urgent

to all americans reading this: this is your chance to regain some of your rights.

stopping racism and police brutality would be cool too... though i do believe that's a lot more difficult to achieve. i'm not justifying looting and arson, 'cause destroying your own infrastructure is stupid and counterproductive. but rioting in general? after all the shit that the black communities in america are still being made to suffer?

...

is bud light beer *trying* to demonstrate just how much rape culture is a thing?

maybe everyone has been drinking the kool-aid.

lounging

thursday:

2am aussie movie aggression waking me into fight mode, extreme discomfort ensued

...

waking up tired and sore to a miserably perfect day for staying in and watching trigun

"oh, that's sweet: you have a complaint? i can escalate it, but you know nothing's going to change..."

a new divider in the men's room - did someone complain?

severe overeating at pushap, returning to struggle with shitty code and not enough information, finally finishing that only to start a task with redis installation issues, interrupted for a half an hour of reviewing my lead's code and a short but interesting conversation with my old manager about which side of the fan i'd prefer to be on when the shit hits it

tired, going home to put up hooks (badly?) and do some painfully heavy shopping

an early night with some rick and morty,

friday:

waking up in the middle of the night and remembering learning about something utterly stupid in my team: not being fluent in english is *not* a valid reason for using overly-simplistic and unclear or inappropriate variable names. it's actually a particularly good reason to be really precise. assholes.

a day full of office politics. and headaches. and git stuff-ups.

judaica shopping, online arbing, passing out to sin city: a dame to kill for

saturday:

deliberately sleeping in, finally setting up a shelf for our lounge entertainment system, burning coupons at popeye's, jugo juice employee cruelty and filing a complaint

horseman, great tekken, louis c.k.'s 2015 show's brilliant surrealism

feeling like shit while shopping, kam wing huge (surprisingly spicy) dinner and wall-sized netflix before crashing hard

sunday:

pinched neck nerve = loads of shoulder, chest, arm pain and weakness

chilled morning, having a lounge and separate room for haircuts again is so comfortable!

midi 6 brunch delight

shopping... and running out of cash. taking gd into a comic store is dangerous! chasing that with opening an account with funimation, which is far superior to crunchyroll in every way.

p.m. deliciousness, mom's intro to backswings, ergo proxy, end weekend at 10pm.

yesterday:

very serious, absurdly detailed epic dreams disturbed by my alarm. sleeping in a bit anyway, slightly improved neck situation.

hazzing the dumb and responding inappropriately to an email about my grandfather... and then managing to make it worse.

continuing to feel stupid, but getting a two-day estimated job done in two hours and enjoying a brisk walk to walmart before lunch.

my manager's awkward response to their leadership seminar

my rebase suggestion taken seriously and appearing to resolve our issues

the tristar tour and mti's surprise upon hearing that gd's expecting

a surprisingly loud fart easily identified across an empty room

watching the spacex launch live while trawling through logs that seemed to indicate that i was right about something in spite of my ignorance

getting home to shitty internet x2, great leftovers, translating hebrew poetry and having my mind blown by the vicious willful ignorance of antisemitism.

lain, la belle verte until i passed out

this morning so far:

a pretty spring morning, sleeping in and checking out québéc marriages

quick linkage

who is prince ea? and why should we stand for trees?

forensic science is a field full of liars. this is a horrific read.

here're pieces of a fascinating documentary on muslim antisemitism.

free falling

happy (israeli) independence day!

today:

crazy undersea resort dreams, climbing equipment win but leaving on time fail, cloudy day depressing, a morning full of caution wasted on an uncomprehending cowboy, an afternoon started well and then flipped by emergency mysteries caused by the wrong kind of lazy

allez up:

1. revisiting accreditation

2. it's nice to climb with a group

3. holy crap.

bless me, father, for i have sinned: it has been two years and two months since my last climbing wall session. i'm feeling the punishment from the tips of my fingers to the insides of my elbows, a little bit in the legs and slightly more on my ego.

it's high time i get back into "the swing of things".

chinese delivery, tough garbage night, crashing early

how many chucks

sunday:

shopping drag, copper branch delivers! watchmen and learning that gd's officially divorced!

yesterday:

early to bed, waking up two minutes before my alarm with adrenaline pumping through my veins after dreaming of getting in a fight with a bunch of asshole teenagers playing "bad boys" out of their parked convertible

french practice, a long, boring day confused by talk of role-switching, good cthulu fluxx for lunch and an evening of shadowrun character creation amidst a gathering of magic players

dog on the bed, two exhausted

today:

positive green meeting in spite of mr transparency's admission

running until dizzy, epically failing to bring clean underwear

star fluxx and desperately eating a LOT of food

intro to the new system i'll be working on - http://xkcd.com/1513/

painfully slow progress, glad to see the end of the workday. coming home to put up gd's work mirror. the only way to learn that the drill you thought had a keyless chuck actually needs a key... is the hard way.

