launching...

i walked home fast from work last night, partly because there were lurkers at the beginning of the road and i didn't want them to see that i was... distrustful... i had a quick shower and went straight to bed.

i'm very lucky - as is pg - that after she got up at 6.30am and was getting ready to go to class, i began to stir and somehow registered that i hadn't informed her of the strike. we hadn't been sent any details, so she decided to take a chance and went back to bed. two hours later i got up for my class (with the same teacher), and i arrived on campus to discover that the lessons were indeed cancelled and that pg had gotten it right.

---so i went to work. they set me up in an office with two other guys (who seem nice enough, but then again i've only seen this company as having a good dynamic), and after a weird struggle with security settings i managed to get started. aside from two short breaks for phone calls and coffee, i worked straight through from 11-5 and *enjoyed* myself. not least of which was caused by my getting the basic underlying requirement functional.

i'm kinda proud of myself. and grateful to microsoft for their visual studio line. it has evolved into a set of exquisitely solid products and aside from a few nuances (almost nothing that a good forum hunt can't handle) they really do allow one to focus on the programmatical problems instead of the environmental.

---the bus back to tel aviv smelled bad. at certain hours of the day, the back of the bus is packed with less hygiene-orientated people and it's hard to concentrate on reading shakespeare (we're on taming of the shrew, and it turns out i don't remember any of it) in that sort of environment...

i met up at the lincoln with daddy-o, and we spent a good hour and a half catching up, arguing politics and getting into the games; i think the last time i saw him we were taking the judges examination together in order to be promoted to captains, and now we're both civilians (he's been out two weeks) we can discuss this stuff freely :)

late for a meeting with nystire - and slightly tipsy, and with my mind still racing from the debating - i rushed to azrieli to meet him and his wife for coffee and rather interesting conversation. then i rushed home to strap on blades for a really fun couple of hours around tel aviv.

now i'm about to hit the hay: i'm still really excited about the day in general. the only thing that mars it somewhat is hearing about the south african secrecy bill. well done, assholes.

---i wonder why stephen hawking thinks we can't manage? and who was that weirdo who used to say the same thing? oh, yes... timothy leary... you don't wanna listen to someone like that... </massive irony>

true friends

<asshole>,

I cannot describe in words just how offensive your email is, and just how offensive I find you. To try to put it into perspective for you, I've decided to respond to your mail in the traditional way, piece by piece. I don't actually expect you to read the whole thing, because you're in the same boat as you've put him in: you can't AFFORD to listen to me.

But even if I'm right, I'm going to take this opportunity to add this to the collection of things that I'll be passing around to all my friends and family as an example of what to be aware of.
You might want to read it just so that you know what I'm saying about you and NM in general.

Dear <totalwaste>,

You were deeply insulted last Thursday, and I am sorry for that.

You were invited the opening of <daddy-o>'s business. You were in the company of his best friends and family!!! (that is a good thing)

You're absolutely right. Part of the mechanism for keeping the memeplex of NM alive is to get people to push it on those they care about. If you're not familiar with the word "memeplex", I'd suggest looking it up.
The clever thing about this mechanism is that the people closest to you will feel guilty and disloyal for not playing along, and will give you the attention that you need to fool them. I'm not stupid enough to fall for the trap. I will take my chances that I'm offending you, so as to protect the people that *I* care about: something you were simply not capable of doing.

and the fact that you were insulted was not intentional. And yet you decided to deliberately insult and hurt your friend. What kind of person does something like that?

You have judged me, and you have judged me wrong. Not only do I *not* want to hurt my friend, nor insult him, but I don't want to hurt anyone else. The person who has hurt <daddy-o> is YOU, by convincing him to enter into a business which relies on everyone around him demonstrating a lack of wisdom and playing along. You have convinced him to throw down hard cash for something which relies on his skill (and yours, apparently) in sales.

By the way, here's a little treat for you, as you obviously didn't study any basic business courses in a real educational institution:
Marketing is NOT sales. Marketing is constructing a product based on the needs and desires of the target population. The NM is a nasty memeplex that employs severe Christian missioning to SELL just another "fabulous" product out of Utah to any unfortunate person who's not willing to fact-check the great and powerful speech that's been delivered to him.

So well done, you got <daddy-o> to pay good money to become a salesman to people he cares about. That's really nice of you. This is called "using your friends", not being a friend. I try to be a friend, and I promise you that if I had heard that <daddy-o> was planning on getting involved I would've told him the same things I tell any of my friends, because unlike you I actually CARE about what happens to him.

