oh, wait...

and we have tickets to see the grudge ii in two hours ^v^

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

hard line

spot has just reminded me of my rebirth. granted it wasn't from a course like this... those who know me well will understand where i jumped ship.

it intrigues me that the basic tenets that this journalist speaks of go through my head constantly. the tombstone reference in particular, and the clean slate and my primary motivation in general.

of course, their commercialism is disturbing. i agree with the concept, because i'm familiar with it on my own terms - but i'm fairly sure that it's not a good idea for everyone. and besides, we need a large population of people who don't get out of their ruts in order to keep the mechanics of this world going...

erasing history

October 31st, 2006. I woke up at 8.40. Hurriedly made my belated way to the base. Was confronted by brother bear. He's now staying where I was before the current apartment. I'd forgotten to clear my history. He could be reading this, for all I know. In all the general craziness I forgot myself, and wasn't paranoid enough. Got called into an impromptu meeting. My spidey-sense warned me in time to get into full uniform before opening the door. That was a good move. We discussed a new twist in our upgrade story. I have tons more work to do than I expected. Lunch was good. I spent the afternoon fighting with piles. It took a serious speech to get him to produce something worthwhile. I was informed by other teammates that I'm being too harsh, but unfortunately it's all he responds to. I had a good meeting with daddy-o. I finally informed him of the flighty thing. He took it well, I guess he knew already. I continued working with (on) piles, then had another meeting. When I came back piles had actually managed to do something intelligent all by himself. I'm not letting up, I figure he needs at least one speech a day. The army day ended with an interesting conversation regarding s'belle; my attitude towards her has turned out to be a shared one --

mmf brought his playstation by mistake... it's a ps2. and spot foolishly informed him of his oversight :P

i hope i hope i hope i hope i hope i manage to celebrate halloween tonight! thanks, moonflake: this rocks :)

bloodletting

the alarm clocks i tried downloading last night all sucked. and my phone's one is completely out of order. sucky to have to rely on the kid to wake me up; especially seeing as he's on holiday tomorrow (today), so i'm on my own :(

i slept with a duvet last night. comfortably. winter is on it's way :S

after waking up, spot and i played around with the dosbox settings, specifially cpu cycles. i don't understand how it works (it says that below 100 becomes a percentage):
6000 - choppy, but what i've been using for syndicate
30 - literally 30 cycles, bloody stupid ****s
12000 - decent
20000 - not good at all
15000 - weirdly unuseable

spot made two cups of double-espresso based coffee, and i couldn't have mine because of the blood test. so, like a brave soldier, he drank both of them. i'm still sniggering from the look in his eyes when i got to work later on.

anyway, i hopped a bus and went to the city officer. it was a bit shocking to get there and not see a crazy line and the place packed solidly with soldiers pushing and shoving, or sitting around bored having given up pushing and shoving. i walked straight in, and about 5 minutes later i walked in to the room: the room with a huge sign outside informing visitors that the people inside taking blood are AMAZING, it's the experience OF YOUR DREAMS, and so on.

hmmmm. not at all suspicious. highly amusing :)

i walked in fairly chirpy; no more wasted than is usual without coffee. the chair was occupied by a customer being pleasured, so i was offered the opportunity OF A LIFETIME, to lie down on the bed.

fat chance. i refused, and simply sat on the edge and held my arm out expectantly. the doctor was quite taken aback, and double-checked the vein (although he'd found it easily the first time), and quizzically asked if i'd had enough to drink.

of course, i said "of course".

he put the vials on the bed - five or six of them (suddenly i wasn't feeling as confident), inserted the needle and began vacuuming.

i hadn't had enough to drink, and the doctor got panicky when my blood came out practically black.
"you didn't drink enough!"
"what? i consumed the amount i'm used to drinking!"

now shaken, he checked my status continuously for the rest of the fill-up, getting all the assistants rattled in the process.

a fun moment was when he checked to see if i was shaking - and it turned out it was him. i kept my arm steady the entire time :P

"you like watching, huh?"
"umm... yeah..."

eventually he removed the needle, and registered that i'd gone completely white. i think all the attention could've contributed to that. i was actually feeling okay, aside from a little heated.

i got up, shooing off a small entourage aiming to catch me if i fainted (what drama!), and assured the doctor that i'd have something to drink when i got outside. as i walked through the curtain into the now-filled waiting room, he came running after me in a last attempt to get me to sit down with a glass of water.

"i'm fine! i'll get something outside!"
"don't you go causing me problems!"

everybody in the waiting room was instantly in WTF-mode. that kept me laughing all the way to azrieli center, by which stage the doctor's behaviour had made me sufficiently paranoid to *have* to get something solid in me.

spot laughed when i told him what that was: coffee and a brownie. to be fair, i *did* drink plenty of water at a cooler on the way :D

private pile (now piles, because he reminds me of them) has been very lucky, his code review has been moved to tomorrow, and he's nowhere near completion. because he's a bloody whiner, and needs a proper babysitter. i'm being replaced by a moron.

a friend of mine surreptitiously provided me with a wedding invitation; he's invited very few people so he doesn't want it spread around. i had to call smiler (the girl the kid and i ate with last week) outside for a "private chat" in order to give her hers; it's really weird sneaking around our own section like that.

i got tasked with replacing our recently broken-down printer, and i ran around the base carrying the printer, each section sending me off to another - in the end i returned with the same damn printer, and was informed that the guys i'd gone to in the first place were just messing with me >@

we had a surprisingly decent lunch. the food was okay, and there was enough. odd!

songbird's hugs are something i'm going to miss when i leave the section. i don't know if i'll be able to steal random hugs where-ever i move to next :'(

piles sucks piles. he was supremely irritating after lunch.

i met up with a really cute girl for a few minutes of really interesting conversation - a comparative look at the never-ending story and our opposing views on the matrix trilogy. i have her number, but she lives far away and has a boyfriend. too much of a headache!

my SC came into the office before we left for a little group talk about yitzchak rabin's memorial day coming up. i'd already signed up for the division trip to eilat before we spoke, he just wanted to make sure that i wasn't going to miss my "goodbye trip", as it were. it's really nice to know it's important to him that i say goodbye in style, which will involve two trips and a couple of ceremonies... i think they like me ^_^

in fact, the kid just informed me that just before i arrived for the meeting i was late for last week, he'd made a comment to the others about there not being many totalwastes and the kids, so they'd better make the best use of our time as possible :D

memories of a murdered hero - our SC and i had a short conversation aside towards the end of the talk (in english - his is improving, he's putting his money where his mouth is regarding using my time); it was a good talk, the material was interesting, but the girl (the bitch who claimed responsibility for our poster the other week) was really, REALLY boring.

piles' piles continued when we got back. he can moan like no other.

there's this cute little russian girl i've been flirting with in messenger: i stopped to say hi on my way back to the office. she was sitting with a couple of soldiers, and she asked me if, because of my age, i'm in the permanent force. everybody had a good laugh - i'm a sergeant, and aside from nystire, there's no such thing. plus my uniform's the wrong colour.

we played extremely pleasant volleyball - the weather was *just* right, and the teams were decent and well-balanced.

piles' piles continued after the game, and i walked out a little later than i should've (it costs me wages to leave after 17.30). piles.

once at work, i made a 20 minute coffee call to get my work-day started and have a fun chat with the cute girl working there. then it was upstairs for debugging, fun linux scripting (w00t! productivity +5 bonus!), and cool graphs - using php and my java application together - they finally work nicely =)

the kid called around 10pm to inform us that our couches had arrived... took long enough, but now that we've seen them and sat on them in our living room, it was totally worth it. *huge grin*

and mmf should be bringing the psOne to work tomorrow. then life will be good.

spot and i had to wait half an hour for the bus home :(
we had a really good supper (too much food!)
we met up with the kid at a bar to one side of kikar rabin. we walked home, and i've been typing / chilling since. i'm really glad that it takes me less than fifteen minutes to brush my teeth, shower, and get to bed, because i'm bloody wasted. the beer makes it more fluid, though.

sheesh. drinking in the middle of the week. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

addict! no shit! damn gamers.

so i got home and immediately (okay, hung out the washing first) began playing command & conquer. as in, the original original. i just burned my shower / sleep time. i *knew* i shouldn't have done that :(

now downloading a software alarm clock because my phone's is screwed. so sad.

