thrilling, kinda bug-eyed

d-damn! lots of odd mixing and matching, interesting new functionality, and sheer awesomeness ^_^

it's always nice when the measure of one's success is a pretty picture. and it's all so neat and tidy! this whole getting-things-done is a relatively new concept when working against our provider, so you'll just have to suffer me grinning like the cat and walking off satisfied.

*walks off, satisfied*

smelly feet :(

one of the few (heh) things that i *hate* about army socks and boots. the smell of my feet is unbearable, even by me :'(
*puts on shoes and sits uncomfortably*

i slept like a baby last night, and waking up was soooo difficult because i was soooo nice and warm and it was soooo not warm outside the covers. chilly.

i managed to get by today without doing an iota of real work. in fact, i don't recall most of the things i did. i went through lots of emails, filing things in more intelligent places... and the mongoose helped me make the most of yesterday's photography. his work gets me every time - i've now got stunning prints, which means i actually have a gift for my section already prepared.

much happier :)

we went out to eat this afternoon - i ate way too much, but it was really good. i felt i had to share that ;) [actually, i just need to learn from this that one kebab in a laffa is MORE than enough]

wondering: bill & ted's excellent adventure was what got keanu started, right? what's the name of the movie which begins with him performing oral sex on some guy? or did i confuse him with someone else?

spot and i are having loads of fun with our current work >)

i'm terrified of tomorrow: the wedding (i hope i haven't lost the invite), and then praying that everything falls into place on thursday :S *WORRIES*

here're some links, now it's back to work.

animated series! (teaser)
penny arcade in wired
email not good enough? [okay, it's not a bad idea]
gotta love the americans
a cute mouse with pictures
science rules
SO sexy

'cause i'm a loser, baby

it's taken a few months, but the kid and i finally took the photos that we bought the mini uzi for... it was confiscated on our way back to base, so we're not going to have any opportunities to re-shoot if they're not up to scratch. now they need to be professionally toyed with (the mongoose) until i have a goodbye poster for the section.

i spent a large part of today going through old emails to see what i need for my next phase. a serious trip down memory lane, that. and lots of pictures from the mongoose poking fun at the size of my ears (eg. an edited copy of my tattoo with huge ears attached, and some old guy from the army archives who had decidedly large ears). the problem with these pictures is that they're seriously amusing, and extremely well done - i can't be mad at him for that!

i got to work pressured because i knew i wanted to get going to yogi's asap. i got way further than i expected, and am now playing with the final stages of some seriously nifty code that impresses me ^_^

oh, and my favourite moment of the day: just after getting in to work, i went to another office to change out of uniform and was called back to mine, with the boss and spot smiling at me.
the news: the application we've been having trouble with since its inception (months and months ago) that i've chopped and changed and hated and rewritten, over and over, has finally managed to survive a weekend performing exactly the way it was intended to.

i calmly told everyone to hang on, walked to another office, closed the door, whooped like a little girl at a michael jackson concert, and then returned with a big smile on my face.

spot and i rushed off just after 8pm and took a taxi to yogi's, where yogi, SxS, ru55, SxS's cousin (the one who's extremely amusing when he's drunk), grootbek and a friend of his (yeah. always a pleasure to see that motherfucker), mmf, one of ze germans and a guy i used to work with sat down to some serious poker.

well, they did at least. i sat down to pull my usual throw-away-as-much-cash-as-quickly-as-possible, and i did it fairly well. at least it was spent in good fun.
SxS and i did some quick planning for cape town, and then ru55 gave me a ride back into tel aviv. on a slow walk home, repeatedly reciting "the IDF spirit", i thought a lot about the next month, and too much about thursday. so many things need to go right in order for it to be a success, and most of them are out of my control.

at least what is in my control is dealt with. it took a couple of months, and the beginning was insanely difficult, but i have learned a lot of obscure hebrew and a lot of words, and i've achieved an objective that was more in the realm of "wouldn't that be cool" than "yeah, i can do that".

so i'm fairly proud of myself. now i'm going to bed, earlier than expected. i'd feel great about that, except that i was wrong about the wedding i'm going to this week, it's on wednesday night. which means i'll probably get home around 3am, and i have to be up almost exactly 26 years after my birth (6.30am) to make it to my last inspection.

unpleasant.

cutlery that makes me think of jonny mnemonic
at least that's over. like the 80's
for nails as tough as ...

upgrade available to those i-need-one-too jackets

awkwardly uncivilized

work was great - i got a lot of fun stuff done. sagirl put me in touch with a friend of hers, so i bailed early and made my way to a really nice bar / restaurant to meet her.

the entrance wasn't too obvious, or at least looked suspiciously like it wasn't one. as i entered, the handle of the door came off. i can't stop myself blushing when things like that happen - even though i know it wasn't my fault. there was a crowded table right next to the door, everyone stared as i calmly (aside from being beetroot-coloured) re-attached the handle and walked through to the bar.

i called, no answer. i ordered a guinness and sat down waiting for a callback. no dice, so i sent a silly message ("aww, i feel like i've been stood up :("), and soon afterwards got a response: "we're sitting at the entrance, table no. 5". so i asked the waitress if the tables were numbered (i hadn't seen any signs).

"yes - are you on a blind date?" she sounded way too amused
"erm - i'm just meeting someone here. where is table 5?"
"table 5 is the bar"

okay - i quickly check the others at the bar... no way. sod that, i called again, and turned around to see the girl closest to the door (that i'd incidented - is that a word? don't think so) pick up her phone.

*sigh*

anyway, it was a nice group to sit chatting with. i didn't do much chatting though - it's absolutely fantastic how serving in the army can shut your mouth. it doesn't matter how much i have to say, i always get stuck conversationally when i feel like it would be useful not to :(

and plus, as a quick flashback of sitting with sb and her acting buddies (i can't tell acting jokes. i'm not an actor.), i don't have many ship experiences to share - so i just sat listening to some very amusing stories about cruise life. sounds rather soap-opera-y... my life's more drama and pulp fiction.

so all-in-all, it's always nice to be reminded that there are such beautiful girls in south africa (and hey, i'll be there soon! another 25 days!), and it was a fun evening out compared to the usual weekday go-home-sleep-back-to-work, and it was nice meeting friends of friends (i'm seeing sagirl for the first time in years this holiday), and i hope i'll see them again in spite of my life being decidedly anti new friends at the moment.

on the way out, SxS called to inform me that he's back from cyprus and that i have no choice but to go to yogi's tomorrow night in order to see him before we meet in cape town... dammit. poker night in the middle of the week's gonna kill me.

