more rollercoaster

 i think i slept well last night. i'm already beginning to nod off now, but i wanna post this and drink a cup of chamomile before hitting the hay.

...

the US election took up the majority of my brain-space this morning:

omg i never thought i'd feel so relieved to hear a US election result, and especially to see trump returning to the white house. america, you and the free world just dodged, not a bullet, but an RPG.

i expect all the UN ambassadors from their anti-west totalitarian regimes must be feeling deeply disappointed right now. i don't know how much trump will get done over the next four years, but at least this gives us a window to take down the ayatollahs and make peace in the middle east an actual possibility.

assuming *we* don't manage to screw this up, of course. best of luck to us all 🫡

i was a little distracted still by the election noise when i got to work, but i managed to find my groove. a couple of new companies have moved in to our floor, so it's much brighter and more welcoming.

...

everything was fine until lunch. on my way to joining my coworkers, i received a call from mr smear's class assistant - he was having a very scary asthma attack, and he'd apparently told her he didn't have his pump. in retrospect, i think he misunderstood the questions, but i told her it was in his bag and immediately alerted gd that she'd need to hurry to the school.

then another panicked call - she couldn't figure out which pump to use.

so i called gd, also panicking, and she told me, and i called back and told her. also, i told her it should take a few minutes to work.

more panic, because it didn't working. at this point i was sitting at the table, staring into the distance, praying for my son and thinking about a guy a couple of years ahead of me in school, one of my youth movement councillors, who just suddenly died in his sleep one night from an asthma attack.

fortunately, i got a call soon afterwards informing me that it did seem to be working, and that his coughing fit was calming down, and he was able to breathe between coughs.

holy shit, that was terrifying. truly terrifying.

...

i was still unsettled an hour later, when i went to go and make myself a cup of turkish coffee. i poured the boiling water into the glass, and heard a *crack*. some of the coffee was seeping onto the counter. nystire has a thing about cups cracking due to temperature differences, so, relieved that it hadn't been worse, i took a step back and pulled out my phone to take a photo for him

just as i did that, the glass exploded. i was fortunately just out of range, so aside from the shock i only had to worry about cleaning up the mess (how did the coffee get under the counter ledge??), find a safe way to dispose of all the shards, and then making myself a much safer mug of instant coffee.

...

i was - understandably, i think - restless for the remainder of the work day. at least i feel like i got a couple of important things done.

at some point in the afternoon i received another report from mr smear's teacher: apparently, he's understood the mission. today was a really good day for him, asthma attack notwithstanding, and he was cooperative and worked well!

i did some quick shopping on the way home, mainly for toilet paper but gd's really scared about her other fragile tooth cracking so i picked her up some soya yoghurts and desserts. puddings. or, in our family's parlance, pudignes.

anyhoo, i came home, hugged my son tightly (to his chagrine, he was playing minecraft online), and overall the evening went smoothly. and gd made her delicious new cottage pie recipe (mushrooms and leaks and beans), and we watched some x-men, and then it was bedtime for mr smear.

i, on the other hand, spent the last couple of hours doing another run of kaycee's mod, and then working on using notebooklm and chatgpt to produce a useful summary booklet for anatomy of an epidemic and translate it into hebrew. i don't understand why the translation of the 12 pages would take hours, but that's what i was told so i'm hanging in. i also discovered that you can (now) prompt notebooklm when generating an audio discussion, and that's really powerful!

pivot

yesterday:

mr smear's cough was better, and he went back to school. but he was having and sharing a remarkably shit morning. so that sucked.

i continued on to drop gd's shoes at the post office to be returned, then walked back home.

my neck and shoulder gave me trouble throughout the day.

it was a slow work-from-home day, and i was on-call, and most of the work i did was on-call stuff.

around noon i picked mr smear up from school to take him to his hebrew tutor, and he was in a much better mood. on the way back from the tutor we picked up a few bags of walnuts, because i only just learned that they're a viable source of omega3 and we haven't been eating gd's flax-seed pancakes for a long time...