NLP

ah, such a cute idea. i always wondered, and now i wonder no more.

so much for hoping that it wasn't quackery, thank you skepdic.

it's all very scientomological.

back to green

last night i was hit by a sudden burst of inspiration: i have an original c&c disk (gdi), and i have dosbox. that took me WAY too long. but it works! yeah!

i went out for a smoke just before going to bed: somebody parked their car on our bench. as in, the bum of the car "sitting" on it. bastard!
and impressive.

today was a seriously painful day. it began badly when my alarm failed to sound off... it was off, but the icon for "on" was displayed. it appears my phone is now begging to be replaced :(

and here i thought i'd treated it rather well, and given it the respect it deserves.

the kid and i arrived a little late, and got straight back to work. not enough coffee in that story as far as i'm concerned. i wrote a quick testing application for the induction base, and then hopped a bus to get there.

i figured i'd help out ru55's SO by paying the academic corps offices a visit... it's been a long, long time since i last had to deal with an officer with the disease they call sagemet: it's when an officer has recently finished the officer's course, and believes that he (she, in this case) needs to keep distance with lowly soldiers, and generally be a bastard. people like me won't have that disease if they go through the course, because they're bastards anyway.

anyway, i pissed her off right from the start: i didn't salute, i didn't ask if she was busy (hell, i was already talking to her), i offered her a hand to shake to introduce myself (what was i thinking?? "you're not a friend of mine" was her response), i sat down without being invited to (*gasp*)... and then i essentially asked her to do her job.

go me, great tact. she let me have it, and made me feel like a complete idiot (and i deserved it, dammit, i'd forgotten what the induction base people are like), and i'm hoping that our chat doesn't hurt ru55's SO's efforts :(

anyway, she did put me in touch with the people i needed to speak to - but i didn't quite get service with a smile.

cow.

anyway, our client section treated me well. they were only too happy to see me: i sorted things out, assisted them in training our new contact there (he's alright; bonus!), and got testing done. total failure, but it's a start. flashbacks from the morning's encounter followed me around the entire day, which kinda brought me down. i'm only now beginning to perk up a little.

and i ate in their mess hall - those lucky, lucky bastards! the food there is relatively decent! the place is clean! you're allowed seconds!

i returned back to our base for a couple of hours, ran through some more testing with the kid, and we ate in our mess hall. bleargh. but at least i've eaten, in ten minutes or so i have to fast for 12 hours prior to blood tests in the morning.

cleaning fumes induce general weirdness

[1] [2] [3]

<rant>
i would've continued sleeping, if spot hadn't missed a call. essentially he has automatic call forwarding to my phone, no matter what his number, service, or malfunction is. most people who call him have my number for when he doesn't answer, and most of the time the bastard doesn't answer.
</rant>

we spent the afternoon / evening cleaning, which was a mission and a half, and turned out all sorts of surprises (most of the surprises in the form of tiny dead bugs everywhere). but the place is clean.
*runs off barefoot to check*
at least everywhere aside from the kid's room :@

a friend of the kid's came over, they busy playing dangerous dave. the whole situation is kinda fucked up, but funny lol zomg wtf *SLAP*

...

right, i'm okay now. actually, we all went out for supper first - the kid found a really good spot for tortilla right near our home, the only problem is that they're logistically unprepared; we almost missed our numbers being called out :S

we then sat at la gufra for belgian waffles par excellance. i called up one of the mongoose's ex'es to invite her to join us, and had an odd moment when we said goodbye: "cheers bro" (in hebrew) just kinda came out, and when i registered my mistake i automatically switched it to feminine, but saying "goodbye sister" to her in particular is just strange.

i had to miss out on poker night with a bunch of friends :(
because of the army in the morning :(
now to put on new bedclothes, shower, sleep, and then put on uniform :(

closer

i'm sitting here listening to thunder and rain drizzling down, strong mint liquorice flavouring my morning with some memories to make me sleep well.

in particular, dancing right behind a fantastically sexy, tall and brazen goth chick (the style, i can't rightly say regarding the personality :P) when closer came on... damn, that was hot. i kinda flirted with her a bit, but not seriously - i'd rather not try than fail miserably. i suck. i suppose i'll have to climb down off my high horse, now.

i stole today's picture from here, where they have goth chick intermissions. cool.

thursday night, spot and i left work after midnight and went off to the lincoln; the pool was alright. it's been a while.

we walked back home, instead of to the balcony - ta2 informed me earlier that the bartenders were asking after us. we're definitely regulars, i guess.

friday:

i woke up, got ready, and went to pick up my tickets. i now have tickets. i'm definitely on my way south for the winter! (okay, for two weeks of said winter, but who's counting?)

i walked back, and had coffee with the kid before we went shopping. pretty serious shopping. and spot was sleeping when i arrived home with it, so i had to manage keys and the weight of a dead body in one hand simultaneously :(

i spent the afternoon napping, reading, and failing abysmally to sort out command & conquer: the first decade (it crashes on loading the original game. kills me).

in the evening, spot and i organized wine, and the three of us made kiddush (sanctifying the sabbath); that's the first time since i immigrated that i've done that in my own place. weird, but good weird. go figure.

spot found my copy of LSD — The Problem-Solving Psychedelic; extremely interesting / educational read.

i missioned off to the zamir, pretty much in two minds about whether i really wanted to go or not. the first half of the party was kinda sucky... the crowd wasn't quite fun. a little before ta2 was replaced, most of the party switched as a whole new crowd arrived, the freaks came out and the talent was remarkable.

see? i remarked on it.

memorable songs from the night:
bullet for my valentine - all these things i hate
trapt - headstrong
soil - halo
tool - the pot
manmade god - safe passage
pantera - five minutes alone

ta2 and i had a serious breakfast, and then he dropped me off here.

post over. proper rain begun. brushing teeth, going to sleep.

mind blown completely

please tell me that this link over here doesn't blow your friggin' mind!

in other news, chitty linked through to one of katt's posts that provides more food for thought than people with healthy taste would probably like.

wow - eminem shown to be a little girl's panties

cute start

so, i've now learned half of the "spirit of the IDF", and that half just needs polishing. the next half is killer though, many unfamiliar and difficult to pronounce words... and i feel like i'm running out of time.

also, i'm a bit worried that i won't get an opportunity to use it, because during inspection this morning the discipline officer didn't ask me to show it to him. on second thought, it's possible that that's because it's highly visible from 100 yards away.

so i obviously made inspection this morning, which was none too easy. the morning was spent cleaning and tidying for an inspection by the unit commander... i'm now awkwardly working at a practically empty desk because i'm going to be abandoning it soon enough anyway. i spent the day trying not to follow exactly in nystire's footsteps, but some of the people i needed to get hold of weren't available, so that's delayed my efforts until next week.

my replacement's guarding this weekend for the first time, and i'm really hoping he's not going to come back on sunday whining as much as he was leaving our office. wanker.

my commander's given me the opportunity to plan a trip up north in the next few weeks, to say farewell before i leave for south africa. i reckon i might be able to catch some snow.

i've still never seen snow.

enlarged to-do list

in order to start my morning with a cup of coffee, i had to leave a little late and arrive a little late for a major meeting. i arrived fifteen minutes late, 2.5 hours later the kid and i walked out. and our SC didn't provide more coffee :(

what he did provide was more than enough work to keep me overloaded until i leave my post. i'm not complaining, i'm just whining tired.

as i walked out, a friend of mine called me up to ask if it was possible to influence his girlfriend's army assignment. she doesn't even know what hers is yet, and what the conditions will be, and i got really annoyed with him. i got him to understand that he was being extremely selfish (what if it's an awesome job?), and told him to chill, wait and see. this is one of the few times when i've allowed myself to be irritated by a soldier's green-ness.

i stopped for a chat and a smoke with a cute support girl, then bussed to sort out my rental subsidy. that turned out to be way smoother than i expected, and by the time i have to go back in january, they'll have moved offices to the road next to our new apartment.

i friggin' LOVE our new apartment! ^_^

i got back to base in time for "lunch", and having forgotten my mp3 player on base i had time to learn a new section of "the spirit of the IDF" ;)

in the afternoon, i got the source code for something we need to test, and tomorrow morning i'm going to write a test application and hopefully be able to go off to the induction base to run it. that gives me a perfect excuse to go and speak to the guys in the academic corps; i have a couple of bones to pick with them.

i got a call back about the hotas cougar, and it turns out that not only was the number i was given even more incorrect than the previous one, but that thrustmaster products are now handled by logitech. having looked at the site, it appears that the prices are way over my budget... when i have a chance i'm going to have to find a supplier and sort that shit out anyway :P

late afternoon was alright: private pile was a tad annoying, but the rest of us kept ourselves amused and i had "supper" on base with the kid and a girl from our section who i've had problems with in the past, and has finally chilled with me :)

i came to work, and received a message from our "lead" (you know what? nql from now on.) to complain about one of my ultra-high-importance apps failing. spot and i went through the code with a fine-toothed comb, found it to be all good, and have set it up for logged testing for the next few days.

