mommy returns

shouldn't have paid for the taxi to the station - i still managed to miss my train :(

i almost didn't recognize my mum, her hair's grown a bit. we took the packed train to tel aviv, had a pleasant walk to pick up the car, and then drove through to herzeliya. we spent a nice afternoon catching up with her grandparents, napped, and then went for a walk on the beach, stopping at the arena for beers before heading back.

what's really great is talking to her about all the things that aren't important or relevant, we never really do that on the phone. whole tangents of arbitrary discussion with her are so much fun!

i dropped her off, spoke to vision for a couple of minutes, then drove back, still chilled. what stressed me out was trying to find parking in tel aviv. all the prices for the lots have gone up. i found one close by that's not charging now, but i have to collect before 6.30am.
not just that, but i tried to park in a tight spot and i misjudged the turning circle... it doesn't matter that there's no damage, the fact that *i* know that i touched him pissed me right off.

now i've had something to eat, i think we're off to play some pool. or i'm just going to give up on the night and crash.

third strike

or "exclusively screwed"
or "the most expensive drive up north. ever."

i took a twenty minute nap on friday evening, and then a friend woke me up to give me a fifteen-minute warning. i was ready in ten. i was nursing a headache that would only increase in strength and intensity, and was completely exhausted.

we met up with ru55 at his place, played with the wii (quite fun, but i couldn't find a way to get a mii to look like... me), and i passed out on the couch. it appears that i slept for an hour, with my temple resting on my knuckles which in addition to the neurofen appears to have worked in alleviating the headache somewhat.

we left his place around 2am. to get to the starting point took about two hours, and we were stopped on the way by an enthusiastic junior policeman who was determined to search our car. he was puzzled and intrigued by south african sweet-wrappers, and his senior let him enjoy himself for a couple of minutes before loudly hinting at him that i'm an officer. he got this hurt look on his face, but let us go.

we arrived at a parking lot filled with crazy people, and we told to buy tickets and join the convoy. we weren't too trusting about the tickets, but we joined anyway for a mission that was something out of a movie. we travelled through farms and villages, mostly on dirt roads and with our lights off in the dark - no mean feat when we're talking about 60 - 80 cars.

while travelling up the unchartered mountain (according to the gps device), we discover that we can leave a virtual trail of breadcrumbs by indicating traffic cameras. this turned out very useful on the way out.

we bought our tickets on the way in, and were on our way... except we weren't. about five minutes after we acquired our tickets, we discovered that that party was shut down already. all the sneaking in the world won't help when you're sneaking TO a place crawling with cops. the organizers had managed to find a spot right next to another party, and because the pigs couldn't shut them down (private property, although that didn't seem to stop them last time) they shut us down instead.

the worst of that is that the other party was a bunch of arsim, and the cute policewoman was indoctrinated enough to tell *us* that *we* are bad people... the idiots just don't understand that they closed down one of the few exclusive parties for people who don't like stabbing incidents and balloons filled with nitrous.

so yeah, hundreds of us stood shaking our heads, confused and amused and frustrated, and apparently there were a lot of us who'd had our money grabbed at the last moment... it's entirely likely, even, that the girl who sold us our tickets had nothing to do with the organization and had found two innocents to reclaim her cash from :(

after a highly amsuing and odd morning, including bartering for entrance to the other party, we drove to tzemach, had a couple of cups of coffee at the local aroma, then drove past the kinneret, stopping to take photos for a few minutes before i got in the driver's seat and we made our way home.

we stopped halfway to visit my cousins on the kibbutz, it was nice to be able to surprise them for once :)

those earlier cups of coffee and a can of redbull kept me going until i was home and ru55 had rested enough for his return. i showered, had breakfast, watched NIN - closer with the kid, had a nap, cleaned, ate nachos watching 88 minutes, and promptly died until 3.50am. now i'm shaved and have brushed my teeth, done most of the dishes (i HATE the guys for not throwing out the food bits yesterday), and am putting on my uniform to train to the airport.

beginning on the bench

csn called me up to join her for a cigarette downstairs, and i found her and her friend (darksmile) lounging on the bench. her friend was massaging me, i was lying with her between my legs, and aside from a lot of sensual humour and flirtatious silliness, we spent a long while freaking out passers-by and occasionally drawing them into whatever ridiculous discussion was going on.

suddenly spot appeared, and i had to rush upstairs to put some clothes on [more respectable clothes, that is] - we went with a couple of friends to the cocktail room, where spot's sister's friend pitched up with someone else from her hostel (a french engineering student who doubles as a tobey maguire lookalike). we had a really nice evening, although i was exhausted before we got there - and hadn't eaten anything all day, and i got home around 2am completely incompetent and incoherent.

horrible early wake-up this morning, and unpleasant waking up the others. spot and i bought a shower-head and then wasted forty minutes walking around looking for the right bus stop because he hadn't read the bus route correctly. we quickly found the place we were looking for in jaffa - but they didn't have beach umbrellas either. we bought a couple of things for the apartment, then crossed the road to yet another place which had to have stock.

nothing doing. i was upset. the guy working there got totally offended because he thought i was pissed off at him. spot was pissed off because every mission for the last month has resulted in abysmal failure. i couldn't even obtain one at the damn petrol station.

we returned essentially empty-handed, hot, sweaty and tired. we bought meat at the butcher's (great place), i bought two new books that look highly amusing (jon ronson - the men who stare at goats and jennifer rardin - once bitten, twice shy), and then the kid joined us and we went to benedict's for breakfast.

good thing we'd brought something to read (well, me and the kid anyway), because we had a long wait to get inside. a friend of spot's joined us, and we sat down for a great breakfast. we all ordered english, and as satisfying as it was spot and i were disappointed because the portions are way smaller than they were last time.

on the way home i got ice-cream - whiskey, bitter chocolate, espresso and white chocolate with cardimon all mixed up. fantastic ^_^

our new shower configuration rocks, the kid and i made a cute hex-editor style file reader, i'm figuring out gimp things (yes, the above is an example) and karl schroeder - lady of mazes has kept me occupied. now i need to nap because it looks like i'm going up north tonight, on condition that i dress up as an orange ninja again.

armchair philosophy

i didn't get nearly enough sleep last night. i walked into my office this morning and immediately sat down to finish what was left from last night, and when it was all tidy i brought it through to the guy who so desperately needed it... who wasn't there.

i called him up to find out that he was going straight to his destination, so i'd need to get it to him electronically. i had a birthright meeting at 9.30, and 45 minutes simply wasn't enough.

mission failed.

i was so busy beating myself up about it, on top of beating off a crazy headache, that i pretty much lost my ability to focus and speak at the meeting. i didn't screw that up completely, but i could have been more useful.

maybe even smiled, but by that stage i was certain that my sense of humour had failed. i sleepwalked back to my base afterwards, mindlessly ate a sandwich for lunch, and wandered back to my office. i stopped outside to chat with a girl from our building, and she asked why i was looking so out of it.

"oh. well why didn't you just fax it?"

GOOD LORD. the idea of transferring paper to a distant destination by fax never even dawned on me. who uses such absurdly primitive technology?! i'm reminded of another amusing story... although i just found it being called on snopes. oh well, it's the principle of the thing, i guess :P

at least i got a good laugh out of it. i worked like a madman for the rest of the afternoon, driving myself nuts but actually managing to get a reasonable amount finished. cry freedom! from the hilltops! VACATION!!

i got home, and convinced spot to join me for coffee. we had an enthralling conversation about the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

literally.

we were still arguing back and forth when we got home, then went shopping, and it all ended with the following:

spot, if you write something worthy enough, i'll kill you myself.
then i'll tell people "it was his philosophy that killed him", and then tell everyone i know to read your book.

now that i've showered, blogged and learned some new things with the gimp^*, i'm about ready to drag my already wasted ass out to see if i can remember how to have proper fun.

