doing the right things

 thursday:

on the way to work i realized that what i needed to do was defer the presentation and actually prepare it, so i did that. the work day was packed, but not particularly interesting; mostly grind on my part.

our second monthly game hacking session started off quite constructively, with conversations about what gaming can do and why it's relevant as a teaching tool. one of those conversations inspired me to pick up a copy of war made new on kindle and read the preface to my wife and mom, who found it just as fascinating as i did.

we made an effort to put together a version of tetris that i'd come up with, but after a couple of hours (disrupted by an intense twenty minutes of debugging a server undergoing testing) we were all yawning in turns and called it a night.

yesterday:

i slept pretty well, i think, but i woke up tired. like, really tired. but it was gd and my ten year anniversary! i booked us a table at meshek barzilay.

we began the day a bit late, with a mission to dizengoff to order mr smear's new prescription lenses and pick up vegan cholent and lunch (i wasn't hungry, but mr smear didn't like his pad thai), and then walk a bit to the nature store, and then come on home so i could rest for a few minutes and drink two coffees because i was completely broken and had to go to the memorial service for my late coworker.

i met up with lipgirl at the office and made myself yet another coffee, and we headed out to netanya, which turned out to be an insane two hour trip because the highways around herzliya were shut down for invisible construction. we were so late that we ended up having to skip the cemetary and head straight to the memorial lunch, where i ended up being the only person to speak on behalf of the company.

i'm nervous about public speaking in english on a good day, so getting up in front of a large gathering of strangers to stumble over what i hope gave a good impression of our experience of him.

lipgirl drove back, and we had an argument over the impact of demanding coalition governments, and i think (i hope) that i managed to win her over by the end of it.

either way, post extra-coffee/eulogy/argument i arrived home buzzing, at gd's behest managed to update our booking, and we pretty soon ordered a taxi and headed south for dinner. we arrived a bit early and took a short walk, and just as we were about to turn around ran into botchman! it was great seeing him, and particularly great seeing him looking well! (he's been dealing with some health issues over the past few years)

dinner was fantastic. the service was great, the atmosphere was great, and the food was amazing. we all had a really good time - really celebrating our anniversary - we enjoyed every mouthful, and by the time the bill came around i felt that it was absolutely justified. we walked a good way home, then ordered a cab and were treated to a really entertaining cabbie who's big into 70s and 80s music.

it was an absolutely wonderful way to mark ten (eleven) years.

today:

i got up early, but spent most of the day alternating between napping on the couch and reading a few pages of death note. at one point i tried to get up and found myself feeling faint, but i'm feeling better now. in addition to all the resting, gd and mr smear and i played a fair amount of rayman: legends, and right now we're making very serious plans to walk to the beach to find ice cream.

cotton wool behind my eyes

omg space is very cool.

i'm still sleep-fuzzy, and i've handled two phone calls and failed to negotiate a crappy recruiting site already.

i slept wonderfully. i dreamed long, fascinating dreams in which i investigated things.

i joined pg and her brother on the roof for drinks and a nargila, and we were up there way longer than i was ready for.

botchman came by and we spent an hour or two on the comic script. he's demonstrated that he "gets" what i'm going for, so now that i'm certain that my format is good i guess i'm ready to finish it up.

agents

i am completely useless of late. so many responsibilities, so little energy. we're leaving in just over a week, and my efforts to clean house and arrange everything that needs arranging seem just shy of inconsequential.

---thursday:

i'm really hating this process of extracting myself from the office. the work itself is kinda okay, but the guy that i'm working with is a complete asshole. we simply cannot communicate, he's uncooperative and explosively aggressive, and the boss doesn't seem to *get* that this was pretty much my last week.

their problem. i'm not letting them make it mine.

i returned home early so that i could meet scrapper on the climbing wall. we totally killed ourselves (my fault, i was goading him both consciously and unconsciously), but i learned all about laybacks. i didn't manage to get over the ceiling again, but this time i was feeling much stronger and more sure of myself and the reason i gave up twice was because i wasn't willing to damage my leg like i did the last time (a scrape and a bump are enough of an indicator that i was doing it wrong) and i held myself in place *just* over the edge for too long trying to find a good next grip.

my left elbow's been hurting since before then, but i'm sure the climbing didn't help much.

we walked back to my place, and botchman arrived while i was in the shower. pg arrived back shortly afterwards, and we ordered burgers (mine veggie) and began an anime marathon, eventually detaching from the screen to play some crazy fluxx before all passing out.

---friday:

pg's father let himself and the dog in, and we were surprised to discover that scrapper and botchman had already left, tidying and leaving a note on their way out. after a little more sleep, i got up to return sarah glidden - how to understand israel in 60 days or less to my comic friend, rollerblading through the intensely sunny morning to parts of tel aviv so remote that their cycling tracks aren't contiguous.

the graphic novel is uncomfortably on the mark yet easily accessible. i was drawn in because it focuses on a birthright group and i accompanied one during that same year - sarah captures the experience excellently and frames the political issues in an accessible and rational way. i was about halfway through it on the bus to work on thursday when a certain scene made me all teary; i warmly recommend this book.

my friend gave me some important advice about scripting, and on my way back i stopped for an absolutely delicious vegan toast breakfast at what used to be coffeeholic to begin making the appropriate changes; it took a while to get service, but once they got around to me the guys were great. it was a good start to the day.

i spent the rest of the day on the couch. i watched fahrenheit 451, and am disappointed by all of my friends who've told me i *had* to see it because i've seen equilibrium and that's a much cooler version of an almost identical story. then i finished watching waiting for superman, which is touching and thought-provoking. during these hours i upgraded my netbook to the new ubuntu version; it took forever and thoroughly discarded the netbook-friendly package; i suspect that may be a good thing, though, as my battery indicator now seems to be functional and i *suspect* it's more efficient.

i had a long chat with my mother, and even spoke to my second mum who's leaving for her biological family tomorrow. she's been with ours since forever, so i can't imagine how either of them are feeling about this.

pg and i consumed a lot of pasta last night as a prayer that the FSM will grant my mother an opportunity to switch jobs soon, may she be touched by his noodly appendage, ramen. we also watched a few episodes of romeo x juliet, and we're almost done. by and large it's a great series, but it suffers from a couple of boring episodes and the prima donna shakespeare can be as offensive as he is amusing.

i've started reading david wong - john dies at the end, and i honestly can't recall the last time i so enjoyed reading. ingeniously clever and well written.

