distraction

 yesterday:

yesterday got off to a busy start, mr smear went to school on his own (on his own by bus, which we only learned later) and we headed to bnei brak for an appointment for gd. the doctor could handle speaking in english, but gd did a great job of breaking her teeth and i was barely needed :)

we got off at the hospital stop to pick up some things on the way home, after which i spent some time preparing for an interview. the interview went well.

i chatted with my mom for a bit (mixed feelings: pride in my nephew for telling my niece what's what, sadness that she's been neglecting her older child while planning on bringing a new one into the world).

i dropped a return package off at the post office and then paid a visit to another clinic to confirm that we'd done the right thing when trying to book gd a followup appointment.

i did some post-interview "homework" (playing around with temporal), and then when it started getting dark i headed to the comic library - which i'd never heard of before - where i found mr smear engrossed in tokyo ghoul.

the library has a lot of interesting stuff, and i was pleasantly surprised to learn that residents have an all-access library membership, so we picked up a copy of the incal and two tokyo ghoul volumes and made our way home, with me investing some time in getting mr smear familiar with the landmarks along the way.

i decided to tell mr smear that i'm leaving it up to him to determine whether what he's reading is appropriate or not, and to talk to me if he encounters anything confusing or disturbing.

just before dinner i discovered that the dinosaurs tv series is on apple tv after all! so after mr smear got through his math homework, we sat down to eat and enjoy the first episode :)

it was an easy bedtime, and i fell asleep pretty easily.

today:

i slept quite a lot last night, and had a lot of strangely unremarkable dreams.

everyone's morning was smooth and positive, and i accompanied mr smear to school "just because". i came home for breakfast, and then gd and i walked to get mr smear's school logo printed on his shirts. on the way back we picked up a lentil soup, then i stopped for a coffee while gd visited the pharmacy, and then we stumbled upon a good place to buy a comforter (it's starting to get colder).

since we've been home, we've chilled, had soup for lunch, and i'm now doing a terrible job of focusing and being productive. it doesn't help that gd's watching 28 years later while i try to be functional...

...

and in an hour or so i'm off to a (hopefully) final interview for the consulting agency 🤞

unceasefire

 how the hell was yesterday only tuesday?

we woke up to sirens (i'd barely slept, i was feeling more broken than ever), and the fuckers slow-dripped the missile attacks so that we were all up and down the stairs for a couple of hours. the old lady across the hall was really, really struggling :(

we were in the shelters when we learned the disappointing news that we'd agreed to a ceasefire.

as much as it would be nice to have some respite from the missile barrages, anything short of total victory against their terrorist regime is a terrible mistake. they're ideological zombies, they will never give up trying to destroy us, they are incapable of surrender, and they will never accept peace.

anyone who thinks negotiating with terrorists is a viable strategy is a fool.

hearing tom nash's analysis does make me feel considerably better, though.

i crashed on the couch for an hour before dragging myself to the table for breakfast and heading off to the office, where our first actual devops guy was waiting. we spent the morning getting quite a lot of onboarding done, but by lunchtime (with two of my previous teammates joining me and my old boss) things were starting to go wrong.

i was there with a job to do, and everything was broken. what followed was a frustrating endless loop of trying to uncover the root cause with a few of the others. by the time i needed to come home for dinner we'd gone through a list of theories and found something that might have worked, but we couldn't figure out how to make it.

my break for dinner was pretty good, we did have some rough moments but not due to any malicious intentions. as soon as mr smear was in bed, i sat down and continued my investigation...

... i finally, after seemingly infinite iterations, found what i was looking for around midnight, and just before 1am successfully deployed a new release to our dev environment.

just in time to get a few hours of sleep (hopefully 🤞) before taking mr smear to school (🤞) and rushing to the office early to initiate a deployment before rushing to our test site to do a deployment...

... and all the while, urgent personal stuff has been piling up and i haven't had a moment to spare.

morals and dilemmas

 i'm quite upset right now, and the current upset is triggering an earlier upset and everything's getting mixed up in my head.

[takes about half an hour to trawl the interwebs to see if he's referred to aethersmith by "name" before or determine which to use]

so a couple of days ago i heard about the studio ghibli filter, and i ran our family photo through it. the result was gorgeous, and i'm really pleased with it. today, aethersmith post the following comment on my photo: "this is gross. and shits all over artists." and then tahoma reposted something about how miyazaki is deeply upset by the use of the filter, so we shouldn't use it. 

aethersmith and i have been arguing about generative ai since it became a thing, he's very upset that training models on artists' works without consent or compensation is unethical. he's not wrong.

having said that, though, the use of generative ai is - to my mind - not quite so cut-and-dried. art has been cannibalizing art since its invention, and the only real difference between what ai models are doing and what human artists have been doing is that they're commoditizing it and doing it at a scale that's making us a lot more sensitive to it. imagine banning the sale of painting equipment, or preventing people from reproducing others' artworks... that could never make sense.

i'm sad that miyazaki hates it, but whether he appreciates it or not i see this whole ghibli filter trend as a beautiful tribute to his works. i believe a lot of other people do too.

pandora's box is open, and it's not going to close any time soon. i hope that this is simply a growing pain and that we evolve to a place where we have amazing tools that work for everyone, not just consumers. i believe that we can get there, and i believe that we must get there.

...

and that triggered upset over the brief conversation horseman and i had earlier regarding the zombie apocalypse that's been rapidly emerging around the globe. the hysterical destruction of tesla vehicles and infrastructure by people who believe that climate change is an emergency is mind-boggling. the complete rejection of facts or any level of rationality and fair-mindedness with regards the war in israel is mind-boggling. everyone has finally lost their minds after decades of "active measures" and disinformation campaigns and enemies of the west infiltrating its media and its universities.

gd and i were discussing this morning how a hidden aspect of the trans agenda is self-sterilization, and that there's a sibling component to that in how the west is leaning more and more towards tolerating and encouraging people who don't have children, and in doing so opening the doors to enemies performing a "land and expand" conquest, while convincing themselves that tolerating their enemies' intolerance makes them morally superior and anything else is racist bigotry.

i hope we all wake up from this dystopian nightmare before it's too late.