at least i now have ONE application actually running and doing what it's supposed to. it's a start, i guess. now if only i had something higher than my lowest priority working, i'd be even happier.

out in the middle of the week!

well, we all just walked back from a sweet bar next to rabin square... it's absolutely awesome being able to do that! i'm slightly, ever-so-slightly tipsy, though. *wobble*

this morning we gave private pile a serious exercise, that kept him quiet and busy for the rest of the day. so far, so good. and the kid and i went through to the post-office and organized snail-mail forwarding.

i went to the doctor today, and got organized there fairly quickly. it took about half an hour to receive my anti-tet shot, though... the medic couldn't figure out how to extract the stuff from the vial. the shot itself wasn't bad at all - and that's one injection that definitely bothers me.
it was the first injection i can remember having: i flexed and broke the needle off in my arm.

i finally remembered to check my temperature while healthy, and it turns out it's perfectly normal. so that's a relief :)

on my way out, i ran into someone i suspected would be familiar with the song i've had running through my head for weeks. and it turned out i was correct ^_^

deftones - my own summer (shove it)

during the day, i tried to organize the cougar - the company that's listed on the thrustmaster website informed me that they're no longer suppliers, and gave me a number to call. a number that promises to answer the call and never quite gets around to it. i eventually settled with leaving my number on their voicemail, and all i can do is keep trying and hope i get through :(
so disappointing.

the afternoon was cool - i napped for a bit after lunch (i really had nothing to do), and then we did some team exercise. i worked so hard i was shaking for a while afterwards, and then one of songbird's friends came for a visit so we didn't get a hell of a lot of work done.

i had a chat with our commander, we're trying to organize good conditions for the kid so that we can coerce him into becoming an officer... it would be a serious waste if he didn't leave the army with a decent rank.

work tonight (last night, it's ante-meridian now) was great - spot and i worked together and managed to get my latest app working well; the integration was fun :)

time for bed.

memory lane
but will you remember conceiving?

nystire's got me psyched

i'm gonna try and organize myself an early birthday present tomorrow. songbird lives close enough that i can send her on a mission to collect >D
nystire: thank's for the info :)

in other news, i got a decent project done today, now i'm fighting with our "lead" to fill our tracking file so that we know what he's up to :S

-- back to blogging --

i received a call on the way to the base this morning, informing me that our systems were down. the kid and i were standing in the middle of a crowded bus calling our different support groups to get them back up and running, and i spent most of that time calming our new contact (the cute girl we met a few weeks ago) down.

today was a great day as far as private pile was concerned: he's finally showing us some of that ability, and he's beginning to enjoy the work. hell, we even let him play volleyball with us in the afternoon.

aside from that, it was a quiet day.

so much for t-rated

just a quick post for linkage:

self-conscious enough?
see if this doesn't piss off jack thompson

dozy day

it was most pleasant waking up to tunes off my pc again. the kid and i arrived on base on time - fortunately nobody was checking the gate, because i'd left my dog-tags at home somehow :S

the day got off to a good start work-wise, and then went downhill shortly before lunch. we celebrated one of our guys receiving a rank, and the celebrating involved really good cheesecake being peddled and pushed by his really cute girlfriend... couldn't keep saying no, and the rest of the afternoon i was totally wasted due to the lactose intake.

superkama's back on base, it was great seeing him again. the dude sat down with us, and tried to be peaceable. i told him exactly what i thought of him, and i hope he got the message. forgiveness isn't one of my biggest traits... not when i know that the apology is insincere and that it's forgiveness for being himself that he wants.

this afternoon was the first time i've passed out properly in the office in about six months, and the second time i've really, really needed to. not a good impression for the replacement, but i really couldn't keep my eyes open. and i didn't really have much to do, anyway.

i woke up in time to go to work :P

work was good - i was twice as productive as usual, because i have a pc at home so i don't need to abuse the internet ^_^
and the work itself was kinda fun.

spot and i took a taxi home, with my monitor (yes! my monitor survived too!), and stopped for some coffee on the way. i must admit, i feel like i'm almost back in action... life's definitely getting better.

online at home

what a great feeling: i plugged in the pc, turned it on, and it's as if it's been paused for 6 months; i was praying not to have to reformat, and my prayers were answered... so far. i'm still praying it'll stay that way.

after my last post, i bussed through to ra'anana, and had supper at SxS's. after dinner, i discovered that mpe had sent yet another sms to tell me "fine, i get the message". i called her up and we fought for about 15 minutes, the conversation ending with "have a nice life".

from there we went through to our friend in pituach, and sat for a few hours with a bunch of ze germans, and threw away 50 shekels on great poker. as in - i lasted with some of the big boys, and had fun ^_^

SxS, ru55, ru55's SO and i misbehaved a little, and then went back to ru55's to spend the rest of the night being silly and catching up. and consuming rediculous quantities of chocolate from sa. around 6am SxS and i walked back to his place, and i spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching friends.

to summarize the night / day, i think i've managed to internalize the last few weeks, but my sense of humour's a little damaged and it'll take a while to get back to the business of being myself.

in the evening, i took a bus to dizengoff, and had supper with spot and the kid. then we went shopping (i bought a desk and a stool - the stool is good enough until i get a real chair). we missioned home, and i watched the fifth element with half an eye (thanks, spot) while building my desk ('orrible instructions).

a really cute girl, recently released from our base, came over to visit the kid, so after inspecting our digs the three of us went for a walk on ibn gvirol to find food. i ran into the mongoose's girlfriend, and we sat and talked for a bit (mainly about the failure with mpe).

now that i'm home and blogged, i'm going to shower, and crash. but i'm already feeling better: i now have access to my shit again, and every geek amongst you knows how important that is for mental health and well-being.

i hope i don't die...

... but the world isn't fair, so it may just be too much to expect. in the event that i do, i want it known that all the things i've done, all the things i've been through, have been worth it for me because i have an end-goal. i see the end as if i've already gotten there, and the hardships i've endured and have yet to endure are simply a part of the story i've created for myself in my mind.

and to make up for it all there have been magical gifts of love, confirmation, a sense of achievement and the fulfillment that comes from knowing that i'm actually being selfless^*.

if i died tomorrow, there's not a whole lot that i'd regret, in spite of the torture i put myself through whenever i fail to do the right thing or to be a good person.

sometimes i feel that it's all a sick joke, that i don't have what it takes and that i'm simply fooling myself - but if i really am a fool then i have nothing to be ashamed of.

^*in the big picture, at least. i'm quite selfish when it comes to the right-here-and-now.

failed experiment

i got myself a tortilla, then walked to the lizard. the mongoose began shouting at me about not having spoken to mpe: i spoke to her last night, dammit! so my paedophilic experiment (okay, she's 20 years old, but she's all tiny, and quite childlike) has officially failed.

i just want a girl who can take things easy, over and above pushing herself up my priorities list. she was slowly moving up, (over a week, that's not that slow), but obviously not taking things easy. not my scene.

my attitude doesn't suit her either, though - i called her and she basically told me to bugger off. oh, well.

last night turned out to be a private party for all the guys who finished the officer's course on wednesday; so i saw a lot of friends from the base and generally would've had a good time if i hadn't been so tired, had so much to drink, or been irritated by mpe.

my previous TL arrived, and the first thing he said to me pissed me right off. after the kid and i put so much effort (not that we didn't have fun) making the poster for him, some girl from our base told him that she'd made it for us. what a bitch!

anyway, around 2am i started walking home. that took an hour, and i had plenty of things to think about... which will lead to my next post. which i should probably create a permanent link on the template to, because it pretty much sums up my head-space since before i left south africa.

but it's mainly brought on not only by my being irritable, but by my feeling serious tension in my jaw. i'm still feeling it a bit, but there's nothing i can do until tuesday.

i got home around 3am, crashed, and was woken around 1pm to be dragged off to go shopping for furniture. the walk in the rain was fun, we found the area we were looking for, and the first place we found gave us a great deal on a not-bad-at-all couch. we looked at a few other places, found nothing interesting, and then put down a deposit and ordered the couches for monday.

the kid's dad gave me a ride to the train station, i've just gotten home, am about to shower, then go off to ra'anana.