If you were to open a Chinese restaurant and <daddy-o> came to eat, and didn't like the food, he would not go and write to all his friends about how bad the restaurant is. Think about it... Friends do not act like that.

The first person I would expect <daddy-o> to tell would be ME, so that I could improve my restaurant. And until it improved, I would NOT expect him to keep it a secret from his friends. Good example! See, your definition of "friend" appears to need some work.

I know that it is a mistake to reply, but I decided to write this letter because I think that you do not understand the magnitude of your actions.

It definitely wasn't a mistake to reply, I'm glad that I have the opportunity to let YOU know that I don't blame <daddy-o> for making a mistake, I blame YOU for not being wise enough to take his future into real consideration.

Everyone else in the room found the presentation very interesting and stayed until mid-night. Maybe if you had an open mind, you might have learned something... and maybe not.

I am very sorry that you have such strong feelings about the NM industry. Maybe you should look it up a bit before you make such harsh statements and hurt your friends (if you consider them friends). Putting "pyramid scams" and Network Marketing in the same sentence, shows ignorance. And saying that the product is not important shows that you where not listening at all.

The word is "pyramid scheme", but I like your version better. I do have an open mind, which is why I stayed as long as I did. I love your assumption that I've never been to a presentation like yours before, not only have I sat through and considered a few of them, but I've heard far more intelligent and less aggressive and arrogant versions. Maybe they just had more self-confidence (I know I'm not supposed to be helping you with pointers, but whatever). You might be more successful if you stop being so defensive, but then you just might realize that what you're doing is wrong, so never mind.

If the product was important you would've focused more on it, but as I've said, you're just selling Yet Another Wonderful Utah Product. It isn't the product that works, it's the investment and the sense of loyalty: it's not a stupid memeplex, they're incredibly cleverly designed and have been refined over millennia. It's called religion. That's probably a big concept for you, I don't expect you to get it right away. But if it suddenly hits you twenty years down the line, please let me know!

As far as you're concerned the biggest problem is that I WAS listening, and that I actually understood what it was I was hearing. Thanks for reminding me.

The fact is, that you blocked out everything from the beginning, you didn't listen to a word that was said (I know because your letter is a long list of messed up quotes and facts, that are based on your interpretation and not on reality).

You really should learn to be more cynical, it's excellent incentive when it comes to finding out real data. You made and continue to make claims that fly in the face of truth. Misrepresentation is your friend, and either you're exploiting it or you're simply not educated enough to handle fallacies.

The following link will take you to a site explaining the logical fallacies with nice examples. Everyone should read them over once or twice, it's truly enlightening.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

<daddy-o>: MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THEM.

If it was so hard for you, you should have left. You were rude, selfish, and inconsiderate. You didn't stop interfering (with the notes and interruptions). And on top of that you left in the middle for a break and didn't stay until the end.

I do not recall agreeing to sit in a lecture, be lied to to my face, and to be treated with contempt. You're doing the selling, I'm supposedly doing the buying (although I'm not stupid enough for you), don't you DARE act as if I'm beholden to you in any way.

You've already fucked over one friend of mine, and you have the audacity to belligerently talk to me about respect and loyalty? You disgust me.

You know <daddy-o>, and you know that he is a smart guy. Give him the credit he deserves and don't insult his intelligence by writing such an opinion based letter.

Being intelligent does not make a man wise, and wisdom comes with experience. Unfortunately we all learn from the "University of Life", and I hope that <daddy-o> doesn't come to too much grief learning this one.
The problem with you is that you're too closed-minded to view anything that I say as more than opinion. Are you aware of the ongoing argument about Creation Theory (Intelligent Design) and the Theory of Evolution (Darwinism)?

When you don't know anything you can easily call anyone an idiot.

Who the hell do you think you are? Putting yourself above the rest of the world. Are you that arrogant and cocky? Almost every word you wrote was false, and you have the audacity to tell others what to do.

What kind of friend are you if you don't even trust your friends to make there own decisions. Who died and made you god?

Wow. Where do I begin?

1) I'm a friend of <daddy-o>'s.

2) Not above the rest of the world, with the rest of the world and above you.

3) Arrogant and cocky, yes. Uncaring and willing to defraud my friends? No.

4) I contend that every word that comes out of you with regards to this issue is false. Let's see who wins a contest that nobody's judging.

