sad - hopeful - sad

monday:

it was supposed to be a half day, but ended up being more like three quarters because one of my coworkers and i were stuck investigating sunday's mystery. we managed to narrow down where the mystery is occuring, but it's still a mystery. at least we could put a plaster over it in the meantime and our boss has prioritized root-causing it.

it was a quiet afternoon, mostly just listening to galgalatz and contemplating the hostages, the victims, the fallen soldiers...

... and experiencing a flood of political discussion in a group of apparent "movers and shakers" that gco instroduced me to.

the switch to independence day was somber. we ordered burgers (delicious, but i really shouldn't have eaten all the fries), and then i took mr smear for a walk.

it's hard to say "chag sameach" right now, and it feels like most of us are feeling that. but i'm overflowing with gratitude and hope nonetheless.

we went for a walk down to what's now known as "hostage square", and saw thousands of people packed tightly in support of our hostages and their families. then we walked through a huge park filled with kids doing that annoying foam thing that they always do, safe and laughing and living their best lives.

the streets are slightly more somber than they should be, but we're here. we're not going anywhere. we made it out of egypt, we made it through the desert, we made it through short exiles, and we made it through thousands of years of exile. we made it through inquisitions, we made it through pogroms, we made it through the holocaust, we made it through 76 years (and counting) of intense wars against enemies who have never stopped seeking to destroy us.

we'll make it through this tragedy, this pogrom, this war, this torture, and we'll make it through whatever else the world has in store for us. there is no part of this story that is anything less than miraculous, and if we stick together and work hard, there's no reason for the future to be any less so.

🇮🇱 am yisrael chai . עם ישראל חי 🇮🇱

mr smear and i also picked up vegan donuts on the way home for yesterday's breakfast:

yesterday:

we managed a good start to the day, and left more or less on time for ze germans' barbeque. it was a really fun day, and good to spend time with the whole bunch (including mmf), but there were some highlights: mr smear trying to learn how to operate the grill from one of the older kids, enjoying the swimming pool and figuring out flippers, and ru55's eldest catching him vaping weed and deciding that his dad's a criminal (fortunately they resolved that by bedtime, but goddamn his kids are smart and had loads of good arguments).

we got home early enough to have a pretty easy evening.

today:

i've been sturggling with allergies rather badly today.

the morning started off well enough, but the conversation i was having with mr smear on the way to school took a bad turn and we said goodbye on shaky terms. then i came home, did grocery shopping and fretted about finances, and was busy with banking when mr smear's teacher called and asked us to pick him up (he apparently wasn't feeling well, but we smell bullshit). at least gd was able to handle that.

they weren't back by the time i was ready to go to the office, but when i saw i caught them by surprise on my way out i mean that i saw them a way off, hid behind a bush, and scared them so badly that gd proper screamed and mr smear lost his footing. i mean, they do that shit to me all the time, so it's fully deserved, but it also appeared to make mr smear's day much brighter :P

the work day was long, but ended well. i ate too much, though (falafel for happy hour) and i had a hard time (as usual) keeping my eyes open during our meetings.

i got home in time for the first in a series of talks about the state of the middle east by people from all over: it was a lot longer than i anticipated (two hours), and some of it was hard to get through (in particular, a lecture in arabic via an interpreter), but there were some fascinating things said (assuming that what was said was true) and overall it was an intriguing experience.

i spent the rest of the evening (until recently) translating a video about adi kaploun into english for it to be shown in canada; gd agreed to try translating it into québécois french but i'm not sure if she can stomache it...

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.

sprung spring

what a ridiculously magnificent day! i've spent most of it inside, preparing for my exciting job interview tomorrow, but every step i've taken outdoors has been magically spring. i should probably go out for another coffee just for an excuse to be outside again... he writes, sipping from the cup of tea he just made...

---friday:

so i went out on friday night to meet a woman i'd been planning a date with since before i met aaa, already assuming that it'd just be a pleasant evening. the metro was overloaded, apparently due to line issues, and i walked out of the vendôme station into the pouring rain. there was a long line for the bus so i decided to walk instead, which seemed like a mighty good idea when i arrived at sherbrooke to discover that most of the road was missing. which would kinda explain the traffic.

i enjoyed walking in the rain; it wasn't too cold... i was about halfway there when i received an sms from aaa which was pleasantly positive! good timing :P

i walked into honey martin and was met with a heavy bar smell, thick air and drunkenly loud, friendly voices from cozily crowded tables and benches. it was welcome respite from being drenched! my date arrived five minutes later, both of us quite pleased that i'd managed to secure a couple of seats.