*brain explodes*

at 6.30am, the bastard that i am woke up spot to make coffee. i have to learn how to do it, but i need some good coffee and a practice session first. it's a vicious cycle.

the kid and i left just after 7am, and made it to the bus station just in time to make the bus that made it just in time for the inter-branch (big branch, there're two types, apparently) sports day. i got my t-shirt and cap, and changed into sporty clothes.

my previous SL and i did some stretching (he's good for something, at least), and the skies suddenly opened and huge drops of rain began hurtling down with such ferocity that we all (1000-2000 people) had to run for cover. our unit's sports colour was white... so we officially had the best team spirit: all our girls in white wet t-shirts for the next few hours.

the first event, volleyball, involved hunting for the court for ages. no signs, no people clued in. the first game was good, but nobody on the bench got a chance to play.

we went in search of the tug-of-war event. that wasn't organized too well either, we waited in the designated area (having arrived at the designated time) for an hour (joined a spinning class, actually), before we had to go back to the volleyball court.

i had a chat with the volleyball captain before the game regarding replacements, and she gave me some bullshit about wanting to win. ignoring who's better at what and how, and who gets tired and needs to be shifted temporarily, if your team is a game up out of three and you're already winning the current game, then you can switch with the worst friggin' players and still be alright. little cow, she is.

the mongoose and i took a stroll to the gym, and i did a bit of weight training (not too serious :P), before we had to run back for the volleyball final. the final was against a crappy team, and we lost: because the stupid bint refused to switch players.
even when it was obvious that two of the guys were tired and totally unfocused. that just pissed the rest of us right off.
oh, yeah. we got CREAMED.

we watched our team lose the basketball final as well (to the same unit), and then had lunch.

during lunch, the kid spoke to spot and informed me that he's continuing with his studies. this piece of news led to a discussion that interested private pile, and gave me a great opening to give him a serious lecture about ability not being enough, and achieving in spite of everything stopping you... and i managed to keep it from being about him - which seemed to make him more receptive.

here's hoping.

the three of us bussed back to tel aviv, and when the kid and i got home i showed him how to run the washing machine. we did a bit of shopping, i returned home to shower and change, and then we left to go look at furniture.

i discovered five minutes outside the apartment that i'd forgotten my phone; we cancelled the mission and returned home once again. at least we now know that there are cute girls living in our building :>

i caught the bus to work, and arrived in time to be hassled by our manager. spot and i alternated between serious work discussions and poking fun at him, and then (during a work-related bit) got our graphic artist (fxga) involved. she's not native english -speaking, so we had a bit of a misunderstanding :P

the manager asked spot and me for some help with a cabling problem, and we helped by offering him some really interesting, and sometimes rediculous solutions. he started getting upset, then said something amusing. my response: "i like him". i've said it many, many times before; it upsets many, many people. his response was to properly throw us out.

we sat downstairs drinking coffee and discussing spot's studies. it was a good talk, but it always bothers me that initially we're always excited about our courses and our enthusiasm quite quickly peters out.

i got back to the office to find post-it notes on our keyboards:
mine - "it's a conspiration against me. i'm killing you! shabat shalom guys. fxga"
spot's - "never seen that sit[e] in my life. I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT SITE! fxga"

i finally got an application i've been working on running (i was on hold while waiting for Yet Another Version Release), and now i've got some fun stuff to do in order to polish it up. yay!

i had a chat with the boss, which covered quite a few areas of interest. one of the topics covered was the lack of organization within the development team. so i spent a few minutes building an excel file army-style, to be shared and managed by us so that everyone knows what's up. wow. i did learn something in the army.

songs that must be listened to:
reveille - what you got
downset - together
the union underground - turn me on "mr. deadman"

linkage: i have 100+ articles to go through in my reader, and no time. so this is a cute one i was sent by nystire, and the rest will have to wait for the weekend... if i ever get around to them.

species split

my tallest with three stripes

i was too wasted to work last night, and i really wasn't being productive, so i left early with spot. spot just reminded me that we didn't take the same bus: more proof that if i didn't blog, i'd lose my mind.

i came home, fully intending to crash on site; but the kid was around, and i needed him to watch full metal jacket. and of course, i ended up watching with him. we turned it off when we got to the end of the basic training... that is the most important part, after all. and now he understands why i keep referring to my replacement as private pile.

i eventually got to sleep around 1am, and i missed my alarm at 7am. the kid only noticed at 7.45, so i was destined to be late. instead of simply wasting my tardiness, i called my TL and got permission to go to the department of home affairs.

i walked through my primary base without being hassled. but when i got to the DoHA, they made me remove everything for the scanner. almost everything. i've ranted about this before: an army uniform is mostly bits of metal. we're soldiers, we're not a security threat. we're protecting them.

but they made me take off my belt, and walk through holding my pants up. assholes.

the queue didn't take too long, and i got to the information desk and told them what i needed. it took the lady two minutes flat, she'd renewed my passport and modified my id card, sent me on my way, and made the passport photo's i'd had taken on the way a complete waste of NIS 30.

wow.

i got back to base, sorted a few things out, ran a test (that showed up some problems we're going to have to deal with soon), had a promising chat with our TL and the kid, and then participated in making posters for the sports day that begins in five hours (did i mention i'm captain of the tug-of-war team?).

i made a large poster for our previous TL, and then a really nice one for sports day. i like painting.

we rushed off and got a ride to the final ceremony for the officer's course, and it was quite enjoyable. our previous TL had a good laugh at the poster when he saw it - during a speech they're supposed to be concentrating on - and then we turned it upside down for our own amusement. the poster was in two parts, so getting it wrong wasn't too simple to achieve; a few people didn't get the joke, and came up afterwards to laugh at us. morons :P at least they were the minority.

the kid and i bussed back to tel aviv, and i returned to base to finish the poster and get my bag. then i bussed to work, and had an extremely productive evening. good lord, i even enjoyed half an hour of putting together a very useful shell script.

the lack of documentation from our provider pissed me off again tonight: i'm supposed to send a date as a string, but it doesn't tell me the format. it complained about everything i could throw at it, and to make matters worse - returned an oracle error message. they couldn't even be bothered to wrap the exception, they just throw it to the user as is.

that's not very professional. spot and i were contemplating the possibility that our provider is a middleman for the real provider, and in attempting to find out we discovered that another foreign currency exchange company has almost identically copied our website. that will be dealt with.

we bussed home at 11, and went for coffee with magist. on the way home, an old friend (total babe) from university recognized me, and came down to say hi, and then came to visit the apartment. i walked her back afterwards, then on my way in magist walked out, so i walked a bit with him, then returned with an ever-increasing sense of deja vu. i'm guessing the girls who were sitting on the bench outside the entire time were beginning to get suspicious.

we now have a wireless ad-hoc network set up, and i'm sitting on my bed with spot's laptop, blogging before showering before crashing. tomorrow's gonna be tough.

i have to buy a desk, we have to organize a sleeper couch / sofa set, and the kid has to remember the lecture i just gave him on how to do the laundry.

jellybaby

i worked a bit, then sammy visited this side of town so i went out for a break. i came back afterwards, and worked with spot until roughly 11, and then we walked back home. well, i stopped on the way to meet up with mpe, and we had a very long talk about who i am and what i'm looking for / definitely not looking for.

i must be honest, after some of the things i said, i was totally surprised that she didn't just turn around and go home.

we helped spot move in, and then went to bed.

-- comments relating to why i now totally dig (cute) short girls have been removed --
suffice it to say that the hunch i've been maintaining was totally correct ^_^

i didn't sleep very much, and we all (aside from spot, made us a bit late) got up at 7 to go and meet the landlord. spot caught something we missed, and discovered that instead of us owing the landlord a bit of extra cash, he owes us :F

the kid and i went through to the other city officer, and on the way to the department of internal affairs i realized that it would've been pointless to arrive there without my ID (which i only found later on) - so i returned to base.

before that, on the bus, we discussed yesterday's private pile event from both sides. it turns out that when i stormed off, i left pile pretty much in tears. and the kid, as i suspected (thank god for the kid) then played the good cop, while explaining to him gently that i was totally correct and that he needs to take charge of his situation.

i arrived at the tail end of the section breakfast, and spent my first couple of hours sorting my system out, and fighting with support over the phone. i went to the clinic, and they arranged an "emergency appointment" for me for tuesday; the medic said she thinks it looks okay, so i'm not overly-concerned anymore.

lunch was alright, especially as most of it came from the officer's mess again. why haven't i always done this?

i found my ID when i got back to my office, and just then the kid called to tell me that i could fax my data through instead of returning in the morning. that kinda made life easier.

i gave pile an exercise to do in the morning, with a slight twist, and i helped him out as sparingly as possible. and i made use of the technique that my TL prescribed yesterday. by the end of the day, not only had he made serious headway (i mean to say, he's got more than just the gist), but when he got stuck, he got really stuck. hell, he'd even been thinking about the problems during lunch, which is a major improvement.