"game on" sunday

slashdotters have fun with aging gamer

a good videogame workout? sounds promising...

aside from this missing, it appears the ps3 release is all good.

well, back to the grindstone... sort of. until 10am we had tons of work to do.

during a smoke-break we witnessed a paedophile's dream: a new girl on our base who's tiny, doesn't look a day older than 12, dressed in uniform and for that undoubtedly legal. and really pretty. hell, yeah ;) [erm - i'm not actually a paedophile, alright?]

we had a short meeting, and discovered that our gannt has been rearranged, and we're out of the fire and back in the frying pan :D
basically, the major hiccups have been shifted over to SEPs, and we're left with what we were supposed to be doing in the first place ^_^

the kid, piles and i had lunch early, and then the kid and i went off to the mall to go shopping for much-needed household items. we didn't find a coffee table, and surprised our teammates by not coming back with a foozball table in its stead :P

i spent the afternoon arranging thursday's festivities, things are looking good. we did pull-ups just before leaving: i'm still feeling a tad wasted. did 'em well, though, shouting out prime directives for each set full metal jacket style >D

the only thing that bothers me is that my limbs are being fuzzy and twingy - i'm beginning to get paranoid that the state of my neck is degrading into something dangerous :S

work: not yet. spot and i headed out for the mandatory fantastic tortillas, and aside from some arbitrary linkage it's high time i got started.

oh - and the kid has reported that our power at home's out due to the neighbours' renovations. i really was sure i'd left that whole scene, and this is fairly upsetting :'(

google evil
pretty paper

leaving work with a moerse headache

the three of us took an unnecessarily long walk due to indecision to get to minna tomei's, that fancy asian restaurant we learned about on thursday. fantastic food - the service was a bit worrying though. i put it down to the completely unnatural (for israelis, at least) level of professionalism in the service. a tad too programmed.

after gorging ourselves (i had chinese 5-spice duck, superb) [including great seafood starters], spot and i plodded on to work, from where i'm now fleeing. i got stuck in testing: apparently when opening a text file, notepad begins at the wrong offset, and it took a short while to realize that the errors weren't originating in my code. since that realization, i've just been having fun writing a cute (and relatively generic) command parser, and things are looking good.

my head's splittin' though, methinks it's time for a drink before a heavy week (especially relative to the last one) begins.

nystire's host of links for the night:

reversing diabetes

things we need for our office:
gold hub
heated gloves
hamster wheel
hell yeah

scandalous attempt to tarnish tux's good name

tentatively touching the reader

it's been a long time, but i've actually brought myself to read some news:

black metal
calculator
anti-fatigue? is this a good idea?
can't we just strike paris off the list?
for moonflake, with love
oh yeah. this is good. we haven't got enough to worry about.
virtual tomkat
funky mouse (as opposed to "mighty")
why not use pandora??

lounging the weekend away

spot and i walked to agadir, and i had an extremely decent burger. over a long argument about responsibility, curiosity and concentration.

spot's too curious for his own good, and i'm unavailable when i'm focused on something.

we decided that we were going to walk into the balcony, say hi, and leave - but wr and a few friends were there, and there was no chance of escaping that easily. spot and i were treated to honey jäägermeister... the guys thought our reactions were to the strength of the shot. my strangled groans were caused by drinking what is essentially honey, i didn't feel any alcohol at all. GROSS.

tired + alcohol = wasted as usual. around 2.30 i decided it was time to jump ship, and spot joined me for the long walk home. okay, fine, not so long. but i was completely out of it, sue me.

i woke up around noon, and the kid and i went missioning for medals. in both areas we checked out, the shops turned out to be on the opposite side from where we'd expected, and we were too late for all of them. the kid was pressured for time, and we actually jogged about ten minutes to find the last one. at least we know where they are for next week, and we're planning on waking up early next time.

on my way back, i stopped in to say hi to the taekwondo group, and our instructor threw me a pair of pants and inducted me for half the session. i had a good stretch, and was put in charge of a couple of new kids... *evil grin*

i thought i'd left just in time to go shopping, but when i got to our area the supermarket was closed, so i went shopping at the am:pm (most definitely a second / third choice) and came home to shower and chill in front of the telly.

iron maiden kixx0rs ass :P - it's all so 80's!

the kid and i went to get water, and on the way we rented 16 blocks. the machine is awesome - proper use of a touchscreen! it's great to use something with an intelligent interface.

the kid's brother rocked up, we made sandwiches and watched a couple of episodes of prison break... okay, i've missed a lot in the second season, but it wasn't too complicated to pick up on what was happening and it was great fun as usual.

after he left, we tried to watch the video we rented. my dvd player makes a whirring sound on some discs, and it gets a tad annoying. so we hooked up the kid's, and that started off fine... except for slight static in the background. the static got progressively louder through the movie, until it was so bad that i pressed mute and began reading the hebrew subtitles. i was more or less okay, every now and again pausing when they flashed a long sentence for two seconds (i hate it when they do that in english, too), but then something happened and i registered that things were not as they should be.

i rewound, and there was approximately half an action-packed hour that the player just skipped. all by itself. that was aggravating. so i got to the end of the film, and it was a pretty good one, disappointed with the overall viewing experience.

i slept soundly, and woke up to find the kid watching invader zim. after a couple of episodes spot and i made coffee (i friggin' HATE boiling milk. i just can't get it right), walked to return the dvd, and the three of us have spent the last couple of hours in gaming mode ^_^

good-grief camel

spot and i just teamed up to build a remote command interface using java and perl. and my word, the perl script required is 11 characters. that's creepy and unnatural.

but it does work.

WHAT'S THE LESBIAN DOING IN MY PIRATE MOVIE?

i'm overdue for that weekend i was talking about.

total two-day break

monday night:

spot pissed me off big-time... we were in a hurry, and i'd already left the building, when i received an sms telling me to go up to the 2nd floor. a floor with no connection to anything. he says he just wanted me to see how pretty it was. moron.

we had fun at the lincoln, and got a ride home fairly late from the friend who joined us.

tuesday:

i had an early wake-up, and was strangely alright with it. the kid and i made it to base just after 6.30am, had a bite to eat, and surprisingly enough left shortly afterwards.

uncomfortable bus part i: i'm too tall for public transport. i'm very much afraid that the flight to sa next month will be intolerable.

breakfast part ii: decent-ish breakfast when we got to the first area of the trip. afterwards, we had fun messing about with bows and arrows and rope / tree climbing. then we went off on a bicycle trip. it was pretty hard going, but i got into a groove and really enjoyed it. we stopped off at some point, chilling for about five minutes, and then had to make our way back - i stayed in first gear, and really punched it all the way back. it's a superb reminder of all the reasons i shouldn't smoke - my body was fine, but my lungs were feeling shredded and i sat coughing up cigarettes for half an hour (i was counting backwards until the smokes from the night before).

we went on a long educational walk along the crater, and then returned for lunch. after lunch we bussed through to eilat, where we had enough time to shower before being shunted off to the club for dinner and dancing.

it was a fun evening. would somebody of the female persuasion please explain why, when your super-cute friend is dancing and having a good time with a guy who everyone else seems to like, you feel compelled to drag her off as quickly as possible? the only other girls who interested me were either married, or making out with everyone. sod it, i gotta find myself somebody not in the army.

my SC seems to think differently - he spent the night hassling girls on my behalf :P
it was fairly amusing, and led on to a cute incident the next day...

wednesday:

we had an early (and difficult) wake-up to which i responded with double coffee, and we headed out to the buses. as i entered both my SC and branch commander started harrassing me: "c'mon! if you're going to be picky, at least give us a basic profile of the girl you're looking for!"

i told them i'd think about it. at some point later i informed them that i'm simply looking for a beautiful (not cute. STUNNING more like) girl, 24+, who lives in tel aviv. can she be so hard to find? all the rest of the stuff generally works itself out, no? no?

we had a really good beach day: i got into the water straight away for an extremely pleasant swim, and got a great massage from one of the cuter girls. during the course of the morning we went on the "banana": my TL and i were on the back, and it was most entertaining. at some point things got a little out of hand and i fell off - my TL was the only person who noticed, and was laughing so hard that they left me there for about two minutes before he was able to tell them to come back for me :S

water-skiing cost too damn much, so i didn't; we lost the tug-of-war; i got involved in a water-fight that resulted in me receiving a serious elbow to the celiac plexus; we went shopping^*; got organized with coffee (with flake!), and returned for speeches and a krembo-eating (sweetie-pie type thing) competition wherein the participants made my previous attempt (10 in 10 minutes) absolutely laughable.

