the world according to my son

1. i should be a personal trainer. he was very happy with this morning's training, in spite of the fact that there were tears and feelings along the way.

2. i've just been informed that i'm going to heaven. this is in response to me (AI-assisted) figuring out why his modrinth mod kept crashing and fixing it.

so i guess i've dadded well. today.

which reminds me of two things that were said between thursday and yesterday that i want to record for posterity:

• what do you call a postal worker who's tasked with removing envelopes from letters? a mail stripper.
• gd was being an asshole. i was trying to teach my son a word, and she cut me off with a new one that means "to do something in a sticky, spready way": syruptitiously.

where's the supreme leader?

what a time to be alive! where a random idea i had while falling asleep meets AI 👌👌 

overload

 it scares me that today's tuesday. and that this coming weekend is our last one in this apartment, and that there are so many unknowns, so many things i might have forgotten to take care of.

and there are knowns, now, too. gd went in to the new apartment today to take photos, and she called our friend down to verify that under the gas plate, the cupboard smells like gas. after a literal hour trying to get a technician to come and take a look (the first forty minutes were spent talking to the wrong gas company), the guy came in and confirmed that there's no leak, that the gas is off, and that the gas plates are probably broken 🤦‍♂️

there're water issues, too. blocked drains all round, and the toilets don't flush properly. and damage under the kitchen sink. and a whole story with the "jacuzzi". so we now have a plumber coming in - scratch that, he's busy, a plumber's brother coming in - first thing tomorrow morning.

and with all this noise in the background, i had to bail on a couple of hours' work this afternoon. i feel like i'm making good progress though - i've figured out a decent way to compare "my" model's results with what's in production - but it's a long, manual process and it's full of surprises.

oh, and at lunch today my boss/client and my team were having a very strange conversation about alcohol, drugs and chronic illness and i couldn't figure out if i was following what they were saying or not.

i didn't even talk about how my day began, yet - dishes, and reading moon knight: what a completely insane experience, and i mean reading it, it's properly destabilizing. i can't believe mr smear read it already.

oh, yes: i don't know what came over me, but i told him a really dumb but funny joke that could be potentially offensive to white saviors. he thought it was hilarious, and then i had to caution him about not re-telling it and now i'm wondering if i'm going to get in trouble for it :P

after he left for school, i took care of a bunch of things and then gd and i walked to the bank. it was a beautiful morning, and a good opportunity for some time to just walk and talk.

this time everything went quickly and smoothly, gd signed what she had to sign and i picked up the chequebook. we then went our separate ways, and when i arrived at the office *just* in time for my daily, i saw that she'd gotten home and received a message from the bank informing her that she'd left her ID there... so she had an additional experience on top of having to spend the day keeping house and packing for the move.

dinner was very late, but it was amazing. gd made a great ramen, with a yo egg on top with a runny yolk. it was glorious.

mr smear, in addition to doing his hebrew homework before i'd let him read in english (we're doing a weird thing since yesterday, hopefully it's not a bad call), decided that he's exhausted all the english stuff he wants to read and, entirely voluntarily, to both his parents shock and amazement, picked up the hebrew translation of kazu kibuishi's amulet (הקמע) and is devouring it.

...

my brain is throbbing, it's past 10pm. i'm going to make myself a cup of tea, and attempt to complete my employer's onboarding. and hopefully, hopefully, get a reasonably good night's rest.

stretched

 i'm pretty tired. it was a good day, but very long.

after mr smear left for school, i made this (gd won't let me post it, i think she's being paranoid):

which reminds me that i thought of another one in the middle of the night, but didn't write it down and forgot it :(

first thing on arriving in the office, i apologized to our client on behalf of "my team" for making him wait for me yesterday.

a lot of learning stuff, still more onboarding (finally got the big stuff done with some help from IT).

it was nice to be able to pop back home for leftover lunch.

a few conversations getting to know people, a few very awkward moments (that i made awkward).

i came to find my son's hair cut (gd did it this afternoon), and his homework done, and then i shaved and showered and we watched some more a-team over dinner and i got a bit carried away with dessert (the jalapeño pretzels and dried mango), and i've got stuff to do and i'm too tired.

good night.

signed

i'm typing this while lying on the couch because my legs are giving me too much trouble sitting :/

so, first things first: i've just signed a contract with the contracting agency.

there are two reasons i'm not jumping for joy right now: the first, because i simply haven't internalized the fact that i've just accepted the offer i was praying for. the second, because prior to reviewing and signing the contract, we had an incredibly unpleasant end-of-day with mr smear.