...

during a conversation with our product manager in the afternoon, i saw something in our designs that bothered me and i asked him if i was reading it right, and if we were actually pivoting as a company.

"100%," he told me, "this is the direction we're going in."

i was disappointed, and i told him so, and after the call had a bit of a crisis because the new direction really doesn't interest me. i discussed it with gd, and came to the conclusion that i'm happy with my team, and i'm happy with my bosses, and i'm happy with my role and my employment conditions, so if i'm less happy with what the company is doing it's not the end of the world, but it will mean refocusing on my side projects for my source of meaning.

...

gd made vegan-shwarma tacos for dinner last night, and we really enjoyed them!

after everyone went to bed i started looking into rewriting my mobile app, and dived in to a rabbit hole around security issues with local browser storage. at about the point i started finding useful material to peruse, my eyes started shutting on me.

today:

last night was our first night sleeping with a duvet since spring, it was cozy and i slept pretty well.

we all had a much better morning, and after dropping mr smear at school i replaced the lightbulbs in his room and then spent some time reading about secure storage while gd left to have coffee with a friend.

i didn't make much progress then, and i'm starting to become drowsy now, so i don't know how long it's going to take me to get a handle on this stuff...

while i was trying to read, i got distracted by the fact that the "palm rest" of my very expensive dell XPS was - and has been for a while - feeling annoyingly sticky. i tried cleaning it in a number of different ways, and eventually ended up (unintentionally) removing some of the surface. it clearly wasn't meant to be removed, so later on i'd look it up and discover that it's a known problem.

i regret purchasing a dell computer.

i found a couple of recommendations to purchase stickers that are cut specifically for my model, so i found some on ali express and i'm hoping they'll do the trick.

...

it was a slow day in the office, and i wasn't the only one feeling the particularly relaxed vibes.

the day began with me learning about my new task, and syncing with the coworker who's leaving soon to understand how all the pieces of the puzzle are meant to fit together. at some point - because it was relevant to what we're working on - i mentioned the pivot, and his response stunned me: our project manager was describing his personal vision for the company, but he's already pitched it to the bosses and they've already explained to him that they're not interested in leaving the (awesome) core business they've built.

firstly, what a relief! secondly, what a shocking revelation, that i literally can't implicitly trust my project manager and that he actually caused harm with his delusion.

...

i started the task without a clear idea of what needed to be done, and it had been assigned six working days. i started making slow but steady progress, and then all of a sudden pieces of the puzzle - especially pieces that i'd put in place a few months ago - started coming together and by the end of the day i was effectively done!

it's a great feeling, but also rather unexpected.

i walked home, arriving just in time for dinner and some x-men. then my mom called, finally ready to try out the account i created for her a month and a half ago.

...

good grief.

it was impossible for her to log in without me signing in first, and it kept not sending us verification codes until i signed in, set up her phone number, and flagged her sign-in attempts as recognized. that got her into her account on her computer, so i wanted to set her up on her phone as well to make sure she's not dependent on me. but she's an iphone person, and apple makes it ridiculously difficult to configure new accounts and know if they've been configured correctly. so, after more than an hour and lots of feelings, we decided to leave it at a hope and a prayer and deal with any issues that may arise.

it could've been worse. we could've not succeeded.

...

as i said, i'm feeling drowsy - i think i'm going to go to bed now.

not with a bang

it's a quiet afternoon on a beautiful autumn day, it feels like a good time to put down some thoughts.

thursday:

around the time i finished posting, mr smear went to his friend's to celebrate his birthday, which was a very welcome surprise invite. apparently they all had a good time.

gd and i took the opportunity to finish watching deadpool & wolverine, which we immensely enjoyed once we were awake enough to watch it!

in the late afternoon, i took mr smear out to play some basketball. just as we were leaving, we received confirmation that sinwar was killed, and while lots of people are excited and celebrating, i'm just relieved. not because it means anything real as far as the war is concerned, because until our hostages are brought home nothing has really changed, but because for a large part of the last year i've been holding my breath with anxiety, worrying that the fighting would stop prematurely and the world would see a photo of sinwar coming out of the tunnels showing a victory sign. at least now, whatever happens, any symbols like that would feel as hollow as they are.