it was a really nice evening! if it wasn't for aaa, i would definitely invite her out for a second date. we'd just started on the second round of guinness when she dropped a bomb: "i don't understand the whole dating scene. i only ever go out on first or second dates..."
oh, man. and here i was setting her up for another of those?! what a shitty move! and we'd had (and then continued to have, in spite of my guilty conscience) such a good time connecting on so many different topics, including raising children - this is relevant because she's got a five year-old daughter. oh, i knew that before, in case you were worried. i'm cool with that.

she gave me a ride to the metro station and i said goodbye in the nicest non-committal way i could, grateful that she didn't push me into saying anything final. i walked off wondering if there's a delaying tactic i could use to see if aaa and i work out first? is that totally uncool? it feels uncool. but that's society for you, you're not allowed to like more than one girl at a time... and aaa was pretty clear before we met that she's not interested in open relationships.

...

aaaaaaanyway, there was a terrible, funny moment when the bartender came to our table to take orders, which she hadn't done before. i'd received changed from the first round and given her half, but my coin pouch was in my wet jacket so i kept the remaining coins in my hand or on the table. this girl didn't hesitate, she glanced at the table and just lifted them! i wasn't going to argue with her because that's definitely not alright, but she totally forced a double tip. i was not impressed.

...

it was really, really cold on friday night. maybe it was the moisture, because the temperature wasn't low at all.

---yesterday:

i slept great, though i woke up with my back still uncomfortable. i rewrote my resume according to what one of the recruiters had told me - though i think she's an idiot so the rewrite may be a mistake - and that entailed trawling through my blog to line up dates. which led to me labelling a bunch of unlabelled posts, which is always engrossing.

...

on my way to yoga the woman from h&r called. she's managed to reduce the rate from $300 to $160. ummm.... no. thanks, but no thanks.

...

i had ten or fifteen minutes to warm up before my instructor arrived, so i wrapped up and worked on one of the bags for a while. i wear one of my pairs of '99 mr. price specials for yoga, and didn't think it'd be a problem for kicking (i wore them when i started taekwondo in 2001)... so i wasn't impressed when they split down the front. at least it wasn't so bad, but i hate the fact that my favourite clothes are falling apart. anyway, i went to do pull-ups and was surprised to find myself holding my body almost horizontally and doing them with ease, right until the last two which surprised me by throwing my back out completely.

bad, bad timing. DAMN.

anyway, the yoga wasn't bad and my frustrating back didn't get in the way too much. one of the guys from boxing joined us and was just as impressed with the instructor as i am :)

i tried taking a hot bath when i got home but that did nothing for me. i made pasta (using the medium-firm tofu and runny sweet-and-chilli sauce) and it came out a bit rough, and finally spoke to my toronto cousin who i've been playing telephone tag with for about two weeks now. aaa and i chatted a bit and she's still sending mixed signals. it's a thing, i think.

i spent an hour or so sewing my pants while watching house which has just become available on netflix. nice! i ate a lot of junk food. yesterday and today. i'm not entirely proud of that.

i found a digitized copy of my discrete math book and loaded it onto my kindle, reading it on the metro and in starbucks* just before entering résonance for the mile end poets' festival event for the evening**.

* a woman was describing some dramatic event to her friend so loudly that it felt as if the drama were happening right there. not very nice.

** i've missed all the other events, which is a shame.

i arrived five minutes late, they were just beginning the sound check. after enough time spent waiting for events to begin in montreal, i have reached the conclusion that montreal and israel operate on similar ideas of time and truth about time. it's unprofessional.
anyway, the sound check was actually pleasant to listen to, as opposed to the horrors i'd associated with the place.

first, my criticism regarding the restaurant. it's hipster vegan. i wish that didn't mean anything, but the table i sat down at was filthy and had the previously seated's half-eaten meal on it. i was there for about two hours, and the waiter only cleared that shit about ten minutes before i left. when i ordered a cider during the intermission, i was asked where i was sitting and i pointed my table out. i returned to my seat and resumed reading my kindle; the waiter, when he arrived, softly asked the people at the table next to me if they'd ordered anything. i only registered that something was going on after he'd walked away, so i had to run after him to get my drink. i almost felt bad for asking "would'a been nice if he'd asked everyone, huh?" so loudly, but didn't because the whole hipster-apathetic thing doesn't do it for me and, after a cue from the main poet, i began to suspect that the dude's glasses weren't prescription. just sayin'.