^* post-mortem, so the picture above isn't representative.

swamped

now i know what the word means - it's the kind of thing you see in cartoons, not in real life. i was sitting at my desk, it being covered with about ten stacks of paper - you know when you stack documents crossways so that they're essentially separate, stacks on the floor, and the current stack on my lap. then i had to reach over and use the keyboard and i realized i'd run out of space, and i was in a hurry to finish it all up and go home.

i laughed about it for about two seconds before remembering that i actually had to make it all disappear without abusing the shredder.

i began my day ingeniously - instead of the usual bleary-eyed and dangerous shave, i made a point of making coffee and sitting outside on the bench with it, a cigarette, infected mushroom - suliman and a beautiful sunrise. that shifted my morning (and this was around 5.45am) from "the suck" to "ierie".

the day began with a meeting, that i didn't pay too much attention to, and then i spent the next nine hours minus one pouring over the paperwork and making sure that i hadn't missed anything. the hour subtracted was for lunch, and a ceremony congratulating me on joining the workforce in an official capacity, with no less than three severe lectures on responsibility regardless of the fact that i'm one of the most responsible people they have.

i got my TL to laugh during the ceremony, and he in turn cracked a joke. our commander sort of continued on but in a slightly more serious vein, and the unit commander took it seriously and gave me a stern warning.

figures.

in the middle of a quick meeting later on, i received a phone call from some female private informing me that i have to make an appointment for half a day on the medical base, fast for no less than fourteen hours prior to said appointment, because i'm over 25.

i told her i was in the middle of something, i asked if it would take long, she said no. she proceeded to mentally dawdle and i could *hear* her chatting with friends in the background, which really put my back up. i shouted at her and slammed down the phone - it drives me crazy when the kids in the army don't realize that there are people in the system who have real work to do.
even crazier when they maintain that attitude throughout their service, but that's a different complaint.

and besides, when did 26 become "old and decrepit"?? granted i'm not in peak physical condition, but i'm doing a hell of a lot better than most of the developers i work with.

the last hour of work was spent almost literally swimming through the stacks, and i left early (after only a twelve hour day, what a slacker) and got a ride through to my old base. i'd intended to spend no more than half an hour chatting with my previous TL, but as usual i kept bumping into old friends and got caught up in a few engaging conversations.

i miss those guys... but i'm SO glad that i'm loving the work i'm doing!

i bussed to cafeneto, sat with spot for coffee, and we came back to find the kid at home. a fun conversation later and spot and i were fighting about the conditions that we agreed upon to allow spot to stay. his feelings are hurt, and i don't care because if that's what it takes for the kid and myself to feel more comfortable, so be it. it's not nice, but then neither is being pissed off all the time because i'm feeling like somebody's nanny.

it's late, i'm tired, and my last day before the holiday is going to be even more strenuous than today was. DAMN.

id concerns

rough morning: i find that napping on the shuttle isn't helpful. it's not that not napping is, i simply can't win with an average morning being a false-start. getting through the bleary-eyed phase only to have to begin again when i arrive isn't healthy.

wait - waking up before noon isn't healthy. i definitely can't win.

my day was spent writing in hebrew - translating things i find difficult to express in english into something intelligible for non-english speakers. i found myself working spaced-out... i think that may have slowed things down, but everyone has their own personal form of escapism.

our new method of dealing with the kinder definitely amuses me, at least, and we got a good couple of laughs at his expense without him knowing exactly why.

nystire joined me for a bit of a mission for signatures after lunch, and i innocently passed on regards to a girl from a guy she's never met (he'd joked about it earlier). that spurred quite an embarrassing mini-interrogation, and when we got back to our offices we discovered that she'd actually called him up to find out what was going on }:)

i've finally got the certificates for my "raise" printed out. so i'm happy that that's another thing complete.

after a long afternoon of headachey work, i pressed a combination of keys that opened up an application that i'm not familiar with. an hour on the phone to our technical support to figure out that some dumbass had installed something on all our pc's with a windows shortcut key set. idiots.

i stayed late to work on something else, getting very frustrated when fifteen minutes before leaving i realized that i'd been approaching the task the wrong way. it's a not a waste if you learn from it, but i'm in a hurry so the theory doesn't make me feel any better about it.

on the way back home i had a chat with my previous TL about the kid. i discovered yesterday morning that his total bitch of a primary commander (the one that nystire and i locked horns with a number of times) has found a nasty way to make him do the reserve duty that he's exempt from. the only way to stop her is to give him reserve duty where he is, and that's almost as bad. his TL told me that he's not really involved, and that annoys me. i'm not his buffer anymore but if i was *i* certainly wouldn't just trust other people to take care of it.

i hope for his sake that things can get sorted out.

spot and i went out for coffee when i got home and changed, and i described where my head's at as follows:

i've got another few years of military service to go. in order to advance as much as possible, i have to *be* military, and that's not really who i am (in the sense that i follow all the rules and play all the games). aside from wanting a life where i can wake up late every day, sport stubble and wear comfortable clothes, i really want to be able to relax and show people my crazy face without repercussions.

i can't help but wonder what i'd be like right now if i hadn't continued to serve. a lot more social, definitely less tightly-wound. the social element is the kicker - i don't see a lot of my friends primarily because of the uniform. i do suffer for my art :S

since i've gotten home, i've learned about mp3 headers, and i've learned that gcc isn't fully installed in the standard ubuntu configuration.

searching... file not found.

it was great waking up late, having breakfast and coffee slowly. i took a bus to the immigration bureau, and that turned the morning on its head. the idiot woman doesn't understand that her job parameters are not merely defined by a bunch of rules, but that she's actually part of an organization whose function is to serve real-life human beings.

while i was shouting at her, rather harshly in retrospect, some american walked in at the end of his tether, and she began giving him bureaucratic grief too. we were both shouting at her when a guy from new zealand waltzed in, rolled his eyes and with an amused smile began studying the wall.

we eventually managed a breakthrough, and while i was waiting my turn the new zealander and i struck up a conversation, he's a surfer in the area so i might get it together sometime to join him. and the woman who dealt with me was the same cow as last time, but what needed doing took five minutes so i didn't have to crack my teeth on a frosty smile.



on the way to base, i discovered that i'd somehow managed to skip about half a chapter of lady of mazes, and i was so entranced going through it with flashes of "oooh, so that's what that was!" that i almost missed my stop.

the day was pretty much standard. i can't believe i'm saying that about a good day - it's so nice to be living the good life! the only source of irritation was calling up a wrong number due to a miscommunication, and having to deal with a really unhelpful prick.

i got a ride to azrieli, and couldn't find anything i was looking for. tower records have re-classified all forms of rock as "pop/rock", which is retarded. i don't want to go through all the latest crap to find real musicians :/

i did enjoy a great supper from shinto, though. they make their rice perfect for chopsticks!

i ran into ru55's girlfriend on the way home, we had a fun chat, and then i bussed home, with some weird old crusty making intermittent remarks like "you don't take responsibility for all your actions".

i drew cash, did some shopping, did the washing, showered, and have now spent more than enough time online.

thought for the day: "all i need is love".

t-shirt for the day:
[front]
i'm a good person,
i'm funny and
i'm smart, but

[back]
...it's been so long
i can't remember
if i'm a good lay

detained, but still a bit edgy

today just flew by. it began with my commander spilling coffee all over the place - and himself.

me, bringing him some toilet paper: "serves you right!"
my TL: "you're staying behind an extra hour today."
me: "no really, you're always taking a couple of sips and leaving your mug for two days. you don't respect your coffee enough!"
my TL: "that's another hour."
me: "fine by me, i have tons of work to do."
my TL: "the whole damn weekend, then."
me: "okay, but you're organizing a place for me to sleep here on base."
my TL:"okay, never mind the weekend."

there were quite a few laughing witnesses, but by the afternoon i'd forgotten why i had to stay. i tactfully brought it up when my SC was around, and he was horrified to learn that he had an officer being detained - i think he figured out from the general reaction that it wasn't serious, though.

at least, i hope so. aside from a pretty decent lunch, i spent the entire day working, so caught up in it that i got laughed at yet again for my reaction: "when the hell did it get to 16.30?!"

i started feeling jumpy for my last half an hour, and i left the base irritated by the world in general and unable even to enjoy music - whatever the genre. i met up with sammy at the cafeneto, though, and sitting with his kid for ten minutes calmed me down immensely.

i definitely have to get myself one of those, the only problem is the "first step" which involves finding a girlfriend :P

i'm so glad i can wake up late tomorrow.

pizza nightmare

this time, the weekend abused me. it all started after posting yesterday morning... not in the least helped by this strange, nagging feeling that something's wrong. a feeling that i simply cannot finger or fathom.

the kid and i did some shopping, and then began yet another mission to find a beach umbrella. this was even worse than before, and in fact the only beach umbrella we came across was in the hands of an understanding young woman who'd desperately pulled it from a trash can. the situation in this city is dire.

we came home disappointed, and i spent the rest of it in my room. around 7pm spot woke me up and invited me to dinner at his gran's, so i had a shower, dressed and we walked over there.

friday night family dinner should not involve ordering pizza. it wasn't bad pizza, it's just that it's a tacky thing to do. after dinner i went with spot's sister's friend to get some ice-cream and shuttle to visit hdg, then go on to euphoria, a really sweet little bar which was hosting a rather funky electro-session.

we weren't there long before some friends of hers dragged us off to the lansky, which is an absolutely stunning bar catering for an absolutely crap crowd. it was awkward to begin with, and then the horrid, disgraceful tech-middle-eastern music started, and the grossest of the gross got up to jiggle and wobble and make stupid noises. our cue to leave.

i got to bed around 2.30am, and suffered the most aweful pizza-dreams. i'm glad i don't remember much, but i struggled and tossed and turned until around 10am, and followed it up with a day of agitated fumbling. mostly reading karl schroeder - lady of mazes (which is getting interesting) and playing fallout 2.

i just can't set my mind on anything at the moment, and i don't know why.

our neighbour and her friend joined us for supper, and they cleaned up after us which was surprising and nice :)
we began watching flash gordon - great film - but were vetoed by our neighbour and forced (oh, the pain) to watch pulp fiction again. could've been worse.

now to begin another week. just one more of keeping it together before i take my leave.

welcoming the ISM...