just before i left, i'd manage to coerce some not-bad problem solving out of him, and convinced him to stay behind a while to work some more. i have to be honest, i don't know how this is going to turn out, but it's most certainly a good sign!

i caught our welfare officer on the way to work, and had a chance to discuss my situation with her. it looks bad that i've actually managed to save a bit of cash as a lonely soldier, but she understands now that i'm working hard for it and that i'm not taking advantage of the army in a negative sense. we were on the bus for a while, and it's kinda nice to get to know the people who take care of you :)

i got to work broken, and i'm now completely wasted. at least our provider's finally responded and dealt with a whole bunch of issues, and i can get back on track soon.

the only bully is jack thomspon (i think i'll leave the spelling error as is)
ponce. the original's at the bottom
nano going from "hot" to "not"
jobs is a legend
virtual crap is on the way
"laser"
wii is here
we is going there
in a box. i thought they meant a teeny-tiny one.
wireless usb may actually happen.
or is it the other way around?
the other side of the autism debate
right. it's complicated. let's just scrap the whole hydrogen thing.
great. linux meets the devil

anti-tet

last night: ignoring the missed event, i ran a pseudo-test and my threads went even more out of control; that after i built in blocks specifically to tone that behaviour down. back to the drawing board, yay.

i had a long (drawn-out, it was over sms) argument with mpe, because i'm not prepared to make sacrifices to see her, especially not on weekdays where my work hours count to fifteen. not a chance.

and besides, a large part of the excitement about moving to our new apartment is the idea of relaxing and enjoying everything, without having to mission around the country.

either way, she's coming to visit tonight. i guess i'm going to have to make my feelings on the matter clear.

i got home early last night... around 11.30pm. the rain had paused, but as i walked in it began again, and i remembered that my laundry was still on the line. when i opened the window the wind was blowing the lines back and forth, and although i didn't find anything, i'm convinced that i lost a couple of items.

i moved rooms. now i have the corner room with cupboards. badly designed cupboards, but cupboards nonetheless.

this morning was hellish waking up. the cable guy arrived around 8, and i'd misunderstood / not paid attention to spot, and he installed the connection in the wrong room. oops. we got it all working, then spot arrived and made coffee while i shaved and brushed teeth, and we sat outside enjoying the caffeine before i had to make my way to base.

i picked up my no-longer-defunct pc, lugged it back to my office, plugged it in... and discovered that they'd completely ignored my instructions, and installed the wrong OS in the wrong language. and so i returned it and made damn sure that they understood what i wanted.

i returned to the office, and sat with the kid over some code i fixed last week. private pile asked me a question about a specific error he'd received. i made an attempt to lead him to discovery: this was a mistake. his answer to every question was "i don't know", and every i don't know scored him a simpler question. to the point where i asked him an absolutely rediculous question ("what's a variable". to somebody who's passed two tests involving them and claims to know VB), his response was to look me in the eyes, tell me once again that he didn't know, and then he began lecturing me on how to teach him in the most effective way.

his idea of "learning" is to get all the knowledge, without any form of thinking whatsoever, magically transported into his brain. so basically, once we've explained everything, he'll know everything. he's put as much effort into studying this shit as a raindrop does falling. and he's pissed me off. what made it even worse, is that he then began to whine, and bitch about how i'm going about it all wrong, and i don't understand what it means to learn.

his last sentence before i stormed out with clenched fists (i'm *not* going to hit him, i have enough problems): "and i'm staying as calm with you as i can, my patience is wearing out."

wow.

i went back to the techies, supervised the final stages of my reinstall, carried my pc back to the office, and had a chat with my TL. he calmed me down, and gave me some advice, and i plan on putting it into practice. i'm going to ignore the fact that he's an asshole, and i'm going to shame him until he tries to prove himself.

i spent a while configuring my pc, then went off to lunch with a guy from our team who's just come back from 2 months' recovery after surgery. i snuck into the officer's mess, and organized a decent meal :)

later on in the afternoon, our TL made a comment about having had a serious work-out the day before. so we challenged him to pull-ups, and then did a really fun set of push-ups that left me sore. i went downstairs, and then spent half an hour fooling around with a basketball.

i made my way to work - on the bus with the kid, i suddenly started feeling woozy, and my ear began hurting. i bumped it on a rusty airconditioner yesterday, and it's a bit swollen. i've remembered that it's probably been more than 5 years since my last anti-tetanus shot, and with my hypochondriac tendencies i'm now totally conscious of it.

The presenting symptoms are often jaw or neck stiffness, difficulty swallowing, and irritability.
- healthscout

irritability i got. plenty.
gonna have to go to the doctor soon.

spot sorted me out with coffee (he does that a lot, lately. and i'm entirely grateful.) when i arrived, we chatted a bit and then came up to work. i dealt with a few things, had a chat with the boss and manager (he's given me some cool stuff to do - stuff that doesn't rely on our provider), and then a guy who works with my previous boss stopped by and gave me and my computers a ride home. it was great catching up with him, he dropped me off back at work, and blogging and news is all i've been doing.

now for a smoke, and some actual work. news later :P (:F, thanks moonflake)

waste of time

dammit - i had a problem with the test script i was running, and while i was playing with it i missed the event it was meant to test.

so i gotta wait until next week *cries*

went to the tortilla bar for supper - the tortilla was even better than the last one. incredible!

home-time.

years down the road...

... and ibm's finally gotten its act together.

yeah!

first rains

... and a heart of darkness. i went to the lizard last night, sat chatting and dirnking with the mongoose and ta2 for a while, and then mpe came to pick me up. we searched for a while, and found a parking spot on rothschild, so we took a long walk all the way to bograshov and back, discussing all sorts of arbitrary things.

we then spent a long time looking for a parking in our area, which was slightly more complicated. eventually we found space in a lot i'm familiar with, and just had to hope that it wouldn't cost too much. mpe slept over, but considering the amount of hours slept and the time we woke up i don't know if the words "slept over" is correct.

we got out of bed when we heard rain pouring down; just in time to see two little kids across the road rushing towards the windows, in their pajamas, as excited about the weather as we were. i woke up the kid, and we got ready for the army (and had time for breakfast, even), and we all walked to the parking lot, where it turned out that we only had to pay for the hour that it'd been open.

awesome.

mpe gave us a ride to base. we met up with private pile on the way upstairs, and i began the day by dragging my pc off to be formatted. most of the day was spent being pissed off with my replacement because he's a moron. he simply refuses to do any thinking if he can find a way out of it. i really need to find a way to get him to pull finger and make an effort.

during the afternoon, i learned all sorts of horrifically uninteresting things about oracle's report builder. it helps, but it's not exactly satisfying fixing problems that shouldn't have been possible in the first place. shouldn't have been? i don't think anyone can ever really anticipate the depths to which shite programmers can sink.

i had a long chat with my welfare officers, and just talking about some of the things that have been going on the last two years always puts me in a weird state of mind. it's all too crazy.

i met the kid's brother today (my age, captain) just before leaving the base, and the two of them are incredibly similar. and were confused when i mentioned it. that always amuses me.

by the time i left the base, it was dark. winter sucks. and the weather today was hot and muggy between thunderstorms and downpours. i have to buy an umbrella, and not lose it this year.

mp3 players for xmas
history of the world part i in the making
let's feel good about ourselves

i'm trying to slow down on the smoking, but as spot pointed out, now is not the time. i'm irritable anyway, i don't need to get aggressively unhappy at the moment.

positronic monkey's wedding

from wikipedia:
Asimov relied on the reader's knowledge of the capacity of positrons and electrons to be formed in pairs and to annihilate each other, in order to convey the impression that such pair creation and destruction could serve as a metaphor for the evanescence of thought

we've just had the first tiny droplets of rain; with vast sections of the sky still visible with stars twinkling and everything. i said to spot that if the sun had been shining, it's be called a monkey's wedding.

so we had to check that out on wikipedia too. it's a translation from a zulu expression. i hadn't known that. and there are many cultures around the world with similar expressions.

and this is cool, too.

why don't we turn off airconditioners from the mains? it's just not (d)on(e). i don't know why i'm placing that here, maybe just to continue in my mission to destroy spot's mind. okay, i admit it, i do it on purpose.

days of our lives, ek se

i spoke to my mom when i got to work, and she told me to check my mail.

so i did. and have just heard the most rediculous story; and these are relatives of mine. the brother of my cousin who i visited last night has just discovered that his father hooked him up with a prostitute. and while investigating found out that he's quite involved as a high-class pimp.

at least, that's how it appears from the email that he posted. to makes things more interesting, the mail was sent to all sorts of well-to-do, highbrow relatives to inform them.