okay, first up: jason. is it this jason? i'm not sure. but the dude is essentially a one-man band playing deep, dark sounds that i would've been even more excited by had they not been so darned LOUD. because they're discordant, in an impressively touching way. reminiscent of godspeed you black emperor.

second: karen fennel. she's funny, and has some extremely clever ideas, but i didn't like her actual performance. at all.

third: ian keteku. holy crap, what i've found on him online doesn't do him any justice. clever, beautiful poetry presented by a guy with a good sense of humour who knows how to flip to dark and serious on a dime. i see why he's famous on the slam circuit.

finally: emma frank and her band. really not my taste in music, though it was obviously great for what it was. at some point i just couldn't take any more, though, so i upped and left. i got home to an email from aaa, and i responded. then i responded again to clarify. then i realized that i'd just sent a mixed signal of my own. i hope she got the right meaning.

---today:

i slept well, woke up slowly, then got up and found my back still hurting. over breakfast i was listening to french radio and i really feel like my listening's improving...

i went out for coffee and shopping, the stunning sunny morning was sweater weather and i really, really wish that i could dress precisely like that all year round! everything felt right with the world ^_^

...

the guy ahead of me at starbucks had forgotten something on the counter and jumped across me to get it. i immediately stepped to the left, right onto the toe of the idiot behind me. why - would - you - stand - so - close - to - me???
oh, she's arabic. that's why. middle-easterners, i'm trying to escape that shit. please let me go.

i don't know if she was trying to be cute by repeatedly complaining after i repeatedly apologized.

...

today's been off and on as far as focus is concerned, i hope i'm going to be ready for tomorrow!

i've been sitting at a table for the past couple of weeks when using my computer and i've decided that that might be why my back's unhappy. so i returned to my standing desk a couple of hours ago and it seems to be helping a little.

oh, and fp called to tell me that this evening wouldn't be good for a quick visit, and asked if i wanted to meet during the week. so i bit the bullet and told her "not really". she's clearly unhappy that i'm not interested in giving her another shot, but as flattered as i am by that i'm looking for something with a bit more spark.

over the phone or in person, that doesn't feel very good.

right, coffee and studying. and then an early night.

---oh, and israelis lighting up in a news studio as a sign of protest. good show, guys. good show!

quick burn monday

i tried to wake up early this morning. i guess i succeeded, but it required a snooze or two. i was so comfortable! not even sleepy, just... comfortable.

that turned to discomfort as soon as i got up, my throat's screwed again. this sucks. and my stomache wasn't too impressed with me either. i felt a bit woozy most of the morning.

when i walked past my calendar i was horrified to discover that i'd written down my mother's surgery date correctly but remembered it wrong! i remembered tuesday, by the time i sent her a message she was already prepped and didn't know what day it was. either, my aunt gently chided :$

i played with java and algorithms until the cleaning lady called me to tell me she'd be bringing a few french movies to vendôme metro for me, so i headed down there to meet her. she told me she'd been the victim of a rather sophisticated phishing attack this weekend, and while she's dealt with the credit card fraud her computer's still compromised. i told her what to do and i've offered to help her re-install her system on the weekend... at least she appears to have learned her lesson :/

i returned, ran laundry and continued practicing, then went to the language meetup. gods, the more i spoke the more difficult it became and i ended up feeling utterly useless. ohshitohshitohshitohshit.

---i picked up some flowers and took them to godmother's, where we had a really nice dinner. delicious, and uncle hate was mostly being pleasant. my aunt in cape town kept trying to call me on skype when only my phone was logged in (i don't allow calls on 3g, and it only alerts me when i get messages), so godmother explained all the details and it sounds like my mom's all clear (crossing fingers anyway). i'll get to speak to her tomorrow, at least.

the one thing that bothered us both is that my mother didn't tell us anything earlier. my mother's always saying how silly it is not to discuss things when one needs support, and suddenly she's guilty of the same behaviour? but then godmother said that yin had told her that she'd probably behave the same way, and i guess that's true of me too to a degree.

