a good saturday

thunderstone last night was really cool, but i'm unhappy that my cards are getting damaged... i need to get plastic covers...

---i don't usually listen to "gentle" music on my ipod, but i left my apartment in awe of simon and garfunkle's lyrics in "leaves that are green (never really thought about 'em before) and smiling at paul's under african skies.

then i walked into starbucks and i am a rock was playing. no way!

i picked up my copy of codex seraphinianus, which is absolutely stunning! i should note that ups has finally sorted some of their shit out! they didn't manage to deliver it but instead of holding it outside of montreal, they left it at the closest ups store. bravo, ups, bravo!

i was next to starbucks so i had coffee and sketched a few more comic panels. i returned home to help my mother with an iphone problem ("have you tried turning it off and on again?") and am now certain that clif is an american company and that it's bleedin' impossible to order builder bars to canada :(

i spent the afternoon checking out aerena (i'm not so sure how i feel about it yet) and redoing hero academy challenges. then i settled down to practice calligraphy... well, not exactly. but writing carefully with nice pens is as satisfying as it is painful - i'm not used to pressing vertically. i was quite pleased with my efforts until i made a mistake when i was almost done: why is there no "undo" button on paper?!?!

buggrit.

anyway, now to apply frankenstein makeup and head to the party.

---apparently vega powders have been contaminated. what the hell, vega?! now i'm praying i haven't been affected :(

...

mama hill is pretty darn inspiring.

misery and company

friday:

mission to medical aid application
the day began with a hunt for my sin card - not something one wants to lose. i'd put it in a logical place but couldn't remember where that was; my memory was not helped by pg's certainty that she'd seen it somewhere else. memories are fragile things. tensions got high.

we were almost there when i remembered that we'd need passport photos. we had left them at home. the only place to get them done would only open in two hours.

we arrived at the place i'd been told was the place, only to be informed that it was the wrong place for what we wanted. by that time it was too late to return to the metro and start again.

the excitement of the first best buy pickup was pre-empted by ups automation frustration: we received authorization to have the package shipped to the local ups store, but the automated telephone service kept denying me access to an agent. apparently, the voice-command system understands expletives. when i eventually managed to get through, i spent a literal half an hour with an agent because my simply request overloaded her humanoid circuits. eventually, almost satisfied that i'd been understood, i was put through to payments and the woman there was efficient and helpful, running through everything that the agent had made a mess of within two minutes and providing me with all the confirmation numbers i could possibly want.

it felt like christmas, after a massacre.

[unpleasant health issue] the sight of large quantities of my blood did not make me feel any better. [i must have over-blown my nose]

then i entered the metro, running super late, and i would have caught the train if it had only stopped. wtf???

...

everything about work was better, except that i was feeling washed out and functionally braindead: people were having to repeat things slowly to me; internally, packet errors abounded.

dinner at godmother's (sans my uncle) was boisterous and incredibly amusing.

pg and i shared an uncomfortable moment on the way home. that was essentially the trigger for saturday's news.

---saturday:

i dragged myself out of bed to go to the bank. the closest branch was closed, so i sighed heavily and hit the metro. the metro was terribly hot and stuffy. i arrived at my branch, and after a quick chat with the helpful guy at the info desk understood that my experience on thursday had little to do with my id, and everything to do with my not having issued a formal withdrawal order. the fool teller only had to tell me that, and i wouldn't have to return again on wednesday :(

i shouldn't have listened to yang: i found breaking bad on netflix and i'm now hooked. it's really as amazing as everyone says.

pg and i watched le crime est notre affaire (a really fun film!) before napping in preparation for nuit blanche. it was upon waking up that we had the rather important conversation that led to my pressing pg into making a call; one sentence was all it took to break off our engagement.

...

the snowfall over nuit blanche was perfect and perfectly fitting. we had a crappy meal at a downtown amir, got the gist of the fireworks (we were behind buildings, and they were still damned impressive), and stared at some excellent building art. the lack of signage and the dodgy nuit blanche app left us wandering aimlessly. getting coffee at the tim hortons was a horrid experience - even with other patrons trying to help us out, the organization was ridiculous and frustrating - and we entered a building that was four levels of utter disappointment.

it was time to go home. neither of us felt like going to sleep, so we drank and played fluxx until quite late.

---sunday:

i woke up late, after long and detailed dreams involving a flood on eastern boulevard and playing with a pit bull puppy. i watched some more breaking bad and then pg offered to go shirt shopping with me. no way was i going to refuse that - i eventually came away with two more shirts and the impression that zara is a place for men who try too hard. but... why the hell can't a man buy simple, cheap collar shirts anywhere?

we had excellent bad mexican food - well, i've heard it's bad but we found it delicious and the service and atmosphere were great - after which i sat with godmother for a long cup of coffee to discuss the disengagement and the way forward.

dinner and galaxy quest: such a great movie! then lots of internet stuffs and now it's bedtime.

ups has downs

if i hadn't been so distracted when i left the office, i wouldn't have left my computer behind. if i hadn't been paranoid, i wouldn't have returned for it. and i wouldn't have found another delivery notice from ups, pasted on the front door of the building and not on our postbox. and the penny wouldn't have dropped. pennies need context, y'know?

so suddenly it hits me with the force of a giant facepalm: ups isn't to blame! our building manager is! the caretaker has assigned us an intercom number that cannot be connected because we don't have a landline!

so asshole delivery man, who of course has neither access to a cellular device (it's only 2013, after all, not every professional can be expected to carry such a thing) nor wits to dial the caretaker's code after nine separate attempts to make the delivery, simply gives up and posts his flyer.

i don't know who i'm frustrated with more, nor how i'm going to stomache paying a monthly bill for an intercom.

what - the - fuck.

delivery failure

again.