...

i didn't sleep much last night, and i didn't sleep well. we had some unpleasantness getting up in the morning, but it passed quickly, and after mr smear left for school i took care of a couple of things and then accompanied gd to her dental imaging appointment.

we arrived on time, at the right place, but there was no appointment. i tried getting hold of our dental clinic but there was no answer, and we were in the middle of resigning ourselves to having to go there in person to make a new appointment when the technician (or dentist?) picked up the phone and intervened, taking no prisoners and making it clear to whoever was on the other end of the line that it's not fair that patients are blamed for receoptionists not doing their jobs.

he handed me his phone and my jaw dropped as the woman on the other end informed me that we had an appointment booked, but hadn't paid. when i translated for gd, her jaw dropped too. this is all very literal jaw-dropping, by the way, we stared at each other, mouths agape, because we both remember very clearly paying for the appointment.

regardless, we instructed her to deduct the payment and she released our booking, and five minutes later we were out of there, having thanked the man profusely for going to bat for us.

...

the workday began with a rocket attack, so i took my coffee down into the basement for the first time (previously i'd just hung out in the stairwell, but i was curious).

...

highlight of my day: i helped our security consultants secure authorization for a contract for an important tool. afterwards, i overheard one of them discussing password policies, and i
(respectfully) got into it with him. i was getting some support from his coworkers, but then their Big Boss arrived (he looked vaguely familiar) and he asked him to step in.

he didn't hesitate to agree with my assessment - that password policies should enforce complexity and be easy to remember, not check arbitrary industry-standard compliance boxes that only cause people to behave in counter-productive ways. and any developer will happily accept occasionally using a second-factor authentication method (like fingerprints) over having to regularly reset their password.

after another round or two, they were enthusiastically on the same page and i really hope they manage to figure out how to implement a policy accordingly. as i told them: if they can get this right, every player in the industry will have their backs and be excited to work with them.

...

a couple of us interviewed an applicant in the afternoon. i'd prepared pretty well - though i've learned a bunch of things through the experience - but the actual interview was a bit awkward and it was only when pressed (afterwards) that i was able to put my finger on what was bothering me.

...

i didn't accomplish what i'd set out to, but i did learn a lot. i came home and had barely enough time to get mr smear through a page of his math homework, but he did such a good job and with such a good attitude that i was happy to put on an episode of the simpsons (homer the vigilante) in spite of it being too late for screentime.

after mr smear went to sleep, gd and i resumed watching slow horses. this is because i mentioned to my coworker how disappointed we were with its politics, and he threw me a spoiler that made us want to give it another chance. so i guess we'll see.

...

i've been playing inscryption again (tonight's the first night i've been feeling alright about taking things easy in days). i ended up doing a ridiculous run, with an unkillable geck (x2 thanks to goobert) and a reptile totem with an ant spawner sigil, and then an ouroboros that i was forced to sacrifice that was offered back to me, and then i put a morsel sigil on it, for completely OP combinations.

groans, good and bad

what was next was me reading count zero in bed until i passed out, which didn't take very long. i'm enjoying it, but i'm not getting very far :P

in the middle of the night i awoke from a hyper-realistic zombie nightmare which began with me leaving a group of strangers huddling around a reservoir to go to a lecture in an underground facility with what looked like bleachers (grandstands), finding a seat at the back of the class and realizing that i wasn't wearing a shirt and the people in front of me were making a thing of it and taking (or pretending to take) photos.

then someone sitting a couple of meters to my left said something, and i responded by making a kind of popping sound with my lips, and unwittingly and accidentally spat at him. so that was awkward.

and then all hell broke loose further into the darkness, and it became apparent that some kind of riot was taking place, and i joined the people fleeing through the bleachers and up towards the light. i woke up just as i stumbled across a guy lying curled up on the steps, seriously wounded and looking like his guts had been pulled out of his ass.

i got up and spent a little time imagining what i could have / would have done for the poor guy under the circumstances (circumstance being trying to save my own life, not wanting to go near him but not wanting to leave him to die or be trampled).

i spent the next couple of hours researching printing services, compiling a table of costs and scaling, and eventually returned to bed having picked out two viable options.

the dream resumed from a later point in time. i was coming in from the outside, with someone else, and there was an enemy of some kind behind us. the compound seemed abandoned, but as i reached into a medical cabinet for a spray that would somehow serve as a zombie-repellent, i considered that the zombies must have been sensitive to light and that the "riot" may have been confined to the darkest depths.

i got up, caffeined myself, and began trying to put the test prints together. one of the services' sign up process is completely broken, so that leaves a single service, lulu. i tried reading through the guide, but as soon as i realized that i was out of my depth i sent it to mr cat to ask him if he can make heads or tails of it (in theory, it's his field of expertise).

mr smear has finally decided on a birthday present: battlezone gold edition. i played a little myself, and it's gorgeous.

partially functional

 well, i was feeling a lot better and a lot more on top of things today than all of last week combined. i'm now pretty confident i was sick for at least some of it.

i had two sets of inspiration for two of my tickets this morning, and i completed a long, ugly slog of a job and reached an important milestone in the chaotic messy one.

then i jumped on a bus and headed to an orthopaedist, because i managed to get a same-day appointment when i called this morning. i've been given a referral for imaging for my hip flexors, and clear confirmation that nobody cares about my neck injury unless i'm asking for surgery.

i had a really hard time getting back into work after i returned home, eventually i just gave up.

i made progress in inscryption. and then i died again. but i made progress!

...

the war rages on. we had two rocket attacks tonight, one during dinner and one after mr smear was in bed - he was a dead weight, i had to carry him all the way down the stairs and then all the way back up again. the explosions were way louder than usual.

what's going on right now, globally, is legitimately terrifying. it's bad enough that we're fighting a zombie army on our borders with guns and rockets, but we're simultaneously fighting a war with an even larger zombie army on the social media front. and the most significant platform on that front is run by the CCP. there's a whole generation of young people who've been raised on the internet, who have barely any concept of history and no wiring for critical thinking.

the truth is screwed.

this is what we're really up against.

"rosh yehudi" - ראש יהודי

 לא משנה מה, אני חושב שלהפגין בערבי שבת ולהפריע לתפילת יום כיפור זה מגעיל, זה דוחה, וזה מזעזע.