...

mr smear and i had a good time at the courts, not only is his skill improving but his attitude, too.

we completed the third season of the x-men animated series over dinner. two more season to go...

yesterday:

we got up and went pretty early. unfortunately, i couldn't get a haircut, but i was able to book it for tomorrow instead. the day began with a ridiculously long mission to get change for the bread guy who'd insisted on giving me something a few days ago when i had no cash on me. we eventually got hold of a stack of disgusting, sticky coins, which we tried hard to clean with hand sanitizer and water. when we finally got back to the guy, we found him with plenty of coins which had made the whole, gross experience unnecessary :/

we took a bus to the top of dizengoff, then picked up coffee along the way to babylon park at the entrance to the port.

now, the games they have aren't exactly what we were looking for, but the operation is really slick - the app, and unlocking games with the app, in particular - and we all had a jolly good time. in particular, mr smear loved the motorcycle games, and he got to play real pinball machines for the first time ever!

we took a break to find some food, and ended up at the little food market... at first, we were shocked by how much our two tiny plastic containers of nothing cost us, but then we were shocked by how shit the quality of the alleged "food" actually was. i told the woman working there that if i was me, i wouldn't sell it to people. that's absolutely the last time we try to eat something there.

we returned to babylon park for a bit more, but it was starting to fill up, so we soon decided we were all ready to go home.

we'd initially planned on cleaning the floors in the afternoon, but we'd all had too much of an adventure for that :P

the afternoon was relaxed, but just as evening was approaching mr smear had a moment (he was playing human fall flat, but more than that i have no idea) that turned into a proper tantrum. gd and i both tried various ways to deescalate, ultimately having to shut it down undiplomatically and with everyone felt like shit.

miraculously, though, when i went in later to tell him to go shower, he was calm and compliant, which i guess is as much of an apology as one can expect from a nine year old.

...

while we were all stewing, i compulsively restarted playing inscryption. between the time until dinner (which was much later than planned), and the bit of time between getting mr smear into bed and discovering that gd's never seen demolition man, a couple of hours this morning and an hour or so this afternoon, i've played through it completely and, i must admit, once again enjoyed the experience, even if in a somewhat different way.

...

gd and i both passed out pretty early on in the movie :/

...

i didn't sleep well, but i did sleep. aside from inscryption, we went to our friends for brunch and enjoyed a very pleasant late morning / early afternoon with them.

...

this morning i saw this video compilation showing the anti-american (anti-west) organizations explicitly describing their goals and tactics, and for anyone who isn't familiar with it this is what israelis have been trying to warn the world about for a long time, but specifically over the course of the last year.

back to front

 yesterday was a bit shit, i'm really hating working with pure frontend and for the entire sprint every time i've resolved an issue another one has sprung up. i haven't been this unhappy with not-exactly-coding since i quit my job with mmf at the end of 2011.

anyway, it's not my usual job. and i had a conversation with my manager wherein i explained that i understand frontend dev enough to know how much i don't understand, and that while everything the contractor did makes sense within the confines of his employment the solution wasn't built in a way that inexperienced frontenders like ourselves would be able to make massive changes to its scope. none of us are really qualified to work on this, nor interested in it, and we're burning money and demoralizing ourselves. if we really feel like this is something we should be investing in, then we need to hire a frontend dev. if not, then we shouldn't be offering to build this stuff for our clients when it's far outside our competence.

in the middle of the day i left the office to pick up mr smear and taking him to his therapy session. while he was occupied, i tried to find a place with coffee that i could get some work done. the aroma's bathroom was unusable, and then i witnessed one of the kitchen staff walk out without washing his hands, so i noped on out of there. the next place didn't sell coffee, then the next place did have a place to sit and the employees were smoking right at the entrance. the next place, cafe taizu, doesn't sell coffee, and i finally landed on maafiyat lechamim. the atmosphere was cool, but the service was really shit and the coffee mediocre at best.

i'd spent so much time looking for a place that i got about five or ten minutes of "work" done before i had to get up and leave to pick up mr smear. i didn't really get anything of value done.

