outflow

i'm back from playing ultimate frisbee for the very first time - great game! damn near killed me, though... i'm going to have to practice while i'm away... so i have two things to keep me physically occupied: frisbee and martial arts. it'll be good :)

---
the hardware dude convinced me (with a verification call before leaving work) to get home at 2pm... and then only arrived more than half an hour later :/
he did bring me a going-away present, though (a much appreciated one) and he did good work for less money than the guy who *didn't* rock up the morning before :P

that time was more than enough for me to discover the dirt beneath the couch - i haven't moved it in a while :$

i returned to work, and between the lead and i we finally closed a nasty chapter in our development history :)

i said goodbye to everyone (except the boss, who was busy), and rushed off to tahoma's birthday picnic. on the bus to jaffa, i realized what everyone's been laughing about... the new stickers on police cars inspired the following thought: if i see something that needs to be reported, i'm going to call them up and say "hello! i'd like to participate in the war against crime." before giving them any useful information :P

jaffa has a giant indoor flea market called "supershuk", which translates to "supermarket" :P

i passed a little girl walking in tears, and wished that there was some appropriate / helpful reaction.

the sunset picnic was pretty cool; it was great seeing tahoma and his fiancé, and a couple of the guys from work rocked up eventually and it was nice chatting with them. one of them gave me a ride to the central station - i needed to be at home to meet with someone (who didn't pitch) - the station intrigues me every time as a haven for tangled masses of uncensored and unbleached humanity. the expression "human swarm" comes to mind.

i find it really easy to connect.

i showered and shopped, then went to bed early.

...

i was supposed to wake up at 9.30am on friday to do some things; at 11.30 i got up to a phone call asking where i was. i hopped on the bus and eventually managed to find the place in spite of awfully bad directions... there's a new area in south tel aviv that's just opened up, and it's really nice. breakfast was good, cheap, and fun.

as usual, piles and i had a lot of serious stuff to talk about, like music and studies... i'm still in mentor mode with him :P

he gave me a ride to piercer, who cleaned me up (i haven't been hard enough with my helix) before we did the chilling-on-the-bench chatting and staring at the passers-by. really interesting people :)

i visited the taekwondo group - the instructor just doesn't get why i'm not coming back, even though i keep explaining it to her. i was shocked to see how poorly the students are doing :S

my final sunset roll for the summer was amazing! and educational - one of the guys had a go at me because he didn't like the way i was reacting to idiots hooting. i heard him out, and tried his way - much better. every time someone hooted, we waved and said thanks. the irritated drivers were made to feel silly, and for the rest there's not a lot of positive to be done.

i had thirty minutes to cool down, shower and be ready for the date with pretty girl (pg). the weather wasn't particularly supportive: we walked to the rogatka, and her pace was fast enough to break a sweat :P

strangely awesome vegans? the place is very much to my liking, and the only vegan item they have are hotdogs. everything else is cheap liqor. we drank - and i can drink again! :P

dafna and the cookies gave an amazing performance! two hours, with some really fun and funny adlibbing, and some sounds that were powerful enough to get me high. brilliant! and pg seemed to be enjoying herself, too :)
we had a last round before heading out, and went through my favourite park on the way. i'm guessing we spent at least an hour on the swings, talking and singing and... wait. singing? wow! that *never* happens!

we almost stopped for waffles but continued to my place, where we watched three episodes of invader zim before i walked her home (practically next door). the goodbye was shy but smily, as the entire evening had been. i walked home with a giant grin and a bouncy gait ^_^

---
karnaf woke me up with a coffee call - we sat chatting for quite a while before i went south to have the chef's breakfast with urchin. great breakfast :)
the talk was great too - she's been offered an opportunity to exhibit her photography soon :)

urchin came with me to pick up a key, and made me a really grand offer - she's willing to take care of anything that i don't manage to sort out before i go... *breathes easier*

i was going to begin sorting out my apartment, but decided that a last frisbee session would be a better idea :)

---
i am *SO* glad that i went on that date last night! stupid as it may have been (considering that i'm leaving so soon), i had an amazing time and have met someone that i really like. the alternative was not meeting her, so my only concern is whether or when to be in touch before i go...

---
i dig piraro

comic instructions are exactly what i needed. they don't make me feel any more comfortable with the idea, however...

lists:
weird creatures
super powers
mental conditions

this is how i feel right now :)

all business

now that i've thrown my entire evening to google's reader, i'm feeling up to the immense task of documenting my day.

1) maybe inspired subconsciously by fight club, but last night was sponsored by a well-timed bout of insomnia.

2) i moved SUPER-slow this morning, and somehow made it on time anyway. heck, i even managed to make breakfast and do some sit-ups.

3) i can count six cigarettes i smoked today, which is far less than the last couple of days, but far more than it should be. i've reached the conclusion that quitting smoking right before hitting a major transition phase wasn't the smartest idea ever.

4) i ate too much chocolate today. there's no hope for me.