באותה נשימה אני חייב להודות שבתור דתל"ש אורתודוקס, שבסוף חזר בתשובה שהבין שאורתודוקס זה לא היהדות היחידה, ובטח לא היהדות המקורית והאותנטית כמו שהרוב מאמין בעיניים סגורות, הסרטון הזה והארגון הזה מזעזעים אף יותר. עכשיו שראיתי אותו אני סוף סוף מבין שמה שמפחיד את השכנים שלי הוא לגיטימי לגמרי.

אל תגידו שאין מיסיונרים כאן, או שאין איום כאן. יש לנו בעיה אמיתית, והאנשים האלה הם לא יהודים טובים, מדובר על כת של אנשים חולים ומפחידים.

No matter what, I think that protesting on Shabbat evenings and disrupting the Yom Kippur prayer service is disgusting, it's repulsive, and it's shocking.

In the same breath, I have to admit that as an ex-religious orthodox, who finally returned to Jewish practice when I realized that orthodoxy is not the only kind of Judaism, and certainly not the original and authentic Judaism as the majority blindly believe, this video and this organization are even more shocking. Now that I have seen it, I finally understand that what's been scaring my neighbors is totally legitimate.

Don't say that there are no missionaries here, or that there is no threat here. We have a real problem, and these people are not good Jews, this is a cult of sick and scary people.

manic monday

and sunday, too. what happened on saturday?

oooh, i remember. we all had a quiet day indoors, except in the late afternoon when i took mr smear for a walk to the park by the beach. we had a great time and some interesting conversations, although i don't quite recall what about, and on the way home we stopped in at a synagogue to help them make a minyan. they offered me the honour of hagba, which i've never done with a sephardi torah scroll before, so that was an interesting experience.

sunday was another work day spent chasing the tail end of wednesday's surprise. yesterday? more of the same, although i did enjoy a few additional successes along the way and finished strong.

both sunday and yesterday i was feeling... manic. also, on saturday i listened to a podcast on chiropractors and my take away was that there's a distinct possibility that my neurologist's recommendation to avoid all upper body exercise may have been shortsighted.

...

on sunday night i joined vfmp for a game night for the first time in aaaaages. we played villagers, i was tired and it took me a while to get the idea but it was a lot of fun regardless.

...

on saturday night, after closing the book i was reading to mr smear, i was about to turn off the light when i noticed he had what appeared to be a thousand-yard stare.

"are you okay?"

"uh huh."

"what are you thinking?"

"imagine if the pound actually did what it's called, and smashed dogs and cats into nothing but blood."

jesus christ.

...

yesterday morning, during the twenty five minutes between mr smear picking up his toothbrush and actually starting to brush his teeth, he shared a bunch of musings. one of them went along the lines of "when i'm older, i'm going to erase all my memories and turn myself into a naga". i put on a crying face and asking him if he really wanted to forget his childhood with us and our love for him, and he immediately understood how his plan implied that and felt so bad that he bawled while i consoled him.

parenting is a rollercoaster.

...

during breakfast yesterday, mr smear asked me if zombies are real. this is what transpired.

zombies: capitalism without the capital

[REVISED AND REPOSTED HERE]

once upon a time it was suggested to me by one of my favourite professors that i turn my theory of zombies into a thesis, or a book. as it's looking less and less likely that that's going to happen, i've decided to scribble it down here in the hopes that somebody reads it and cares. there is an ulterior motive for the timing of this post.

...

it is well-documented that monsters have traditionally served us as metaphors for societal fears. famous examples are of vampires (sexual repression), frankenstein's monster (science and technology), kaiju, such as godzilla (the dangers of nuclear technology), and that's not even getting started on the ancient monsters (from greek mythology and beowulf, for example, those must be interesting to examine).

one monster, the zombie, has undergone much transformation over the course of the last century. the most radical change was ushered in by george romero in night of the living dead, and occurred significantly at the dawn of the postmodern era. some have claimed that the postmodern zombie represents capitalist consumerism, but i find that a bit of a stretch even though it certainly fits what i would consider to be a potential category of zombieism*. but first, let's try to clarify what postmodernism is.

postmodernism, as i would summarize it, is defined by the awareness of the meta-narrative or ideology as the "operating system" of the individual which forms the basis of the subjective interpretation of reality and directs rationale and logic. postmodernism emerged from the glaring failures of modernism's "isms", the utopian narratives that resulted in such tragic movements as nazism, communism, futurism and the relegation of metered, rhyming poetry to the naughty corner. the wikipedia summary is neat as always:

While encompassing a disparate variety of approaches, postmodernism is typically defined by an attitude of skepticism, irony, or rejection toward the meta-narratives and ideologies of modernism, and often calls into question various assumptions of Enlightenment rationality. Common targets of postmodern critique include universalist notions of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress. Postmodern thinkers frequently call attention to the contingent or socially-conditioned nature of knowledge claims and value systems, situating them as products of particular political, historical, or cultural discourses and hierarchies. Accordingly, postmodern thought is broadly characterized by tendencies to self-referentiality, epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, subjectivism, and irreverence

my thesis in a single sentence: i have come to believe that zombies represent the newfound fear of dominating ideologies.

1. zombies hunger for brains and infect healthy humans with viral ideas that nobody is safe from.
in their book in praise of doubt, berger and zijderveld explore fundamentalism and conclude that it is a reaction to postmodernism's potential for nihilism and the anxiety caused by an unstable sense of reality. one of the aspects discussed is that once someone has chosen to revert to the comfort and safety of religion, they must avoid all conflicting information and reduce their encounters with non-believers to a minimum in order to maintain their chosen belief. this behaviour is not only evident in religious communities - in particular, fundamentalist communities - but in other ideologies, from atheism and scientism to sexual identity groups to sports fanatics to pretty much anything that can provide a sense of belonging and purpose. our gods and our lifestyle choices and our hobbies are now ways in which we build our identity to the exclusion of almost everything else, and we circulate in our insulated groups while recruiting as many members as we can.

2. they are othered in a terrifying way while remaining so recognizably human that people cannot help but engage with them.
as our differences become more visible in our hyper-individualized western societies, whether in hair and clothing style, body art and modifications, mannerisms, or even social media profile keywords (eg political ideology), we sensationalize and stereotype more and more until the other has become utterly alien and monsterous. we cannot avoid engaging with those others who are close to us, such as our friends and family members, and when those close to us begin to adopt a new ideology they immediately pose a threat to our own existing ideologies.

