unnerved hands

hmm. i thought i'd finish the little that was left of the rum while watching an episode of battlestar galactica, but after a day like today (or a week like the one past) i guess that i'm a tad more sensitive than i thought - the last few drops had to go back into the cupboard :P

the shuttle almost drove straight past me, a new driver began while i was away. horrible taste in music. i tried to nap while drowning out the driver with ukko, but merely succeeded in being tired with my eyes closed.

i didn't get any work done today on account of my inbox being filled with things that take time to figure out...
our pointy-haired boss shouldn't have said that the remainder of my service is short enough that it'll fly by: i took the opportunity to remind him that if he hadn't pulled the wool over my eyes, it'd be over even sooner. he walked away unhappy.

i laid out all (okay, most :P) of the chocolates and toffees i'd brought back from south africa, and was pleased that it was all appreciated for once. i seem to have brought just the right amount, too - there was quite a bit left over, but for at least half an hour the office was filled with happily munching and hmming and aaahhhing people :)

---for months i've been praying to hear something concrete regarding my men-in-suits experience. i was called up for a meeting tomorrow, and although i have absolutely no clue in what direction heading i'm pretty confident that they've finally given up with the painful part of the procedure - the lie detector examiners' lies were wearing me down.

i've been nervous and excited since. i've been fantasizing about things actually happening and my cloud of dark unknowns dissipating.

---nystire and i wouldn't have taken as long as we did to shop, but the till systems went down. lunch wasn't actually bad.

i had my haircut today - a really crappy one as usual. i'm counting down until the freedom to grow my israfro, and so i'm not too bothered by it. to improve my mood, on returning from washing my scalp (removing most of the shavings) i discovered that i've been assigned a task that i'm going to enjoy! that never happens :P

the last part of the day involved a yawning-long lecture and some unit-wide bragging. i managed to escape a few minutes early, and caught the shuttle home. well, most of the way home, the guys in charge are going to have to deal with me unhappy again (they had a whole two weeks to prepare, so i don't feel sorry for them). i slept like a baby the whole way.

i made the bus to taekwondo, thinking to myself how silly it was to be going to training after two weeks of sleepless sweet-tooth pandering and a couple of hard flights. i did manage to get through some more of the iliad, and i'm shocked to discover that i'm really enjoying it! robert fitzgerald translated it absolutely brilliantly.

i'm most impressed with myself for handling the training - i didn't cope so well with the warm-up (which removed the rest of the shavings and deposited them on my dobok [uniform]) and the slow-motion sparring almost killed me (although i did alright), but the rest was just fine.

accompanied by thunder and pouring rain, i did successful one-steps with the new guy and got silly during our "big-boys" form, and the spaghetti bolognaise and good conversation at scrapper's afterwards went down well. i had a quick chat with egg, and the bus ride with the new guy was nice, and one of my cute neighbours' dog took a shine to me and i'm wondering if she'll follow suit ;)

i've done popcorn, television and rum, and now it's time to hang out laundry and get some rest before the big meeting that's allowing me to wake up late (7am!) and stress unreasonably :P

i still can't believe i'm back in israel already.

an oddity

getting back from the airport was unpleasant.

1) instant push-and-shove mode from the moment the airplane stopped moving. fortunately, the officer at passport control got just as annoyed with the idiot who jumped in front of me as i did and made him go back.

2) it's the personal space thing. in line is one thing, but in the wide open space of the baggage claim there's no justification for it. the ass behind me was stepping on my heels and caused me to bump into someone else while trying to get away.

3) not letting people out first. especially for the train, especially when some poor girl with a giant bag wants to go. the morons all stand around the doors, not leaving enough space to pass and not understanding why everyone's standing and eyeing them meaningfully.

4) prices. every year, around the same time, the bus prices go up by the equivalent of 20-30c (אֲגוֹרָוֹת - agorot). why?

