was 6pm already, and because of that i came in to work 45 minutes late :S

my boss has just introduced me to something that makes us all out to be idiots - apparently the primary project that i'm still struggling with has been fully implemented by the provider on their side, and nobody thought to inform me about it. turns out that there's a chance that i just need to ask them to provide me the data that they already have.

DAMMIT!!

mess hall treat

last night i was talking to someone in haifa using messenger - she was descibing the explosions she could hear at the time, and i asked her why she wasn't in the bomb shelter. "fate and destiny", she said. she's from johannesburg, so i can kinda understand the nonchalance.

but here's the point: it's like falling onto train tracks. you can call it fate, or destiny, or a push from an asshole behind you - but it's up to *you* whether you roll out of the way before the train arrives. by believing that the train is supposed to hit you, you're committing suicide.

after work: did some Cerious Selebrating at the lizard last night. lots of jumping up and down, and shouting, and drinking, and more drinking. around 1.30, a friend of spot's dropped me off at home, and two seconds later spot called me to say they were eating about 5 minutes' walk away. i'd barely eaten during the day, so i joined them for a toasted sammich before going home, showering, and passing out.

this morning was the most comfortable hell imaginable. for no less than 45 minutes, i *manually* snoozed my alarm. that means pressing stop, then resetting the alarm to go off no more than 3 minutes from now. that's a lot of alarm setting, and i still hadn't woken up by the time i dragged my sorry ass out of bed.

and i still had to go pick up my laundry - i made it to the bus just in time, and was most surprised :)

today was difficult, because i was completely wasted for its entirety. i got some work done in spite of myself, though.

two of us went through to my original base, and discovered that the food there is DECENT. and there's ENOUGH. and the mess hall is CLEAN. completely different (180 degrees) from what we're used to, and we actually felt out of place :S

the afternoon wiped me out - heat and exhaustion. i managed to crash for about half an hour in nystire's office, but that didn't help as much as harm.

work has been great - i've been in talks with our dealers, and am about to close talks with our providers... no coding, but extremely productive. and the sushi helped, too. now i'm off home.

(dammit, i missed my bus :/)

israeli's have no tact. but they can be bloody hysterical! all the important parts are in english, the hebrew's pretty funny too, but not crucial.

gorgeous weekend

walked through to meet with spot at our regular, erm, coffee spot. we sat discussing good vs. evil, and how to save the world, and then made our way (only doubling back once because spot forgot his credit card :D) through to the russian bar.

it was a fun evening, of which we spent the last few hours with a couple of cute girls playing pool. around 7am, i took a phone number before we all got thrown out. spot and i walked up the beach, sat with some iced-coffee for a while, and then went to his grandma's. she was delighted to see me, as always :P

the two of us got caught up reading about 419 eaters - some of their scams are really worth listening to all the details.

i showered, then crashed for an hour. i woke up for a proper argentinian breakfast - solid piece of meat (although i still can't believe that you're supposed to eat the fat. i gave up trying near the end.) with potatoes and salad. shortly afterwards, we made our way through to the beach.

it took a long walk through an extremely talented beach to find the organizer (the guy from the office who got the tickets) and his girl, and i went straight for the water (it was a painfully hot and humid day). after getting an opportunity to see how bad spot is with beach bats, we went to meet some friends of his. after basic introductions, i passed out in an almost identical position to this old photo.

i woke up about half an hour to an hour later, dehydrated and having had too much sun. still did just fine in a round of frisbee, and then organized iced-coffee and sat down for some amusing conversations. as it began getting dark, we moved to mike's place, where we had the full breakfast (damn. that breakfast ROCKS.), and guinness, and met some more people.

sammy picked me and spot up, and we went through to the lincoln to play some pool. we eventually left around 1.30am, after playing fun but awful pool (i just sucked the whole gorram weekend). we ran into the two girls from the bar on the way out - i'm left wondering... they live close to my place, and seem keen - too good to be true...

sammy dropped me off at home, where i showered all the sand off, and then crashed HARD. my alarm must've been going off continuously for an hour this morning. i was 45 minutes late on base, after the hardest wake-up i can recall. it must be said that my recall doesn't extend very far at the moment. the later bus rides are definitely more pleasant than the early ones.