3. they can only be stopped by attacking the brain.
you cannot win an ideological war with physical attacks, if anything you will only make the enemy more determined. historically, the only two ways to win an ideological war are genocide, an option i hope will remain off the table, and "winning hearts and minds". the latter is far more difficult in today's context, sadly, as it requires intelligent, well-educated warriors and we're living in an age of vast knowledge and very little wisdom.

that, in short and informal, is my theory of zombies.

---* i feel compelled to point out that here (and in most conversations on the topic) the idea of capitalism needs to be separated into two distinct components: capitalism the economic system and capitalism the ideology. the latter is relevant to the topic of zombieism, the former is not. perhaps that's a subject in need of its own post.

where gender wars end frisbeer begins part iii

[... continued]

---yesterday:

yesterday was all about ticking off checkboxes. it began with hearing seether's karma and effect, which, quite frankly, sucks. the music does nothing for me and the lyrics were disappointing to say the least. i listened to that while handling the immense mounds of dishes that had been steadily piling up - yesterday was the day that we decided that it's high time we actually move in together.

a good sign from work! my future boss sent me a list of technologies and frameworks that i need to familiarize myself with :)

we bought a couple of things i thought we needed and stopped for ice cream across from atwater market, taking the opportunity to evangelize the use of soya instead of dairy; the texture really is better! gd gave me a haircut, i dismantled a vacuum cleaner in order to remove a large rag, we hit walmart for a couple of things that saw us both exhausted and continually dropping whatever we were carrying, we slowly, slowly walked on sore legs towards an unhelpful cup of coffee on our way to the further supermarket to pick up daiya cheeses and spaghetti squash where a particularly kind cashier organized a discount on a box full of clif builder bars that had successfully held us up at the self-service counter effectively rendering it a not-self-service counter, then made the long mission home with gd becoming grumpy as we'd totally blown her two rest days by not actually resting.

in spite of her being tired, impatient and clumsy with exhaustion she made two dishes simultaneously while i did further damage to the contents of the sink, hers clam-based and mine tofu-and-bok-choy-based. mine was absolutely exquisite! we complemented that with more ice-cream and a couple of episodes of community and then went to bed.

---today:

i finally finished the dishes and resumed (and finished) the sandman comic. i paid my rent and got info on subletting my apartment, ran laundry and enjoyed a bloody good nap. i woke up, enjoyed *two* perfectly ripe kiwis* and finally got around to posting. my primary disturbances were lunch, watching birth of the living dead and myq kaplan: small, dork and handsome.

* my definition of a heavenly food

the former is excellent, and i found it so utterly validating to my proposed thesis! the latter didn't get a lot of laughs, but his humour is incredibly sophisticated and i thoroughly enjoyed most of it.

---uncharted play's products, soccket and pulse, are inspirational. i'm thinking of purchasing a pulse myself.

my gods: my unread mail counter is back up to 800, i keep accumulating you-have-to-read-these links i send to myself. maybe i should find another place to store them :S

return to the poutine routine - part iii

[...continued]

berri uqam station was filled with people on their way to igloofest. i was dressed for it, i had my board strapped to my back, and a part of me really wanted to join them! but partying while sore wasn't going to work.

---sunday:

i woke up jet-lag early (why did i not think to use my melatonin tablets?!) to an email from the accountant informing me that it appears that i owe a large sum of money to the tax authority even without the fine for late filing. considering my status as unemployed and trying to keep everything together long enough to get a job offer and pass the french exam, that was quite unsettling :S

he asked for a couple of other documents and i was looking for them when i discovered a digitization of something related that i'd forgotten i'd made before leaving... he responded with an apology for such a bad start to the day and with an update that it now looks like they owe me a sizable sum. that just made my day!!!

i finished watching the first episode of downton abbey, and i now understand why everyone loves it so much. why can't all series hire good writers? the characters are wonderful and the plots satisfyingly subtle. nice!

a guy i went to school with came over to pick up something his mother had asked me to deliver; he told me he didn't have time for coffee or tea, but he apparently did have half an hour to stand with me in the foyer talking uncomfortably loudly. a part of my discomfort concerned bothering my neighbours, and another part his pride in generally being a bit dodgy.

i headed to godmother's to print, sign and scan what i hope is a final piece of the tax authority puzzle (hooray for technology! he says sarcastically), then met up with horseman for subway and starbucks. happily he's keen to speak to me in french, but that really did make things complicated...

on the metro to have drinks and play carcassonne with vfmp's brother (mustwin) who's recovering from an appendectomy, i sat across from a guy who looked familiar. i didn't recognize him even after he told me where i know him from, i was embarrassed... but not as embarrassed as when i exited the car and it all came rushing back to me - we trained a fair amount together, talked quite a bit *and* he's friends with gg :$

i beat mustwin. i was prouder of that than i'm proud to admit :P

i made an inefficient choice when taking the metro to the fight night, but it afforded me an opportunity to help a little old lady with some heavy lifting. i think i managed to hide my limp as i lugged her baggage up the stairs :)

the fight night was great! firstly, i didn't make the mistake of taking a date along so i got to really focus on what was happening in the ring. the guy i sparred with before i left was doing security, he took up a position next to me and so we shared running commentary. the guy i really went to watch, who lost his first fight, came out strong in his second and was deservedly ecstatic when he stepped out victorious. the guy i was sure would get knocked out was knocked down twice in the first round and the referee called a stop to it; he really wasn't ready. certainly not ready enough to be coming in with a nickname like "the hebrew hammer", you have to win a fight before you get cocky, bro...

our coach had accepted a fight last-minute the day before, and it was interesting to finally see him in action. i'll be honest, i kinda expected more but it was a good fight nonetheless and he had a tough opponent. exciting shit happened in the ring, overall it was satisfying.

vfmp made it for the last three fights, afterwards we went to aux vivres for dinner. the conversation went deep into zombie-theory territory, and i wished i'd been recording because he was playing devil's advocate and i couldn't keep track of all the questions that i should definitely answer if i do end up writing a book.