5) my housesitters had an incident with the small window in the door of my bathroom. they left cash and an explanation, but i misread the word for "incident" as "roof", and frantically searched for the ceiling damage that wasn't there...

anyway, i've showered and sat online and made my bed and unpacked a bunch of things and planned most of the next week. i still have six hours to sleep. gonna do it. [fortunately for me, the only person who was interested in going out for a drink didn't have my number]

hmmm. both j-girl and egg have been in touch. is this a new year's resolution thing?

from penny arcade:
winner no. 1 of the dickerdoodle contest deserves it.
patv's episode list is growing... a lot faster than i can watch 'em. and i'm acquiring rome on dystopia's recommendation. if i get through that i'll feel bad about not having touched my copy of joann fletcher - cleopatra the great, the woman behind the legend.

freebord is unbelievably cool - i gotta get myself one! and then go hunting downhills. maybe it's a good enough excuse to visit haifa or jerusalem :P

this college humor clip is on the button: mortal combat is not a tournament!

sleep lessons

i spoke to the lawyer yesterday morning, and things with the new apartment seem to be going well.

it was my birthday... and i felt crap for most of it. the best moments of the day were comprised of the guys really appreciating the cake i brought, and an hour or two that i could actually get some work done.

i was distracted by an uber-annoying task for a couple of hours yesterday morning, doubly problematic because it wasn't successful and, like everything else, was cutting in on the time i needed to be working on my project. my project, that desperately needs to be completed before i leave for south africa (the end of the year).

i started off the afternoon by re-attempting the failure from yesterday, and just as i began to get the hang of it i was told that it hadn't been relevant since the morning. it's good to be in the loop.

then this evening i was informed that the project itself has been frozen, and i've got almost no time to wrap up whatever i've done and document it before getting on to the next deadlined item. i think the guys noticed i was beginning to enjoy myself :(

i did some shopping on my way home yesterday, and bypassed the orange juice and bought oranges, with my fruit-fucker in mind. after searching for it for about twenty minutes, i phoned my flatmates and was told that neither of them have touched it or seen it.
i'm fairly confident that the weird guy was juicing when the new girl moved in :@

i had a couple of interesting conversations with vision, the first of which was surprisingly pleasant and the second surprisingly annoying. she began as if nothing had happened since we last spoke, as if everything was gravy, and then suddenly made a switch and informed me that she's been dating someone for the last year and that what i did was awful, and that it's inappropriate to speak to me.

but she... she got in touch with me - and she sounded hurt because i'd deleted her number...

alter bridge is creed? no way!

a fn evening (inappropriate chatter):
i spent the evening with gco, his sister and fn - haven't seen them in a while. we sat over beers in one of my favourite coffee shops, telling incredibly inappropriate stories and having a great time ^_^

fn came with me when i went to the ilke to meet egg. i had an odd moment where i walked right past the lead singer of eatliz: i registered her and her boyfriend a second too slow, and decided to leave them to it.

we were all impressed by the fact that the bartender picked rum on his second guess. maybe we'd all had too much to drink and i'd let slip before, but i don't think so. fn is a sweet girl, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer; she also drinks a lot and gets decidedly inappropriate. i don't think the guy at the kiosk's ever going to forget my face, he and his friends were laughing riotously as we made our way out :S

i got to sleep around 2.30 - 3am, and i woke up before 6am having slept like a baby. today was without any doubt the most productive i've been in forever, i was focused and feeling good, and here i was worried that going out drinking on a school night was a bad idea. as my mom just said, maybe i need to stop trying to sleep so much.

why was f.e.a.r. in my head for twelve hours? i have no idea where i may have heard it.

i had a pretty good start to the day - although i was struck by the hopelessness of trying to respond to all the facebook birthday wishes. i tried.

i managed to return last week's test results to the doctor within five minutes this morning, and then went to the dentist for a filling. she's a pretty decent one, and i was so relaxed that i snored myself awake a number of times while she was drilling. i've never had that happen to me before!

i've been struggling with organizing holiday permission, and today the story is more-or-less resolved. nobody wants to authorize me taking a month of unpaid leave, we all want it to be half and half. now we're tugging on the bureaucratic tape to see if we can make things work, but apparently the big boss is alright with it as long as we're doing our best.

bank disappointment: i finally made it to the bank on time! and discovered that i did get the release money from the army, but it's a pitiful sum so i'm not thrilled.