... because more antisemitism and terrorism is exactly what this world needs.

The purpose of using internationals in the ISM is to threaten Israeli sovereignty and facilitate terrorist attacks against the Jewish state while its members claim to be “peace activists” engaging in “nonviolent resistance.”

i love the "nonviolent" keyword. would anyone like to enlighten me as to what would happen to any craft "resisting arrest" in american waters? this is like someone filming a documentary on police, and walking up to one waving a gun in his face while someone else is smashing his patrol car with a baseball bat to prove how aggressive the pigs are.

the problem is that most people are too lazy to research things. not only will they have a lot of support, but they'll be able to find volunteers to help them. unbelievable.

for details, see The ISM goes to sea over here. we're talking about 11 days from now.

two marshmallows for the price of...

my eyes are still sleep-fuzzy, and my monitor's so icy in this heat and humidity that the condensation is making everthing blur. i'm going to have a massive headache by the time i'm done :P

but i'm sitting with slug - on the run, and with my new speakers i'm getting the bass out of it ^_^

work yesterday involved writing lots of crap. lots of it. on a positive note, i'm officially eligible for a raise [i think it's about $100, so it's more the principle of the thing], and we just need to fill in the paperwork :)

the last half an hour sucked, though. i was sitting and waiting for someone, who kept telling me that he'd be done in just a minute. i took a stack of post-it notes and began drawing little animations. not very good ones, either.

i got home usual time, and spot and i meandered down to the lincoln. we played about an hour of pool before my team-mate arrived, and had an hour or so to teach him before the others arrived. while spot was playing him, i was staring at the super-cute girl at the next table: sexiness multiplies with good pool technique.

when her friend disappeared, she invited me to a game - but it never happened. a friend of my previous TL's walked in and took her for the night :( [although she's also very cute, i couldn't get past idle chit-chat]

after four hours of pool we went to zinc, but it really isn't as good when the manager picks crap music. the food was great as usual - i'd forgotten just how well they do calamari!

i walked home, slowly and carefully, and put myself to bed. now to abuse the weekend :)

flying time and alien abduction

i made it out early this morning! and the bus came early, so that was really lucky!

my day was document orientated, tricks with word and Other Fun Stuff. it really is impressive how much is packed into the office system, those of us who don't use even a tiny fraction of its features find it easy to be annoyed with the more trivial operations without looking at the bigger picture.

on the other hand, they could have done something more helpful with the interface. i'm just innately prejudiced against them.

lunch definitely wasn't as good as yesterday's. nystire and i went shopping, which involved a joint bitch and moan session regarding the kinder and his ability to be a complete tosser on command, the command being a general awareness of his presence. i've come up with a potential solution - it won't make him any less of a wanker but we might be able to derive some amusement from his idiocy.

the other idiot who left our office a couple of weeks ago took his speakers with him, so i bought myself an el-cheapo set that turned out to be so good that i've brought it home with me and am donating my old cruddy ones to the cause.
i'm sure my neighbours aren't happy with that decision, i was showering with the music still on and could feel the bass through the wall ^_^

on the way back, i stopped in to get a signature and the resident authority wasn't, well, resident. they told me that it would have to be done quickly, or all sorts of difficulties would arise - but considering the fact that the difficulties would be faced by the same people who aren't around when they're needed makes me worry a bit less.

i needed something from somebody outside of our unit, and nystire walked in and i asked if he could provide me with material covering brassieres... it took a couple of stumbles before i got the right word and the two of them stopped laughing at me :P

the last couple of hours went by without my noticing, and i was shocked to discover that i'd run out of time for the day! i guess it could be worse.

i finished terry pratchett - night watch on the way home, and all i have to say is that it's a long series of incredibly well-written and intelligent books. the man rocks!

i set up my speakers when i got home, got ac/dc - dirty deeds done dirt cheap stuck in my head and spot and i headed out for coffee and supper. lots of theology / philosophy, and staring at a foxy new-mother sitting next to us.

i spoke to my mum on the way home, and we've decided that it does make more sense for me to come down to south africa around easter time. she'll be here soon, so now i have to make a list of the things i miss :) [liquorice and biltong are the first items on it]

it's a bit further away, but it'll relieve work pressure and will still be fun :)

now that i've showered and am ready for bed, i'm hitting it.


[i'm still peeved about the selection tool, but some of the filters are so much fun to play with!]

CIVIL LIBERTY and OTHER DEGRADED THINGS

i learned, very young, that if i jumped from a high enough point onto hard ground i would hurt myself. there are many people who practise a sport known as "tricking", which is essentially the art of jumping, falling, climbing, and otherwise flipping from and to hard ground, metal bars, solid walls, dodgy stairs and in general taking some pretty serious risks. sometimes serious falls, too, but then it's their own fault and they have to deal with the consequences.

tough.

we're very good at that sort of thing - finding exhiliarating ways in which to endanger our lives and pull through, survive, and otherwise feel good about ourselves and the world we live in, where we are challenged in various ways and we are given opportunities to overcome those challenges.

what i'm ranting about is nothing that extreme. i was skateboarding since i was about the size of a board, and rollerblading since my teenage years (a lot longer ago than i'm comfortable with). i'm not even on the same playing field as the professionals, i don't really do any tricks, but i'm more comfortable on wheels than i am in a pair of shoes and i've never really had any trouble negotiating bad roads (and we who pay our taxes still suffer plenty of those) and traffic. unless, of course, i've been deliberately doing something stupid.

nobody has made a pedestrian falling over illegal.
no, wait, nobody has ever made pedestrians potentially falling over, without protection, illegal. i've just received a formal warning by a couple of beer-bellied, close-to-pension policemen (traffic wardens? i can't tell the difference in this country) for rollerblading without a helmet.

i consider this a robbery of civil liberties. for me, putting on my blades is the same as going for a run, and i'm certainly not going to put on a helmet to do that. in fact, i'm fairly confident that if anybody proposed a law mandating that all joggers wear helmets in the event that they cross a road at some point in their run they'd be made a laughing stock, because that would be stupid.

however, cyclists are required by law to wear protection, so now rollerbladers and even skateboarders are as well.

i love how the legal system manages to get everything backwards. instead of protecting the pedestrian and somewhat mobile population from bad drivers by preventing said drivers from getting behind the wheel, they leave them be and ruin the fun for the rest of us.
some of the responses i've received from boys in blue-ish over the years have been positively inspiring, like this gem:
"if the driver of a car runs over a rollerblader it's automatically his fault, so it's not fair of you to be in the way."
maybe, now i'm just stabbing in the dark with this one - maybe in a case like that somebody should try to verify who's to blame?
naaah. too much policework. and we wouldn't want them actually working, now would we?
oh, that's right. they're overworked. with real issues. then deal with those instead, you fat bastards.

and by fat bastards i'm referring to lawmakers as well as those paying them any more attention than they deserve.

in the united states the motto is "protect and serve", and although that's the gist of the western world's attitude towards policing (as it should be, that is) if they continue to make us uncomfortable "for our own good", when i have the right to make mistakes and pay for them, we're headed down a dark path where it simply won't be worth it for anyone to even try to be lawful. i could've picked any of a number of stupid laws to base this statement off of, but obviously it's now personal.

and this is coming from me, an idiot so upholding of the law that his friends are concerned when he stops for a red light and there's no one about... when on foot, in the middle of the night. i don't litter, i don't vandalize, i don't hurt anyone, i drive defensively and carefully, and i serve my country to the best of my ability (i'm a professional soldier).

i don't own a helmet, and i don't agree with this law. at the very least, the idiot who approved this bill should send me the required protection. however, i know how stupid and unfair our legal system is, and how little my voice is, so i'm going to resort to buying the ugliest helmet i can find, maybe even go so far as a crash-helmet, and i'm going to dress it up with a police siren and maybe a bicycle bell to warn whoever i approach at such dangerously high speeds.

maybe i should wear full body armour. maybe riot gear. in fact, i'm considering selling my blades, buying a television set and staying at home glued to it instead. because out there it's just not safe anymore.

tickets!