---it was a nightmare getting up to take the dog for a walk this morning. i'd had trouble sleeping most of the night, and after returning i crashed for another couple of hours but i was slipping between out-for-the-count and restless. now that i'm up, and i've breakfasted and posted and checked off unimportant items from my to-do list, i guess i need to figure out how to spend the next couple of hours before gaming and a blues brothers screening reduce me to self-loathing.

naaah, i'm just exaggerating. i was pondering what my mother always tells me: "do what you think is right at the time, and you'll never have place for regret". i don't recall precisely where i was taking that line, but it was something in the way of taking advantage of every opportunity to be who you want to be. it's never too late to change.

hero to zero

i woke up this morning with an overwhelming sense of well-being... i've been like this for a couple of days now, does it mean that i'm somewhat healthy?

thought for the morning: the only problem with cake and wine in the first class is that the next part of the day seems a bit rubbish by comparison :)

i wasn't too long in the office, and for what feels like the first time in ages, something that i'd developed and tested actually ran properly when put into production. scr would have to install my newly created distributed service on multiple machines without me... i wondered how that would go.

i hit early rush hour on my way to campus, and that kinda sucked because i really wanted to read more wired. now that i'm finally back into it. what i couldn't stop staring at instead were the signs on the backs of the seats: "stressed at work? try our tranquilizers!"

because if your work is stressful, the problem is OBVIOUSLY you!

anime afternoon: too much shouting, a weird moment of "hey! he's sleeping!" when i nodded off during appleseed (which is brilliant, btw), bad cookies, racism (the culprit did promise to stop, after realizing that i really was offended by his use of the word "nigger"), and a harsh reminder that the middle east is possessed of a culture of clapping (in delight, along to music, whatever). i've said it before, and i'll say it again, clapping is *only* acceptable when applauding a live performance of some sort.

the anime itself made up for all that, and the breathtaking sunset that i witnessed on my way out felt like a pat on the head from the universe for having gotten through such a long week.

that sensation might have been contributed to by scr calling me up to tell me that something was wrong with an installation: "wtf? oh - everything's working fine. cheers."

i ran into eidetic and the chemist waiting for the bus, and we met up with botchman for dinner: it was fun, but i had plans afterwards that needed cancelling because i suddenly realized that the marathon's tomorrow and i was super-tired.

before catching some z's, i learned that my shakespeare paper has been returned to the secretariat already. dum - dum - DUMMM...

i passed out, disturbed briefly by a call from pg to say goodnight and remind me to rotate my wheels (damn - i'll do that now), and an hour later i got up and prayed that in a reasonable amount of time we'd find the weird bug the boss had described earlier.

thanks to all powers that be, i did find the bugs. and *knocks wood* (i do that a lot lately) everything appears to be functional.

in addition to having to wake up at 5.30 tomorrow morning, israeli clocks move forward an hour tonight so effectively i have to be up in 4.5 hours. good grief.

worst 13th

we've been having issues since friday, so celebrating this evening was a bit of a downer. although i think we're okay now; "celebrating" was a good excuse to talk things out. not a small part of the issues is the idea that i want to get out of israel - it's most certainly a lot to think about.

---
the french lesson this morning was alright - although i suspect that i should have taken the "quick" course and it's too late to switch. oh, well.

the interview was fascinating, and i'm definitely interested in working there. also, the test they've sent me in the mail is interesting! i have a day or two to do it, so i'm going to focus on tomorrow's reading instead...

i returned to the office for a quick sort-out and meeting, then bussed back to campus. i had time to read before class, but it was squandered arguing with my classmates about the greatness of terry pratchett and neil gaiman. tough times. the lesson itself was edifying as usual.

---
i skipped back to work to be horrified when the QA team leader waltzed in to show us how it's done - -someone had invited her because he wanted help, instead of asking me first. i'm not sure that he really understands what i was trying to tell him (after i dismissed her) - they don't have any "easy" methods to do QA, and having done my own for years i'm not only in a perfect position to teach him how (which i've already tried to teach him, but he's too damned lazy and unmethodical to actually listen) but doing it without intervention means plausible deniability when the boss asks why we're not filling out QA forms.

frikkin' kit-bag questions. they don't pay me enough to participate in bureaucratic revelries.

---
after getting a bit of work done i came home; botchman cancelled on me, so pg and i "celebrated" earlier rather than later at one of the better sushi / ramen bars. it worked out for the best. now for the class prep.

bar's out

well - i had to wait six years to put my tongue bar back in; it's a year and a half later and i've finally decided that it's not worth the limitations. goodbye, vestige of a childhood.

---thursday:

bladed to university, left my shoes in my locker. i hope i don't get stopped at the entrance, because then i'd have to tread barefoot all the way to my shoes.

first class: tons of exercise carrying the giant speaker from the student union to the classroom. only to discover that the cable we'd been provided with was absolutely useless.

rushing between classes (and returning the speaker) to grab a bowl of noodles, and eating while walking was kinda weird.

---sonnets. between wyatt, spenser and shakespeare we had ourselves a field day - only one example from each, but it was nothing short of inspirational. unfortunately, i ruined shakespeare's first sonnet for everyone - the lecturer didn't want to continue - by suggesting arnold schwarzenegger's role in junior as an example of increase being brought about in a male subject...

i tend to say a lot during most of my classes, and i'm always worried about being "that guy", the one vocal idiot who's always ruining it for everyone else. i'm always careful (or, i try to be) to give others a chance to speak and sometimes i open my mouth and feel bad for doing so. that's usually the end of it, except that when this class was over co-conspirator made a remark about the quantity that i share and the lecturer pounced: "are you trying to shut him up?". when i put forth that i *had* felt like i'd gone too far, i was taken completely by surprise by an aggressive outburst from another student: "NO! please! don't stop! i also hate it when people talk too much, but everything YOU say is intelligent and interesting!"
she went on a little more than that, and i was overwhelmed and a bit flustered... very pleased, though. i hope i appeared to be as flattered and grateful for the compliment as i am.

anyway, the sonnet masters blow my mind (all the italians included), and analysing their works is intense.

---it was then time for the orientation course - we have a schedule problem, and we're definitely going to have to sort this out. my part of the lecture didn't go nearly as well as i'd planned...

i bladed home to pick something up that needed to go to work, and occupied myself there for a few hours before returning to watch an episode and a bit of the wire (i passed out after the "bit"). i went to bed early, and slept well.

---friday:

i spent the morning deciding whether to continue working with flex and upgrading my sdk. then i met up with sorter and we went to play on the roof of my apartment's patio. it took a couple of hours and it doesn't look like much, but it's cheap and i suspect it might just do the trick! and if it doesn't, then we were all wrong about the source of the problem and i didn't spend thousands of shekels on something unrelated.

i spent the afternoon coding and blogging, and fighting with pg over rubbish (i think we both feel bad about that), then went to her parents for dinner. i ate too much and have been doing so a lot lately. i suspect it's related to the sleep deprivation. after dinner we played with magnet balls, and it turns out i have a knack for them :)

---today:

waking up early, getting picked up by cousins to make a video for kc's wedding. it was a really fun morning filled with hilarity, which was followed by a huge lunch at her parents' which was absolutely delicious but demanded siesta. i woke up and had a loooooong talk with my mother (we eventually understood each other, we're apparently in interesting times) and am waiting for botchman to get in touch with me because i've had a magnificent artistic idea and i need to put together a group to execute it }:D

now for a movie, or something.

---anti-vaccination crisis - they were going too far from the beginning, but this?!

weekend something

it's late, i gotta be in bed already. a list! a list will solve the problem!

---friday:

friday's early morning meeting at cake art. i'm fairly certain the waitress was flirting with me. the keish was great.

one-legged beast-fighting: i couldn't use my left foot and was made to fight, one-legged, against the big dude. that could've gone badly, but it didn't so i feel good about it.

buscope (bush cafe?) dinner with pg: it's a place right close by that does steak and eggs breakfast all day. it wasn't the best steak, but the service was sterling and the music was great.

i was in time to get a ride with scrapper to his and botchman's farewell. we made it up to botchman for nobody having rocked up to his twelfth birthday party, only to discover that the story he'd told us was meant to be a joke.

