train of thought

i missed my sleep journal entry this morning:

3rd coffee 15.23

23.54 bed

6.36 up, not great sleep

that's because although the day started just fine*, my alarm went off at 8am to warn me that i had to be on the far side of kfar saba by 9.30, for a company (my employer) volunteering effort. i dropped everything, got dressed, rushed out to the bus stop, and travelled to my destination, which took a bit more than an hour and a bus switch along the way.

* fine, aside from gd being furious about the "deal" that trump ostensibly signed, which i later understood was yet more meaningless bullshit (it's essentially an agreement to extend the bullshit negotiations)

i arrived a little early, but the address wasn't precise. i asked the office manager / organizer to clarify, and that's when she called to drop the bombshell that the effort had been cancelled. and everyone had been informed of the cancellation except me, because she hadn't noticed that i'd registered (i'd registered during the initial sign-up).

what a fuck-up. so i bussed all the way back, having lost of couple of hours of my life that i really could have used. i quickly ate breakfast, then continued on to the office for a very long, busy day full of a mix of continuing to assist the previous client team with continuous incidents (two coincidences together, today) and making a bit of headway into understanding my own project.

also, a group meeting that was supposed to be a talk, but the speaker wasn't available so my mentor volunteered me to share what i've been up to. fortunately, that went well and turned into an entertaining and constructive conversation.

oh, and there was a small dog in the office bullying the big dog. that made me dislike him, but then he peed next to my shoe (on my shoelace!) so now i dislike him even more.

i left the office an hour and a half later than intended, arriving home with less than ten minutes to spare before another meeting that i'd forgotten about. that one went on for about an hour and half, but it was very interesting and, i hope, productive.

i had a quick dinner and we said good night to my mom, then gd and i did the grocery shopping, then i made myself a tea and played slay the spire 2, and then i was about to go to bed when i realized that i hadn't recorded by journal entry for the day, and now it's tomorrow so it's too late so i wrote this instead.

and now i can go to bed.

odin-appropriate

 today's wodan's day, and considering the war/death/sacrificed eyeball thing i find it a perfect day to have blasted through the final boss i've been struggling with in inscryption.

SPOILER: i just got through the final battle of act i with the most ridiculously overpowered deck, and am finally in act ii! holy fuck, this is one of the most satisfying achievements ever and i know that the game's only just warming up.

what a freaking rush. 

...

i went to bed early-ish last night, abandoning gd in the living room after she'd had a fight with what she believes was a mosquito (she had surprisingly nasty reactions, apparently this is normal for her).

this morning started off with a visit from the air conditioner repair man, who checked out all the installations and determined that the stinky one needed a professional clean. i helped, it took a while, and while he thinks it's all good now we're still smelling the faint remnants of the ammonia smell that was worrying us a couple of days ago.

after he left, that was when i remembered to inform the landlords... in the evening they got back to me and only agreed to pay half, because they believe it's our fault for not cleaning the air conditioners. which we didn't realize we needed to do 🤦‍♂️

next up: our daily meeting, with our CTO informing all present that i'm leaving at the end of the month. there were raised eyebrows, followed by a couple of awkward moments, followed by a couple of touching messages.

i know it doesn't make sense to say goodbye just yet, so it doesn't actually mean anything, but i couldn't help noting who didn't send messages :P

around lunchtime, i booked a car and gd and mr smear joined me on a mission to drop off bags of old clothes for a donation drive. there was a free hour on the app, and we managed to drop off the clothing (the woman in charge was absolutely blown away by gd's eyelid tattoos), pick up nice bread and a bagel, draw cash for the cleaner, and return the car in time.

that onion bagel was delicious.

i spent the afternoon working uncomfortably while the cleaner cleaned, mr smear had another zoom session with his therapist, and i struggled both with the work and with distractions. at the end of the day, i made progress but i don't feel great about it.

in the late afternoon (which is feeling like evening now that everyone's clocks are wrong again) i went to get imaging done for my hips/pelvis/nether regions. it was quick, a little weird (the poses for them to get clear shots) and i walked away being grateful that at this stage the radiation to my boy parts probably won't make any difference to the world.

the evening was a mixed bag, mostly positive. mr smear's been pretty cool so far since last week's freak-out, even if he's testing boundaries like it's nobody's business... as usual...

it's getting late, i'm still excited by my earlier achievement with inscryption, and now i'm going to try to learn something blockchainy before going to bed.

the rush - part iv

[... continued]
i tried to rest, introducing myself to siri and being rather impressed. i uploaded to soundcloud for the first time, then rushed off to meet vfmp and his boyfriend for the monkland street festival. we had a nice walk but i couldn't avoid the sun even with my sunscreen, my big floppy hat and my jumping from shade to shade. it was waaaay too hot.

vfmp and i headed to shaïka for good wraps and to trade bad father stories; we talked about blood donations and i think he's provided me more than enough fuel for a poetic rant. i then took a long trip to meet with someone before her performance in an attempt to sort out a connection, we shared ten minutes together that were totally off-topic and for a reason i'd rather not go into i ended up returning home without staying for so much as a minute. that was totally unprofessional and uncool of me.