[i couldn't deal with the gimp's selection tool, and this is what me giving up looks like]

spot shouted it at the same time as my phone began beeping, the reminder "tickets!" flashing at me with uncanny serendipity. we have tickets! to nine inch nails!

i woke up late this morning (on purpose, this time), put in the laundry, and woke spot up. he made us a solid breakfast and could take the washing out.

i would've caught the bus if i hadn't left my dog-tags behind... i had to take a taxi to the train station, which was an annoying waste of cash.

a large part of today was sitting in transit. not cool. but it was a fun day, educational, and as much hebrew as was thrown at me i handled well, understood, participated and didn't fall asleep ^_^

and lunch was really good.

when i got home all sweaty and gross, i was faced with the option of showering and becoming disgusting again, or just going out as is. i went with showering later.

spot and i got the tickets, and then went to sit at another coffee shop in the area that we've never visited before. the service wasn't good, but it was provided with a smile by a really cute waitress, and the attitude really does make all the difference. we had plenty of time to discuss the sad state this world is in...

specifically the current situation with iran. it would be interesting to see, if the americans pulled out (which we know is impossible to do gracefully, these are arabs they're dealing with), how long it would take for the iranians to move in to iraq and afghanistan. world war three, anyone? the americans would be in an incredibly uncomfortable situation, the arab league probably would be forced to side with the new big boy, india would be in deep shite and the EU would be pretending neutrality while inherently supporting the arabs. russia would be needlessly defensive, the chinese amused, and we'd be screwed.

but that's just the short, quick-and-dirty version of a long session of mental masturbation :P

partly because i hadn't showered yet, i was inspired to go for a blade, which i haven't done in a long while. see the post above for the reason that i came home pissed, having a good scream and laugh with our neighbour (ex-police) before coming inside to shower and rant.

sssstuttter

i slept enough last night (but i won't tonight, it's already past midnight and i only just finished reading the horrors of the open-minded [when it's open on principle and the owner ceases to think]

i began the day with the final stage of my professional review, which went well except for the fact that my SC and i have agreed that i need to learn to flirt and joke in hebrew if i want to get to a point where i'll be ready for officer's course. that's a tad sadder than it sounds, believe you me.

my TL laughed at me today - he asked me to write something for a team-mate's birthday card. not being confident language-wise and hating my hebrew handwriting (it's all scribbly), i wrote it on a separate piece of paper (complete with scratching-out) and drew a quick diagram for my TL so he would know where to write it and how to attach the envelope to the gift.

he couldn't stop himself from giggling, and wanted to include the script alongside the card because he sees it as adorable as when his little kids (who can barely write) try to give their parents something sweet. i did a lot of blushing and arguing before he stopped making fun of me :(

we had an unusual lunch, and i was called into a long meeting for which i *just* had time to organize my coffee. i spent a lot of the afternoon studying... about fifteen minutes before the second meeting of the day, i was sitting on the steps when some tosser came up to bum a smoke. now i wouldn't have minded, but i abhor the idiocy required to produce a statement like "are you reading?" when my head's stuck in a book, and to then continue to attempt striking up a conversation (that's totally uninteresting in unexpected ways) in spite of the unpleasant and rather mean responses. including not noticing being ignored.

oh, yes, and the kinder pissed me off a number of times today - fortunately my TL was present for one of them and heard what set me off, because for once he didn't ask me to tone down my aggression. he's a right ponce, this one, and later on in the evening when i informed him that i wasn't going to do something that he should've done, he informed me that he was doing his job "as a favour" to me... i don't like him. my reactions towards him have progressed smoothly from friendly, to aloof, to curt, to snappish, and are now at downright nasty.

the evening's work was interesting, and educational, and we left having completed a lot and planned a lot more. unfortunately when i tried to think about what i'd done today (we do have to report hours) my brain stuttered, and i was almost home before the missing hours came back. it was just one of those days, i guess.

now i'm going to bed, and today (tomorrow) should be an interesting one...

during the meeting i drew the following, while listening with half an ear and chipping in two cents every so often:

JTHFSDBL

^{Just Too Hot For Sitting Down Bleeding Life}
Hot, sticky, sandy, dusty, humid, frustrating, infuriating, dirty, slimy, irritating and aggravating. these are the words that define today for me, even though i'm now sitting in a cool room after a cold shower planning on a drink and lots of sleep.

^{JUST MAKING IT}
i woke up on time this morning, but had half an hour's worth of dishes to do. i don't know what's wrong with me in the morning, and i'm beginning to think that without caffeine infusion, real cause for panic or jump leads attached to my nads, i'm just not capable of leaving with room to breathe.

^{TEAM FAILURE}
there were two people that i could rely on today, out of quite a few that let me down in a big way. everyone had their assignment and their reactions were the equivalent of getting up on a theatre stage, out of costume, and reading your lines in a bored voice. it's just not going to bring the play to life.

^{HURRIED WAIT}
we were done a favour (i love favours) by someone who had agreed to provide us with a vehicle. we were running late when he popped his head in the door, and gave us the phone number of the man with the keys - who had entered the synagogue and was going to be praying for the next half an hour. waiting for him was totally not stressful.

^{FALLING DOWN}
after getting sorted with ice and water, i was pushing two stacked containers pretty fast and i didn't notice the slightly-raised metal plate tucked into the door-jamb. the bottom container stuck, the top flew over it with me following, and i don't know what specifically my leg connected with but it's an unhappy graze / bruise. the best part of that confidence-inspiring situation was being shouted at for making a noise when the top container landed.

^{SHOPPING DISASTER}
okay, it went a lot smoother than it could have... it's just that i hate shopping on a small scale, and on a large scale i feel my chest constricting. being hungry doesn't help, either.

^{DRIVER ISSUES}
after missing the fun part of the tour, and passing out when our unit commander was speaking to us (his secretary woke me up with a text message informing me that by the look on his face i was going to be beaten), and not really eating lunch because of the heat and stress, i got on the bus to face off with the driver. he turned out to be a complete ponce, and either bitched and whined or made snide remarks and told us how crap we are.

and he couldn't much drive, either.

^{BEACH WOES}
the guys managed to find a dodgy section of beach and we ended up squatting on what could have passed for a landfill. it wasn't close enough to an area with posts for a volleyball net, which could almost be considered a good thing seeing as it was too hot and gross to play. turned out one of the coolers was left behind, and we only discovered the watermelon once we'd already thrown out the knives. couldn't play frisbee because of the otherwise-useless breeze, and i didn't really feel like going for a swim.

^LESSON
(a) team
    be extremely careful who you give assignments to. some people just don't care, and won't suddenly start because everyone's relying on them - in fact i'm fairly confident that the kinder was deliberately trying to prove that he shouldn't be given responsibility.
(b) authority
    if i can help it, i will never again take over from someone else's arrangements unless i'm going to start again from the beginning. being included halfway and not being given all the keys puts an extremely bad taste in my mouth, and i don't like having to apologize for other people's screw-ups. that's not related to (a), by the way.
(c) selfishness
    in other news, when i got back to base i had a chat with my SC, and i learned that with the other sections i should have been less helpful and trusting during the last week. i'm a bit ambivalent at the moment.

kneaded, ready for bed

i spent today catching up on news and comics, watching amusing simpson drug adventures, and reading terry pratchett - night watch (great stuff as usual).

i visited our neighbour for a great hour+ massage from one of her friends, and then spot and i went to return the video and have coffee.

i am totally stiff and sore, all over, and tomorrow morning is our unit trip that i can feel is going to go sour. so i definitely need to get to sleep.

whitewashed

a perfect circle - orestes: this is the second time this track's done it for me. and marilyn manson - the red carpet grave funks me out every time ^_^

i've been up a short while now, i woke up to a room that's too clinically white for it's own good... the dust storm is in full effect, everything's just the wrong shade.

the kid and i went to the beach yesterday morning: no luck finding a beach-brolly, but we did buy a frisbee and had a fun morning. around lunchtime we headed back, and after de-sanding i napped until early evening.

i went downstairs for a cigarette, and as i got back indoors spot called me to ask me if i was going to join him downstairs - apparently the two of us had been sitting right outside the entrance at the same time without seeing each other, i'm holding quantum responsible.

the three of us went to movie-ing, for a good breakfast and some laughs with the cute manager, and rented aeon flux. spot and i watched it when we got home, it's a fun movie. the kid was watching it when i got up this afternoon, and reminded me of the time i got called a deathist because i believe that a limited life-span is necessary for humans.

i was in two minds about last night's going out, i didn't really want to go out with spot because as much fun as the party sounded i didn't want to meet up with his british friend who i've had issues with for years, and aside from not remembering exactly where the koltura is i do know that it's too far.

i ended up going with spot anyway, and dealing with his friend wasn't too unpleasant, and the party was sick and solid. wicked drum 'n bass and crazy people, it was a serious party and i was on that dancefloor doing the epileptic thing for hours.

pity it got a bit boring around 5am, and a short while later we were on our way home. spot shocked me with his lack of biblical knowledge - yes, yes, belief is all well and good but there are certain points (positive and negative) about one's nation's history that one really should be familiar with.

the hoary hairy eyeball

last night was fun, but in my weakened state i probably shouldn't have had so much to drink... "so much" being about two beers. one of them was won in a game of pool^*, so i really didn't have a choice :P

i got a ride to the cocktail room - please bear in mind that i was only going to say hi to the mongoose and his girlfriend, who weren't there - and stayed there for an hour or more while ta2 played great music. the two shots i was bought were not a good idea, and for about ten minutes i was having trouble staying on my chair and keeping my eyes open simultaneously...

the second i sensed the music diving, i took it as my cue to slog down the road and hop into a shuttle. i got home, showered, and turned on my pc - i've never seen a pc's graphics card crash before. strange patterns, my speakers whined something aweful, the monitor turned itself off, and when i restarted it only detected 8 of the 128 megabytes of RAM... that was quite frightening. it seems to have resolved itself, though.

i woke up around 8am, unhappily due to the horrid heat and humidity and having slept on both arms which hurt unresponsively. my brain hurts, too.