...

our financial situation's better, but not good, and i was really hoping to be able to put down the money for a proper keyboard for mr smear this month. and now i've been looking at vr video games and equipment as well. and gd wants a clothes dryer. fuck.

...

mr smear was only too happy to continue watching the original x-men series, but that's because he's seen the trailer for x-men 97 and he's really excited to see that... aaaaand i just realized we still have two more seasons we haven't watched, and everyone's groaning :(

...

i just went on-call ten minutes ago. hopefully it'll be a quiet day.

shana tova 🙏

on wednesday morning we were preoccupied with making sure we were ready for the long weekend, and the afternoon was relatively relaxed. having said that, i must've eaten something bad or picked up a bug somewhere, but i spent a large part of the afternoon running to and from the toilet.

fortunately, that settled down the moment we left in the evening, and didn't return until the following morning.

we went to our friends for the chag, and for the most part it was a relaxed evening with the kids (mostly) being cool and the adults enjoying good food and good conversation, in spite of the fact that we were coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum. it's nice to have conversations with intelligent people.

we came home relatively early, and after putting mr smear to bed i settled in for some shadowrun: dragonfall. until... until pretty late.

yesterday:

i woke up with the middle of my back threatening to spasm, and it was painfully on the verge for pretty much the entire day.

in the morning, gd and i left mr smear to his devices (i think he was playing minecraft) and took a pleasant walk around the very quiet neighborhood. other than that, until 4pm i was mostly preoccupied with the apex mission in shadowrun. that mission was hard, and i needed a restart or two (i made some pretty big mistakes), and goddammit i earned the won't suffer an ai to live achievement. just decided how to handle that story required a few restarts and reading up online, i literally couldn't decide, as a player or as my character, whether it made sense to make a deal or not.

that's good writing.

i completed the mission, saved, and quit. still buzzing from how difficult the mission was and having completed it by the skin of my teeth, i closed my computer and went out with mr smear for a walk and some time chilling in the park.

it was nice. and my stomache was mostly okay by then.

so we had a good time, and i got a good break from the game. after we got back and showered, i decided to fire it up, just until dinner time. and that was when i learned that my save game - the one i saved after completing the mission - did not exist, and i was taken back to the very beginning of my last attempt.

i died inside. that really messed me up, and i'd stay messed up about it until this afternoon.

we had dinner, watching an episode of x-men and an episode of the fantastic four, and then everyone went to bed early.

today:

we didn't know if we'd have guests today or not, but either way our apartment was in dire need of a clean. so, for the first time, the three of us did it as a family. it took a while, but we did well, and we all rested nicely afterwards. (mr smear reading on his kindle, i've just been convinced to pay for kindle unlimited).

with an hour to go before we-need-to-go-outside time, i decided to give the apex mission another try. this time, i was doing alright when the game got stuck in the middle of the battle and wouldn't let me end my turn.

so that's a thing, too.

it's an old game, so nobody's going to fix it. but i did find a forum post mentioning debug mode, and debug mode has a "kil" button. so i reloaded, again, and quickly breezed through the mission using a big, fat cheat.

once i was clear, and out of the mission, i saved, verified that the save saved, and *then* closed the computer and went out with mr smear for a walk.

it was a good walk, and we stopped for ice cream on the way. this evening's been alright, we've just finished showering and are about to eat, and we've played some games together.

today was a good day.

the rare exception

 during our traditional fight about getting mr smear to leave the house yesterday, i explained to him that we always go outside, every day, with the only rare exceptions being when we're sick or injured, or the weather's too harsh.

