"the only reason...

...that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there."

wow - i completely forgot to write about waking up spot for cleaning yesterday:
he was complaining about waking him up when the toilet was unavailable - he'd sleepily walked in on the kid (not the first time).

spot: "do you want to see me go back to bed right now?"
me: "do you want to see me crap on your bed?"
voice from the toilet: "i do!"

anyway, it turned out that we were the only people who'd gotten organized for the bonfire, so we had to do some shopping for other people before we got on our way. piles picked us up, and we drove off to the beach.

we found a perfect spot, and began setting up. as we lit the barbeque (and we'd been very serious about getting it started properly), some pig rocked up and began throwing sand on it... there weren't ANY signs ANYWHERE telling us no fires.

so we moved one beach further and picked a decent area where there were already other fires underway. we were just beginning to get set up when we got a phone call telling us that some of the guys had already unpacked the logs, ingeniously ignoring the fact that they'd had no idea how far away we were.

i was barefoot, and expecting it to be a short mission remained that way. after about 20 minutes of shuffling about hunting for them, we met up and began carrying the fuck-off heavy bits of wood to the beach.

DENIED.

the same bastards who kicked us off the beach refused to allow us to enter with the wood, even though we were merely using them as access to get to the legitimate beach. cue horror music and we were off seeking another way down.

now the reason they call the place "cliff beach" is that it's a beach, bordered by cliffs.
with our destination on the beach, and us on the cliffs.
when we eventually found a "path", after having squashed strained pleading to simply give up and set the parking lot alight, we discovered that it was too treacherous to chance.

we are all soldiers, after all.

so spot, our resident non-soldier, trail-blazed up from the beach, called us all a bunch of rather offensive names, and coerced the rest into action. i gotta admit, i am SUPER proud of myself for managing barefoot - not only could we barely see, but the transitions from soft, sliding sand to bastard sharp rock made things masochistically interesting.

oh, right. and nobody had bothered to remove the nails from the planks, which added a little bit of sharpness to the situation.

so eventually we all made it down, and proceeded to enjoy spot's burnt offerings (just kidding, the food was great), spot's grand bonfire, and a generally fun evening with my old section.

there was a small sound rig set up a couple of hundred metres from us, and it turned out that spot and i weren't the only ones there with a taste for good trance :D

i s'pose the only negatives (and one half negative, the last one) from the night were spilled beer (all over my bag), really filthy feet (and therefore socks and shoes afterwards, and we'd *just* cleaned the apartment), the bags of spoiled food i just discovered in the kitchen, and a lack of sleep caused by arriving home around 4am with the kid calling dibs on the shower.

...

i woke up half an hour later than i was supposed to, but still made it to the city officer on time. it's possibly the last time i'll be going there ^_^

i had to come past our apartment to get to the government's agent for immigration assistance, and ran into the kid at the bus stop; turns out my knocking loudly on his door before i left wasn't out of place :P

i found the new place without too much difficulty, and the woman there kept me confused for most of the 45 minutes that i was there. at least everything was sorted out by the time i left, and i decided to walk through my original primary base to get to the buses.

i sought out my old commander, the complete cow^* that almost caused me problems in the end and had already fucked over nystire, because i'm just that sort of person. i ran into one of spot's old buddies who used to serve next to us, had a really amusing conversation with him, and then she rocked up totally surprised to see me.

i guess i would be, too :P
the thing that got to me was the last thing she said to me was "if you need anything, give me a call," and while responding all i could think of was just how much she didn't help me when i was under her command.

but who knows? i may actually need her one day, and i'd rather we weren't on unfriendly terms.

i got myself a snack and walked off the base through crowds of M.P.s, all looking for victims. i ain't no victim. i'm especially glad that i remembered, just as i walked into the central bus station, to remove my headphones - as i did so i turned the corner into another bunch of them - great timing!

i haven't mentioned yet that the combination of bonfire night and two days' dust storm made today unbelievably unpleasant. i was extremely glad of the air-conditioning when i finally rocked up to work. i would've signed in immediately if nystire hadn't thoughtfully disconnected my keyboard. if he does something like that again he'll be reconnecting it himself with his teeth - the mess of cables behind my pc was a bitch to work through.

i'd arrived in time for lunch, and the lunchtime conversation revolved around arsim. considering where my head's been, i managed to switch it over to obscure piercings (specifically discussing the snake-shaft thing i linked to the other day), which was far more entertaining.

aside from passing out a couple of times (did i mention that i was wasted the whole day?), i had a fun working day, and as a result left a tad later than usual.

today's apparently international no-diet day, and walking past the rabin square some not-too-pretty woman jumped out at me and saluted in an overly-friendly way. i friggin' LIKE my personal space, thank you very much. i refused the chocolate (never accept candy from strangers, kids!) but begrudgingly agreed to get on the "happy" scale.

"international no-diet day celebrates natural beauty" - no, it doesn't. it celebrates ugliness, a lack of ambition, and an allergy to truth.

much like the application i linked to yesterday, this is a treat for people who really need a good, swift kick in the nethers. it tells me that i'm "beautiful", but i shouted at the woman because the hebrew word is feminine. i was just mucking about, but at least i got to smile when this got them to let me go on my otherwise happy way.

i don't NEED some stranger to tell me i'm wonderful, i've got a large enough ego to put narcissis to shame^†; i KNOW i'm wonderful, dammit!

so spot was waking up when i walked in - fucker. at least (with some helpful encouragement) he made coffee, and now that i've gotten this post sorted out (i began it while waiting for the kid to finish showering) i'm going to shower off this ickiness and get to bed.

^* okay, that's not exactly true. she's actually a really nice girl, slightly incompetent. the real problem is that she's got a terrible attitude which involves protecting her own ass first.

^† fortunately for me, i happen to know that my mirror image isn't *nearly* as attractive as the real thing.