i have to restart my pc to get the sound working again, hopefully i've fixed the problem. i like the ubuntu forums, there are actually useful people lurking about.

then i'm going to try facebook again :P

post zionist post nav

in the quickest summary ever, we spent a week in jerusalem visiting the sites and receiving a solid injection of zionism (and i've begun to grow fond of the city itself), and after a restful weekend reading and finishing projects we entered a week of introspection (personal review) and navigation (running around the desert hunting down little metal plates with numbers on them).

the most important item on the list of things to do is to calm down. i need to learn to chill out and takes things easy, and i'm still finding it hard to do. maybe it's the lack of minutes in the day, maybe it's the fact that i'm surrounded by idiocy, and perhaps it has to do with the fact that as much as i have what it takes to be an officer, my ability to express myself and my comprehension are limited and altogether it's a highly frustrating experience.

oh, and the bit where most of the people with me in the course are not my friends, we don't know anything real about each other and oftentimes don't even like each other might have something to do with it too.

right, the dailies (in case you were wondering, the summary ended after the first paragraph):

the essential books in my future home:
alice in wonderland
the complete narnia series
the science of discworld

speaking of which, i bought copies of dune, ender's game, the adventures of huckleberry finn, the rest of the sherlock holmes books and i think something else that i can't recall right now. the trip to the book store was enforced, my commander got permission for me to do the book report on an english book instead, which means that i have the same deadline and have to choose something i've already read. it's either dune or ender's game...

the nose-picker came up to me one evening and placed his hand on my neck: "they're sending me home". bummer, dude. i'm really glad i'd bought wet-wipes just in case...

jerusalem at 3am covered in fog makes me feel at home. the morning prayers at the western wall were quite special.

i sketched a portrait of a previous chief of staff while he talked to our battalion that was good enough that when the guy next to me glanced at it he laughed out loud... oops :S

the toilets in the hotel we stayed at read: "BOER OK".

my niece told me a story that does my head in.
parting of the jewish mourning process is to say a certain prayer (kaddish), and the belief is that every time we say this prayer the soul of the departed rises up to heaven. my father, not being particularly saintly, didn't cause us to scramble to prayers in the wake of his demise.

i personally, don't believe his soul deserves rest.

my niece explained that her father claims that my father came to him in a dream and complained that nobody had said kaddish for him and so he couldn't pass on to the next world. her father, being the self-righteous prick moron that he is, took it upon himself to say prayers.

last week i had a really odd dream, and one part of it remains clear as crystal. it's almost an exact copy of the scene from a clockwork orange of the man licking the warden's boots, with my now-ex male biological forbear doing the licking. it irks me to think that he might have found redemption, whatever form it may have taken.

i think that speaks rather lowly of me.

we paid a visit to david ben gurion's old house, and in the middle of a talk an interesting idea began to form in my mind. it's been developing since, and although my buddies just laughed at me when i gave it voice i think it's possibly a good direction to take when i finish with my military service.

the sneaky bastard finally pushed me to a point where i gave up trying, and then a few days later approached me and repeated my words back at me. i pointed this out to him, and since then he's been trying to be friendly - it's a pity for him that he's so untrustworthy.

our platoon leader opened a debate about zionism wherein i was the only person not allowed to talk... "yet". by the time he let me loose i'd prepared a speech - and a lot of people came to me afterwards to thank me for giving such a touching one. score!

we have a mouse in our room. the stories being told are getting more and more rediculous as the days go on, and we're hiding our food in the weirdest places. the problem with our mouse is that he's talented enough to open up boxes and packets.

it turns out i'm pretty damn good with finding my way around the desert - a pity that our team almost didn't get to try as our commander decided that we weren't prepared enough [of COURSE we can learn a full page of data by rote within fifteen minutes!]. i'd deliberately picked a difficult partner, and we spent the first session arguing constantly about directions (eventually he started listening to me). we've been described as r2d2 and c3po traversing the dunes :P

i improved my physical to such a drastic degree that further improvement is going to be really hard. i finally have real incentive to do push-ups.