...

the day started alright, and when i arrived at the school to pick up mr smear for his doctor's appointment i ran into his teacher, so i got some information about his behavior and she helped me get him out of there fast.

mr smear got into trouble yesterday because he was drawing "yo momma" jokes, which the other kids thought were funny but which his teacher did not. and in a different "didn't think they were funny" to how i didn't think they were funny when he repeated a couple of them to me. i mean, they had potential, but they just fell kinda flat :P

we picked up a coffee and an onion bagel to share (the bagel, not the coffee) on the way, and i told mr smear about an idea i had about fifteen years ago for QR codes. then gd joined us and we headed in to his appointment, and now he's on antibiotics for a staph infection and we have an appointment with a surgeon early wednesday morning.

i took him back to the school, and arrived home just in time to head out again to get headshots done by ze irish german. in addition to the headshots, we talked a lot and amidst everything else i was intrigued to learn that i'm not the only person who gets bad side-effects from cbd oil. i also thought of a way to bring him in to the QR code thing and he seemed receptive.

i returned home a bit before mr smear arrived, and i didn't a little prep for my 5pm interview. which didn't go as well as i'd like - it seemed to be going fine, until i got caught out on a thread behavior question that i just couldn't quite wrap my head around :(

then i got a call from the agency, and there was a bit of a negotiation, and then we had dinner and i received the contract and then bedtime was horrible and then i reviewed and signed and now i'm (intellectually, at least) being immensely relieved and grateful that my prayers were answered. and i've got until mid-january before i start so that's time to really unwind, because the last few weeks have *not* been a vacation.

nerves

i barely slept last night, not sure why.

i was supposed to supervise mr smear on the bus this morning, but we were so wrapped up in our discussion of how to tell jokes across different mediums (and the importance of panel layout, he's got strong opinions on swamp thing) that we auto-piloted to the light rail instead :P

i spent a couple of hours preparing for my phone screen, after which it turned out to be just a non-tech introduction. but it was positive nonetheless, and immediately afterwards i heard back from the outsourcing form, who's skipping a step with me and has invited me to what might be the final round! i'm legitimately excited about this one, i really hope it all comes together.

after that, my eyes were giving me trouble and i was feeling quite antsy, and i decided to take a walk with my kindle. i found a nice spot in a nearby park and read a little, but after a couple of pages i realized i just didn't have the focus. i walked a little further, found a surprisingly nice little fountain hidden away next to the park that i've never noticed in the three and a half years we've lived right next door, and then returned home just in time for a call from swordschool.

jesus, fuck, he's been going through some difficult shit. we talked for quite a while, so long that i almost entirely missed urchin's visit (we literally had a couple of minutes to chat before she left), and we're going to continue the conversation tomorrow. i'm planning on giving him a boost with one of his ideas and hopefully we'll enjoy some quick success 🤞

mr smear arrived around the time urchin left, and we dove straight in to math homework. well, he did - he didn't really need my help, so i got some of the dishes done.

mr smear has been repeating some mightily inappropriate shit recently, directly from his new friends at school. i'm trying to impress upon him, just in case, that friends don't pressure friends into doing anything they're not comfortable with, and that if he does find himself compromised, he needs to tell us so we can help him out of whatever shit he gets into...

a short while later, we all left for the hospital complex, picked up some meds and then accompanied gd to the pain clinic for her nerve block. after getting her ready for the doctor - which took a while, but much less time than usual - mr smear and i went through his hebrew reading homework. he did really well, but there were a couple of moments that reduced my patience, and then his behavior afterwards (he didn't want to do anything that wasn't on his phone, including not doing anything at all) reduced it further.

getting gd home after the procedure was pretty straightforward, and after a brief chat with my mom i took mr smear with me to go pick up dinner. some of the walk was unpleasant - my patience had pretty much bottomed out by that point - but most of it was us talking. a lot of the talk was about heavy stuff (aging, illness and death), which was fine except for the bit where i said something so heavy it upset him and i immediately regretted it...

we picked up... too much food. like, two of the dishes we could've left behind, and it was quite an expensive meal. having said that, the meals were delicious.

there were some negative feelings around bedtime (the usual), but otherwise it's been a smooth evening.

tomorrow morning i've got an appointment with the israeli employment service...

holy dad joke

hello darkness my old friend...

it's now 3.45am and i haven't been able to sleep for a while. but i'm really tired. i actually feel like i have legitimate reason to be, but in addition to everything else i believe that this morning (or during the night) the flu vaccine side effects kicked in and i spent most of the day feeling weak, slow and irritable.

i accompanied gd to the clinic for her flu shot (reading blindsight on my kindle app whenever the opportunity arose). we walked to the mall to try and get mr smear's school shirts printed, but they didn't have the correct logo so they referred us to a different branch. we headed to the bakery for a coffee and a sandwich, and picked up a couple of yummo's vegan protein bars (which are delicious!). we returned to the clinic so that gd could get a prescription made, then returned to the mall to pick it up. on our way out, i was inspired to write a post to my israeli "hive-mind" asking for assistance with the comic printing.

by this point i was long over the morning and feeling shitty and impatient.

we returned home, then almost immediately left again to get the shirt printing done at the other mall. and then finally return home, dragging in the delivered groceries when i arrived.

by that stage, mr smear had already finished school for the day. i tooled around until he got home, and the rest of the afternoon was a combination of napping (crashing), helping him with his reading and tanach homework (which went relatively smoothly), and doing dishes.