it was a pleasant day in the army. it began with a scare - apparently our system had done something REALLY wrong - but after a panicked hour we figured out that everything was just dandy. i love our client section.

aside from the above, i didn't really get too much work done until the afternoon, and the food wasn't too bad. and there's a new group of cute young girls (fresh meat for the grinder? too accurate, considering what army food does to girls' bums) to ogle.

the air force transfer? looking good. apparently, that interview i was distraught over two weeks ago didn't go as badly as i'd thought. *bounces happily*

fifteen minutes before i was due to leave, our client section called again. turned out we were having serious issues with a mechanism that we've only recently managed to get working (after many years of work-arounds and people having to babysit, instead of the bastards just FIXING it).
it took half an hour, with some assistance, to discover that sometimes, for no apparent reason, windows services cease to function correctly, and report that lack of operation as "doing just great - don't worry about me!". we got it working again, but i arrived at the office half an hour late.

the boss walked in two minutes after me, and handed me my pay-check. "don't tell me that's not a good way to say hi," he smiled. i *do* like working here. and coupled with the news about the transfer: i'm a happy camper.

i've actually done some work tonight. and soon spot and i are off to the lizard, for a farewell party for the as-of-tonight ex-owner / boss. he's off to study in mit, and there goes having a good bar right close by.

aside from that - happy, happy! joy, joy!

addendum

smart cookie

and i enjoyed the irony of psychotic american / arab nations. i felt i should share that.

the world under one banner

my word - there're a lot of them. now meeting in malaysia, to discuss how to get rid of us... under regular circumstances, business as usual.

to quote dennis miller:
Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five Million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it.

i really do feel like i'm sitting inside a pack of matches. i find endless amusement in reading comments posted all over news-sites. fantastic that people all over the world actually pay attention to the crap on al-jazeera.

here we go with the flashback:
once upon a time, in the year 2000CE (or AC, depending on who's counting), i lived with psychotic american. for a number of reasons, which i'd rather not list in one place (it'd be creepy), we didn't get along.

in fact, we did "didn't get along" extremely well. i was rather busy - studies, work, and girlfriend. he spent all day fantasizing about being the next john doe (se7en), or ikara gendo (neon genesis evangelion). i didn't have the desire / time / energy to stroke his ego, and he got nasty. he did some really horrible things, and some very unsettling things, and i'd had enough.

so i made a deal with him. i'd stay out of his life, and he'd stay out of mine. this worked for a day; then spot, a friend of spot's, and i arrived home at 3am, to discover a world of post-it notes with some, erm, interesting things written on it.

the first one being "you can stick our deal up your bisexual ass". last time i checked, i'm not bisexual. but that's not relevant. a short while later, i moved out. after a couple of weeks, i'd all but forgotten about him. and aside from an incident here or there, the next couple of years were sans-psycho.

during my last year of studies, i was introduced to a really cute girl at a party. she'd been in israel a couple of months, i'd never seen her before. when i told her my name, her eyes widened: "so YOU'RE the guy that burned down his primary school!"

WTF? we sat down for a very strange conversation, where i learned that she'd been living with psychotic american, and he was still obsessed with me. and telling some very obscure stories.

every time he comes to mind, i wonder at what point he's going to begin whatever it is he's planning for the people on his list.

back to present:
israelis and arabs get along like gasoline and tires in the middle of a lightning storm. shit happens. ok, we're surrounded by them, but nevermind. they've got oil, we've got orange juice, and everybody wins.

we have so many internal problems in this country, that it's a wonder we haven't come to outright civil-war... but then, "the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death."

aside from the arsim, but we let them be because they're stupid. and like parktown prawns, there ain't nothing you can do about 'em.

anyway, throughout our communal history we've made deals to stay out of each other's lives. the problem is that the arabs obsess, and *hate* us with a driving passion that leads them not only to lie to the rest of the world, but to themselves as well. it's not that nobody knows about this stuff. but their propaganda machine is so well-integrated - and as for memes, the muslim meme is a particularly potent and aggressive one. forget about tolerance.