this week was crazy as far as exertion and exhaustion were concerned - and not helped by my consuming an energy drink before the physical, which was then cancelled. i couldn't sleep that night, and was royally screwed for the rest of the week... up until thursday afternoon, at least, when i scored an hour and a half siesta in the kitchens ^_^

can, a short video of dick hoyt and his son, is really, really touching.

my SC [the pointy-haired boss] is a tosser, i think that's been pretty well established. i have no time to think during the course, let alone participate in a popularity contest - "man of the section" my ass. hell, i haven't even been in the office for half a year, and he thinks that voting should be my top priority :/

summer's coming to an end! fog in the morning!

i think the best skill i've acquired during the last four months is the ability to stay awake during boring lectures. i don't actually know how i do it, but i suspect it's got to do with my habit of listening to all the tiny noises around me - like papers shuffling and pens clicking. fascinating that in a big lecture theatre there's a constant symphony / cacophony.

the last day was mostly a bitch, and ended with a screaming match before going to bed without showering. i managed to get my sat phone fixed when we arrived back in tel aviv, bought the books, and returned home *just* too late to pick up my dvds from the post office :S

i did laundry, some important shopping, messed about on facebook, and went out for lunch and to meet up with egg. we paid the sports store a visit on the way back apropos snowboarding, and then i walked home to pack and be picked up by ru55, SxS, mmf and one of ze germans to come through to ra'anana for friday night dinner.

AWESOME dinner. proper steak and fantastic potatoes, and there're still leftovers!

we spent the evening / night / morning talking, playing scrabble and having a good laugh over monopoly [i won!], and at sunrise got into the pool for a couple of hours before getting to bed. i can't say that i've slept better than this in many months.

la petite mort

again - this being the fourth time if i'm not mistaken. this is the third of the four incidents that i was attempting to urinate at the time. i suspected a lack of oxygen after the last couple of bouts, this time the second i felt it coming i began to breathe really, really deeply.

it didn't help.

i managed to sit on the floor with my back against the wall, and miraculously not piss myself, as wave after wave of unconsciousness struck me. when it was over, and until i regained enough composure to move, i thoroughly soaked my clothing with sweat. i climbed into the shower with the sensation that going through this can't be much different from suffering a stroke.

i can't help but wonder how much neural damage i suffered this morning.

***

i spent yesterday afternoon either lying in bed restlessly or sitting online. in the evening egg and i went to cheers - it's a bar on allenby, but the playlist hit tool and pink floyd when we sat down. during the night it became packed with a good crowd, and the music remained top class.

i'm shocked at how much we drank. absolutely mortified. i crashed at egg's because there was no way in hell that i'd have survived even half the journey home. and now i'm feeling like a freakin' zombie after my little wake-up call.

on maggots and sunsets

a quick summary:

thursday continued:
1. great sushi as usual.
2. a long walk to ramat aviv (!) to catch the tail end of the orange music festival. seeing that many people jumping up and down to an infected mushroom instrumental was nuts.
3. getting caught in traffic on the way out was more nuts, but not as much as considering going out without sleeping.
4. passing out without going out.

friday:

1. trying to sleep in... unsuccessfully.
2. buying the hat i'd ordered last week at dizengoff center.
3. seeing the print of my design come out beautifully. waiting for the actual print. being surprised by the news that the printer managed to put it on upside down - how professional. they didn't charge me for the correction, but the image has an awkward shadow and i'm not entirely happy with it.
4. the gay pride parade. my arms got burned, my chest and back didn't - and my shirt was off most of the time. i've decided that i'm preparing a shirt and a sign for next year... [front] if i could choose i'd be gay... [back] ... but i can't.
the street party was great fun, ssf's boyfriend's a dick and the beach party was excellent until the concert started.
5. after a shower i took my book to the coffee stand and enjoyed a wonderfully chilled read / iced-coffee and roast-beef salad for about an hour.
6. trying to nap... unsuccessfully.
7. watching the forbidden kingdom with the kid. best intro ever! i'm not including the wire-fu mountain scene, but the rest was absolutely beautiful. brilliant film.
8. meeting up with egg and going to the meimad for a rock party the likes of which i haven't enjoyed in well over a year. i was barely capable of walking home, and after a quick shower i flopped into bed at 6am, completely exhausted.