^* obscenely expensive table - and the waitress looked at me incredulously when i pointed out that NIS 10 (R16!) for a game is a bit rude.

you do know, this means *BZZRT*

of course i missed the shuttle this morning. of course, this was one of the most disgusting days since that week of hell a month or two ago. and of course, my headache hasn't subsided yet.

just before getting off the bus, a soldier passing me pointed out something on the floor - some girl had left her army id behind. bugger my sense of duty, and my lack of desire to get some stranger court-martialled over such crap. so instead of turning it into the authorities, i tracked her down myself, and she was both delighted and mortified to get my call.

i was totalled when i walked into the hour long instruction, and our SC kept getting on my case and repeatedly reminded me of things that we'd already agreed on, and i had to keep raising my head from my [sadly] empty cup of coffee to respond.

this morning was a solid collection of stressful disorganization. i had lunch that disagreed with me horribly, and on top of that had to deal with the more physical exertions of the miserable organization operation. my afternoon was off to a sucky start.

luckily my TL came to the rescue with a superb array of ice-creams, hot chocolate sauce, vermicelli and other sprinkles, and whipped cream (i told him my horror story, he was giggling with a grimace for a while), and that was about to pick me up when i went back to work.

it would've been boring, but the printer kept jamming. i was getting frustrated... me with my infinite patience... and somehow (no, really, i actually wasn't applying force) managed to bugger up the paper tray. once that was sorted out (and i'd discovered that i couldn't cancel an incorrect print-job to our second printer), i needed to shred the misfeeds... and then the shredder packed up.

apparently it does that, and it's not my fault, but in that state it's difficult to not take that sort of behaviour personally.

i took a break to sit outside in the muggy, clammy, dust-saturated sunshine to study, smoke and listen to incubus, and when i came back up and was closing shop for the day, i received a phone call requesting that i get to work on something new.

hmmm. i told him i'd send him some of the details he was missing and that he'd have to do it, to which he agreed, but then i felt bad about shirking responsibility (i'm such a sucker) that i did it anyway and sent him the results. he was pleased, and i felt better about myself (i'm such a sucker), and soon after that the day was over and it was time to get home.

i was going to exercise, but apparently we're on for mike's place this evening so i'm just gonna do a few pull-ups and go.

post-hangover sleep-induced exhaustion

i woke up at 6.15am, and was extremely grateful when spot came home and informed me that the buses were running. i even made it to base on time this morning :)

the word "hangover" sums up my day quite succinctly. i spent most of it communicating, some of it arguing about attitudes towards the army (and our situation in general), and around 16.15 three of us hopped on a bus down south.

i finished neil gaiman - anansi boys (what a wonderful book!), and slept a little, before meeting up with hundreds or thousands of officers and nco's in the middle of the desert to watch a well put-together memorial and listen to a couple of speeches, before heading back to the buses (total confusion) and passing out for most of the 2.5 hour journey back to tel aviv.

i can't get myself comfortable sitting, especially on buses or in aeroplanes. i find that in order to position myself for sleeping or reading i need to cross my ankles and rest my knees about head-height on the back of the seat in front of me, but as comfortable as i find that position it doesn't take too long for my legs and buttocks to fall asleep.

i hate long rides.

i'm home, though, and i now have four hours to shower and sleep. but tomorrow is thursday, last day of a very tired week. i must remember to organize my vacation time, my mommy's arriving in a couple of weeks!

au natural

all new things seem fine, and this no less. in fact, quite a lot more - it's now 2.45am, and i'm pleased with the fact that i just left the flat she's staying at, we talked for ages and i definitely had a good time.

now for the hard part - seeing how worth it my early morning wake-up will be: the buses are all on strike so i'll have to leave here 6.15 at the very latest...

productivity translation

listening to ac/dc live at the moment, which the kid bought for me in addition to incubus - light grenades which has just been ripped for my ipod.

^_^

due to the fast day i had to get a ride off base this morning to organize food and cigarettes, which was a good way to start it.

today itself was an exercise is management madness, most of it was spent communicating and organizing :S
i did, however, manage to tip a lot of my workload onto other people (*ahem* delegate *ahem*), and i learned all sorts of interesting stuff amongst the boring bits.

due to free phone calls for today, i spent quite a while playing catch-up with people i otherwise wouldn't have thought to call. that was educational :)

i got home, showered, changed and went shopping with spot. we came back a short while ago from perching at a coffee shop reading, and i must re-iterate just how gorgeous neil gaiman - anansi boys is!

gonna nap, then we're off to pick up the british girl and go to the cocktail room for a rock special :)

priorities

i went to bed soon after posting, and woke up at 6am. i began the day picking up writhing maggots from the floor that had spilled from a tinfoil tray that spot had left on the counter.

i missed the shuttle again this morning, but managed again to get on an early enough bus from the central station. incubus songs were rolling through my head the entire day, and marilyn manson's new album really is great.

i managed my time much better today, and had a decent lunch as well. an amusing message got me phoning orange - they have a new thing that one's contract has a birthday, so tomorrow i have free calls to anyone on the network. *packs charger*

it's working now, but my sat-phone got silly this afternoon - every time i plugged in a charger (and i used different ones, and even switched out the battery) it informed me, quite politely, that the battery was "invalid". that's just odd.

chore wars is basically an online version of what we have going in our apartment, without the threat of being thrown out. speaking of chores, that's what i've been doing along with having my mind temporarily abducted by the internet, but it's just been returned so i'm showering and going to bed.

that date didn't happen last night, and it's not happening tonight because it's tisha b'av, and we're mourning the destruction of the temple.

forcefully decomposing

i'm just now taking a break from sleeping - going out was metaphorically rained out.

i felt broken this morning, and i was irritable most of the day primarily because i needed co-operation to perform my tasks that i didn't feel i was getting. it might be a long week :S

i almost fainted this evening, and i remembered that aside from lack of sleep, all i'd eaten the entire day was a pastry for breakfast and a few blocks of chocolate. a roast beef sandwich covered that, and i crashed post-shower as soon as i got home.

pondering: caffeine, alcohol, impatience, spontaneity, taxi cabs

[mostly written on a pc keyboard attached to a mac - an educational experience in itself]

on the way to my original primary base on thursday morning, i was reminded of that worn-out pick-up line:
how do you like your eggs in the morning? boiled, fried or - CAFFEINATED [my version's interrupted]

my day began wonderfully - i managed to prove my worth to a number of people and that did my confidence no end of good. the looks on their faces when they registered that they were dealing with someone who isn't just along for the ride makes me feel all gooey and excited ^_^

granted, in order to survive the meeting i had to power up. the iced-coffee on the way to the base, a redbull two minutes prior to the meeting, and then super-strong coffee halfway through :P
i'm not going to dwell too much on the massive quantities of caffeine i ingested during the rest of the day, it would make me feel bad.

i received a really nice pin that i can't wear - that's rather annoying.
in the middle of the meeting, a really cute girl ran into our office, looked around in a panic, then ran out again. two seconds later her commander ran in, grabbed a bottle of water from the desk, and ran out - we discovered later that she'd made officer the other day, and mistakenly informed her commander that she hadn't gone through shtifa, a tradition of drenching an "achiever" with water, or anything else that more or less resembles a liquid.

thursday was a funny day - if i was george from seinfeld i would've been constantly making a hasty exit; the gems that i felt i was practically exhaling actually had the desired effect, which is unusual because i'm used to receiving odd looks and "what the hell is he on about?"

i learned never to order shakshuka (an israeli egg and tomato mixture) in a roll again, it's messy and not satisfying enough to be justified.

after lunch i caught the kinder working on something against the instructions we'd received, and after a shouting match we consulted the resident authority, only to discover that his mistake had uncovered an error in the instructions themselves. the episode reminded me of a sentiment that i don't usually think about because it's so well internalized: loyalty to the greater good comes above personal pride and rivalry - an insinuation to the contrary really put my back up.

at least the issue was resolved.

i had to learn a bit of perl, and once i found what i was looking for the solution came quickly and fluidly. this spawned an interesting conversation on code obfuscation, and we came up with a couple of artistic project ideas that will probably never materialize.

