something

 these past few weeks seem like a fever dream, and any moment that i realize that this is all real is jarring and triggers thin tentacles of anxiety creeping through my torso.

i slept alright last night. mr smear woke me up at 6.30am to dutifully inform me that he'd brushed his teeth so that he could get on screens by 7.30am. i wish he was this motivated to get ready for school.

i got up to him playing totally accurate battle simulator, and watched him for a while, developing my usual concern that he won't play the campaign and actually learn anything. eventually *i* took a turn, and went into the campaign, and he cheered me on* while i smashed through what appears to be the tutorial levels.

* by making sure i knew that my strategies were obviously garbage, and then being surprised whenever i won

i watched a bit of why the universe’s expansion doesn’t make sense, it's very calming.

we watched another episode of jujutsu kaisen, and then i piled warm blankets on myself and read a bit of percy jackson until i passed out.

now i'm drinking coffee, listening to SORA 1989, and wondering whether i should be *doing* something or not. i always have a hard time not *doing* anything, but the *do something* mechanism in my brain seems to be offline.

thursday already? part thursday morning

[... continued]

yesterday:

i called up my credit card company to switch to a plan that will give me air miles. it was a long call and involved two "please listen to this recorded voice reading off our terms and conditions in a bored voice"s, and just as we were finishing up and consenting she stopped being able to hear me. i stormed up and down the apartment fretting that i'd have to go through all that again, and after about a minute the connection improved and we were able to complete the call. whew!

on my way out i tried moving some of my music to my iphone, but it refused to sync. that's annoying. another paycheck or two and i think i'm going to pick myself up a newer model.

my morning was dedicated to finishing the build script and i was successful; i took lunch reading daniel burnstein - introduction to quantum-geometry dynamics; i'm only reading a little at a time and i already see what's getting so many people excited!

the moment that i got my build up and running, i excitedly jumped up and looked across to big junior, who had his back to me and was wearing headphones. i should have gone over there, but instead i called out his name. unintentionally loudly, in an otherwise silent open-plan office. the effect was dramatic, extremely embarrassing and i won't be making that mistake ever again :$

the rest of the afternoon saw me combining studying the system and fixing it, breaking only for an emergency junk-food run to the nearby walmart. i've learned a lot about the practical details of streaming video and audio and the limitations of html5 and mobile devices...

boxing was good, but i was most upset to find that i'd left my hand-wraps at home on a particularly sweaty day. i came home feeling good but was too tired to make proper dinner, so i ate badly and posted and crashed.

---i just got up from epic dreams in sepia in an old muscle car, then climbing old stairwells on rollerblades; it was a dream with lots of threads and i woke up with almost nothing but a fallout sensation. i was feeling good, right until i was about to leave the bedroom - i was standing, relaxed, when suddenly a muscle in the middle of my back (the one that pinched my nerve a few months back) spasmed and with horror i felt a chain reaction up to my shoulder. i've stretched a bit and been subjected to a simultaneous massage and lecture about not hydrating enough, and i'm praying that it's not going to mess up my day.

i REALLY don't want to miss training tonight. i'm finally back in action! don't do this, body. please.

---what's in a name? rather a lot, apparently.

rewrite

i experienced a soul-crushing moment today, when i realized that after a long time working on his mandate to upgrade a system i constructed - most of my time on the original spent creating libraries to make development quicker, easier and more secure - imperieux had been rewriting the system from scratch instead. this is exactly like cam2, except that this system actually works and does what it's supposed to do, but it's now incompatible with the previous system and that's going to cost us in integration :'(

well, that's what happens when you're overloaded and you delegate. this sucks.

...

on a related note, but in the other direction: one of our developers has been bitching about work that one of the previous interns did badly, and he called me over to show me something he was struggling to read and translate. i looked at it, then looked again, and realized it was something of mine :$

---i left work much later than i'd have liked (working around robocopy, which doesn't work as advertised), and was long out of time to eat before training so i made do with a protein bar. i didn't feel too good by the time i arrived in the gym, the short jog had worn me out and my abysmal failures with the jump rope had me a little dizzy; i was hesitant to continue, and considered just saying "i can't" and leaving.

but i didn't. it wasn't an easy training, but once i'd warmed up i started doing the right things, and even though i was partnered with the slow guy (he doesn't seem to understand any of the exercises) i left feeling very positive.

...

you know you're shadowboxing well when:
"dude! are you alright?!"
"i'm fine, you should see the other guy..."

...

the final part of the training was very exciting - we were working on the heavy bags that up until today have dealt more damage to my legs than vice-versa, and this time i came out on top! it's the little victories...