---yesterday:

oh, couch, i love you! i was too tired to shower, i barely had strength to brush my teeth before flopping down fully clothed and waking up feeling like a new man in the morning. i spent the morning figuring out french exams and courses and things, then shopped, ate, and passed out for sleep so deep that i almost didn't make it to the clc french communication mix!

being half asleep combined with the temperature dropping ten degrees in one day (-12 not counting the evil wind) and walking in the shade was very chilly indeed. once inside and "settled", i was cornered by a bunch of strange women asking me questions in french and i cursed my subconscious for adding "sweating profusely" to my discomfort. what a stupid response! :(
once the initial wave had somehow been fought off - my french may be bad and horrifically slow, but it's at least understandable - my system calmed down and i (literally) chilled a bit. after an hour and a half i realized that some of my french is surprisingly decent, some of it shameful. i'll be back at the language center again next week.

i rushed through the freezing cold to get home. the first thing i had to deal with was an email from bell regarding an update to their terms and conditions.

---right after impressing me with their #bellletstalk campaign, they sent out an email with new terms and conditions "as part of [their] ongoing efforts to improve [their] customer experience" to counter the aforementioned show of goodwill:

"To provide the Services, Bell may have to use, reproduce, adapt, transmit, display, publish, perform, distribute and create compilations and derivative works from your content. In accepting the Bell Services, you waive your moral rights, and you authorize Bell to perform these activities in relation to your content anywhere in the world, only to the extent that Bell needed to provide you with Bell Services."

please explain why i should be okay with my internet service provider taking full control of my content? the "only to the extent" seems just a touch ambiguous. i called the number listed on the email as being for inquiries, and after getting through the menu system and being put on hold for ten minutes i was informed that only online chat assistance is qualified to help.

well, shit.

---i went off to the gym, eventually decided to test out my ankle by taking the boxing class. of course this didn't score me any points with the coach... i finally came up with a response to his jibes at the end of the class and i suspect i may have offended him because he got defensive. one of my fellow students made a snide remark to which i responded in a joking fashion, but i now worry that he may not have realized that i was kidding so i'm going to have to apologize to him next time i see him just in case :(

my ankle was hurting but not too badly; after the class i spent an hour or so instructing a girl in our class (army brat) in technique. it intrigued me that while we were working the pads she suddenly shrunk back and said "i'm scared" when i told her how to strike them - i wonder if she was responding to my officer voice?

after training i sat down to my traditional salad dinner and two episodes of downton abbey, then decided to call it a night.

---today:

i slept with french talk radio in the background, and i think that was a good idea. i got up early and was going to buy coffee at the further supermarket before sitting down at starbucks to write these posts, but it was so insanely cold (-23, not counting the wind) that i stopped at the starbucks and decided to worry about the coffee another day. it was so cold that i didn't remove my super-warm sweater the entire time!

i stopped to go to the gym and meet vfmp for boxing instruction: the same thing i'd done with army brat, only he has even more unlearning to do. by the time we left we'd both learned some pretty cool things; i was rather excited because i'd been trying to teaching him what to do with his hips when he throws a hook and suddenly noticed that a cross had been taped on the floor right where we were standing, i figured out that when you throw a hook you're essentially just switching stance but without moving your feet. thank you, taekwondo, thank you :D

vfmp joined me for tea while i ate lunch and we watched total rubbish on youtube (projected on the wall, of course), and i got back to finishing this. horseman's now on his way for some more french immersion, and then i'm going head back to the gym and see how i handle kickboxing. i might not. i'm not planning on doing anything stupid...

---over the course of the past few days, i have finally understood the correct way to eat skittles!
partially crush a few of them until they form a solid mass, then suck. it's stupidly enjoyable and each handful lasts at least five minutes :D

farewells

since sunday's trip up platteklip, my legs have been as sore or more than my attempt on the elliptical. so i'm feeling like an old man and i'm satisfied with myself simultaneously :P

the "saying goodbye" phase of this visit is both depressing and comforting! my head's spinning with all the last-minute information, such as a job offer and connections i've received which would cushion my fall if i had to leave montreal, the rediscovered family and some exposed familial skeletons that have fallen out the closet; on my way here i was consumed by thoughts of mail-order husbandry, on my way there it'll be by thoughts of french and work and backup plans.

monday:

getting lost in obs treated me to an excellent vegan sandwich and good coffee. protoplasm's workshop is very cool indeed, i know he's not in full swing and profitable yet but it's great to see that he's on his way :)

he completely blew my mind when he informed me that he was recovering from food poisoning - which he'd gotten before the party on saturday! he was horribly sick and had to be so in chemical toilets, but he wouldn't leave or say anything because he didn't want to ruin our fun! that's insane, even if he did manage to enjoy himself and the music in spite of how he was feeling. i will never be more impressed by a designated driver in my life.

neil gaiman's commencement speech which i watched on airplane's insistence - okay, he didn't have to insist too much - is brilliant and funny and validating; he's saying what i've been saying for years but in a much better way and with more authority :)

my mum and i went to say goodbye to my niece and her husband, my sister's husband and kids and the new sisters-in-law, then returned home for dinner with my aunt and uncle puberty. i then headed off to visit an old friend i haven't seen in years, met his wife and glimpsed his daughter before settling in to chat until it felt pretty late.

---yesterday:

i went to the cape quarter early to look for a specific piece of jewelry for shadowslight's mother's birthday, and walked in to a store manned (or womanned) by a girl i went to school with and who claims only recognized me because of facebook. it's funny, she wasn't good-looking at all as a teenager and has become quite attractive; we chatted for a while and then i left to meet my mother for coffee and be introduced to two of her co-workers.

there's something deeply entertaining about hearing my mother referred to as "battle-axe" :D

i filled the car with petrol and returned it, then walked to the comic / game store to spend some time with another old friend before hyperviper picked me up and we went to the wellness center for lunch. i thought we were going to eat together, but he disappeared and i ate alone. the food was really good, anyway, and i ran into a guy i knew from the dance crew who i'd seen on saturday night.

i went to rick's for a couple of drinks with hyperviper, who then drove me back to sea point to have coffee with my brother. i walked hom from there along main road, my mother picked me up and we went to the golf course (metropolitan is gorgeous) for shadowslight's mom's birthday party. i was introduced to a woman who's apparently my first cousin once removed, who was very excited to meet family she likes. i jumped in on a conversation about psychology not knowing that the woman speaking holds a chair in a psychology department; i told her about my zombies thesis and she was so excited she invited me to teach a seminar. hah!

after a great dinner and more alcohol, we went home and my sister picked me up and we went to call-a-pizza. the pizza was delicious and the music was great (though i expected to purchase more than one disc, but whatever), and we talked about a couple of things that really upset me.