...

for years, i've been begging gd to make challah-peño: challah with actual jalapeño in it. this evening, in addition to giving her a hand in the kitchen because her shoulder's out, we actually made the thing and it came out beautifully. i'm extremely proud and excited: not only did we invent a fun idea, and actually execute it, but the execution was a raging success and the challah-peño is spicy and delicious ^_^

...

during the afternoon and evening, i began receiving some solid advice and leads regarding the comic printing, so i've got homework to do but it's feeling positive. amusingly, a friend put me in touch with someone, who it turned out i had a conversation with trying to recruit him to the project in 2012!

i also had a chat with our kibbutz cousin, who's finally given notice and is going on pension soon. and her eldest son (a few months older than me), with his severe learning disabilities, just completed his bagrut for a job which is pretty darned impressive.

...

i tried watching the charlie kirk and netanyahu southpark episodes with gd after getting mr smear into bed, but i passed out about three quarters of the way through the first one. in theory, i should have enjoyed a good night's sleep...

context switching

it's late and i want to play a little more slay the spire before bed, so i'm being relatively lazy about posting.

yesterday:

i didn't sleep very well at all.

yesterday was ridiculous.

it began with a massive fight over screen time in the mornings, which eventually - and with a lot of big feelings on all sides - was resolved in a reasonably satisfactory manner.

our parental guidance meeting took an unexpected turn; i thought we'd be talking about what we'd been fighting about - which primarily covered our approaches and failures regarding teaching mr smear how to appropriately deal with authority - but focused entirely on the play therapist that gd's (and mr smear, apparently) been losing patience with...

my work day was insane. i was pulled in so many directions and forced to context switch so much that for a while i literally couldn't keep track of what i was doing or trying to do. meanwhile, the two main things i was supposed to be doing feel by the wayside, and i ended up needing to continue the work from home.

i'm very grateful that one of my coworkers tried out their pesach gift massage kit next to me, which inspired me to take it home. i think it made my family appreciate me more.

then i got home, did All The Things, and by the time i was ready to work i was so tired that i had to lie down.

the only time i got up was when i couldn't sleep and my neck was feeling stiff, so i lay down on the massager for a while before returning to bed.

today:

eating a couple of pieces of caffeine-laced chocolate after dinner - along with a heck of a lot more sugar than i'm comfortable admitting - did not help me sleep well. not only didn't i get much sleep, but mr smear woke up twice in the night and was too afraid to go back to sleep by himself, so while i'm grateful that gd took care of it, i was still affected somewhat.

getting some of the work done

my back locking up after returning home from walking mr smear to school

seeing a plastic surgeon after a couple of months' waiting, to be given a referral for an actual surgery (very minor) in another couple of months' time (and then discovering that i have a conflicting appointment when it was too late to change it)

black salt and hot sauces on the way to work, and a surprisingly excellent UX upgrade from the hop-on app (i could select my bus stop from a map)

broken glass jar due to the cap not being screwed on, and it's unlikely but possible that i'm the one responsible.

less intense work day but still very busy, some good moments and some bad.

trying to leave and getting caught up in an important conversation, then being hounded by a company partner before i had my bag packed.

a bit of a screen-time fight when i got home, but i think i handled it well

mr's smear's first dad joke (i only tweaked it a little):

"why did the boy throw away his day-old dessert? because it was off-pudding"

* black mirror: common people is hard to watch. the overall story is brilliantly awful, but *SPOILER ALERT* it also deeply upset me that at no point did they consider taking anyone to court and there was an obvious better ending available *END SPOILER ALERT*

* natasha hausdorff facing off against dolores umbridge is an absolute master-class in maintaing composure

parents vs the school vs the bullies

 holy fuck. today was a mostly positive day, but it's been overshadowed by mr smear's bullying situation and i can't stop fretting and second-guessing how we're handling it (or how we've been handling it).

parenting is fucking hard.

so in today's entry in the bullying saga, one of the kids who was harrassing mr smear on friday tried to kick a football to his face. fortunately mr smear managed to dodge, but the fact that there was no staff around when they know there's a violence issue just blows my mind.

i wrote a letter to the new principal to warn her that from this point onwards, if any kid hurts my child physically we're going straight to the police. tomorrow morning we're going to send the same warning to the bully's mother (in french, because she's french so it's easier for gd to "connect").

*heavy sigh*

this is so fucked up. and i keep thinking of the kind of fuckery we saw in the series black space.

...

the above kinda takes the wind outta my sails, but i'll try to express how good today was anyway. i mean, it started shitty, with a fight with mr smear because he didn't understand that i didn't understand that his mouth was in pain from waiting for me to wash my hands when he hadn't finished brushing my teeth. we got through that, but it was unpleasant, and then on the way to school he started whining (as usual) that he was too sick to go (his cough has mostly gone, so i don't know if he was putting on a show or coughing for real at the time).

but it was the class party to say farewell to their homeroom teacher, so he couldn't miss it.

it also ended on a shitty note (separate from the bullying stuff) because he didn't want to do his homework, also as usual. but gd and i both threatened him, and yelled at him, and then yelled and threatened that if he doesn't learn how to learn and cooperate he not going to be able to do any of the crazy stuff he wants to do, and he eventually - sulkily - got through it.

brilliantly, i might add. learning math in a different language is hard, and when he stops fighting he's actually really good with the material. it would just be a lot easier for everyone if we didn't need to go through a shit ceremony every day.

parenting is fucking hard.