i went back home, feeling remarkably shitty about what had happened, and waited for gd to come home to discuss it with her. i was expecting the worst, but while things definitely weren't great they were far better than i'd hoped for and i'm extremely grateful for that.

we enjoyed a peaceful evening, punctuated by an attempt to do something cool for the als ice bucket challenge which resulted in an amusing fail video instead.

just before heading to see the teenage mutant ninja turtles reboot gd started hurting and then my nerve started pinching, so we arrived at the theatre in less than the best of circumstances. the movie was fun, really fun, aside from a bit of shaky-cam-itis and a couple of weird plot decisions. i have to say that the credits, both opening and closing, were awesome and a lot of the shots were just incredible!
ignoring about half an hour of gd's back giving her trouble we had a really good time.

---yesterday:

going to bed at 2.30am after learning about smashwords' greatness: they really are fantastic! they are without a doubt the future of publishing ^_^

...

i woke up to some poetic inspiration, and i'm ridiculously pleased with myself about what came out of it. gd gave me a lesson in humility along with a painful french lesson, after which we enjoyed a blissfully relaxed sunday morning. we arrived at midi 6 famished, and their soy latte to go with my "herbivore" was precisely what i needed ^_^

i finally figured out how to get a naked domain to redirect - that really should be simpler - and we finished watching cheatin' before i hurried out to godmother's for coffee. it was a gorgeous afternoon, the raspberries were delicious and the fact that fudgee-o double stuf cookies are vegan just made a fantastic day even better. also, yang's finally taken a step in the right direction regarding his education, so that's a thing.

i took my slightly pinched nerve and tender jaw (discovered earlier) to my apartment to pick up a set of keys, two folding chairs and the mezuzot off my doors. i need to put them up here, and i need to acquire another one.

i needed the nap that i took when i got home, but i woke up to go shopping feeling like i was still dreaming and had overdone the sun and not napped nearly enough. microwave dinner, posting, and transforming into a being of pure discomfort were the order of the evening... i guess my day couldn't have been too good :P

gd was watching fringe: we need to hunt down whoever's responsible for mastering these shows and slap some sense into them. you shouldn't have to keep turning the volume up to hear speech and down to prevent hearing loss during action sequences.

---today:

i woke from long dream sequences to a morning of k's choice and more posting. i rushed out, soooo tired and still trying to avoid excess coffee. i made it until 11.15, at which point big junior showed up to delegate a documentation task. fortunately, that's the kind of thing i'm really comfortable doing with my brain off so i completed that quickly enough and returned to my grand plans.

i may have sweated a little when i realized that i was reorganizing the team's wiki docs without authorization :P

my junk food mission to the supermarket next door was successful - they have israeli vegan munchies! nice one :)

the shitty part of the day was my wasting other people's time with non-problems - i had the dumb, i thought my virtual machine's hard drive was taking up 80gb and we spent far too long trying to resize a disk that was actually only 20gb :$

i left feeling incredibly tired and slow. the experience with the laser hair clinic was surprisingly pleasant; the technician was cool, she totally got my intentions, the pain wasn't as bad* and the terrible smell of burning hair didn't last as long.

* it apparently eases the less hair you have

on my way home, i found that siri doesn't work without an internet connection. that's just silly. siri. silly. siri.

i spent the evening almost resting, watching safety not guaranteed with gd and then the first part of the battlestar galactica mini-series when she went to bed. omg, i can't believe it's still so incredibly good, and just how much more powerful it is when you know what's coming!

...

this last post brought to you by a thoroughly irresponsible disregard for my need to sleep. but my chapbook has a nice cover now (thanks, pixlr!) and i'm fairly certain i'm gonna crash in a couple of minutes.

permission granted!

achievement unlocked: work permit acquired (the next milestone).

one of the lawyers drove me to the border as my representative, and i was shocked to learn that the previous time my lawyer had given me bad instructions! as it turns out, if you tell the americans that all you want to do is turn around at the border they will refuse you entry and give you a white slip, which you then take to the canadians. as far as the work permit application is concerned you're entering the country from the united states, but as the united states denied entry the border officials essentially have to let you back in because they weren't supposed to let you out in the first place.

that's all very, very weird, and super-bureaucratic. but i guess if everyone's happy with it then i'm happy with it, and the guy who admitted me was really cool and efficient. having been through the process a couple of times before i was a lot less nervous. but still a little nervous: those guys are essentially omnipotent regarding permits and visas, i wouldn't want them to dislike me.

...

i was pleased to learn that i pretty much know my shit regarding the permits and residence application procedures, but i was fortunate to learn that the rules for applying for residence might change soon. this means that i need to pitch a no-hitter for the next four or five months if i don't want to find myself having to fight to stay here...