well, today was just such a day. mr smear claims to be feeling sick, although i'm highly suspicious, but i definitely needed the rest. we spent most of the day playing videogames, or exploding kittens (irl), or watching galaxy quest (which we all thoroughly enjoyed) and the season 2 finale of the x-men series.

that scene in the season 2 finale of the x-men series when nicolas cage stepped in to play cyclops

aside from all that, with napping in between, i've spent a whole lot of time putting together an article on my experience using cursor to create a PWA. as i've dived deeper into the article - i'm now at a point where i'm trying to deploy the result so i can test it on an actual phone - i've learned more and become more convinced that the $20/month asking price for cursor is of far greater value that my copilot subscription. as in, i pitted them head-to-head and copilot's results were thoroughly underwhelming.

as the day progressed, i felt less bad. i'm still a little woozy, but i guess we'll see in the morning how i've fared.

on an unrelated note (or maybe it is related?): my test results showed low iron, and even though there's a chance it's not a problem* it's been bugging me for a long time now that i'm always consuming teas and coffees before and after meals, which interferes with iron absorption. my new plan is to completely avoid tea and coffee for the couple of hours surrounding lunch and dinner...

* according to what i've read, vegans usually have low iron stores, which is what's tested, but sufficient iron levels in the blood itself.

relaxed

 today was mostly very relaxed. not only did i get a good night's sleep, but i also had to take a couple of solid naps during the day as well. in the morning, i played some chrono trigger, and mr smear sat with me for some of the experience - it's really fun. i mean, i know that everyone knows it's really fun, but *i'm* enjoying it.

i mistakenly wished a cousin a happy birthday two days early in a group chat this morning, and another cousin teased me about it to the point of bullying. interestingly, i was reading some of worm this morning and i found myself in a similar unpleasant situation where challenging said bullying would only really cause harm to me and my relationships, so i did some dishes which helped me calm down.

aside from that, we continued a bit on our replay of rayman: legends. it's going pretty well so far, and as a family we're definitely playing together better.

we were smarter than in the past, and although we had a great experience watching the first x-men movie,  we didn't just assume that the sequel would be safe. according to parent reviews it isn't. so, in the early afternoon, we watched the mask instead. we all enjoyed it, and i'm pleased to report it's aged well :)

in the late afternoon, i went out for a walk with mr smear. some of the walk was pleasant, but it had a few intense moments - a couple of things happened that needed to be resolved with important conversations. so we had those conversations, and i feel like they went well, and i feel like the messages were received. i hope so, at least.

dinner was good (we watched a couple of episodes of brainchild, it's brilliant), although mr smear decided he was hungry again just before bedtime and ended up with a tummyache... otherwise, the evening went well.

i just had a chat with my mom, who amongst other stories (including the heartbreaking story of a cousin who got scammed) told me this cringer.

...

i'm still feeling amazed that thursday's workday ended so well, and that tomorrow morning i have relatively low-stress tasks to do. this is a nice feeling with which to start the week.

beach ride

 yesterday was brilliant. i picked mr smear up from school, and we sat down to read bone: out of boneville in hebrew together (he's been reading the books alone, but not understanding all the individual words).

we spent the hotter parts of the afternoon quietly doing our own things. a little after 5pm, we started getting ready and took the bicycle and rollerblades out for a ride to the beach.

the weather was perfect, we had an excellent time at the beach. we left just as the sun was setting - a glorious sunset that blew even mr smear away - and the rode back home.

by the time we arrived, we were both exhausted, and hungry. after showering, we found that ark: survival evolved had installed - we'd enthusiastically watched its trailer earlier and discovered that i'd picked up a copy of it about four years ago - so mr smear sat down until kiddush to read through the introduction / guide.

we enjoyed a delicious dinner, and finished watching the first x-men movie. and then... everyone went to bed.

i'm still a bit in shock after sleeping through the entire night. life is okay.

getting shit done

today:

a pretty good start to the day. a new exercise.

light rail to pick up gd's sewing machine.