atari: game over is beautiful.

it's israel's day of remembrance: as unhappy as i am with how israel's being run, how it's handling its neighbours and its citizens, the more time passes the clearer it becomes how much we still desperately need our homeland, and desperately need to defend ourselves as a nation from antisemitism that only grows stronger and more insidious. i continue to pray that the horrific number of soldiers who've died defending our country and our people will never have been in vain; and hope against hope that we'll see peace in our time.

a moment in the sun-day

thursday:

great waking, serious breakfast and small chores and midnight nation

*finally* prepping for the gym...

... and not going. walmart and star fluxx instead. more talking than working, then leaving early for a great team happy hour, shopping twice and coming home tipsy to a delicious dinner

passing out after showering and

friday:

waking up early, hurriedly putting up curtains before rushing to work

i think i'm too big to be a hobbit.

long workday, exciting success, toxic nsfw bubbles

serious rls and seriously glad for my massage ball

reintroduction to boxing after two months out of the gym:

1. "dude, you've lost weight. it's obviously muscular, it's a good thing you're back."

2. you know it's been a good class when after showering you have trouble raising your towel above your shoulders.

excellent takeout and an early night for both of us

yesterday:

sleeping in and dreaming hard, an entire morning sunk into my poetry video

why do i have to explain to our neighbours that pouring water off their balcony onto ours isn't cool?

why didn't godmother contact me when we had plans? good kokkino coffee, interesting debates, rushing off to donate blood

straightforward and not unpleasant procedure, feeling pretty good afterwards

home quick for relaxation therapy and dinner, then meeting vfmp again at a sports bar to watch a ufc fight night (mostly good) and drink to his birthday

being challenged on the metro ruining an otherwise chilled evening

today so far:

seriously feeling the boxing, stiff and sore arms and body

a haircut day, interrupted for french practice and shopping

linkage

gameloading: rise of the indies is coming out this week! check out the trailer, it's an inspiring documentary :)

batman vs superman on the big screen? oh, yes. oh, and star wars, but you've gushed over that already. unfriended sounds like an unlikely addition to the list of movies i want to see, but i'm intrigued.

sustainability = good business
another example of how to make it in the internet age

amazing old photos!

curing AIDS?

pregnancies should not be punished. seriously.

a successful penis transplant. wow.

marijuana:
1. it's safe
2. there're plenty of reasons to chill
3. legalization is hurting the DEA mexican cartels

the tail end

last thursday:

choc-chip meringues to bed
deep sleep, deep dreams and a very sore arm and shoulder
one dream of being attacked by thugs in an english station, taking them down and forcing one of them to swallow the end of a lit cigarette
one dream ending in a classroom with a really clever joke i can't recall

relatively fast day prep, shopping with mom and then heading off to knysna
a closed market with nothing we wanted
plettenberg bay game reserve:
1. stunning area, stunning weather
2. loads of animals, and three newborn (within minutes) springbok
3. invisible lions
4. wild dogs
5. gd not being the first to need a toilet break
6. me taking on the idiot who lit up a cigarette on the back of the jeep, and after my lecture he admitted to being from cape town (i would've been too embarrassed)

overall, a gorgeous day
getting lost in a township amidst a battle of perspective
sometimes it just takes my mom to say the things i wish i could have said
a good braai and a loud, pleasantly argumentative dinner

friday:

horrible bellyache throughout the night, dreaming of being in a war and finding a use for some cool toy robots on my downtime, japman and dirk diggler joining me with dirk diggler announcing that he was quitting marijuana

bellyache turning into being sick, struggling to help, surprisingly cheap settling (though we later learned we didn't get what we paid for), a long drive with pinching nerves in harsh heat
visiting my second mum, it was wonderful seeing her but her nephew was really intrusive and irritating
getting back to town, everything all good and then a sudden switch when trying to get a good view of the fog
- i'm a superbad businessman when i'm distracted - getting stuck in traffic -
pleasant sundowners with cousins, trying to recover from such a long day
late dinner, flight comic acquisition, how am i the only one watching master chef?

saturday:

a good sleep, at least
ender's game in graphic novel form: excellent, minus a few confusing battle scenes with didn't translate well
pregnancy anxiety plus lack of medication plus fear of flying home

the inconsiderate parker in a busybody village, the garage fill-up failures, the navigation experiment, the it's-all-gone-very-very-wrong experience and returning to cape town under a black cloud

fixing dinner at posticino

...

klm has a "meet & seat" feature? where you can check out other passenger's profiles? if you've logged in using your facebook/ linkedin profile you can see who's who and even pay to sit next to them. what a gross invasion of privacy! what a repulsive punishment for trusting them by logging in with social media! and just think of all the creeps and con-men who might easily take advantage. we live in a world where phishing scams work.