damn. and i thought having a prostitute for a sister (my younger sister's a literal crack-whore) and cousins (from the other side of the family) chased out of the country by the moroccans (weren't willing to pay protection money for their clubs) was bad enough.

reader - it's like an inbox for the web

that's a lot of new items in *my* inbox. turned out there were more from cnet than slashdot. go figure.

clutz spies
colbert fights the fidel
airport tracking - to know how much you pee.
to old to be stylish?
awe-sum

the war tapes looks like a good film.

google useful
neil gaiman's technique queried

silent night

spot and i helped the kid move in, i hung out my laundry, and then the kid and i went off to do some shopping. being in the area already (all of five minutes' walk from home), we went to visit my cousin. the kid left after a few minutes to go to a meeting (on a friday night?), and my cousin and i sat chatting for the next hour or so.

well... chatting... she's pretty much ready to get out of israel and go back to sunny south africa. she's had a horrible run here, and she's sick of all the craziness and strange people that you really have to find endearing in order to survive. i really believe that she's gone about the whole moving-here thing the wrong way, but that doesn't help much.

i went home, started watching high fidelity again, and when the kid got back we returned to get that shopping done. there's nothing good available on a friday night, though, so we returned with a couple of basics, and nothing really helpful.

spot was showing some cousins of his the apartment when we finally got back, so i went with them to his grandmother's for some coffee. we went to the kiosk on the way back home, at which point mpe arrived - so we never got home. we went to the balcony to pick up something she'd lost there on thursday night, spot went off to a party at a friend of his' place, and mpe and i missioned around tel aviv looking for parking.

to anyone familiar with this city, that's a joke. bloody insane - we eventually got desperate and began searching obscure side-streets, and miraculously discovered a huge paid-parking lot right next to the cinema!

wow!

we got all excited about managing to get tickets, and skipped in halfway through the promos.

the theatre was completely empty.

we picked the best seats, and settled down (although it was technically already the 14th) to watch a horror movie on friday the 13th.

we'd picked silent hill:

1) not really horror, as such. ie. not scary. more... detectoring.

2) beautiful, beautiful cinematography (minus a couple of over-cgi'ed moments)

3) great art value (imho) - specifically the scene with the nurses!

4) tied in perfectly to the last few months of anti-religious blogging, specifically moonflake's witching post

all in all, a great movie, and it's the most comfortable i've been watching a movie with a girl i plan on sleeping with. we found a very comfortable groove :) (i get excited about things like that - i got to enjoy the movie and i didn't feel like i was sitting alone).

when we left the cinema, tel aviv was completely silent. appropriate, but it was also the first time in many months that i didn't have a song in my head. inside and outside silent.

we drove back to the area around home (which is notorious parking-wise, even for tel aviv), found a relatively close spot (parking, that is), and went for a walk in search of a coffee shop. none open. so much for tel aviv at 4am (okay, our area, to be fair).

mpe left around 5am, and i ran into spot on his way home, which was fairly amusing. the next time i spoke to him was 2pm, when he woke me up to tell me that coffee was ready. it took me half an hour to get out of bed, brush teeth, have breakfast (listening to jimi hendrix - my, how i've matured!), and get here (spot's gran)... to be told i have to clean everything if i really wanted that coffee.

bastard.

t'was good coffee though. now i'm deciding if it's worth heading off to work. adding slashdot to google reader was a mistake. too many posts!

drinks on me

spot and i had a fun walk to the balcony. and amusing, we really do need a camera on us at all times. most of the conversation centered around coming to work in a suit and tie, wearing a pirate hat. i looks like spot might be promoted to manager of the devteam. oh - i forgot to mention yesterday that we ate at a new place near our work, a tortilla bar. absolutely superb tortillas. and cheap, too.

the mongoose and the girls arrived around 1.30, and we spent plenty of time chatting (erm, me getting to know SO's friend from wednesday night - mpe [no - i'm not sharing the whys of the nickname, it's illegal :P - ed]), and then getting to know each other slightly more intimately (i've decided that i quite like her. i've now been reminded of how interesting it is to kiss a girl with braces :P [no emoticon for a shredded tongue? -ed]). around 5am we all left, and she dropped us all off one by one. i was hoping she'd hang around, but she had to take the mongoose and his SO home. bah, humbug.

i slept until the early afternoon, am currently running a load of laundry (blogging from spot's, post-coffee), did a bit of cleaning, and am now going home to help the kid move in.

cute sending

just got two emails from sagirl, had to post 'em.

Read this question, come up with an answer and then scroll down
to the bottom for the result. This is not a trick question. It is as
it reads.

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a guy whom
she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing. She believed him
to be her dream guy so much, that she fell in love with him right
there, but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few
days later she killed her sister.

Question: What is her motive for killing her sister?
[Give this some thought before you answer, see answer below]

scroll down to see the answer. strangely enough, i'm sure i've heard this before, and i think the fact that i've forgotten the answer says something.

and the feelgood one:

Beautifully stated

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to
ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably
more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so
remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best
friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry
because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you
love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never
been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of
happiness you'll never get back.

and the answer:

Answer: She was hoping the guy would appear at the funeral again. If
you answered this correctly, you think like a psychopath. This was
a test by a famous American Psychologist used to test if one has
the same mentality as a killer.

Many arrested serial killers took part in the test and answered
the question correctly.

If you didn't answer the question correctly, good for you

mangled spaghetti eaten with jellybaby utensils

linkage obtained while waiting for specific signals during debugging:
more jack thompson
amusing screw-ups
bluetooth-controlled hovercraft. please join me in laughing at this idiot.
more general paranoia

as for the debugging. i have a thread that simply hangs when the connection is broken. because it doesn't pick itself back up when reconnected, i've created an external mechanism interrupting the thread and then creating a new one.

now when it reconnects, it logs off, opens a new thread, and then somehow manages to open another new thread, and i don't know where that one comes from. it's given me a huge headache, and it bothers me that the instruction interrupt() doesn't do a damn thing.

when i accidentally disconnected the thread twice during testing, it resulted in SIX new threads, instead of the expected 4.

frikkin' java. i need a drink.

mini mini mini

pandora's learning my style:
nine inch nails - last
marilyn manson - great big white world
kmfdm - mini mini mini
rob zombie - superbeast
so my night's beginning on a high note :)
although it can only go downhill from there :(

last night i got home, showered, discovered that i'd left all tooth-brushing and shaving equipment at the previous residence. brilliant.

the kid met up with us at spot's gran, we had a drink and then took a taxi to the lizard. to sum up: pretty good party. the dj sucked, but whatever. also, i have a personal limit to the amount of hip-hop i can handle.

there was some weird guy who kept dancing up to girls and harrassing them. this happened with every girl i danced with, at least once. the fucker just didn't get that nobody was interested in him. so i had a group of girls who'd simply duck behind me or start dancing frictionally close to me until he got the message (for the time being, it appeared). one of those girls (the mongoose's SO's friend) stayed frictionally close, so we're meeting up tonight at the balcony ;)

and she's mini (compact). i like ^_^

songbird's friends didn't want to pay for a taxi, so i sat with them until their bus arrived. an hour later my bus arrived, after i'd had to sit waiting with lots of arsim who were breaking things and generally being stupid. and with me starting to get tired, too.

i got to the base, had an argument with the guard commander about entering in civvies (and the schmuck knows me personally), made myself some coffee and spent an hour or so trying to necromance my computer. no luck, though.

i walked to my previous residence, got all my gear, and bussed home. after happily brushing my teeth, i crashed until 4pm. i showered, went shopping (confusing, i'm not used to having a fridge), and had coffee with spot, before we came to work.

yay. work.

google at work

breaking point

spot and i had coffee last night, and then i returned to ramat gan for the last time (as in, for the last time with intention of going to sleep).

i did laundry, then passed out. i sorted a few things out this morning - including giving my previous bastard landlord my forwarding address (supposedly so that he can inform me when my money is returned).

i bussed some things through to the new pad, had a good breakfast (although there are better to be found) with spot, then bussed back to finish packing and watch comedy central.

my host arrived - turns out she wasn't on holiday, but actually in tel aviv, because her father suffered a heart attack on the weekend. that sucks. the movers arrived shortly afterwards, and i got plenty of exercise loading the vehicle with them. it wasn't as complicated as i expected, and i rode with them to the new place.

the kid was waiting there (he'd just moved in his bed), and helped out with the unloading. the two of us sorted out internet and electricity, and then missioned arounding looking for shower curtains. we've got a unit party tonight at the lizard, so i forced him to stay in the area :P

before i left, we began unpacking some of my things - useful things, to people who live like hyoomans - that haven't seen the light of day in over two years. the kid was amazed; he couldn't believe that i own pretty much everything we actually need.

i bussed to work, and have been having my brain twisted for a couple of hours now. i figured one part out, at least (spot did help), and now have to get to it.

tomorrow, then - it's time to go home, shower, and then come back to party :P

i'm gonna be 'sassnated

almost forgot - i did a survey that ork once linked to:

You scored as Gunshot. Your death will be by gunshot, probably because you are some important person or whatever. Possibly a sniper, nice, quick, clean shot to the head. Just beautiful.