^*goshdarn cute intelligent female salespeople: i came across the dvd collection of iron maiden music videos, and had to buy it. the girl was talking to our TL and i said "you don't have anything more awesome than this, do you?"... to which she responded by pulling out the pink floyd - pulse concert dvds.
crap, so i had to buy that too. then piles compounded my error by waving metallica - black in my face, and it's the only pre-reload album i don't have the original of. all of them relatively cheap, and i just watched my cash fly away.

we had lunch, and then siesta, and then headed back to the buses.

the cute girl who got pulled away from me during the party? our TL and i decided we both want her. so we turned to our SC, to ask him to make a decision: he put up both hands and called our branch commander to make a decision - possibly the fastest a request has ever made it up the chain of command :P

killer bus ride part ii: ohmigod. i tried to sleep, but i couldn't get comfortable and there was, at any given time, at least one part of my body that had painfully fallen asleep (in general, my ass). so that sucked. when we stopped for a snack and toilet break, i literally jumped off the bus to run around waving my arms and legs (and squealing with delight), and spent the 15 minutes stretching and smoking and eating and having a laugh with / at a girl in our section who was suffering from car-sickness.

i put on the second dvd from pulse, and a couple of our elderly commanders complained (apparently word of my taste in music gets around). as soon as it started they calmed down, and by the end of the disc a couple of them were hinting that maybe i should put on the first one ;)

the rest of the ride was okay (i learned after part ii not to even try to sit), but ended in a heated argument with someone who stated as fact that pit-bulls are dangerous and can't be trusted. dammit, they're AWESOME dogs, *AHEM*, AS LONG AS THEY'RE THOROUGHBRED AND AS LONG AS THEY'RE RAISED WELL [like any child - did we not agree that every person should undergo testing for suitability to the task of parenting?].

a quick weapon reliquishment later and pile's mom gave us a ride home: what a way to learn about piles' roots. everything's clear now. at least we know where it all comes from, i mean.

-- the previous paragraph was brought to you by freud in conjunction with a perverse mind --

the kid had to shower before eating (i don't get it), so spot and i watched some of the first pulse dvd (insane!) before we all entered la gufra's danger zone... they offer a "garden of eden waffle", which is a standard milk & white chocolate belgian waffle with banana, two scoops of ice-cream and excessive quantities of whipped cream. i can't believe i ordered a waffle that i couldn't finish.

we did our regular coffee thing on the way home, and i watched a couple of iron maiden videos before showering and going to bed. have i mentioned before that my younger sister once entertained the band while they were on tour in south africa? i got scrawled signatures on the back of a cartleigh box, i must have been 13 or so, and i only discovered years later what had transpired in order for me to get it :P

i slept brilliantly, and today was fairly chilled. our commanders were all on holiday, so we made a lot of noise and kept ourselves well-entertained (and i proved myself at tracking people down), and i'm ready for the "IDF spirit" thing which is now planned for next week thursday. very exciting :D

i got to work to discover that my apps appear to be working: here's hoping that it's finally for real. we'll only know on monday :S

weekend's here!

painful smashin'

wrong. just plain wrong. but awesome.

proof! can't argue!

-----Original Message-----
From: Mrs.Zuma [mailto:zuma410a@katamail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 22:22
To: spot@our_company.com
Subject: We Need Your Help!!!!!!

Dear Beloved,

I am wife of Sacked Deputy President of South Africa, Mr. Jacob Zuma.

It is out of desperation that I am sending you this mail. My Husband and I need your assistance in fronting for us as owner of funds that are his which might come under investigation soon if the fund's ownership is not changed soonest. As my Husband's finances are increasingly becoming the source of investigation by our distractors.

The source of these fund's which my Husband earnings would not validate, will further sink him into the cesspool dug by our enemies.

It is because of the dire strait we find ourselves that we resolved to reach you and ask for your assistance in this matter.

We are averse to letting those we know here into this deal because we are no longer sure of who our friends are. You will be handsomely rewarded if you choose to help us partnerhip in this project.

I will be expecting to hear from you and will disclose further details to you upon your response.

Do well not to disclose the contents of this mail to anyone.

Best Regards,
Mrs.S Zuma.

sick as a... as a... a very sick person

so. i felt terrible last night. really sick. aweful. i thought maybe a nap would help, but i was roused by spot to work feeling even worse. just thinking about it makes me feel like crap.

i left work early, and pretty much stumbled home. and immediately put myself to bed. no passing go, no collecting whatever it is i was supposed to be collecting.

i woke up this morning after a good night's rest, and arrived on base pretty much on time. the day was off to a good start; it was only in the afternoon that piles managed to get on my nerves again. and that was after a great lunch period where our team made sushi before demolishing it. the wasabi was *devastating*, just a whiff was enough to force tears and coughing fits ^_^

sorted out a bunch of things today, i was making ready to go home when our SC called me in to shit on me from a dizzy height. we're more or less doing okay, but we're not holding to the times on the gantt chart - i'm learning to dislike the gantt very much. and i missed volleyball, too.

i managed to hop onto the wrong bus tonight, and ended up arriving at work rather later than i'd expected to. it's a bit less of a headache tonight, though. my plan is to go out with some friends to play pool after we're done, then sleep on the bus tomorrow - after getting to the base around 6.30am to get on the aforementioned bus because we've got a two-day unit trip.

one of /those/ days

too little sleep - not that i didn't see that coming. i love the fact that i have so much self-control (er, too much, in most cases. i'd loosen up if i didn't have to worry so much about jailtime), because as frustrated with piles as i'm becoming and as much as i'd like to, i haven't beaten the snot out of him. what an annoying little creep >@

said goodbye to our primary unit secretary today - kinda unfortunate that we're not in such good hands anymore. up until now there was always someone who knew what was going on...

lunch sucked a bit. straight from there we met for instructions regarding the unit trip to eilat this week. sounds alright, i guess. the rest of the afternoon was for horrible, horrible meetings where i had to watch real dbas doing their thing. i hate that shit, i really do. i haven't mentioned that before, have i? bores me to death.

i had an unnerving chat with my commander towards the end of the day, and then slowly made the transformation to death-on-toast on the bus here. i've had coffee and a possibly-too-healthy-for-me muesli / yoghurt / fruit shake thing. tasted awesome. i don't get it.

i am totally loathe to do anything. and this weird girl keeps bugging me. i just can't bring myself to block her on msn. what's wrong with me?

grrrdammitfrigginmouse!

weekend pass!

i walked to zinc, and had to wait a while - tough break staring at a waitress who has a perfect (and i mean perfect) body and the cutest face. i kind of half-arsedly flirted with her, but she's the kind of girl who's just too pretty for a nice guy like me :P

awesome food - i was joined for eats by spot and a friend from work, and afterwards we took a slow walk to our place. i charged my phone for a bit, we watched some invader zim (always good to bring new people into the fold), discovered that our internet was completely down, got everybody frustrated with warning forever (great game!), and then walked to this friend's place.