...

right, now i can finally talk about the good stuff. i've hit a kind of internal reset button, and i've got my mind around where i am and what i need to do. and what i need to do is work hard, and extra. that... that feels different.

lesson one: being amongst the earliest in the office in the morning means that the coffee machine doesn't coffee because it's not warmed up.

i had a meeting with my boss and lead, and both of them seemed happy with what i'm doing and how i'm doing it, which was very reassuring. i had a 1-on-1 with the woman who sits next to me, and aside from getting a handle on what she's about she was very appreciative of my approach to things, which was very reassuring.

over lunch i learned the ages of some of my coworkers, and one of them may have been slightly offended by me referring to them as "children"... but by the end of the day i was pretty sure we're cool. partially because i passed on the earworm for dumb ways to die which someone else had given me earlier.

i made really good progress, and i ended the day essentially having achieved my stated goal for the day. amongst other things. that felt really good. not least of which because the article i published two days ago proved crucial to understanding the problem i needed to solve 🤘

...

oh, and today i came up with a programming dad joke in hebrew that i'm particularly proud of:

אם אתה דופק את הקומפיילר, זה אומר שאתה מהדרפאקר?

...

i'm tired, but i've watched a fun episode of monk with gd and i'm going to try to make some script magic before going to bed. god knows if i'll be able to sleep tonight anyway.

...

while trying to publish this post, i received a message from mr smear's teacher, who claims that this is just another case of mr smear misinterpreting an "accident".

not today.

mixed-bag saturday

 i slept alright last night, waking up at some point to write down the following: "why did the ambitious dancer join a studio for giants? because the bar was higher."

mr smear woke me up this morning and after teaching him to make a bowl of cereal for himself (he was so excited!) we played dance dance revolution and both had fun. afterwards, i tried to figure out how the DLC works, and while evaluating the options suddenly began a migraine. panado did nothing, but an hour of lying down and crying (just pain tears, so not crying per se) at various angles seems to have helped a bit.

i'm really feeling betrayed by my neck this past few weeks :(

linkage! and fat rants.

apple's losing it.

robert downey jr.'s winning it.

guitar solo faces explained.

earl sinclair IS notorious b.i.g.!

tanyer's rules for jiu-jitsu are spot on

america's making strides in the war on the war on drugs! they're now starting to get the message on a federal level. well done!

speaking of backwards things, rick scott is an asshole.

ooh - a tattoo pain chart.

---okay, so i think abby howard's AWESOME. but she did this comic on body image recently that upset me. why did it upset me? because being healthily large is NOT a problem, but being obese IS. it's unhealthy, and it puts a load on our health services and increases our resource requirements when we're already beyond capacity. it's not offensive unless you're sharing space on crowded public transport which isn't designed for obesity, like in economy class on planes; if somebody doesn't like the look, well, that's their problem and they can keep it to themselves.

but my real frustration stems from the fact that she's apparently into science, and she talks about how she's tried eating healthy. really? like, whose idea of healthy? was it a fad diet, like low carbs or paleo? or the "i'm not eating dessert" diet? because if she'd actually bothered to do a little research, she might have come across the huge body of literature that shows convincing evidence that the only "healthy" diet is a whole-food, plant-based one. if you're eating the western-consumer diet, where "healthy" means eggs and bacon for breakfast, red meat and chicken salads and lots and lots of dairy... well, that's not healthy.

show me a picture of an obese person on a whole-foods, plant-based diet. not vegan, because not eating animal products does not equate to eating healthy. whole-foods, plant-based. you wouldn't be able to keep your weight up if you tried.

somewhat funny

last year i helped kickstart a documentary on the boundaries of humour by mike celestino called that's not funny. we finally got to watch it tonight, and i'm super pleased that it's been made and hopeful that lots of people will be exposed to it!

slam poetry geekiness

i had the following revelation yesterday:

slam poetry is like wizard's spells in dungeons and dragons. you write them down in your spellbook, memorize them, and then you'll still want to prepare them before use. and you'll need to prepare a couple of counter-spells as well, just in case.

cantrips are jokes.

first french finale - part i

oh, wow. it's sunday night. i should be studying for the end-of-course french exam tomorrow, but i haven't posted since thursday and i have shit to get off my chest.

---thursday:

at 2.30am i finally sent in my homework assignment. in spite of that i woke up feeling good. i totally zoned out on the metro. we began the french lesson with a great guided conversation. my french partner was very confused and went to the coffee shop to meet me twice even though i'd told him three separate times that we weren't going to meet that day.