Poison: 73%
Gunshot: 73%
Cut Throat: 67%
Bomb: 47%
Suicide: 47%
Disappear: 47%
Stabbed: 33%
Suffocated: 27%
Disease: 27%
Natural Causes: 27%
Accident: 20%
Drowning: 13%
Eaten: 7%

How Will You Die??
created with QuizFarm.com

*the sound the ghost from the grudge makes*

our manager is upset that i've been "wasting time" (documenting code... yeah, that's totally worthless) while waiting for updates from our provider company. he's now got me going from person to person only to discover that the only person who can cover for our contact - who's on vacation - has taken leave.

awesome.

adding slashdot to google reader has made slashdot way less of a mission to get through. i'm quite pleased. now i have access to tons of arbitrary information (although i'm pretty efficient when it comes to filtering :P):
black holes, with pictures (actually, i think i may have gotten that backwards)
better, slightly
nano-food - dinner pill, anyone?

i gotta get outta here soon, i think i'm almost ready to go back to night-shifts.

my turn | my turn

it's that split male / female thing. i got the same overall results as moonflake.

some points that i found interesting:

angles: 19 / 20
18 - 20: You have more of a male brain. On average, men outperform women in this task and those with more mathematical knowledge tend to score quite high as well.

spot the difference: 93%
67 - 100%: Those with a female-type brain generally score in this range. Your ability to remember where objects are may serve as an advantage to you when you're trying to find your way around places. You're more capable of recalling landmarks to get from one place to another.
and more likely to be argued with by other males when it comes to directions. and i'm never embarrassed to ask for directions.

empathising / systemising: higher than average for both, for both genders. so i guess everyone can stop arguing with me about the difference between a geek¹ and a nerd², huh?

Your choices suggest you prefer more feminine faces.
i really didn't need *anyone* to tell me that.

3D shapes: Are you an engineer or do you have a science background?
it's not clear to me if we choose these fields because we have male brains, or if we can learn these skills from studying in these fields. i'm fairly confident this test is irrelevant, unless they run the other tests before the subjects have chosen what to study, and then again after they complete their studies.

words: way above average for both genders. this is a solid indication that i talk too much, and loads of crap when i do.

ultimatum: i think i might have misunderstood the question, because i went with 50%. either that, or i'm just a sucker.

again: thank you moonflake. i started doing the test, then spot began, then our manager walked in and shouted at us for not working. i would've closed down normally, but it was during a timed test :S

¹ geeks identify better with technology
² nerds smell funny and lack in social graces

super-fast linkage

i started off my day on base, dropping off some bits and pieces before heading off to work. i haven't done that much work (it's only now roughly the time people in the states start working).

i called the movers again today, and the bastard doubled the price that he quoted yesterday. so i found someone else, but he's only available tomorrow.

in the meanwhile, i've been playing with google reader now that they've revamped, and come across some fun bits:

the outtakes should be good
bush in space - some of the comments here are priceless
and this kicks ASS. gotta get one of these. and a headset to go with it!

oh, and spot's owed me a hefty sum of money since 2001, so he's going to have to get me one of these. filled with one of these. w00t!

spirited ascent

ascension back into the manic side of my (more-or-less controlled) bipolar disorder. after leaving work, spot and i went and ate at agadir. while there, i mentioned an idea i had a short while back, and his enthusiasm and mine bounced back and forth until it was all i could think about.

after supper, we went past his place for awesome coffee, and i began what will probably be a lengthy process of committing to memory "the spirit of the IDF" (with a particular motivation). we went and checked the entrance to our new apartment (i had to make sure that my bed wouldn't require lifting from the window, that's expensive), and then i took the bus back here.

muttering the first couple of sentences the entire way. i couldn't tell if anyone noticed.

the cat and i have reached an agreement. she whines, i feed, she shuts up. if it was my child... well, i guess i'll have to see how that one works out :P

now i'm waiting for the aircon to do its thing, then i'm crashing like nobody's business. i'm a tad bummed that i won't be going to the balcony tonight - i would've hung around but i was in uniform. that's a serious lack of foresight for a monday night *blushes*

a few months later...

to be honest, it's hard to think about where today began. woke up, shaved, showered, put on uniform, walked to base, sat with the kid and private pile until we were certain that it wouldn't be wise to go through with the planned event, left instructions and bussed through to work.

mmf was at work this morning - apparently he's been here a while and we just keep missing each other. nobody was doing any work: turned out that our company server was down. spot arrived much later; he just informed me that the first thing the manager said to him when he arrived at 1pm was a death-threat. aside from everyone else being screwed, i didn't have access to my code at all.

it all got sorted out eventually, so we took advantage of that and went for lunch. not a bad lunch, i might add. came back to work, then heard that yogi, in a hurry on his way in, had damaged his ankle. so i helped him downstairs and organized him a taxi to the hospital. he was trying to be a hero, and although i promised i wouldn't tell anyone what happened, this is a personal reminder that something hilarious occurred while he was hopping towards the elevator.

i spent the afternoon fighting with the original app that i've been sukkling with since i started working here... and about 20 minutes ago, it finally worked!! i can't express how excited that makes me!

bionic jive - i shot lucifer is just genius. i can't get the app i downloaded to rip the mp3's from pandora to work, and i eventually gave up :(

autism IS masculinity

tons of links to a most interesting piece of news: includes the science show with robyn williams, observations about finger lengths and medical news today

now we're off to see if my bed can fit through our door, before arranging for the movers tomorrow.

sophisticate

well, i'm sitting here at spot's (about to head home), with a glass of great scotch ("great scotch!"), after a fun conversation with my mom, pondering my first few steps as a tenant in the building (practically) across the road.

our new apartment is fantastic, all checked and measured, the new landlord seems even nicer now that we're not being pushed to make a quick decision, we have our contracts, we have our keys, and we have our vision.

life's definitely getting better. it's a start, at least :)

the more mundane stuff: i bussed back to the apartment from work, hurriedly rifled through everything, going so far as unpacking (dammit) some boxes, to find a required piece of paper: all to no avail. i had a quick altercation with the cat, which ended (as these things usually do) with me feeding it. then i hopped on a bus to southern tel aviv.

the bad part.

my word, what a dodgy area spot's uncle lives in - i had no problem saying that to his face. we sat with him for a while, then headed off to arlozorov and dizengoff. after a short fight with the information kiosk (eventually winning - i got a reasonable improvisation for that all-important piece of paper), we met up with the kid's dad and strolled slowly to the new apartment, where we performed one final check and then commenced with the great signing.

and then we went to (one of) our (many) new neighbourhood cafe(s) for a great supper.

now i'm off home (just as soon as i finish the whiskey, those are my mom's instructions), and then tomorrow morning i'll start breaking my head over army work and moving in.

ssssssssoooooon, my preciousssss, sssssoooooon.

standard helpful

can we spell "quality"? do we "care"? i've spent my afternoon javadocumenting code and raising virtual fish. now it's about time to go to the base.

no support on a saturday

i spent a couple of desperate hours on base last night. after moving my pc back, i discovered that the problem lies within, and it's screwed. so the evening was a waste... there's no support for the poor bastards working the weekend.

so i went home, finished reading men at arms: around 2am. what a great book! what a stupid thing to do, finishing it instead of sleeping!

i had my first cup of coffee on base this morning. our team's in deep shit today, tomorrow, and for the next week at least. i left with more of a headache then i had when i woke up: i can't decide if i'm allergic to the hamster, the cat, or the apartment itself.

maybe just my life in general.

i wasted bus fare getting to the department of internal affairs: they're closed this week. makes sense, because it's the only week during which i'll have a chance to get there. wonderful.

i got to work, finally finished the coding i was doing last week, and then rediscovered that, whoops, it's sunday, can't test.

i went to the bank to sort out the oh-lord-too-much-cash that i need for this evening - we're signing the contract tonight. i friggin' HATE bank tellers. i hate them because they tell me things that i don't actually need to know.

if i need lots of cash in a hurry, will it make any difference if they tell me that it'll cost me a tiny amount to withdraw?

no.

if i need that cash in a hurry, will it help me to know exactly how they handle the authorization process?

no.

because of that second one, i misunderstood the !@#%, and thought that he was explaining to me why i wasn't going to be able to get my money out.

at least i finally got that sorted out, but it took a rather awkward discussion with the manager before things started moving.

i came back, and have just finished a long talk with the manager - the boss is away, and he's on the warpath. gotta do some work!