1. my niece's new husband did and does things that are deeply disturbing, and unfortunately my niece is so stubborn that nobody can advise her. all we can do is hope for the best, or at least that if she gets hurt that it's not too badly, and support her as much as we can. i really, really hope that our fears aren't realized and that they're happy together.

2. my brother's behaviour has been even worse than i thought.

in other news, my sister's had some interesting paranormal experiences since her mother's passing that are inexplicable, i don't know how much is coincidence and charlatanism or how much is for real, but if it's the former nobody will ever be able to prove it and if it's the latter it would destabilize my world view. fortunately for me i don't need to worry too much about that right now.

protoplasm rocked up and we went to rafiki's for drinks after deciding that heartache & vine wasn't the place to be. amongst the other topics of discussion he proposed a stupidly simple way to get around the infuriatingly silly laws about working for compensation without a permit*, so if things get interesting i might have an option to earn.

* working for entities outside the country, that is

---today:

languishing in bed, enjoying my last proper sleep until i get back to montreal. walking to my niece's mother-in-law's salon for a pedicure after which i barely recognize my feet, they're not so hippie anymore. getting a cheap (R45) haircut at adelphi center (not very professional, but decent enough) and then lunch at xiang yuan (what an insanely dodgy place!). i shaved my beard for the immigration officials, showered and am now about to make a couple of calls and pack my bags.

aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

little days

my mother suggests i stop keeping track of the details, but i think that's how this whole blogging thing got started. on the one hand, i should just stop. on the other?

the darkness of the unknown.

---
sunday night:
fluxx in an english pub seemed like an appropriate way to burn the couple of hours between buses. we picked up the last subway sandwich served for the evening (the guy behind the counter wasn't happy to be working until closing time) and returned to the bus station.

---
monday:

the toilets were unavailable, and there was a worryingly long line for the bus. we were most fortunate to board when there were still two adjacent seats available.

i finished the fudge while thinking about not being able to brush my teeth until the morning.

it was a long, restless, uncomfortable bus ride. we returned home under a pink sunrise, and had a proper fight before going to bed; related to the usual miscommunications.

---
it was slow going when we eventually woke up; it was refreshing to walk through the snow to go shopping. the morning's fight was over but i was conscious of the lack of words passing between us.

passing torn bills isn't cool - the indian fast food place we ate at before the movie almost got the jump on us.

---
i don't know what the hell people who complained about django unchained were expecting! it's what happens when a director has the power to transport us back in time to right a wrong, and it's definitely one of tarantino's crowning achievements. it's clever, it's fun, it's beautifully done; there was a lot of violence, but i do believe it was entirely appropriate.

---
in the evening our caretaker returned a key and promised to deliver the rest (uh, huh) while i was on my way to deal with other people's laundry. i really don't like handling my neighbours' undergarments so that i can use the machines and i'm sure they don't like it either.

we ate too much and i wiped out on one piece.

---
tuesday:

i had long beautiful dreams. i find that more and more, i'm sure i've slept enough but when i wake up i'm so perfectly comfortable and still tired and i think that another half an hour or hour will make all the difference, but it never does.

i spent the first couple of hours catching up, then found myself playing with "big man" fire. i need to back off while still saying what i've got to say: i might let you know how that works out.

i spent ages deep in system configuration, and eventually pulled myself out of it to watch the hockey. the game took a lot longer than i expected and pg bailed on the wall climbing, so we did tabata during one of the breaks and it totally buggered me up (i must be doing it right).

ice hockey is on the verge of being an extreme sport, and it's great watching a game when supporting the local team is supporting a winner: go habs!

-warm bodies is to zombies what twilight is to vampires: a pathetic twist pandering to the weak-minded who cannot deal with the essential monster. my opinion is based on the trailer, which i found disturbing. it's, like, super-advanced trolling.

pg didn't really dig detective conan, we booked another weekend in sauveur (this time, a room a *short* walk from the mountain), and i passed out.

---
today:

it was bloody *warm*. uncomfortably so, and a bit wet. have i mentioned no longer being a fan of positive degrees?

i began my day pondering tact and a future that hinges on it. then i received a fax that made me a bit emotional; the rest of my day was spent babysitting - newk'd on personal issues and cam2 on his distinct lack of focus and professionalism.

...

what the hell is up with montrealers?! it's at least six degrees out, and the metro feels like twice or thrice that, yet they're all keeping their coats on!! shit, i was so hot i couldn't put mine back on even when i got outside!

pg hasn't been feeling well today - i had hoped she'd be up for the wall, but i guess it's another night in.

thought feeds - part ii

learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all
- whitney houston

i've finished with food of the gods now: it's like mckenna doesn't get it, and then he gets it, all within the span of a paragraph or two. his reference to zombies and christian domination* are excitingly on the mark, especially the latter tying into interior domination that is an essential part of the human condition.

as for the former, it's now even clearer why the popularization of zombies began when it did.

his "modest proposal" almost made me laugh out loud on the metro! he really was a great man, and the world really needs to listen to what he had to say.

* the christian dominator model. islam just takes an already extreme model one step further.

totoro-n-to part iv

[aaargh! i missed a blog post somehow. inserting this retroactively.]

---
saturday (20th):

i was feeling weak - it was possibly a protein thing.

in the newspaper i read about the zombie walk scheduled for that afternoon downtown. instead, the family took us for lunch at the local aroma (hah!) which was actually really nice (and they understand protein salads), and then we drove down ilan ramon avenue and continued off into the sticks to witness the turning a weekend too late to really be impressed. it was all very pretty, i'll admit, but not quite like the show we'd been treated to when we left montreal. the videos from the zombie walk were amazing.

i was exhausted by the time we got back, so i had a nap before pg and i were taken to a cousin to eat far too much sushi (well, i ordered the vegetarian options) and play settlers of catan with him and his wife. it was a fun evening!