---saturday:

another early morning meeting. this time at landver, with a good breakfast but a terrible table vibe as co-conspirator and wordsworth had... words. all sorted out fairly quickly, though. the second part of the meeting bored me to lots of angry birds.

i promised pg i'd take her to the "luna park" - and so i did. it was a hot day, and my system doesn't handle quick direction switching at high g's. i managed four rides, having saved myself for the big ones, and enjoyed them even though they made me feel horrible. it took coke to fix me up after the first two, and another coke and an ice-cream after the second - it was the only thing i could consider eating :P

watching the people was an experience and the cultural incompatibilities were blatant. also - the games are a rip-off.

we had frozen yoghurt for dinner, which was delicious, and then i left for gasoline's house-warming. most of the evening was awkward - especially with her flatmate - but some of it was a lot of fun and overall i drank too much.

---sunday:

another stupid-early meeting. i was barely functional and then the coffee machine, as is its wont, stole my shekel. we spent an hour building the presentation - the good stuff was all mine. everyone loved the "0 = A LOT" slide. the head of the department even quoted that after we were done :P

the talk with the new students was long and i'm fairly certain i wouldn't have understood much if i hadn't studied this last year, which only makes the case for us giving an orientation course that much stronger. during my bit, i really did need the guys standing near me reminding me not to leave things out: of course it's an actual course! didn't i say so?!

back to work. still tired. the boss found the flaw that was annoying me last week, the fix was quick. lunch with harry potter was more fun than lunch with the girls: they spotted me and i couldn't not join them :/

jquery's sexyselect add-on is a bitch. after much struggling to tweak it according to the design i was given, i gave up and performed all the bits manually. it took about half an hour; setting up the add-on has cost me at least a day or two so far.

i was under time-pressure to save my work and pack up at the end of the day; that sense of urgency didn't leave me until... nope, still here. after doing some quick editing in the other office, i rushed off to return to tel aviv to meet with kc's father, who'd brought a couple of boxes of books that i'd left with them in 2004.

and i'd been wondering where some of them were, and automatically assumed grootbek had sold / lost / stolen them. [the discussion that led on from that got pg really angry with me for still being friends with him - what??? we went to his wedding after he did all that horrible stuff to you?! - i suppose she's not entirely wrong...]

nothing more frustrating than finding my old copy of shakespeare's complete works after spending a semester squinting at the shakespeare iphone app... *sigh*

i took apart, after more than five years - marathon man's computer. i've tried enough to contact him about it, it's now on its way to being recycled. it had a internal zip drive that might work.

facebook lists don't help: you have to manually click on everyone you're trying to invite. and some of those invites don't get sent, so you have to do them again. and i'm trying to invite a lot of people to saturday's events...

i was fasting for tomorrow's breath test, and pg offered me watermelon when i wasn't concentrating. i double checked the amount of time i needed to fast, and it's changed from ten hours, to six, and now one. one hour. i could've relaxed about food this evening :(

good show!

two in one week? it's been a while - a LONG while. but hatachtonim (התחתונים) were absolutely incredible tonight. their sound was even better than usual, in spite of (or perhaps due to) a couple of changes (the drummer and the bassist), and even though misha's voice sounded a bit hoarse he still carried it through a great evening.

it was also great seeing some of the guys; it's been a while since we all got together. and botchman gave me a ride home, and tel aviv on a (real) bike is always fun :)

---the bad with the good, because there almost invariably is... i won't be going back to the sublime again. they're assholes. and not just because they're expensive and have rude waitresses. i arrived late, considering that enough to keep me "on time," only to discover that the previous act was running so late that they weren't willing to let us in for another twenty minutes.

in case we "steal" the tail end of the show? the one they weren't going to see any more money for anyway? so we had to lurk outside, not even able to sit on the chairs that are reserved for those who have paid to get in already? i might've bought another beer to make up for it. now i won't be paying anything for the show i was going to go to next week. or any of them. because they're nasty money-grubbing misanthropes.

---it was a bit of a "F*" day besides the sublime hassle. [Note: "F*" rhymes with "duck stew".]

after getting into bed a little after 4am, i had trouble sleeping because i hadn't stretched properly after training - this is happening a lot more lately than ever before. it's become a "thing". and coupled with my foot muscles being perpetually tender i'm beginning to become concerned that there's something unusual... *ahem*... afoot. [sorry] F* getting older and being out of shape.

i went to meet wr at his work, which is close to my old office, but as usual he wasn't answering his phone when i arrived and that left me standing outside in the baking heat wondering which way to go. if he wasn't so gorram awful with giving directions... F* heat wave, and F* wr for being so disorganized.

i was in my old office for about two hours, most of which were spent trying to understand an email enigma. F* smtp, F* exchange server, F* active directory. the first told me that my email had been sent successfully, the other two made the mail disappear and refused to tell us why.

thank you, microsoft. [here, "thank" can rhyme with "duck" too.]

so i waited an extraordinarily long time for the bus to arrive, slowly roasting and with energy drained so low that when it eventually did come past it was difficult to extricate myself from the shaded corner i'd settled into. things in heart of darkness have just gotten exciting. i can't stop comparing it to apocalypse now. it's good they're so different :)

i spent the next few hours going crazy with a jquery plugin called sexyselect; its basic functionality works fine, once you've gone through three different forums just to find out how to run it. it breaks the second you try to use the methods it's supposed to have, though. the best part: everything's trial and error; the documentation is *so* bad that reading through it seems to do more harm than good.

it didn't help that my boss couldn't figure it out either. F* jquery plugins.

i got a ride home with mmf, and we had an argument about the existence of god that at first grated on my nerves and by the end had us not-quite-agreeing but in a better place than we'd started.

F* nihilism.

i was still upset over the two work-related F*s, so i had a shot of rum and played abe's exoddus for a bit. i had straddled the new chair (it's a fun shape, pg's sister made it) and was wearing nothing but my underwear, eating doritos and getting totally into slapping sligs and squeaking along with my blind friends in tow... pg's brother was supposed to come pick something up, and when i asked if i needed to put on pants i was laughed at.

but pg's brother didn't come. her mother came in his stead. i would have just said hi and continued playing, but i'd set a playtime alarm and i had *just* shut it off. i couldn't get up to cross the room to put some clothes on, so i sat as nonchalantly as possible and tried to blend in benignly with the background. only she stood in the entrance, and looked right at me. "wow," she said, approvingly.

i stared at her.

she stared back.

after a long moment she realized what was making me feel so supremely awkward, and explained: she'd been appreciating the chair i was sitting on.

---i read up some things for the shakespeare exam, then made my way to the bus. at least i've now officially opened a book :P

reflections upon aging prematurely - part iii

[... continued]

thursday:

an early wake up, and a post office blunder: when i receive a slip from the post office telling me that there's a package waiting, i expect it to have been delivered AFTER they're ready for me to take it. this is not the first time that's happened to me, either... i cannot fathom how they're sending me an invitation to pick up something that they don't yet know they have. i don't see why they can't send the slips on the day that the items become available. i'm not a professional postal worker, but i can't see it being particularly complicated to do right. someone has informed me that the postman usually has the package in hand when he is putting the slip in the post-box; when he finishes his round, he puts it in the district post office to be delivered to the local one.

why not leave it at the local one?

on the bus to class i was listening to music, and even through the trance blasting through my headphones i could hear the sounds from the guy next to me. that can't be good for his ears.