---yang got a contact for me to send my resume to, but something particularly stupid that he said really bothered me and triggered interview anxiety: that was when i realized that the rage that i didn't feel when i was fired was simply suppressed. this makes the specialist's suggestion that my laboured breathing might be psychological even more plausible as it's the same kind of laboured breathing that i remember from my mini-anxiety attacks in 2010. if that's the case, it's a completely unintelligible message from my body :(

one of the things that's been really bothering me is that i haven't been able to accept that people like megaman exist. afterwards, when i spoke to my mother she suggested narcissistic personality disorder and "these qualities are usually defenses against a deep feeling of inferiority and of being unloved" does a good job of settling the issue for me. when i spoke to aota this afternoon i learned that his inadequacies have been thoroughly exposed since i left, and that darn has become an office joke to boot.

told you so.

---i hit the health store near vendome. i learned that the vega antibiotic scare really isn't anything to be concerned about and that clif builder max is not available for canadians :( (the assistant was more disappointed to find that out that i was)

the beast had left me a long voicemail message to remind me to go spar, and i was sorry to arrive with only twenty minutes of his session left on the clock. apparently this was fine by him, but the coach got an emergency phone call and the beast had to take him to the hospital so i worked a bit on the bags, did some weights and went home.

kgb called me up and asked me if i was familiar with the leap. i admitted that i own one and haven't taken it out of the box... he proceeded to pitch an idea so remarkably similar to mine that we're gonna meet up on wednesday and figure out how to proceed :D

i passed out, and as usual half-woke to my alarm with no energy to go to the gym. i forced myself up, chugged an energy drink and would have been horrified if i'd missed such an important session! (erm, and knew what i'd missed, of course)

although i walked in to the kickboxing class with a suddenly sore back - i don't know what the hell caused it, and it's still bugging me - i not only had a great class, but when entering the octagon afterwards to spar with the beast it was with badger sitting in a corner and coaching us. me, mostly. the beast was only too happy to oblige and our kickboxing instructor came out from the beginner's class every once in a while to observe and throw comments.

it was an extremely humbling experience, but i pushed through and i learned a lot. i walked out of the ring feeling uplifted.

i did dinner math and headed downtown for a tofu meal to precede the spaghetti i was going to prepare when i returned home. after the meal, though, i was totally stuffed and everything slowed down while my body dealt with the excess of deliciousness that i'd consumed. it was all i could do to get home and fall into bed.

---friday:

i sent off my resume to yang's contact (why does that take so long each time?) and left for class without having done the homework. i was in a dark mood because my back was hurting me, the weather was raining miserably and i was deep into tool - triad when suddenly a man on the pavement stepped into my path, forcing me to stop. i gave him a dark look and he began to speak to me; i was dimly aware that his comrade was standing on the edge of my blind-spot and my defenses shot up in spite of this being canada. it was just a homeless guy trying to bum change, but either way i was already so fired up that it took all my energy just to speak relatively politely as i forced him (with my body language) to step aside so that i could continue.

it was in that mood that i received news that my older siblings' mother had passed away that morning.
*rubs temples*
i shouldn't be proud of myself that i remembered to send my brother condolences even though our relationship is up to shit, but i am. i think that speaks volumes.

---my french must be improving, i'm unwittingly mixing in hebrew. the look of incomprehension on the teacher's face was priceless :P

i went for a quick haircut and then hit the chinese place again for lunch. it's the first time i've seen their lunch menu and i was excited to get corn soup with my veggie plate. i love corn soup!

my fortune cookie told me "you will soon get a promotion". uh, huh.

my back was feeling slightly better and i headed to walmart to pick up laces (for my mr. price '99 specials) and a new laundry basket. one of the workers in the shoe section made a two-foot throw of something into a trash can and his co-worker sarcastically told him how amazed she was... i walked up having overheard and said "hey, man, i saw it from over there and it was really impressive!"
i can't tell if he appreciated my joke or if he was offended :P

i left walmart in an evil mood. i stalked home and watched some of ufc 145: the schaub vs rothwell fight. each replay of schaub vs the invisible fighter was more disturbing than the last.

---ugh. it's bad enough forgetting to air out my wraps every once in a while, but two days in a row?? this time i didn't have any other laundry to do... what made matters worse is my backup "adult sized" everlast wraps are too damned short. i have learned an important lesson about bringing cash to the gym...

there was a sense of the weekend in the gym on friday afternoon, and i was actually sorry i had plans for saturday night because the boxing instructor finally saw fit to invite me to watch fights with him and his crew... i was so proud when he was so pleased to see me sparring!

my first two rounds were against a really tall brazilian guy who taught me what it feels like to get hit at that perfect spot on the jaw so that your mouthguard pops out - i managed to catch it with my teeth and suck it back in, but i was quite shocked that it had happened and surprised that it didn't actually hurt!

the third round was against a southpaw who was so much better than me that he toyed with me the entire time. i did land a couple of punches, but i took so many that i one point i almost jumped out of the ring in frustration. the fourth was against one of the guys i'm friendly with and i was surprised when he connected with a fairly powerful (for him) shot. i remembered what badger had said the day before about respect, that whether you want to or not you need to increase your power if you want your opponent to chill out or he'll disrespect you. even though i was worried that things would escalate, i hit him harder and he did back down.

people, man. people.