---during the afternoon i'd been speaking to pulse, and after dinner i went over to her place for a cup of tea. what i understood from the bus driver's rapid-fire french was that if i want to know when to get off i should keep my eyes peeled. thanks, buddy.

the half hour i spent with pulse was nice, but i feel friend-zoned. that's not a big deal, but i found myself a little too self-conscious while we talked.

the snowstorm i walked out into was unbelievable. mesmerizing, i was listening to tool and watching the flakes spin like little disco balls in the street's light in swirls like a screensaver that could have been an underwater scene or a space one. i had to keep forcing my attention back to the street so that i wouldn't miss my bus.

it was chilly in the metro. i've never noticed the giant vents above the tracks that stream air from an area visible through giant glass panes - tonight that air was cold and we all had to stay covered up.

i've done some more reviewing of my friend's book because i was reading on the metro. there's nothing more frustrating than a fantastically good set of ideas executed with less than fantastic commitment. some of the issues are so ridiculous that it just seems like he got lazy, as if he knew what he wanted to say and got bored trying to share it coherently. i wonder if i'll ever be invited to critique him again after this...

---at godmother's, we watched a bit of the news.

the situation in ukraine is really sad.

the malaysia jet is still missing, but it's not the first to disappear mysteriously. what the hell? shouldn't we be doing something to fix this?

snowden's still on the run for protecting the americans from themselves but speaking to sxsw? cool, but sad too.

ah-ha! a positive drug story. colorado reaping the benefits of legalization

reset, re-rooted

how do i describe the indescribable? this weekend was defined by magic, an introduction to the ledhedz bus, a small subset of the afrikaburn community and what's apparently called techno but doesn't sound anything like what i thought was techno. i'm officially a convert!

chasing that with a hike up to the top of table mountain on a gorgeous day only served to reinforce my reconnection to this city's power.

the past couple of weeks have been incredible, i feel reset and reconnected, and i'm quite bummed about the fact that there're only another couple of days left before i'm out of here. i love montreal and i know i can't stay here, but i really don't want to leave!

---friday:

i was going to go shopping but decided to spend the stunning sunny afternoon on the beach with sagirl instead - a much better idea! after an incident a few years back when i got burned during a really quick beach visit, i was a little concerned in spite of having put on sunscreen. after a while lying on my belly facing away from sagirl, enjoying the sun on my back, i suddenly felt like my skin was tingling and just at that moment sagirl piped up: "totalwaste, are getting paranoid about being burned? well you can stop, i'll let you know when you need to worry."

whoa (O_o)

...

granadilla lollies cost R20, which is ridiculous. they're also a little smaller than i remember, even if they're just as awesome.

...

my aunt and her kids came over for drinks and debate, which was a lot of fun, and on tgtbt's recommendation my mother and i went to takumi for dinner. firstly, the place is beautiful and the service is excellent. there weren't any vegan options but everything looked really good so i decided to do the sushi experience properly: boy, am i glad i did! everything was absolutely delicious and well presented, by the end my mother couldn't eat any more and i finished everything only because it tasted so good. win!

---saturday:

dreams of airports after america enforces anti-modesty laws to filter out the religious, and about staying in a small community in a generically foreign country.

...

my mother and i went shopping in town. from the parade through grand central and golden acre, we managed to find a pair of shorts for me. it was only when we hit st george's mall that i found a hat i liked, and we did a full browse of greenmarket square before i figured out what beads to buy.

---i hate markets and i hate bargaining. i hate the fact that a conversation about price begins with an outright lie in an attempt to cheat someone out of as much as possible. the whole experience offends me... but somehow, in spite of my feelings of disgust, i seem to have picked up a thing or two while in israel. apparently i've become a tough negotiator, because i walked off with what i wanted at only slightly more than my initial shock-value offer!

the moment that most entertained me was walking away after telling a seller that i wasn't interested in arguing and that i'd give her two minutes to consider my proposal. she changed her tune when i returned.

i can't say i enjoyed doing that, but at least i'm not feeling jipped about my purchases.

---on the way we saw some amazing artwork in the area! we would have gone to crave for lunch but they didn't have vegan options and the guy behind the counter was totally disinterested, so we went to kauai instead where the food was great and the staff pleasant.

the sailors were barbequeing on the beach but that didn't really fit with my other plans, so i decided to go with protoplasm to the party in hillcrest quarry. that didn't actually fit with my other plans either, but i didn't really think about it properly and in retrospect i'm rather glad i didn't :P

---i'm not sure where to begin with the ledhedz bus party. i hadn't thought to bring a sweater and when we arrived the wind was up and it was too chilly to swim, so i'd worn boardies under my shorts for nothing. fortunately we kept warm on the dance floor :)

the subset of the afrikaburn crowd was something i couldn't get a handle on the entire afternoon / night, every now and then i'd register that the only odd man out was me because it was my first event. the crowd included people i went to school with and my niece's new sisters-in-law, which was quite funny and cool.