after having finally managed to extricate ourselves from lebanon, and putting them out of mind (aside from an incident here and there), years have passed, and we've suddenly discovered that the feelings weren't quite mutual.

in my opinion, one of the most important things that we can do about our present - and future - situation, is to create a message, and get it heard. see, we don't think we need to have a message. we're a country of people, each one trying to make his own path in life. we're HUMAN. and civilized too, but i'm not going into my general critique of what it means to be civilized.

wafa sultan makes an excellent point about the contributions jews and israelis have made to the world. part of the reason we can make those contributions is that we can't be fucked to spend all our time hating our neighbours and figuring out ways to get at them. we have our little matchbox, and somehow it's enough. hell, we're even sharing it with arabs.

so i guess my question is as follows: how do we get the arab world interested in advancing and competing with other civilized nations? and taking care of their own problems?

how do we get the psychotic americans of this world interested in doing something positive and meaningful with their lives?

how do we cause these people to take satisfaction in creating, instead of destroying?

you see, if we can't answer these questions... if we can't realize good solutions... we've got violent and criminally insane door-to-door salesmen on our hands. israel's the first door on a long road. the man inside is defending his home, but the number of salesmen coming down the road is increasing rapidly (hell, they're taking over the EU at the moment). they're not going to be satisfied with selling the man inside things he doesn't want. they'll be satisfied when they've lynched the poor blighter - if they can lynch him, they'll have the confidence to raise their sights.

that image above? that could be the only flag this world is left with.

or maybe i'm wrong. maybe it's just personal.

dreaming real fantasy

i just walked in on one of the guys (the one who organized me the backstage pass) listening to some really good house. i went through to the muthafm site, and found this.

*bawls* i wanna go home!! where the parties are great (last year's were a perfect example), and the girls are fantabulous! where good alcohol is cheap and the bars are clean! and where the beach has white sand! and the food is good! and the people are friendly (when they're not threatening / violating your person)! where i can speak the language! and i have transport! where my family and friends are! where i don't have to behave because there aren't any real police around!

...

anyway, so spot and i left around 00.30, and arrived at the lincoln after the aforementioned stunner had already left. we ran into my TL and some friends, who left shortly afterwards so we didn't get to show them some pool. which is a good thing, 'cause for most of the night i didn't actually play any. what i did involved pool cues and pool balls, and every now and again a pocket, but basically - i sucked.

it's the first time in a very long time that spot actually beat me. we played until roughly 3.30, by which time they were only to happy to be rid of us.

on the way back to the lizard, spot and i had a major argument over "out-of-bounds". the bastard knows how i feel about the aforementioned waitress, and in spite of that he asked her out the same night she told me to come yesterday. charming, spot. great friend, you are.

the lizard was closed, so i sponsored him a cab home and then took a walk. halfway, i realized i had my mp3 player, so i blasted my brain with psy-trance. when i got home, i spent about 15 minutes bouncing like a madman, then showered and went to bed.

now i is back at the work. at least i don't feel stressed, for the first time since... mmm... last weekend?

protoplasm and i were talking on messenger: just before i closed the window, i glanced at his pic - a stoned-looking counter-surfer about to snatch a cookie. (sorry, boet - had to steal it :P)

serendipity

oh - and i spoke to my mum tonight. she and my sister weren't planning on going to my nephew's barmitzvah... my brother's been a bit of an asshole lately.

anyway, my mom's now going - her company's sending her to johannesburg for work, and it just happens to be the right weekend. and my sister's not - her company's voted her employee of the year (i think), and is sending her off to the caribbean, and it just happens to be the right weekend.