i was distracted for most of the first class, and we got back our grades from the midterm... i got a sucky grade. i'm now in pretty much the same situation that i was in in the first semester :S

second class was our shakespeare midterm - now, i don't know if i'm going to get a good grade or not but i *enjoyed* writing the paper. as expected, our masterful lecturer did *not* demand any memorization. he asked interesting questions that made us think. my second answer could easily have been expanded into a seminar paper that i would have been proud to write :)

one of our poetry society members followed me to lunch - i like him, but he's a really slow communicator and i was still unfocused. we discussed linux and seminars, and then i abandoned him to go get some work done. the hour in the labs went by quickly, and i'm finally relaxed about what i have to do. then i went to the vardi prize awards ceremony.

the lecturer came from prague. his slides were unreadable and his speech hard to follow - he was reading a paper he'd written and that never works. we were listless and confused - most of us, anyways - but every now and again* he'd say something that was so remarkably interesting that i'd realize that i actually like what he has to say. just not how he has to say it :P

* for a grand total of about ten minutes out of his hour and a half

our hat-wearing italian annoyed him with a question on "ontological fragmentation": it's always nice to have a smart man slam that sort of bullshit.

anime night - not too many people showed up. we had a new girl arrive, whose good looks totally captivated botchman, and neither her nor the only other regular who'd showed up had seen hunter x hunter* so we watched a couple of episodes until botchman and another regular showed up. then we watched some more guyver, and finally began galaxy express 999.

* wow. i only just realized that it's pronounced "hunter hunter"

a pity that botchman had to leave so soon, because galaxy express 999 is freakin' AWESOME. two words: space pirates. another two words: space steampunk. kick - ass. the music's great too. the only problem is that it's really, really, really long, and we didn't check the running-time beforehand. so we watched about three quarters of it and will have to continue some other time.

i wanted to go to the doof-on-the-roof party but pg and i had a misunderstanding when i got home that put me in such a foul mood that i didn't want to any more. by the time things had cooled down and senses of humour had been regained we were both exhausted... so we watched some more one piece and then went to bed.

proper sleep. *happy sigh*

---friday:

when i said to the man who hooted next to me* this morning "thank you! i'm right here!" he responded that it wasn't meant for me.
oh! that makes it okay then.

that was followed by some idiot screaming and hooting at an old guy whose parking was interfering with his getting to the red light. i was almost at the post-office when everyone on the sidewalk jumped at a long, evil hoot followed by some jerk screaming "WHAT'S THIS?! WHAT'S THIS?!" at an old guy parking on the side of the road... then stopping immediately at the traffic light. it really does my nut in. what i really wanted to do was walk up to his window and repeat his cries, but i suspect he may have been armed.

it amazes me that everyone who laughs at me for being upset tells me that i should just accept the situation - but why can't those drivers just accept the situation that they're not the only drivers on the road? i sense hypocrisy. and unnecessary aggressive behaviour.

* when i say "next to me", his window was open and his head was right next to mine. the guy he was hooting at was driving slowly, but was already turning out of his way rendering the hooting completely useless. when i spoke to him, it was in a normal speaking voice because i didn't need to raise it.

the a truck passed me by with a loud grunt and a door-slap by the driver. that was surprising and weird.

the doctor's visit was simple and uninteresting. i like those.

on my way back from the clinic, i found myself staring disapprovingly at someone who had intended to walk away from his dog's... ummm... relief. i cannot understand a grown man that needs a look or a word to remind him to clean up after his dog.

of all the places to run into an israeli poet on the side of the road... we've just received a suggestion of city council cooperation in organizing something and i'm beginning to send out invitations and ideas... after picking up my package, urchin called and is rallying other troops as well ^_^

i met with one of my fellow completion course members over breakfast at coffeeholic, and we discussed travelling in south africa and polygraph examinations. then i went home to unpack pg's birthday gifts and verify that they're as awesome as promised :))

i spent an hour or two playing with google gadgets before joining pg, her mother and her sister in a slow friday blade. it was a beginner's group, and it was fun!
dinner was great, although my arm's getting progressively more painful. pg and i watched one piece afterwards, i put into practice my cunning plan on transcribing a few pages of my travel diary every day before bedtime.

---today:

i can't believe i've finally gotten through this! now to nap again, then work and study. 'cause one must ;)

---inspired by increased knowledge of dairy products: little miss muffet

english vs american: there're the differences, and then there are really alternative spellings

netless - part ii

[... continued]

dinner and musings with scrapper, botchman and eidetic at maker's. good sandwich. good evening.

---sunday:

i went to bed early but still had a hard time getting up. no class as such, just a screening of william carlos williams - interesting, but no howl.

pg and i had lunch together, discussing ways to celebrate wr's birthday this year :)

---my health insurance company. as mentioned before, the first communication i received from them was a threat of legal action. after a week of trying to get hold of someone who would actually talk to me, i gave the salesman a call.

he was annoyed that i didn't come to him first - his was not the number on the document i received. when he heard what i had to say, he seemed almost genuinely angry himself, and agreed with everything i'd said.

1. if you call from a blocked number and don't leave a message, it's as if you didn't call. you do NOT cross off "inform the client that he owes money" from your checklist.

2. if the bank doesn't grant a standing order and it takes more than a month for you to discover that - that's YOUR problem, not the client's.

some apparent (yeah, right) big-wig called to set things right and convince me not to cancel my account. at least i get a month "free" - because they're not charging an arm and a leg - but things weren't 100% by the end because my complaint concerned not having been treated as a human being and i'm not sure if the message got through.

there're only two strikes available, and if i get any more shit from them they're out. i hate been screwed with.

---nystire came over for a visit, and we talked all sorts of rubbish. after he left, i got some ugly work done (SVN troubles) and then left early to play frisbee on the beach with pg. because that's what we do. and she's good.

some woman walking along the beach interrupted our exercise to remark on the wonderful sunset. i agreed, and was then informed (hello, Miss Tact) that it was even more wonderful because she'd been reading psalms, and wouldn't i like to... then she noticed the look on my face, and hurried off apologetically.

psalms. when you don't want people to think, make them read shit they don't understand. read them into submission. better yet - have them read themselves into submission.

---we had frozen yoghurt instead of dinner - it was awesome. and there's now an app for loyalty cards (rewardy), so less wasted paper and less "shit, i left it at home". on the way, i explained to a guy who'd left his bike running outside that it's not so efficient - why does nobody know about this???

an evening of readings (hemingway), plus rum, marzipan, and wire-fu. no, not *that* wire-fu: making a fishing rod out of wire.

cool.

---today:

6.10am wake-up, and i got up realizing that through all the shit of the past ten months, i really have been landing with my bum in in butter. i'm dating a great girl, living in a great place, i finally have a decent job, i'm still loving my studies (enough to apply to be a TA next year) and party season's about to begin. it may not have been easy, but, to quote my otherwise misguided brother, when you're on a mission the universe does conspire to assist you.

i had a quick nap before getting ready for class, instant dreaming and intensive.
on the bus, i avoided eye-contact with an italian wearing a hat only to be accosted by botchman's friend and sucked in to a political debate about exporting water in the form of flowers and fruit. i was kinda grateful when the woman sitting on my right asked us to pipe down, and i returned to my readings.

i don't know who it is, and i'm beginning to suspect someone i'm fairly close to - figuratively - but every first class on mondays and thursdays has had a smelly entity and it's not okay. i'm considering moving away from the usual suspects because it's tough to concentrate when a moment of bad breath or BO strikes.