5) i decided to pull a lame april-fool's on piles; an hour or so later the kid called me up, because it had filtered through to him and caught them both out - and the kid was at home on holiday ^_^

6) at the beginning of the day, one of my co-workers taught me something new and then jokingly warned me not to forget X, where X seems like a ridiculously obvious thing to do and quite hard to skip. i laughed, thinking that i wouldn't be caught out like that, but i suddenly realized this evening that i now have egg all over my face.

7) i was totally hyped by the time i left the office; it was a good day at work. i stopped by azrieli to buy gifts for tomorrow night (passover with kc's family at her parents' place), but there were so many crazies jamming the mall that i just did a quick pass through and escaped as quickly as i could.

8) met up with spot on the bus home, and we stopped off at the cafeneto for an animated recap of the last couple of days. sunshine spared me five minutes, most of which was consumed by a slightly awkward silence.

9) a journalist who remembered me from a previous job over a year ago caught me on my way out, and i sat and chatted with him for a bit before going shopping for chocolate. chocolate makes an appropriate gift, but i think i need to wrap it :S

10) as i said, i totally wasted the evening. and now it's time for bed. during the last couple of hours i've been considering the possibility that i really have changed a lot since i arrived in this country. it's not that i'm not interested in the same things, or don't maintain the same viewpoints (in general, of course): it's that i've finally gotten my life prioritized and i've gotten used to denying myself things that i desire.

so used to it, in fact, that i need to unlearn making myself miserable - i don't need to keep such a tight leash on myself anymore.

universcale is cool. i need a bigger screen.
cute video, ridiculous concept: the wiihelm

moo.com: after a couple of great-looking designs, i scrapped them because i have that much faith in online credit transactions

a space junkyard, for the child in every one of us

chief crazy work-horse

the kid and i just got back from cafeneto - extremely therapeutic. things with sunshine seem alright, and the kid participates when i let off steam... he's like a good therapist :P

today started off dodgy - the anguish begun the day before hasn't abated, and until a couple of hours ago things have just been snowballing (as in getting bigger and bigger, not as in clerks).

it was a mission to get piles to help me take the plastic bottles to the recycling bin this morning. once we were done, i specifically told him - twice to make sure - NOT to throw away the packet. the kid and i were laughing now about the stupid, completely uncomprehending look he gives. halfway back to the office i registered that he wasn't carrying anything.
"what the $#@! did you do with the packet?"
he looks at me totally innocently: "i threw it away. why do you ask?"

most of what i recall from my army day (due to some memory-suppression) is playing spider solitaire. i started the day watching demo videos of ruby on rails with brother bear - friggin' insane, the things they do. it's impressive as hell, and i hope i don't find an excuse to have to use it (i don't do web dev. even when i do, i don't).

in the afternoon, i managed to catch our branch officer earlier than i'd expected. we sat organizing, but there was yet another screw-up on the receiving end and it's out of our control as usual. this is all very frustrating, as i write this i have exactly 1 week and 6 days to go before my release. this is a another tense period of my life.

i organized entry permission for a friend who used to serve on our base, and we milled around for about half an hour before i got back to my solitaire. the late afternoon was a bit of a blur of interesting work-related discussions and me stressing.

-- lying to the cute, well-intentioned girl on the bus --

i hopped off the bus, and walked through to meet ru55's girlfriend and pick up my calculus book. it's bloody heavy. we chatted for 50 seconds, and then i made my way to work (bumping into my tallest's ex, turns out she lives in the area).

my mother sent me an email laughing at me for my idea of studying engineering: most of my family on my mother's side are either in that or medicine :P

work SUCKED. i've now gotten most of it out of my system, the remainder of the evening was insane because my manager was almost as pissed off as me, and demanded that i call the guy - i had to learn his name, find his phone number (harassing a girl i've never met in order to get it), and eventually settle for mass emailing anyway. all this while handling mmf's RFIs (he's tampering with a website) and SxS's girl-friend trying to set me up with some french girl.

the final straw, when i was running late for the bus, was getting into the elevator and feeling something sharp in the middle of my back. i tested with my hand, and there was definitely something bothering me (my heavy bag on my back, not smart to not deal with it). so i hurriedly dropped my bag and was halfway through ripping off the windbreaker when the elevator doors opened.
so i moved my little mission to the foyer, where the guard stared at me in disbelief as i, in disbelief, removed a thick, inch-long nail from centre of the windbreaker's back.

how it got there is an absolute mystery to me, but it's the perfect physical embodiment of where my head's at. i handed the bent nail to the guard as i left, and just made the bus.

inpassing.org is excellent

inbreeding

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

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

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

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

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

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

i don't want to be frotted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

g'nite!

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

^*2but really, really tasty.

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

bill gates for president? got my vote.

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

recovered post from monday!

i'm smashed, hammered, drunk, and i have to go to bed RIGHT now because we have a meeting at 8.30am.

i bussed to bank, banking was most pleasant (i.e. sorted everything out without too much kicking and screaming, and only a little bit of confusion), arrived in time for lunch, piles is amazingly horrible - bloody rude and irritating as hell, but the afternoon was otherwise quite boring.

the kicker came at 16.30 - the kid and i sat in on an hour-long meeting in which we were informed that the next three or four weeks will be spent in a world of pain. if the kind of work that's expected of us was proposed in a civilian environment, a feasibility study would be done, the managers laughed at and the workers would quit.