---check out this brilliant summary on exoplanet detection!

piraro being serious is quick and fun to read.

is $120 to drive a lamborghini galland through two laps (less than five minutes) on a race course worth it? because that's how much they're charging. i compared the per hour rental cost of a ford fiesta to its purchase price ($2.5/hr : $20k) and this deal to the lambo's ($1440/hr : $210k). although i suppose using the track might be expensive... that expensive?

optional attendance

question of the day: why do salt and vinegar miniature rice cakes need milk ingredients???

---i gulped down the vega one this morning, and it was far easier to swallow. i'm not sure that counts as a positive review, but it's definitely better than not getting enough essentials.

four below zero is meaningfully colder than three below. my nose hurt and i thought it was going to be properly red by the time i got into the metro. by comparison, one below in the afternoon was nothing worse than "bracing".

i had a lot of database stuff to do today and instead got caught up in fine-tuning jira. the good news is that the development head is getting comfortable with my processes, and his suggestions are easy to integrate because we seem to be thinking along the same lines. i'm very pleased.

i pitched an idea to the money guy today, and i hope it's valid. other than that, we had a long status meeting in the afternoon after which i introduced myself to the new guy; i'm very excited because it seems that we share a common vision regarding the company's transparency and cultural integration, which i believe is really important.

i met up with pg at the apartment, we put the table together and began on the bed but then ran out of time and hurried back for dinner. she and my aunt went shopping today and organized everything we need except for an internet connection. i'll get to that in the morning (now that i know who i want to call).

---dinner was surprisingly pleasant, good-humoured and friendly-like, but when my cousin and i started arguing* my uncle decided that i'm an offensive know-it-all and i argue with everyone on principle. talk about the pot calling the kettle black. my cousin and i were using the internets to make our cases while his father continued to mouth off and eventually he agreed that he was in the wrong.

but that didn't matter, my uncle had had a bad day and had been taking it out on everyone else before dinner, so i guess it was my turn after. in the moment of calm afterwards my cousin and i had a serious talk about life, the universe and kak fathers, and i think we're finally on the same team again. as for my uncle, that's three of us that'll be all too happy to get out of here ASAP. pg and i have a bed to put together, and sheets that my aunt has presented us, and the cutlery and crockery that they bought together today, so i guess the internet connection really is the last hurdle.

* the calibration error that shook the world with neutrinos travelling faster than light, which was little more than sensationalism and dodgy science (google is your friend)
* that jellyfish aren't considered a life-form (seriously?)
* that sharks are incapable of swimming under three-foot tall shark nets (google is your friend)

---i fired off an email to the ceo in an attempt to salvage options that i *forgot* to negotiate, and i hope it's not too late. i hope and pray that my request doesn't cause offense.

jumping down

well, we've established that snowdon would be a fantastic place to find an apartment. when we get back from toronto we'll get on that.

in the meanwhile... as impressed as i am to hear that felix baumgartner has succeeded in doing something so amazing, i'd be even more impressed if i could easily find footage of the jump itself (as opposed to talking heads, the balloon going up and a few seconds of the landing)... oh, look! i found it.

awesome!

we settled in to watch my neighbour totoro. what a cute movie! it's so incredibly cuddly, sweet and touching that i almost didn't notice that there was barely a plot and that not much happened. endlessly aesthetically pleasing, so if that's what you're into then it's definitely worth a watch.

submission revisited

so... the speed of light is safe. perhaps... perhaps journalists should be made familiar with the scientific process as part of whatever other rites of passage they supposedly undergo?

---
thursday:

i managed an early morning breakfast with my niece, followed by line anxiety at the post office, before heading off to class. co-conspirator stole the show, so i spent her part of the lesson comparing comic scripts to their resulting artwork and daydreaming of an aphex twin version of edgar allen poe's annabel lee, which is apparently about necrophilia.

i spent the couple of hours after lunch working on my seminar paper, finally submitting it (!!!) before walking into an incredible anime screening: i don't even recall the titles of the different series we watched, just that they were all breathtakingly well made and interesting.

i rushed back home, exhausted, and power-walked with pg to the climbing wall for a productively painful evening. we were both sore afterwards... "this shit" fingers :P

dinner... and work.