[continued...]

trauma tune: sharing - part ii

[... continued]

friday:

i woke up early and got to the pharmacy only to discover that i've lost a prescription somewhere along the way... swak. on my way there i got to thinking about military logic, how people justify their choices: attractive and comfortable vs effective and uncomfortable. it's much easier to lie to oneself that the "strategically do nothing" option is meaningful.

i've actually seen that before, "strategic do nothing", on an official army letterhead.

i arranged a few things at home, and became nervous, excited, and a little confused. then i rollerbladed to the poetry meeting, where we sat in the hot sun for too long, with stupidly expensive cookies and praise and comments that seemed to go on forever. not my favourite meeting.

i then bladed to the climbing wall, for a psychologically stimulating (bi-directional, i think) climb with a friend, and just missed botchman and another friend as i had to rush to join the rollerblading group. that was a good route! although an angry driver with a baby in the back put everyone at risk with startlingly dangerous driving, then couldn't understand why we were upset with him... we made up for that with a few rounds in the underground parking lot, freaking out the old lady who was waiting for an elevator that we all rolled out of :P

i took my broken brain home to pg's, and helped out with the cooking that we were taking to her sister's.

---facebook fool!

i didn't think it through. as i said, my brain was broken. and i'd had a bit to drink. just excuses for my insensitivity, that led me to post an unfunny april fool's prank letting the world know that i was shirking off this mortal coil.

---after dinner we went to a friend's place for his birthday. the mongoose was there - and we had a huge fight (no, not the kind that you stop being friends for :P) when he discovered how little my new job is going to pay me. he's offered to pay me twice that, and couldn't understand why i was upset when about half a year ago they wouldn't employ me because i'd asked for too much money, even though i'd TOLD him i was flexible and desperate.

i hate the fact that employers hold the cards and ask the questions regarding cash in interviews, instead of making offers first.

---a depressing non-laugh: co-conspirator tried to call me in response to my death threat, twice, and i hadn't heard the phone ring. it turns out she was close to a couple of people who'd off'ed themselves, so it's understandable why she was upset with me. i apologized to all those offended and upset, but still felt really bad when i saw some of the responses and realized just how hurtful i'd been.

---saturday:

i had trouble getting to sleep because i felt so bad. in the morning, i went to my place to begin tidying and sorted the issue out with a final post:

the suggestion to take down the previous thread has been noted and accommodated - although usually i have a thing about not deleting posts, even if they do make me out to be a giant douche. just to be clear:

X, i was in a bit of an evil mood, i didn't mean to bring up anything like that, and for that i'm truly sorry. and Y and Z are right - TOTALLY not my style. for those who called - thank you! and everyone who said that someone should call, always right. and for anyone who ever contemplates suicide, it's really not the best option. EVER. it's the one mistake you will never be able to know how much you SHOULD regret, and it's making all the other mistakes that makes us human.

sorry i upset you guys, i wasn't really thinking too deeply about it and it was pretty insensitive.

X - there is no cry wolf on suicide with me, unless *gods forbid* i end up facing a degenerative incurable disease. i've known enough who did it - even one is more than enough - and i cannot identify with a person who can't see that there's *always* a better alternative.

so yeah, that was pretty crappy / stupid of me. sorry. not the best way to express my feelings on the topic, but i promise i wasn't intending anything harmful.

being human is awesome - screw all the vegans who say otherwise.

---cleaning house cleans heads, and a day filled with mechanical scraping and rubbing and packing was good for me. so was a phone call from my mother... it's weird that her wednesday had been awful too, though :(

i wonder how much practice one needs to blow up a long balloon. it's tough.

i was completely bombed by the time i finished cleaning in the afternoon*, and napped blissfully for a while before being woken up to go pick up marathon identifiers and eat waffles.

* i don't believe my apartment's ever been so clean! i even recovered that patio after the last sandstorm had rendered it unusable...

question for the day: what do you do with eggshells and glycerine? :D
pg and i finished digitizing my japanese experience, which has taken just a little longer than anticipated. perhaps we'll pick up the pace now that we're living together.

at 2am i met with dp to hand over the keys and give her the rundown of my home. we chatted far longer than was good for my sleep patterns :P

[continued...]

trauma tune: sharing - part i

[post divided retroactively]

wednesday:

i walked out of the office on wednesday and into a maelstrom of dark and disturbing, beginning with sketching out listlessly and resulting in my arriving home frustrated and rambling.
"honey, you're talking nonsense," she told me. and she was right. only she was wrong, too. because all the nonsense was spot-on, only it really doesn't make any sense. i really needed a stiff drink, and that's what i had.

and it helped, along with the purging. and along with the fact that pg put up with it. she distracted me by leading me into the study, where she'd set up the giant cupboard door as a whiteboard. i spent a short while setting up my calendar and scribbling my to-do lists, and then we went to bed.

night fears: waking up from a dream about grim warriors whose mission was against vampires whose intentions were pure violence; and me being given a knife before being sent into battle against tooth, claw and raw, unnatural, unbridled power. unpleasant.

---thursday:

israelis are so aggressive that it's never comfortable to communicate with strangers: all i want to do is tell people who leave the engine running (cars or bikes) that it's not cost-effective.

the day began with a discussion over sex-work advertising on campus that turned into a laugh about fainting and then an awkward "discussion" with the slow girl who talks rubbish and got personal: she got on my nerves when she tried to explain to me that i'll eventually stop being a south african.

right.

...

i couldn't get i was touched out of my head the entire first class.

a brief chat about hawthorne and his take on transcendental scrambled eggs later, and then straight into second. i hate chairs that flip back automatically, because i replaced my bum with my netbook when i got up, forgetting that it would be catapulted straight to the floor :S

we had a problem with the room for the screening - this has become a thing. we eventually were assigned a new one, but the one girl who was coming late had forgotten her cellphone at home... figures.

i had an interesting run-in with the student union on a number of issues, and have gone over wordsworth's translation of the manifesto. it's good! now to get promoting.

i ran into an italian wearing a hat, and was surprised once again by how much he seems to enjoy talking to me in contrast to how much he seems to despise talking to the others in our class (O_o)

we had a problem with the room for the anime evening - this then became even more of a thing, because the guy in charge is friends with botchman so he sorted it out by moving a different class...

botchman himself threw a sock through the window when he arrived - and we were worried it was a bomb of sorts :S

durarara!! - wandering son - elfen lied

it was an awesome evening. the same girl from the previous section giving us the history of kanji... again. *sigh*

i kept mishearing things during the evening, my brain having been overloaded for a while...

i got home to find the first communication i've received from my health insurance company: a threat to sue me for not paying an amount that i hadn't been made aware that i owed. my favourite.

pg made great dinner, and we then took her new hookah up to the roof to smoke under the stars. it was the ideal end to a really tough week.

[continued...]

thursday, friday, new year - part i

[post divided retroactively]

thursday:

bus drumming has become a habit: reading with good music in the background, i find my feet tapping and my free hand rapping on my leg and i don't care. and i'm not alone; i love seeing other people doing the same :)

i walked into campus with a really cute girl from our class, and our discussion was apparently so riveting that she followed me back out of the class to continue it while i went for coffee. as we got to the machines the cute girl that i'd sat next to the day before (and mentioned) walked past, and stopped to inform me that she'd had a really interesting dream about me... apparently we'd been arguing a lot. all i could do was be flattered, and apologize :P

---the italian lecturer: i spent the lession wishing he'd picked a different profession. what he does to poetry is unforgivable, and i dislike (intensely) the fact that we're to learn *his* point of view, even if there are a plethora of more plausible possibilities. he did redeem himself a little, though. *if* i score 100 on the final exam then i won't have to hand in a work for extra credit. if i don't, it will essentially be a topic of my choosing that can cover the entire history we've studied.

that's mighty generous.

a stray quote from his class: "it was a major major major major shift". reminded me of a certain character from catch 22 :P

i have begun conspiring to put together a study group beginning this week: we have less than a month to go before the final, and half of us haven't a clue what's potting. this course is heavy.