the music when we arrived was terrible, and the dj after played a lot of empty beats which was boring. after that, though, things got real. the fact that i had deeply entered an alternative state of mind made my introduction to what techno has evolved into an insane experience, i simply could not get a handle on what i was hearing and i've been informed that that's more or less the point. there's something so incredibly strange about dancing to a beat that changed two seconds ago but in such a subtle way that you're not sure why you're off, and something very cool about music that involves such a wide range of electronic that within a single minute you can be standing and nodding your head, dancing like it's disco and stomping like it's psy!

my hippie feet served me well the whole night, i'm extremely glad that i've maintained them so nicely :D

using the public toilets barefoot wasn't too bad - they were kept pretty clean - but there was a moment towards the end of the evening when i was standing by the urinal:
i was in the act when an arm shot across my vision in a most disturbing manner. the guy next to me was trying to settle a can on the sill of the window above us, and i was certain that it'd fall on me the second he let go. eventually he got it right, though, but i still kept an eye on him - peripheral vision only, of course - and was horrified when i registered that he was swaying wildly and struggling to unzip. once he got that right and started to pee, he was too far away from the urinal and swaying too much to not miss at some point.
urinal etiquette be damned, i thought, i'm not having this guy wet my feet!
i told him that i would be very grateful if he would just take a step forward. i was so relieved when he obliged - i was so worried that in whatever state he was he might get aggressive - and i walked out of there with dry feet.

there were only two upsetting moments at the party:

the first was when a dj dropped a tune with a religious sample about jesus' second coming, there were a lot of people on psychedelics and that's *so* unfair whether it was done in jest or not... it actually ejected me from the dance floor for a while :(

the second was me telling protoplasm that i didn't know how i'd feel about the music if i'd been sober. i realized as i said it that it was the stupidest statement of the night because i'd feel exactly the same way, but he suddenly disappeared before i could take it back and i stressed about it for about five minutes until he returned and laughed at me :$

there were plenty of fantastic moments to more than make up for those, though, so that's alright :)

---yesterday:

i was most amused by the sexy german girl we'd gone with passing out on my shoulder while we waited for protoplasm with the car keys - you'd have to be pretty tired to find it comfortable enough :P

i was still high when i returned home at 4am, and only a little concerned about how i was going to get up four hours later to go hiking with airplane. i knew i needed to eat but the peanut butter on toast i made was far too sticky. my mother introduced me to coating it with marmalade, which i'll definitely remember next time as a bloody good idea! we talked for a bit before she went to bed, and it was then that the penny dropped that i only have a couple of days left to say goodbye to everyone...

... how did three weeks pass by so quickly?!

i got into bed but my subconscious was too busy turning imagined white noise into techno for me to sleep; i plugged in to my ipod and that drowned me out of consciousness pretty quickly. good timing, too, because in the morning the battery was drained so i finally remembered to charge it for the flights :P

...

i had no problem waking up, it was an absolutely stunning morning! i drove to airplane's and we headed out together to table mountain. it's cardio up (heavy breathing) and skeletal down (stressed knees), we didn't stop talking the entire way and had a really good time. we went to hudsons for burgers (their veggie burger's good even if it's crumbly) and drinks afterwards; about halfway through the meal the past day caught up with me and my system downshifted. we said goodbye and i drove home, showered and rested for fifteen minutes until my mother came home and we went out for drinks with cousins.

twice, with different cousins. and lots of drinks.

by the time we got home i was completely broken. i had just enough energy to eat my mother's first attempt at cooking tofu - not bad - and lie down on the couch, but suddenly i realized that i needed to brush my teeth and get into bed. i'm so proud of myself for not passing out on the way, i was that exhausted that i was sure that might happen!

---regarding david foster wallace - infinite jest: the whole marijuana addition thing is ridiculous, and it bothers me that people who read the book will have their understanding skewed. tgtbt is a case in point, i had to explain to her that even in such an extreme case, the marijuana is not the culprit. it's psychology, the person has a problem with or without it, and blaming a herb that isn't addictive is irresponsible especially when the world is finally beginning to wake up from the nightmare that the war on drugs and its disinformation have kept us in for the past forty years.

to be fair, the book was written in the nineties, but it still upsets me.