5) I never told ANYONE what to do. Except for you, but that'll come later *.

6) I trust him to make his own decisions, when they're well-informed. Lucky for you there wasn't anybody to keep you in check before he could toss good money into the garbage. And that garbage was refilling YOUR wallet. It's his fault, or even my fault that you made a mistake?

7) I could ask you the same thing. Now you've put him in an awkward situation, and he has to WORK to get his cash back. You can spin this deal however you like, we all know how hard it is to recuperate that loss. This ain't easy money, there isn't any such thing.

You have no idea who I am, but you know <daddy-o>, give the respect that he deserves, and before you start insulting his friends, maybe you should ask him.

I know <daddy-o>, and I have not disrespected <daddy-o> (although you've managed to convince him otherwise, you're simply a better salesman than I care to be**), and I don't need to ask him when his "friends" send me such wonderful communication.

I did not address the personal issues, because I refuse to lower myself to your level. For some reason <daddy-o> still considers you a friend and I will respect him.

Personal issues? Let's see what comes next:

I hope that you find happiness and that you learn a little bit about human relations, sensitivity, tact, respect and manners.

Human relations: obviously something you're an expert at.

*COUGH* You conniving bastard *COUGH*

Sensitivity: You're right. I shouldn't be so sensitive.
Tact: The only reason you'd like me to be more tactful is because it would serve your purposes, I'm not interested in bandying about and playing games, or helping you take advantage of my friends.
Respect: your blatant disrespect for the truth and your friends' quality of life serves as a great example. Speaking of which, did he tell you anything about me or my history before you began talking down to me and talking badly about me to him behind my back?
Manners: My mother always taught me to fly straight and to not screw other people over. And one doesn't need to be polite to people who offend you in the worst ways possible, and try to pit your friends against you. So no, I don't need to show you manners.

I wish you all the best,

Sure you do.

<asshole>

* Get Stuffed.

** <daddy-o>: You've known me long enough that you should understand exactly how I feel about you. Don't let this idiot make you think any differently.

rant: death (of / to) a salesman

every pyramid scheme, "network marketing" plan or whatever happens to be the word of the day tries to convince naive idiots that it's different, more sophisticated, a sure thing and timed better than anything else.

it's all the same shit. nobody cares about the product itself and you have to spend a certain amount of time post-investment running around bullshitting other idiots in order to recuperate your loss. it's an archaic form of viral marketing that preys on the innocent to produce diseased minds in a world already suffering from a surplus of epic proportions.

the three topics that i'm covering here are product, pitch and sucker.

product
<company name deleted post argument and due to irrelevance>'s vitamin booster "technology" (we love that word. it's like "scientific"). the claim: a miracle cure for all your woes. it's a fucking vitamin supplement, claiming a new - patents pending, of course - "delivery mechanism" that you can gulp down or use as a lubricant. apparently it's "fun" to consume and tastes okay, although i refused to try it without seeing the list of ingredients and i was highly suspicious.
i kept wondering if they're using a substance that increases gullibility and tones down intelligence, and i couldn't suppress the urge to ask if there was silver-nitrate in it - it is from the alternate reality of the "wellness" industry after all, straight out of the NM juggernaut of utah. don't mormons come from utah?

and no, i'm not bothering to check out their website, because that's not actually the point of this rant.

apparently it's everything from herbal ecstacy to natural viagra to the first truly effective and healthy diet-drug. and of course, this actually works^TM. amazing!
and it comes in stylish "pharmacologically advanced" packaging that will not only attract attention (and stray cruise missiles) but can actually be used as a prophylactic measure too!

wonderful!

pitch
a 1.5 hour history lecture, a lesson covering economics and marketing from the NM perspective (of course, now being taught in all self-respecting universities, "including harvard" [i'm really quoting]) - that misinterprets and misrepresents the fundamental principles of those fields in a manner that left me and my business degree feeling strained and violated.

i guess i could have used some of that lubricant.

i'm going to ignore for the moment that whether the guy pitching is aware of it or not he spent every gosh-darned gum-flapping moment LYING^*. i'd rather focus on the age-old art of salesmanship, the curse of the gift of gab upon anyone slightly educated and with more than two brain-cells to rub together.