---i went for coffee with a couple of the girls, and as we left the building a guy walked past hurriedly. i *knew* i recognized him from somewhere, but without context i just couldn't place him! i spent the next few minutes driving myself nuts trying to figure it out...

a couple of weeks ago my appointment to see a skin doctor was cancelled on the day. on thursday, my new appointment (for tomorrow) was also cancelled. i called up to say that it was beginning to seem personal, and discovered, quite by accident, that both appointments had been for the wrong doctor.

fantastic.

i had lunch with pg and taught her basic binary arithmetic, then got my exam timetable so that i could figure out when to go snowboarding. tomorrow, we begin to arrange.

second class: i was thinking of watchmen's alien, and trying to figure out how to connect everyone through the massive threat of... humans. i was reading haraway - a cyborg manifesto and thinking about our future, laughing at our lecturer for his claim to be "living perfectly" and thinking about how that unhealthy mindset contributed to all of my polygraph trauma that transformed my reserve duty role to that of an expensive warden (i have no idea what my reserve duty will really be like :P).

after class, metaphor and i found the new anime class and performed a sound check (with only a minor altercation with the lecturer; all she had to do was say "i'm early, and i'm teaching". passive-aggressive is stupid, we couldn't know she secretly wanted to get started).

botchman picked me up on his bike, took me home through crazy traffic to switch bags, and then we continued on to the climbing wall. we hit the wall hard, and i was extremely satisfied afterwards. i think my hearing might have been a bit damaged by all the teenagers *screaming* at each other...

that guy from earlier? he works at the wall! what a crazy coincidence!

botchman gave me a ride to campus, and i arrived *just* in time for the anime evening. we had a whole bunch of new people - things seem to be rolling! ^_^
botchman went back to pick up scrapper, but they took far too long and missed metaphor's presentation on evangelion and why there are so many versions of it. it was an interesting talk, and absolutely brilliant watching it on a big screen.

metaphor asked us to introduce ourselves, and when it came to me i simple said "i like to break things by doing them the way they're supposed to be done". it's a fairly accurate explanation of most of my behaviour :P

---i was irritated by the flash boss - halfway through the movie he called me, and i ignored him. then he called me again and i scrambled outside to answer.
"is this an emergency?"
"no, no - "
"then can i call you back? i'm in the middle of something."
"oh, i just called to tell you that your program's not working. i've sent you an email."

if he'd just have let me call him back, i would've enjoyed the rest of the movie that much more. a little patience goes a long way and in both directions.

---after the movie we had time left over to watch something else, and i'd fortunately remembered to pack my discs on the way to campus in the morning. unfortunately, i'd left my schoolbag at home when i switched it for the climbing wall... :S

botchman and i went to play frisbee at rabin square, and it was good frisbee. what an excellent evening - wall, anime *and* frisbee!

---when i arrived home the first thing i encountered in the online arena was a debate over whether marilyn manson is more artistic than shakespeare. after reading a few interesting arguments, i put mine in:
okay - i've just been studying literature theory and i have what really is the only answer: you can argue and discuss all you want, there's no way to differentiate between any two accepted artists by "how artistic" they are.

the current academic consensus would probably swing the way of manson though, purely on the basis that he forces us to re-evaluate the things we think familiar far more intensely than shakespeare did, but then shakespeare was severely limited by his environment.
(and no, it doesn't matter if shakespeare was one man or many :P)

[edit: boy, was i ever wrong!]

it's always relative to the current condition of whatever society you're referring to. shakespeare was pretty damn roguish in his day, and although (as was stated above) his stuff wasn't original his perspectives and his crossovers (see "the merchant of venice") were seriously inspired and nobody can touch his verse. nobody.

technically, i'd go with shakespeare. provocatively (as in thought and emotional response) i'd have to go with manson. there's nothing like a debate that totally depends on perception: isn't it wonderful that all of us live in such different realities, as do/did our artists?

oh, and [thread owner]: shakespeare was held in VERY high esteem. may i suggest that you obtain a copy of "the norton anthology of english literature"? it's quite educational, especially the bits between the excerpts :)

pg and i watched hunter x hunter, and then it was long past time for bed.

[continued...]

the fire's still not out... - part i

[post divided retroactively]

it's been a long few days - and they've been good ones. not too conducive to writing things down, though...

---thursday:

i spent the two hours following my last post doing... nothing. i met up with wr on campus, and we would have talked about friday night's upcoming show (phototaxis) but were distracted by an amusing conversation with one of the girls in my class. we also met the phototaxis' cello player; she left a bit confused by our general randomness :P

i walked into class to discover that half the guys had been convinced i was australian. one of the girls wanted me to say "put another shrimp on the..." - for pete's sake! i'm NOT australian, so what difference does it make if i say it or an israeli does???
i felt like i'd walked into flight of the concords :/

i was accosted by a girl from my other class on the way back home - she hasn't gotten over monday's horror and is looking to vent even though we haven't had a chance to speak to the lecturer yet...

i tried reading on the bus, but i was too tired and slow to get anywhere. i got stuck in a short time-suck reading wired and chewing an apple until i realized that i had to be getting somewhere...

on my way out, i had a revelation! i suddenly remembered that the front panel of my pc has audio output jacks... i moved the cable from the back to the front and voilà! i have sound from my windows installation! so now i just have to switch the cable around whenever i boot into a different os. thank you, microsoft, for another fantastic win :/

i grabbed my dvd player, discs and a few beers and headed for the bus. i got off at the wrong stop, didn't listen to the directions i was given, and learned that bnei brak is more complex than i'd thought before finally giving in and following instructions until i found the place.

i was just as surprised as a bunch of my friends to learn that they know my classmate who was hosting us... botchman even ended up staying there afterwards. it was only at 3am the next morning that i received a phone call from the chemist asking if it was possible to keep the aforementioned classmate from the anime evenings because they'd had a *thing* in the past. i was almost as taken aback by this behaviour as i was by botchman's insensitivity to the bro code :S

we watched cowboy bebop: the movie - and it is stunning! my classmate and i amused ourselves by discussing some of its features in literature terms we've had forced down our throat; specifically laughing at mise en abîme in the form of the jack-o'-lanterns and witch costume :P

---friday:

i got to drive myself to florentine, where i had about half an hour or so to wait to meet with the girl who had my camera. in the meanwhile, i talked with the guy at the store about the fire and our pitiful political situation, then walked up and down the street eating sunflower seeds and chilling.

i picked out a cop for hooting unnecessarily in an urban area... should'a given himself a ticket, no?
he ignored me. surprise!

i felt a bit selfish after leaving the girl's place - she'd drawn more talk out of me about me than i could of her, and i have to admit that i'm curious as to why she's not talking about her shaved head and medical marijuana. but i'm not going to pry.

i took a shuttle back home, made a nuisance of myself when a couple turned their backs and walked from their dog relieving himself in the middle of the avenue, responded to a few comments (so people *do* read my blog?) and then turned in for the night.