---saturday:

i forgot to mention a thought i had on saturday about the burqa fundamentalist muslim women wear: its use puts humans on the same level as all the other animals, where the females have drab colours and the males have otherwise useless or counter-productive flash, like the peacock.

with the good news that i'll be working again, i splurged on itunes: i bought foo fighters - greatest hits for $7. and then today i picked up a comedy album whose proceeds are all going to a good cause, but i'm so far a lot less satisfied by that one :/

---i tried to take a nap after lunch, but my ocd was acting up and i began compulsively tidying. which mostly consisted of setting up the old amp and speakers in gd's "salon". we're now one rca-to-headphone cable shy of awesome :)

we watched stake land after going shopping, and were both thoroughly enjoying ourselves right until the end. it's a bad-ass super-cool movie about what are essentially a cross between vampires and zombies, and the ending made me feel like the world had dropped out from under me. in a bad way. other than that, the writing was really good, aside from one scene where it felt like someone had just stopped caring for a moment because they wanted a fun, scary effect that couldn't be easily justified.

gd made a double veggie / daiya cheese burger that was delicious, and we watched a bit of dan cummins - crazy with a capital f until i realized that it was midnight and i needed to be up at 6am.

---today:

around 4am i got up to serious rls, and it took about forty-five minutes to go away. i finally fell back into bed, and had a nightmare in which i watched a large green spider enter an infant's nose. after that i rushed off, barely in time to meet with the lawyer and cross the border, but had to get off the bus i'd just hopped on to return home and pick up forgotten documents. i woke up with that dread still in my chest, and discovered that i'd slept through my alarm and it was ten minutes after i'd intended to leave; it took me half an hour to get out - butterflies in my stomache turned out to be more than just butterflies - and thank all the gods gd had ironed my shirt the night before and knew where the shoe polish was.

of course, my representative would call when i was down in the metro: why does my phone bother ringing if there's not enough signal to talk? then there was a metro service slowdown, but it was only for a few minutes. then i got lost in the building, but the guy found me instead.

...

it was a gorgeous morning and the scenery on the way down to the border was stunning. on the way back, my lack of sunglasses, my lack of sleep and the looooong drive with aircon and no fresh air had me trying to hide yawns all the way. i kicked myself for a while after we said our goodbyes and i ended with "see you soon" :$

i thought i was going to take a quick nap but i crashed hard for an hour or two. gd and i played carcassonne, which she eventually enjoyed, and the rest of the afternoon has been a whole lot of random, including some very unpleasant political stuff with our friends on facebook.

at least there's more good news: vector's back on the project! very cool, that had been upsetting me.

conserving energy - part i

it's been a rough few days, primarily because i've been stressed and not feeling at the top of my game: i've been exhausted, my brain's been operating in slow motion and i've been trying to read as much as i possibly can so that i can call up my future boss and be ready for anything.

...

i've been trying out songza now that google's bought it, and i'm listening to coffee shop indie as i write this. pretty cool.

---wednesday:

wednesday morning began with an argument about kendall jones and animal conservation. i originally wrote "she's about as good for conservation as deforestation", but after a couple of articles (here, here and here) i realized that as unfortunate as promoting the killing of wildlife for sport may be, it does appear to be counteracting the disastrous efforts of poachers so from a practical point of view i guess i need to keep my animal rights opinions in check.

the guy i was arguing with was the pro-gun anti-obama moron that i studied with, and on a number of occasions i came pretty close to unfriending him. but i guess the above realization is precisely why we shouldn't ignore people who we disagree with. speaking of which, xkcd's commentary on the ethics of the research fiasco is on the mark as usual. i don't want facebook hiding posts i might not engage with. that's just stupid.

...

i grabbed my ipod to go shopping, and was horrified to find that it's suddenly in its death throes. its screen is faded and crossed with scan lines. it feels like it's too soon since my last one went, but i guess it's had a good run. i don't have the cash to replace it right now and i have to say i'm quite upset that i've no way to back up all the tracks i ripped from my physical cds in israel :(

there were garbage bags outside the apartment building again, i hope we won't have to pay for those. i suddenly remembered that i needed more breakfast shake when i saw popeye's discount bills in my wallet, so i headed over there where i had an interesting conversation about vegan protein with the owner. apparently progressive accounts for vegetable bio-availability when labelling protein quantities, whereas vega doesn't. not cool, vega.

the rest of the shopping was quick and after lunch i read some more dr who comics and took a nap.

...

it had been a tough day so far, primarily because i hadn't the energy to do a damned thing. it was so hot. so far, the best part of my day had been receiving a photo of gd's second journal entry: i've convinced her to try keeping a drawn diary as an excuse to practice. so far, very cute indeed :)

...

i tried studying, and i made a little progress. afterwards i discovered that i can connect humble bundle to my steam account. seriously?! now i don't have an excuse not to purchase their game bundles, previously i simply didn't want to have to add another source to gog and steam. not that i'm in a position to be buying much right now, but in general that's pretty sweet!

i finally updated zombies, run! and ran along the lachine canal. 'cause i live here now, it's kinda silly not to :)
the run was pretty good, considering i haven't simply run in ages and i was being very careful about my form. i'm in serious need of cardio training, and i wanted to get back to the story in any event. my phone won't sync my old phone's missions so i have to begin again, the gps initialized incorrectly so my stats show an average of about 120kph for the first minute or two, and it's not picking up my pace so i never get chased by zombies. aside from that, my playlist is awesome and the route is excellent, so i guess i'm back into running when i don't have it in me to get to the gym.

after yesterday's run, though, i think that i should be listening to french music or podcasts as i go. i'll need something that'll power me as well as alter bridge, foo fighters, godsmack, (hed) p.e., karnivool, linkin park, lostprophets* and marilyn manson.