I HATE SALESMEN. i had the great fortune of growing up with a father who truly was one of the best. anyone who knows me knows that i didn't care very much for him (my understatement of the year), but his ability was, in my experience, not only undeniable but unparalleled, and it gave me an advantage in life: much like peter parker, i have an extra sense (slimey sense) that warns me when in the presence of a crap-flinger.

you want to see me get aggressive? bring on your "talk to convince" and your dale carnegie. speak enthusiastically yet vaguely, say things not immediately provable that sound wonderful and fantastic, give me all your personal experiences and tell me again how your sister got up out of her wheelchair and walked after years of prayer had gone unheeded, and avoid answering my questions.

and keep reminding me of how you're doing *me* a favour by letting me in on your big secret. you're my hero, my knight in shining armour.

sucker
this for me is the painful part. that's right, get your claws into someone i know and trust, and convince them to covertly call me over under pretense of including me in a new and promising venture.

i've had a long week, and getting all the way to his place, burning a hole in the seat, and angrily storming my way home cost me five hours of my life that i can never reclaim.

I NEEDED THAT SLEEP, and instead i wasted energy being agitated, frustrated, and feeling a deep sense of betrayal.

i cannot understand how these morons achieve such a high level of audacity: you've lied to me, wasted my time, and on top of that you ask me to hold my questions for the end, be respectful, and then act affronted when i bail early? i have to take all this drivel? on whose authority?

oh, yeah - and my favourite part of it all... the message i received this morning.

"DON'T TELL ANYONE!"

ps. i am shocked and horrified that spot remained, and that at least on some level has fallen for this "new and different" shit.

^* when i reached my first boiling point and opened my mouth, he swore to me that i was about to hear about something i'd never come across before - i checked him on that loudly and abrasively.

and when i called him on it later, after he'd pretty much gotten to the point, he merely shrugged it off. i could've hit him. i don't actually know what held me back.

drawing back the curtains

i walked out of work yesterday extremely upset. i'm not sure if i'm more annoyed at the provider for their shit or at myself for not catching on before. i was also brooding on not having found a chance to organize something for the kid: some friend i am :(

my mood wasn't improved by just missing the bus, and having to wait 45 minutes in the freezing cold for the next one. i was going through a brief few hours of being able to breathe over the sinusitis, but my cough was just making its debut. at least i had thumping trance to keep my brain a little more stable.

i shuffled my way in to cafeneto on a complete downer - i couldn't decide if i wanted to be alone or not. i began writing out a birthday message for the kid, and was most of the way through when sunshine sat down with me and asked what was wrong.
she helped me out, correcting the three mistakes i'd made (of which i'm quite proud, it was a long piece), and we had a bit of a general chat. she had duties, so i did get that time to myself, but she'd already made my day.
when she sat with me before i left, it was pretty much in non-awkward silence. and she told me to call her.

i gotta be honest - it's been a very long time since i've felt this way about a girl i know well enough by now to have gotten over the initial enthusiasm. i'm kind of wary about how she feels about me - i spoke to her earlier and phone conversations always make me uncomfortable, but the way she made me feel yesterday was worth any disappointment i may or may not suffer. i say may not because i assume indifference as a defense mechanism.

i walked home with a balloon and serious cheese-cake, but the kid was already asleep. i showered and went to bed, and woke up early to clean up the apartment a bit and to wake the kid with the aforementioned goodies. i felt rather odd singing happy birthday in a croaky voice with his shag giggling hysterically. maybe it was the fact that i was still in pyjamas. maybe i shouldn't admit to wearing pj's for manliness' sake, but it's frikkin' FREEZING.

i got to base before him, so i had time to transcribe the message to better quality paper, larger and better than pocket-sized squares. we celebrated two girls being promoted, which got silly at the end when brother bear and i settled on playing table hockey with bottle-tops. daddy-o wasn't impressed. i finally managed to get my degree signed for, and was informed that the fastest i can get it dealt with is by going personally to the induction base - so that's where i'm starting tomorrow.

i spent a large part of the day jumping from person to person to figure out how to get set up for daddy-o's presentation tomorrow... we won't be set up, because i only received the documentation (in hebrew) in the afternoon and it took me ages to figure out that it's too much work for a few hours and it requires somebody on hand to explain half of what's going on. it's yet another personal system that didn't have an end-user in mind :S

the bus to work was comfortably empty, but by the time i walked in to my office my nose had been bleeding for half the day and i had a headache. i had a quick and to-the-point chat with nql, who's agreed with me that the php stuff i've been doing isn't our job and is too pointless to waste more time on, and then i turned to cleaning up the project i finished last night.