to sum up the day: i've received even more responsibility, my desk is stacked with work and i'm over-booked, and i'm absolutely loving it. my brain's working! [on fire, more like ^_^]

i was supposed to meet up with a couple of guys at mike's place in the evening, but only one other arrived and that was about 45 minutes after i did. i sat there alone, contemplating the day and repeating "the spirit of the IDF" a few times, and in all that time not a single waitress so much as looked in my direction. unbelievably good service :S

the two of us talked shop for an hour, and when he left i shuffled over to the bench next to me to chat with a couple of cute english girls. i didn't think there was such a thing :P
we sat talking and laughing for a while, and i got the cutest one's number before walking through to the cocktail room. the only unpleasant thing in all of that was some horribly drunk old french guy, who began falling all over the girls and starting to get physical before we managed to chase him away. it got me into a really violent mode, but he was an old drunk so it was hard to deal with.

the cocktail room was meant to be a stopover on the way to the lincoln, but ta2 convinced me that it would be a good night and i got my flat-mates to come over. it was pretty good for the first while, but then it started sucking royally and it totally pulled my mood down.

we walked home, spot and i fighting most of the way, and i eventually got to bed irked.

friday morning began at 10am, and it took an hour to wake the guys up to deal with evolved leftovers and get ready to do the do's of the day.

after a serious shop, we came home for breakfast. spot broke my decorative plate that i received as a gift from the army, and that right pissed me off. aside from that breakfast was good, and then spot and i left to do the inedible shopping.

neither of us like shopping. i hate malls, and i hate people who can't move in a relatively efficient manner. i get claustrophobic and crazy really fast.

we bought a pull-up bar and a foot-pump for my inflatable mattress, i made the mistake of walking into the music store and came out with half my money gone, but the new marilyn manson album and two incubus discs to show for it. we then spent the next couple of hours unsuccessfully hunting a beach umbrella and nine inch nails tickets.

after passing and greeting a bunch of ze germans, and the austrian girl, we met up with the kid at movieing, for a pleasant and amusing cup of coffee. then it was a mad rush home to pack and barely make the last bus to jerusalem, because ru55 had called me up and informed me that i simply had no choice in the matter - the chance to hear "dj with disappointing non-set" from independence day was worth another crazy mission.

i finally finished licensed to kill on the bus: excellent book.

i arrived, cleaned up (and learned a lesson about chafing - hadn't intended to walk so much), and had a good friday night meal. we all chilled for a couple of hours, and then ru55 and i headed off.

the party was great, and the place was beautiful - a private farm snuggled between the territories' borders and privately owned, meaning we shouldn't have had to worry about the police shutting it down. it was a tad on the expensive side, but for such a good setup and proper security et al, it was worth it. the music was great. the crowd was alright, far better than last time.

and we even got an hour or so of dancing in the sunlight before the music went off and the cops shoo'ed us out.



after a pretty drive home (it's as good an excuse as any), i spent the day (minus two hours of napping) reading neil gaiman - anansi boys (styling as usual), sketching, and having ru55 teach me some interesting chemistry in order to explain some electronics to me. i feel that i must learn more.

i left the apartment around 20.30, and after the bus hadn't pitched i hopped into a taxi with a bunch of soldiers. the seat had recently been vacated, and the vacator had left me a lovely puddle to sit in. as someone with serious germ-issues, this was not welcome. i'm still, excuse the pun, pissed off.

which is sad, because otherwise i've had one of those super-rare happy days.

i'm home, i've had a shower (in which i've scrubbed excessively), and i'm now going to sleep the sleep of kings. tomorrow night i'm going out with the english girl and her pack - i've been instructed to bring mine to keep them occupied :P

tool - schism is stunning - where would this world be without opium fiends??
marilyn manson - heart-shaped glasses is good, i'd been expecting something far less tasteful

on form

a flash of yesterday, my sphere of existence

where i stand i'm visible to
my peers for today
when i look back, i see
yesterday's, smiling and waving
but they won't step closer
they see only an empty desk, and empty
chair, waiting for a new story
a few fine threads connecting
us, myself to a world in the past,
a different me from who i
remember
with an empty sense of belonging

i'm overloaded with work, so there's not too much to say... it's so good to be under positive pressure ^_^

i walked in on a 1.5 hour knowledge-transfer half an hour late this afternoon... or an hour early, considering the amount i actually got out of it :S
the kinder actually proved useful this evening, but it was by accident. i got home late after a bit of eventual success, and have to get to sleep really soon so that i can make full use of the redbull and tinned iced-coffee in my early-morning meeting.

i'm such a boy scout! and it's thursday already!! (pretty much :D)

multi-titled

i was going for .ing the i's and -ing the t's,
then reversed frame-by-frame,
i'm an empty desk
and finally this has turned out to be a shitty day and i'm sick of it.

i just can't decide! (but i've a suspicion that that last one might be too long)

my schedule's been filled up with all sorts of unrelated and interesting responsibilities, and i'm *indicates* this close to feeling good about it. probably tomorrow when i've slept the rest of today away, because nystire and i couldn't get a ride down south and wasted a lot of time on the train and buses. although i slept, i slept awkwardly, and the ride back didn't improve anything, especially screwing up when i was almost home by responding awkwardly when asked for help by a little old lady with three enormous bags (she could have fit into any one of them comfortably) who wanted to enter the bus... we all usually get shouted at for entering at the back, but apparently the driver had already acknowledged and after taking a second to check her out in my standard paranoia (i don't really want to be the one responsible for hauling a mass of explosives onto a packed bus) and then picking up the first bag some girl jumped out in a huff to take another, pushing me out the way so that i couldn't help with the third, and i felt like a complete asshole.

the only amusing thing from today was giving a brief and cynical history of southern africa to the kinder, with verbal annotations by nystire, throwing in absolutely rediculous and unbelievable claims just to make things more interesting.
oh, and his response to "swallow first, THEN try talking to me" was a garbled "i - don't - like - to - swallow" :P

it was awkward seeing so many people from my old base, and feeling that the two-and-a-half years of service there has really become past-tense, and while it's a good thing in general it's unfortunate as far as personal relationships go.

mango upheaval

[click to enlarge - now with real colours!]

i slept for a couple of hours, woke up to spot hanging the laundry in a flat panic, and would've continued to enjoy the mango i grabbed if only i hadn't come across whatever weirdness was eerily cocooned inside.

now to go back to bed. too much internet has rotted my brain.

a cure for learned fear
it's a shame that for optimus prime, the aforementioned cure won't help.

wired redemption

i was bright enough to down a redbull before my meeting this morning... only it was postponed an hour, so halfway through the effect wore off and my eyes were rolling, i couldn't focus and i wrote things down that afterwards i couldn't remember why.

it might explain the feeling that i'm missing something. i've been given a good job to do, and it's my first one so i'm now terrified of screwing it up. at the same time, it appears that i'm good to go. i just wish i wasn't so damn tired all the time.

nap time now, just to see if i can fix it. if i wasn't feeling so low i'd be jumping up and down :P

grizzly and grouchy

i'm still drooling over transformers. and i can't wait to see the new fantastic four! (i'm a tad slow, okay?)

after a slow wake-up this morning i caught the shuttle and enjoyed a good couple of hours at work. then i was interrupted again: on wednesday i finished my assigned work on time (this is the horrible stuff), and on thursday more was found for me. by thursday's end i'd finished it, and today i was loaded with still more. this is becoming hopeless.

i had a haircut, the guy finally stopped being annoyed by my lack of communication skills and managed to figure out what i was getting at :P

on my way to getting my haircut i tried to get a ride, and the guy who drove past made angry gestures and appeared to be shouting, although his window was closed. he drove off, which was annoying, and on his way back from wherever he'd been he pulled over to scream at me:
"you're walking past a no-stopping area! don't flag people down!"
my response was quite calm, considering that i outrank him - unfortunately i didn't think to alert him to the fact that where he'd stopped to shout at me was also a no-stopping area.

nystire and i went to rockon's farewell, which was a little odd and i couldn't eat the food. he joined me when i went to grab something to eat afterwards, and we were unfortunately subjected to a bit of what had to have been a sequel to scary movie. it was horrible.

after we got back, i passed out for a short while (the lunch hadn't agreed with me anyway, i may as well have taken my chances with the pizza), and went back to the grindstone. i finished up again, spent about half an hour on what *i* needed to be doing, and remembered to call the guy about tickets to the NIN concert... w00t! turns out peeping tom might be appearing too!

i passed out on the shuttle home, almost missing my stop^* and pissing off the driver (he's a tad crabby, lately), and after a quick shower spot and i went for coffee, buying cardboard to black out the toilet window on the way.

i've been online since i got back, and now i'm going to bed early. good night!