---
friday:
i got to bed after posting, and woke up in the early afternoon. after bits of not doing much, i went to meet urchin for coffee before hitting levontin 7 for a fantastic poetry reading in honour of karen alkalay-gut. the performance by roy yarkoni and yael krauss of panic ensemble was amazing.

i joined a couple of college buddies for drinks afterwards, then scrambled to get home in time for dinner with pg's family, which was pleasant. when we got home, we got through half of life of brian before conceding that we need subtitles for pg :(

---
i don't know how i feel about the queen of england, or her birthday. but i know how deep fried man feels.

oh, well. at least the future is coming: we can print body parts, now.

whiskey tango foxtrot?!

whiskey tango foxtrot?!

tuesday: bloody tuesday.

it was scr's birthday, and our first communication was when he woke me up to tell me that all of our systems had crashed after i'd flooded them with too much data. i... i broke a cloud database. in less than twelve hours. that's kind of embarrassing.

it took half an hour on the phone to explain to him what needed to be done, and then i passed out again. the later part of the morning was peaceful except for a tense call to our isp to renew. 1.5 megabits is no longer available (why not?!) so we had to upgrade to 10, which costs almost twice as much... but at least there's no lock-in, so if we leave the country soon we can say goodbye without a fight.

---the weather was pleasant, although a bit chilly for my having left the apartment without a sweater. no matter, i wasn't going to see much of the day anyway - after a couple of hours of things being cool, they began to go awry and i suddenly found myself in a scene straight from a hollywood emergency moment, red lights flashing and systems goings down and nothing to indicate why.

it was all very intense, and i developed a nasty headache. a major part of the problem is that microsoft upgraded the cloud servers before upgrading the enterprise manager, and not all of the functionality is available through the cloud interface: we have synchronization issues up the wazoo, and things that are only accessible through the enterprise manager sometimes fail because of the versioning. and there were a bunch of errors that were only detectable when the procedures were run under very specific conditions, which is really unfortunate for emergency handling.

once i got through that nightmare, i discovered that on top of sunday / monday's misunderstanding about certain functionality (in my defence, i'd double checked with the boss and received his blessing, only to discover the next day that he'd thought he was okaying something else), in my hurry to fix it i'd missed a really important side-effect.

*sigh*

if nothing else, at least everyone now agrees with me that we should focus on stabilizing the system before adding new features.

---
i burned an hour studying complex regex strings, trying to figure out what wasn't right - a co-worker suggested i try the same string on a web tester, and it was then that i understood that the application we use (regexbuddy) is broken.

*raises clenched fist at the sky*
DAMN YOU!!!!

---
when the memorial day siren started up, i was still at work. i found myself staring at the home key on my keyboard, which i find a bit too iconic.

i left at 9, and all i wanted to do was alcohol swab my headache away.

---
yesterday:

i slept late and woke up with an hour to go before the next siren. not wanting to be outside for it (i don't have a straight answer for why not), i shortened my run to 5km and increased my pace.

the difference between jogging and running is tremendous. i think i need to run more.

---
i spent most of the day online, working very little and catching up very much.

the argument from yesterday? it's still bothering me now. firstly, because i didn't check the first link that sj posted (the others responded to it), and it's complete and utter rubbish. he later sent me this link, contradicting the addiction argument but still claiming hollywood flashbacks happen. they do not. for more see this and this.

secondly, in the aftermath of the private argument i have remembered something crucial about sj. i haven't seen him in over a decade, and because i tend to give people the benefit of the doubt i let him lead me on that he'd grown up a bit. i've remained wary of him, i just couldn't remember precisely why (although an incident with him dating a friend of mine and really messing her up was not forgotten). now i know why: because he lies. easily.

"i did psych you didnt, sane is a term i can use [...] its the same crap addicts spew at me in counceling" [sic] - as i told him, he sounds like he'd be the worst councillor ever. he also sounds like someone who hasn't even studied pop psychology, let alone been in academia. so a brief look through his cv and... hmmm... nope, no tertiary education. thought not.

---
in the evening, i went out to do some shopping, returning home laden with two giant bags. the idea was to be somewhat traditional and use independence day as an excuse to guzzle steaks.

after another horrid cooking experience, we watched aliens (whoops! i confused 2 and 3, and 2 interested pg even less than alien :( ) backgrounded by the booming of fireworks. after that we both crashed.

---
today:

first breakfast, most of this post, a little more time in bed, second breakfast (the last steak was much more cooperative), the rest of this, and then it'll be time for housework before the usual gamers arrive in the evening. between yesterday and today, my conclusion that i'm in dire need of a holiday has received experiential approval.