[continued...]

on the grass

yesterday began with a sharp start pre-alarm...
after a forgotten experience, a few of us decide it's time for a road trip. i end up walking the last bit.
we find a cheap hostel and go missioning around on my blades- i find myself in a store having a sing-along with some s&m chick from the panic ensemble grotesque [a mere construct of my mind, unfortunately]

upon my return to the hostel i set my blades down beside a pillar outside (i'm now wearing sandals). some cops appear to take a dislike to me, chase me down and put me in their patrol car...
they give me shit, but i'm don't play along - they have nothing on me. i threaten them with multiple complaints and eventually, frustrated, they give up and drop me off.

i pick up my blades and walk into a friend and his family who are all having dinner outside the hostel. i urgently tell him what's up, he disappears inside... and walks out with two humungous joints to "calm me down". one of the cops was still keeping an eye on me, though - out of the corner of my eye i caught him rushing off to report to his friends.

feeling responsible, i rush through to my room and out the rear window to find a hiding place amongst the randomness of the back yard; i eventually find a good spot to ditch the damned things but i'm too late: a number of cops pour into the yard and see where i've been: i know they'll know where to look.

i woke up with my heart pounding and both my hands numb and lifeless - i hate it when that happens :(

my ipod accompanied me to an early shopping run, and for the first time in a while i drank freshly squeezed orange juice... a pity that the oranges i've acquired are a tad on the bitter side.

the blade to campus was tougher than on monday - perhaps having done around 25km a few hours before had something to do with that. also, it was a little hotter than the preceding days. i was horrifically sweaty.

wr arrived just as we were excitedly ascertaining the validity of the exclamation that our first, horrid professor had cancelled our freud-abuse session, and informed us of some amusing intrigue involving a couple of our professors and a terrifying lack of fashion sense.
a few of us formed a circle on the grass - i was planning on studying some, but the conversation bounced back and forth with great rapidity between anime and literature... it's the end of week four, and bonds are forming :)

i don't know why there was a band playing on the grass outside gillman, but i am glad for the coffee promotion - free black coffee with cardamom? sweet.

so fiction is defined by the consensus reality at time of publication? unless it's auto-biographical? a class argument on galileo, the bible and historical fallacies simply extended the pleasure of the day :)

---it has been suggested (thank you, pg) that the reason so much weird shit happens to me is because i continue to demonstrate the inability to ignore people and the world around me. it makes a certain sense... most people do their damndest not to get involved; i do tend to go out of my way.

on a slightly different note: i've now opened up another side to my blog with some of my works, and have been out of the army for more than five months. maybe i should stop being so anonymous?

---i had lunch with comixer and eidetic - a long debate over the definition of "the city". it seems that by the end comixer was convinced that moving to central tel aviv is the right thing to do :P

the blade to work was smoother, and i spent the next three hours re-familiarizing myself with perl (apparently it doesn't matter how much one prays, perl is still the best way to perform certain tasks. i still hate it, though) and debating the meaning of empathy with a couple of my co-workers.

i ditched work to meet up with scrapper, botchman and footcruncher at my place. we spent the evening playing tekken and having a really good munchkin session; the final battles saw me with some really useful cards in hand, and the guys were shocked at how much suspense i can introduce to a simple card game :D

as we closed shop (i had to hurry, i'd left pg waiting again) i suddenly realized an awful by-product of my phone upgrade - my lending list is gone! now i have no idea who's got what :'(
[now downloading the nokia software - maybe i can resurrect something]

i hurried to pg's, and everything was all good. we finally watched the end of sherlocke holmes - it's a slightly different sherlocke holmes, but it's a lot of fun and captured the essence of the original characters. i think it's jude law's best performance.

i slept at pg's, then woke up at 6am to come back here and... presumably... study. there's been a far sight more "other" than "study".
that's just it, really. i'm going through yet another transition phase, with a hundreds different faces all clamouring for attention.

---there's a strike on campus today; this is a quick paraphrase from the president of the university:
"you guys are 'the people' - and the greatest advantage to our country. the country needs to treat you right."

a new beginning - part ii

[... continued]

i had quite an interesting chat with kc's mother when i called to wish her a happy birthday - she's a huge fan of india and we both have a lot to say :)

here's where the plans all crumbled. i'd planned on passing by a birthday party, ducking quickly to shower and get dressed then meeting up with pg and going to a friend of hers' birthday party. but then i realized that i work right by singer's place and i promised to help her out with a song that needs reworking...

... if we hadn't argued so much about one line (still unresolved) i might've made it on time to the party. even if i *had* made it on time (without getting a bit lost and having to jump a fence) botchman's bike broke down, throwing quite the spanner in the works. we left a lot later than planned, and i felt really bad about having stood up pg.

but she was surprisingly (okay, not *so* surprisingly) understanding. we sat over a drink, talking until we both passed out.

---waking up in such a beautiful apartment with her was amazing. it really does feel like i'm living someone else's life. it took us forever to get up and get started with the day...

i picked up my pc and discovered, to my great despair, that the primary problem was with the monitor. so i've now sent that in (good thing i couldn't get rid of my old one!) and my system has an additional fan which is good regardless. pg came over to use the internet and she helped me sort out the application for my student card and came with me to send it. we had breakfast at coffeeholic - they've had a bad season and i can see why (the new guys just aren't cutting it) - and said goodbye, then i went home intending to nap.

no chance. yogi met me a short while later and we went back to coffeeholic for coffee and business. i'm very happy with what he had to propose and i hope it comes through. we'll see soon - it would be a very sweet deal for both of us.

i came back, began posting all my tokyo photos, did some quick shopping (although i've been feeling horrible, a bit feverish and my throat's buggered) and came back to post... communicate... and have my apartment boarded by scrapper and botchman. we talked and talked, laughed and laughed, and closed on a serious note regarding the new loyalty declaration law (which i quite agree with).

now i need to nap a bit before deciding whether or not to eat dinner with pg's mum. i'm tired.

game on!

learning a new language and becoming familiar with a new environment can be very trying. most of the time is spent making stupid mistakes and feeling like an idiot - i'm definitely no exception.

what amuses me no end is that, after a couple of weeks of facepalming and not really getting anything done, i've just demonstrated in one afternoon how far ahead of the game i am. i had to explain to the lead why the original code that i tightened up was actually incorrect*, a fact i wouldn't have discovered otherwise.

* uh, oh. i hope it's not a case of "honeymoon's over" - i'll deal, but i'm too used to the bitter disappointment of discovering *just* how badly a system's been written. at least there's still hope.

the harsh lesson for the day was that when the browser cache needs to be cleaned, weird shit happens. and she doesn't friggin' write anything. [edit: i'm sure this made sense when the page it linked to existed]

---
i did take a quick nap before leaving the apartment, but it didn't really mean much. my blade to work was tiring, and sweaty. i went out for lunch with one of the managers, and as tasty and apparently healthy as it was - it was dry. that didn't make me feel better :/

---
botchman called me up during the afternoon:
"what're you doing?"
"why are you asking?"
"just tell me"
"okay - i'm at work"
"oh, okay. nevermind then"
"what difference does it make?"
"what if i was calling to tell you that i'm standing outside your house?"
"i'd tell you that i can be there in fifteen minutes"
"ah. so we can play this evening?"
"indeed. remind me why it matters what i'm doing right now?"

i'm just making a small point about assumptions. i had just enough time to shop before meeting him at my place, and we had enough time before scrapper arrived to pick up a piece of furniture i'd seen on my way home yesterday... it fascinates me that i need so much storage space, although it pleases me that it's mostly for books :)