^* it irks me no end that i was having a really intense dream, in which i'd actually thought to myself that it was important to remember when i woke up, and the driver's little hissy-fit pushed it straight out of my mind.

(!)

i could talk about cleaning, watching a great movie (lucky number s7evin - very cool), or about eating a good burger, then great cake, showering and going to bed.

or i could just blah over it all, like i just did in my head, and talk about how intensely brilliant transformers shines, how convincing it was visually, or how the script was an instant classic. the re-lived childhood moment lingers ^_^

i could happily pay to see it again.

all dressed up with no-one to go with

the kid and i went out shopping, and got stuck in a t-shirt store. great store, but unfortunately their gear was just not what i'm looking for. except for the M*A*S*H boxers, with the huge red cross marking the spot.

after fighting with a toy-store owner - he wanted to sell me something to spray cats with, and i don't think that spraying cats with water is very nice - the kid disappeared and i met up with spot for breakfast.

spot's reading robert jordan - lord of chaos again, and i picked it up and immediately flipped to dumai's wells - the most powerful scenario i've ever come across. if anyone were to put that to the big screen faithfully, it would be absolutely beautiful.

the breakfast was good, but i was too tired to enjoy it, and the lack of service was frustrating (and it wasn't the waitress' fault, apparently). however, spot got hit on by some old french woman, and i find that quite amusing.

walked home, napped, got up and onlined, and then realized that it was late if i wanted to go to the beach. the kid and i joined spot, his sister and his mom on the sand, and sat talking rubbish until the beach-dude decided that he wanted his chairs back.

the kid and i went to movie-ing, took out lucky number s7even (neither of us have seen it), and then visited mmf to watch the israeli version of american idol. we came home via the ice-cream parlour, i showered, and then discovered that none of my friends wanted to go out.

so i went out with our neighbour and her friend, for a largely amusing evening. i got home around 5am, played fallout 2 for an hour or two, and finally went to sleep.

now to clean, then watch the movie, and then go out to watch transformers!!!

the stabbing behind my eyes

7.15 i arrived on base yesterday, already excited to be back doing something useful. during the first couple of hours i discovered that i'd been right the night before, and i've learned something that apparently nobody else knew - satisfying :)

one of the guys and i had a juggling contest - it gets weird when your arms begin falling asleep.

before lunch, we received a top-level command: even shittier work than we've been doing for the past three weeks. that was when the headache began.

lunch was good, but didn't agree with me, and i spent the rest of the day regretting it on top of the splitting headache i'd already developed. in the late afternoon i was treated to some frozen enlightenment, which i would have appreciated a lot more if i hadn't been feeling so aweful.

i slept most of the way home, and after a serious conversation with spot about club sandwiches^* we were off to mike's place.

on the way i had a moonflake moment - we turned into a main street and my eyes immediately rested on the most god-aweful plumber's butt. when i pointed it out to spot (i had to), he gave a "mufasa" shiver and we kept repeating it until we were out of the danger zone.

mike's place was fun, although i wasn't 100% so the alcohol hit me pretty hard, and i didn't have an appetite at all either :S
it was a highly amusing evening with the team plus a couple more (nystire: none of us can believe that you drank that much, and we're still laughing about the information you imparted on the foxy girl).

we were discussing the privacy issues brought up by a recent slashdot post on privacy... i had barely touched my beer when i misquoted: "i'll show your yours if you'll show me mine" :/

after walking home late, bowing out of spot's friend's party (i was too tired), and having a cup of the kid's watermelon "smoothie", i spent a couple of hours playing fallout 2 and then crashed.

this morning i vacuumed the other side of my room, and everything feels clean. in a couple of hours we have another waterfight, so we're off to shop for equipment now.

^*two scenarios:
a) bulky guy with a club sandwich tattoo'ed on an enormous bicep
b) obese slob with the same tattoo on his belly
c) the two passing each other in the street, with both on display

net load overload over loaded net

a morning with the immigration office. the woman who "did me a favour" by seeing me without an appointment (we're not mentioning out loud that it's their policy to see soldiers without) shouted at me for not understanding her when we were both using two completely different sets of terminology.

the woman in charge of the place sorted that one out, and someone else helped put things in perspective. i wasn't trying to be aggressive, but i'll be damned if i'm going to let some paper-slave take out her rough morning on me.
as was to be expected, when i asked her her name and carefully wrote it out, making a show of scribbling little notes, she got even more pissy.

i arrived on base in time for lunch, but i decided to work instead. i got through all the shit i had to do by the time everyone else was going home, and that's a day early, so i could spend the next couple of hours focusing on something that's important to me.

i arrived at the cafeneto around 9pm, in time for a fun conversation about pattern-matching and algorithms with spot and a friend of his. according to his friend, it's been recently discovered that every celebrity gets his / her own little neural cluster in your head. that's pretty amusing.

it's 11pm already, which is nuts. i'm going to bed.

no sugar in this clip

performance review

i forgot - the immigration office doesn't do tuesdays. i got something sorted out that i'll need when i *do* get there, but that doesn't make me feel that much better about it.

although i will say that just walking around the streets of tel aviv early on a summer morning did me a world of good mentally: we associate so much with smells and weather, and we distill from our memories the prime emotions from our favourite memories so that when we encounter a trigger we can relive that essentially perfect moment.

so this morning took me back to my first israeli summer with lake, and it was great ^_^

i had a decent day of work, although we took a couple of hours off for a unit quiz that put me to sleep embarrassingly fast.

at the end of the day i went through my performance review, which turned out mostly good, but i'm edgy to get moving on my plans to impress the hell outta them.

we paid our rent this evening, spot and i went shopping, and then i walked to the beach to pick up a book and see a cousin who's here from south africa, already on her way back. i stopped for a cup of coffee. now all is chilled on the home front, and i'm SO going to bed early tonight.

good timing!

and robert young pelton - licensed to kill is filled with awesome stuff, although a lot of the stories out of iraq and afghanistan are upsetting and frustrating. good read either way.

broken link

[my hosting downtime is annoying me intensely, pity if you can't see all my pics]

i got to bed way too late last night, and again tonight. and tonight doesn't have as good an excuse - although last night's desperate midnight snack at 2am didn't help.

our new system works! the kid woke me up when he saw that my door was closed, and i managed to get into my office to sign in just in time. and i made up the hours later, so that's alright.

this was the perfect time to remind myself that i can get up a bit later today ^_^ (going to be sorting out some immigration-assistance stuff).

i was completely, incompetently broken today. i got through a surprising amount of work for all that, in spite of swimming vision and a splitting headache that still hasn't fully gone away.

after showering and changing when i got home, i went with spot, our neighbour and her friends to rabin square, to meet up with hdg and her boyfriend and show solidarity with the poor sods from sderot.

it sucked. a musical event in tel aviv sucking? it was all religious whining and girls who, if they weren't wrapped up like taliban, should have been. we hightailed in outta there fast, spot and i heading in the direction of the cocktail room. we got there far too early, played some backgammon, and then it was time for me to head home (sadly, before i could find out if anyone would rock up).

bed!

stiff, sore, tired

it was HARD getting up this morning. physically had to drag myself out of bed. i spent most of my work day mindlessly going through the motions, trying to focus and getting somewhere accidentally.

we went out for lunch together to celebrate the two farewells, and i only managed to get halfway through my sushi. on a completely unrelated note, i feel the need to learn japanese again. strongly, as usual.

i got home, changed, and spot and i went off to see mr. brooks. on the way there i obtained a perfect circle - mer de noms, and peeping tom, which have me totally crazed. spot got the best of alice in chains, also very cool :)

mr. brooks was an intensely fun film. great story!

after paying spot's sister and friends a visit (primarily to use their bathroom), i walked back to sit with the austrian girl over coffee. it was nice, although i have the feeling we're not going anywhere. nice girl to know, though.

now to rip to my ipod, finish up onlining, and then shower and crash. it's been a long day!

pre-week post-weekend lounge

i woke up 12 hours later, and spent the afternoon / evening chilling, watched the second half of good will hunting, ate with the guys (spot did *very* well), and then spot and i went to the live earth concert, where we enjoyed efrat gosh's adorable antics and good singing, and then the fools of the prophecy's insane live version of kol hayeladim koftzim rokdim (all the children jump and dance).

went for a drink with hdg and some of spot's friends, then back to cafeneto for good iced-coffee, and now that i've shaved off the beard (it just wasn't working for me) i'm going to bed.

post die-hard: dead and loving it

[click on thumbnail to view]

die hard 4 is a powerful combination of testosterone, geekery, and stunning action sequences with beautiful visuals. pure AWESOME.

spot and i walked to mike's place, sat over beer and chili-fries, and the beer hit me on our way out. ta2 gave us both free entrance, and we picked up a friend on the way in.