awesome pad on shenkin (if you know where that is, then you understand how friggin' cool that is), and we chilled there for a while; spot and him playing around on the electric guitar. sogoi :)

i walked from there to the zamir, realized i'd arrive too early, and went to my coffee to blow half an hour on good coffee. then i returned, had a chat with a navy captain from our base, and went inside. first time i've been on the guestlist, that turned out a mite awkward...

the party was, um, interesting. nothing special for the first bit - a friend who used to serve with us rocked up, and we spent a while talking and being generally irritated by some of the crap songs played between the good ones. at least this time most of the tracks were good. at some point some guy sat down and began spewing all over the steps upon which most people usually sit; when i pointed this out to the bartender in the hope he'd send someone to clean it, he just gave me a glass of water to hand to him. i don't like drunk people, i abhor dealing with them, and there i was tasked with helping him? i just put it down next to him and drew his attention to it.
ew.

around 3am, ta2 pulled off something fantastic. they turned off all the bright flashy lights and lasers, and played nine inch nails - closer. i was sure i was hearing some odd sounds, and identified them, but nobody else seemed to be paying attention and everyone was dancing and singing along as usual... i was convinced that i was hallucinating. but if so, why would that come into my head?? i absolutely had to resolve the issue, and this afternoon i found the remix: closer to mario.

i can't believe i heard that in a club full of freaks :D

the weird vibe developed from that point, and after half an hour i decided it was time to call it quits (i also wasn't feeling to good, for some still-unknown reason my stomache hurt. period, maybe? but i don't have a bleeding womb!) on my way out, the weird girl who humped my leg a few weeks ago jumped on me and wrapped her legs around me, and being slightly inebriated i danced for a bit with her attached.

i remember when i was new to the scene, and i would have taken her home straight away. but the longer i've known her, in spite of the fact that she seems to my taste, the more of a village-bicycle vibe i've received from her. no dice. sad, but true.

the walk home seemed to take forever, and my stomache-ache was on the rise. being drunk, i kept focused by reciting the idf doctrine repeatedly. yeah - even drunk and i can do it with confidence ^_^

i had a shower, and put myself to bed feeling sparkly clean.

i woke up this afternoon, made myself a good breakfast, and began watching face off. halfway through, the kid knocked on my door to say he'd just gone running - i've told him that next time he's to tell me before he goes. more helpful that way.

the three of us spent the afternoon cleaning, and then went out to rabin square. the kid and i sat with spot as he ate, and then went off to meet an old friend of mine at the lincoln. we played about an hour, then said goodbye and walked to the local aroma. we sat discussing the not-too-distant future, and that led on to some ideas i've had for the past few years. as soon as i finish mandatory service, it'll be high time to get a move-on with them.

we went to the lizard, sat chatting with the mongoose and his girlfriend for a while, and then headed back to cafeneto to meet with one of the waitresses. turned out we'd arrived to late for whatever it is she wanted from us (something to do with photography, i dunno), so we escorted her halfway home and sat chatting on a bench for a while.

some bastard managed to ram a parked car, and then rode off. i HATE that. i know what it's like to have someone fuck up your car. it's bad enough by itself, and worse when you have to pay for the repairs :S

we got the bugger's number, and wrote a nice little message for the owner. hopefully it'll help.

now - to sleep! (my word - how is it almost 3am?!)

the warmth (incubus)

i didn't get to inspection yesterday morning, although i did arrive on base in time for it - i started my day patching a report; the kid and i tested it when he arrived. all seemed good. we arranged to put it into production. when everything seemed to be going fine, i went in search of our previous TL, and we sat on some our problems together.

when i got back to the office, i discovered that the kid had just had an aweful half-hour - something had gone wrong with the reports, and the client section idiots don't understand that if three people phone someone who's supposed to be fixing something, to tell him how important and urgent it is that he fix it, then he's not going to be able to fix it.

we spent the rest of the day working on various things, i managed to reduce some of our workload from monday / tuesday - the only thing is that i don't really want to learn this much about these systems. i don't want to deal with anything even remotely like these systems again as long as i live.

i am not a frikkin' DBA.

i pretty much learned to juggle during our last half hour (cleaning our offices. we should do it more often). i went to work, and aside from shipping off to meet with nystire, it was a decent evening's work. spot and i left arguing over design problems, and stopped by cafeneto before coming home.

on coming home, we discovered that my firewall's giving me shit, so i have to turn it off to blog and check mail. that's retarded.

when i woke up this morning i discovered that spot had locked my pc. i couldn't for the life of me remember the password - i only set it because of the builders, and i haven't typed it in for six months. it took much guessing, turned out to be one of the dumbest passwords i could've picked. oh, well.

aside from laundry and shopping, i've done NOTHING today. i've been watching the alien bonus cd, which is awesome. for me, seeing giger at work and seeing so much of his concept art is just amazing.

now i'm off to the zinc. my cellphone battery hasn't died yet, i'm fairly confident it'll happen at the most inconvenient moment. but i'm even more impressed by it now - over 7 days :)

nystire provides (and i bought me a jacket)

nystire provides:
this video. with background info.
amusing blogging
jedis, huh?

as well as a tip-off to buy some things i'm going to need next year (i met him at the central bus station and did my shopping).

suppery goodness

i got some decent work done tonight - not everything i wanted to do, but enough that tomorrow things should be considerably smoother.

i left the base, struggling with the wordiness in the last three prime directives of the IDF spirit (there's no way i'll be ready in the morning. gotta put it off another week or two...). i got home to spot cooking, and was sent to buy a humongous frying pan and onions. and then i got to chop the onions :')

we ate in front of the tv, which was really nice, and i've just spent about half an hour chatting with the kid after we finished doing the dishes. now it's shower and bed and inspection time :P

from slowdown to speedup

i was completely wasted today. and we began the day with a 3.5 hour meeting that did my head in. the afternoon was spent in a daze, aside from lunch, which was alright.

i pissed off the kid by passing out for about 10 minutes. yeah, that wasn't very nice of me, but after dreaming about database synonyms, i woke up refreshed and with a decent not-too-complicated-to-implement solution. i was then fairly capable of working for the rest of the afternoon.

ignoring the lack of sleep, i've been wasted for the last couple of days mostly due to the instant depression caused by our rude awakening on monday. or was it sunday? i dunno. either way, tonight i've decided that for the rest of my time with these systems i'm just going to go with the flow, and enjoy the fact that the last part of my service on my current base will not be as meaningless as it's been for the past two years.

to aid me with this, i just spent an hour having a long conversation with nystire, who has filled me with hope in addition to the regular trepidation he carries around with him. things will be alright.

lookin' good.

now to do some actual work, and then sleep like a foetus - the metaphor carries on in the morning when i'm evacuated from the womb, kicking and screaming my little (and cigarette-blackened) lungs out as the cold, bitter air of getting to base an hour early to fix a bug awakens me to a dark, miserable world.

but i'm happy now. that's the main thing.

recovered post from monday!

i'm smashed, hammered, drunk, and i have to go to bed RIGHT now because we have a meeting at 8.30am.

i bussed to bank, banking was most pleasant (i.e. sorted everything out without too much kicking and screaming, and only a little bit of confusion), arrived in time for lunch, piles is amazingly horrible - bloody rude and irritating as hell, but the afternoon was otherwise quite boring.

the kicker came at 16.30 - the kid and i sat in on an hour-long meeting in which we were informed that the next three or four weeks will be spent in a world of pain. if the kind of work that's expected of us was proposed in a civilian environment, a feasibility study would be done, the managers laughed at and the workers would quit.