anger with gd after realizing how heavy the machine is, because i kept letting her carry it to her lessons in south africa and believed her whenever she said "it's fine".

a couple of hours of work before heading out to pick up mr smear.

listening to a recommended podcast on the way home.

hungry, stopping at home for a banana, walking in after receiving a phone call, gd screaming and scaring the shit out of me.

picking up mr smear, a pleasant walk home, a good breakfast.

back to the office, sitting with my clearly-sick coworker until we finally all had epiphanies together separately.

a healthy happy hour (fruit salad?!), and a productive last hour to close another intense week.

leaving the office, calling gd and being reminded that i'd forgotten the sewing machine ("you don't sound like you're suffering...")

getting on the bus, getting stuck in traffic and having to take a detour around the protests.

trying to help gd in the kitchen (lemon explosion: she had a fight with the lemons and i think everyone lost)

x-men continued.

mr smear taking a long shower->bath, us using that time to close gd's credit card account. gd's mixed feelings about closing the account.

crashing early on the couch, getting up to post this, probably going to bed soon

(although with sore legs)

(to be fair, i *did* get in a lot more steps than usual today)

...

oh, i keep forgetting i'm on-call. i hope it stays quiet.

openings, closings, and in-betweenings

yesterday:

after another good morning getting mr smear to school, i synced with my mom and made what i hope will be my last big forex transfer to canada.

although gd has been hurting, she gave me a haircut in anticipation of the important meeting that was scheduled for this evening. she wasn't happy with it, but it's definitely respectable enough that i've got nothing to be embarrassed about.

work was tough, but i finally got the job done. then i ran into performance issues, and spent the rest of the afternoon (and some of the evening) tweaking until it was good enough.

at 5pm i met gd and mr smear at the pain clinic for her nerve block appointment. as soon as she went in, i took mr smear for our "usual" falafel laffa. the food court - and ordering in particular - was an exercise in cultural anthropology. even the team working the counter were having a hard time with the group of seniors ahead of us weaving in and out between the rest of the customers sowing chaos. when we finally got our order, i asked the girl sitting behind us with her mother to take her shoes off the chair, which she didn't. halfway  through our meal, i looked up and saw - and then couldn't unsee - that almost everyone around us was chewing with their mouths grotesquely wide open.

so that happened.

regardless, mr smear and i enjoyed our meal together and we both ate a lot. after we got gd home, i walked to the cafe to pick her up a sandwich (and dessert), and the rest of the evening was pretty quiet.

today:

i got up a bit early this morning, with my neck still giving me some trouble. not a lot, but enough to be uncomfortable all day.

the day began with two Very Big Deals: the first, that after chasing down the canadian debt we generated migrating and getting settled for two and a half years, we finally were able to pay it off! we're not out of the woods yet - we owe my mother and our south african bank quite a lot of money - but it's a huge milestone and relief.

the meeting i was looking forward to in the evening? gco had forgotten about it and run into complications, so it had to be cancelled :(

the second Big Deal was a meeting with mr smear's teacher, principal and guidance counsillors. the first step to a corrective experience was that i made it very clear to the principal - twice, for two different aspects - where and why our last meeting went south, and she accepted it with a grace that really impressed me. the second was an actual discussion - much easier to have without gd, primarily because i didn't spend half the meeting translating. so it's a pity she couldn't make it, but it worked out for the best.

in short, mr smear has started the year on the right foot*, and we've received helpful advice, and he's going to be supported, and we're all feeling better about how he's handling.