---listening to the news always bugs me. i think america should conquer syria, set up a puppet government and slowly turn the country into another of its states. considering the country's instability they wouldn't need to pretend to be doing anything else, like they are in iraq and afghanistan...

baby steps

i'm actually still in a state of disbelief. colorado legalizing marijuana? it's like awakening from a nightmare and being unable to shake it off for a while. only the nightmare's been going on for forty years. here's hoping the initial idiot panic subsides and that things go smoothly enough for the "experiment" to succeed!

well done, colorado. well done.

docu-drama

grass, the 1999 documentary narrated by woody harrelson. here's a link, don't watch it if you don't want to see 20th america as a bunch of morons in their very own version of the dark ages.

gods, i'm so glad to be living in an age with internet. no, it doesn't prevent the world's being run by insufferably small-minded megalomaniacs but at least we have access to data! next step, people learning how to use the new tools.

just passing through part ii

[... continued]

i met up with aota and we stopped for amazing chinese (where k-twang and his fiancée took me in 2010). we then arrived just in time for lorraine klaasen's miriam makeba tribute. which became a madiba tribute. aota "informed" me that he'd passed away, which shocked me because i hadn't heard anything. which makes sense, because he hadn't. either way it was a very moving performance and made me a bit homesick*. it was really nice to see so many people visibly captivated by makeba's music.

* i guess that's a part of why i finally got around to watching some of have you heard from johannesburg. it's well worth the $5, especially if you don't know much about apartheid.

we walked on to some bloody good blues by steve strongman, who made sure to let us know that he'd won a juno this year. the crowd was fantastic, loads of people dancing and good vibes all round.

i returned home on the metro with my laundry basket. that felt weird. i didn't want to work on a saturday night so i ignored the urgent emails in my inbox.

---sunday:

a peaceful start to the day. i caught the caretaker's wife and paid my rent early, did a quick shop at walmart which demanded a highway walk that was very pretty indeed. i learned about 1 dollar scans and i think i'll give them a try.

interested to hear what the headhunter has to offer, i spent some time updating my cv and answering her questions, then proceeded to fail to get the urgent work done (our systems are a mess at present and my macbook's not making anything easier) and upset the cto in the process. i was really upset about that before remembering that i don't need to stress about any of this. i've done my best and if it's not good enough then screw it, i'll walk.

so it became a $#@% everything day. i went to piknic electronik and thoroughly enjoyed the "guru" floor - pursuit grooves makes serious magic!

the moog floor just wasn't quite as fun as the previous week. the highlight was a cute girl trashed on e (but, like, classically, like we used to get once upon a time with the jaw exercises and everything) who was excited by my tattoo.

so i left early for an easy, early night watching ufc fights.

---monday:

another slow morning (oh, happy canada day!) started with ufc's gsp vs condit. WOW!

i tried to sort out my mouth guard. "boil and bite" my ass, three tries following the instructions (and a few youtube videos) and when i open my mouth the guard sticks to my lower teeth. fan#$@%!tastic >_<

---i've been wondering about this for weeks now: why do i make onomatopoeia-ic sounds when i strike? why can't i just hiss like a normal person? imagine me kicking you. now imagine me shouting "POW!" as i do it.

i do that every time.

---i spent my day getting into node.js. i've definitely got a handle on the basics, but there're some elusive concepts that i need to get my head around before i really get my teeth into it. like, for instance, the relationship between file names and objects.

i went over to horseman to play a board game with him and nocence. and teach them a bit about beat construction. the board game was cashflow, and it's more fun than monopoly :)

---scrapper sent me a link to rat park, it's very good indeed. please read it! it's not only well drawn but educational too.

i believe in christmas

i'm sure i mentioned it way back when (while i was researching a seminar paper), but as soon as i read the sermon on the mount i thought "wait a minute... i must be a christian!". to be fair, i said the same thing when i read the communist manifesto, the fascist manifesto, and the futurist manifesto. the fact that i'm an ordained minister of the church of the flying spaghetti monster (in good standing, i might add) and am a non-practising jew who fully ascribes to jewish philosophy prior to the great rabbis (i'm like a jewish hipster) factors in there somewhere. anyway, all of this just to say that while i might not be a christian, and i certainly don't believe in a christian god (or trinity), i can now say that i do believe in christmas. mine was a wonderful, wonderful day, and a large part of it was being surrounded by the infectious goodwill and cheer that those who do believe adopt.

if they would be this merry all year around, the world would be a little better for it.