...

sunday:

early up and well, airplane visit, picking up my sister and her husband to return to philadelphia to discover that we'd turned around mere METRES from our destination :/

a good lunch / drinks, a joyful gd, rushing to spend a tea visit with my little cousin and then on to my aunt's for very pleasant drinks, a quick stop by my toronto cousin's mother and back home feeling completely worn out
rest, salad, bombed on the couch

monday:

rls, long night, flight no-change disturbance, hanging in the hive of scum and villainy that is gallows hill: leg humpers, fidgeting touchers and rubbers, "queue start here" fails and right-eye limited, bribing security with a "donation" to borrow a pen, the long poetry-practice wait
my sister and gd picking me up to go to plant - overeating amazing food - and a final humbling pool run before returning home to pack and say goodbyes

smooth exit, difficult as always but it's nice to know we'll be seeing my mom in a couple of months when our son's born

yesterday:

omfg, dude - don't wake the pregnant woman for mealtimes. from complete relief to complete panic in one second flat.
the usual discomfort + the screen that just wouldn't turn off + the remote cord fail + the neighbour's seat overflow + spilled juice
unwitting toe massages and the luck of the big, friendly giant sleeping the entire flight, gd finally managing to sleep and waking up after breakfast, myself being up and down the whole time with rls

super-fast schipol, comics and complaining and not rejecting my vegan meal, the amazing spiderman 2 and ac/dc - rock or bust
a bummer for the rest of the flight

fairly fast and efficient landing - passport control - baggage claim - shuttle - check-in - security check and then four hours to burn, beginning with a discussion on alternate realities that we face daily

grimm fairy tales: the dream eater saga volume one is gorgeous. almost like once upon a time but with far better writing.

fantastic smoothies, shambling to our gate, a short flight lightly interspersed with confused consciousness, stumbling through the airport to wait through the long line only to learn that the short line was for us, quick baggage claim and a taxi home and prepping for bed and

today:

passing out and waking up and getting to work and doing little but taking forever and a great lunch with cthulhu and star fluxx and standing next to a man farting the blue danube at the urinal and learning symfony and trying to leave early but getting caught by a last-minute issue that took an hour to fix and rushing home to a great dinner and good laughs and the watchmen movie.

fancourt fan

it's BEAUTIFUL here!

sunday:

v&a hyperviper drinks (one too many for me), shopping fail, vegan selection date fail, coffee lunch with krybabie's mother (not pushy at all), shopping success and then a total regression; silently bargaining and forgetting that my south african local number doesn't handle sms'es

a great great-aunt visit, lecturing my uncle about my brother, excellent dinner with company and interesting talks until way late

monday:

until very late. and then waking up needing to rewatch battlestar galactica, packing for the week, returning the rental, a long drive in beautiful weather through gorgeous countryside to hermanus; a stunning house and getting deep into debate with tgtbt and her mother, more driving and stopping at the blue goose in gansbaai for delicious food - i even scored a completely vegan meal.

a long lost drive trying to get back on the road to swellendam, crazy-long drive and getting cold but landing in the lap of luxury

good dinner, a needed rest and final fantasy vi, passing out after a bag of crisps and getting a good night's sleep

yesterday:

not the best pillows, but a great sleep nonetheless. dreaming of privacy violations and shouting at a survey agent in a restaurant, starting the day by removing the worst kind of malware from my mom's computer (anti-virus software, if you have windows firewall and microsoft security essentials, *avoid* mcafee, avg and norton)

long drive to the cango caves:

a) not at all as planned

b) gd wasn't comfortable

c) rude israelis who didn't listen and wouldn't shut up until i said something in hebrew, and demonstrated zero concept of personal space

obviously, those very same israelis would have the same plan as us and we all did the cango wildlife tour together afterwards. fortunately, our very clever guide knew how to keep us (mostly) separate and thoroughly entertained gd by freaking me out as much as possible. at least i can be grateful that gd doesn't need to go to israel to understand why i can't deal with those people.

the lemur experience was awesome.