---
of potential interest in addition to educational value: phd on the higgs boson

bizarro on earth day - not amusing, but interesting nonetheless.

nutrition:

chocolate vs chronic fatigue syndrome

do not place baby in shopping cart

americans aren't stupid

so aside from the green card scam, i had a day at work wherein i made a bit of progress but didn't give a damn about it. on my way out my boss offered to get me a book on css, an offer i declined without hesitation.

do not want.

in the other office, i fine-tuned something that was giving us trouble and convinced the boss that the change i requested to make last week (a request that was slammed immediately at the time) is a good idea for a number of reasons. it looks like it'll be a fun challenge, and when we succeed i'll have less bureaucracy to deal with during my night shifts :)

wordsworth gave me a ride to co-conspirator's birthday sleepover; i would've slept over if i didn't have other responsibilities... her attitude towards her birthday was a bit off-putting, though. i almost decided against going just because she was testy about it being important.

it's just a birthday.

the food was pretty good, but although it was nice to see everyone the arrangement was a tad awkward. once things got going i settled in, however, and overall the experience was pleasant and i might have enjoyed staying the night...

coming back home was a bit of a mission - i think all the buses i needed were finished for the night. pg had already gone to bed by the time i walked in, but i discovered something at my desk that made me smile and say: "best - girlfriend - ever". a pillow re-sewed to the first step of an invader zim-style costume (think bloaty's pizza hog).

*sigh*

---
stupid is as stupid says: a denier of global warming writing for the wall street journal?
more slamming of the same moron

when throats bite back

and much like michael jackson, osama died too long after i stopped caring about him for this news item to move me.

---how could i forget the great rollerblade railgrinding i walked past last night? i tried to sneak a video, but i think they noticed and suspected that i was going to report them because they disappeared immediately :(

...

i had an early wake up, an awkward shower around the stitches in my leg, and i've been sensitive about it all day. especially after scratching it in the middle of the night: that *hurt*, and for a while. i can't believe the hole required is more than an inch long sewn up.

i read a touching story while waiting at the clinic about siblings who were separated during the holocaust and only recently discovered that they weren't the only survivors. pretty crazy.

the breath test went fine, and then i discovered that the pills i'm supposed to take contain lactose so i immediately went to harass the doctor. i don't need that shit again.
good heavens, i finally made it to the doctor and forgot to discuss getting my iron levels tested :/

it was fortunate that i went to see him, though, because i caught obama on osama while i waited.

campus: i almost stopped to donate blood, but they told me they'd prefer it if i had breakfast first. i thought of returning afterwards, but then remembered that i'm not feeling well so while it might be good for me, it might not necessarily be so for whoever receives my blood. i ran into bt when i went for breakfast - i don't think she recognized me :)

i read some more over breakfast, then headed upstairs to class and got caught in the passageway when the sirens sounded. i was distracted and annoyed because there were girls in my class who didn't stop talking loudly the entire time :@

i missed half the lecture because i simply didn't have the energy to follow. not good. i was going to copy someone's notes but a really annoying girl was busy with the copy machine, and her idea of "not long" is worlds away from mine. i gave up, and went to the graduate lecture on publishing articles.

it was fascinating.

it ended with an inspiring conversation with another student about studying in canadia, which was so interesting that the cookies i'd had my heart set on had disappeared from the table by the time we were done.

i went to visit wr, the only man i know who can get lost within the simplest of architecture. he's had my book for almost a year, still hasn't read it and can't seem to remember to bring it. no more lending him things.

i had a great, albeit expensive lunch (and continued reading), then went to (old) work. i met with the boss, then discovered that the test server was still down so i busied myself with other stuff. after an off-the-wall meeting with one of the clumsiest communicators i've struggled with (although at least he didn't stop trying), i sat with a co-worker who's so good with communication that a short time later he'd produced his first (dirty) ambient trance track. and it's decent. we have plans.

i had some trouble with flex, but worked through it and was most pleased that my changes held up in spite of their speculative nature - i couldn't find appropriate documentation anywhere :P

i tried working on my paper for thursday when i got home, but i was distracted. primarily by my throat, but the crappy movie pg watched didn't help at all. it was so bad that i couldn't keep my mouth shut - and then we discovered that i'd actually seen the ending once before.

pg called me a "looseless user" earlier. she has a thing for spoonerisms...

i eventually did the test i was dreading, and it's much easier the civilian way. the army made it terrible.

*ah*, the civilian life. i do so like it ^_^
*cough* *cough* *hack* *cough* *painful swallow*

---a dark matter primer: simply brilliant!

what's her name?

the only problem with the work completed last night: forgetting to change to target of the alert sms's from myself to yogi. two of our servers went down today, and were sorted out, and each state change i had to forward the sms's to yogi manually. there's something eerily primitive about sending them without using my apps :P

our local smelly hobo terrorized the bus this morning. he's seriously offensive, i don't care what his derangement is. he can transform a practically empty bus into "standing room only" in under three minutes.