-- academic signing request of infinite stupidity --

alien history over supper: i'm annoyed that spot watched the bonus disc for alien without me. MORE shocked at the kind of things that were included. the history of that movie is more than just remarkable, it's downright insane.

ha - oracle amusement. that never happens. we just discovered that our provider may have left us a back-door to their database, the only problem is connecting directly to it when we're not certain of their logging system and if we'll get caught bypassing by their crappy api's; it'll be hugely embarrassing for us as a legitimate establishment. but we know how to do it, even if it's not a good idea, and the thought has interesting possibilities.

"it's in development"
"when was the last time a version was released?"

i phoned up our provider to harass them over another issue, and when he gave me the development line i turned into the world's biggest bastard. i had him seriously uncomfortable, and he's now given me enough info to give the bull the upper hand. yeah :)

note to self: do not admit to not including a 6-month-old request in a minor release. it doesn't look good to your clients.

deftones - no ordinary love is awesome. had to mention that. it took me forever to hear the whole song because spot kept interrupting it with interesting bits of information.

thank you nystire:
familiar trouble in the form of a bad atoi implementation
a really bad kind of lie-to-children

we walked to the balcony, i got drunk and had a good time, and then walked the entire way home because i got the minibus taxi route confused. that's the most mental masturbation i think i've ever suffered (although i'm not sober, i could be wrong), and i can't say that it wasn't entertaining.

*dies*

kick in the teeth

two-in-one posting, i can't blog from home and i don't know why.

yesterday:

bus to bank, pleasant banking, arriving in time for lunch, amazingly horrible piles (he's really cheeky and has a really bad attitude, not a good combination), boring afternoon

the kicker: we've been given an impossible amount of work to do, approximately five big projects simultaneously. it's frightening.

spot and i discussed the history of the original alien movie over supper. horrifying in itself and extremely interesting. i'm annoyed that he watched it without me.

oracle amusement. our provider's system has a fascinating security flaw that allows us to log in directly to their database. we don't know how good their logging is, so it isn't worth actually doing anything, but it does have potential - i could go around their apis completely :P

"it's in development"
"when was the last time a version was released?"

i can be a real bastard when somebody wastes my time. i got our provider's tech-support to provide me with great leverage.

deftones - no ordinary love is a great track.

spot and i walked to the balcony, i got smashed, and then we walked all the way home because i'd confused the bus routes. i wrote a long post, which is sitting at home feeling sorry for itself (i really don't know why i can't post), and fell asleep around 2 / 2.30am.

thank you nystire:
familiar trouble
inspired



today:

the red-bull wake-up wasn't as effective as i'd have liked. i'm surviving today purely on caffeine. tons of work the entire day. way too much pressure. around 2pm, our SC came in to inform us that our schedule has been tightened. thumbscrews come to mind. i have 24 working days left, and the impossible has just become absurd. in the middle of the meeting i asked if it was okay to just bring in the cute girl in the bunny suit with a cake and have her yell "surprise!", and let me know that it's all just a terrible good-bye practical joke.

no such luck. i left the kid and piles working (yes, piles has to actually work on our systems now. this is just stupid.), and hopped a stuffy bus to azrieli to buy umbrellas for myself and spot. i ran into nystire's brother on the way, and we went through almost every store until we found something. strangely enough, i finally met a girl i've was trying to get a hold of today; i didn't tell her who i was, so she was quite confused when i walked up and informed her that i'd been looking for her today. then nystire's brother introduced us, and she suddenly realized who i am... and then immediately said a quick goodbye :P

i got decent brollies, and then came to work. my brain's dead.

CLAWsome

Q6KK

okay - i had a rather lengthy post and it got lost. normally it's incredibly frustrating when that happens. but when some stupid fucker intentionally pulls the power cable because he doesn't like your music... on a fucking WORK MACHINE... when i had a test still running since friday that needed until tomorrow morning to finish... and this stupid fucker happens to work with you...

i thought i'd calmed down a bit, but apparently not. here's my personal i'm-going-to-bed-so-no-fun-post point form. stupid prick. yes, it was nql. 30 years old and behaves like a little child. AND he sucks as a programmer.

saturday: woke up for a mike's place breakfast in the early evening. same shitty waitress. bacon was more crispy than it should have been. other than that it was really nice.

my server's broken, so i couldn't get any work done. we played hours of poker instead, i'm hoping spot'll be keen to post a comment with some details. basically, the six and queen of spades got me back in the game in a big way, the pocket kings helped me clean up, and i spent 20 mercy-minutes throwing money away before calling it a night. i'd had to borrow money to play, and collected money through the day.

sunday: the day began with a 2 hour meeting, which was painful. out of nowhere, in the middle of a tense period, our SC mentioned to the guy testing us on quality procedures that our TL was dating the girl on our client's side. that was dirty...

the mongoose's big mouth has potentially ruined the whole "IDF spirit" thing, after tons of work and effort. prick.

i spent some of the day dealing with a course that some kids are trying to get me to waste a week on, when i'm over-qualified to TEACH the course. it's about how to deal with civilian life. huh.

the rest of the day was spent on piles: he was sent off to our primary base to be court-martialled. for something completely out of his control. they realized before actually committing that it was stupid, and sent him back. fools.

we got some good team exercise during the last half hour, then i went off to work. nql and i proceeded to not get along, and i left completely pissed off. i went back to spot's grandmother's place for supper, on the way back made a pass at some cute neighbour girls - that bombed, and then spot and i did some shopping and the three of us (the kid) watched alien - the director's cut which was awesome. now i'm going to bed.

stupid internet problems... this post was ready at 2am.

slowdown to sleep

i came home after work, spot's friends came over, i passed out watching neon genesis evangelion, had supper watching the fifth element, walked to the zamir, had too much to drink, seemed to be doing alright with a cute girl who suddenly turned around, said goodbye, and left, i left a few minutes later on account of the party being kinda sucky, have gotten home, and am in the processing of crashing.

saving me from myself

i finished what i planned on doing, then took a bus through to mmf's. SxS was there, we sat for a while talking crap, and i got my psOne ^_^, although mmf didn't quite take good care of it...

my new cellphone battery died while i was there. 6.5 days and well-used, i'm well impressed!

SxS and i walked through to have supper on dizengoff, then he gave me a ride home. i put myself straight to bed.

i woke up fairly early this morning, and went shopping with the kid. did laundry (finally). i tried to plug in the psOne - grrrrrrrrrrr. i took the wrong cable last night >|

spot and i left for work. i stopped by azrieli on the way to use my coupons before they expire. i walked into tower records with a strategy: alice cooper special edition, led zeppelin dvd, deftones - b-sides and rarities, tool - lateralus, and fear factory - digimortal.

on my way to the counter, carrying all of this, i spotted this (although a possibly different edition according to the artwork in the link). immediate indecision - i'd already made and was currently executing my plans: what do i do?! so i called spot, and he told me to go with it. i had to drop the dvds and fear factory, but from the moment it was in my hands i KNEW it was the right and obvious decision. and i gotta say that i managed to keep it closed until i arrived at work - what a rush to open it, and see inside that it's designed as it should be. stunning. i have purchased a work of art in and of itself.

aside from the fact that i'm not going to jerusalem, and that i'm at work and working (minus right now, of course), today's definitely alright. now to finish my annoying tasks and get home.