* okay, not perfectly, as we learned later in the day, but definitely on the right foot.

my work day was a bit wonky. i fixed yesterday's code based on my boss' comments, partially at least, but i was supposed to be focused on a hugely important bug and it was a morning full of distractions (although the back-to-school sandwiches were very welcome). at lunchtime i walked to the school to pick up mr smear, walked him pleasantly back home, had a bit of a family fight when gd found out that he'd done something self-destructive that we've been warning him to stop doing, which i'm pleased to report i managed to diffuse pretty effectively.

i returned to work, right into a retrospective. afterwards a bunch of us went downstairs for coffee, where i bumped into one of my cousin's kids, who's just started working two floors up from us.

the rest of the workday was a mixed bag. by the time i left, i hadn't achieved what i needed to and i felt like my brain was melting out my ears...

i walked home, managed to rekindle the earlier fight, which we eventually seemed to have resolved, and dinner was great (we started watching the first x-men movie).

i've just put mr smear to bed - we're both really enjoying reading the goblet of fire so far - and we're about to call gd's canadian bank to ask them to close her account.

ugh.

i rollerbladed to work this morning, after a relaxed start to the day. i arrived at the office and realized i'd forgotten my wrist pads, and sandles. so that's where my head was at, at the beginning of the day.

fortunately, the security guard let me roll into the building.

i don't recall how many "i hate my life"s came out of me today, but let's just say that me and frontend dev are not vibing right now. and it didn't help that for about three hours - between lunch and "happy hour" - i was repeatedly disturbed by sudden and aggressive needs to go to the toilet every few minutes. wtf? i was trying so hard to solve a real life puzzle (which i didn't really manage to solve by the end of the day), by the time i left the office i was done in multiple ways.

i got home, showered, and played rayman: legends with mr smear until dinner. then we continued watching x-men, and then it was bedtime, and then it was pay bills time, and now it's i-don't-know-what-i'm-doing-or-want-to-do-but-i-feel-shitty time.

tomorrow's the last opportunity to sort out school shopping for mr smear. tomorrow evening i have an exciting call scheduled with sailor. right now, though?

ugh.

the hex

 i don't know what i was expecting, but in my head the hex is a murder-mystery game and gd might have enjoyed it with me. but it's daniel mullins, and a whole bucket of wtf, and it's too off-beat for gd but i'm definitely enjoying it.

i think?

i think.

it's 3.30am now, i woke up restless an hour or two ago and eventually got up and played it some more.

friday night dinner was good, and we're slowly re-watching x-men, and i don't know what happened but i began passing out at the table, shifted straight to the couch, and got up a few hours later to go to bed. now i'm tired, my brain's spinning on ugly disinformation social media posts i responded to during the day, and my neck hurts.

whoooo.

the vibes

 today was not a great day. some of it was okay, but a lot of it was pretty shit.

a large part of that shit was a bunch of weird or annoying issues at work, and two probably-unintentionally obstructive coworkers. and i was working at home, so there was some unpleasantness initially because mr smear (as usual) didn't get that i couldn't be available for him the entire time.

on the other hand, mr smear did get the hang of his first minecraft command, which he was very proud of. he also - with very little encouragement - made his own breakfast.

gd came home from her sewing lesson very excited about what she's learning, so that's cool too.

in the afternoon, i took mr smear to mma. the first part of the journey was a stuff-up because they've changed the bus route and we had a much longer walk to get there. the second part of the journey was a stuff-up because mr smear got angry with me for something (i'm trying to teach him road safety, it's hard), and then didn't like the fact that his direct rudeness got an immediate and unpleasant reaction.

the unpleasantness became really intense, including a fight with a thornbush that i'd never noticed before, and i got him to sit down and try to calm down and change the mood before we went downstairs to the gym itself. 

we were kinda doing better by the time we entered the gym (although he did respond to "how're you?" with "not good"), and once he was on the mats and seemed okay i went out to call and update gd.

by the time i returned, i found the teacher sitting with him, and him in tears. i don't know what they said to each other, but at some point i found a way to intervene and i took him aside and gave him some support, and managed to get him to go back in.

he switched up and did well for the rest of the lesson, while i sat on my computer mixing all those shitty feelings with additional new ones from my coworkers.

ugh.

anyway, the way home was pretty good, and after his shower we sat down and talked and what i had to say went over surprisingly well. nothing different to what i've been saying before, but we both seemed to be communicating a bit better.

after making *some* (unappreciated) progress, we had an early dinner, watched some more x-men (we're still around episode six of the first original season, but this time mr smear's really into it), and then i read some more goblet of fire to him at bedtime.

i've played a couple more attempts of inscryption, which made me feel pretty shit about myself and my luck, and am now trying to figure out what the smartest way to end this annoying day could be.