:P gotta love it.

cluttered mind?

i spoke to my tallest last night - i was most amused when i received an sms from him just before arriving home, asking if i was sleeping. made me laugh - he doesn't have a clue what i'm up to... reminds me of my current TL, but that's for a bit later.

we actually had a pleasant chat - i'd forgotten that in spite of our differences, we didn't get along so badly in the past. and i can't say i didn't appreciate the approval when i informed him of my plans for the morning.

the morning came, and i made my way to the induction base. my ordeal lasted about two hours, and i walked out feeling violated. i discovered, not to my complete surprise, that once again our client section had lied to us, and *had* made changes before the bug surfaced. i sat there as they reset what they'd done, and tested again, and made a couple of trips to find relevant material for me to pore over.

they laughed when i left all the heavy stuff; the only helpful-looking article was about 10 sheets of paper :P

i arrived back to my base, and the kid and i spent an hour going through the code. he found something weird, eventually: we then discovered that the updates from the client side hadn't been compiled properly.

that's what happens when nobody bothers to read the instructions.

so i called up the fool responsible, and gave him step-by-step instructions (probably quite offensive in their simplicity - either that, or that's what he needed), and informed him that if compilation fixed the problem, he's the person we're blaming for this monumental screw-up and waste of our time, energy and frustration.

we went off for lunch, and came back to discover that all our problems were solved. schmucks.

during the lunch period, i got an opportunity to sit a while with the new cute discipline officer. baby-steps... ;)
i suppose i'd sleep with her just because of her job (and that she's not unattractive). that's kinda sad.

the bull finally caught me for a personal interview. in the summary for the interview, he included a statement about the air force transfer... and sent it off with my TL as a cc. my TL has had no idea that any of that stuff had been going on. not - even - a clue.

i was a bit embarrassed... but i had to ask if not having included him was alright. turned out to be fine, but i was definitely worried there for a minute. i'm wondering what his response will be when he reads the mail :S

speaking of his responses - he walked in on three of us playing a networked game of yaki (or taki, or uno, or whatever)... he wasn't too impressed. fortunately the others disconnected from my server when they heard him come in, so by the time he'd asked me to close it, it had already closed itself :P

work has been a bit annoying... the ball's in the provider's court for every project at the moment. not a single thing that's not a screw-up from their side. i was reading news with my feet on the chair, when the CEO walked in. flashback from the army; i was actually quite flustered.

and then yogi started complaining about something the lead is responsible for, that was no longer relevant. i didn't know that, so we had a few upset people (including the lead) until it was all sorted out. and that annoying sod is back, and driving me bloody crazy.

thank you, spot:
hello all you tiny insignificant network users!
muahahahaha
...
thank you!
- your friendly neighborhood netadmin

and thank you for asking me before sending it to everyone in the company.

i just spoke to the lead - i have two new projects. yay. ENOUGH! FUN!

still sucky

i'm feeling hammered. i'm still suffering big-time from our provider's mess. the only positive thing to come out of this evening: spot gave me a clue as to how to proceed with the problem in our army systems.

i can't *wait* for tomorrow.

not so happy about wednesday

all was good until i got to base this morning. the kid was guarding, and i got a phone call alerting me to the fact that a montrous section of our systems is experiencing technical difficulties.

it's a side of our system that hasn't been touched in years, and nobody - not even our beloved previous TL - has any clue how it works. or why it does what it does. i don't remember ever scanning code so repulsive and confusing. and i can't understand a damn thing from the comments (we won't talk about my hebrew incompetence).

and because it's almost the end of the week - a fact which i'd been celebrating cerebrally - we're under intense pressure; if they'd informed us two months ago, when the problems began, we'd have been better prepared. now we're supposed to finish fixing it in less time than is realistic for learning what it is and where it comes from.

my headache is unreal, my team upset about the screams of anguish. so tomorrow morning i'm off to the induction base, bright and early, to go and pick up material that should explain what's supposed to happen. oh, and my ear's still smarting from the shouting i had to put up with over the phone.

as i said to the kid this morning, before i got that call: we desperately need to improve the documentation, and quickly. it makes too many assumptions, and even if we manage to deal with it, our replacements are going to be totally screwed otherwise.

and *i* got shouted out when i came into work. the lead made a mistake on the server, and the load is unmanageable. and he's off on holiday.

and spot. BAD DOG, spot. BAD DOG. didn't we learn not to test things in production? the dealers are all upset because the new settings don't allow them to do their jobs. and i'm taking the heat because he's not in.

today sucks.