-- academic signing request of infinite stupidity --

alien history over supper: i'm annoyed that spot watched the bonus disc for alien without me. MORE shocked at the kind of things that were included. the history of that movie is more than just remarkable, it's downright insane.

ha - oracle amusement. that never happens. we just discovered that our provider may have left us a back-door to their database, the only problem is connecting directly to it when we're not certain of their logging system and if we'll get caught bypassing by their crappy api's; it'll be hugely embarrassing for us as a legitimate establishment. but we know how to do it, even if it's not a good idea, and the thought has interesting possibilities.

"it's in development"
"when was the last time a version was released?"

i phoned up our provider to harass them over another issue, and when he gave me the development line i turned into the world's biggest bastard. i had him seriously uncomfortable, and he's now given me enough info to give the bull the upper hand. yeah :)

note to self: do not admit to not including a 6-month-old request in a minor release. it doesn't look good to your clients.

deftones - no ordinary love is awesome. had to mention that. it took me forever to hear the whole song because spot kept interrupting it with interesting bits of information.

thank you nystire:
familiar trouble in the form of a bad atoi implementation
a really bad kind of lie-to-children

we walked to the balcony, i got drunk and had a good time, and then walked the entire way home because i got the minibus taxi route confused. that's the most mental masturbation i think i've ever suffered (although i'm not sober, i could be wrong), and i can't say that it wasn't entertaining.

*dies*

erasing history

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

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

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

cat got the cream?

we'll find out tomorrow when spot gets back. with my katjes.

i missed my bus last night, so i paid for the minibus taxi. terry pratchett - men at arms kept me awake way longer than i anticipated (they were detectoring. you can't stop reading while people are detectoring).

i woke up, showered, shaved, and still arrived on base early. Sorted Things Out. discovered that the kid was in a crappier situation than me. that's not cool. i've stopped caring about piles - i've got more useful things to spend energy on. he's just a stupid kid. thank you, good will hunting, because that's something i did need help dealing with.

the kid and i got all sorts of weird things done today, and then left the base early to view an apartment. it's a couple of hundred metres from spot's place. it's three bedrooms (one's a little small, but not too small), a huge living room, all in decent condition. it comes with helpful things like a huge fridge, oven, stove, dishwasher, washing machine... a well-placed (ie NOT inside a room) shower / bathroom, separate toilet, air-conditioners in every room...

the landlord seems quite decent. the kid's father came to close the deal (we were told there was a couple coming to close the deal two hours later, whether it's true or not, we'd already decided). now to sort out the third tenant, the contracts, and then begin moving in.

and UNPACKING. and LIVING.

i bussed to work, had a good sandwich, only spilled half my coffee all over my desk when the manager walked in while i was watching ultimate utopia xxiii [if you've ever played final fantasy, you *HAVE* to see it!].

other than that, it's been a highly productive evening. and now i'm getting all smug:

i just had a chat with my mom. and she said something that took a few seconds to click into place.
there are less than twelve weeks to go before i return to south africa. before my life turns around completely, piles becomes a speck on my windshield, and the air force transfer becomes a reality.

i can't not continue smiling.

training day

last night i called kc's father to wish him for his birthday. i've finally been invited to join them for the jewish new year :P

i made it *just* in time for the bus this morning. halfway there i managed to catch a seat, so i got to read a bit instead of simply standing like an idiot as usual.

the kid and i got quite a bit of work done, and we managed to throw some important data in the little one's direction. i'm calling him mini-me [edit:piles]. because i have to :D

we went out for a big lunch, to an extremely expensive place in songbird's area. travelling was great, because we all dozed off, and it's kinda far away. the food was great, and there was plenty, so we didn't suffer too terribly.

i can't believe i didn't catch it yesterday: there's been a huge screw-up (something special for each and every one of us seconded soldiers), and the idiots from our original base misunderstood the procedures, and they're treating our base as a physical part of theirs. retards.
i've made sure that if there're any repercussions, they're going down for them.

i went by our branch commander to get a signature for something, and she called me in for a chat. a long chat. an extremely positive and exciting chat that, coupled with the arrival of piles, actually put me in a state of shock. it is unbelievable the difference that it makes having commanders who really care about and look out for their soldiers. and who use their brains. i cannot express in words just how much i appreciate them.

that camp's bay girl (cbg) i met on the phone? she called today, invited me out for coffee on the weekend. very cool.

i've begun giving piles obscure tasks to perform. little missions and things to keep him on his toes and let us see what he's capable of ;)

the bus to work was eerily empty. i got to read some more, quite comfortably. i was just in time for a sandwich, and some good coffee (the cute girl has learned).

yet another replacement: the boss has asked me to begin training one of our dealers to be my second. in one sense it makes me uncomfortable, but if he does have designs to "release" me, at least i have backup for a short while. i hope not, though. i really do like working here.

how not to name your company? TOTALLY.
why do dogs...?