...

the boxing class afterwards was fun and tough. a couple of us had a long debate about ufc scoring, and i feel pretty strongly that if a ufc fight goes the distance then it should be counted as a draw. points don't mean a damned thing! if it was real life, one of the combatants would at some point have to call it quits: "hey, dude, we'll have to continue this another time - i have better shit to do". to count points is to completely devalue a fighter's ability to take a beating and make a comeback.

---i hurried made pasta - perfectly! - and wolfed it down before heading to vfmp's for carcassonne. we repeated the previous debate about draws and i discovered the angry nerd in me when we talked about iron man 3.

[continued...]

random slippage

i thought yesterday's headache might be caused by dehydration, and i compensated so much that i started worrying i'd overhydrated. then i went to sleep with the headache still bothering me and it eventually got so bad i took something for it. that seemed to do the trick.

i woke up a bit woozy and with a tender forehead (still tender, wtf?), but was otherwise okay until a sudden, inexplicable neck spasm caught me and ruined my day completely. well, not completely... i guess spending the afternoon and evening on the couch wasn't the worst way to get through it. and i did get to use the neck pain as a cover for my reactions to the agonizing inability of one of the girls to perform basic pattern matching ie. learning. she's a doe in headlights, entirely passive and appears to believe that one can get through life without mental effort. i'm not being overly judgemental, am i?

on the way back home i ate a decent asian lunch, found a good-sized tin of tiger balm and found a great bookstore at the berri-uqam metro station; i was hunting for french comics and a triple-volume translation of jeff smith - bone served as an excellent value-for-money alternative to tintin or asterix. there was a fun-looking french almanac filled with riddles and puzzles that's a possible next purchase.

---i finished elana gomel - a tale of three cities.
gomel has created a simultaneously dark and colourful world populated by intriguing characters at the brink of disaster. fascinating conceits explored with excellent execution.
her characters' exploration of the nature of reality while dealing with their individual demons, the construction of mythology and religion and the constant questioning, kept me on my mental toes for most of the reading. the only detractors were typos, and even though they were relatively few at least one of them was significant enough to stall me. overall? brilliant read. and especially satisfying for one of her students :)

---i've watched wayne's world again because i couldn't find the sequel on netflix and i couldn't remember how much i enjoyed it. i followed it up with ufc 153, did the french homework and am now mentally preparing to get up stupidly early to fight with my insurance company who wouldn't accept the proof that the mortgage was paid. bastards.

---omg so much awesome stuff to link to:

the images are amazing, but watching this little piece on richard renaldi's touching strangers really puts the project in perspective

clever animated gifs of banksy's art

the paper kites - young music video is truly excellent.

i'm still wiping my eyes after reading unfortunate publishing layouts of our time

gender insensitive

okay, i'm upset by the internet getting angry with mike krahulik over his transgender insensitivity.

i'm not transgender, so i'll never really understand it but i can most certainly accept it. especially after a long and enlightening lecture about gender biology where i learned just how weird male / females definitions can be. regardless, most people are not informed, and that's not because they're bad, or narrow-minded. it's because our species-wide awareness of these issues is new enough that it goes directly against what everyone's been taught since forever.

it is in our nature to fight conflicting ideas, and being antagonized doesn't assist the process.

not that i don't identify with the defensive nature of any minority that feels threatened! but it's counter-productive. and here we see a flame war on twitter that had a net negative effect for both sides. mike eventually started coming around, and that demonstrates that he's not simply a jerk. you can't demonize people who don't know about *your* minority, there are plenty of minorities you don't know or care about and that's just fine because life's too short to invest only in everyone else.

mike and jerry are the faces of the penny arcade empire, and they got that way because they're human beings, not corporate representations. *that* is why we adore them. because they're honest even when they're at their worst. judge them! but discuss things with them, instead of jumping to conclusions and putting them on the defensive.

---about the dickwolves thing: it was a really funny comic and did not in any way imply that rape is okay, and most certainly not that the guys are "rape apologists". anyone upset by this comic on those grounds is simply too stupid to "get" that [JOKE EXPLANATION WARNING] what's being ridiculed is the gaming paradigm in which your character doesn't have to care about the plight of NPC's no matter how horrible their situation is. it's saying that rape is bad, and that it's weird that these games are telling you that you don't have to care about all the victims.

which is realistic, i guess. IRL you can't save everyone.

not just american

i just saw american: the bill hicks story - i thought i'd take a break and let my mind wonder. ha. i'm familiar with almost all of his material, and the documentary blew me away with its perspective on where it all came from.

y'all need ta see this.