* as i said, i'm not going to stop listening to their music but i do think about the whole thing with disgust every time one of their songs comes on.

it was so hot and humid that i got out of the shower still sweating :(

[gd surprising me with an uncomfortable discussion that seems to have been about something we don't need to worry about but was a residual effect of an argument we had a while back]

gd and i went to p.m. for dinner, which was delicious but the pad thai was so incredibly spicy that we gave up halfway (made for a good following lunch, at least). we went to bed tired and still sweating.

[continued...]

upper morning

okay, so after a good night's sleep i woke up to a couple of messages from pulse apologizing for last night, confessing unprompted that her instructions should have been more precise and explaining that her phone had died. so it was the universe making a fool of me, not her... an easier pill to swallow, and i'm glad to be rid of that "twilight zone" feeling.

i finally previewed eminem's new album on itunes. some of it's pretty good, some shamefully bad. not on my list of must-haves.

i've finished reading this month's wired: the features are all interesting, but the pieces that are particularly exciting are on sailing drones and theranos's blood tests. good stuff!

my next task is to collect proof of everything i've spent on "charity" this past year - probably not that much, i don't think humble bundle purchases really count - and then head off to get this tax monkey off my back. speaking of monkeys, i've been reading mac hall: volume whatever on and off and enjoying it immensely. i'm glad i didn't shell out for the really expensive version. [to be fair, you can read it all for free at machall.com, but i feel the commentary was worth throwing them some cash]

---thought for the day: i realized this morning why i don't like capital letters. for me, they're just regular letters wearing button-shirts and ties. totally not my style, unless i'm trying to get or keep a job through them.

what would jesus do?

it's gonna be weird writing this while i'm feeling so incredibly lonely that i don't actually feeling like sharing with anyone... i'm writing in my journal and exposing it to the world at large. rational behaviour?

---i shaved before i left, which meant a quick shower (i always manage to get little hairs on me, that's one disadvantage of using beard trimmers over blades) during which i wondered about this article on immersion improving cognizance that i read last night: aside from archimedes' discovery, apparently women do their best thinking in the bath. so it kinda makes sense...

it was so cozy on the metro, and i was so relaxed. as if i haven't stopped being relaxed since sunday's yoga lesson, like something really did get aligned properly and an emotional artery unblocked.

it's really cold tonight. absolutely freezing, primarily attributed to a mean wind that's been slapping everyone around since the late afternoon. pulse told me the place was on sherbrooke, google told me rachel. i decided to walk from mont royal station past rachel and on to sherbrooke. first, that's a much longer walk than i'd expected. second, google's definitely wrong. third, i couldn't find it on sherbrooke, either. we were supposed to meet at 8.15pm; i called at 8.20, and then at 8.30 and both times heard it ring until i got through to her answering machine.

how would you feel?
i sent a message with my frozen fingers briefly explaining what i'd been through and ending "... i'm going home. bon appetit!"

i pressed "send" and then realized that that could be construed as majorly passive-aggressive. then i thought about it some more, and figured that it would be appropriate nonetheless. i mean, what the hell? you invite me out to dinner, to a place which apparently isn't so easy to find, without specific directions and without making yourself available?

i feel like i've been made a fool of. whether by pulse or by the universe in general, i don't know. but i'm decidedly upset by this. i feel like shit; for this i skipped boxing? am i the asshole?

i didn't feel like stressing over dinner so i headed to la panthère verte at guy-concordia to sit and somberly eat a falafel. the traditional techina dripping out the bottom of the pita seemed to be mocking me.

i've returned home and i'm feeling sad. i've felt like this before, for sure, but right now i'm feeling it pretty keenly. i have friends and family here but i don't feel like it. i love it here and i've been extremely fortunate and all but i guess tonight's incident has sparked off some latent homesickness, and by home i mean cape town.

...

the only positive in all this was the violinist i walked past. there're a lot of homeless about tonight, but this dude was sitting on a corner in the freezing cold playing beautifully, and i tossed him a doubloon for his troubles and was glad to have been there to do so.

---while writing this i was listening to the radio, with a francophone interviewing an anglophone speaking in french with an atrocious accent. gods, i don't ever want to sound like that :S

on preparation - round i

my phone interview is over. i feel like it went well, i *HOPE* it went well and if i did screw up anything it was probably by not having any questions when he asked if i had any questions.
or by misunderstanding a question about recursion, stacks and references that saw me confusing him until i eventually expressed the correct answer.

anyway, it really wasn't bad, and now it's wait-and-see time. and practice-some-french and keep-playing-with-algorithms-and-data-structures and looking-for-work time.