the party was fantastic. i don't think they can achieve that level of solid rocking fun again. that, and the live performance of dudu zar (דודו זר) was great, culturally educational fun ^_^

after ta2's set, which drove a completely packed dancefloor into a total frenzy, the jerk-off who stood in for him last monday came on and cleared the room. fast.
rule of thumb for dj's: if people are disappearing rapidly, you're probably doing something wrong.

some amateur house / trance dj came on for the closing set, and wasn't only bad, but he put the sound up so loud that we could feel our hearing being damaged.

so the bad stuff sucked, but nothing can detract from how amazing the party was until 4am - and i got some serious exercise from the long strings of my favourite songs, so much so that i feel it offset the smoking a little :P

[the morning conversation] on gas:
better out than in, i always say - maybe, but better out through the mouth. the power of a good burp to instantly right all wrongs must not be underestimated. farting just doesn't do anything productive.

with one exception. when you're out having a good time, and at some point in the morning your belly begins to ache - you're certain you need to drop a few pounds, it's painful, but club toilets leave too much to be desired.

so you suffer until you eventually get home, sit down on the can with your novel (a magazine's not going to do it for this one), and you're about two sentences in when you experience a euphoric release as a long sigh of gas escapes. all the stomache-pain immediately dissolves, and all that's left to do is put the book down, wipe (because everyone has a touch of OC in them), flush (well, now there's toilet paper in the bowl), and go to bed renewed and comfortable.

and it's with that thought (i lie, i'm actually fantasizing about tight leather and fishnet stockings that were grinding in front of me all night) that i go to sleep.

just messing about

[with apologies and all due respect to whoever drew this image - i was just playing about with mspaint's spraypaint]

the kid and i shopped seriously this morning, i did a basic vacuum when i came home (with incredible results, and i bought a *good* vacuum cleaner), and then i walked to dizengoff square for the water fight.

hdg informed me that we'd had a miscommunication, and we went off together to rabin square, which was covered with fake grass and even less authentic people offering natural lifestyles for the terminally bored. the only people with water guns (and they brought fuck-off big guns) were a couple of the mongoose's friends, and we agreed to take the fight back to dizengoff.

instead of walking ten minutes, we spent 40 looking for one of the cars, and ended up walking all the way anyway. the mongoose's buddies were nowhere to be found, so we sat down and were promptly ambushed. much silliness ensued, quite a bit of exercise too.
unfortunately for some of the guys, i was the only person who'd thought to wrap everything in my pockets in plastic before being dowsed with water.

after ice-cream, we went to the beach, and i discovered that going in with full-length cargo pants is challenging! the water was amazing.
we chilled for a bit afterwards, then i slowly walked home (dispersing flyers for some party tomorrow night), and after coffee, a shower and a nap, i'm going with my flatmates to watch die hard 4. we were planning on the fantastic four, but it's not showing in tel aviv.

that's just friggin' weird.

things to do

so they took some photos:


so i've decided to leave the exotic fantasy world i've been living in for years.
i'm no longer sleeping only with girls who i actually like. in fact, i might even introduce the word "fucking" into my vocabulary.
i'm going caveman.

and SOD the future, unless it's work related. this "caring" disease will be defeated!

poker last night was fun. one of the guys has promised to organize tickets for the NIN concert that - *ahem* - IS ALREADY BOOKED AND IS HAPPENING HERE IN TEL AVIV SOON!! it's out of the rumour box! ^_^

i spent half an hour arguing with that same guy over tool; he and i have exactly reversed opinions on their music, ie. he thinks that it's all been downhill since undertow. weird.

so i lost my money relatively gracefully, then walked to sit with hdg for a bit, and continued to the cocktail room. it was PACKED when i got there, so much so that it was difficult to get in - after being dead for weeks, that took me by surprise. ta2 has to play to the crowd, so the music sucked until it began calming down, and just as it started getting good the mongoose, his girlfriend and freshmeat and two of his friends rocked up, and it was really good seeing them again.

at 5am, just before going to bed, i suddenly realized that spot and i had put laundry in after getting home yesterday. that sucked.

things to do:
eat breakfast
drink coffee
vacuum
water fight

CHILL.

wrapping up the week

i couldn't provide an honest picture for today, so here's a link to a similar incident

on my way to the base i called up nystire to arrange our first coffee trek, and his giggling helplessly that early in the morning wasn't a good sign. when i walked into my office, i found every - single - item (including individual notes) gladwrapped or saran wrapped or whatever wrapped (depends on what country you're from).

EVERYTHING. i stood there gob-smacked, my nemesis' last day and he must've spent hours pulling a prank that took me practically no time at all to undo. there's someone who needs a girlfriend.

my TL walked in, stopped to stare and smile knowingly at all the amused and giggling rubberneckers... i looked him square in the eye, and told him that i wouldn't be able to log in for a couple of hours.
"don't worry, i'll sign you in."

i then made sure that it took me those couple of hours to log in. TGIF is a thursday thing in israel.

so we had a lunchtime farewell for my nemesis and another guy who's leaving soon, they had olives stuffed with garlic and that makes for an extremely interesting bite. i tried wrapping my nemesis up in cloth, but that didn't hold.

oh well.

i learned a bit about organizing ski/snowboard vacations in the afternoon, and had an interesting chat with nystire wherein we discussed plans for the future... at least i'm now in the right headspace to be able to say that i'm going to need to resume studying next year.
if we end up studying together that'll make life far easier.

i had a moment this afternoon, the email that i sent regarding lonely soldiers has moved through the first hoop and is under consideration! ^_^

i worked quite a bit this afternoon, and we had a repeat farewell. i came back to tel aviv, changed, and went with spot to sit and ogle gorgeous girls over iced-coffee, then got crazy-good ice-cream (banana-truffle is the shit), and now everyone's sitting down for poker, i'll guess i'll have to join in.

static noise

i came to the conclusion last night that i can drop all the news feeds. not only is there never anything really new (not true, but i'm referring to important stuff), but reading the politic stuff is like watching a really stupid, flea-infested dog licking himself and chasing his tail in equal parts.

i went to bed listening to infected mushroom. i don't know what time the event occurred, but i woke up listening to scratching, static noises being looped - sometimes it's not worth risking a wireless playlist.

i've missed the shuttle - at least bussing on the last day of the week isn't so bad :)

on dealing with information overload

it worries me that i get so edgy the longer i haven't blogged. i reach my maximum input increasingly quickly, and i need to jot everything down so that i can clear up space for the next few bits.

when can i get my damn upgrade?! i don't just want a memory doubler, i want an overhaul. i'm only too happy to dump the childhood memories. [if you didn't get it]

i've never seen this word in a biological context before:

Although medically the term can refer to either male gonads (testicles) or female gonads (ovaries), the vernacular, or slang use of "gonads" (or "nads") usually only refers to the testicles. The term "wedding tackle" is also acceptable.
- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

i *love* wikipedia ^_^

• a lot of being lectured today.
• i wanted to kill the kinder, the idiot academic officer who's not only remarkably uneducated and sure of himself, but offensive and in-your-face about it too.
• i got phoned by some charity organization, but even if i did verify their integrity i wouldn't be comfortable calling a 1-800 number and paying with a credit card.
• a weird creature was introduced at lunch: eggplant smothered in tchina (tehini, for the greeks). that's just plain gross, we kept expecting it to pop open and splay its tentacles.
• i finally sent off a letter to a "big boss" concerning lonely soldiers: i've been meaning to do this since before i left my previous post. i think they're a group that deserves to ride public transport for free. it SUCKS having to wear uniform to get around.
• the second lecture's shame and glory: walking in on the previous meeting when everyone else had the grace to stay outside; walking in to our meeting with plenty of oreos, and not being too embarrassed to crinkle them open.

on the shuttle home i had some interesting ideas concerning satellite warfare; i'm not certain listing them in public is a good idea, but they are to the chinese rockets what the russian pencil is to the space pen. and i already have an awesome acronym for one of the mechanisms:
L.I.C.K.

i had to wait for ru55's gf when i got back to tel aviv, so i walked into tower records after finding the vacuum cleaner i'll be purchasing on friday (what planning!).
i burned half an hour going through the "3 for 99" stacks, not finding the complete rambo series (and if i'm not buying all three, i'm not buying any), settling on other good movies, and then melting at the sight of the following:

infected mushroom - classical mushroom always wanted to own the original, it's the first time i've seen it available
a perfect circle - eMOTIVe it's pretty
ministry - houses of the mole caught my eye, then i listened to it. it made me feel sixteen again! [and that's a good thing?! what's wrong with you??]

i dropped off ru55's stuff, then met up with spot at the cafeneto for supper. aside from all our mundane shite we improved upon an idea i had this morning for a data visor.

happy independence day, america! for some reason we had fireworks in tel aviv, too. we're supposed to be the 51st state, right?

i've been back and loading / unloading for the last two hours - it takes a while to absorb all the updates and produce this crap you're reading. and sort through all my notes, of course.

i think i prefer the second version:
or

now to blow off some steam braincells.