saturday:

1. waking up at 8.30am, trying to sleep in... unsuccessfully. for anyone who's noticed a pattern, i suffer from insomnia at home. anywhere else i sleep like a baby, most easily when i have something that needs doing.
2. i sat online for a bit, then took a walk so that i could listen to the penny arcade / pvp online d&d 4th edition podcast (here's the second episode). there're quite a few chuckles in there, and i really enjoyed myself :)
3. worms. maggots. millions of them. our flatmate has spot-like habits, specifically leaving a mess of foodstuffs around the couch. so our slimy, squirming little friends spent the afternoon giving us the run-around... and the heebie-jeebies. it took forever to clean the apartment; my room is so dusty i only managed the big, obvious tufts of dust before losing my cool, downing a couple of slugs of tequila and going to the beach with the kid.
4. we met up with gco and a couple of his buddies for a great afternoon in the water and playing frisbee (with a real one, not our dingy bastard), then had sundowners at mike's place. it's the first time i've enjoyed doing that outside of south africa.
5. rushing home to change, deal with a bunch of irate / confused fellow vacationers, and meeting singer on the bus to comfort 13.
6. the concert was for the prevention of animal experimentation, but eatliz (butcher) was playing so i didn't care. the first one-man band was a bit horrible. shlomi shaban was great. amit erez (one of eatliz's guitarists) played - some of it was decent - and then the rest of eatliz came on and were superb as usual.
one of my cousins was there, and would have missed their performance if i hadn't convinced him to stay a little longer - he was suitably impressed :)
7. i need to go to bed.

fresh start

yesterday morning i read for a bit before passing out again, then woke up a couple of hours later and almost bust my fingertips completely. new strings, newbie, frighteningly sensitive. but i do feel like i'm making some headway :)

the kid and i watched lots of how i met your mother, interspersed with good food and ice-cream*. it's been too long, and damn that series rocks! the bits with ted's mustache and robin's giggling nearly ruptured my spleen!

* going out for ice-cream was a good idea, as we realized what a great day it was and missioned down to the beach. we didn't stay until sunset, but it was a pleasant walk and it's always good to have sand between one's toes. and a breezer in hand. and eye candy in front.

i talked with my mum for a bit, and then left the building to meet up with egg. we walked to levontin, had a drink, made an awkward escape from some guy who just didn't *get* that i wasn't interested in him, and returned in time for einav jackson cohen's performance.

she's great, she's really great, and the only problem is trying to stay awake with such lulling music. and maybe we drank too much. and maybe having a drink with wr at the smith bar on the way home wasn't too good an idea.

what was a good idea was washing all the dishes and shaving before going to bed (1.30am). that was a fantastic call!

getting up at 5.30 this morning hurt me just as i'd expected. i had the most horrible hangover, and was absolutely exhausted, and i still haven't recovered.

our new team-member arrived, she seems really quick and she's pleasant, which is an excellent start :)

my quote for the day: "one what-the-f*** is better than six"... but i managed to find a few more as the day wore on :(

i got a ride home with my favourite SC (not mine, obviously) and another couple of guys from our unit, and it was educational. when there're organizational problems, it's always better to know you're not alone.

before leaving the base i left an instruction with my agent to stick to her guns, and on my way in to the apartment she called back - with a reasonable final offer. since speaking to my mom i've called her back to let them know it's acceptable, and now i'm really excited and i can't calm down long enough to get some much-needed shut-eye :/

i really hope everything goes through smoothly! and that i can sort out most of it before disappearing on sunday!