that done, i informed the boss that i wasn't feeling good and wasn't going to stay on more than a couple of hours. i then turned my hand to that other project. the one i began in april last year. the one that until tonight has made me twitchy just *thinking* about opening.

i changed tack, and marked it for deletion, creating a new version in its place. two hours later we had a perfectly working version - all it took was for our provider to finally include the functions we requested more than half a year ago. we're even ignoring the fact that the functions' fingerprints / footprints / whatever they're called are completely not homogenous. the damn things worked and any changes that may be called for will be minor ones. with triple backups and "special care" stamped all over them.

i waited quite a while for the bus, although not as much as last night, and got home to write this, charge my ipod, shower, be irritated as hell about the state of our digs (the kid and i were on the verge of inviting people over for a housewarming, but there's no way we're ready for one), rewrite my cv and go to bed.

i'm missing a key, apparently

[a picture of the F17 key]

i spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure that shit out. i eventually gave up and just used the replace function.

WARNING: this is one of them boring posts. i realize that most of mine are, but it's my diary so suck it up. i just wish i didn't have so much to write :S

at 4.45am i received sms's from nql informing me that my newly completely image producer was giving trouble. i went back to sleep, and called him around 8am to learn that no, sadly, he hadn't bothered to read the documentation.

i was all proud of myself: i managed to handle muesli and coffee on the way to the bus this morning (that's two large cups, one requiring the use of a spoon). unfortunately, we missed the bus by a few minutes, so we only arrived on base at 9... at least nobody seems to mind me much :P

i have to find a copy of my degree to register it with the army, but i have no idea where it is since all the moving began last year. that's really, really annoying.

i finally got hold of someone that nystire's been on my case for a week about; to discover that i had absolutely no reason to talk to her. that was a bit irritating too. at least it was a relatively friendly conversation.

i spent most of the day learning about enterprise java beans. it took until the evening to get somewhere useful with them, but i've learned a lot. like, if the bean container area isn't visible, it's inactive: anything sent is queued up. if it's made visible suddenly everything happens, which makes a bit of a mess.
solution: zero the height and width. that's a stupid solution if i ever heard of one.

i saw the bull for about two minutes before lunch, and he's informed me that things have moved up a level. as grateful as i am, i can't help wondering how many levels the game has.

while tackling an annoying issue while testing, daddy-o walked in and made a request. the application i'm building to test with is intended as a surprise for him, it's something he requested ages ago, so i couldn't tell him why i was too busy. we spent half an hour figuring out exactly what he wanted, another fifteen minutes arguing details with brother bear, and then i sat down to an interesting little security debate with the kid: during this the kid hit upon a far superior solution to the problem we were supposed to be addressing, and we then further argued over whether or not we should ask daddy-o before implementing it.

a lot of the time the developer has a better idea of what the client requires in terms of implementation, but every now and again there are non-obvious reasons to use a sub-optimal solution. eventually i walked into his office and asked him, with the kid standing by: he apologetically informed us of the reason for the sub-optimal, and the kid had to concede ;)

the bus to work sucked - klapvoet and too many people. i sat chatting with a guy from our previous section halfway there, and the rest i had to fend for myself. walking into four hours of hell work, i had a talk with the boss who has decided that the protocol i've laid down is good as is, but has informed me that i'm being moved to full-time web development.

i dislike web development, most especially because it covers most of my cv and is possibly the most worthless experience i have (worse than casual sales for incredible connection? worse than driving for mr. delivery? i think so). having to sit through nql's explanations, though, when he's virtually impossible to understand in english or hebrew and has a really odd way of demonstrating things, and is a bit of an idiot (although his knowledge of php functions and linux tools is impressive) really agitated me.

and in the middle of all that he began explaining how we'd have to go through a large portion of code in order to figure out what we'll need... if that's not a case for "start frikkin' documenting!" then i don't know what is.

aside from an hour's supper break (i just needed to space out), i worked the entire time and was not enjoying myself.

i got home, changed, and went with spot to the cafeneto: sunshine got the first real smile from me all day :)

i had a 15 minute chat with my mother, just to update her on the proceedings that aren't really, and had to get all this shit out before showering and going to bed. i've switched to the new blogger, i'm hoping it really will be more stable.