---i was going to read discrete maths until i fell asleep (not much of a challenge, to be honest), and couldn't find my kindle in any of its usual spots. panic set in, i tore through my apartment and was on the verge of giving up and heading to the metro station where i'd last held it for sure when i found it carelessly left beneath a stack of random shit.

damn.

just then i received a response from a message i'd sent to a friend about the latest humble bundle. she didn't understand how it worked so i explained it to her, and then realized that there're a couple of things i want and i'm perfectly happy to give a little money to charity in order to get them.

i paid using paypal, and decided that it was time to increase my password's security. only... paypal doesn't accept passwords of more than twenty characters. wtf, paypal? why doesn't everyone know this?!

last night was just another in three or four that i've had lots of vivid dreams, though i don't remember much of them afterwards. i'm obviously learning shit, though. keep it up, brain!

i prepared for the interview by doing laundry and taking a deep nap, and now i'm ready to chill for the afternoon. and pray. perhaps i'll pray a little. i really want to have gotten through the screening process.

i just thought i'd check it out...

... ftl, or faster than light, is a very clever game. i didn't know it was possible to quit and save, so i just kept playing until i died. unfortunately, i was sitting on the couch with the mouse by my side and now my wrist hurts :(

---i woke up this morning without pressing snooze, i'm not sure it felt better but i guess it was a good thing. i did a ridiculously small amount of work on the comics, performed some housekeeping and eventually headed out into the cold to pick up my ski jacket. i was told that they didn't have the right zip and so it would only be ready on friday - good thing i didn't return yang's! - but then later they called to tell me it was done. i don't get it.

i went to cafe depot for the regular french conversation, and once again they didn't have soya. this time, however, they had no non-dairy alternatives either and the manager informed me that it's a franchise decision. and a giant "up yours" to you too, cafe depot! ignorant bastards, they'll not see another cent from me. come on! i mean, if domino's in israel can get it right, so can anyone.

starbucks, java u and second cup all seem to cope financially with us weirdos who don't want unhealthy shit in our bodies; i went to the java u next door and got what i wanted. unfortunately, their shop isn't heated which is bizarre; my partner arrived and we sat chatting in our winter coats.

pet peeves:

1. icarus called me twice when trying to call me back. if i don't answer the first time, it's reasonable to assume that i have caller id and that i'll get back to you. unless whatever it is is super urgent.

2. newk'd and i agreed to meet at cafe juicy lotus at 4.30pm. i was on my way, underground with no reception, when he sent an sms to confirm. so i only saw it when i arrived and he and his girlfriend hadn't left their apartment yet. wtf? if you have an arrangement, you make it unless informed otherwise. am i off on this one?

cafe juicy lotus is really nice, and it seems that everything they make is delicious. the cooking classes are a bit expensive, though, and while their cookbook is cheaper i'm not sure i'll really go for it. i scanned the lists of ingredients and didn't recognize many of them...

---on a completely different note, rumour has it that tomorrow will be megaman's last with the company. hah! they finally figured things out.

i hope they manage to recover from the damage he's done.

---when we left it was snowing again and very cold. halfway to the metro i realized that both my laces were untied and they'd have to wait until i got inside. i love my boots, but this is one issue that keeps recurring that's annoying the crap out of me!

the entrance to the villa-maria station was an overload of humanity; kinda like from 1:10 onwards.

...

right. stuff.

---there's a girl i know in israel who needs serious help with her medical bills so that she can enjoy some quality of life. in the hope that some of you will find it in your hearts to assist, you can do so here, and also here if you prefer paypal.

fighting, the cold and christmas spirit

i'm absolutely broken! i definitely need a day (or two) off training. i was feeling a bit weak on the weekend, but even if i hadn't been yesterday's experience would've taken it out of me. so utterly worth it though ^_^

---leftovers from thursday:

hah! my last post forgot lesson 5: the jiu-jitsu advantage goes to the man who farts when he's nervous. it's hard enough breathing when you're grappling and pummeling and being choked, to do all of that while actively trying not to because your opponent just let one rip before catching you between his legs? "sorry" just doesn't cut it, bro.

---friday:

on my way to meet wire i went to draw cash, and lurking in front of the atm was loud group of gangsta-wannabes. in front of them was a slow old woman taking forever. one of the guys stepped up when she eventually finished, and then suddenly there was nobody in front of the machine and the guy behind me told me it was my turn. i stepped up and was puzzled because it looked like whoever was using it had abandoned it without taking their card... i asked around, and it turned out that the idiot has simply turned around and rejoined his buddies before finishing what he was doing.

nice.

anyway, i headed down to de l'eglise. what a nice area! apparently pretty cheap, too. i met up with wire who took me to a sweet little coffee shop, we talked for a while and he explained the details of his situation - i don't envy construction workers in this town. when we separated i felt pretty good; my christmas gift was to (metaphorically) teach him to fish, not feed him. hopefully he'll be back on his feet soon.