spot cracks me up - he just now read my post containing OMFGTISFC and got it immediately: he does know me too well :P

deep thought

what a day! it began with much difficulty, but once the obstacle (lack of coffee) was overcome, it immediately improved with a half-hour meeting to design the first step towards incorporating java into the team's projects. it was interesting mental exercise, and it's always good to be arguing about things which you know are correct :P

i got in touch with someone important (for me) this morning, things are moving and i'm happy with how they're doing so. [bad english. sod off.]

bureaucratically today sucked, however. aside from piles being picked on by our primary base's secretariat (because, as *we* know, they have no clue what they're doing), i discovered that there really is no way in hell that i'll be able to go to athens for the tool concert. i tried. i really, really tried. crying doesn't help.

our section went off to or yehuda for lunch; great food, plenty of it, and the weather was simply perfect for sitting outside with a bunch of friends, talking and eating and being all relaxed on a thursday.

piles' code finally got reviewed today, and he received some harsh comments. the basis for most of those comments was the specific point on which i've been hassling him for weeks, and he's been whining about it, and it was made clear to him by our TL and a couple of others that he needs to sort it out.

after the review, i told piles to sit on his ass and focus on the problem, and promptly ignored him while working on other things. after a few minutes i could almost hear the *PING*; he turned around excitedly and informed me that he'd found the cause. i asked him if it was something really stupid, he hung his head in shameful acknowledgement.

he's learning. i tested him on his understanding of the whys and hows, and he GOT it. OMFGTISFC (this is so friggin' cool) - HE - CAN - THINK!

i was so excited i had to leave the room and go whoop downstairs. i went back upstairs, picked on one of our application support guys and got him to sit with me on something big... and we got it all sorted out and can now breathe easier during the next few months. we, i say, even though it doesn't make a difference to me because i'm not really in the picture anymore ^_^

oh, and our testing server properly died today, which is excellent incentive for those lazy bastards to actually do something about giving us some service.

i came to work with a big smile (real thought! REAL THOUGHT!), spot and i showed off our new cute functionality to the boss and manager, had good coffee, and i'm now gonna get cracking and make today totally worthwhile. then i'm thinking about going home and passing out. i don't think i'm going to make jerusalem tomorrow. bah. humbug.

hell, yes
another great chitty lesson

out of magic tricks

today was busy. meetings in the morning, a farewell ceremony for a girl who had a really troubled service^*1, a frustrating lunch experience^*2, a trip to the induction base^*3, returning to base for a completely abysmal attempt at releasing a version for testing^*4, a crazy trip to get to our TL's place^*5, a pleasant evening that inspired me to try and realize this fantasy of going to athens for the tool concert, a ride home and a quick check to make sure that face off is a good copy, and now i'm off to bed.

^*1 she spat in her commander's coffee in front of me once, the image is stuck in my head

^*2 the kitchen workers are total bastards. the food's crap anyway, and they make it so bloody difficult to actually get any of it...

^*3 amidst sitting around and learning /teaching how to set up a testing station, i made a quick mission to the office of the lieutenant who gave me shit a couple of weeks ago. i left an unsigned note for her that's kind of rude, kind of flirtatious. i don't plan on following it up, i just want to mess with her a little.

^*4 we spent hours fighting with our tech support. it's the first time i've ever logged on to a system as a local admin, and not had access to the c drive. and they couldn't understand why i was annoyed. failing that, our scripts weren't updated properly, so that required more work than should have been necessary. failing that, there wasn't a dba on duty when i'd requested one this morning. bastards. we eventually just gave up and we'll have to continue in the morning.

oh, and nystire came to visit. made for a very pleasant break.

^*5 ignoring the ridiculous amount of time wasted waiting for the bus, and later on waiting to be picked up from another bus stop: we got off at the wrong one. we entered a strange little religious enclave, crawling with cops as there's been rioting over the gay-pride parade being held in jerusalem. each little group of houses is completely isolated by giant walls. it's creepy.

thoughts from the way home

aside from much amusement from the waitress, and a great cup of sachlav, our conversation revolved around malicious consideration (malconsideration as opposed to inconsideration) and the logistical challenge of mass-producing ducks inducing a lack of said duck on menus across the states.

that will be all. move along.

the juggler

thank you moonflake for the above link ^_^

i drank a lot of coffee today. it didn't really help much. and i'd slept so well. the kid and i had a lot of annoying work to do today.

songbird was laughing at me this morning for shining my boots properly. on the way back to the office, we were both caught out - the base commander took my shoe polish and brush off me, and got to work doing a shine-job that made my boots look dirty by comparison. he actually told me off, now songbird can leave me alone about my obsession :P

songbird, the kid, some guys from our previous section and i went off to azrieli to go shopping for our TL's birthday present. found some cool shit, but i was irritated because i'd forgotten my gift-vouchers in my office and there were things *i* wanted (why is it always about me?!). lunch was awesome, songbird's friends joined us and they're cute and highly entertaining.

i was called in to help out my SC when one of the support girls arrived to fix something, and he began trying to sort out a date for me. she's not my type, but it was fun to play along... i turned towards the door when my TL walked in, and when i turned back my SC was juggling with a set of actual juggling balls. if that wasn't enough, my TL walked up to him and began stealing the balls out of the air and incorporating them into his own little juggling act.

i think i missed something, but i know i wasn't hallucinating because the girl was in shock too when she saw what was going on.

friggin' awesome.

piles arrived in the evening, happy about being back but unhappy because he'd been enjoying himself. i *told* him it would be fun. schmuck.

i walked in to the office to have some guy present at me. new crm. i'm totally not interested at the moment, but whatever. it gave me an excuse to go and have an exquisite tortilla.

tonight was an awesome work-night. aside from beginning the evening with a fight with our provider, i finally got a 6-month-old project to pass experimental phase - it basically works!

i spoke to sagirl, turns out we're going to be in sa at the same time for the first time in years :D

nine black alps - unsatisfied resulted in an argument in which spot's objection was overruled, and he continued bitching until he was placed in contempt of court, and then thrown out of the courtroom for a cigarette break.

spot just made an interesting observation: our office hub's power cable goes through the wall at one point, comes back through the same wall and plugs into a standard AC/DC converter hanging precariously at shoulder height behind the back of whoever's standing in front of / walking past the sink.

hmmmm.

100% complete - ALL SYSTEMS GO

hmmph: coffee this morning, and the kid and i still made the bus on time :)

said goodbye to piles, as he was extracted to a base in the middle of nowhere. a good base... he's 18 years old and it's a base for next-year's recruits to "experience the army". meaning 17 year-old girls in absolute awe of "real" soldiers.