---i achieved legendary status today, when i produced (as usual, now) my "spirit of the IDF" poster during inspection. the big-boss discipline officer (not the cute girl) walked through, and stopped to check me out.

"what's this?" (part of his job description is controlling his smile, but there's definitely a slight upturning)
"it's my 'spirit of the IDF'."
"don't you have the little one we provide?"
"yes, but you know i have problems reading hebrew." (at this point he's actually smiling. i'm at breaking point, and people around are giggling hysterically)
"so what? this version is in english?" (it's obviously not in english, big smile now, i'm starting to smile. and shake a little, if i don't play this right, i get court-martialled)
"no, it's just that the bigger letters make it easier for me to identify the words."

at that point, somebody on the other side of the court shouted "he has strong belief in the spirit of the IDF!". everyone burst out laughing, and he just made some strangled noises and moved on to the next person.

instant hero ^_^
the only problem is now i have to carry the damn poster around all the time, 'cause he's going to try to catch me out. totally worth it.

---morning coffee - a girl i'm friendly with took a cigarette from me, lit up, and said: "your name's <totalwaste>, right? you don't know what mine is, do you?"
i was stumped. i guessed something kinda close, but that didn't cut it :S

when i got back into my office, i received an IM from our branch secretary.
"hi, i'm the new secretary. do you remember my name?"
DAMMIT! not - even - a clue! and she's super cute, and i've been flirting with her for weeks now!

the kid and i took a walk to sort stuff out, then returned to break our heads over the ass-backwards snapshots that our predecessors defined. it was all very confusing.
after having a huge fight with the mongoose over the phone, over something INCREDIBLY moronic, our team went out for lunch... i had excellent spaghetti and meatballs (it's been years), and a good chat with the kid afterwards.

i passed out in the car on the way back to base, and it took a while to get my head together once we got there. when we walked into our office, our resident DBA just *happened* to be sitting there <evil grin>, so we pulled her into the fray. at least we weren't alone in scratching our heads, but she eventually managed to figure it all out, and presented us with possible solutions.

i paid for her time with marshmallow hot chocolate. hell, i made for the entire team while i was at it, and we still have marshmallows left >D

during this time, i got a call from an apparently very cute camps-bay girl staying in israel for a year. it's a bit odd to meet a person over the phone for the first time, but i impressed myself by lasting almost 10 minutes - and i ain't no talker. sounds like a cool bird ;)

between the kid and myself, we managed to get the issues all sorted out, we did it the way it was meant to be done (ie. understandable. efficient.), and what was left of the afternoon was fairly quiet.

a few of us went off to "supper" early, and had a really cute and playful fight with some pretty course girls pushing to get ahead of the queue. the food was alright, the view was pleasant, and the sense of "thursday afternoon!" was strong :)

almost at work, when nystire hopped on the bus in his spanky new uniform. hah! they stripped him of his rank! [nystire: i know. nevermind.]

we spent about half an hour talking (missing spot on the elevators was unexpected, but murphy's always at it), organizing and drinking coffee.
i forgot the name of the really cute girl that works at the coffee shop. after she screwed up all our coffee last night (too much cream, not enough coffee), i gave her extremely specific instructions on how to prepare the four different cups. when she asked if i wanted it strong, i replied that i want my brain to explode from the overdose.

she made that coffee *just* right ^_^

---my charge's mom (haven't heard from them in a while) is going crazy: this kid's just been offered a really decent job in the army, and he wants to turn it down because he doesn't want any part in killing anybody.

so i've agreed to have a nice, long chat with him over the weekend. aside from the IDF's overzealousness in "purity of arms" (funnily enough, the first major section in "the spirit of the IDF" that i can understand), the whole point of serving in the army is to protect life, not destroy it. and this is one kid who could definitely use army-style guidance.
i suppose this can be seen as me doing some community service... no?

aside from remembering to change the sms targets, and a couple of calls to the states - my contact's leaving the provider, so i'm dealing with a fresh 'un, my evening's been pretty quiet. another 45 minutes, and then i'm off to chill at the balcony, and probably call it a week :P

a lightening-fast week that followed a blazingly fast one? crazy. what's going on? is the world spinning faster?

spot and i had a rather amusing conversation on his way out. if you're in an elevator and the cable snaps, sending it plummeting: assuming that you're not screaming like a little girl, if you jump up - can you lie plastered to the ceiling?
got me thinking of being pushed out of a plane at 10,000ft in a box with the bottom weighted... you could charge big money for the ride ;)

nutter.
throw away the spoon
israeli crap proves useful
soothing the serial killer
earworms