it was -12 degrees and pleasant to walk in the sun. the metro wasn't too warm, either! i rested up with a little french practice and then went to the gym for sparring. i only had one opportunity to spar, and it went alright; the rest of the sparring was verbal, and i was sorely on the losing end. our boxing instructor's chirps were so good that at one point one of the girls literally did a spit-take while she was drinking water, and i had absolutely nothing to respond with :(

after class i taught two of the girls how to do a muay thai roundhouse. they're both very sweet - it's the girl who "stalked" me once upon a time and the iron-haired woman - and i find it interesting that they were only too happy to stay late on a friday night to work with me, but once they'd basically gotten it i headed off for gaming night. they're just not my type :P

the storm in israel was raging, as were israelis unhappy about their infrastructure and services, and i was amused because while there it was four degrees celsius, here it was the same in fahrenheit. it's funny, but every year i've been there i've complained about the lack of winter infrastructure and this is the first year that my voice isn't there and everyone's angry.

i read my new poem to vfmp and his boyfriend, it got constructive criticism from vfmp and his boyfriend praised it even before realizing it was mine :D

vfmp's experimental vegan spanakopita was excellent, and our game of thunderstone was going well but we began it too late and so i had to drop my hand in order to catch the bus :(
at least my timing for public transport was great. the depths of winter have come early!

---saturday:

waking up to a dream of being in the air force and needing to pee but the unisex latrines were rows of undivided long-drops were all in various states of "ewww" and there was nowhere to stand. the captain in charge of them refused to do anything about it and in real life i'm grateful for it :P
the weirdest bit about the latrines was the sense of deja-vu, i'm sure i've dreamed about them before.

i slept really late, at some point getting up to close the outer window which i hadn't realized was still open. that was a complicated procedure and ended with me shouting a triumphant "fuck YOU!" at it when i finally slammed it down.

yang has this annoying habit of using facebook messaging for messages that a reasonable person would send by sms. so i assumed he'd installed the facebook messenger app as his primary means of communication, which a) inspired me to install it myself and b) led me to use it to ask him if he had a spare ski jacket for me. he responded in the affirmative, with a warning that i should've used sms for something so serious.

huh.

it was a slow day, and really began when i tried out my post-root canal mouth on a salad. the tooth in question finally seems okay, but the tooth above it seems to have a bad filling... sod it. i'll just keep eating on the right side until i can find a good dentist. instead of all the crazy games i have installed, i burned some time playing the fourth installment of on the rain-slick precipice of darkness, then dragged myself to the french meetup.

it was still a little awkward and uncomfortable, but not nearly as bad as the first time! one woman spoke like she was in a speed competition, and by the end i could understand bits of what she was saying! to make things complicated there were two asians who spoke to me with accents so tough that it took at least three tries each sentence...

from there i went to godmother's to pick up yang's unused ski jacket. awesome ski jacket! i stayed for tea and her incredible pea soup, then went to newk'd's birthday party. picking up beers and coke at the dep was complicated, carrying them along with the jacket and my rather thick volume of bone comics was not only heavy and awkward enough to hurt my arms but after the short bus ride i had a lot of walking to do along desolate roads and that was kinda demoralizing. getting there successfully and without frostbite and cracking open the beers was such a relief!

it's pretty rare that disparate groups of friends get along very well, but the apartment was crowded with people who were all interesting and fun. it would have been a great party even if nobody had pulled out cards against humanity; between the cards and the beers i kept getting the giggles, and at one point it was so bad that i couldn't even read out loud :)

newk'd offered me a blue candy pacifier; apparently there were only five and it was only later that i'd understand how "special" the offer was...

---sunday:

i walked to the metro with a loud (possibly drunk / high) girl from b.c. who was enjoying the blizzard as much as i was - what fun! unfortunately for her, her last metro had just passed when we arrived and so she went to find a bus while i took my last one home. i had to be up early to go snowboarding...

... i got home, ate a little, and after that and a couple of hours and brushing my teeth twice my mouth was *still* blue all over. aaahhhhhhh... i see what he did there :P

...

the sleep i enjoyed can only be described as "lovely". i got up at 7.30 to start getting ready but icarus sent me a message to say he was unable to free his car from the snow. when i woke up again later it was still snowing like crazy! i decided that mother nature has brought the deep winter forward just for me so that i can make up for three weeks at the beach :)
so i hurriedly packed (this time without blowing a fuse), which involved cleaning out the thermos i'd brilliantly left in my bag the weekend before (ugh!) and figuring out how to adjust for the difference in the borrowed ski jacket's pocket configuration.

i was out the door before realizing that i'd left my ski mask behind - *that* would have been a disaster!

over two hours on the bus, most of which were spent listening to the girl in front of me's conversation*, staring out the window**, sleeping, continuing with paul park - celestis, and playing with online dating and facebook. those last two taught me a couple of things:

1) this amazing video about a homeless dog being rescued makes me very happy indeed with the donation that supertongue asks everyone to make on her behalf for christmas. now that i've given and seen what it's about, i'm urging you to do the same! you can do that here. or, you know, donate to the red cross or whatever. it's all good :)

2) i can handle dating a girl with a missing eye (that's piratey!), but a girl with a prominent mole? heck, no. i've never understood how, in this day and age, people don't just get those damned things cut out.

