freebies

i'm now sitting at cafeneto, for the second time as the first saw me reliving the dead battery story from a while back. the difference being that this time, i'd checked before and my netbook lied to me :/

i'm absolutely exhausted, and i'm still quite depressed about the party tonight that probably won't see me attending. i think that's been the primary cause for the whole week being down; trying to find a ride has made me feel really lonely.
even ru55 let me down - while i didn't expect him to be able to make it, i didn't anticipate his admission that he's not really into partying so much. if my friends are getting old, and i'm having trouble meeting young crazies, i'm screwed.

---
yesterday began with the snooze button: the mental switch that causes one to sleep the best, deepest, most comfortable sleep imaginable. if only i could sleep like that during the night.

in spite of that, i managed to be on time, and for once so did my ride. we had a repeat of an old argument, which later on inspired the short speech i've prepared for my eventual release:
people who are afraid to succeed deserve to fail. if you try you might not succeed, but if you don't you will definitely fail.
why is that so hard to grasp?

i called up the organization that's supposed to sweeten our service with deals and reduced prices, but who produce the most horrific amount of junk mail and have almost exclusively useless or lame treats on offer. in fact, most of the time what they offer is worse than what i'd be getting without their "help".
anyway, a while back i sent them a request to add me to their "no-spam" list, and they acquiesced. i was pleasantly surprised to see that the trash stopped coming, but a couple of weeks ago it began again.
the woman i spoke to had a very simple answer for me: "oops. i don't know what happened."

soon after that the big chief came by for a visit. my unit commander had made it perfectly clear that i wasn't to cause any problems... i think i was uncharacteristically well-behaved. he and his idiot-major-crony walked into my "office", and i stared blankly. they ducked into our unit commander's office, and stopped to talk to me on their way out.

i kept my face morbidly blank, and my tone to match.
"hi."
"hi."
...
"so - you're here?"
"yes."
...
and he turned and walked away. i loudly and unhappily added: "happy holidays" in my best eeyore voice.

about two seconds later i ran in to rescue a panicking unit commander and the hysterical secretariat: they couldn't figure out how to turn off my cackling witch and she'd freaked out the crony ^_^

after a quick break wherein i got frustrated with captain incompetent's inability to hear the difference between "e" and "i" (to be fair, it's a classic israeli issue), i chanced upon the fact that our unit was gathering for celebratory drinks and cake. i helped out a bit with the preparation, stood next to nystire mumbling nasty things about the big chief while he spoke, laughed as one of our freaks drove him crazy*, enjoyed the delicious cookies and then climbing into my TL for his stubborn refusal to update me.

i spent the rest of the day fighting the urge to pull faces and make offensive noises at him.

* the big chief is hard of hearing, and the guy who spoke not only talks softly, but makes every motion possible to thwart any attempts to read his lips, including a fairly offensive lip-smacking every few words.

---
i joined nystire for lunch, and we sat at the table with two girls (a captain and a major). we were being really silly, and giggling the entire meal - but something i said made the major's ears perk up.

"what could possibly make a [insert rank here] like yourself so bitter?"
i began to tell her. i did so in my usual fashion - end of the story first - but unlike my usual stories this one only gets more ridiculous the more information i share. i was almost in tears from laughter by the time i was through, several times bringing the captain to struggle not to spit-take or have her drink come out her nose and enjoying the sight of the major's eyes bulging to the point where i wondered if they could fall out her head.

"right," she said at the end, "i have no idea what to wish you."
"a shortened service," i replied, and we parted ways in what i can only describe as somber amusement.

i have to admit that telling my story is way more fun that living it.

---
aside from a long and entertaining coffee break, the rest of the day was a brainless stare day: i think i punched out maybe five lines of code. to be fair, i'm solving a fairly complex problem, but my heart wasn't in it.

[post cut short because urchin's arrived]