---christmas:

the other major factor in tuesday being as wonderful as it was was that i had a great day on the slopes and all the glories of saint sauveur were exposed when the sun came out. it's the first time i've been there without complete cloud cover, and words fail me in describing its beauty. from the icy tips of the trees with the sunlight behind them to the fresh snow contrasted against the varied soft blues of the sky, to the view of distant villages nestled in the mountains made possible by the intensely sharp clarity of the day's air, the experience was one of a seemingly endless series of moments caught in an artist's renderings of a dream of being on the slopes. it was fantastic and stupefying, and a little frustrating because i wanted to share the experience and capture the memories on camera but that would have put my camera at risk (most of the *really* crazy shots were from the ski lifts) or force me to remove my gloves (which wouldn't have been a good idea at a windy -10 celsius).

not that i didn't get any photos at all, but they're certainly not representative of what i could see. funnily enough, most of the time i was enjoying the views through my orange goggles and when i did compare, the tint experience was different but neither better nor worse. ah, and the hour or so that i had my ipod playing psychedelic rock from my jacket pocket might have added to the surreal nature of the day.

my new boots are definitely more responsive, and that made my performance improve dramatically. however, i learned the hard way that they're actually a little bit too small (meaning my shoe size is 10.75 US, and the quarter size in either direction isn't good), so if i tightened the laces properly my left foot would begin to hurt. a lot. like enough to pass out from the pain.

i discovered this because i was totally jamming when the pain started, and was so excited and was so thoroughly enjoying myself that i couldn't bring myself to take break until i absolutely had to. i didn't pass out, but i recognize when i'm on the verge. also an indication that they're too small: i landed off a small jump later on and stubbed my big toe :(

the good and bad that came out of needing to take breaks (fortunately i only got the lacing wrong twice) was that i stopped at avila for a beer and by the time i was finished and had heard enough christmas song covers by artists like enya and bon jovi the lift was closed and the whole place was being shut down. on the one hand, that meant that i had to grab my bag and boots from my locker and walk along the road until i got to one of the two saint sauveur lifts still operational. this was arduous and it was very uncomfortable to snowboard down a black diamond with boots in hand. on the other hand, if i hadn't taken that break i might have continued with my plan to return to avila just before the bus was scheduled to arrive, and by then i would have had a nasty surprise because there wouldn't have been any quick way to get back. and it would have been in complete darkness.

my last runs were excellent, and the walk to the village was pleasant. it was very, very cold, though, and the bus was quite late. the well-dressed local woman waiting with me kept complaining about the cold in french (in both senses), and i kept myself warm by dancing on the spot to dark psytrance.

but the bus did arrive, and we boarded. there weren't many seats available, and a girl towards the back of the bus removed her backpack from the seat for me. i sat down, and she asked me where the bus had stopped, and i told her. she began to talk, kind of arbitrarily, and at some point she said something that made me ask her where she was from.

well, if i didn't immediately switch to hebrew there and then! it took her a slow moment to realize what had happened, and we laughed and spent the rest of the ride talking non-stop. her fellow exchange student (ben gurion / mcgill) woke up after twenty minutes and sleepily asked if she was really hearing a conversation in hebrew; the chances of meeting an israeli on a night bus in quebec are probably pretty damn small. never mind that, she's studying computer science and philosophy, and has a friend who's studying computer science and literature who she can now tell isn't alone.

it was fun, and strange, and very interesting.

---boxing day:

in order to leave my aunt's house early with yang, i'd showered, dressed and picked up a toothbrush when i got home and then went to sleep over there. i was up at the time he'd told me to be, but he wasn't and his parents insisted that i not wake him. eventually, three hours later, yin woke up, woke him up, and he made a big noise about how i should've woken him up :/

we hit the salomon store first, and the purchase was pretty quick. i'm not sure who did a better job of selling me the boots, yang or the salesman, but they look good, they're super-comfortable and i'm assured that they'll keep my feet warm and dry and will last me enough years that the splurge will be worth it.

the rest of the day was spent discovering that yang is a serious shopper. although between stores was fun, when he wasn't chain-smoking, the shops themselves were a drag. and the people! it was nuts. we ran into a classmate of his with agoraphobia, who comes outside once a year on boxing day in an effort to exorcise it because the crowds freak him out more than his phobia so his related panic attacks are easier to control.

seems legit. those crowds and queues and that level of pushy-and-shoviness on the metro were something else...

we got back to my aunt's where my boots received approval, played guitar hero and rockstar table tennis until dinner, and afterwards yang dropped me and my gear back at home.

where i've eaten and done internet things. and prepared emotionally for getting up early again tomorrow.