"as ma is my witness" - if gd's this happy here, and if south africa somehow gets itself back on track, then sure, i'll return with her.

quick shopping at shoprite, almost fighting with the "car guards".

long drive, old people in the way, parmesan spar stress and me-the-vibe-killer trying to be helpful and failing

great dinner, chat, falling asleep early and waking up with only a vague sense of having had incredible dreams

today:

a good night's sleep, but both of us waking from weird dreams and gd with return anxiety

a peaceful, relaxed morning - very peaceful - more reading mind-blowing things in 50 people who stuffed up south africa

k-twang's reply, as patched as can be expected

lost in town, foo bar and then lauren's deli: i haven't had good falafel since i left israel, that place is simply wonderful!

serious shopping, awesome gd dinner, resting

america in the news

boston bombers and southern carolina's slager vs scott.

first, the discussion about the death penalty is absolutely silly. the death penalty should be dropped, but for every sentence of any length prisoners should be put to work on the kinds of jobs nobody else wants. bring back chain gangs en masse, turn prisons into labour camps. who wouldn't think twice about committing a crime when facing a lifetime of hard labour?

oh, and the amount of face time the bombers' ugly mugs are getting is absurd - more fame for them, more incentive for other pathetic morons to follow suit.

second, as gd says: the whole country should be protesting "i can't breathe" right now. omg.

in both cases, paying attention to the media narratives is utterly frustrating. are these "journalists" completely unaware of the effect they're producing?

touching cape town

monday:

relatively smooth check-in and security, the wrong choice of shoes making it offensive to take them off

tuesday:

the worst take-off and flight ever, everything plus hormones, back and neck pain, metal boxes in lieu of legroom, seat dividers that don't raise and inconsiderate leaners; general discomfort, no vegan meal, reading myself to sleep and waking up a short while later holding a giant book, gd's bag on my lap, dry lips, airplane gas and rls.

when 4am becomes 9am 

a landing so bad that *i* felt sick, and gd was feeling nauseous from the get-go

well, i promised gd i would find her a place to rest and it was my bright idea to pack our jackets and nobody informed the unhappy pregnant couple that there's a "slow lounge", so we were in london, i dropped a large chunk of our rent money for next month on a hotel room next to the airport and we weren't going anywhere until our flight boarded.

an expensive, but incredibly good sleep, an utterly ridiculously expensive lunch that gd couldn't get down, a return to bed for another while

meeting my niece for coffee, rushing through security and the elevators and train to make our gate just in time; seat rearrangements,

wednesday:

nausea from a to b with and without the overpowering smells, nothing remotely vegetarian (for me), exhaustion giving me daddy practice and scoring gd a few hours' upgrade... sore necks and general discomfort, but a couple of emotional daddy-club moments. not getting any of my reading or gaming done.

super-fast airport clearing, which could have been even faster. a great start to our visit, emotional chicken, resting, my sister and her son and pool talk and my uncle and a walk and AMAZING postacino pizza and gd's appetite returning

thursday:

great sleep, ice-cold canadian, beautiful slow morning, mr price is right, a long i-told-you-to-put-on-sunscreen sunny walk with great lunch and ice cream and a super awkward "black like me" followed by my super-wrong not-witty-at-all response

picking up the car, picking up the girl and her new dress

my sister's big mouth to the rescue, good vibes all around, resting

the sunset drive, a raucously great, long night with gd in her new onesie and protoplasm (our boy's godfather) and his girlfriend and my mom

friday:

late to bed, late to rise

a day of passover preparations

some great fun and positivity followed by some real negativity in the form of my aunt

absolute exhaustion

a reply from k-twang: i was sorry before, with reservations, but now i'm completely sorry and grateful for his clarifications. i have learned a lesson in the ugliest way.

in spite of all that, a wonderful seder and gd receiving a warm welcome into our fold. a good walk after everyone left.

yesterday:

a draft response, straight to bed

waking up from a dream about being a campus failure, getting involved when two thugs tried to terrorize the students.

...

ugly start to the day thinking about the boar at the beginning of princess mononoke, bringing bread into the passover home and gd distraction

shadowslight visit and meeting airplane for a great long lunch at van hunks

totally wasted, the pasta dilemma; big route disappointment and returning to the pizzaria restaurant which was excellent; gd's all-in on (most of) my family and on cape town in general

finally sending k-twang a response, leaving out the following:

i must admit that i'm grateful to hear your side in all this. regarding my knowledge of your plans, i wasn't planning on officiating at your wedding without being registered as an official authority and we clearly had a misunderstanding about that. i'm not old-fashioned, and i couldn't give a rat's ass if you're actually married or not as long as you love each other but to my mind a "wedding" is about celebrating the official moment and i felt - rightly or wrongly - very strongly about it being celebrated along with or even after the fact. it may not be of much consequence to you that i'm conflicted about that after what you've written, i do see where you're coming from even if i feel that things could've / should've been represented differently somehow.

this morning:

i'm not reposting pictures of the kenya attack, they're simply horrific. what was the victims' crime in this case? where's the noise? if i haven't seen any outrage on my feeds, i call "hypocrisy". or "cowardice".