*choke*

in the morning, my previous boss called me - looks like i have some work to do. it'll probably take me a few hours on the weekend, it's a bit of a lus. but at least i can finally get the NIS 3000 for finishing; it's only taken 2 years.

there really wasn't too much serious work done today. we finally finished our testing, and it seems that wednesday night we'll have to stay late and ship our new version for the clients' testing. oh, and if we manage it all in time, then the kid and i can go to the small party being thrown in honour of our TL being promoted to lieutenant.

during the ceremony, i managed to scream out the most inappropriate thing in front of a huge crowd that included the head of our unit and a couple of branch commanders... "what a cannon!". amusing results, but i knew it was stupid and i felt myself shining bright red immediately after :$

straight afterwards i had a meeting with our branch commander - it was an extremely productive meeting. i've been informed that i can pretty much leave piles to take over *CHOKE*, and "wind down my business" and say goodbye.
right.
so basically, i'll be getting him to do all my work, and sit there as backup. sounds good!

nystire: i've been assured that the tiny problem of our previously shared commander will be taken care of, so i'm not worried.

i got to work to face an immediate problem that required me to get on the phone to our provider. spot now understands the depth of my plight - i know the provider's phone number by heart. that is sad.

so i spoke to the idiot who doesn't speak english, and later on got to speak to yet another one. apparently the second one's less of an idiot. regardless, they've screwed up big time and it's beginning to get me down :/

on the other hand, i've finally completed the project i've been working on, and built a php interface for it. it works great on windows - really great, but it just dies in linux. so i don't know javascript for all-and-bleeding-sundry. sue me.

i left my system testing a supposed fix of theirs, and bussed home. i'm totally psyched about my newly-gained army status, i'm on my way out of the unit and everything's good. now all i've got to do is plan my weekend right, 'cause SxS hulle are planning theirs in jerusalem... i wanna go! i have to work! i *have* to finish unpacking and tidying!

99% complete

good work done, great fun. i would be remiss if i didn't mention that we received a new version release, and once again they changed the api and invalidated all my code. all undocumented. before i sent out an incredibly nasty email to a few of the provider's bosses and all of mine, spot asked if i'd checked the version history... the answer was there. understandable, if not actually mentioned as such.

on the other hand, it's the first real opportunity i've had to test out all my funky bash scripts, and they all handled beautifully :)

spot and i finally made it in time to catch the 11pm bus, as opposed to waiting half an hour for the 23.30 one, which is the norm.

i'm having serious difficulty with the IDF spirit, specifically Tenacity of Purpose in Performing Missions and Drive to Victory and Responsibility. i just can't seem to get them into my head.

everything up until those points is clear and present :D

we stopped for coffee at cafeneto, and spot ordered a really good slice of chocolate cake. the waitress is awesome. at some point in the conversation spot reminded me of his hiccupping while smoking, and then accused me of attempting to destroy the fabric of the cosmos, through leaps and bounds of logic, by having acquiesced to the ordering of the chocolate cake and remarking on the hiccups, and also of attempting to wriggle my way out of paying for the whole deal (in turn causing a paradox).

good lord, that quantity of mental masturbation and i couldn't make him stop until we got in the door and he got distracted, thank the lord.

speaking of thanking the lord, my life's actually just fine now, thank you very much - i had a chat with my mom for a while, and while there're still i's to dot and t's to cross, and things aren't perfect, they're so much better that i'm still having trouble internalizing it all.

and the kid made eggs. cooking. in our apartment. hah! i took over when he had to run outside to pick something up, and it turns out i do remember something about making omelettes. my second mommy hath taught me well ^_^

bedtime!

you be the judge
cute - and relevant.
and this kicks ass

i scream, nobody listens

a poster caught my eye on my way home last night - a dream come true and absolutely no way to realize it. because i'm in the army, and i'm not allowed to leave the country without an exceptionally good reason (although in my opinion this counts). i think i *am* going to cry.

if you can't read the hebrew, it's 565 euros, including 3 nights in a 3 star hotel, travel and transportation. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

*sniff*

so i woke up yesterday, watched hero, had an enormous breakfast of fish & chips and chili fries, and then went home and went to sleep until this morning.

today was extremely quiet, i sorted out my dental deal and spent the rest of the day milling around.

restart your life!

it only costs a complete change of perspective, sweeping history under the carpet, forgetting all the things you love and enjoy, and dealing with hardship like you've never dealt with hardship before - ORDER NOW!

if you call within the next hour, you'll get a package of our best-selling SHELL-SHOCK! and a tiny sample of JOY! to keep you going when you're feeling cravings.

...

it's not that i'm saying it's not worth it. it's that i'm right now in a headspace where i can't bring myself to enjoy the good stuff because all sorts of crap keeps getting in the way. and i can't stop worrying about the next couple of months of anticipated craziness in spite of knowing that it's neither healthy nor helpful.

this should all be positively exciting; thrilling, even. every now and again i have a moment when i realize what's going on and i get all bouncy and life-like. then the moment passes, and i can feel my eyes and heart harden and morbid determination sets in, taking over everything.

for the past couple of months, my life has been constantly passing before my eyes, in a seemingly-infinite loop. it's like there's a small part of me that just knows that a nervous breakdown is coming. and wants me to have it already. the rest of me just wants to get it all over with, and get to the point i've spent six horrifying years aiming for.

lake, my first girlfriend, kept telling me that i'm too much of an idealist. that a part of growing up that i'll have to face in due course is losing that idealism. i don't know how much of a contribution her saying that has been for my determination, but almost seven years ago (what a frightening thought!) i made a decision to change my life and i've stuck with it.

the problem is that i'm now seeing results of that decision being realized, and i feel like i've ripped through the finish line with a final burst of energy, only to discover that it was only somebody playing a nasty practical joke at the half-way mark. it's just a milestone, my second milestone, and there're many more to come.

and then i get pissed off with myself for being childish and angsty. my life right now, ignoring the lack of sleep, is all good. my living arrangements are superb, i'm making enough money that i have a basic level of financial security, my superiors in the army and at work are more than satisfied with me, and my future's looking so bright,
_____________________!
(come on, fill in the rest of the sentence, it's an o-week special)

the devil is in the details, yeah?

i'm going to shower and go to bed now. i've spent far too much of the day walking and working, and having just one (or two? i think it was only one) drink was more than enough to put me over the edge of sobriety. i'm going to do something crazy tonight - i'm going to put my phone on silent and sleep like an absolute king.

96% complete

i went to the balcony last night, but only long enough for a quick chat and a beer. the music was great. then i walked home, slightly tipsy after a long, long day, brushed teeth and showered in slow-motion and dropped into bed.

i woke up this morning a little later than i'd intended, dressed and hopped a bus to orange's service center. the line for the technician didn't take more than 15 minutes, but the line for actual service took over an hour. at least by the end of it all i'd gotten everything sorted out.

i walked to my old apartment building and retrieved my surfboard. i returned all keys and picked up my post, and left that forsaken place for hopefully the last time. i walked to work - with the board, fooled around at work for about 3 hours - i'll admit to doing a bit of work too, if pushed, and then walked home - with the board.

the kid joined me as i had a sandwich at cafe bazel (la dee da), and i've been watching episodes of hunter x hunter off the link from last night. i wanted to watch prison break, but the listings are all off the mark :(

the kid's brother and his girlfriend have just arrived. i'm contemplating getting a move on towards the lizard - a friend from the base's birthday party.

tracks for the day:
powerman 5000 - when worlds collide
default - deny
saliva - two steps back
seether - remedy

90% complete

yeah!

i got some shit done!

and now it's hometime! (balcony first, it's on the way)

i've had sushi for supper!

and learned about some cool shit! (see previous two posts)

and decided that maybe that crying thing won't be a good idea - i definitely need to just take deeper breaths and see this all through to the beginning ;)

pure genius

mmf is an unbelievably good source of useful things.
like this.

*breathes deeply*

mmf just gave me this.

my mother's the informant

so, south african news:

"And we are a well society?"