---something positive in the news: in california, at least, the stigma attached to marijuana use appears to be fading. the war on drugs is more destructive and costly than any drug use ever was - ever - and this gives me hope.

speaking of crowd-funding: stick 'n find is a brilliant idea, but i wonder if some of their raging success can be attributed to reading "clean your mess" as "kick your lover out the side-door".

raspberry pi replacing expensive stuff: good for them! it's a noble goal.

laugh all you want

if polyester is so warm that on such cold days i'm walking with my jacket open, i'll stick with the barely-have-to-iron material.

also, terence mckenna - food of the gods has been sitting quietly on my to-read list for years now; it's really, really provocative and fun too.

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

legalization

for all of you who are scratching your heads and wondering why, please, PLEASE do yourselves a favour and watch this documentary:

the union: the business of getting high (available on amazon)

even if you don't care about legalization, you'll probably find it interesting and entertaining.

---
the issue of sumptuary laws that have been imposed on the entire western world by american ignorance is a miserable one, and it would be nice if we could all let go of american problems and think for ourselves!

not that i have fantastic expectations... i'm not a huge believer in israeli attitudes when it comes to fixing things that aren't right. but at least we're going to try.

exam times - part ii

[... continued]

i had breakfast with karnaf, then hunted the sunshine spots on the way home. it was a beautiful day! i had a shower then hopped off to visit my piercer and get my helix put back in :)

i've spent the afternoon either writing this or chilling with pg, and now... gonna study. by reading a good book ^_^

---the union has been playing in the background, and i still can't get over the bit on incarceration. the following segment on the pharmaceutical industry is extremely aggravating, too.

... and speaking of pharmaceuticals, here're a couple of great tracks, one slightly more ambient and one slightly less. (you see what i did there?)

catching (almost) six

i was good today, didn't nap at all. i remembered to take my outfit to "work", too, for dress-up day.

we had to get off the shuttle at the last tel aviv stop, which meant coming in from the other end of the base. i was still feeling a bit hung over, and *had* to do the salt and vinegar chips thing. the owners love me, and excitedly promised that they would be ready in five... they chirped and chirped while the oil bubbled, and about half an hour later the rain began pelting down and i sat down with my fresh chips and bowl of vinegar. i wasn't going anywhere.

at least the rain didn't last very long, although it was incredibly heavy. nobody would really have cared if i'd been late, anyway.

i made a pretty psychedelic background for my workstation, with "RELEASE ME" boldly pasted over it in a random yet funky font. after coffee and a little bit of time with the guitar, i got my work environment mostly set up and then changed into my outfit. everyone loved my spy disguise, and the fake 'tache i wore suits me; i don't think i could grow such a strong one, though. i reminded myself of the stranger.

i didn't speak to the discipline officer because i was dressed amusingly. our SC was terrified that i'd go out of my way to make him feel bad because i was proven 100% right in my assertion yesterday. i told him that if i'm not to file that complaint, then i can at least make sure he knows he has to inform his brethren in the Cabal of the Unrefined that they have to stop that shit.

an exchange of snow stories with one of the guys who just got back from a week at les arcs (where we were last year), and i'm aggravated that it doesn't look like i'll be able to go this year, all because of the weird situation with the army.

suck.

as my mom said, i'll have to make up for it either during the summer (argentina) or pull a serious stint during next year's academic vacation.

lunch was quick, and the whole "carnival" thing was less atrocious than last year's. they had tekken - i don't know which post-tag one it was, and i was beaten twice by some average kid with a shitty attitude... i'm so used to certain basic moves that i was completely thrown when they didn't work.

oh, well.

i spent the afternoon getting back into the swing of working on my project (at least something productive's possible), playing secretary and whining about the fact that the entire unit now has access to whatever munchies are on my desk; that, and whenever someone comes into the office i hear a buzz and a bang right behind me and my nerves are going to be shot if i don't get used to it quickly.

from the base we went to one of our section-mates' new apartment - a cool, refurbished hospital room in sisters' quarters. there was blood pooling in the corridor. while there and drinking (i forgot i was in uniform :P), we watched youtube videos, laughed about ordering pizza online (the user experience is excellent), and talked quite a bit. i left when the guys put a movie on, to catch a bus back home so that i could get some sleep.

if i hadn't been so wrapped up in the news, i would've been in bed ages ago.

an interesting story: prohibition poisoning

octopus using tools: i dunno, it doesn't seem to different from the hermit crab. thanks, nystire :)

a brief glance at the x prize plans

i'm meta-linking to the gore op-ed that says we can't wish climate change away