...

today was / would have been ariel bibas' fifth birthday. we're waiting impatiently to see what happens with the threats of impending escalation from iran, and have invested some of the day trying to make sure that our bomb shelter's in a reasonable state. gd's really struggling with the anxiety, i'm occasionally looking at news and trying not to be more irritable / depressed / despondent.

tomorrow will be mr smear's ninth birthday.

28/06/03

my god - i have watched a lot of movies today.

last night i caught most of mimic, which is one of the few horror movies that truly frightens, and repels me.
after that was lock, stock and two smoking barrels. turns out i forgot the whole damn thing...

i just watched solaris - not a bad film (ignoring the ten or so minutes of the cd that was so scratched that it would only play 3 to 4 seconds at a time - aaargh!), but seemingly pointless. i can only assume that it's about how nothing matters more than love? i dunno.

i've been trying since last night to download 28 days later, but i only succeeded in getting the trailer. looks good, but the download's still hovering around 500MB from 717, and i'm not sure when grootbek's going to come home and cancel it.
he always does that, and then claims no knowledge.

i've begun writing a multiplayer version of tron - i've been studying drivers (and learning nothing) for so many hours now that i just had to do some coding. it's really nice to be working in c++ again; i have to admit microsoft's system in vc++ for comments is nice.
respect where it's due.

as for the drivers, it's so hard to focus - it's all the same shit, and that which i didn't understand from the beginning has still not been explained.
not that i haven't learned ANYTHING.
i've learned to be a lot more patient with the system startup, and why i should be impressed when it takes so little time for the system to detect and install the correct drivers for things like usb mice.

not boring you, am i?

don't care.

so ja, my tron version is so far looking quite naff. okay, not visually. i have no clue what to do when i need graphics - i'll have to outsource. any volunteers that might be accepted will already have my email address. actually, anyone reading this who doesn't have my address should be shot on sight.

i'm planning some self-mutilation tonight - i'm shaving myself. my HEAD. no, the BIG one. i'm in shock over my haircut, still: if you haven't seen the photo's then go check them out. it's disgraceful.
never going there again.
and just think, that cost me the equivalent of around R70.
shameful.

i spoke to my taekwondo instructor today - i still have the go-ahead for the course, and i have to contact them tomorrow to find out when to go for my ECG. for some reason they think i might die on them. i don't get it.
surely, if you have a problem, you'd know about it?
and i thought *i* was paranoid.

i've got quite a bit of reading done today. i finished much ado about nothing, and although i didn't get every word or concept, i quite enjoyed it. i was wondering, though, about all the people on this planet who think that you have to be able to quote shakespeare word for word. i don't remember dick from hamlet, except maybe "now might i do it, pat". and i don't feel any less understanding of the story. in fact, it's quite sad just how much i DO remember.
damn school system.

i've begun reading count zero (william gibson), and the first couple of chapters are looking good.

and i spent some time listening to good ol' israeli music. i must admit, now that i understand some of them, the lyrics are really good. now i just have to understand ALL of them. so much WORK, living here.

*** later ***

it's now 22.45. at midnight, i'm going with some friends to see x-men 2, which is finally out in israel, and i'm right now trying to decide if i should shave or gel.
decisions, decisions.
on the weird side, i actually asked her for permission (to see the movie), as i told her we'd go see it together. there must be something wrong with me, as i've never done that before. and i knew that she didn't particularly want to see it anyway...

and finally, the starcraft news. i've had level 8 in the back of my mind for the past few days, because i've had no clue how to begin.
today, i thought i'd give it a try. not only did i manage to survive the first few minutes, but i totally wiped out the other side before completing the mission objectives.
that felt GOOOOOOOD.
i'm so proud of me.