being human

point 1:

on sunday morning, i walked out of the apartment on my way to the bus stop and was surprised to find anti-1 outside, apparently saying goodbye to someone. she walked most of the way to the stop with me, and i tried to talk to her but she was noticeably troubled. at first i thought she was embarrassed about me seeing her with the guy she'd said goodbye to, then she got really weird and i just couldn't figure her out. the only response i could make out from her mumbling was "not good" to my question on how things have been...
i was on my way to work, and pg was sleeping, so i didn't invite her up to my apartment... i told her i'd be back the next morning (because we were going straight to a wedding), and to give me a call. i felt bad when i continued walking to the bus stop, wondering as i passed etnachta if i shouldn't have invited her for coffee, but she'd already pulled a "no, no, it's alright" so i sent her an sms.

i didn't think about it much until sunday evening, when her brother called me to inform me that she's been psychologically unstable and had fled jerusalem on friday night, her phone having been disconnected, and the guy i'd seen her with had been told that she was going to hang out with me. which i hadn't known about.

this troubles me a lot. not in the least because she's an intelligent and, from what i know of her, successful girl. i can't stop speculating on what could possibly cause someone who "gets" this world from going over the edge. what could it be? generic life complexities? lack of fulfilment? family issues?

i really hope she's alright.

---
point 2:

on sunday evening, after a long and exhausting day at work, i arrived home to a wonderful surprise - pg had made a tray of meringues for me. this totally set the tone, and we left for the wedding in great spirits. i'd prepped the map (and was surprised to learn that my iphone's map is location aware, i thought i'd have to do something to enable that) and scribbled a backup and i pretty much knew where we were going.

what a bummer that, at the very last moment, pg noticed that i was taking the right highway (road 1) instead of the left (road 20) - i was certain it was the other way around and i hadn't even bothered to check the signs.

traffic was a bit nuts at that hour, and i immediately pulled over to the left lane... but i was so focused on integrating with the left highway that i didn't realize that i wasn't just going over the painted island, but that the physical curb-height island was right in front of me. i didn't see it until it was too late, and to much grinding and car-simulation bumping about i committed and went over it.

there's nothing worse than being forced to accept that i'm just a regular human, capable of remarkable idiocy. after the initial and immediate shock, the reality of what had happened, i looked in the rear-view mirror to see that the guy behind me had simply stopped. in the middle of the highway. i would have done the same thing. i wouldn't want to get close to someone driving that badly either.

so my ego was more bruised and battered than pg's mother's car - with it's ultra-low suspension - at least the car made it most of the way and i parked it neatly in the parking lot of a gas station so that we could inspect the damage, only to discover that it wouldn't start any more.

and the fact that it's due to be sold within the week... my timing couldn't be better.

after work last night i was going to go visit pg's mother and tell her that i will obviously be taking all costs upon myself, but was fortunate to run into her walking her dog on my way from the bus stop and so was spared some of the awkwardness. there was no argument over who was going to pay, and on the plus side the towing was covered by insurance and i've just been informed that there's no actual damage aside from undercarriage scratching... *breathes out deeply*

if that drops the price of the car, i've offered to pay in the difference. either way, i keep reliving that moment, mounting the island - it's painful and horrible :(

---
sunday:

one of ze germans gave me a ride to work after spotting me waiting for the bus, and there was a supremely awkward moment when he asked me what i was doing, i gave him the usual schpiel, and he said "okay, but can you not give me a general direction? what field is it?"
what harm could it have done? i told him.
"ah, you're working with mmf, huh?"

shit. so much for discretion. mmf was shocked when he heard, but once the cat's out of the bag...

---
sunday was technical fail day. things just weren't working, and i spent a lot of it frustrated. or feeling silly. and i was tired.

---
facebook surprised me by reactivating my online status in the chat, and i discovered that when a guy i went to school with began a conversation with me. i didn't mind talking to him - i quite respect him - but i was working and i didn't have too much time to concentrate. he asked where i was, and i told him. "oh! you're with so-and-so." i didn't say anything, i'd heard that the so-and-so was somewhere in israel but i don't even know where - i certainly haven't seen him anywhere. "yeah, he just gave me some money," he continued, and i found that strange and thought i'd just let it go. i asked instead how he's doing, and his response stumped me:
"poverty."

alrighty then. i'm only just starting to get my life sorted out (and still in a bit of debt, even if my bank numbers are finally in black again), i haven't seen this dude in years, and i automatically felt like i want to help and the whole thing just made me feel awful, and not a little guilty for living well.

i expressed my regret at the news, and pounced on a pause to disconnect, set up the new "limit availability to," and tried unsuccessfully to forget the incident. no dice.

---
lunch was argumentative: i need to chill with our secretary, and accept that her attitude is great for an israeli and kak for a westerner, and at least she's nice about it. she caught me on a point that really pisses me off, though. in israel, you can't be interested in more than one thing. so if i'm making the case for recycling: "you're such a saint! you should dedicate your life to recycling" is a more-or-less traditional response.

how am i a saint? like most people who are aware of what's going with our planet, i'm concerned about sustainability. i'm not making any great sacrifices, i'm living my comfortable, polluting, wasteful lifestyle just like everyone else. the difference is that i'm trying, with the little things, to minimize the damage i do in living that lifestyle. one doesn't need to become a monk to do that.