-- afterthought:

spot and i were walking into the elevator, when a thought struck me. he gave me a quizzical look when i began muttering to myself: "don't say it. don't say it..."

and then it just came out:

"what more could possibly go wrong today?"

i reckon if i'd already thought it, it wouldn't make it any worse :P

back to square one

had supper with her family last night, it was really nice. we were joined by our cousin from sa that i met about 5 months ago, and i went to visit her when we got dropped off in tel aviv. funnily enough, we're about to become neighbours :P

we sat chatting for hours, mostly discussing horrifying experiences in israel and where things are going for us. it was most pleasant. i took a minibus taxi back "home", and slept for about 10 hours or so.

i started doing laundry, then went to the base to have a quick breakfast. i discovered that, after the move, all the kid's things were sitting outside in the corridor. i don't know who's responsible for that, but that's bloody disgusting.

i tried to do some work, but there're serious problems with our new office. so in a bit, when i go back, i'm going to move back to my old desk so that i can try and get us ready for the event that we're probably going to have to cancel anyway. bleh.

hawking's new book, planned for release in another year or so, looks set to be yet another book of his that i'd love to read and probably will never get around to.

how stupid are we?
how stupid are they?
ignobels

tobacco warning signs

spot and i were sitting at caffe bazel (funky coffee shoppe next door), when i realized that my lighter was on top of the warning label of my smokes: "SMOKING KILLS". the text on my lighter: "sorry, but i like to smoke".

i directed spot's attention to my little kodak-moment, and his response was showing me the label on his pack: "SMOKING CAUSES AGEING OF THE SKIN".

right. so does aging (entirely different from ageing, it would seem). and so does exposure to the sun.

so in order to balance the fact that i smoke, i'm going to have to kill myself... indoors.

candy sweet irony

mark foley, protector of the young from sexual predators, has been identified as a sexual predator. let's hope he faces at least the kinds of punishments that he proposed.

damn republicans. (i still can't tell the difference, but whatever.)

fish tycoon. works in real time. i can't stop watching and waiting.
spaceshiptwo is actually quite a good idea!
life imitates star trek
pretty
DAMN. ... -> ... DAMN.

regained perspective

i went out last night with the express purpose of clearing my head / drowning my sorrows / drowning out the noise of my thoughts. we took a slow walk to the balcony (and i had a slow drink of some good whiskey on the way), and met up with my TL and a friend of his when we got there.

we spent a really fun hour or so with them, talking crap and talking seriously, sometimes at the same time. we shared a couple of drinks, too.

when the two of them left, we moved to the bar, and i spent most of the rest of the night simply enjoying the music (and a couple more drinks). that is, until something blurred past me, and i heard glass smash.

after the initial confusion, it turned out that the girl spot had been talking to had picked up a small bowl of pretzels, emptied it, and thrown it at the cute bartender. and hit, too. that bitch really made my hackles rise, not to mention the bartender and everyone else who witnessed it. even after she and her friends got chucked out, i was still pissed off.

that scene took me into a weird place in my head, where i began pondering all the things that are going on with me right now, and then trailed back slowly over the past few years, and regressed further and further until i had a picture of my whole life so far, more or less.

wow. what a crazy story! my life's taken so many unexpected turns, and most of the sharp ones have turned out for the best. i've gone from a stupid kid, to a wannabe dreamer, to somebody who's actually (slowly but surely) making those dreams come true. and contrary to my first girlfriend's (lake's) warning, i've managed not only to retain my idealism, but i've reinforced it as well.

i'm overloaded at the moment, but i've been overloaded in the past many times. at some point i'm probably going to get used to it. either way, in general, i'm totally happy with the way things are going, how've i've gotten to where i am, and not least with the fact that i make my mother really proud.

and certainly not least, i make myself proud. it may not all be perfect and rosy, but i've been keeping it on track in spite of everything that's been thrown at me. all i can do is pray that i don't lose focus, and that nothing bites me too hard: i've had more luck in getting to where i am than i'd care to contemplate.

when the net's down

the troll in the pork futures store: i *think* i've read it before, but it could just be that somebody told me once about that part.

we had an express section during inspection today: the discipline commander identified all the usual troublemakers (including myself) and made us line up on the other side of the court. he went through our group first, released us, and then went through the rest of the guys. awesome ^_^

this morning saw us moving offices - never a pleasant experience. basically, our TL has finally realized that it's a good idea for our inner-team to be together (the kid, myself and private pile), and it's an even better idea if we don't sit with everybody else (must be the theme for the day). sharing an incompatible sense of humour, an incompatible taste in music, and an incompatible work-ethic - it makes me wonder that it took this long!

during the move, some of out network points went down, so we were completely unable to do any work. the entire day. and today just happened to be a mission critical one for the big project. that sucked.

although it did give me time to sort out other problems, and sit with private pile and lecture him non-stop. i stand corrected for my statement yesterday: i have, effectively, 9 weeks left to go. pile almost cried when i explained to him how much shit he's in.

i wish i could make him angry, somehow. anger is proper motivation.

before lunch, i got a call to say that the movers were waiting outside the base to give me a receipt. in order to get the receipt, i had to add tax. tax turned out to be NIS 60, and i had no cash. figuring that making them wait five minutes wasn't an issue (they didn't give me time to get ready to meet them), i went to the ATM.

which was out of cash. i dashed to the mongoose's office, but he was out of moolah too. so i ran like a madman back to my office (we're on the third floor), got cash from private pile, and legged it to the gate, where i had to stop running, walk normally and make sure that i was presentable (woe betide those outside and not in that state).

it's still summer, i'd just had a cigarette, i instantly became super-sweaty and super-smelly (and out of breath, to boot). the guy i had to deal with is a complete moron, and it took 5 minutes to get him to write the thing and produce change.

now our welfare officers are going to figure out whether or not i paid the extra money in vain (theoretically i'll get it refunded).

mess hall for lunch: we walked in to some good food, but a specific salad we were all in the mood for was missing. the girls on duty were being friendly but unhelpful, so i strolled into the kitchens and sorted things out (i've got a little experience with kitchen duty myself).

everyone who saw me walk out with the salad in question was a) grateful and b) confused because my rank is suspiciously out of place doing jobs like that.

so i made private pile do the rest of the dirty work, and after a few minutes we were enjoying a really good meal. well, at least as far as mess hall food goes.

in the afternoon, we had a training session for the up-and-coming inter-wing sports day. we didn't have a volleyball net... so we played dodgeball. that was a lot of fun, but REAL exercise... we left the court filthy and smelly and generally disgusting. extremely unpleasantly so.

the bus ride to work was fun. i coerced the new guy at the coffee shop to make dangerously strong latte, which i desperately needed. i went to our office first, gave spot his cup, and then mentioned that i was off to punch in to work. the guys in the aquarium laughed, and told me that it was the perfect time. confused, i took the elevator up to the 16th floor.

as of yesterday, online gambling in the states became illegal. our parent company pretty much exlusively deals in online gambling, and the states obviously makes up more than a significant percentage of the company's income.

we're okay, totally legit, but i walked in on a speech informing everyone that lots of them are about to be laid off. that sucks. and it was super embarrassing walking in, in full uniform, demonstrating that some of us are doing alright.

liquorice! spot got confused by the description i gave him, and got every type of katjes he could find. genius... KING!! he's rationing it, though. i really can't control myself.

after a couple of hours, including a little bit of actual coding, i simply gave up. my head's fucked, i need a stiff drink and lots of sleep. and to get the mess that is my life sorted out.

spot's grandmother was not impressed to see me, as usual. she's pissed off because i forgot to call and wish her a happy new year last week. i didn't call anybody, 'cause my head was kinda in a different place, but it looks like she's not going to let me forget it for a while.

the shower i just took is only interesting because once my socks were off they had to be double-bagged, and the place stank for a short while until the evil sock-demons had dispersed. they did not go quietly in the night. the shower was superb.

spot and i have just had an interesting discussion. we've lived together before (that's how we met), we've been study partners, we've served in the army together, we work together, and now we're moving in together again. aside from anything sexual, we're pretty much married for all intents and purposes. we'd have gotten married ages ago if one of us was an attractive female. the whole thing is very amusing.