Man has 'sex' with puppy

Johannesburg - An incident of bestiality in which a man had sexual intercourse with a three-month-old puppy has shocked the Sandton Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

Mandy Cattanach, a senior SPCA inspector, said on Wednesday they had received a call from the Jeppe police station after an unknown man had dropped off a Labrador-cross female puppy at the station.

"The dog was traumatised when we picked her up and we immediately took her to the veterinary surgeon at Ken Valley Vets. A condom was hanging from her rectum and we suspected she had been raped. The vet confirmed it.

"The dog didn't look like a stray as she was well cared for and approached people once she had calmed down. She didn't seem to have been maltreated before.

"Somebody who does something as ghastly as this doesn't deserve to go free.

"The fact that he had raped a puppy shows what a coward he really is. He didn't take on a big dog because it would have bitten him," she said.

The dog was recovering at the Sandton SPCA on Wednesday. She was still traumatised and cringed and started howling whenever strangers approached.

Other incidents of bestiality

According to Cattanach, the SPCA often encountered incidents of bestiality.

She said they had treated a raped cat and managed to catch the perpetrator.

"The suspect's parents were not surprised, because he allegedly often locked himself into his room with a goat.

"He received psychological treatment after being found guilty."

Cattanach requested anybody with information about the incident, or who recognised the dog to phone them at 011-444 7730. She also asked the man who had dropped the dog off at the police station to contact her.

"We will give her a lot of love and treat her well so that she will regain confidence in humans."

She said they would not hand back the dog to its owners should they be found. Anybody interested in adopting the dog can contact Cattanach.

i wouldn't point to south africans in particular, though. we do have some sick puppies [sic] on this planet.

ceremonial daydream

6.15. i don't know how we managed to get up that early. the kid and i managed to get to base around 7.30, *just* on time, and already there wasn't enough room for us... we had to stuff up the lines, which annoyed the commander of our area a little later on.

lots of organizing and sorting out in the morning; by lunchtime i was moody and tired. i joined the mongoose and freshmeat for falafel - good spice, and a good chat after i'd calmed down a bit.

more sorting in the afternoon, a chat with a really cute girl who's transferring units (because she's bored, i think. this is her 4th unit transfer), and a quick interrogation by some guys from my old section - all i wanted was to pass by and say hi.

i had a successful meeting in which we learned that there's a good chance that one of our new problems won't be too difficult to overcome.

then we had another ceremony. bleargh.

fortunately the end of the afternoon was alright. aside from discovering that piles is being sent off for a week of guard duty next week... whoops! we're out of time.

a few of us did some exercises - i was tired to begin with, i'm feeling dead on my feet now. i spent the last half hour chatting to friends, and then left the base for the week.

i kept dozing off on the bus. i was standing. i'm really, really glad that i registered when i got to my stop. the cute girl downstairs made me some excellent coffee, and i came up to get changed and answer emails.

our providers are bastards. not only do they not want to deal with me personally now (they've impolitely asked me to send mails to their support address only), but i've been on their case for a while now about a bug in the api, and they just keep regurgitating a section of the "manual" that i've bloody well read and bloody well tested against and i frikkin' KNOW that there's a bug.

i sent them back a long, extremely curt / impatient / unfriendly mail expressing my distress and imploring them to actually look into the problem. useless sods. spot checked my mail before i sent (in case i'd subconsciously included plenty of cursing), then our manager checked it, and they both agree: i use too many commas.

it's true. i type like spot talks. if you agree, please feel free to comment about your impressions - it just may be that it complements my writing style, but i'm biased, and spot and my manager are both american, so i'd appreciated some input from people who understand english.

too damn right
fascinating

a disturbed day

this is a disturbed did you know... now i know that the mongoose wasn't just making it up :P
_{(i'm also very concerned that there are people reading this who keep missing my not-so-subtle hints... some of the pictures are relevant links, dammit. and some pictures are relevant because of the pages they're taken from.)}

i was in the middle of rem sleep when the kid woke me up this morning, and i haven't been far out of that headspace since. it was a long, long day, highly pressured in spite of the general lack of actual activity... it's really, really awkward getting ready to say goodbye to a place you've been forced to call home for two years.

tons to sort out; like permanent dental care for the tooth damaged last year, the workload (and piles) that i'll be leaving the kid with, farewell things, conditions for next year, and so on. speaking of that tooth, i just brushed my teeth, and a tiny piece of the completion just came off.

#$!@

today being wednesday, i bought marshmallows and we had sorted coffee. after a couple of hours of work / organization / babysitting, we went off to lunch.

that reminds me - i received an email informing me that i passed the introductory course in real-time, and that i passed satisfactorily. it was an introductory LECTURE. no test. did i pass because i showed up?!

lunch wasn't bad, as such. but the portions we were limited to amounted to approximately two bites per person. that's just frikkin' WRONG. of course, we employed dirty tactics and stole from the officers' mess, but we really shouldn't have had to.

it's been a while - i finally caught up with the hairdresser after lunch, for a quick, smooth buzz. feels good by itself, but i've been happily harrassed since by lots of people who can't not rub my head. feels alright ^_^

apparently the mpe story gets around - i believe that the mongoose can't keep his trap shut. a really cute girl took me aside on my way back from the haircut to interrogate me. i passed the interrogation with flying colours, but that's neither here nor there :P

a large part of the afternoon was spent sorting out my status and status-to-be with the welfare officers. apparently i got screwed over with last year's holiday as far as my regular vacation days are concerned; this year i'll be screwed over by having to extend my mandatory service by a few days to make up for the flights not being too convenient.

during this process, i had to fill out a form about my family. it's always hard for me to get all the details right; when i dutifully informed my welfare officer that my younger sister's actual occupation is prostitution, a look of comprehension dawned: now she knows why none of the other welfare officers have ever filled those tables in for me. she left the field blank.

i've come up with an interesting pull-up manoeuver: one regular pull-up (chin-up? i don't recall), then raising the legs between the arms and performing a pull-down. it's quite the strain.

supper was enjoyable (the kid, piles and a couple of others from our section guarded tonight, so i ate with them), and then it was work-time. two buses, one of them empty grdammit, passed by (us, a group of soldiers needing to get moving). it really sucks that there are so many bus-drivers who can't stand soldiers.

at work, sitting in civvies (with a white shirt), i looked down and registered a chest-hair poking out of my shirt. how the hell did it manage to get through the cotton knitting?! freaky.

nql and i sat over a php problem for hours; eventually (through a smoke-break inspired test) discovering that what we were trying to do was totally impossible. work-around from hell, and now i have a list of things to do in order to finish it all for tomorrow. headache.

my provider contact sent me an email with a response to a problem that was completely off the mark, and he suggested that in future i use their crm system. which is an aweful system that they don't use most of the time.
what an asshole. i tried to call him, but he was unavailable - so i spoke to his linguistically-challenged counterpart, who directed me to the only person who can help me. this person works straight out of russia. is this what's meant by piercing the veil? (just kidding, i know what that means)

my boss is almost as unimpressed as i am.

i bussed home, stopping at the cafeneto with the kid for an hour to wolf down a sandwich and flirt with the waitresses. okay, so we talked a lot about serious stuff, too. workaholics.

now i'm all pissed off about my tooth, i'm going to shower and crash. we've gotta be up in less than five hours for a ceremony and inspection for rabin.

aw crap. now all my hopes and dreams are ground into dust.

halloween - the witching hour

awesome movie. spot disagrees with certain elements, but overall i think it was styling.

the photo's of the penny-arcade kids are great.