* alright, so maybe it's impolite to listen to others' conversations but she was talking loudly and it was only after a while that i could be sure that she was using a hands-free and not invisible bluetooth. i was trying to get a handle on her french, she had a throaty voice and a heavy quebecois accent and after a while i decided that i find the combination very sexy indeed.

** i was staring out the window at all the mostly buried cars (whose owners care enough to put up a fight) and the mounds of snow where i was certain others were properly buried... and suddenly i registered that there were groups (plural!) of cross-country skiers treating the roads and pavements like rollerbladers in summer! wire tells me he saw a few in his area too. montreal, i love you ^_^

last night was all about the moguls - the runs were insane! totally electrifying, but fracking EXHAUSTING. everyone i spoke to agreed with me, and there were plenty of non-verbal agreements too. the funniest expression of that was my final descent; just before the last steep, mogul-covered hill we all sat in a long line, just catching our breaths and stretching for the tough seconds to come :)

i was very, very glad that my assessment of last week's rum / coffee / cacao mix was right, once i added actual sugar it was amazing :)

i couldn't get the following out of my head all evening: "riddle: what's sexier than a woman on a snowboard?"
i got chatting to some guy on the lift, and i asked him just before we got off. he didn't even hesitate, and we parted ways with nods and raised fists. the next time i got on the lift i was alone with a ridiculously cute girl on a snowboard, and started chatting with her. turns out she's from montreal and was going to take a taxi back to saint jerome and then a bus, which is a bit crazy, so i told her about my initiative and explained to her how to find the meetup group. an hour later as i sat in the locker room getting ready to leave, she walked in with some guy and i signed to her.

she looked at me funny, and i too-slowly realized that she couldn't recognize me without my ski mask so i was just being super weird. i clarified by asking her if she didn't want to write down the details, and she came over and took one of my cards.
"that's beautiful!"
"thanks! it's one of my own."
"are you a photographer?"
"nope."
i asked if she and the guy she'd walked in with were together, to which she answered in the affirmative. disappointed, i gave two thumbs up and invited them both to join me next time.

i felt like i walked back to the village in slow motion, though i had time for fries and to figure out how to pour water from the iced tea tap at mcdonald's. i left with a minute to spare and fast-waddled / jogged with my board on my back and ice beneath my feet, only the bus was about twenty minutes late so that was entirely unnecessary. it was a long, cold twenty minutes followed by a long, sleepy bus ride.

regardless, i was very sore and tired and very happy.

i had to finish the giant bag of sour skittles because the bag broke and i couldn't put them back in my pocket. first world problems.

i got home, overcompensated for dehydration, slowly got ready for bed and then treated myself to tiger balm; the base of my spine, my upper back, my elbow and my knee were all on fire as i finally put myself to bed.

---monday:

i woke up battling the infinite snooze, each time to a different dream. my apartment looks like a bomb hit it, i should probably see to that. i went out to drink coffee, work on my comics and shop, on the way passing a classic, almost life-sized snowman that looked like it was plucked out of calvin and hobbes or something. it was so cold and there was so much glare that i couldn't get a decent photo :(

wind chill made today -29 degrees. all i know is that without my ski mask my face kept freezing. the funny looks were just a bonus :P

i made good progress on the comics (character r&d) and carrying the shopping home showed me that i need some rest before returning to the gym. the cashier at the supermarket was awful: she went on this rant about how so many people, co-workers and customers, are mean to her and she just has to smile and take it. i was really uncomfortable for its entirety and i wasn't given much opportunity to extract myself :(

...

in canada, you hurry home so that the groceries don't all freeze on the way.

...

there's nothing like stepping inside with groceries that need to be refrigerated to find that you really need to pee and your bootlaces are knotted.

...

i went to the eye institute for my final checkup and they tell me that my eyes are good, if a little dry. they were as surprised as i was to see that my right eye's doing well; i'm now 100% convinced that doing only the left eye was the right choice.

i found myself desperately hungry after the tests, so desperate in fact that thai express became an option. i was disappointed that the food was exactly as expected. i came home to rest, started posting this and then rushed downtown to join wire and a couple of others from the gym as we'd been invited to the montreal premiere an advanced screening of grudge match.
bottom line: it's SUPER meta, it's a fun film that does an excellent job of picking rocky and raging bull apart and stitching them together with humour ranging from slapstick to highbrow. i totally approve this message :)

[an argument over the phone that i can't actually talk about here. not right now, at least.]

wire sat with me as i made a harvey's veggie burger disappear, and then joined me for a beer while we talked about sports, politics and religion (including the history of al-aqsa, so i was surprised to read this when i got home). he suggested that my lack of appetite after training might be caused by eating badly-timed protein bars, so i'm going to skip those for a few days and see if that makes a difference.