---
our orientation proposal has been accepted. next semester, i'm going to be teaching first years how to be happy (happier, at least) students. w00t!

---
google+ hangouts: i pulled a trick i learned from chatroulette, joining a hangout with a bunch of friends and holding up an offensive message to my webcam. i logged off as soon as i got a funny response; i must admit that's even funnier when it's people you know. also in the google+ news: circles as opposed to friends means that you can follow anyone's public posts, twitter-style. without obligating the followed to be a follower. not bad, google. not bad. now we just need circles within circles and we'll be mostly happy.

---
it's hard to argue new tariffs with the bus driver on a packed bus with people pushing and shoving from the curb during rush hour. i thought he was confused by the new setup, as a lot of them are. i discovered later he was right, though, and not only that but that it was to my benefit: glilot is covered by the "red" zone tickets, which means that my "cheap" student card takes me all the way to cinema city... and here i thought it ended in ramat aviv :P

---
yesterday:

i had to wake up twice, and *just* missing the bus meant an hour of transport hassles. perhaps it was to pay me back for getting a ride on sunday. i was a bit stuck in my thoughts of the day before, mostly about being disappointingly human but also about accepting the craziness around me.

i also levelled up on self-awareness.

mmf's first question when i walked in: "how do you spell personnel?"
"S-L-A-V-E," i offered.
my boss chimed in without missing a beat: "B-O-T-S." it took mmf a few more tries before we stopped offering alternatives and helped him out :P

we had a pleasant lunch, for a change. i managed to keep a lid on my emotions, even responding calmly when our secretary stated that what i didn't know was that there are scientists who don't think that global warming is a real problem. jesus, we're backwards here.

---
on seeing a religious family of half a dozen children, all i could think of was:
seriously, guys, i think we've been able to check the "be fruitful and multiply" box for a while now... either chill with the procreating, or have a properly violent world war, or get off this rock. this shit just isn't sustainable.

---
norman finklestein was amazing. the chat afterwards was fun, too :)

back to work: i learned that XMLConfiguration doesn't like being used in a logical fashion - at least i got it to work eventually, even if it was arse-backwards.

dinner: the frozen fish were impossible to separate, and we didn't want to defrost all of them. after much struggling we headed out to goocha, and had a great meal. i was *tired* afterwards, and wanted to go to bed, but *OH NO MARINGUES AND BEN & JERRY'S!* and then i passed out.

i woke up this morning with an unhappy stomache [i wonder why?] and ripped another disc before heading out to the bus. i was on time for it, too. i finished the second chapter of heart of darkness, napped a bit, and then rocked up here...

the first item on my priorities list took about ten minutes to secure. that makes me happy. now for the rest of them.

time flies when you're making.... NOTES!

i didn't sleep too late, and i've spent the past seven hours summarizing material to answer a whole half of my second answer. i can't believe how long it takes to produce evidence for things i was totally certain of from the moment i looked at the question :S

note to self: summarize the material the first time. it didn't seem necessary until now :(

aside from breakfast viewing (thanks, tahoma!) and a quick break to be amazed, and going over someone else's paper, it's been a pretty uneventful day.

perhaps i should leave "aristotle is a fan of speed" out of my paper... also, my phone's auto-correct feature translates "freud" to "fraud" automatically. they know something our professor doesn't?

a late email to my mom

DEAR MADAM

WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON,
<totalwaste>, HAS NEGLECTED HIS DUTY,
BOTH TO HIMSELF AND TO HIS COUNTRY, BY
MISPLACING HIS WALLET IN A CAB ON HIS WAY
TO A PLACE OF MERRIMENT.

WE ARE MOST DISAPPOINTED THAT IN
ADDITION TO LEAVING BEHIND A FINE WALLET
AND A LARGE QUANTITY OF CASH TO THE SUM
OF NIS 300, HE HAS ALSO RELINQUISHED
CONTROL OF TWO (2) FORMS OF MILITARY
IDENTIFICATION, HIS CREDIT CARD, AND HIS
DRIVER'S LICENSE.

WE ARE SURE THAT YOU WILL SYMPATHISE
WITH OUR EXTREME SHAME OF <totalwaste>'S
FAILURE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THESE
MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL EFFECTS.

<totalwaste> HAS ASSURED US THAT HE WILL DO HIS
UTMOST TO RECTIFY THE SITUATION, BUT
ALAS, WE ARE HARD-PUT TO CONTINUE TO
PLACE OUR FAITH IN HIM.

WE KINDLY REQUEST THAT YOU WITHDRAW
ANY TENDERNESS THAT IS A DIRECT RESULT
OF YOUR INSTINCTUAL AND INGRAINED
MATERNAL TENDENCIES, AND BERATE HIM
AS ONLY HIS MOTHER CAN.

THANKING YOU IN ADVANCE,

THE BIG WIDE WORLD IN GENERAL