i'm hating ups so hard right now. two delivery notices when someone was home at the time, no knocking / calling my phone, and my package is being stored outside of montreal so i'd need to travel on a weekday to go pick it up. what the hell is their added value? how is their delivery strategy not a waste of *their* time???

the tail

right now, i'm both happy and hurting. no, i'm not having one of those masochistic moments. i was sitting at coffeeholic, enjoying my iced-coffee and happily awaiting the arrival of my roast-beef salad when the kid called, informing me that an obscure package had arrived via ups that needed paying for. i didn't recognize the name of the sender nor the company listed (amplifier?!), so i told him not to accept it. when i got home i discovered that it was my penny arcade order. i'm glad / very, very lucky that i managed to get the delivery dude to come back.

i'm excited over the gear that arrived, the books are sweet and the hoodie is super-frikkin' awesome. the poster's a lot smaller than i expected, but that's my fault.

what's painful is that i had to pay NIS 250 for the shipping, because they chose ups. they didn't use ups last time, so i didn't really think that sort of thing would happen. after a pleasant chat with a really sweet-sounding girl in their israeli operations centre, i understand two things:
1) if possible, don't use ups
2) if you must use ups, you have to specify in advance that your order of less than $1000 MUST NOT be regarded as high-priority. you see, if it's a cheap package then they assume you simply didn't spend enough.

"awful" doesn't have an 'e' in it. fine. i get it.

the ups package is what i thought i was going to the post office to pick up this morning, but i was wrong. that pick-up was for this month's wired. they simply don't fit in our mailbox. speaking of wired, the last two copies really helped me get through the past week.

i just got mail from the hospital. i tried to arrange an appointment with them over the phone, but that's not their policy so i had to send them my referral by fax - a horrible story in and of itself.
the mail tells me that i have an appointment with them in just over a week - a date that is simply impossible for me to make.

now i can't get hold of them by phone. they suck.

my snowboard vacation is paid for! now i just need to sort out the transport and everything will be fine ^_^

the last week:

i was super chilled on friday morning, and i got almost all of my homework done on the train. after a lot of bus station confusion we boarded with a girls' platoon, and were informed that we were forbidden to talk to the ladies for the last two weeks of the course.

not a chance.

i've been ill since friday. sickly, exhausted (physically and mentally), a little dizzy at times... it hasn't been too much fun.

friday night i finally clicked with a bunch of the guys, including one of our commanders, over a conversation about movies and gaming. i almost put myself in a bad place when i performed the monster-hands thing from pan's labyrinth: there was a long moment when i thought i'd made a terrible call, and then the dawning of recognition crossed the commander's face and he stopped thinking i was a complete nutter.

reading about shai agassi was quite a pick-me-upper.

i had some strange dreams this past week. a few nights i couldn't sleep at all, during one i managed to kill a mosquito that had been driving me nuts for five hours by slamming my head down on the pillow when the buzzing reached my ear.

we were tested in a number of ways this week - the last period is one of intense paranoia and any mistake could fail us. in fact, a large number of people said goodbye yesterday, and although a couple of the decisions pleased me (the sneaky kid's gone, for example), there were a few that have me quite disappointed. having my commander sit next to me for half an hour, watching me pass by 2% and then making fun of me on his way out the class was not pleasant.

sport's day sucked. i was only told a minute before the volleyball game began that i wasn't in the team anymore. that stung.

ah, that reminds me. there are a number of cadets with me that think that because me hebrew isn't as good as theirs that i'm stupid, and stupid enough that i don't know that they're laughing at me - to my face - and then pretending to be friends afterwards. it's incredibly unpleasant.

in fact, it's specifically that bunch of people that makes me feel like finishing this course is something of survival and not achievement. i haven't actually enjoyed the last couple of months, just a couple of moments here and there. i'm fantasizing about airports and my imaginary apartment that i haven't seen yet. that's where my head's at about 90% of the time.

---why was i thinking about unity?
it was a cold night, and the queue outside the club was doubled back around the parking lot. i'd been inside, dancing like a maniac, my shirt had been off for a while and i was enjoying that clean-sweat feeling. i felt the desire to go to the petrol station to get myself some chocolate, and i headed down the stairs.

i stood at the door, watching the rain drizzling down on the people waiting in line, and seeing everyone huddling together and trying to keep somehow dry struck a chord deep inside me.

i decided that there was no way that i was going to run to the petrol station.

i walked - slowly - all the way there, and all the way back, having made a conscious decision to *enjoy* the sensation (i had waterproof pockets, so i wasn't concerned). i knew i would be warm enough to make the journey, and that i'd dry off (or not :P) by dancing... all in all, not a tremendously ridiculous call to make.

i will never forget the shock and awe that seemed to ripple through the crowd. nor the comments that i overheard, repeated in various forms: "wow! i want whatever that guy's had!"

nope, i wasn't on drugs, people. just will and perspective.

---during the last couple of days i really bonded with some of the guys from the first leg of the course. we're all more or less in the same head-space for the first time since we arrived at our current base, and i finally feel connected again.

apparently i'm still considered a new immigrant as far as the idf is concerned. i don't think this scores me any points, but it's good to know :P

watching a few minutes of some random soccer game, i realized what it is about being a spectator that doesn't appeal to me. if i can't learn anything useful, i don't want to watch.

football (soccer, like), for instance, can be extremely interesting as far as plays are concerned, but overall there's no real strategy involved. watching extreme sports is fun because i fantasize about actually doing those things, even if i'm psychologically limited to staring at the screen (after a couple of nasty rollerblading accidents i've never fully regained my confidence).

anyway, the course is almost done and everybody's going crazy, and now i'm going to see about dealing with my computer issues so that i can upload some designs.

[this post written from ubuntu. i can't figure out how to uninstall / reinstall hardy heron.]