i finally remembered to post a photo of the trophy i organized for the bull. [whose image has since disappeared]

inbreeding

i was soooo right last night. work was good, and then spot and i headed off to the lizard. not many people came, maybe 4 / 5, but it was fun nonetheless.

well, it was fun until that last sambuca. i dun got me drunk. i don't like being drunk.

crasher gave us a ride home, and when i woke up i was still a tad sloshed. i had to have a gorram cold shower, because our geyser wasn't set properly. and a cold shave, too, on a sunday when i usually have a bit of a beard.

on my way out, brother bear called to remind me that i was supposed to supply the main part of the section breakfast... "oh crap" was all i could think of. i rushed past the supermarket, bought massive mangos^*1, apples, two bags of muesli (took a while to find that), honey, and a ton of yoghurt, agitatedly waited in the only queue (only one cashier??), and then hopped a bus.

on the bus was a 27 year old who's just joined the academic corps, so i gave him some pointers and generally felt sorry for him every time i looked at him. hope it all works out better for him than it did for me :$

the bus ride this morning was horrid. when we got to the train station, way too many people pushed, shoved and tore their way into an already full bus, and aside from carrying crushables i had my huge bag on my back, and i was shoved into an unfortunately not-lonely corner which i defended with elbows and knees the whole ride to base.

i don't want to be frotted.

back on base, mush-brained, and i'm extremely glad that daddy-o was at the lizard last night, so he was late too :P

it took a while to get things going, but around 10am we had a feast: the muesli went down superbly well!
*gleeful toothy smiling*
*much dry-washing of hands*
[it's not often that totalwaste gets something like this right, people. be impressed!]

soon after breakfast the hangover settled in, and that lasted a while. we cleaned our offices (which for me meant a lot of time popping balloons; my ears still hurt a bit from before i perfected my technique).

the afternoon was a relatively quiet on the work front. i spent an inordinate amount of time playing around with a productivity tool that we've always hated until now (now that i know what's going on it's simply brilliant. not perfect, but brilliant), quite a lot of time lecturing piles, a fair amount of time finalizing (19 days to go!), and a bit of time just hanging around.

i discovered that songbird broke up with her boyfriend last week; now while she's not exactly my type physically, and she doesn't meet my age / area requirements, i still find her absolutely adorable and i've had the thought of dating her sliding around my mind for most of the day. i can't quite catch the thought on either side, but it's definitely there.

it's okay to date a soon-to-be ex-coworker, right?

the driver of the bus to work was a total asshole. i hate drivers who don't understand the words "smooth" or "elderly passengers". the idiot was accelerating like crazy only to brake like crazy, and that's something i just don't get. i must be unenlightened.

work's been great tonight. another job almost complete (there seems to be a trend here). our boss caught us on our way out, so we've been here an extra half an hour - i'm calling it a lesson learned (as in, not sitting outside waiting for the damn bus).

g'nite!

^*1no, really. MASSIVE. like, everyone thought i was trying to put one over them with fake fruit. these were only slightly (like maybe a centimeter or two) shorter in length than a rugby ball^*2.

^*2but really, really tasty.

animator vs animation iimore flash than you can stick a shake at

bill gates for president? got my vote.

haim harari - a view from the eye of the storm: sad but true - long, but highly recommended.

erasing history

October 31st, 2006. I woke up at 8.40. Hurriedly made my belated way to the base. Was confronted by brother bear. He's now staying where I was before the current apartment. I'd forgotten to clear my history. He could be reading this, for all I know. In all the general craziness I forgot myself, and wasn't paranoid enough. Got called into an impromptu meeting. My spidey-sense warned me in time to get into full uniform before opening the door. That was a good move. We discussed a new twist in our upgrade story. I have tons more work to do than I expected. Lunch was good. I spent the afternoon fighting with piles. It took a serious speech to get him to produce something worthwhile. I was informed by other teammates that I'm being too harsh, but unfortunately it's all he responds to. I had a good meeting with daddy-o. I finally informed him of the flighty thing. He took it well, I guess he knew already. I continued working with (on) piles, then had another meeting. When I came back piles had actually managed to do something intelligent all by himself. I'm not letting up, I figure he needs at least one speech a day. The army day ended with an interesting conversation regarding s'belle; my attitude towards her has turned out to be a shared one --

mmf brought his playstation by mistake... it's a ps2. and spot foolishly informed him of his oversight :P

i hope i hope i hope i hope i hope i manage to celebrate halloween tonight! thanks, moonflake: this rocks :)