---
sunday (21st):

TMI WARNING: i always thought that peeing in a dream meant peeing outside of the dream as well. apparently not. i was *very* relieved to discover that i hadn't relieved myself.

otherwise, i dreamed of an honest work ethic winning out.

i ate breakfast, then got stuck into the cic website. i got a little done before k-twang surprised us by arriving unannounced; we pretty much picked up where we left off. we spent a really pleasant day together meandering through downtown [noodles, kensington market with super slow coffee, half an exhibit and the fashion district with sweet potato fries, root beer and a non-dog], capping it off with a visit up the cn tower and eating thai food that made me cry. the drive back home was long,

the one thing that bothered me was at the cn tower: the photos that you take in front of a green screen when you walk in? there's only one way to see them, and that's to have them printed. it's against policy for them to turn the screen so you can get an idea. once they're printed (in triplicate, with magnets) and framed so nicely you're kinda guilted into buying them because otherwise it's your fault that they've gone to waste*. and they cost the most ridiculous amount of money!!! we're not stupid, and we'd paid enough just to ride the elevator.

* just kidding, that's bullshit. it's totally on them and their blatant disregard for the environment.

on our way to bed i discovered that my cousin's wife's into all sorts of crazy, but as i stood there smiling and nodding it dawned on me that she's not harming anyone with her beliefs and that they're as real to her as anything, so why not?

an early night ensued.

zombie morning

firstly, i think i'm properly over the idea that shakespeare's "dark mistress" was narcotic. there's too little supporting evidence, and more than enough pointing to something else.

and that something else was not - *GASP* - a woman. now that i've finally gone through the entire sequence, i can say with confidence that shakespeare's reknowned and respected critics are all a bunch of perverts. how everyone takes note of the sexual language but misses its figurative nature is beyond me.

---friday:

1. the day began with an unpleasant email that led to an unpleasant phone call - our company has a client that has thwarted our best efforts to keep our sources hidden, and this endangers our bottom line (regarding this client in particular). there's not much that can be done about this without crossing the privacy boundary and doing what is essentially hacking our users, and even if the purpose of that "hacking" is to make the user's browsing more secure* it's not on. other possible tricks available to us are considered inappropriate. i don't know if i care enough for this kind of problem, but i guess i'll have to come up with something. *sucks thumb*

*weird, right?

2. the eblt toasted sandwich for breakfast from the cafe next door was a brilliant call.

3. a meeting with sorter and -someone in the afternoon: i'm trying to impress a sense of urgency upon co-worker, and sorter's being too kind and forgiving. i *think* everyone knows what they need to be doing, but i suspect that i'm going to need to be policing and i'm not fond of the idea. shit, if i didn't have papers to write (and other work to do) i would have finished the job ages ago!

4. dinner at pg's folks' was great. i ate too much, and talked less than usual :)

5. a few episodes of futurama, then bed. my back's not 100%, but i slept much better than i have in at least a week.

---saturday:

now studying diagrams and protocols for the job interview in a week and a bit. about to step out for coffee with nystire and later, we'll be boarded by ric.

---i've just finished reading max brooks - world war z. it's not the most well-written work i've ever come across, and a number of cultural inconsistencies bothered me, but in spite of those minor flaws the book is magnificent, both in its scope and its coherency. he covers everything one could ask for in an oral history, from the grand, global scale of a species making a desperate last stand for its survival to the minutia of personal struggles.

i'm not entirely certain what i'm going to write about, but whatever aspect of zombies i choose to focus on, i know that mr. brooks will have provided me more than enough material to say whatever needs saying.

lost in a haystack

i sell the dead was cute, but not much more than that. i was going to work afterwards, but passed out instead, waking up around 2am and spending the next two hours working. then i got back to bed for odd restlessness followed by crazy dreams.

i was in the office early. most of the things i'd written on the weekend worked first time when put into production. the three guys sharing the room with me - the brothers hack and cough, and mr. sneezy, made me feel like i was picking something up after sitting with them for four hours...

i rushed off to catch the bus to campus, and the bus didn't come. i was fifteen minutes late for a twenty minute appointment to discuss one of my seminar papers, and arrived hot and tired after spending most of those fifteen minutes walking fast and in far warmer weather than i'd anticipated in the morning. fortunately, the march hare was in less of a hurry than he'd assumed he'd be.

after lunch and more zombie fiction, i headed into the library to seek the books i'll be needing. three attempts, getting properly lost in the haystack of shakespeare's works and criticism, and it took a helpful little librarian lady* to finally put me in the right area. and then i was overwhelmed by the stuff that was actually relevant, and ended up leaving with a seriously heavy bag.

* as moonflake reminded me, i should have had a bunch of bananas with me

i returned to work, discovered that my money has successfully been transferred to my pimp freelance company, and i should be contacted soon to sort out particulars. i sat with the boss for a short while... it seems like every time we talk the project gets bigger :P

i took my leave, bussed home, went shopping, had dinner, and made some progress with the work. not including a couple of cookie breaks.

most important discovery of the day: pg's theory that the reason i'm always colder than her is because i don't wear slippers around the house appears to be valid. good thing she has oversized spares!

calmer, and a bit sore

the earlier issues with my pc turned out to be with logmein hamachi - a great piece of software, but for some reason windows gave its network priority and because that wasn't connected properly i didn't have 'net access. weird.

i had to take care of another emergency rush job, then paid the dentist a visit. he was very, very specific about my needing to floss better. he explained this a number of times, in a number of different ways, really slowly, and it was hard for me to concentrate because there was really awesome psychedelic rock playing in the background and i was all sleepy to begin with.

i had a great lunch reading max brooks - world war z, which is great fun and i can legitimately claim that it's for one of my papers. i'm intrigued by some of the glaring cross-cultural errors he's introduced (there's sort of a base assumption that all people think and talk the same, unless that's a meta-comment on journalists, in which case he did a bang-up job), and even more so by some of the things that he most definitely got right. i suspect he may have done a little more research than i originally gave him credit for, and i have to say that with or without these issues, the stories are generally well told. this is a man with a great feel for zombies.

i picked up humus for pg, then returned home to deliver it and to get some work done. i got a little bit done. then i rushed off to cafe noga to say goodbye to my co-workers (the official farewell, our department is having a separate "do" tomorrow night because the official one hijacked our plans and made them uncomfortable for most of us). i have done my schmooze, said my goodbyes on good terms, and got paid for it in beer and munchies.