---linkage!

opposing the american studies association's boycott

oklahoma opens the door to the satanists: the lawmakers sidelined the first amendment, and this is what they're going to get for their trouble. this or a hanuman temple. i'm backing the satanists 'cause i think it's more appropriate, and i ask you to back them too!

and speaking of crowd-funding, mars one is looking to fund their research on indiegogo. check it out here!

airport security: now that we know just how much of a waste of time it is, can't we just drop the charades already and go back to playing "spot the dodgy fucker" instead? it's less invasive and more honest.

superhero cartoon execs worry me. but: screw the networks. indie, indie, indie. producers need to get out of industrialized televised entertainment, 'cause slowly but surely we all are.

balance in the force

today's summary is pretty uplifting, even if raising my arms is now a chore. i began the day by getting my driver's license, which makes me three for three in three countries! it was a grim day in the office and rainy, but just as i was leaving the skies cleared a little and the world turned bright yellow - i stepped outside and a giant, solid-looking double-rainbow that reached down to the ground on either side took my breath away! my first boxing class in a while was killer but very satisfying, and in addition to reserving a ticket to go see some of my classmates fight in two weeks i was followed until the metro by a cute girl from the gym with a hebrew name who, unless i grossly misunderstood, has invited me out on the weekend.

hah!

---sunday:

why did the whole city smell funny over the weekend? i went to godmother's for a very relaxed cup of coffee, then travelled through the drizzle to my favourite chinese restaurant for a delightful lunch. on the way i passed a beggar with a sign asking for money for food, and was glad to find a clif bar in my pocket - he seemed grateful, and i prefer handing over something nutritious instead of cash.

i headed to bnw's for a most enjoyable evening; the comic cover's pretty much done and it looks great :)

i left just after the rain stopped, travelled the long way on the metro to collect my thoughts regarding something that bnw pointed out was problematic with the comics, hurriedly chugged a smoothie and took a melatonin tablet to prepare for an early morning: it worked!

---monday:

there's nothing quite like the joy of getting up before the sunrise on a chilly day. after that, i *had* to pass this driver's exam :P

...

no, beautiful woman sitting next to me on the bus, "musk and falafel" is *not* a sexy scent. it was overpowering :(

---i was quite nervous for the exam, and that wasn't helped by my getting a car with a finicky brake pedal. expectation is also a big factor, as a co-worker who took the exam recently told me that when he got out the lot and onto the road his examiner turned him right back and passed him without doing the whole route. *i* had to do the whole route. which wasn't an issue, of course, i know how to drive well - except that when you're experienced keeping your hands at "10 and 2" and not crossing them on sharp turns demands a heck of a lot of concentration.

i was feeling pretty confident, though, until i misunderstood where to turn in to the lot on our return, and proceeded to enter the 20kph zone doing 40. when my examiner cautioned me i was sure that i'd blown it! i parallel parked liked a champ, parked the car back where we picked it up and was unbuckling when he turned to look at me: "alright, you passed."

whatever else he said turned into "blah blah blah"... just kidding, i got it all but that's how it felt nonetheless :P

---i've got a new thing in my cubicle, a note on the whiteboard that lists the things i hate today. last week's included microsoft accounts, our sister company and the tel aviv municipality. today's? avast!. it appears to have been responsible for all sorts of crazy malfunctions i've been frustrated by of late - including the microsoft accounts thing - and when it began to interfere with my work today i lost the plot. the option to "add to exclusion list" didn't work, they make reporting a false positive a bitch, and their interface is so crap that i couldn't figure out how to temporarily disable the damn thing.

so i tried uninstalling, which proved complicated. i filled in their survey because i was only too happy to tell them precisely why i was uninstalling and had to clear the form and start again because what i said couldn't possibly be as constructive as it was amusing to the intern who bore witness to the whole fiasco.

i don't know if windows defender is really doing its job, but my overall computing experience has improved dramatically.

---after a day of mindless grudwork i went through a resume of a guy we're bringing in from ontario to interview: *this* looks like a guy being brought in to replace me. i'm okay with that, now that i've made my peace with everything.

i was right not to stop to photograph the double-rainbow, as i barely made the metro on time.

i'm suffering jump-rope arms but feeling really good about today. now to hurriedly make dinner and eat before crashing.

humble pie

i bought into the humble bundle last week, and while i was waiting for my follow-up exam on thursday i began reading wil wheaton - just a geek. i've been reading it on and off, finishing it this evening. the first time i ever heard his name was on the big bang theory. the second time was on the guild. i'd already seen an episode or two of tng, but i had no idea he was wesley!

the story he tells is insightful and interesting and personal, and i'm now unreservedly a wil wheaton fan. not of the actor, not of the writer, but of the actual wil wheaton. he really does deserve his break.

---in this book, wil's done what i was intending to do with all of my army posts: use extracts to tell the surrounding stories. it's inspired me to attempt to return those posts to this blog - i cannot for the life of me recall why i removed them in the first place, but i've kept backups. let's see how this goes...