---
i didn't realize it was so late when they left - it felt closer to midnight. we closed a really interesting story in a very strange way, but i learned a hell of a lot and we had a great time playing it through :)

---
is that it? i definitely need to get to bed - this whole week is full of big days.

i sent scrapper the following email after discovering that he'd never heard of penny arcade - i figure it's a good enough ad for anyone who reads my blog:

it's all about gaming - mostly pc / xbox / playstation etc, these guys play EVERYTHING. all the big stuff, at least, and review everything in their news. they also make fun of the gaming industry in general, host HUGE charity drives for children's hospitals and generally offend everyone they can.

cardboard tube samurai!

gears 2

on cd-keys

awesome artwork they've done for games

gabe before d&d (console gamer only)

gabe begins playing d&d

gabe taking up dm'ing

more of that

gabe's incredible campaign stuff

on their way to comicon

i hope you enjoy it - the news for the comic is usually just as interesting.

bye bye brat

news of the day: i finally had it out with chc, after becoming increasingly irritated by her over the last while. we'd arranged to meet (she really wanted to, i didn't know what was up), i'd explained to her that i was leaving work to meet with her, and she stood me up. i wasn't even impolite... at least i wasn't until she sent me an sms explaining how she was so disappointed and had been looking forward to seeing me - she'd try again today.

i replied with a curt: "don't bother, i'm not giving up money that i need for a maybe - probably not."

"you're being reactional and bratty. why? i've spent the entire day doing for others and haven't had time for myself. i'm not doing this on purpose"

"you see? that was the incorrect response*. i think i've had enough of wonderful chc, the ever-flowing and perfect and better than all of us yet still quite inconsiderate of everyone around her. i'm not used to giving up on people, but i'm sorry, i just don't have time for you anymore - i hope one day you'll understand."

* as usual, the only correct response was silence. she couldn't have known that.

it's just... it's hard to do a quick review and understand just how manipulative and insincere someone has been, and to know that a part of you was aware of it at the time but you still maintained hope. i became suspicious about two weeks ago, but every sentence exchanged and every inappropriate random encounter since she "left" has made her seem less and less trustworthy.

i let her know today when i had my locks changed. i wish i didn't have to throw that money out, but better safe than sorry. she'll finally be coming on friday (apparently, but now that doesn't bother me) to pick up her stuff.

---i began yesterday with a run to secure the poster (50x70) - it came out *beautifully*, and inspired me to consider making a syndicate one as well ^_^
[although i'll wait a bit before shelling out the cash for it - like, say, when i have a real paying job]

i found the visa guys (not the embassy), and sat down with them to fill out the forms and... and not apply, because i'd only brought one passport after they'd explicitly told me that i shouldn't bring the other. i found myself decidedly disappointed by the service.

the hours at work were spent setting up the development environment and failing abysmally. the guy in charge came down to check it out personally, and got even more frustrated than i had...

i returned to meet with scrapper and botchman (our storyteller); we shopped [and i wondered about flirting with women at supermarkets], cooked (not a bad meal, far better than the previous one) and proceeded with a brilliant session that was as awesome and fun as it was painful and complex. the storyline's really clever and our characters kick ass, even when they're getting theirs handed to them in return :)

---i was exhausted, and was actually nodding off during the tail end of the chapter [my character had been knocked unconscious, and i was manifesting that :P]. the guys asked if i was alright, and i could barely manage a response. after sorting scrapper out (he crashed on my couch instead of driving home) and saying goodbye to botchman, i climbed into bed, and lay restless the entire night.

today was simple:

1. get up at 7.50am to hand in my passports for the indian visa application.
2. sit online until i could eat breakfast
3. fail, once again, to put eyedrops in my eye. i wouldn't care much if i could re-try, but that's not a good idea with steroids
4. discover that the excess fee on my stolen camera is just about as much as the camera costs :(
5. shuffle (seriously) to discover that i don't get a free month of medical travel insurance because i got released after age 27. i nodded off in the waiting room because i was feeling so pap - i don't understand why my heart was racing when i walked in the door :S
6. shuffle home, contemplate napping but instead find a locksmith - discussing politics with the locksmith while he works? meh.
7. breakfast and wired. another brilliant month :)
8. slow blade to work, deal with more environmental issues*
9. convince an anti-vac mom to at least read the material** i sent her
10. eat dinner with singer and the cycling girl i bumped into two weekends ago - we've agreed to learn to ride down stairs together :)
11. argue with singer while waiting for her bus, and decide that i probably just shouldn't talk to people. chatting online seems safer. and less loud.

* environmental issues:
infinitely recursive directories
i think i'm finally onto the primary problem - flex builder has some severe inconsistencies with defining a debug environment for any app that needs to run on a web server. i only arrived at that conclusion because i eventually gave up and switched computers, only to find myself facing the same damn problem :S

** there're a number of important things to note, and cool articles to read
wakefield's interests
the war on science
the placebo effect (the conversation turned to alternative healing)

---it's nice to hear sugar man playing from a co-worker's speakers :)

---beautiful: i'm suddenly reminded of justina robson's selling out; it's like a combination of the demon market and spirited away

isn't ted supposed to be about ideas? this dude's dancing is impressive, but i don't get why he's not on "somewhere's got talent"...

contemplation

i read comics, watched some battlestar galactica, and passed out on the couch. i woke up a few hours later, pulled myself back into shape, showered and walked.

i eventually caved in and took a taxi, whose driver impressed me no end by taking an honest-to-goodness efficient route. i got to the club at a relatively fair price, and the guest list price brought the cost of the evening to "average". now if only i'd brought "average" sort of money... with taxi, entrance, one beer, one rum and coke, one energy drink and two chocolates i was barely left with bus fare home :P

speaking of which, that energy drink and the chocolates could barely keep me standing - the music was great, but i was feeling so drained that i was almost sleeping standing up. i didn't see anybody i know, but the fact that botchman was planning on going proved a good enough indicator that it would be a decent crowd. last time i went on the spur of the moment, and the people were a bit iffy.

when i wasn't bouncing - and most of the morning the beats were made of solid, floor-rumbling stuff - i was processing the past week. i consider it a combination of prayer and meditation, and i think i have (to a certain extent) made peace with my present situation. also, i spent a lot of time contemplating how much of my experiences i keep to myself and how much i try to share with the world. i see myself as a sort of conduit, a role which i'm not uncomfortable with as a parallel to what i'm busying myself with but which i must be wary of in its ability to overtake my personal priorities.

the walk to the bus home was beautiful, i tried to capture something of it with my camera but i suspect that what's in my memory is all that i'll keep. i'll probably post the snaps anyway, because i'm beginning to appreciate even the crap photos as reminders.

i showered and went straight to bed, sleeping wonderfully and waking really slowly. as i lay waiting for my alarm to harass me into physically getting up, i pondered my (excessive) communication with gn1. i think there're a lot of things that are impossible to know without throwing oneself into a relationship, and i'm curious to see how much of an actual fit there is as opposed to the purely intellectual.
how will our extremely differing opinions and tastes affect each other?

wow. i haven't seen potential for something serious in a long, long time.

intrigue!

i have a lot to learn.
i came up with a good plan, and we've begun a pirate adventure :)

nice kids, i can see there'll be a lot of munchkinning, but i'm more interested in familiarizing myself with the role of on-the-fly storyteller and keeper of the plot device. also, i don't think there's a better way to get a grip on the damn rules :P

apparently i remind one of the guys of gerard butler.