i hurried home, got ready to go rollerblading, and went out for one of the best routes we've ever had - two and a half hours of tough uphills for exercise, and multiple payoffs of solid high speed gliding downhills on a beautiful wintery night ^_^

i did suffer a spill or two: the first when i jumped over something that was a little further than i'd launched for, and i tipped backwards. i managed to land relatively elegantly on my bum and hands (as opposed to back and head), and the guys behind me applauded. i was kinda embarrassed. for the second, i had an ice-cream in one hand and water in the other, and i stopped concentrating for a second and *BAM* discovered that whichever asshole paved the route in the park staggered its height. sharply. that doesn't make any sense! at least i managed to keep my ice-cream clear :)

i've stretched, and showered, and gobbled down proteins, and begun working on a poetic exercise for tomorrow evening (i've been invited to a group, and had to decline three weeks in a row now)...

i'm discovering (late, as usual) creedence clearwater revival. good shit, so far.

the selfish meme

i stupidly opened my mouth in front of our whole class last week regarding the idea that is now the kernel of the book i'm writing, and i regretted it the second i realized how marketable it is.

i'm usually pretty free with my ideas.

now, in light of that experience, i'm concerned about approaching the march hare with this new one in case he does me out of it. that's just silly, and i'm going to tell him everything, but dammit! this sensation of "mine-ness" exists!

the more i've thought about it (included a review of something i wasn't sure of in the beginning), the more certain i am - i know who W.H. is. and i understand clearly sonnets that up until now have been really opaque.

william shakespeare - you really are too smart for your own damn good.

---
so - still completely over the moon about this. i've also solved an annoying problem with work, and am ready to report my hours and go to bed.

undead cash-centric

i met wr outside the main library, introduced him to the noise room and we spent most of the hour on ideation. then a little while on failed research before we had to go our separate ways. he has given me good food for thought, at least.

on the way into class, i spoke to the flash boss and we agreed that we'd meet between 1pm and 1.30 so i could drop off the tax document. he promised he'd be available and, just in case, gave me a phone number to call.

the poetry lesson was great fun, in particular when studying adelaide crapsey. last semester we learned to the dead in the graveyard underneath my window, and today we studied song. once i put the following (blacked-out) idea into your head, that she's making the shroud because she wants to be the best-dressed zombie, try to read the former without seeing what i saw. when i shared with the professor, she looked at me oddly for a moment and then burst into laughter :)

after desperately declaring bankruptcy to yogi over the phone (his father's out the country, so if i *am* working for them then i need to know how much and when i'm being paid), i had lunch with wordsworth and we discussed my seminar topic. he also had interesting things to say.

on the way off campus a girl wearing a greenpeace shirt asked if she could have a moment, and i told her that she was welcome to follow me to my bus stop.
"where're you from? you have an accent."
"south africa"
"oh! it is you!"
she raised her sunglasses, and became the girl from the specialist encounter. she informed me that she had, in fact, checked out the disturbing things i'd told her, and found me to be correct. we discussed nuclear power and left / right polarization of environmental issues (i hate it when political leanings interfere with universals), and then she surprised me again when the bus came by not only remembering my name, but knowing my surname too. what gives?!

---on the way to my once-upon-a-time primary base to meet with the flash boss, i called his phone. unreachable. i called the other number, and left a message with the secretary. when i arrived, i tried calling again, but his phone was still unreachable. i perched myself on a wall, and spent the next half an hour alternating between reading, calling his cellphone, or calling the other number. the secretary wasn't answering any more, and i was transported back to six years of frustration caused by military secretaries simply ignoring calls.

that's one of the reasons it's always better to do stuff in person. but there i was, no authorization (nor desire) to entire the base, and looking so suspicious that one of the GSS dudes approached and began an interrogation. producing my high-enough ranking reserve duty card wasn't enough, i had to prove knowledge of the base to push him to friendly mode.

all that, for nothing. i left for my interview in a foul mood.

---my mood was improved somewhat when the direction ru55 gave me took me to a building called camera obscura, but i then discovered that i was on the wrong street :P

did the interview go well? the guy seemed satisfied, the work looks really cool, and i felt... a fit. i would love to work with these guys. and i have relevant experience up the wazoo :)

---i headed to care to have my eyes tested for laser surgery. i had no idea what to expect, but the first battery of tests was funky as hell. lots of pretty swirling colours, retinal-scanner-style wiping, and that strange, amusing machine that tests both your eye-pressure and your courage simultaneously.

the opthalmologist who did all the differential testing shocked me with the results: i can't believe how awful my left eye has become. he put drops in my eyes and told me they'd make my vision blurry, but nothing happened and i sat outside reading until they called me.

just prior to them calling me something happened. it was barely perceptible, but suddenly i was having trouble with the words on the page and i had to hold my iphone at a strange angle to be able to follow the line. when i mentioned this to the doctor, he told me that when he was done i could look at myself in the mirror - so *that's* why the experience seemed familiar! my pupils were completely dilated :P

it appears that i'm an ideal candidate for laser treatment (gosh, i'll bet they say that to all the guys) and it would totally sort me out. the only problem is that it would sort me out in another sense as well: NIS 7800 after the NIS 1000 student discount? damn.
that seems an awful lot for bothering them for thirty seconds.

---work: i did a good night's work. as i said to one of the managers on the way home - i shouldn't be working so well for such a small amount of money; my conscience is screwing me over in the grand scheme of things. [see previous post]

i was horrified to discover that -someone's screw-up (and mine, that i didn't perform a code-review) was way worse than i originally thought. on sunday we have to rewrite what he did completely, and there's me at 10pm sending off reprimanding emails to him and tactful emails to the boss to explain without getting the guy into shit for the damage his lack of experience and guidance caused.

...

good news, good news, bad news. the good news is that my poetry paper scored me a 99! the other good news is that i scored a 92 for the narrative analysis course... the bad news is that it's a six point drop from what i understood was my exam score. it's not clear if my mark was penalized; but if it was there's nobody who won't stand for my having been the most active and vocal member of the class. and i suffered every - single - class. wordsworth called me up devastated, but there's not much i can do short of a few inane condolences. i hope he doesn't have to redo the course...

i got home, put a load in the washing machine and headed to pg's, who's already complaining about barely seeing me.

*sigh*

i need a cash infusion, a decent job, and for the world to right itself without my intervention for a while.