1.5 days

the weather's gone all dusty and icky - this sucks. and i was so cold this morning i was walking around in a jacket... weird.

yesterday:

work *sucked* yesterday. really sucked. i felt horrible, i didn't get much done, i was generally unhappy.

i went to take another look at one of the first apartments, and i've decided that i'm putting in an offer. at least this time i took photos for my mom.

on the way out i was walking and talking with the agent when i noticed a cute girl in a taxi, who looked back at me... and the two of us stared at each other for about ten seconds before something clicked in my brain and i mouthed her name - she rolled down the window and gave me her number as the driver pulled off.

i met her at a party a long time ago, her first words to me were "so you're the guy who burned down his school!" - she was one of psychotic american's flatmates and had heard nothing good or true about me. i haven't seen her in four years!

the agent and i talked real crap for about fifteen minutes. unbelievably, i didn't lose patience completely even though i was itching to go - i'd like things to remain comfortable at least until a sale goes through.

waiting for the bus on the way to meet up with egg and ssf, i was given an odd complement by some old woman. we started talking, and when her bus came she needed help to get on so i happily obliged. the weird thing is that when i'm at a party i have no problems with touching strangers, even sweaty and icky ones, but in a regular situation it drives me demented. i couldn't shake the urge to wash my hands.

the concert last night was awesome - the only reason i went in the middle of the week was because eatliz were listed as playing at 9.30pm, so i figured it wouldn't be so bad. panic ensemble warmed up for them, going on at 10.30pm and finishing a little before midnight... so yeah, that was well planned...

i really enjoyed panic ensemble - they're a talented bunch with great potential, and it's music i would definitely put on in the background when sleeping. and eatliz... well, i've talked about them before, but last night i registered that aside from the singer and the drummer the other four band members are all guitarists. and amazing ones at that. i didn't notice at levontin because there was a pillar in the way.

this morning was a nightmare - i got home around 3am, and thank the gods that i had the presence of mind to shave before going to sleep. when i woke up three hours later i was in deep shit.

not to mention the general state of disarray and dishevelled hangover, i managed to drop my trousers on my boots and they got black all over them. i missed the bus because i was busy scrubbing them after spazzing out while discovering that the only other pants i have are on base in case of rain.

genius.

i was lucky enough to catch one of the guys in my unit as he was leaving the city, but the pain of the awakening was too much.

i had a fight with my TL today - he wanted me to give him an amount of hours until the end of this craptastic application's use, and i couldn't get him to understand that if i've been doing the same shit for over a month with the expectation not changing, then whatever bullshit figure i give him isn't going to tell him anything.

other than that it was a pretty good day.

the next .5 involves napping, and either rollerblading or drinking. good times :)

like suing microsoft as a user

i went out last night to the israeli line, which turned into just another beer with buddies. today went alright, considering the fact that i'm doing the most horrible sideline work i've ever come across.

can i sue a software house for mental anguish? it's an application that requires me to perform minimal actions (generally about two or three) before saving, closing, and reopening to continue. if i don't do this, everything hangs and repairing the files takes a while.

if it worked then the job would take me a day or so. as it is i've already wasted a week just figuring out a work-around for the major issues :(

the food today was disgraceful. our meal consisted of one blood-jelly chicken leg each, and no more.

i worked late, watched an episode of the unit with the kid, received singer's guitar so that i can make my fingers and ears bleed, and then went with her and her cousin to levontin 7. when i discovered it was a jazz orchestra type thing i bailed to play pool with SxS and egg - a good call, as apparently they were simply atrocious.

pool was good, and now i'm late for bed. at least i didn't drink too much tonight :P

the army never actually gets rid of anyone, especially not "academics" who've been invested in... except for the dentist who screwed me up - we all bore witness to her bullshit "the time has come" bawling today - way too early into her career. i'd wish her luck, but that's reserved for her future patients.

wrapped in tentacles

i had dinner with singer, and then passed out until just before midnight. we got a ride with some friends of hers, and fortunately managed to get my buddy (egg) his ticket in spite of the lock-down. there's nothing more annoying than not being allowed out of a club, whatever the reason. somebody actually had to fake a seizure to get past security.

odradek warmed up, and they seriously kicked ass. during the last song the lead sang, and he exuded the 60's beautifully :)

ozric tentacles were brilliant, as expected. all in all, it was a good night, if a little too squished. we were exhausted by the end of the performance, and singer, egg and i had breakfast at the brasserie before walking to bed. i'd left my ipod at singer's so i crashed there, there was no way i'd have had enough energy to make it back home.

i'll admit, it was a bit awkward sleeping over. sleeping with her every now and again is one thing, but there's a line being crossed here that i'm entirely uncomfortable with.